SHAWN STEVENSON: Welcome to The Model Health Show, this is fitness and nutrition expert Shawn Stevenson, and I'm so grateful for you tuning in with me today. On this episode, we're going to be talking about five ways to create a culture of health and success. Why does this matter? Well, a massive meta-analysis that was just published in 2019 in The Lancet titled Health Effects of Dietary Risk in 195 Countries examined the links between poor diet and the skyrocketing rates of chronic disease in our world today. The scientists determined that poor diet kills 11 million people around the world every year. The researchers stated, "Our findings show that sub-optimal diet is responsible for more deaths than any other risk globally, highlighting the urgent need for improving human diet across nations."

What we're experiencing is a culture of sickness. About 11 million individuals, 11 million souls, are lost, according to this massive meta-analysis, every single year due to our diet, due to the foods that we're eating. It is within this cultural construct that we can even see symptoms like this. It is a culture that is determining our beliefs, that is determining our actions, and thus our result. So, at its core, what we're striving to do right now is to take control of our own personal culture, as well as starting to extend that to our family culture, and then moving to levels beyond that. And we're going to talk about all of those pieces today, how to actually go about doing it, because the beautiful thing about a time like this when things are so crazy and so turbulent, when things are shaky, they're much easier to change. Because the truth is, when things are solid and just going along as business as usual as they have been, it can be much easier to get leverage on, to make a change within them. But with that turbulence, turbulence usually comes when we are starting to lift off and we're starting to get off the ground and take flight.

And so we can look at it from that lens, from that perspective, that we've allowed these things to go on unchecked for so long, so much unnecessary suffering, so much lack of tapping into our real potential with these infinite beings we are, as human beings, and we're still caught up in so many primitive things where we are fighting amongst each other, where we are allowing ourselves to lose our lives from largely preventable things, when we could be striving towards continuing to increase our lifespan, but not just our lifespan, but our health span. Because with our innovations in medicine and technology, we've seen this also a steady increase in our life expectancy, until recently. We are now the first generation in recorded human history that is not going to outlive our predecessors, and that's not okay, especially with what looks like on the surface, we continue to advance as a species. But what's really been happening beneath the surface, if we actually take a good look at it, we haven't necessarily been extending our lifespan in recent decades.

Centuries past, absolutely. In recent decades, we haven't necessarily been living longer. We've been dying longer. We've found a way to keep folks alive, just keep them with a pulse, just keep 'em ticking long enough to look good on paper, but our quality of life has been suffering as our multi-pronged epidemics of chronic diseases have been skyrocketing. In the United States alone, we have almost 250 million of our citizens are overweight or obese right now. We're getting close, we're knocking on the door of half of our population being clinically obese. We're right around 40%, 42% right now. We're knocking on the door. But I promise you that what's at the door, just like the... Whoever is dropping off the package is going to be treated differently, it could be a different experience when we open the door on what we're allowing into our lives. And it really boils down to the culture that we create. And so, I'm really, really excited about this episode because we're going to talk about some real practical, tangible things that we can do to usher in change, to take this upon ourselves as individuals, as families, as communities, to create real, sustainable change in real health.

Now it starts with, first and foremost, understanding why do we need to target culture? What is culture? Well, culture is an individual's set of attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors, as well as those shared by a group of people, communicated from one generation to the next. We are literally born into cultures that we are largely unaware of. We're existing within a container of beliefs, of attitudes, of values, of behaviors, that create our results that we see in our lives. A culture is sort of like a container that you exist within, just like a shoe is a container that your foot exists within. And it is going to determine the movement of the parts of your foot within that shoe. So, if you've got a shoe that creates like some hammer time, you get some bunions going on, create a little trauma within the foot, or you got shoes that create flexibility and movement, full movement of the foot, or some can stifle, we can spread this analogy out multiple ways, but the bottom line is that culture is like a container that we are existing within. And there is a personal culture that you adhere to; there are also larger cultural containers that we live within.

So, for example, you have your own personal culture, things that you have kind of grabbed onto or developed. Our lives tend to be sort of like a patchwork quilt of our experiences, of our values, of our hurts, of our joys. All of this creates our very unique quilt that is you, this patchwork quilt. And our culture, our personal culture, is going to be based on all of these pieces. So, we have a personal culture in how we want to believe, about... The beliefs we care about ourselves, about other people, about the world around us, about how things work, about how physics work, about our food works, the list goes on and on. So, our set of beliefs, our attitudes about things, our values, and of course our behaviors, have an individual dynamic to them.

But then we also have the larger containers, and we start to spread out, so it's like a reverse Russian doll. So, the next level out is going to be our family culture. And so, this is something I think we can also have a much closer tangible understanding, is about the family culture, because truly, that's where we tend to spend most of our time especially as we're growing up, is within that container of a family unit and the culture that's created within our household, is going to determine largely, again, the beliefs that we take on, our dietary preferences and behaviors, our associations with technology, our association with education, with each other, how we communicate. These things are heavily influenced by our family culture.

And then spreading it out from there, another dynamic culture we might experience especially as adults is the work culture. And the work culture is going to be different than the family culture. The work culture is going to decide and govern the way that we operate, the things that we do, that we express, is not going to be the same necessarily. We're going to have things that carry over, that cross over, to multiple cultures because we have our own personal culture. But also, for example, in the family culture, you guys might tickle each other but you're not going to get to work and go and tickle your boss, "Hey, googly-googly-goo," you're not going to do that; you're going to be a little bit more hesitant. So, these are... Maybe, I don't know, maybe you do have a tickle culture at your job, not to say that's not a thing, it's not possible, but in general, we're going to have a different cultural dynamic within the work culture.

Also, there's going to be spiritual cultures, religious constructs, religious cultures as well that guide the beliefs of folks, their actions, their values. And then we take these things on, and they become a part of our personal culture, so no matter where you are, you are still a part of your religion. You can be put smack in the middle of a temple of a different religion or a city that has a different religious tenet, and you can still carry your religious culture with you, your set of values, beliefs, and behaviors. Alright? So again, we carry our personal culture with us, and then we venture in and intermingle with other cultures. So, we have those as a guiding force for many people as well. Then from there, if we even talk about structures as far as like, let's get more tangible in community, we can have a neighborhood culture. So, I grew up where there's certain sets, like one neighborhood dresses and wears certain colors, and another neighborhood wears different colors. One neighborhood has a certain cultural vibe to it.

I live in Los Angeles now, it's very different depending on which neighborhood you're going to as far as the cultures, as far as literally how people dress, and attitudes can be different, different approaches to things. Some can be more laid-back; some places can be a little bit more on the edge. You can see the anxiety or feel it in the air when you pull up. And so again, this is going to be dependent upon what neighborhood you live in, it's going to be a different culture. From there, we can look at even cities, for example, having a certain culture. I like the example of Motor City, Detroit. Shout out to everybody listening in Michigan and in Detroit, known as Motor Cities, very blue-collar in past decades where this is kind of a hub mentality that, "We're here, we're smart, we're hard workers, and we put in work. We're tough, we're resilient, this is Motor City." And so that culture exists within that city that might not translate over into Lansing, for example. And again, shout out to all my family in Michigan. But this is hopefully sparking the understanding of how powerful culture can be in our behaviors, in our beliefs about ourselves, about the world around us, the actions that we take, and the like.

We can also expand this out now to the state culture. Right now, we see this probably more than ever in recent history, where certain states have a culture, "This is the way we do things, this is how we mandate," and another state is just like, "This is how we don't mandate." And so, there's this intermingling here in a certain culture within an entire state here in the United States, for example. And then that can go out to various countries as well. You have a certain culture as a country, as a society, within a country that would differ from other countries. And this is beautiful, this is a beautiful aspect of humanity, is that we have so much diversity, so much variety. And the beauty is when we appreciate other cultures, learn from other cultures, and know that we're able to add to each other, not take away, and to complement rather than compete. And we can compete, we could definitely compete, but it's for humanity, competing for the ultimate goal of all of us getting better. So, there's a translation here with cultures, and I want to give you just a brief understanding, start to tickle your fancy, since we we're talking about tackling earlier, just popped right up, and tickle your fancy in understanding the global implications of how our culture creates our personality, our values, our actions, et cetera.

Now, how does culture control our outcomes? Well, as mentioned earlier, we are literally born into cultures. We unknowingly pick up the beliefs and values and behaviors from the world around us. We don't know any different, we don't know that there's another way, until we start to get exposures to other things, until we're able to gain a sense of sovereignty and we start to be able to question things. And so, the culture that we exist in is often unconsciously controlling the way that we think, the food that we eat, and how we move. For example, our culture may have required movement in order to gather food to eat, and if we did not proactively physically go and move to hunt to gather our food, doing what it took to procure our food physically, then we would literally die. So, our culture, at one point, we evolve, required us to move in order to eat.

Now, contrast that with the culture that we have today, where you literally don't even have to get off the couch. You could hit a couple of buttons on your phone and food can be handed right to you. You can leave a door open or whatever, and they can bring it, hand it right to you, without any effort on your part, except sitting comfortably and pushing a couple of buttons on your phone. It is amazing, it's amazing that that's a thing, but what starts to happen is that it starts to chip away at any requirements for movement. In fact, our society has made it very easy to not move, because another container that we exist within is that chair or is that couch. It is literally a container that holds your body, and it shapes your body, much like in nature, a tree is being shaped by the movement and patterns of the weather, of the wind, it's literally creating the outpicturing the structure, the integrity of the tree itself and how it forms. We are very much like trees that are walking around. "I am Groot."

We're just walking around, but being molded by our environment, whether we realize it or not. At all times, this is happening. So, we can become very well-equipped at chair-sitting. Our bodies can be formed in such a way that we become very sufficient and proficient at sitting, but that would likely not translate to being able to sprint very fast, or to have flexibility, or to have resistance against certain type of injuries from certain types of movements, if we become very conditioned to the container of the chair, for example. Not that the chair is bad, it just is, and it's going to influence the culture, the cultural out-picturing of our body's form and function. Now, as mentioned, we now live in a culture that makes it remarkably easy to not move. Today, we have vehicles for transportation, we have jobs that allow us to sit all day without any manual labor on our part. Someone else gathers all of the materials and ingredients and makes our clothes for us, makes our food, makes the transportation that we use, and makes the shelter that we live in, no requirement of energy on our parts. And again, this is a beautiful thing in some aspects, but the culture that has now resulted is one that makes not moving incredibly easy.

So, these are some good examples as we move into how do we shift and improve and create a culture that is conducive to health and success, how do we create a culture that makes health automatic, how do we create a culture that makes success automatic, because as I mentioned as well, you carry your culture with you no matter where you go. And that's the power that we all have because our personal culture, we can then go into other cultures and the source of inspiration, a source of positive influence wherever we go, if we are firmly rooted in a helpful, health-affirmative, altruistic culture ourselves.

Now, the first of these five ways to create a new culture of health and success, number one is clarity. You cannot effectively arrive at a destination if you do not know what that destination is. We have to gain clarity on what the picture of that healthy culture actually looks like. We have to detail it. We have to begin to articulate it, to create a clear vision on what we want it to be. It's sort of like a GPS coordinate. If you're not putting in that in destination, where are you going? You're just driving around in circles, hoping you eventually land at somewhere that might be sort of okay, sort of. Or you could end up pulling up on Elm Street on accident, you know? And there's a guy with the striped sweater and some really sharp fingernail things. Alright, you got to be careful where you're winding up. How do you avoid ending up on Elm Street and end up in a culture of health and success? You get very clear on what it looks like.

Again, I want to reiterate this point: We, whether we like it or not, whether we are aware of it or not, we are born into a culture that determines our values, our beliefs, and our behaviors. And I know this first-hand about creating a real culture of health and success. I was born into a culture that was conducive to sickness, to abuse, to dysfunction. My mother got pregnant with me when she was 17 years old. So, already statistically, it's not looking good for me right out of the gate. And add to that, I've never met my father. I have my birth certificate right now at my house. You could see my mother's name there, she got pregnant when she was 17, she had me at 18, and the father portion is blank. He didn't want me. So, I'm born into these conditions with dysfunction in my family structure, and this could be writing a story for me already.

Now, what's really interesting about my story is that in this tapestry that creates all of our individual, this patchwork quilt that we all have, is that when I was very young, so, something were around three months old, six months old, nine months old, prior to me being 1, my mother met my stepfather. And so, he was a fatherly influence that I had, and I did not know that he wasn't my biological father until I was somewhere around nine years old. I just thought he was my dad, my biological father, but he really was my father figure, he stepped into that position. But being in this dysfunctional environment, we were also... Everybody in this scenario is young, it's babies having babies and not having structure and routine, and any kind of thrust towards health, it's more so about survival. We're living in an environment where we could... The probability of losing our life is much higher when we step out of our door versus a "good neighborhood."

And so, being able to find a way to survive, and for my mother, that's what she wanted to instill in me, to make me a strong man, to make me somebody who is resilient against all of these very dangerous influences that were in the environment, including within our own household, because my stepfather was very, very... He was such... Man, of all the people that I know, he's probably one of the most beautiful, just joyful human beings I've ever met when he was free of the addiction. Whenever it didn't have its grips onto him, of alcohol. And his two older brothers, one of his brothers passed away... Well, actually, first of all, he experienced many years of paralysis and basically crippled because of neurological damage from crack cocaine. And his other brother, just, again, same thing, crack cocaine just really destroyed his older brother's lives and he is in the same environment, the same family unit, as beautiful a spirit as he might be, kind of the lovable one of the family, his tendency, because he's within that culture, is to fall victim to that as well, is to partake in that as well.

And so right now, my stepfather is in an adult day care living facility because he can't take care of himself, because of the damage that crack has done to his brain. So, this is the culture that I come from. I'm growing up in these environments where this is what I'm seeing. I'm seeing drug abuse, I'm seeing alcohol abuse, I'm seeing physical abuse, I'm seeing the fighting, I'm seeing the violence within my community. What do you think is going to happen to me? What are my odds, as good of a person as I might want to be? Because here's the thing that most people don't know when they hear these stories: I already colored this in here of how beautiful a person can be, of how beautiful the environment can be, there's also so much beauty there because humans are beautiful. We can do some ugly things, but we are truly beautiful. But it's being able to develop that clarity, as I exist within that culture, to still see the beauty that's available. That is one of the things that we can exercise and work.

But how that really becomes more of an option is when we have perspective, is when we have contrast, because within my story, so that seems like a very dark environment to be in, there was also this environment that seems incredibly light and safe and routine and structure and love, and this was with my grandmother. My grandmother lived in a nice neighborhood. I lived with my grandma for my kindergarten, first grade, and second grade years, and it was the most magical time of my life. To this day, I feel the feelings, ah, I feel her touch. That love is just so palpable. I can feel it, and she made a big deal out of everything. It was magical experiences, these... Christmas was just this big event, my birthday was this big event, she made a really big deal out of me, so, I gained the feeling of value, of importance, of significance. And this is a deep human need, we all need to feel significant. So, I felt seen, whereas in the other environment, again, where there's a lot of problems, a lot of things going on, you might not get the attention necessary to really cultivate a positive sense of self-awareness and confidence and just to feel like you matter. So, she helped me to feel like I matter.

Now, it's within this environment also that I picked up my very detrimental eating habits where it's the age of processed foods here in the mid-'80s, the mid to late '80s, and my grandmother just wants the kid to eat, and we just believe that food was food. If you can eat it, it's food. And so, fast-food is just dominating, we had this great McDonald's down the street, and I call it great because they had a great little playground there, and I even had my birthday party at McDonald's, I'll never forget it, it was amazing. But then when you think about how creepy that is, just the whole concept of McDonald's, the clown is the mascot? Just be honest. Honestly, everybody listening, how many people truly are going to feel like... You know what? Clowns are amazing, no disrespect to clowns. If you're in the clown industry, you know I'm... Respectfully. It's just creepy. Alright, so we're probably... I'm just going to build it up there, probably say maybe 1% of folks think clowns are awesome, alright? But clowns keep surviving, so shout out to the clowns, for just even though people are not feeling 'em, they keep it, they keep moving, they keep going forward.

But anyway, so we got a clown mascot, we've got a convicted criminal who's another mascot, we got Hamburglar, he's done time, he's got the outfit on, he's got a mask on it, alright? We've got Grimace, the purple, morbidly obese, purple character, and his name is Grimace. It literally signifies pain, alright? We've got the guy with the big... I think it was like Sheriff Big Mac or Officer Mac or something like that, he's got this massive hamburger head. Just come on. How is this even remotely attractive for a kid? It's so weird. But anyway, so, I'm living in this culture where I've got these positive influences, safety, certainty, but then I'm picking up these things that would prove to be the most detrimental thing in my life, because it's what destroyed my health and almost destroyed my life.

If you know my story, then you know that at the age of 20, I was diagnosed with a severely arthritic condition of my spine, and that doesn't happen in that moment, it's not when I'm 20 that the arthritis is like, "Well, you got arthritis, must happened yesterday." That's years in the making. That's potentially a decade plus at least in the making. It's literally because I was making my body out of fake materials. I wasn't giving my body the raw materials that it needed to even regenerate my tissues as a kid. So, I was inside this accelerated aging process, and so that was my ultimate downfall. So, this beautiful environment proved to be my ultimate downfall, because I survived in the violent environment, in the drug-immersed environment, I was able to find my way through that, but here's the key: It's because of the perspective. I had contrast. Many people do not have that contrast, they don't know that that's what they're experiencing, that there's another way. That this doesn't have to be your story, that you don't have to fall lock step with those who've come before you if it is damaging you, if it's detrimental to your health, to your success.

I was also the first of my family to go to college, to graduate with an advanced degree. All of these things, I didn't have in my environment, it took a minor miracle for these things to be achieved, and I faced so much adversity along the way, because I didn't have a template, I didn't know the directions. But fortunately, and this is the key, going back to one of our principles of clarity, I knew what the end result was, I knew I was going to get this bachelor's degree, I knew it. No matter what, it's already done, that's a part of my story. And so, no matter where the map was taking me, the Waze taking me around. It's an accident over here, it's a pile-up over there, it's some construction over here, I found a way to the goal. So, clarity is the key here, and I'm sharing my life with you, I'm sharing my story with you because a very powerful tool for clarity is being very clear on what you don't want. That can be one of the greatest affirmative things for us, to really get clear on what we do want.

So, I knew, in that environment, and I'm seeing my family members intoxicated and fighting, I knew that I did not want to be that. I knew that I didn't want to hurt the woman that I love. I knew that I wanted to be there for my children despite me never even meeting my biological father. He didn't want me. I knew that I wanted my children, and I wanted to be a good example for them. So, I had a contrast of exactly what I didn't want so it made me even more adamant and clear on what I did want.

Now, putting the sole focus on what you do not want can eventually be crippling because that's where the focus is going. Still, with the GPS, it's still like, "You know what? I'm very familiar with this place so this is where I'm going to go," instead of being like, "I see this place on the map, I don't want to go there." Those signals can get crossed up, so we can start to become what we reject, we can start to become what we detest. And even though we don't want to be like our mother, we might end up being just like our mother, or even though we don't want to be like this other person who we've been exposed to, we end up picking up those character traits.

And I could tell you this first-hand, I did not want to fight. I didn't want to fight, but I was put in that environment, I was put in those conditions, I was 4 years old, I was a baby, and being that my mom wants me to be a tough human being who could withstand the violence in the environment, I kept getting into this little spat with the kid next door. My friend Alfonzo, we were friends, but he was a bit older, he's like 6 years old, and because we kept getting in these scuffles, our parents decided to make us fight each other, to have these two little kids like a dog fight, fight each other. We were sitting... They were sitting on the sides of this four-family flat, on the stoop outside, and these two kids, and they just pushed us... Pushed me to get going. I remember very deeply, I still remember this feeling, I felt like, "Why are you making me do this? I don't want to do this. Why are you making me do this? This doesn't feel good."

I felt like I was so alone in that moment. And within a few seconds of that, beginning within a few seconds of us commencing this fight, this battle of two small children, Alfonzo pushed me into the corner of a brick wall that lined the stoop outside, and I still have this big scar on the back of my head to this day, and just cracked my head right open and I was rushed in to get stitches, and there's blood everywhere, and I'm on the gurney, and they're holding me down, and I'm so upset. But I wasn't even as upset that there was blood everywhere, I kind of... In a state of shock, you don't really necessarily even feel it. I was upset that I felt like I might have let my mother down by not winning the fight. And so, from that moment, I decided I would never lose another fight in my life. And because of the environment, I became that person.

And so, when a minor threat would take place, I immediately pulled out the card to violence and I'm fighting. Any type of threat, I'm throwing hands. And so, that led me to a place where I kept getting kicked out of school, I kept getting into issues in the neighborhood, but... And I developed this personality that would use violence as a solution rather than rationality, logic, because eventually, of course, somebody's going to get hurt, or somebody's going to end up in a compromising situation where they end up behind bars or the like. And so, even though I didn't want to be that person, I became that person. But it's all about awareness of the culture. And when I became aware that even I was still existing in a familiar culture, when I made this decision to see peace, to see the opportunity for kindness, to see logic and patience and all these other things, I decided, because as I was working on myself to get healthier, physically healthier, through changing my nutrition and through changing my exposures, my exercise practices, improving my sleep, all these things, it became easier to practice patience, to be able to perspective-take, to zoom out to see the bigger picture, and that this isolated event is not that serious, which it often is not.

And so, I'm saying this from a place of deep experience. I've had the great opportunity, of course, to work with thousands of people in my clinical practice, and then of course, impact the lives of millions of folks at this point, so, I'm saying this from a deep place of love, of empowerment, and of deep experiential knowing, that regardless of the culture that we exist in, we can cultivate our own personal culture and maneuver within any and every environment and still find success, still find health. But it, first and foremost, starts with clarity. Being very clear, you can use contrast. Being very clear on what you don't want and using that as a contrast, but you have to start to focus on what you do want. What does the opposite look like?

So instead of seeing a place that was conducive to poor health, to obesity, we'll say 80% of my family members being obese, instead of seeing that and saying, "I don't want that," I choose health, I choose movement and health and happiness, I choose good mental health, I choose good emotional health. So don't just focus on the negative. Get clarity on, what does the opposite thing looks like? But please, use that as leverage. Depending on where you are right now, you might use that and it's like, "I'm very clear on what I don't want," but if that's all you focus on, chances are you're still going to have that hovering around in your life. You got to eventually cut the cord on that and focus on what you do want with intense focus and again, clarity is key, clarity truly is power.

And this is not just on a superficial thing, we're talking about neuroscience, and we're also talking about quantum physics, which is really the umbrella in which all other sciences fit under. But with neuroscience, we know that the human brain, we have the reticular activating system, the reticular cortex, there are different parts of our brain that are really like a heat-seeking missile or like a servo mechanism, like that internal GPS, and what you focus on, your brain is constantly, whether you are aware of it or not, scanning your environment to find the thing that you hold top of mind, alright? This happens all the time. Again, you might get a new car and then you start to see that car everywhere, or maybe there's a car that you like, and you just start seeing it everywhere when before you probably didn't... You didn't know anything about it or whatever, you weren't paying attention. Or maybe there's a certain dog that you like, and next thing you know, you start to see this particular type of dog everywhere. It just starts happening.

Another true story, the other day, I was at the gym, and this was... I'm in that LA, it's crazy here, man. It's crazy with the gyms and with the regulations, the mandates, just everywhere you go, but I have this spot where it's just... Life is normal, life is normal, but very few people are there at once. It's kind of this a private facility, and I'm just coming there trying to lift some heavy stuff, that's all I really... So, I'm not thinking about any other... What might come from this particular place that I'm going to. So anyways, I'm there, I just... I'm banging and planking, alright, just hit this hammer press and I'm listening to this song and really... I'm feeling this song right now, it's called Kill 'Em with Success, it's on a Creed II soundtrack, alright, and it's just like...

Again, it's a mentality of I don't want people to be harmed, I don't want people who don't believe what I believe. I don't wish any ill will upon them. The best thing that you can do for people who don't believe in you or who might talk bad behind your back, whatever the case might be, the best thing you could do is be successful. Kill 'em with success, kill 'em with kindness. There's enough going back and forth and trying to bring other people down. Just be successful, and hopefully you can be a light, and hopefully you can be a force for good and an inspiration for others that, again, despite their negativity or feeling towards you, whatever it might be, just kill 'em with success, kill 'em with love, kill 'em with kindness.

This does not mean that you don't have standards in what you're dealing with out there. But anyway, so I'm listening to this song, Kill 'Em With Success, it's ScHoolboy Q, and then this verse from 2 Chainz was about to come on. I have a very diverse catalog of music I listen to, as you know. Brett Eldredge, shout out to country superstar, Brett Eldredge who's a friend and listener of the Model Health Show, hopefully he's listening right now. But I have this very diverse spectrum of musical list to, but at this moment, I'm listening, 2 Chainz' verse is about to start and then 2 Chainz walked in the door, at that exact moment, alright? I'm not exaggerating in the slightest. There's that little interim part where the chorus is going before the next person's verse comes on, it was as if a show was starting. So, his verse is about to start. He walked in the gym. I almost went over to him and gave him my headphone, like, "No, you don't understand this. You're right... This is you." I just... I'm cool, it's a private place, so I'm just like, "Wow, that's wild."

It's not just the fact of... And that's cool, like a certain person coming into the room, whatever, but what it was for me, it was like... It was a wink from the universe, it was like this powerful reminder of how connected we all are, because the timing of it was so remarkable. We're talking about one in probably 100 billion chance that something like that exact thing happens in that exact moment. But it was what I was attuned to, and that's how powerful we are, it's happening all the time. So, please keep that in mind, that what you appreciate appreciates. So, start to really focus on the things that you love, that you enjoy, that you want more of. Get clarity on those things, focus on those things, and your brain will literally scan your environment and physically put your body in position in the environment of these things. It's a law.

Now, sometimes we use that, we're using that power unconsciously, and here's another important tenet. This is a fact. You, right now, as you're hearing my voice, and every part of this is miraculous, the fact that this... Without substance, these waves are leaving my body and going into all these different devices and traveling through the air, through the ethers, and being able to reach you and the electrical signals being communicated in your brain, this is just miraculous in and of itself. So, I'm just using that as a preface to tell you that you are literally connected to the outermost portions of the universe. You are connected to everything in the universe. There are billions of galaxies, and you are literally connected to all of them. This isn't some kind of hearsay; it is a law of reality, the truest thing about you is that you are connected to all of it, you cannot be separate from it.

It is expensive. You are expensive. It's sort of like, again, being within a container, you are integrated with and touching everything. It's like a drop in the ocean, you are a drop in the ocean, and you are literally a part of the entire ocean. You are connected with all of it. Even at the most minute, minute, atomic level, you are connected to it, this universal ocean. You are something special, and you are powerful. And we're talking about science, not mysticism, but that can play a part as well. We don't know. If you look at the Marvel Universe, Thor is like, "What you guys call science here, we call magic." So, it's just a different language. But truly, I want you to remember how powerful you are, that you are connected to all of it, and what you focus on expands. So, use your clarity wisely, use your clarity intentionally.

Now, I'm spending a lot of time on this one because this sets the tone for everything. The more clear that you can get, the faster that it happens. So again, these are five ways to create a new culture of health and success. Number one is to gain clarity. Gain clarity on what you want your life to look like from your health to your finances, to your relationships, and also what do you want your community to look like, what is the picture that you have with the world. Alright? Have the audacity to paint that picture as well. Alright, clarity is power, but it starts with you. Focus on you first, clarity that you want for your own life, your own health, your own success, and then let's expand that out from there.

So, this moves on to number two here on these five ways to create a new culture of health and success for ourselves as individual and also for our world that needs it mightily right now. Number two, now, let's get real specific here, is to set specific goals. The number one way to not achieve your goals is to not have any. I'll say that again: The number one way to not achieve your goals is to not have any goals. You're guaranteed 100% rate of success of not achieving. With clarity comes power, but now, we've got to be granular, now, we've got to get down, let's get specific so that we can give our brains in this immense power of, again, we're talking about quantum physics, we're talking about string theory, we're talking about things being interconnected, we're talking about The Phantom DNA experiment and human DNA affecting the very stuff, the biophotons that life is made up.

Now, of course, if you're like, "What is... " These are all things we've talked about multiple times here on The Model Health Show, I want to make sure that we have time to go through these five important ways to create a new culture of health and success, so, let's dig in here with setting specific goals. First things first, if you have big goals and you're not writing them down, and instead have them rattling around like loose change in your head, or like a loose change in a piggy bank, you are making a very costly mistake.

A study conducted by psychologists Gail Matthews looked at the rate of goal achievement of people who write down their goals versus those who don't. The study incorporated a diverse grouping of people in terms of age, ethnicity, and occupation. Participants were randomly assigned to either write their goals down, or to just think about what they wanted to achieve but not write it down. After the four-week study period, it was found that the mere act of writing goals down boosted goal achievement by 33%. This is remarkable. 33% higher rate of achievement of our goals, just by writing them down. Why?

First of all, the question should be, why on earth would that happen? It doesn't even sound real. But it is. Why, is, number one, points back to number one on our list, which is clarity. It creates clarity, and also within that, it's a courageous act in of itself to say, "This is what I want," because part of that clarity is declaring, clarity, declaring, "This is what I want." And oftentimes, if we have messages, if we've been in a culture that tells us that we're not the type of person that can have such things, that we can have fill in the blank, that we can have this type of health, that we can have this type of success, if we are existing in culture that has pushed against us, what happens is when we say that this is the thing that we want, it's more fleeting, or we'll push it out of our minds and say, "Oh, it's not 'realistic.'" We'll excuse our way out of claiming what we really want. So, you got to be able to catch that voice in our head that says that you can't, you can't have. If somebody's achieved it, then it is possible for you.

Now, there are different degrees of what that can look like. So, for example, I'm thinking about Tim Grover, world-renowned performance expert, best-selling author, he was a personal trainer for Michael Jordan, or Kobe Bryant, or Dwyane Wade, and many other absolute superstars. He had aspirations to ball in out till he followed out in the league himself. But what happened? He had injuries, he had this and that, the talent, whatever it might be, but what happened was, he kept pursuing his focus on sports performance, his love of basketball, and just kept moving forward, and before you know it, it landed him in the NBA in a different way, in a different hue, a different variation. It's 50 Shades of Grey. A different shade of what that NBA life could look like. Alright, so when I say if somebody's done it, it's possible for you, this doesn't mean that you're going to be necessarily out there dunking on the LeBron. But there are variations, there are different colors of what that can look like, putting us right in the atmosphere of that which we focus on. So, do not discount yourself, don't start off right out of the gate, discount the things, or putting your hopes and dreams on lay away.

Like my mom used to do our clothes. We to go K-Mart, we're like, "I'm about to get these Wranglers, boy, about to get these Wrangler jeans," we'd be looking fly. "No. We're actually going to... We're going to put it on lay away, baby. I'm going to come back and get it in two weeks." The probability of that happening was very low, so probably got our lay away out maybe 20% of the time. One time, we got the lay away out so much later, I had a growth spurt, so, it didn't work out. I'll just leave it at that. Alright, so, why is writing the goal down so powerful? Number one, it requires clarity; number two, it is a courageous act in and of itself to proclaim that this is what I want, this is who I want to be, this is what I want my life to look like, and I have agency over my life. And number three, this is really remarkable in and of itself, it's very subtle, but it's real, when you take the subtle act of writing the goal down versus having it rattling around in your head, when you write it down, you're actually taking an action.

It's not just an idea in your head; you're taking an action in the physical world. So, it's taking a step towards it, no matter how small it might seem. So, these are all part of this equation. How do we get from a culture that we're existing right now, a culture of sickness, a culture of poverty? We've got millions more people who are now unemployed because of the way that our society is handled what's happened recently, with the virus that's on everybody's mind. And so, we're looking at symptoms of a much bigger issue, a lack of empowerment, a lack of sovereignty, lack of health, to begin with, which, poor health is the number one susceptibility in this context, yet it's not getting addressed. We can be the ones to address it and change it. So, set specific goals. Get clear. You can have an overarching goal, and then you take that overarching goal, maybe that goal is to lose five inches off your waist in the next two months, or maybe it's to lose 40 pounds in the next six months, whatever the case might be, we take that and then we break it down into micro-goals. We take this macro-goal, and we break it down into micro-goals.

So, that 40-pound weight loss in the next six months, what does that look like? With ease and grace, how do we achieve this with ease and grace? Not out here, blood, sweat and tears, like destroying ourselves trying achieve health, and so much deprivation and restriction and pain. None of that is sustainable. Those things did not resonate. This doesn't mean that we're not going to have effort, this doesn't mean we're not going to have struggles and obstacles to overcome, but if we're just beating ourselves to a pulp, not sustainable. The two don't even match up energetically. Suffering is not going to lead to health. Long-term suffering, let me be clear. So, we need to be more in alignment with joy, with pleasure, with fun. These energies tend to spark sustainable change, sustainable results.

So, what are some of those micro-goals? Walk 30 minutes a day, that's one of my micro-goals. Drink half my body weight in ounces of water each day. So, right now, maybe I'm 180 pounds, and 140 is the goal, but 180 pounds, we divide that number in half, that's 90 ounces of water, that's my target for the day. Just a little barometer, it's not a perfect number, there's no perfect number of ounces of water for people to drink a day, it's all cookie-cutter stuff, but this is a pretty good ballpark for us to be in. So again, we got these micro-goals, optimizing our sleep, another micro-goal, making sure that I'm getting my micronutrient needs met so that I'm not having all of these cravings that make me struggle. And actually, what we're talking about here, this goal-setting process, is one of the most important parts of my book, Eat Smarter. It's a national best-seller, it was a number one new release of all books in the United States when it came out, very proud and honored to say.

And well, we ran into a little issue. It's COVID times, printing delays, shipping delays, all these different things, so we ran out of copies, which is not... This sounds good on paper like, "Oh, you ran out of copies. Oh, it's sold out!" This is not like a concert venue where there's a maximum capacity; this is something where books should be available. So, it took off like a rocket and a big part of the reason why... Again, you could see, at the time, the list of best-sellers in the country, it was like the Obamas had books, and Matthew McConaughey, then there's this one book in the top 20, one book on health, one book on food, and it just puts so much more emphasis for me on this mission, because I know that regardless of what's going on in the world, people care about this, people care about health, people care about real, sustainable change. And part of that... We could talk about all the fancy-pants incredible things about nutrition, but it doesn't matter if we're not able to put these things into work, into process, into culture, into habit, for ourselves.

And so, we actually go in and talk about the neurology, the neuroscience, around behavior change, around goal setting. I share very specific stories of folks as well who've taken on the protocols that I share in Eat Smarter, and it's just amazing. So, if you don't yet have a copy, this is a good time to get yourself a copy. Or if maybe you got the physical book, pick up the audio book, and if you're watching the video version, we'll put it up on a screen for you. Just a couple of weeks ago, it was in the top 10 of all audio books here in the United States. It's nuts, man. Coming from where I come from, you know my story, we just talked a little bit about that. Coming from where I come from, to have that kind of impact, to have one of the top 10 books in the United States, coming from an environment where I'm inundated with drug abuse and violence and suffering and just like... I couldn't even articulate a way out of that, but I was very clear. Again, I knew that that was not going to be my life. I was picking up in my environment that I'm going to be a good man, I'm going to be a good father, I'm going to move from this poverty, and I'm going to have a life of abundance to where...

I remember, even when I started this journey, and I be at Whole Foods, I'm trying to get my health together, and I'm living in Ferguson, Missouri, and I'm a full-time student, and I'm at the register with my debit card like, "Ugh, I'm know I'm going to have to put some stuff back here. Let's what we could do." I'm just at the... I'm playing this game of roulette at the register to where today; I regularly pay for other people's groceries. When I'm out at restaurants, I regularly pay for other people's meals that I don't know, they don't know me, they're not going to know me. These are just things that we do that I've put into my culture. The last time I did that, I was actually... I was sitting with my family, and I accidentally got somebody else's bill, and then I actually paid it and the person came back... Which I didn't know, I just thought it was our bill, and then the waiter came back and was like, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. We'll reverse that," and "That wasn't your bill," and then I was just cool 'cause I was just kind of in conversation and talking with a friend, but my son, my oldest son, Jordan, was with me, and when the waiter was walking away, Jordan was like, "No, no, just pay it."

And I was like, "Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah. Bring that back." So, I ended up... I was just like, "I'll pay our bill," and we paid their bill as well. It was like a big family, was over there at the table a little way from us, and they happened to find out and they could not believe it. They came over, of course, it's just like... And I don't... This is not for that, but just trying to find a way that they can give back to me, they don't even know me, what can they... I don't know. But it's just this... It's this feeling of, I'm seen, I'm significant, and it creates... Giving sparks more giving. It creates this amazing... This is the concept of paying it forward, it's like... And there's so much science on this as well, of you sharing a smile with somebody, acknowledging somebody. Maybe it's that cashier I was at the register and I'm nervous with. Maybe I'm acknowledging her or him, and just asking how their day is going, and trying to offer a smile and maybe a word of encouragement or joy, or whatever the case might be.

The tendency is for the next person in line, even if they're having a bad day, there's no smile, no eye contact, whatever it is, the next thing you know, they're being more friendly to the next person, and then that just continues to carry on. We have that power to spark change, to be the first domino of goodness. So, remember: Number one, clarity; number two, set specific goals. Have the audacity to proclaim what you want. We can go from there; we can get into the micro-goals. And again, all of this is outlined as well in Eat Smarter. You don't have a copy, go to eatsmarterbook.com. Of course, you could pick it up anywhere books are sold, of course, the audible version as well. Barnes and Noble, Target, Amazon, all the usual places.

Alright, so now, we're going to move on here in these five ways to create a culture of health and success. Number three here, this is powerful, number three is to create consistency. Most of our results in life do not come from the things that we decide to do once. Most of our results in life come from the things that we do consistently. Aristotle said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit." So, these great minds, great thinkers that we still talk about today, say that we are what we repeatedly do, and this is a true tenet of reality. This isn't just philosophy. The things that we repeatedly do are us, it is our life, it is our expression of light, it is the very way that we are wired. So, we're talking about the wiring of our brains, for example. Our brains don't just come in some cookie-cutter form; they are formed by our beliefs, by our thoughts. Thinking itself literally creates your brain.

Make sure you check out the episode that we did with neuroscientist Dr. Caroline Leaf, it is one of the most poignant masterclasses on how our thoughts actually create our brain. So, our mind creates our brain, our mind is more expansive than just the physical brain itself. Our brain is remarkable. But it's something that we can consciously change ourselves, and so those thoughts are changing the chemistry within our brain and within our bodies, every thought that we think has correlating chemistry, but it's changing the connections that are taking place within our brain, which, said in neuroscience, is that... What's said in neuroscience is that neurons that fire together wire together. Neurons that fire together wire together. So, these things that we're doing, these thoughts that we're intentionally thinking, we're creating these connections, and the more that we're doing these things, creating these habits, not only is the connection there, but it's laying down more myelin over the connections, over this nerve pathway, it's sort of like insulation.

It's sort of like, okay, so we're taking an action, we're creating a new habit. So, my new habit, getting up and we're going for 20-minute walk every day. First day, "Oh good, we're walkie-walkie." Second day, "Yes. Man, look at me go." Third day. "Ah, this is a breeze. Why didn't I do this sooner?" Goes on for a few days and suddenly, I don't know, maybe I just don't really feel like going, I'll jump right back on it tomorrow. Next day, well, you know what? I definitely... I just got to get this thing done first, so I'll do it later. That day just goes by, the next thing, all of a sudden, becomes... Then you jump back in it, but then it's like a struggle period before it becomes automatic. Alright? So those first couple of times, the wires are getting created. If you think about an extension cord, for example, the wires that are within it. So, we've got some copper wires, for example. So, it's connected, you got this new thing, but the insulation over the cord, so like that orange extension cord, that orange insulation that goes over the cord or whatever color that might be, the more we do the habit, the more insulation takes place, and it makes it so that the wires can't get cut as easily. That's what happens when habits are broken in the sense, that wiring and starts to dissolve, start to fade to the background, even just be cut altogether.

So, that's what repetition is. Repetition is mastery, but it's never been "Practice makes perfect." It's perfect practice makes perfect. It's the things that we're doing repeatedly, whether it's the right thing or the not-so-right thing, it's going to lay down more myelin and create a deep-seated insulation and an automatic firing of a certain behavior. And so when we're taking an action and we've gotten clarity, we've got our specific goals, we've got our micro-goals, now, as we walk into that consistency and creating a new culture of health for ourselves and also our families as we expand out, what happens is we start off, like myself, I'm coming into the world, and I'm seeing the contrast, the things that I don't want, but I'm unconscious of anything else being possible. I have an unconscious incompetence. I don't know that there's such thing as real whole foods, just what I'm eating, what I'm seeing in my environment, the fast-food process, food is just food. So, I have an unconscious incompetence because I'm not aware that I'm not aware. I don't even know. It's not even a part of my reality.

So, from there, once we start that habit change, now, we have a conscious incompetence, I become aware that I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I become aware that I've been eating all of this... It's not even food; it's just chemicals and food dyes and food scientists using gas chromatographs and isolating flavors and all this stuff. And it's food-like substances. And now, I am aware that this is happening, but I'm not necessarily aware of what to do about it, I don't know necessarily what to do, but I'm aware now that I was not aware. I'm aware of the incompetence that I had. From there, as we create the habit change, so we go from an unconscious incompetence to a conscious incompetence.

The next step is the conscious competence. This is where I am aware, and I'm doing the thing, so I'm aware, I'm getting out on going walking, I know the benefits of walking, and I know this is what my body is craving for and what I've needed for optimal health, for mental health, all these great reasons why, but I have to consciously think about it, I've got to make myself do it, I've got to consciously put effort into doing it. But eventually, that evolves into an unconscious competence, where you don't even got to think about it, it's just automatic, it's who you are, whether it's a behavioral thing, like walking or a certain way of thinking, a certain perspective about life, certain empowerment that you might carry, it just becomes automatic, versus the alternative. So, we go through those stages. Once we are committed and we're creating the consistency, again, Aristotle said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit." So, putting that on automatic for ourselves eventually is just taking steps within that consistency.

And I mentioned Eat Smarter earlier and having a book that does something like that, again, coming from where I come from, it's not a matter... In no form or fashion could something like that be an accident. It's going to require a deep level of commitment, of focus, of creativity, of research, of communication. So many facets come together to make something like that. But I had a daily routine of writing, for several months. I was kind of obsessed. My body and my brain just got locked in and lined up to do that work. Every single day, I'd get up, I would drink my morning water, I would meditate, I would go for a quick, brisk walk, maybe a 10-minute walk, and then I would get my Four Sigmatic coffee with some MCT oil and maybe another high-quality fat and then I'd get to writing and researching. That was my morning routine. I did this every single day.

And by the way, there was a study, this was published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, and it uncovered that drinking one large coffee in a day, which is about 200 milligrams of caffeine, or four smaller cups of coffee in a day, which were each about 65 milligrams of caffeine each, had some remarkable benefits on mental performance. I wasn't doing it just because. The researchers found that both methods of coffee intake led to equal significant improvements in alertness and improved reaction times as well as enhanced performance on cognitive vigilance tasks, activities involving multi-tasking, and tasks involving deep concentration. The only coffee that I drink is organic. You do not want pesticides and rodenticides coming along with your hot, fresh cup of coffee. That is not good for your brain. It's organic, but it's also infused with proven, clinically proven, medicinal mushrooms like... The one that I typically have is Lion's Mane medicinal mushroom blend with organic coffee from Four Sigmatic. Lion's Mane, researchers at the University of Malaya found that Lion's Mane can actually spark neurogenesis in the brain, spark the creation of new brain cells. It's also protective against neurodegenerative diseases as well.

So that was my morning ritual. And by the way, if you're not drinking Four Sigmatic, they have these incredible coffee blends, but also the elixirs as well if you're not a fan of coffee, and also hot cocoa. So mushroom hot cocoas with chaga, we got Reishi, cordyceps, so many incredible things. They're dual extracted. This isn't something to run out to company X and get. Get it done the right way, really get these benefits. The dual extraction enables you to get the triterpenes, so more of the hormonal compounds, and also the beta glucan, so more of the antioxidant compounds. You really just get these remarkable benefits. So, go to foursigmatic.com/model. That's F-O-U-R, S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C.com/model. You're going to get 10% off incredible mushroom coffee. Huge fan. The ground coffee, out of this world. And they also have the instant packs as well that I travel with. So, pop over there, check them out.

Again, this is literally my daily routine. This is what I was doing, and this is what I would... Basically intermittent fast protocol. I would have that. And what these are, we also have these fasting mimicking nutrients that I actually talk about in the book, and also, these are affirmed by some of the most prestigious research institutes now with things like MCTs actually encouraging the production of ketones, whether you're fasting or not, but also just fortifying, being protective of muscle tissue when you're doing an intermittent fast, for example. So, researchers at Yale University published data reporting that MCTs can rapidly cross the blood-brain barrier and be utilized by brain cells. And also, a remarkable study published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences found that MCTs could have a major impact on improving the condition of patients with Alzheimer's disease. This is largely considered type 3 diabetes. We have this glucose impairment happening with brain cells, and the scientists found that the consumption of MCTs directly led to improved cognitive function in mild to moderate forms of Alzheimer's disease and cognitive impairment.

This is not being talked about enough. It's just largely considered a condition that is nothing you can do anything about. MCTs, medium-chain triglycerides, not only are they able themselves to cross the blood-brain barrier and to give energy to our brain cells, but also the production of ketones, which also have that ability to cross the blood-brain barrier and to provide fuel for our brain cells. The only MCT oil that I use is from Onnit. They've got the emulsified MCT oil and their original MCT oil as well. So, I would have that along with my coffee. Go to onnit.com/model. That's O-N-N-I-T.com/model. Their MCT oil is amazing. So, blend that together. I have a little hand frother, which is a game-changer. You can add in another high-quality fat, so maybe it's ghee, maybe it's grass-fed butter, whatever the case might be. Maybe a little bit of... A couple drops of some chocolate stevia in the mix, maybe some cinnamon. It tastes real nice. Alright, so this is what I would have. This fueled the writing of Eat Smarter. It's a national bestseller, and I'm very grateful to say, and actually, as of this recording, there is a translation coming in Italian, so, everybody in Italy, make sure to get your copy of Eat Smarter coming your way very soon.

So that was my daily habit, my daily ritual, my daily routines, and it's going to lead to certain outcomes, certain results, in my life. For me, it resulted in the creation of a book that can be shared for many generations to come. And I even wrote it from the perspective of something that is timeless, like Sleep Smarter, like my first book, being something that can be accessible and valuable whether it's now or whether it's 20 years from now. And hopefully, we make some more positive changes as a society, as a culture, within the next 20 years. But for you, what are some of the daily habits that you are going to create? So, we got clarity, specific goals. What are some of those daily habits, the rituals, the routines that you are going to create?

Now, another word of advice: It's generally more successful when you have maybe one to two changes that are implemented at a time rather than a complete overhaul of your life. Now, there are different personality types that approach things differently that can just cold turkey, cut the cord, do change, and many people, depending on different circumstances, can do that. But generally, for most people, for sustainable result in success, choosing one to two, maybe three tops, I shouldn't even say that right now, 'cause some people are like, "Oh, I'll get three." One to two changes that could be implemented consistently, and again, you're changing your brain, developing that into an unconscious competence, and then that makes it easier to add in the next thing when there's a lot of discombobulation and stuff going on with your brain trying to change, because we think that it's a matter of will, but it's... We're talking about biology here and stacking conditions in our favor so that our brain physiology automatically does a thing that we want.

Alright, so, now we're going to move on to number four on these five ways to create a new culture of health and success. Number four is to set up a positive perimeter. A culture is literally a container of beliefs, actions, and associated results. Part of maintaining that culture is creating a force field that blocks out things that would corrupt the beliefs, actions, and results you'd want to uphold. If you want to firmly establish empowering beliefs within your family, then you need to intentionally put up a boundary against things that would make you feel disempowered. So, we're setting up a positive perimeter around our culture to make sure that these attributes, these results, these values, are cultivated and deeply ingrained so that when we go out into other cultures, we carry those values with us. We've got to set up a positive perimeter to not allow things that would degrade and break down that empowerment that we're seeking, to break down the intelligence that we're seeking, to break down the health that we're seeking, we set up a positive perimeter around those things.

Today, one of the most pervasive things that's degrading people's sense of empowerment, people's sense of agency, people's sense of peace, is the news. Now, even as I say this term, the news, it sounds too good, it's too good of a word for them, "new," "news," it's not really new; it's old. It's the old. It's the same old, plus the new weather and some new sports, things that have happened. There's more stuff to be afraid of, it's more separatism, it's more highlighting all of the problems in the world in a massive lack on all the good that's happening in the world. It's a massive lack of focus on things that can truly be helpful and value to people's lives to make them feel healthy and empowered and the like. The news is not intended to inform; the news is intended to manipulate and disturb.

One of the most recent studies done looking at the trust of the news today, we've seen a decline in recent years, but now, it's at an all-time low. Now, we're talking around 20% to 30% of folks actually having any degree of trust in the news, most folks to say they don't trust it, but the crazy part, the irony, is people that are watching it more than ever. They don't trust it, but they can't stop looking at it. You know why? Because it's entertainment. It's not news, it's not actually sharing valuable information; it's entertainment. It's a twisted version of Sports Center where they just are highlighting a lot of crime and death, you can call it Murder Center, or Death Center. Plus, the weather, plus you got a little dabble of some sports in there as well, a couple of smiles, maybe a little, tiny segment of the good news to keep you coming back, alleviate the pain and suffering that we're sharing, but it's not really news.

We've got these personalities, even the terms that have made Sports Center so popular, when you're looking at the next election cycle, for example, just look at how they use certain terms that are identical to Sports Center, like "The knock-out punch is coming from Kentucky," or "The candidate had to retreat back to their corner," they're using these terms, turning it more and more into sports and entertainment, and these personalities that they're putting front center, they've bypassed logic to be sources like some kind of an oracle of sorts. When in reality, these characters... I mean, every human being has flaws, there's no such thing as a perfect person. I mean, some of these guys are really messed up, alright? Not that great of human beings on as far as their activities and the things that they've done and put forth into the world and what they're doing behind the scenes.

And so, there's a massive lack of congruency as well. And so, having that bypassing our logic, getting to the more primal parts of our brain, bypassing our executive function of the brain that is there to make decisions to distinguish between right and wrong, or social control, or forethought, and mapping things out like, "Okay, this is the thing has happened, they're saying this. What does that really look like?” bypasses all that, because of fear. Fear goes directly, 'cause we're hard-wired to constantly be on the lookout for fear through our evolution. So, we're talking about sparking the limbic brain, the amygdala parts of the brain that are more involved in emotion, and survival. As evolved as we might seem, because we can drive a new car and we could watch Amazon Prime or whatever the case might be, we have very, very primitive, primal programming that has existed for hundreds of thousands of years and beyond.

And so those same pathways are alive and well within us, and the media knows this. Most people don't realize that they've outsourced their thinking to their television. They don't realize that they've outsourced their logic to illogical sources, and they do this, again, by interacting with very primitive parts of the human brain, so very intelligent people can be manipulated by these things, and they largely are. If you're not aware this is happening, and to have that positive perimeter set up, because not only does this lead to an illogical behavior and reactions to what you see in the news; it's also very difficult to turn it off. Now, I'm not talking about turn off the TV; I'm talking about turning off the fear and the disempowered that you carry with you within your own psyche.

According to a study published in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, test subjects who were instructed to watch just 15 minutes of the news ended up having increased levels of anxiety and total mood disturbance. And the most shocking part is even after distracting the test subjects with another activity after watching the news, they were not able to return to their baseline levels of emotion they were at pre-watching the news. The news literally stuck with them, and it change their mental and emotional state. And please understand that all network news is doing this same thing. Some may appear to align with your values more than others, but they are in the business of manipulation. The largest funders, the same financial institutions, are funding all the major news networks. If you actually go and look at their numbers, Harvard actually did a report to see, "Oh, who's providing the funding for major network news?" It's the same people!

Might seem like, "Okay, these guys over here with this perspective, they're doing this perspective," they're making the same people money. And so, they're having... You guys are talking to a certain audience, keep it up, you're not going to have a narrative-disrupting message come across any of these different news channels. It has to fit the narrative. And also, pharmaceutical companies are major investors, again, providing billions of dollars and funding to major news networks. What do you think they're going to do? Are they going to tell you about the benefits of exercise and sleep, like regularly, things that have, again, thousands of peer-reviewed journals as to their efficacy, or are they going to promote a new drug during the commercial breaks? Or are they going to not tell you about the damage that's being done from, for example, the opioid epidemic? Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay part of a $26 billion settlement for their contribution to the opioid epidemic that has killed almost a million people since 2000. A million people. Because Johnson & Johnson is the world's largest producer of genetically modified "super poppy" narcotic used to make opioids.

But I bet you didn't hear that on your local news station or your major network news station. And if you did, it was here today, gone today. Absolute murder, killing people intentionally, knowing how dangerous they are. If this was a person behind this or even another business besides the pharmaceutical industry, people are going to jail, and they definitely wouldn't be in business anymore. But you already know. They're doing better than ever, because we have a culture of sickness. We have a culture that allows people to profit from other people's sickness. We have a culture that allows people to kill other people with the business, with their products, and still stay in business. It's going to be unacceptable when we decide enough is enough and we change it. So, we want to create a positive perimeter that helps to fortify and support strength, to support a culture of intelligence that supports a culture of being empowered. If we think about who has a positive perimeter around their culture, think about the Amish, for example. The Amish are just like, "I know. Okay, you guys, you're doing your thing out here, but guess what? We're milking these cows. And we're doing good. Our rates of chronic disease, mental health issue, all that stuff, notably lower than society outside of our positive perimeter. You guys can Amish me with that. Amish me with that. We're doing our own thing."

So, or Wakanda. Wakanda has their force field. So, you can go out to the world, and expand, but you bring your culture with you. When it's all said and done, I can't get up into Wakanda, unless you got that permission slip. So, that's number four here, at least five ways to create a new culture of health and success. And number five here, number five on our list, and this is the one that takes this from a personal culture and expands it outward, number five is to be the model. Be the example for other people. The greatest thing that you can do as far as influence is to simply be yourself, is to be an expression of what's possible, to be an expression of health, to be an expression of compassion, of love, of empowerment, of education, of intelligence, to be an expression of these things, because as noted in the very beginning, we are connected.

Factually, you cannot help but influence the world around you. It is what it is. You can decide to be a light in every room, every circumstance that you walk into. You bring it to it; you don't have to get something from the environment, you don't have to get support. You bring it to it; you don't have to get love and attention. You can provide that for other people. Of course, we all need our cup filled, but if you're creating that culture, you're already... You're overflowing. And so now, you come out into the world, and you bring that with you, you be the model, you be the example of what's possible, and enable your children within that family culture, as we venture out from our personal culture to our family culture, a big leverage point for change is to enable our children to see and experience things first-hand.

I know about having a culture where it might be difficult for our kids to "get on board" with a healthier lifestyle, and the fact that I even have to say healthier lifestyle is very strange to me. I use it for the sake of communication. What it really is just normal. So, a culture that incorporates movement, and eating real food, and rest, these are things that we just evolve doing. So, to put the label of "healthy," that it's just normal stuff. But because we've ventured into this place where we are "unhealthy," we have to make this distinction. And so, one of the most remarkable things that we can do as we expand this to our family is to allow our kids to see it first-hand, because what tends to happen, even if we take this tenet on ourselves and we're going to start working out, mom might go to the gym, mom's going off to this mystical place called the gym, and the kids never see what she's doing. They just know mom's going out to the gym, to this mystical place called the gym, she comes back sweaty and happier right.

Now, she could be going somewhere else, come back sweaty and happy, I don't know, but this mystical place called the gym, whereas what if our kids had the opportunity to see dad doing a workout outside? Doing some body weight stuff, or maybe he's got some bands or a couple of dumbbells, and they get to see and experience that. Right? What if they get to see mom doing yoga instead of like just her, she goes off to this yoga class, we don't even know how to get an association with it, so they could see it first-hand. Alright? I'm not telling you this on a theory. My son, my oldest son, Jordan, he's 21 years old. Right now, he's working in fitness. He's creating programs. He's coaching. He's personal training. I just took him up to Northern California, and I was spending time with Mark Bell, who's been a guest here on the Model Health Show, went to his Super Training Gym, world-renowned gym, and he's been asking me to come up there for quite some time.

So, we went up there, we trained together, all four of us. I wanted to bring my son intentionally to give him exposure. I knew it, in my heart, I know, like, "I'm going to get him... My son is... He loves fitness, let me get him around this guy, let's see what happens." We had a great time, we trained together, but also, afterwards, we recorded podcasts, and Nsima and Mark Bell, the hosts of their podcast, epic podcast as well, they ask if Jordan can join us. It's four microphones, so we all did the podcast together. Alright, so my son got to step up to their microphone and he was able to articulate, share some stories, and the like. And it was an incredible, absolutely incredible, episode.

Now, here's what happened, I haven't even shared this with Mark yet. It's been two weeks now since I saw Mark. My son has since started his own podcast. He's recorded multiple episodes, him, and a friend, because of that experience. I put them in the environment. I didn't do anything. My son knows who I am. He knows I'm about that life and being in this field, but it was the outside influence that... It pushed a button that just me telling him about it wasn't going to push. He got to see something, he got to experience something, and now, I'm just, "Man. Whoo!" This is what's possible. Alright? This isn't theory. Creating a culture, being the model, providing exposure, and there's many ways to go about this. There is nothing in this world that can prevent us from providing positive exposure and from creating a culture of health and success and putting up that positive perimeter. Money, anything, if we ever use money as an excuse to do or not do something that our heart is set on, we're not activating who we really are, our true potential, our creativity, because it's not ever a matter of resources; it's a matter of resourcefulness.

I'm telling you this, again, I'm that guy, I'm at the Whole Foods, not knowing if my card is going to go through. My mattress was on the floor in my apartment in Ferguson. It's always a matter of resourcefulness. Where there's a will, there's 10,000 ways. We are so capable of creating this culture, this cultural container of health and success, and giving our children, our family, these exposures, give ourselves these exposures. So again, be the light, be the model. Consciously create your own personal culture moving forward into this New Year. Alright? And within that, do the same thing, creating that cultural container for our family, for our communities, for our society at large. We can change this thing. I appreciate you so much for tuning in to the show today. You got a lot of value out of this, please share it out with your friends and family. You can tag me, I'm @shawnmodel on Instagram and Twitter, and I'm @themodelhealthshow on Facebook, and of course, you can send this directly from your podcast app right to somebody that you love. We got some epic stuff coming your way very soon. This year is going to powerful. I appreciate you so much for tuning in. Take care, have an amazing day, and we'll talk soon.

And for more after the show, make sure to head over to themodelhealthshow.com. That's where you could find all of the show notes, you could find transcriptions, videos for each episode, and if you got a comment, you can leave me a comment there as well. And please make sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that this show is awesome, and I appreciate that so much. And take care, I promise to keep giving you more powerful, empowering, great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.