THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Why Who You Become Matters More Than What You Do Feat. Dr. Josh Axe

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

What if the key to healing isn’t just physical—but spiritual, emotional, and mental too? In this powerful conversation with my friend Dr. Josh Axe, we dive into what true health really means—and it goes way beyond diet and exercise. Josh has helped millions of people worldwide reclaim their health, but what I love most about him is that he’s not afraid to connect the dots between your body, your mind, and your faith. We talk about how the struggles you face in your health often mirror the struggles in your spirit and why healing starts from the inside out. Josh opens up about his own journey—the heartbreak of watching his mom battle illness, the setbacks he faced building his career, and the doubts he had to fight through to stay on his calling. What came out of those seasons wasn’t just knowledge—it was wisdom. And today, he’s sharing that wisdom with us in a way that will completely change how you think about your own health. We also talk about why so many people chase quick fixes and end up more broken than before. Josh and I break down how to build rhythms in your life that actually last—from the food you eat, to the way you handle stress, to the faith practices that keep you anchored. This is about creating alignment in every part of who you are so you can operate at your best. If you’ve been frustrated with your health, if you’ve been carrying stress or pain that feels heavier than it should, or if you’ve been asking God for healing but not sure where to start—this conversation is going to give you clarity, hope, and practical steps forward. Key Takeaways: Why true healing requires more than just treating symptoms The connection between faith, mindset, and physical health Josh’s personal story of loss, resilience, and calling How to break free from the cycle of quick fixes and create lasting change The daily habits that will fuel your body, mind, and spirit This isn’t just about living longer—it’s about living better. Lean in, because this one can shift the way you see health forever. — Max Out ⁠⁠⁠👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈⁠⁠⁠   → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ←  ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠INSTAGRAM⁠⁠⁠   ➡️⁠⁠⁠FACEBOOK⁠⁠⁠   ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠LINKEDIN⁠⁠⁠   ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠X ⁠⁠⁠  ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠WEBSITE⁠⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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welcome back to the show everybody so this gentleman I think for maybe like six years off and on different people have tried to connect us to have him on the show and I just believe it's God's timing today so I'm super excited to have him here so many of our mutual friends tell me that he's their go-to doctor for everything

in their life physically. And the reason I wanted I'm on today is he's starting to talk a lot more about the mental side of health and wellness and thinking. And I got my attention because we do a lot of shows on the body and health and nutrition. And we're going to talk to them about those things as well. But I want to talk about the mind because he's got a new book. He's out called Think This, Not That. And it says it's a revolutionary guide to transforming your health, relationships, and future,

starting in your mind. But he's known for the body stuff. And we're also going to talk about the Bibliot Diet, which is a book he's got out currently. There's just a lot to cover in less than an hour with the tremendous Dr. Josh Axe. Welcome to the show finally, brother. Ed, thanks so much for having me. I'm a fan of your work. I've followed it for a long time.

So I excited to be on. Likewise. You know, I found out today. I just finally, I follow your stuff all the time because I click on it. So you're coming up in my feed, but I wasn't following you on Instagram. And so now you're going to be in there even more deeply. I want to talk first about think this, not that. Can we go there on the mind a little bit?

Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. Because I'm really glad you did that. And he teaches in the book, you guys, kind of 12 mind shifts. And I'm not going to give you all 12 because I want you to get the book, but we're going to cover a few of them today that stood out for me that I think knowing all of you, like I do, the audience that I think is most relevant, at least for today's conversation for you. So I want to start with the second one in the book because you said, redefine success by becoming not accomplishing. I want to preface this by, I was talking to a friend yesterday and she said what's one of the regrets you have in your life which is an interesting

question and i said uh i was too addicted to do achievement and accomplishment i spent most of my life chasing achievement and accomplishment and um there were things that more important to me than that in the same time you know i i'm more focused now on the man i'm becoming then i'm prepping for the interview and i see this as the second mind shift so i want you to talk about that yeah you know i think uh your audience i know there's a lot of tight days. There's a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of go-getters. I know we're both wired that way. And I think we all kind of fall into that trap where sort of the primary goal becomes, I want to achieve these big things in life. And I think that God looks at those and he says,

hey, I want you to do that. But even more than that, I want you to become somebody great. I want you to become like Jesus. And so for me, and I think, I think that's true of the Bible. I don't, I don't feel like we're called to do great things. We're called to become certain types of people. And this really became real for me when I was at my grandfather's funeral. This was about six years ago. I had an amazing grandfather. He was a World War II veteran, lived to be 96 years old. And he dedicated his whole life to help people. When he turned 40 years old, he decided he didn't want to work at a telephone company anymore. He decided he wanted to start a kid's swim park and campground. So it took his life savings, put it into that. But I was at

his funeral. And there was a time there where the pastor was standing up and he said, does anyone have any final words about Howard? And the man next to me, one of my sort of distant uncles just broke down in tears and said, Howard was my best friend. Just sobbing. And I'm a little guilty to say this at that. I looked over at him and I thought, well, you're not my grandfather's best friend. That's like my uncle Don and Alan. But then I realized for a second, I said, you know what? I'm sure my grandfather was your best friend because there's 150 people in the room right now. And then people started saying things like Howard saved my marriage. Howard led me to the Lord. I mean, everyone started sharing. And for me, it was sort of this redefining what success is because I thought,

I'm going after writing a latest book or, you know, this or these other things, but I thought, you know, people at your funeral saying this person brought me to the Lord, they were my best friend. They impacted my life positively in some way. I thought that's what success is. And so all of us every day have these things like our to do list, right? Hey, I'm trying to accomplish these things. But if along with that to do list, we have our become list, that's such a. powerful tool because like, you know, yesterday I was on the phone with Delta and they left me on a hold for a pretty long time, you know, and you get on with the customer service rep and then they're trying to pass you off to someone else. And because I had my become list, I thought, you know what, I'm going to be graceful. I'm going to be loving, along with trying to accomplish this thing of getting my ticket change and not paying, you know, $300 for a simple ticket change. But all that being said, I think that you and I both have seen this and I've heard you talk about this sort of thing on your show. But when I think about the people that I most,

respect. It's not necessarily because what they've accomplished at this point in my life. I think it's because of who they are, how they've impacted me. So I think that's one mind shift that people could really take and run with is thinking about who do I want to become or who can I become rather than what can I accomplish. You know, you're right. Because the people that I just thought of when you said that, you know, names flash, you know, the people I admire the most, I never think, well, I want to acquire what they've acquired or I want to accomplish what they've accomplished. I usually want to become more like them. And I'll often ask myself, like that Delta call you had the other day, how would John Maxwell handle this call? Or, you know, how would

handle this call? And so it is more about becoming. And so many of us, we spend our life, I just want to acknowledge what you're saying. It's relevant for me. We spend so much of our life doing and not enough being or becoming. And I could tell you, as somebody who's done a lot a doing and a lot of achieving like you have, it won't fulfill you. But the person you're becoming, growing closer to God, growing closer to the man or woman you were supposed to be incapable of becoming the destiny version of you, that's really cool. That does fulfill. That does last. You know, one of the things that I think can hold us back, and I don't even know what your answer is going to be to this, so I'm super fascinated. I purposely did not read this part,

which I usually don't do in interviews. I usually read it. is our past sort of repeating itself and equaling our future, to some extent. And I just had somebody on the show before you who Austin Hatch is his name. He's been in two plane crashes. He lost his mother and his siblings in the first plane crash. Several years later, he's in a second plane crash and lost his father. Wow. Yeah.

And, you know, those are two pretty horrific memories. And I kind of asked them, how do you escape that? You know, does that not define your life? And you have this thing in the book called memory transplants. And I think it's relevant because the concept is, what is that and how can we utilize it or do it for our favor? You know, I think for most people that are struggling with something, it could be identity issues, it could be their purpose, it could be just going after their future. most of the things that's blocking that from happening are past memories. We think it's our thoughts, but typically it's a memory of something that's replaying in our

subconscious that then is what's impacting our thought and belief. And so we need to go and address those things. You know, I think back to my, just to give me a personal example of this, when I was in high school, I was a terrible student. I mean, and I mean terrible student. And I had a teacher asked me to stay after class. This is freshman year in high school, English class. And her name was Ms. Noble.

And she said, Josh, what do you want to do after high school? And I said, I want to be a doctor. And the reason I said that, Ed, was the year prior, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. She went through breast cancer. I remember her hair falling out, all the chemotherapy. And I remember thinking myself as a kid, I want to help people like my mom. So, like, it was a very sincere reason, like, I wanted to be a doctor. And when I told her that, she laughed out loud.

And she goes, Josh, listen, with your GPA, you'll never be a doctor. She said, my own daughter had a 3.8 GPA. She barely got into med school. She said, you'd be lucky to graduate high school. She said, you got an F on this paper. You were getting a D-minus in my class. She said, you need to try harder. So I walked out of their feeling incredibly defeated.

And then two weeks later, my mom brought me to see a family doctor who then diagnosed me with ADHD. And I remember him saying in front of me to my mom, your son has a learning disability. He's going to have trouble in school. And so then I thought, well, not only am I not smart. I've got a disability. I can't learn right. And so throughout high school, I just kind of stopped.

trying. I never tried. And I barely, the only reason I, you might appreciate this, but the only reason I graduated high school was because I knew my dad would be just irate if I didn't. See, I graduated with like a low two point something. But then I did want to go to college. I didn't want to stay home. And so I applied to a bunch of colleges. And one, and I got denied by most. But I had one college reply to me and they said, they just started a summer school program. And they said, if you average above a 3.0 in summer school, we'll let you in. This is your University of Kentucky. So I thought, okay, I'm going to go. And I'm I'm actually going to try because I want to go somewhere. I don't want to stay home. I want to go to school. In the first class I had to take was English 101. I took it. First big thing was a paper. I turned it in and I felt good about it. But a few days later, the teacher, her name was Ms. William. She says, Josh, can you stay after class? And my heart just sank. I thought, oh, no, like this again. And she goes, Josh, what's your major? And I said, well, I haven't chosen one yet. And she said, well, I want to let you know that I think you should consider being an English or journalism major because you have the 40 kids in the class, you got the highest grade. It was an A. You're really talented writer, great job. And I will tell

you, Ed, it literally changed the trajectory of my entire life. I went from this memory of this teacher saying something to me that I felt like totally destroyed my confidence. And I took this new memory. And I said, you know what? I'm going to replace this old memory with this new one of this teacher saying, I'm good enough. I can do it. And then in college, I averaged above a 3.0 for undergrad. For my doctor and I averaged at, you know, mid-3s. And I later on went to Johns Hopkins and their average a 3.9 GPA and did become a doctor. And I just share that to say, not to boast, but just to say, there are so many people today who are, have had somebody say something to them to belittle them in their life or they have this sort of ongoing belief about themselves in the past. And they've allowed

that to dictate their future. And so the other thing I think, too, is that there's a study I get to in the book and it's called future selves and if you believe you can be a great future self or do what someone else has done and you sort of model that and go forward focusing on your future rather than your past it tends to lead to a much greater you in the future what do you do if you don't have a miss noble i want to go application so you don't have the well no uh miss williams what was the other one so miss williams yeah miss williams so what do you do if you don't have the favorable memory. Do you feed yourself a visualization? What tactically should somebody be doing to do this memory transplant? I would say there's a couple things. Number one is this is why it is so

important who we surround ourselves with. So important. I mean, I've spent a lot of my life and I know you've done the same thing pursuing certain types of relationships with people, people that are encourages, people that believe in me, iron sharpens are, but also people that tell me, hey, Josh, you need to do better. Right. So because that iron sharp, design principle and mentors. You know, when you look at the ancient world, mentorship, discipleship was the way we grew and learned. Today it's very different. It's a sit in a classroom, listen to somebody talk to you, try and memorize it. But it's the most powerful way of growing because they imprint their identity on you as well and you learn how to become a certain type

of person by modeling what that other person does. And I've had the most success in my life in business and my own growth when I found somebody who's virtuous and I've modeled what they've done. So number one thing I would say is, like, and you've seen this. I know you've worked with a lot of professional sports teams and college teams and things like that and helping motivate them. There's a lot of those men in professional sports that didn't have their fathers around. And they will go find a coach and that will become their father figure. And that will allow them to grow in that way because they found that person, that sort of,

that person to play that follow their role and help them grow. So one, so my number one thing is if you. can go and find virtuous people, a great group of people at a, you know, it could be a church, it could be some other group of, of inspiring high virtue. Again, that's the key. High virtue. People have high character, those sort of people. The second one, and actually, this is number one, but I wanted to give, I do think that

first one's practical, go to the Bible. What does God say about you? Let that impact your identity. I mean, when you read about some of the greatest people that have ever lived, they, some of them were orphans, some of them didn't have those people in their life to say those positive things, but they took what God said about them and they let that dictate who they were, them being a child of God, them, you know, having an incredible future, knowing that God gave them gifts that they could use to change the world. So I would say those are the two most positive

things. I would say the third thing is listening to podcasts, reading books, doing things to build yourself identity, but I will say psychologically, according to all the studies, it's harder to build identity by yourself telling you you're great versus having God or others actually in a relationship help build your identity. We tend to build our identity with others, not sort of as a solo organism. By the way, I totally agree with you. By the way, if you're listening to this, you'll at least try to think how this impacts you. Think about what Josh just said, this idea of belief. Those of you that are parents or that are leading people in your company, I don't underutilize the term love, but love can be a dime a dozen as a parent. Most parents love

their kids, but very few instill belief in them. It's a very rare thing. We're conscious of loving our children because it becomes natural, but what are you imprinting into this child in terms of what they believe about themselves? And if you leave it up to the rest of the world, it's probably not going to be a very good thing it alters their identity as a parent one of your one of your number one jobs is to be cognizant conscious intentional about the beliefs you're imprinting into this precious person and and oftentimes they're going to adopt or adapt yours because most things with kids is caught not taught so if you have low self-esteem you have low self-belief you're not chasing your dreams you're not after it your identity's not very high you're transferring that

unconsciously to this child they may not have your personality they may not even have your career or your gifts but oftentimes you give them your identity you imprint that into them and so you got to be conscious of this this stuff that dr axe just said is it's precious stuff it's it's huge now you did this come from something for you like what made you write a book on the mind as opposed to which i want to talk about in a little bit so it's not even any of the books which is like hrv or you know lowering your heart rate or you know i want to talk about on HRV in a little bit because it's got back to you that it's a topic for me like what made you do this did you have some instant you know existential crisis happened in your life or just it finally

dawned on you not finally but you thought man it's time i talk about the mind is maybe even more important than nutrition for the body and the wellness yeah well i think number one it was just over time one of the patterns i started seeing in patients and everyone i worked with was people got the best results when they had the best mindset that was number one i'll give you an example of this i would have patients come in. And what I typically did on day one in my clinic is we would, you know, maybe do their blood work and we would have them fill out their history and all these things and the diet diary. But before they left, I would say, hey, I want you to do one thing for me. We're not going to change everything today, but I just want you to change breakfast. Okay,

let's switch from special case cereal or the bagel and cream cheese or whatever it is. And let's start doing this superfood smoothie or something like that. And I get one of two reactions. One was, great, I'm ready to go. You know, like, hey, let's do this. And the other was, oh, oh no you're taking my favorite meal from me or my favorite you know and sort of this they were focused on the thing that was being taken away and um and so I started realizing wow so much of this with patience and one healing and one not healing was mindset but then here's what happened ed and this was crazy when I was in the mid that when I started writing the book I was writing the first chapter and then I went and went and got a procedure done I had injured my back I blew a couple

disc lifting weights. And I was in major pain. And then I got stem cell once and it helped tremendously. And I thought, well, I'm going to get this done one more time. And I'll probably get back to 100%. Well, when they were doing the procedure, something went wrong and my disc got infected. And I was living in Puerto, we had moved to Puerto Rico for a short time. I was down there. And I thought, well, okay. And after the procedure, I thought, okay, something's not right. One got an MRI, nothing showed up. And then I just kept feeling worse and worse and worse. Finally, one day, a few weeks later, I woke up and I couldn't walk. I couldn't walk. Had to call an ambulance. They came and picked me up, brought me to the hospital. We did another MRI and they said, oh, you've got an

infection. And not only is it in your disc, it's in your bone. It's by your spinal cord. I had to get on a medical flight from Puerto Rico to Florida. And I met with an infectious disease doc. And he sent me down and he said, Josh, I'm going to be straight with you. He said, this infection is spread. It's eating away at your bone. And he said, he said your worst case scenario is listen you could die but he said i don't think you're going to die from this he said but you're likely going to be permanently disabled um we're probably going to have to fuse your spine and i thought and then he said best case scenarios you're going to have just chronic pain the rest of your life and and the crazy part was ed i mean just a few months earlier

i have a two-year-old daughter i'm throwing her up you know in the air in the pool i was doing triathlons i was doing squats and deadlifts none of that i just had a little bit of nagging pain in my left side of my low back. And that was it. So to have a doctor tell me, you're likely to be currently disabled. And for 48 hours, and I literally felt like my life was over. I thought, and then finally, I was just spending time in prayer. And I felt like God said, listen, I've got you. You know, I was reading Matthew 5 and 6 in Psalms 23. And I felt like, you know what? Worrying isn't going to get me anywhere. Focusing on the worst possible outcome, that's not going to help me heal. And so I decided just to press into God. And I also decided.

you know what i'm going to visualize and believe right now for the best possible outcome that i will not that that i'm not going to take this doctor's diagnosis i'm going to listen to the word of god i'm going to believe that i am going to be healed 100 and so all i could do is my best and so i get i started getting a hyperbaric chamber every single day i started getting nutritional i vs i had to get on conventional antibiotics which by the way i had not taken a drug since i was in high school An antibiotic, just because I've been so natural my whole life. They wanted me to be on it three months. I was able to get down and just do the antibiotic for one month,

along with all these other therapies I did. And after, here's the crazy part, my back was so damaged. I didn't walk for 10 months. Oh my gosh. I couldn't get out of bed. I actually couldn't even be in a wheelchair. The only way I could be upright was getting a pool. I could crawl to a pool after a period of time.

And then I started getting a little better and a little better a little better once I started getting on the walker got off that this was two years ago I was still just getting off the walker and and then and now I'm at 100% wow and I say that to say I wrote this entire book while I was in bed from no way on on on on mindset because I'll say this the hardest thing of all what was this the negative thoughts because I would go online and research and it wasn't encouraging like a friend of mine another doctor had this same thing happen and this is so rare and he had to have his spine fused. So like the one person I knew who had the exact same thing I had had to have his spine fused and have metal put in his spine. And praise God, I healed

100%. But I think so much of it was this sort of mental battle. Like I kept having thoughts creeping like, okay, you might be able to heal 50%, but you'll never hear 100%. You'll never get back to doing what you're doing. That was sort of the mental battle that I was fighting. I think a lot of people do that in their life. They shrink their dream down to if I could just get to here. If I could just survive, if I could just get my basic needs met. You know, something I've been working on, I really want to dive into this with you and explore it, because which is vision and visualization, mental rehearsal. You write about it in the book. It's the 11th, you know, strategy. But I want to step back because I'm morphing these things in my

head. Like the more and more I dive into the word of God, the more I realize, gosh, like what you read on the surface or whatever church preaches about a particular scripture might have just that one application. Everyone knows the scripture about where there's no vision the people will perish. I've started to think about this more. And how many of our thoughts come from some vision or video playing in our head of a thought or a past event, as you've said, as a memory? And how much maybe we should be focusing on our vision, specifically visualization? And is this rooted in scripture even, is the lack of a vision where dreams go to die, where growth goes to die, where it perishes. I've really spent some time on this lately.

And I'm really big, I wrote about it in my book as well, on mental rehearsal, on visualization, because I think a lot of our thoughts come from what we're repeatedly feeding ourselves unconsciously. And a lot of times we're repeating to ourselves, as you said earlier, is our past, is a fear, is our worry, is what the enemy's feeding us. And so taking control of what we see in our mind, I think is deeply rooted in scripture. I used to think, ah, one science and one scripture, I actually don't think that anymore. Maybe I'm reading, but maybe I'm not.

Maybe this is a new kind of frontier people of faith should be talking more about. And you talk about in the book, I think you say visualize to realize. Yeah. So just elaborate on your thoughts about visualization, mental rehearsal, vision in general. Well, it's been one of the most powerful tools in my life in healing and achieving success in life and business and family. And it is very biblical. You know, I think about God himself with Abraham says, Abraham, look at the stars of the sky. So numerous how your descendants be. I mean, God uses visualization with Abraham. And so I see this, I see this in the Bible.

I see it in, I see it in life in sports for, you know, I had the opportunity back in 2012. and 13 to work with the U.S. Olympic team with the swimmers. And Michael Phelps, I remember him doing this interview, and they said, you remember this? He'd wear his hood and he just would stare. And they asked him, they said, hey, what are you doing? Are you visualizing yourself winning? He goes, no, not just winning.

I'm visualizing every single moment of the race, jumping off every stroke, that first turn, the second turn, the third, like every last part of it. So when you look at the people that are, that achieve the most success in life, most of the time, they take visualization to the absolute furthest ends. And so I think it's very, very important. You know, there is a, as talking about sort of my infection and healing from that, I really put that into play. Like I, there was a, there was a doctor who wrote on, he did a, I'm trying to remember

the exact study, but there was something done on the placebo effect. And most people know what the placebo effect is. It's sort of your belief helps you see these results. This happened back in one of the World Wars when a doctor ran out of morphine. There was these fallen soldiers who had lost limbs, incredible pain, and they ran out of morphine. And he said, and he told the nurse, he said, well, we have to give them something. So she just started injecting these soldiers with, you know, salt or sugar water, just saline. And the crazy part was 40% of them saw the same pain relief as if they were getting morphine.

And that's wild to think about. But we can support the placebo effect, amplify it in three main ways from what I've found. Number one is visualization, being very clear about what it is you want to see. Being very, very clear about that. So your body starts moving towards that with neuroplasticity. The second thing is feeling that emotion that you're going to feel when you actually, as if you were in that certain state, your body is driven emotionally. It changes your hormonal system in a really big way. And the third thing is having a plan.

This is how I'm going to do it. Okay. Sometimes your body doesn't believe you. Really? Okay. You're telling yourself you're great, but you got to sort of prove it. So planning as well. But I think those things definitely help. But back to the idea there about visualization. To me, if you want to realize this is sort of the process I tend to bring people through where I do myself. You visualize, sometimes even before that I prioritize, making sure, hey, that vision I'm seeing. That's truly what I want. I want the family. I want, you know, that thing. So it's sort of prioritized, visualize. strategize exactly what you want. You want to schedule it. You want to really put it right into

your schedule, what you want to do, and then you'll sort of realize that result. But that's sort of the process that I go personally. I think what people say visualization, they don't realize you have many for your life. Like some of you were listening to go, I don't really have a big vision. I'm not an entrepreneur. I don't want to be wealthy. Do you have a family? What if it's true that a family without a vision could potentially its character could perish? Like, like, a family without a vision. What's your vision for your family? What's your vision for your faith? What's your vision for your happiness level, for your body? Just now, before we were starting the show, my producer, Stephen, has been on me a long time. I've lost a significant amount

of weight. And he's like, so what's really different? And really there's, you know, I've obviously changed what I've doing nutritionally. But one of the other things I did is I've got, I actually think my body is conspiring with my mind now to get me to look like what I wanted to. I actually, for the first time ever sort of really visualized, mentally rehearse what I wanted to look like and actually more importantly, what I wanted to feel like, because I've been a muscular, bigger guy most of my life. I just can't carry it anymore. And so I, but what did, what would, what would that guy feel like? To your point, wasn't just seeing it was how would it feel to be there? Well, my back wouldn't be quite as sore because, you know, I've got some disc issues. You know what's

really interesting? This weight has come off so much faster and easier than it ever did just when I was doing the nutrition. But now what I'm visualizing and seeing the body that I wanted and taking the requisite actions and to your point scheduling it, not only is the weight come off much faster, but my body is feeling the way that I visualized it feeling. And because your body is chasing that that neurobiochemistry that you're repeating to itself over and over again. So I just want to acknowledge what a powerful part of the book I think that is. And it's just I'm glad that people of faith are starting to embrace this knowing that it's faith-based as well. What for you? Just curious, because I'm going to ask you a health question in a minute because it's just for me

selfishly. But so we'll go to the Bibliol stuff diet in a minute. But is there a sacred ritual or something spiritually or physically that you refuse to sacrifice in your life? Let's say beyond prayer. So I know obviously prayer. But is there something you do that's like it's non-negotiable for your health or a mental well-being, whether that be a, I'm making it up, cold plunge or sauna or a walk? Is there something for you that's a non-negoti- because obviously you're unbelievably fit. You came back from something with your back that sounds just unbelievably difficult. Is there something that's a non-negotiable ritual or strategy for you? Yeah, I would say first thing in the morning spending time with God, and it's what I call a spiritual triathlon. And so what I will do,

first thing when I get up is I will, I'll talk with God. And I will, I'll get grateful. And I do this either when I'm in bed. I mean, literally, sometimes I just roll out of bed and go first thing to my hands and knees and just say, God, I'm just so grateful for my health, my amazing wife, my two daughters, that I have a job where I get to help people that I just love. I'm grateful for. So I, so I really try and do that first thing. And sometimes I'll just roll out of bed and I try and go on a walk. Part of that's also a health practice. I want to get sun to kind of set my cortisol levels, but I'll go outside and I'll just, and sometimes I'll just walk and, and just tell God. And sometimes I'll listen to praise and worship music. And sometimes I'll lift my hands and say, God, you're so good, I'm so grateful. And so

I think starting my morning out with, um, with the opposite of entitlement, with gratitude. I deserve nothing, but I've been given everything and more that I could have ever hoped or dreamed. When I start that out with like that perspective changes my entire day now after that i tend to like to go inside and then i will open my bible or a book about the book and i'll sit there and i'll read and really kind of sit on something and then i'll maybe pray and meditate on that for a minute but i try and do that every morning and when i do that i mean it just it just you know starts my entire day off right i love that our rituals are very similar our routines are very similar all right this is an ed my led question everybody gets to listen in on and I think it'll open up people's minds about something so I've become

I'll call it obsessed with health and well-being and longevity and inside of that obsession through doing the show for the last eight years and some health stuff in my family and my dad dying and I don't have the greatest genetic pool you know I got the heart disease gene and the cancer gene and so does my wife so my kids have it probably too so I become obsessed with HRV heart rate variability. Now, this is not in your book. This is not in any one of our notes. I just want to ask about this. And by the way, bring people's attention to it. And so heart rate variability everybody is not your heart beat, your heart rate every minute. It's the variability in beats. And as I understand it, the more I've understood it, it's a mortality measurement and a health

measurement. And you want it to be, you're nodding. So maybe I'm wrong. No, no, no, you're not right. You're definitely right. You're definitely right. You want it to be You want it to be higher, not lower, and I'll just be transparent with the audience. Mine is like unbelievably low, like 13, like 14, 12, 8. And you don't even want to be below 50 in most cases. And so, and there's a connection between the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system. Some of it could be mental is what I'm hearing, that it could be kind of my body and fight or flight response or anxiety or worry.

I'm just curious about your overall thoughts about heart rate variability. It has nothing to do with what's in your book or anything like that. And how much of that do you think is mental versus nutrition, physical, genetic? Wow. You didn't expect that one. Well, yeah, I actually have studied HRV quite a bit. I know. That's what our friends have told me.

And I've used it with as a marker for helping patients quite a bit as well. So here's what I'll say. Number one, everything else pairs in comparison to, in terms of impacting HRV to stress. I mean, it is by far the greatest thing that impacts it. So for you, Ed, my guess is you don't have fear, you don't have worry, you don't have anxiety. Like you don't, it's not that for you. It's most likely the speed of which you do things in busyness. One thing that I was, you know, that I noticed about people that tended to be successful in certain areas, they would run.

It was almost like a rush to do things. There was a speed at which they did everything, whether it was sweeping the floor or eating or doing anything. That is probably the single, and it's almost something programmed. in you that you can reprogram in your brain that impacts HRV. So I'll give you an example. When you walk, do you walk fast? Yes. Walk slow.

When you eat to eat fast, eat slow. It's actually just slowing down. Okay. Everything in life, you know, rather than going like, like, you know, I think about like, if you're listening to an audio book, right, we've got, I've got friends that listen on like 30 speed. I can't even, you know, I can't keep up with 3.0. But it's like, you know, bring it back to one.

bring it back to point eight just literally everything in your life slow it down that philosophically or very good scientifically in a way is the single biggest thing that'll impact HRV it's also not overbooking your schedule like if you would go to europe and you would say i'm not going to literally think about work for a month i'm just going to go there with my wife maybe my kids come and i'm going to have some gelato i'm going to walk up and down the streets i'm going to read a novel i mean it's that that's the biggest way you fix HRV. Now sleep, that also is how you get better sleep. Food can make a difference for sure. But, but that single handily is the biggest HRV fixer. Okay. Thank you. I, I'm glad we're talking about it because I want people to begin to,

like I'm so, I'm so obsessed with it that I work on it in my coaching to get people in their creative state to get them in the parasympathetic state, not sympathetic. And so I, but you are right, us achievers, that's why I bring it up, we're addicted to stress. And by the way, it's the combination of I train very hard in the gym, so I'm putting my body through physical stress. I like pacing. I'm fast. Everything's in a hurry. I've even bragged about my ability to function during stress, which is high because I'm so familiar with it. But those of you that even younger, if you think it's not taking a toll on your health overall, it is. There's a price to be paid eventually. And I'm just at the stage of my life now where it's like, hey, I, I've started

many of what you just said, but that is a measurement most people aren't talking about. Do they want to know what their cholesterol is or, you know, they're blah, blah, blah. Take a look at your HRV. It'll tell you an awful lot about where you're at and you can get a monitor very easily. You're ordering a polar or whatever to take a look at it. So, okay, now that we're on the nutrition side, I worded this question purposely for you. Here's what I said. I said, if Jesus sat at your kitchen table, actually someone helped me word this,

what would you ask him about health healing or the body if you could ask him something what would you ask him wow i didn't see that one coming that's a great question i think i would ask him wow yeah good i mean that's that that's i honestly i almost never get stumped and and this this one has me a little bit so let me let me start with one and then maybe go to a second here. I think the first thing I would say is part of my question has to do with this is like how much how much attention should we pay to it? You know, the reason I say that is that, that, you know, something Paul says is,

is, listen, physical training, that's of some value. The greatest value is training spiritually, right? So Paul says, he said it's of some value. It's not the most value. So one thing that I think I've seen in some patients, the people that are sickest, most of them are so focused on what the things they can do to get healthy, which is hard. There's a saying.

And if you have 99 problems until you have a health problem, then you have one problem. And I think if we've had a health problem, we've all experienced that. But I think that that is something that makes people sick as an obsession about thinking about their health constantly, when a lot of times I think it's like, well, No, you actually don't need to think about it as much. And so I think what I would ask Jesus is, what, you know, what are the most healing practices? Give me in ranking order.

Like, if you had to rank them, Jesus, like, what are the most healing practices I can do to live in a state of longevity? Now, by the way, I would ask him a lot of other health questions before I'd ask a health question. But when I got to the health question, that's a really good one. And so I think I would just ask him, yeah, what are the most healing habits? Um, yeah, I think that's what I would ask him. You know, sorry, you got just come in mind spinning with that question.

I literally, I made me spin. I was, no, I was prepping last night. I made me spend and you know it was interesting? I'll tell you what came to me. I couldn't come up with the words, but I almost came up with the answers. That was just really weird. Like I couldn't come up with the words I would ask, but almost I had a knowing of the answer of the question I hadn't even asked.

What's crazy when you said that my first answer was going to be some, just things he did. like my first answer is going to be wake up early in the morning by yourself and go and pray that was the first thing that just you know yeah yeah same here and and also for me it's like you know surrender a whole bunch of this to me we're on my time and my schedule anyway you know have some peace about it and i think the things every time health comes up there's this background thing in all of our an unknowing or a lack of peace about it. And it gives me peace to just think I could sit and talk with Jesus about health.

We talk about them with everything else. Why couldn't we talk about it with that? Anyway, I wanted to ask you that. The other thing, you know, I almost look at like some of the things that I've done in my health, like addicting distress, it's almost like a vice. Like, I almost get high off of stress, if that makes any sense. I feel a lot under stress. I feel alive.

And sometimes this may sound really weird, but when there's no stress in my life, like I used to watch my dad, he could not sit still, like on a weekend. You know what I mean? Like his day is one day off. My dad works six days a week. My dad, you relax, watch some football. My dad's up cleaning the yard, doing something on the roof, doing this, doing it. And I think to some extent, I don't do that physically, but I've done that in my mind.

It's almost like a vice. What would have been much more virtuous of my dad? And I love my dad. but would have been like, spend some time with me, spend some time in prayer. And you actually have one of the eight steps, bust vices by building virtues. What does that mean for you? Well, coming off your last question, I think it's becoming like Christ, right? I think there's, so here, if somebody wants to become the greatest version of themselves,

here's what I think the Bible says about it. Okay. There's two things you want to do. Number one, growing character, become like. Christ. Number two, take whatever unique talent God gave you and take that to the highest level possible. Think about Michelangelo. I mean, his life is really amazing. When you read on Michelangelo, he lived, actually, he had one of the greatest, he was one of the longest living people in that day lived to be 88 years old. And so, like, he used that gift to honor God. You

think about Mother Teresa, you think about MLK. They both actually had these unique skills of caring for others or leading revolutions. But I think those are the things. If you want to be, your best self, become more Christ-like, higher and more loving, more wise, more just, more kind, and take that unique gift God's given you to the highest level possible. And so I think that's what we want to do. And so I think the other thing I want to say is when it, most people are not, now, you mentioned John Maxwell earlier. By the way, he's somebody, when I, he actually moves pretty slow in a good way. When you hear him speak, he pauses, he takes his time and so he's not trying to, and this is something I need to get better at, but watching, watching him

is convicting because he's so good at that. But that's something where I think, you know, growing in character is not something that's highlighted today as much as it should be, or what people will do is pick one virtue or character quality, and they will take that to the moon, but they will leave the others untouched. You know, there's a study I had on my book. It's something like the number one reason why CEOs are fired today isn't poor performance. It's a moral failure. The number one reason why executives are fired today.

So, so that's obviously. At the time we're recording this, there's quite a story in the news right now. It just won't come out, but you know what I'm talking about. There's a story in the news right now about, yeah, a guy at a concert. And yeah. Oh, exactly. Yes. And so that's just the prime example. But I think, I think so, so number one thing we should be focused on is growing our character and secondarily growing in that unique skill God has given you. And, and you know, I did this via John Maxwell book years ago. I read a book he wrote called Today Matters. And he said in the book, he wrote these things called character cards. And it had like Bible verses and other just questions on it. I made those for myself. And I said, okay, I'm going to grow as an encourager. I'm going to become more patient, more kind. And really meditating on. those things. So I think that's a, you know, today, like in leadership, you probably notice this.

Over the last 10 years, all of a sudden, Harvard and everyone else said, the number one quality of a leader is, you probably know this, but it's empathy. They'll say that's the number one quality. Listen, that's not the number one quality of a leader. Okay. It's a quality, but it's not the number one. By the way, it's very different than compassion. Empathy is you feel like you take action because you feel something or you feel bad for somebody. Compassion is, whether I feel it or not, I'm going to do the right thing. I'm going to rush to help you right now. And actually having certain qualities that get in bounds, for instance,

you know, one of the things Aristotle talks about is if you want to truly be virtuous, it's not having one virtue, it's having both. It's being loving and truthful at the very, very same time. And because if you're just truthful without love, well, you're going to say something mean. And if you're just loving, sometimes you're enabling somebody. And we do that today, enabling them to just stay where they're at. So that's part of what I get into there is that sort of idea. By the way, I just think you're so brilliant.

I just love conversation with you. I knew this would be good today. And everybody was right. And this was God's timing. All right, last question for you. You talk about worship music and living a long time. So I want to take you to the end of life. So now you're at the end of your life.

And I'm a big worship music guy too. It drives my kids crazy because that's basically all I listen to now. A little country, but mainly worship music. And my favorite guy, like many people right now, has been Brandon Lake for a long time. And my favorite Brandon Lake song, I love gratitude. I love a lot of his music. But he has a song called Pour Me Out. And it's typically the last song I listen to before I go on stage when I speak.

Because I want to be, if I can be, somehow get out of me and let the Holy Spirit take over and just be a vessel. But I do think about at the end of my life, what would being fully porn out, you know, poured myself out be like? And I wonder for you, like at the end, you know, 100 years from now, or whenever it is that your time here ends, what would be the full poured out version of you as a healer as a teacher? What would that look like for you? I'm really curious. Well, you know, I've actually thought about this a little bit because there's a, there's a scripture that many of us know. And it's where Paul is saying like, run to win the race, you know, leave it all in the field, do everything you can.

And for me, number one, it's becoming a certain type of person and it's becoming like more like Christ. It's becoming like my grandfather. It's becoming like those people that left a legacy here on Earth for good. That's the other thing. I mean, you can you can grow in your skill as we talked about, but if you don't do it with virtue, with character, you end up destroying the world, even though you've done great things. you could do great evil in the world so so for me i would say um number one being a great son son to god that i'm walking with god and then i've you i've grown more i've really focused on growing more like him in my character being more my my two biggest things that i need to work on our patience is by far number one by the way it's nothing else is even as close as that and after that it was probably just going out of my way to be extra kind you know and so and i think that's what you

know when i think about jesus when you think about the greats it's not just that you're not mean it's that you go to the point of being ridiculous of being kind and gentle and an encourager and wise you just be you just you just you just really go out there with it so one thing that i want to be able to continue to do even more so is say god how can i just be ridiculous ridiculously kind you know and so i think that those are those are some things in ridiculously patient and those things i need to work on. The other thing is being a great husband and father, you know, I, I'm so blessed to have such an amazing wife. And there's this, this idea, you know, Mother Teresa said, if you want to change the world, go home and love your family. And so talking about the most virtuous person, maybe, you know,

during the past 100 years as an example, like that's one of the things she's known for saying. And so for me, it's being a great husband, being a great father. And in order to do that, spending time, right? Spending time with kids. And also, the last word that kind of comes in mind here is that I'm ultra-intentional because it is so easy to let busyness sort of dictate, you know, what you do and the world dictate what you do. And so it's being ultra-intentional about like, just for instance, some things like family dinners, that we do family dinners, that we pray at every meal. We're going to hold hands.

When my daughter is in bed, I'm putting my five-year-old to bed right now because my wife's putting our one-year-old to bed and putting my hand on her and just saying, you know what, you're a child of God he created you to mighty things he's got a great plan for your life you're a great swimmer you're so kind it just just calling out the greatness in her so i think if i you know get to the end of my life if i grew in those areas when i was a great husband and father i feel like i will have you know run a good race amen man what a great answer what a good interview huh like we should we should we should probably this is great no rather i'm just listening i'm just really listening soaking it all in you guys uh that was josh axe

Dr. Josh Axe, and I like him. I'm inspired by him, and I bet you are as well. Two books you should get, at least for now. Think this, not that. Go grab that one. And then the Biblio Diet, it's the combination of really the different things we talked about today. You can get in both those books in much more detail.

Josh, thanks for doing this today. It was extraordinary. Like I already know this is reverberating through the internet when it comes out. I already know it. So thank you. Well, thanks so much, Ed. Again, I followed for years. It's an honor.

You've been an inspiration to me. So again, thanks so much for having me. All right, everybody. Man, this is so good. Thank you, God. All right, hey, everybody, God bless you. Share this with someone who needs it. That's all I ask. Max out your life. Take care. This is the Edmireland Show.