The Dr. Josh Axe Show - How Your Mindset Can Change Your Life

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

Can your mindset actually shrink tumors? Today, Dr. Josh Axe dives into the mind's power to transform your life as he answers YOUR questions on personal growth and mindset shifts.  You’ll hear: Steps for overcoming past trauma & rewiring unhelpful thought patterns How to balance a drive for personal growth with surrendering to God's will and timing Tips for leading beyond your comfort zone and dealing with self doubt How stepping up to challenges builds your leadership skills The power of a positive mindset & its impact on your physical health Tune in to hear incredible stories that will inspire you, research that will blow your mind, and practical takeaways to ignite growth! You'll walk away understanding the immense power you have to change your circumstances by changing your thinking first. Uncover the possibility of your best self today! Want more of The Growth Lab with Dr. Josh Axe? Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Follow Dr. Josh Axe Instagram Twitter Facebook Tik-Tok Follow Leaders Instagram Twitter Facebook Email Newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

All the same principles apply, the same mindset applies on how to become more successful. And so on today's episode, I'm going to be answering the questions that you posed to me via Instagram and YouTube on the power of personal growth. And I think back at my life, what allowed me to experience success, and it was that I had a personal growth plan. And I made decisions early on in my life about books I would read and podcasts I would listen to and habits I would form in order to experience growth every single year. And I'm so so grateful for it. So I'm going to share with you today some of my tips and some of the advice from

some of the wisest people that have ever lived, whether it would be Aristotle or Jordan Peterson or many others on how to grow personally and create a powerful mindset. All right. So let's go ahead and dive in here. First question is, what advice would you give to someone who feels behind? in life. And I think a lot of people might feel somewhat behind in life. And I know even at points in my time, I felt like, well, gosh, I could have used my time better here and here. And I think about the past. But one thing I would say is, is that the first thing you should do is stop worrying about the past and focus on the future. So if you feel behind, you know, I would say that don't focus on the past, start focusing on the future and also realize that there are many, many people in this world that

didn't experience a high level of success until later on in life. I think about someone like J.K. Rowling. And she really didn't become a successful writer until I believe late into her 40s. Similar thing with Albert Einstein. Many, many people, you'd be surprised, didn't experience success until their 40s, 50s, or even their 60s. And so know that, again, you have the capability to make a big impact almost no matter when you get started. Now, here's what I would say. If you feel behind, here's the best way to catch up.

And here's something that not a lot of people do, but all the most successful people do. And that is pick one thing and master it. One thing. Benjamin Franklin said, become a jack of all trades, but a master of one. You want to master one thing, one topic. And I've tried to do this in my career, first with health and then with the topics of leadership. But when you look at health, and here's how I did this as well. And I just want to encourage you because I think this would help you. I've been known throughout my career in the health field as sort of different things.

So early in my career, somebody called me, oh, the detox stock. And then I started focusing a lot on gut health. And so people started saying, oh, Dr. Axe, he's the gut health expert. And then after a period of time, it was cancer because I helped my mom overcome cancer. And then they said, oh, he's a guy that knows a lot about essential oils and then keto diet. And then, oh, Dr. X is a guy with ancient nutrition and collagen. And all that being said, no, that you're not pinning yourself. in by picking one thing to master, but it's the best way to learn and grow. You've probably

heard the best way to learn a new language is to submerge yourself, submerse yourself in that topic. And so if you want to learn Spanish, the best way to learn Spanish would be to listen to everything in Spanish all day long, study Spanish, talk to people in Spanish, move to Spain or Mexico or somewhere where they speak Spanish language for six months. And in six months, you can know it incredibly well versus if you kind of dabble in it for three years, that very same principle applies that if you devote, let's say, three years to something, you can become an unbelievable expert in the area. Let me give an example. One of the things that I did early in my career, I talked about health. And so I would take a year and study everything about essential oils obsessively,

you know, a few hours a day. I'd watch videos on it, podcasts, read medical literature, read books. and then I would do presentations on it. And so in one year, I probably knew more about essential oils than almost anyone a lot. Now, there are a few people, so I'm not saying I knew the most, but I knew a lot because I spent so much time studying it. You know, in a very similar way, one of the things I'm doing now is I've spent the last two years studying a lot of psychology. And I'll take college courses on this. In fact, I went and went back and got a degree at Johns Hopkins University in leadership. And then now I'm going to do the same thing in psychology.

All that being said, what you want to do is, like, what I'll do is I will read, I'll listen to an hour a day of psychology lectures. I'll be reading a psychology books. I'll consume about two hours a day at least. And then I'll start doing presentations on psychology. And then on Instagram, I'll follow psychology posts on YouTube. So here's what I would recommend. Let's say you wanted to, let's say you wanted to, if you feel behind and you wanted to become a life coach. Okay.

And part of that is becoming a personal growth expert. Here's how you should do that. You should write that and you should read one book a month. And when you read that book, you should highlight and take notes. You should then type them out. Okay. And then you should be able to do a presentation on it. So you read, let's say you read 12 books a year and you did 12 presentations on all of them.

Okay. Let's say you did that for three years. That means you will have read 36 books on personal growth and self-development and had 36 presentations. on those topics. Now, that might seem like a lot, but it's not. I do this constantly to where I'll read a book, and let's say that takes me 10 hours, okay?

And then the notes I take, once I type them out, let's say that takes maybe three hours. And let's say creating a presentation, that's another three hours. Let's even say that's 18 hours, maybe even 20 hours. Okay, so let's say that might be, that could take up to 20 hours a month. Now, you can probably do it in less. But basically, let's go back to the,

18-hour thing just for simplicity, you know, if you took and you did, you know, let's say two hours a day, okay, towards something. What, what you can, I mean, you could actually do all of that in almost a week, you could do almost a presentation a week. But going back to this, you know, if you did probably four hours a week, okay, so you just devoted an hour, four days a week, or four and a half hours, then you're going to be able to do that program I just talked about. So four hours, week. If you have four hours a week to totally engross yourself in this new topic, you can master it. And so all that being said, if you feel behind, join an accelerated program, pick a topic, pick a problem in the world, something you feel passionate about, something you want to learn about and grow in,

spend a lot of time, have a three-year plan, or at least a one-year plan of the books you're going to read, the podcast you're going to listen to, the articles, and then schedule out time in your schedule where you're going to do an hour, maybe four to five days a week. And listen, some of you might be able to do more. Maybe if you're like me and you're studying psychology now, even though I have a full-time job and I have kids and all these things going on, what I will do is I'll be reading a hardback book and listening to a podcast or a book on audio. And when I'm working out an hour a day, I listen to that audio. Sometime during the day, I read for about an hour. And then I'll listen to something about an hour before I go to bed. So I'm getting at least two hours a day

of training and learning psychology right now. And if you do a very similar thing, you'll get, and it'll blow your mind. Three months from now, you'll be like, okay, I know a good amount. Three years from now, you'll be blown away by how much you know and how fast you caught up to everybody

and started surpassing everyone in your field. And so whatever that field is that you want to grow in, you can catch up if you have a plan and you follow through. That's it. So that's what I would encourage you to do. next question how can I renew my mind after growing up with lots of instability like foster care and childhood trauma one i want to recognize that that can be incredibly difficult um having these childhood traumas i think they start showing up in different areas of our life we it creates a lot of

limiting beliefs and a lot of beliefs about yourself about other people about the world and so just to give an example of this you know if you were in a uh let's say you had childhood trauma you may think yourself as you're not worthy. And then you might also have limiting beliefs around other people thinking that everyone is, no one is really kind. Everyone has an ulterior motive and is kind of wicked deep down. And you might also feel like, well, hey, the world is just unfair. So I would say the first thing is to, if you want to heal from that trauma and that instability you have is right, you need to become aware of exactly what it is and try and pinpoint the emotion in the events to happen. So the first thing I would do is get out a sheet of paper.

I actually think it's more beneficial to write with a pen and paper rather than actually typing it out. But if you want to do it on a computer, that works as well. But sit down and write down a couple of things. One is, what are those events that still bother you today? You know, it could have been, you know, the fact that, you know, if you're an orphan, your parents gave you up, okay? Or you had a parent-like figure who abused you in some way.

But write that down. Even though it hurts, write it down. What is that event in your life that still plays? you and pains you today. Okay. And then I want you to write down the story that's come out of that. What is the limiting belief that was born out of whatever that is, that thing that's still holding you back and creating that mental instability? So write down what that means to you, that event. Then write down. The third thing is the emotions it's creating in you. It could be anger. It could be resentment. It could be a feeling of you're not good enough.

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

right, an incredibly popular story today where he was an orphan, right? And he was abused by his parents. But look at what he went on to do, right? That's a fictional story. But there are many nonfiction stories, great examples of this, where people were orphans or they were in, you know, foster care, or they were in this place in life that's incredibly unfair. And they went on to do great deeds. and they went on to be great people. And they went on to have the most positive impact in the world far beyond others. And so that's what I would do is write down this narrative on how what you've learned from these things, how you can use them for good. By the way, that's the difference between a villain and a hero and all the stories.

Use the Harry Potter example again. Guess what? Harry Potter was an orphan. Voldemore, that evil person in that story, guess what? He was an orphan too. Dumbledore goes and gets him out of an orphanage. And if you haven't watched the movie or read the books, that's okay. But just to give an example, they both end up orphans.

The one person who has trauma inflicted upon them, the evil character, he takes that same pain and inflicts that upon others. So he uses the pain for evil. And what Harry Potter does in the story is he uses the pain for good. He uses his suffering to help others not have to suffer like he had. He becomes the great friend to others. He becomes even the father figure to younger people. He becomes that person.

And so that's the thing I would do is say, you know what? I can use or God can use all these things for good in my life. And so change your perception around those things. But the first step to healing is self-awareness of the event that happened, the beliefs that you've created because of it and the emotions you're experiencing. And then write down your new narrative and what you now should believe about the world that will create the best outcome for you. Because believing people are inherently evil or don't change, that won't help you in the future versus believing people can change, people can be good, and realizing that will help you in the future. So here's a few things to renew you. You said, how can I renew my mind? Here's how I

would renew your mind. One is read a lot of good books. Read books that have those stories of redemption where those kids in foster care, those kids that were orphans and that went on to do great things. You can do, now some of them can be fiction, more of them should be nonfiction, but reading books that kind of build virtue, I would read a lot of, you know, books that sort of promote Judeo-Christian values. It could be authors like C.S. Lewis or Tim Keller or others. You know, there's a book by Bill Johnson, I've called Born for Significance, John and Lisa Bavir. But I would read, I like, I also like John Eldridge and Stacey Eldridge. She has a book captivating. He has a book Wild at Heart.

And so I think that reading those good books regularly, constantly, help renew your mind and the Bible would be included in that. Again, as I mentioned, work on self-awareness, becoming aware of where you're at and then aware of where you want to be and who you want to become. And then the last thing I would recommend here to overcome the instability and trauma in your life is all of these things typically are tied to relationships. And our relationships are the most impactful thing in terms of what impacts our identity. And so this instability, that word typically is tied to or, and you may not, you may know this or you may not know this, but it typically is tied to your identity about who you feel you are, your own value, your own self-worth, who you are

in this world, and that also your identities is what actually feeds and gives you purpose in life. And so, but that's all tied to relationships. So our identities are more, more tied to relationships or communities and then our rules and responsibilities within those communities. So for identity, I would say, I'll give you an example of this too. It's important that you, if you want to be a good father or a good mother or a good friend or a good boss, it's important that you have those people to model. And so for myself, I was really blessed to have a great dad and a great mom. They weren't perfect.

There were deficiencies in certain areas, but overall, they were amazing. And so I can, I know my dad taught me discipline. And so I know how to teach my kids discipline because I had that father figure. I also had coaches. I also had mentors. And so what I would say one of the greatest things you can do is find those people. If you never had a father figure in your life, go and find a father figure now, even if you're 60 years old. Okay. Find a good father figure.

Somebody who's virtuous, who's doing selfless, doing great things in the world, and learn from them and model them, model the way that they're living. And maybe they were in a similar place than you. You know, I remember my mom, she used to watch this female pastor named Joyce Myers. and Joyce Myers was sexually abused as a child by a family member. And so if somebody had been, you know, a woman and she'd been sexually abused, Joyce Meyer would be a good person to follow because you can really relate to what she's been through in life and who is in who she is now. And so all that being said, I think there's a lot of power from going and finding,

and by the way, I did this in business. For instance, my dad wasn't really an entrepreneur. Okay. My dad worked for Ohio Bell working out on telephone lines and the cold, you know, more blue-collar work. But my dad wasn't an entrepreneur. So I had to go and find a father figure, a business figure, an entrepreneur figure in my life in order to model and learn how to behave and act like that. So I found people like Ben Lerner and Greg Lohman and Chuck Majors and some other people

in business, Danny Actor. These were doctors who were entrepreneurs and I was able to model what they did. But I think that's really important that if you don't have those relationships and you never had that mother or father figure, a great place to find that. those typically is, I would say a couple places. One is go to a place of worship, whether it be a church or a synagogue or someplace where you can go and be around virtuous people that are selfless that have high character. Okay. So try and get plugged in at places like that and find those people. Also, you can find those people at a distance. You know, as I've studied a lot of psychology,

I've studied a lot of Jordan Peterson. And people are constantly coming up to him saying, you were the father I never had. Now, some of these people have never met him or they meet him one time for a few minutes, but because of his books and lectures, they're learning how to be men because their father's never taught them that. My point is, this is powerful.

If you want to create stability and overcome these traumas, you might have had a really bad example of what a father and mother look like. We'll go and find those figures now, even if it's not biological, go and find those people that can help you grow in that area. And by the way,

this is really important too because I think also this is why I think reading the Bible so is important because you get an idea of what a perfectly loving parent and father looks like in God as you read the story of the narrative of the Bible. And so that's what I encourage you to do. Read lots of good books. Work on your self-awareness. Go through those practices and build out those really great relationships with mentors and with people that you can be disciples under. How do you combat negative thoughts is the next question. Here's how I would answer this. It is all about what you decide to focus on.

This is so big. It's your focus. Fix your mind on the things above. Fix your mind on the good things. If I decide to watch TV shows that are in movies and read books that are redemptive, I'm reading and watching Lord of the Rings, okay? And I'm learning about, you know, the sacrifice of where Frodo is willing to sacrifice himself,

be the sacrificial lamb for all of the world, right? And you're saying Samwise Gamjean, he's this sacrificial servant. Or your, again, just when you're reading books about saints, like Mother Teresa and St. Francis of Assisi and, you know, and Thomas Aquinas, all these people, these amazing people, you know, and when you're reading the Bible, when you're reading things and watching things,

when you're on social media, and you're watching people that are posts, that are incredibly selfless people that are focused on love and truth and those sort of things, that's going to instill in you positive thinking, positive thoughts. Versus if you are,

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

I think about if I had a son, you know, Tim Tebow, I think he's doing some amazing things for kids with special needs. And so all that being said, one of the things that Sadie said in one of her recent, in a recent video that was posted from her was, if you go to her Instagram feed, you'll know what she's about, okay? And you'll know what she is constantly plugging in her mind. And it's a very similar thing for me. She said, you know, you'd feel like you were at church if you were following Cady Robertson. Okay, that's the sort of feeds. And if you were following my feed, you would see a few things.

You'd see basically, you'd see leadership. You'd see a lot of spiritual stuff. You'd partly you'd feel like at least half the time you were at church. So there's a lot of, you know, accounts. you'd see a lot of philosophy from the Stoics. You would see a lot of leadership and personal growth, a lot of health. And that's what you'd see. You know, that's all you'd see on my account.

You're not going to see anything negative. Now, I might have one or two news sites. And so I guess just to keep up on what's going on in the Middle East and different wars just to be aware. But overall, on my feet, it's virtue. It's positive, positive, positive. And so what I would say is if you're on Instagram, if you're on YouTube, follow those people that help inspire you and create those positive thoughts because if you're constantly focused on on on debt and and you don't have enough money and sort of the lack of in the world

then it's going to create that within you you're going to start going towards that versus if you start focusing on how do I build wealth how do I attract money how do I build up a skill in order to make more wealth what it's going to lead you there and that's just a principle of this of the it's a principle it's not an opinion it's a principle, what you focus on. It's sort of this quote from Solomon and Proverbs. He says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Think about that. As this is from the Bible. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. As you thinketh, what you fix your eyes on, what you start thinking, that's what you become. And so what I would encourage you to do is really focus on,

on your social media channels, on the books you read, be very aware of the TV shows you watch. If I'm watching TV, Chelsea and I are watching things that are redemptive that have a moral of a story that are uplifting versus we're not watching these dark, you know, constantly dark shows with a lot of immorality and, uh, and those sort of things. And so how do you combat negative thoughts? You fix your eyes on the right thing. Now, there are some good books on these sort of topics on the power of positive thinking is an example of a classic book on that. So that's one book you might run out and get, but I would say, you know, go and delete every. account on your social media that is not incredibly positive and redemptive. That doesn't make you feel good about yourself. That doesn't instill some sort of moral value and character within you. Delete the rest. And then go and find out, follow those accounts that are promoting sort of a biblical worldview. And that's what I'd suggest. Next question, how can I balance a growth mindset with being submissive to God's will for my life right now? I don't think those two things are, are, it's not like a, it's not like a scale, like you have one or the other, a growth mindset

or sort of being obedient to the creator's calling in your life. I, what I would say is, what a growth mindset is, is saying, you know what, I'm not worried about being perfect. I'm not, my goal is not for everybody to look at me and think how great I am and everybody applaud me. My goal is to give my best effort. My goal is to be the best I can be in my character and be the best I can and the talent I have, give my best. So really a growth mindset is it's about working hard to grow versus working hard to be perfect so everybody likes you and thinks you're great. Okay. So, and I would say that really aligns with what what God wants for us is that, you know, we should really be focused on growing and becoming our best selves. And so I would

just say overall, I would say that, you know, and I think part of this question, question might be, you know, sometimes we get put in positions to where we don't love where we're at. Like, for instance, you might be in a job right now that you just don't love, okay? And I've been in those situations in life, right, to where I'm like, okay, this is not what I feel gifted to do. This is not where I, you know, necessarily want to be, but I know that at this time I'm called to do this. I think, I think realizing understanding, no matter where you are, take lemons and make lemonade. No matter where you're at and life. You might be in a job that you hate. You're like, this is not where I want to be a long term.

Be faithful with that talent you've been given. Let's say, you know, there's a parable of the talents you've been given to. Turn that into four. Let's say you're working as a janitor at a Wendy's or a fast food restaurant. Okay. Be the best at that thing. The absolute best. Okay. And if you do that with greatness, I think God's going to open a door for you to do something else. And so I would just say, wherever you're at, do it with a full heart, you know, and give it your very best. Next question. I feel out of my comfort zone leading a small group at church. Do you have any advice? One, I can really empathize with you feeling that way. And I'm, I want to first encourage you and say, way to go. Way to get out of your comfort zone. Way to lead a small group of church. Way to do

something that you, that, that, that you're uncomfortable with. I think that, you know, here's one thing I'm encouraged by. When I go back and read, if you ever watch the TV show The Chosen, which by the way is one of my top five TV shows of all time. I mean, I think in terms of a positive impact, it's the top TV show I've ever watched. And so if you haven't watched that TV show, The Chosen, you can go and watch it on almost every streaming network, or at least a couple different streaming networks. And I want to encourage you to watch. I think it's on iTunes and Amazon Prime, but I would watch or go to the Chosen app. But I think watching that TV show is great. One of the things that's encouraging about it, you see even the disciples of Jesus early on, they weren't,

They weren't perfect. Like they were, they were constantly out of their comfort zone. So no, if you're out of your comfort zone, you're doing the right thing. So I was talking to a friend of mine, Michael Hyatt,

years ago, and he told me he started a small group. And he said they did it, mostly leadership and personal growth books. Now, I wanted to start a group where we did a mixture of leadership and business

and spiritual growth. Okay, so we would kind of alternate books. One month, we do a leadership or business book. The next month, we would do a spiritual growth book. And the people

that ended up in my group. Now, I was sort of selective in who I had in there and I wanted to create this iron sharpens iron community. And within my group, I ended up having a missionary. I ended up having a person who had a PhD in theology and ended up having a pastor of an incredibly successful church. And that wasn't an issue what I was going for. But one friend said, oh, I think my friend here, I said, hey, I'm looking for really top quality people and their character who really want to grow. But that's who ended up in my group. And I also, so, so when I was going into this group, I don't have a seminary degree. Okay. And I was sitting there and going into that first, first meeting, and even the first few feeling really out of my comfort zone, because when we're

teaching the topics on spiritual growth, in terms of a degree and experience, again, one of them worked in for five years in Africa as a missionary and then became a pastor. And so, you know, there was a level of, I guess, feeling, I felt unqualified. But as I was thinking and praying before I went in there, I really felt like God just telling me like, listen, I don't, you know, I don't call the equipped. I equipped the call. And so for me, I knew that I'd be equipped. I knew that it would help me grow. And so what I tried to do throughout this time was one, here's the biggest thing. I was prepared. Okay. So before we went into meetings, I was as prepared as possible. Now, listen, I've grown up and read and probably done as much reading as a lot of seminary students.

And so I've read books on church history, not just one, like probably 20, and a lot of other topics too. And so I was fairly educated. But at the same time, again, I didn't have the degrees or the full-time job as some of these incredible people in the group. But again, one, I went and prepared. So if we read a book, I read a book and I took the notes and I did extra study and I went in prepared. So that's one thing I would say is, is that one thing that will help you would be, be the most prepared for that group. Number two, you don't always have to use your own authority. You can use the authority of others. For instance, if I would read someone like Thomas Aquinas or a Martin Luther, and I'm going into that group, I could share,

hey, here is the view of Thomas Aquinas or St. Augustine or Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King, Jr. Or someone else who has authority on this topic. And so you don't always need to weigh, sort of expose your own authority. You can use the authority of somebody who has a greater authority than both of you as you lead a group. The other thing I would say is be authentic. Be vulnerable. Hey, you know what, guys, this is something I'm struggling with. Hey, this is something I don't know. So one of the people in the group, and he was the most experienced. He was the missionary and the pastor. Sometimes I would say, hey, you know what? Pastor, you know, pastor, hey, would you go ahead and share your thoughts on this? And by the way, as I led a group, I didn't try and stand up and be the leader and sort of, you know,

lecture everybody. My focus was being the facilitator of growth. And so I was leading the group, but more than anything, I generally would let everybody do a lot more talking. I would try and give instructive feedback. I would share my thoughts. But more than anything, I try to facilitate growth and other people sharing. And if somebody had greater expertise than I did, I would let them share more than I did and help even lead the discussions. And so I would say be authentic, be real, be vulnerable with where you're at. You're not called to be perfect. You know, I'm reading a book right now by St. Augustine. It's called The Confessions. And in the book, this is probably known both in Catholicism and Protestantism.

So in just general, all of Christianity, he is known as probably one of the most four influential church fathers, period, in every denomination. But St. Augustine, it's called the Confessions because he is being real and authentic about where he's at emotionally, his doubts, the things he's working through, his addictions in his past life, all of those things. And I don't think we do that enough today. that some of the best leaders are authentic, they're vulnerable, they're sharing their hearts. And so I would say, if you want to be a great leader of the group, share where you were at,

what you're struggling with, and where in what the truth is. And I think that's a great way to lead as well. And here's the last thing. Walk the walk, act with virtue. You know, I would say as an example of this, I mentioned Tim Tebow earlier. He is somebody that, there's this quote by St. Francis of the CC and he said this. He said, preach the gospel. Use words when necessary. So the idea there is like when I watched Tim Teabone, what he's doing, he does a night to shine for kids with disabilities. So he spends a great deal of his life working with kids with disabilities. Now, I can appreciate this a lot too because my mom was a school teacher who worked with children on the autistic spectrum and with a lot of disabilities.

And that's a really hard job. And it takes a really, really, I would say, somebody who's incredibly compassionate to work with kids and have to have. that level of patience with a lot of these kids. And so when I look at somebody like Tim Tebow, just being around him, I'm convicted. He doesn't even have to say anything. Just watching his action, his rushing to help other people, it impacts me. So I would say being that person in the group, being that person where you're serving everybody, hey, you're giving out drinks, you're putting your hand on their shoulder, how you're doing. You're the one that's praying for them when they're in need. You're the person that is rushing to help others with compassion.

and acting with that action, that will do more and say more than anything that you could speak. And so I would say that's another piece of advice and that's something I've tried to be really conscious of is taking care of the food and the drinks and praying for people in my hand on them. And here's another thing that I think great leaders do. They see the greatness in others and they call it out. So one of the things I try and do with people that I lead and have given me the honor

of being able to disciple or mentor. is, you know, let's say I've got a young man in the group or a man, even my age. You know, I'll put my hand on their shoulder and say, you know what? You are doing such a great job here. Or, hey, you're not doing this, but I think you're capable of doing this. I see this in you. Okay? So I see in you.

I see the ability. I see the unique, you know, calling God has on your life. And so I think if you could also do that, because some people have never had anyone in their entire life speak those words of encouragement. They've never had anyone in love. life tell them the greatness they're capable of. And sometimes it just takes one single person to do that and it breaks a limiting belief. It breaks off something that's within that person, allows them to go on and to do more than they even thought they were capable of. And so again, that's another thing I would

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

And it's a book by Dale Mast, and it's called And David Perceived He Was King. This is one of my absolute favorite books. I've actually read it multiple times. Every time I read it, it allows me to strengthen my own identity, which is needed to a lot of these, a lot of people with mental health disorders and feeling unstable and insecure in life, it's a lack of, it's a weak identity. And so this helps really kind of help instilling people a more divine and powerful identity. So that's a great book, and David perceived he was king. Another book I love that kind of, I think, creates more of just a solid foundation of belief as a book by Tim Keller called The Reason for God. Tim Keller's an incredible author. He just passed away last year, but his books are some of the best I've

ever written, I've ever read on spiritual growth. Born for Significance, this is a book by Bill Johnson. This really goes through. Again, I think it's a book that impacts identity and really purpose in life. So Born for Significance by Bill Johnson. Another book I love is by Lisa Bevere. She has a couple of them. One is called Lioness Horizon, but another one is Girls with Swords. And so I think as a female, hearing from another female who's a really powerful, passionate leader is another book, I think is great. So Girls with Swords and Linus Rising by Lisa Bevere. Her husband also has a great book, John Bevere called The Aw of God, sort of living in awe. And then there's a book I love.

This is an older book, but it really gets into more of the mystic and the, I would say, supernatural. And it's called The Fourth Dimension by David Cho. Now, he was a pastor from South Korea and built one of the largest churches in the entire world. And so, again, the book is called The Fourth Dimension David Schoe. It's another fantastic book. And listen, there are a lot of great books for spiritual growth. But these are five books that I think that she might really enjoy. Of course, I would mention C.S. Lewis because he's probably the top of my favorite authors.

and but I think that I think that sometimes for some people, maybe those are kind of like books once there's a certain level of spiritual maturity. There's another book I love by Philip Yancey called The Jesus I Never Knew. That's another book I really like that I think is fantastic. So those would be some of the top books I would recommend. Next question here. How can I help someone realize they need personal growth? This is a hard one.

My advice to you is, I guess if I had to answer the question point blank, I would say, you can't. You can't make anyone realize they need to grow. Here's my best advice to you. Grow yourself, make your own life extraordinary, and then they will want what you have. I think for me, the greatest thing I've ever been able to do to help others grow is grow myself and serve others and act more like, you know, Christ and Mother Teresa. Martin Luther King, Jr. model those great people that change the world, and other people will want what you have. They'll want to become more like you. That's the greatest thing you can do,

is a single greatest thing you can do to help somebody else, is to grow yourself spiritually, grow yourself in your character, grow your own skill, and then people want to become like you. Now, here's an unfortunate truth. There's a lot of people out there with low character that people want to become like. Now, by the way, these people I'm about to say aren't low character, but there's a lot of people saying, I want to become like this person. And so the more successful you are, the more people want to become like you.

The more you grow, the more people want to become like you. So think about an Elon Musk. You know, people want to become like Elon Musk. Why? Because he's incredibly innovative, ultra successful.

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

because he's a leader. And so my point here is that the more that you can grow in your character, in your skill, what you're great at, the better you can become, the more people will want what you have and want to model you and learn from you. So that's my first piece of advice. Now, how can you help someone realize they need personal growth? Again, my best answer is you can't. You can only grow yourself, make your life extraordinary. And then here's, here, my last statement is this. Your best chance is praying for them.

asking God to intercede on their heart and convict them in that way. Now, I do think sometimes if you're having a conversation with somebody, I think about if there was somebody who I knew needed to grow and they had issues. And let me just give an example of if I had a, let's say a child. And I knew that they weren't living up to an area. What I would do is first sit down with them and just say, hey, you know what? I love you so much.

And I see you doing this in life and this and life. And I'm so proud of you for this. And I think you're doing so great here. But could I ask permission to just mention one thing I've noticed that I think if you were able to improve in this area would benefit your life greatly. And if they give me permission, I would then say, here's the thing. I feel like you're kind of stuck here. And I've been to experience myself as I started reading a book regularly and doing these things. I have more joy and happiness and fulfillment that I've ever had in my life.

I'm now making an impact. And I know that you have this gift and this skill. And I think if you were to devote some time to great. growing in this area, you would feel more fulfilled than ever before. And I can see you impacting this world an incredibly positive way. So not to go back on my first answer, but I am a little bit. My point there is that you can't force somebody to grow or make them grow. However, if you do want to help somebody grow, I would pray for them for a change in their

heart, and I would have a heart to heart with them, letting them know their potential, the greatness within them, and then say, hey, here's some things that would probably help you live your best life. And that's how I would go about that. Next question here, have you ever heard of tumor shrinking or disappearing with a positive mindset? Yes. There are many cases. In fact, there are thousands of cases where this has happened. Part of it is due to neuroplasticity. Now, by the way, this works both ways. I know of people that have had tumors grow because of a negative mindset, because of fear, because of meditating on their trauma and not letting it go or living in the past. So know it works both ways.

If somebody's focused on that tumor and thinking it's growing, it's probably growing, it's growing, it will likely grow. If somebody's believes it's going to shrink. And by the way, just do a simple online search, whatever your search engine is, duct, dot go or brave or even Google, whatever it is, go online and search, tumors disappearing or, um, uh, tumors disappearing. And you'll see, there are lots of cases of this. And the doctors just say, well, we can't figure it out. But basically, I think a big part of it is due to oftentimes there's infection, there's virus, there's mold, there's things in that area, there's pathogens. And your brain, if you start focusing on it shrinking, your white blood cells healing it and your body healing yourself in the future, your body will work on healing it. The more you can get into a positive mental state, being in a state of joy and gratitude, the more strong your immune system gets and the faster your body will shrink and get rid of a tumor.

So your mindset is tied to your health, your physical health, more than even the food you eat. Your mindset and belief about your own health and what your body is doing, what it's capable of how long you'll live, what's going on in terms of your immune system is more tied to your mindset than it is the food you're eating or your genetics or anything else. And so, and we did this with my mom when my mom had cancer. We had her visualize herself 25 years from then, bringing her graham. Grandkids to Disney World, holding them up in the air, running around with them with a big smile on her face, and she would feel that emotion of joy and gratitude and thinking God that she was able to do that. So the more that you can, and now my mom's in her 70s doing just that when she had a 40% or less chance of living. And so the reality is, and her tumor just shrunk and shrunk and shrunk and shrunk over four months, almost to nothing.

And so all that being said, I've seen it in the life of my own mom. I saw it with patience. You can read about it online. So yes, have I heard of it? Not only have I heard of it, I've experienced it with friends and family members and patience. And so, yes, it absolutely is a reality. And you want to help get in that state of mind as much as you can of joy and gratitude. Hey, I hope you've enjoyed this episode.

By the way, if you have more questions, feel free to ask them on YouTube. If you're watching on YouTube, and I'd love to hear your comments on what was your biggest takeaway from the show today. Was there a question and answer that really impact you? And feel free as well if I answered something, but you want to add to it, feel free to let us know and share more on YouTube. Also, hey, if you know someone else who needs this information, I believe there are millions of people that need to hear this, hey, send them a text message and say, hey, you should listen to this episode. Please help me share this.

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