SHAWN STEVENSON:  About a year ago, I met somebody who left a permanent imprint in my life. He was a mindset coach for great athletes like Tom Brady, like Desmond Howard, like Michael Phelps, the list goes on and on. So he's an incredibly accomplished, brilliant individual. And having the opportunity to sit with him right here in this chair, in this room, left a mark on my life that has stuck with me to this day. His book sits right on the arm of my couch. There are two books that sit on the arm of my couch. One is from my friends, Dr. Kelly Starrett and Juliet Starrett, Built to Move. And it's about fitness, movement and mobility. And the other book is Staying Sane in an Insane World by Greg Harden. I see that book every day.

And I left it there as a reminder that this individual who's worked with some of the greatest people in their respective field ever. That this man saw something great in me and he called me S to the second power, you know. When he would leave me messages and he became my mentor and somebody that just truly reminded me of what's possible because of his story of overcoming obstacles and becoming the man that he became and to be able to not just see greatness but to help others to see it in themselves. And so he didn't just come in and do this show, he studied me and he told me how impressed he was with me time and time again and it just hit different because I had recently lost my father and for him to emerge in my life right at that time.

It wasn't an accident and I just felt that my cup was filled by being in the room and spending time and talking with Greg Harden. After our conversation, we were just kind of nerding out talking about football and his impact at Michigan and how I studied Desmond Howard because I was a kick return specialist, kick return, punt return, running back. And I learned really quickly. the art of the game by watching Desmond Howard at that time when I was in high school. And so what did Greg do? The next time he was hanging out with Desmond Howard, they were about to go on a TV show. Greg called me with Desmond Howard standing right there and we got to have a conversation.

That's the kind of person he was. Recently we lost Greg and it's been, this year has taken a heavy toll. It's been a lot of loss. And I wish I would have spent more time with him. I wish that I reached out more often. And that's the story, you know, and I'm still in that process right now because this is new to me. And I just don't want us to have that feeling as much as we can, you know, so today that person that is a mentor for you, somebody that's been a light in your life, send them a message, reach out to them. Ask the questions that you want to ask. Because you never know. And we've been doing a lot of work around our healthcare system recently, and he is gone as a result of what they termed complications from surgery.

And it's just, it's left at that. Now again, we don't know what the context is, uh, even talking with his wife, that is a very kind of superficial situation, so I don't know. But what I do know is that there is a loss for so many people losing Greg. He was so full of life and I feel like he has so much more to give. But maybe that's because it's through us, for us to step up in a new way and for us to say yes to our greatness. And so I wanted to dedicate this episode to Greg. And first and foremost, I want to share a special piece that my team put together from our conversation that you'll get to hear and to really get a hit of who he was and that empowerment.

And then we'll go into the full conversation that we had together. And again, there are so many nuggets of wisdom and the way that he communicates as well. And such a bright spirit and just, not just sharing the knowledge, but also having a good time along the way and letting you know that you matter. And again, I think we all could use a little bit more of that. So again, and this episode is coming out during his celebration of life, the week of that. And I appreciate you so much because what brought you here in this moment is because there's something special about you. And here we are with a message from the amazing Greg Harden to support you and remind you of that.

GREG HARDEN: Imagine trying to explain to a 19 year old Tom Brady, who's really convinced that the coaches don't like him. That they're not giving him the opportunities they're giving the other players, and him sharing that with me. And I'm listening carefully because that's what I do. I listened, I listened and he vented and he was, he's emotional. And I share with Tom, I hear you, I feel your pain. Who gives a rat's ass about what the coaches think? What do you think? You want the coaches to believe in you and you don't believe in yourself, son. So until you believe in you, don't expect me to believe. Now, the good news is I'm crazy enough to believe anyway, and I believe that you're capable and qualified of transforming your mindset, transforming the way that you see this and take full responsibility for if you're only getting three, three reps, those gotta be the greatest reps that anybody's ever seen, and then they'll give you five.

And then over time, look out and that's how you transform. So yes, taking total responsibility. If, for example, if we use that same example, we look at Tom and Tom wants to be a professional football player and he's not even in the lineup. I said, you need to train as though you're going to be a professional football player. In fact, why don't we get football out of the equation? Hmm. I said, why don't you train like an Olympic athlete? That's a different mindset than I want to play football and I want to be in the NFL. Why don't you be one of the best athletes on the team? Why don't you change the way that you're approaching this? And it seems to have worked out a little bit.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Right. The results speak for themselves.

GREG HARDEN: The things that I thought were just overwhelming and horrendous that happened in my life prepared me to work with others. It prepared me to be able to hear somebody going through stuff and not judge them. Somebody is tripping, dipping and slipping and not just say you are tripping, dipping and slipping. This is what's going on. This is what you can get out of it. One of the most important lessons I try to teach is you can either go through life or grow through life. You can go through it or grow through it. And if you choose to grow from the obstacle, grow from the challenge, grow from the difficulty. If your mindset is like whatever is being delivered, I can go through it. I'm suggesting that people, when they have an attitude where they give 100%, 100% of the time. And have that as their default mode.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah.

GREG HARDEN: Well, every now and then somebody would be smart enough and say 100 percent 100 percent nobody can do that and I said of course not. But if my mindset if my primary form of operating in my head is to try to give a hundred percent. I no longer am coming off of it, 30%, 40%, 50%. So let's look at this a hundred percent, a hundred percent of the time. There are things you don't like to do. I need you to give a hundred percent to the things you hate. Now, if you create a habit of giving a hundred percent of the stuff you hate, what you gonna do when you get to the stuff you love? You'll have a habit of trying to give a hundred percent of my mindset. My default mode is a hundred percent, a hundred percent of the time. My worst day is going to be better than the average man's best day. That's a game changer, baby. It changes the game.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  It isn't often I use this word, but I have a legend sitting here with me, Greg Harden, Mr. Greg Harden. And I've just been absolutely enthralled by your work. And you're one of those individuals that will find out about you just like, how did I not know about this person forever? And obviously you have this acclaim in working with some of the most successful athletes to ever do what they do. Tom Brady, Michael Phelps, the list goes on and on. And I think immediately what people would feel is like, I'm not like those guys. And you make the argument. And matter of fact, you lay out really the science of this, the art and science of like, you do have this in you, you just don't know it and you need guidance. And that's what you've really unlocked for us. So can you start off by talking about on the surface and maybe even a little bit deeper, what makes somebody like Tom Brady different?

GREG HARDEN: Well, if we, if we go straight to it, Humble and hungry. Bro, hungrier than the average person, but humble enough to be coachable. Coachability is the critical piece to the puzzle. That's what you see. That's what you've seen. Let's think about how you coached yourself out of a degenerative spinal disorder. Bro, I've been dying to meet you. Your backstory is one of the most amazing backstory. I'm getting emotional just thinking about what you did and how you pulled it off and how you transformed yourself. So, we're talking about self transformation. We're talking about Reinventing yourself. We're talking about reengineering, redesigning how you think and how you act. That's what you did.

You pulled it off. I don't know if everybody understands your backstory, but brah, you started off in a situation where giving up would have made sense. And then you talk about your grandmother. And your grandmother was just loving you as you wish you would give me no motivational speeches. She's just loving you to death and be happy to see you and you were miserable, negative and depressed. And she's just happy. And you like, how come I can't be like that? Correct me if I'm wrong.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah, you're right.

GREG HARDEN: And then you hit a switch. You hit a switch in your mind and said, I am not going out like that. If I'm not going, if I'm not going to make it, ain't, I'm not going to be miserable, negative, and depressed. I'm going to enjoy whatever time I have. And then you start eating differently, thinking differently, walking differently, talking differently. Then you turn yourself into Johnny badass. No, I'm sorry. I get excited real early.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Hey, listen, you know, here's the thing that I love most about this book, which everybody needs to get a copy. Like yesterday, this, you literally laid out how I went from there to here. You laid it out. There wasn't a portion missed and one of those was taking responsibility. You know, because in that process, when I saw, you know, the circumstances I was dealing with, I was pointing the finger. Why them? Why won't they help me? Why me? And it wasn't until I took full responsibility for my life I became empowered, and it changed the game for me.

GREG HARDEN: That is the game changer. Imagine trying to explain to a 19 year old Tom Brady, who's really convinced that the coaches don't like him. That they're not giving him the opportunities they're giving the other players. And him sharing that with me. And I'm listening carefully, because that's what I do. I listened, I listened, and he vented, and he was, he's emotional. And I share with Tom, I hear you, I feel your pain. Who gives a rat's ass about what the coaches think? What do you think? You want the coaches to believe in you, and you don't believe in yourself, son.

So until you believe in you, don't expect me to believe. Now, the good news is I'm crazy enough to believe anyway. And I believe that you're capable and qualified of transforming your mindset, transforming the way that you see this and take full responsibility for if you're only getting three, three reps, those got to be the greatest reps that anybody's ever seen. And then they'll give you five. And then over time, look out. And that's how you transform. So yes, taking total responsibility. You. For example, if we use that same example, we look at Tom and Tom wants to be a professional football player and he's not even in the lineup. I said, you need to train as though you're going to be a professional football player.

In fact, why don't we get football out of, out of the equation? I said, why don't you train like an Olympic athlete? That's a different mindset and I want to play football and I want to be in the NFL. Why don't you be one of the best athletes on the team? Why don't you change the way that you're approaching this and it seems to have worked out a little bit.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Right. The results speak for themselves. You know, it's, it's so powerful because, you know, it's those intersections and those moments of decision that really write the story or create our history in a sense. And there was a great story that you put in the book about you working for the most negative people person and how that was weighing on you would take that with you and you would be negative. Can you share that story?

GREG HARDEN: Bro, I was a young buck. I was in my twenties and I came back to school and I'm gonna, you know, finish what I started and, and I'm going to be in Connors world. I'm going to be in radio, television and film. That's what I'm going to do. And, but most importantly, I've been trained that talent is a dime a dozen. And if you don't know how to be in back of the camera, You may not be employed. So I wanted to be on both sides of the camera. I wanted to be in front of the camera for joy and entertainment, but I wanted to tell and create stories.

So I worked at a television studio. We had a television studio at the University of Michigan that was better than half the ones on CBS, NBC and ABC in Detroit. And so like, I'm, I'm, I'm in, I'm embedded. Boy, I'm working a camera. I'm doing staging and lighting, which I truly appreciate. This is a great studio and I get to work with this champion of staging and lighting, who is the most miserable, negative, onerous, mean spirited guy I'd ever met in my life. And every day, all day, he was just whining and complaining and telling you how stupid you were and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I, this is not what I signed up for. So I'm getting negative, and I'm getting miserable. And I'm whining and I'm complaining to anybody that'll listen to me.

And I went out to lunch with one of my co workers and said, man, let me tell you something. This guy is a chronic alcoholic. He's lost everything before. His wife has died. And like he, I mean, there's a reason he's that way. Oh. So all of a sudden I get to switch the context. I think it's about me. I think he's attacking me. I think he's abusing me. No, he's hating himself and his self loathing spilled out onto everything he touched. And so I had to really rethink how I was in, not just interpreting him, but how I was responding. That's an early clue in my life, not in my training, not in my education. It says, you know, you get to decide how you're going to interpret who you're talking to.

You get to decide whether or not you're going to be miserable because he's miserable. He's sick. He's broken and his job is to hurt people, hurt people. And his job is to hurt you. And now you can fold and be a victim or you can begin to understand how to read people, how to understand people and boom, boom, boom. So it triggered a lot for me. That guy was really sent to teach me a lesson. And hopefully I learned it.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah, yeah. You know, you teach this to the people you've worked with as well that. The obstacle is the way, you know, those adversities are actually great teachers and opportunities to see difficulties as opportunities.

GREG HARDEN: You're going straight to the daily stoic. You understand the obstacle is the way, and there have been obstacles in our lives. I mean, the good news is we don't look like what we've been through. Yeah. And so, the things that I thought were just overwhelming and horrendous that happened in my life prepared me to work with others. It prepared me to be able to hear somebody going through stuff and not judge them. Somebody is tripping, dipping, and slipping and not just say, you tripping, dipping, and slipping. This is what's going on. This is what you can get out of it. And so one of the most important lessons in the book and one of the most important lessons I try to teach is, You can either go through life or grow through life.

You can go through it or grow through it. And if you choose to grow, from the obstacle, grow from the challenge, grow from the difficulty. If your mindset is like whatever's being delivered, I can go through it. If you look carefully, in one of the chapters talking about a hundred percent, a hundred percent of the time, I'm suggesting to people that they have an attitude where they give 100%, a hundred percent of the time. And have that as their default mode.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah.

GREG HARDEN: Well, every now and then somebody would be smart enough and say, Mmm, a hundred percent, a hundred percent, nobody can do that. And I said, of course not. But if my mindset, if my, if my primary objective form of operating in my head is to try to give 100%. I no longer am coming off at 30%, 40%, 50%.

If my mindset is to give 100 percent at the things I don't even like. Desmond Howard is a great example. Desmond Howard was ready to leave Michigan and we sat and chatted and I shared with Desmond that, you know, there must be a reason you're not. Starting and not playing because he came in most people don't know Desmond Howard was a running back in high school and was amazing and he was switched over to wide receiver but back in the day in that period of time if you didn't block in the Big Ten and you were wide receiver you're not getting on the field.

Well Desmond didn't block. He was struggling, and I explained to Desmond, you can leave Michigan, but who cares? You haven't done anything, and so you're going to go somewhere else with different colors? Guess what? They're going to treat you the same as we're going to treat you. But most importantly, Des, let's look at it this way. If you want to leave, why don't you blow up and become extremely successful and have us beg you to stay?

And he said, huh? I said, so let's look at this 100%, 100 percent of the time. There are things you don't like to do. I need you to give 100 percent to the things you hate. Now, if you create a habit of giving 100 percent of the stuff you hate, what are you gonna do when you get to the stuff you love? You'll have a habit of trying to give 100%. Okay, well still Greg, let me help you out. Okay. If my mindset, my default mode is 100%, 100 percent of the time, my worst day, it's going to be better than the average man's best day. That's a game changer, baby. It changes the game.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  I've specifically like highlighted, circled and emphasized that part. Because again, it's a, it's a formula of how I went from there to here. And even with that 100%, because you got to think about, okay, so what, what about your quote downtime? Even when I rest a hundred percent rest. Right, right.

GREG HARDEN: My man! Look at this guy! You understand, this is where you, that's where you nailed it. If I am going to give a hundred percent, that means my family is going to get a hundred percent, right? That means my relaxation, my ability to look. So I was in mental health and I was a clinical therapist, boom, boom, boom. But people don't understand we're talking about meditation or medication and that's the continuum. And so some people don't need medication. Some people need to learn how to calm themselves down, how to center themselves, to actually stop using buzzwords, mindfulness, and understand and train for it.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Facts. Facts. You know, you, I love this too, you, you gave for Desmond Howard, he was looking for that geographical cure. Right? So if I just change locations, if I leave this school and go to another place, then that will cure my problems. But what people don't understand is that you're taking you with you.

GREG HARDEN: Same person going with you. Same insecurities, same self doubt, same need for approval of others, all that's going with you. And then people will identify you as someone and they'll drift to you based on your personality and style. And you'll allow people in your life who are. Not healthy because that's your habit, inviting the unhealthy in, and trying to get them to like you.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah, it's a recipe for disaster.

GREG HARDEN: Self love and self acceptance is where we're going to go. At the end, you will always find that we end up in the same chapter, self love and self acceptance.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah.

GREG HARDEN: How I feel about me must not be based on external forces. My performance, my money. How many of us know somebody who's as rich as we fantasize we want to be? As popular as we fantasize we want to be? Who take their own life? It's a recurring theme. The inside has to be transformed. Money, power, all of that. Will not make me love myself, or care about myself as much as I need to in order to stay sane in an insane world.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. Can you share a little bit about Desmond Howard is integral in my story, you know, because I mean, just, I was a Green Bay Packers fan, you know, St. Louis, we didn't have a football team for a while, right? And so I just really, Brett Favre and all those guys are kind of, you know, latched on to as far as my, my, my fanhood.

GREG HARDEN: Yes sir.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  And I was a running back special teams returning kicks and punts is just my thing. You know.

GREG HARDEN: You on the suicide squad. My man.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  It's some of my best game films is just, you know, returning to punt, you know, and of course, you know, my story and dealing with the injuries and the degeneration. 

So, you know, but having that outlet and to be able to watch greatness. But I started to also not just studying greatness in athletics, but becoming obsessed with studying greatness of all types. But can you share a little bit about Desmond Howard, like what happened? What was the transformation that took place when you started working together with him?

GREG HARDEN: Let me make it clear to folks. Tom Brady is the most popular guy in the world, right? And so they associate me instantly. Tom Brady came to see me because of Desmond Howard. He said, I saw what you and Desmond did. I want some of that. Desmond Howard... I try not to tell the story over and over, but I can't help it. I'm doing a summer development camp for football. At the end of the camp, Desmond and another guy approach me, talking about they're thinking about leaving, boom, boom, boom. I tell them, you know, eh, but who cares? And they say, so Desmond stays. Desmond Howard, I asked him, why did you approach me? He says, well, I've been watching you.

I say, okay, go on. He says, I have a question for you. He said, when you're talking, sometimes you seem like a learned professor with the data and the research to back what you're saying. And then you seem like a pastor, passionate, firing us up. And then you turn into, at that time, Richard Pryor. And he looks at me, Sean, he looks at me and he says, is that on purpose? I said, What's your name again? He said, Desmond. I said, You're telling me that you paid that much attention? Yes sir, every time you talk. I was fascinated by the way you delivered and you had three different styles of delivery and I just wanted to know if that's on purpose because that's what I want to do with my life.

How can I not fall in love with a 19 year old who studied me for a year before he'd even talked to me, he wouldn't even talking to me. He wasn't talking to me until he studied and evaluated and had some clue that I was doing things a little differently than everyone else show. I had to, uh, I had to take him under my wing because I knew how serious he was. And his parents, his parents had set him up, JD and Hattie had set him up to be someone who was coachable and that he, and he would look at you and he would say, if you tell him, he would say, tell me what works. I know, you know, and if you tell me, don't touch that because it'll burn you. I'm not like the rest of these kids. If you say it doesn't work, I'm not gonna do it. I'm like, how old are you? 19 years old.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah.

GREG HARDEN: Ready to be, tell me what works, I'll do it. Desmond Howard, under that, under that whole thing that I just laid out, I said, Desmond, now I can tell the story now cause I'm not, can't get him in trouble. I taught Desmond how to jump rope.

Like a boxer, how to hit a speed bag for hand eye coordination. I told Desmond Howard, if he was serious, that he would train like an Olympic athlete and would be the best athlete on the team. And he said, okay, Desmond hated to run. So he would run an additional 15 miles a week while everybody else was partying in the middle of the night and wouldn't talk to anybody, go out and run. And so when two a days in August showed up, Desmond was the best conditioned athlete on the field. And this is after they were like, Ah, Desmond, he thinks this is Desmond Howard University, and he doesn't care about any of us. And he, all he cares about, and he showed up in camp. Bruh, they didn't know who this kid was.

He was hungry. His recovery time, which we need to talk about, his recovery time. It shifted everybody else grabbing their knees and thighs and bending over and Desmond laughing. Waiting for what's next because he conditioned and trained himself to be a superior athlete, not a football player. Who is the Heisman and then is MVP of the Super Bowl on special team? Who, who has ever been a special teams player in the Super Bowl? Bruh.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Incredible.

GREG HARDEN: And of course he told me the night before the Super Bowl, the only Super Bowl I've ever been to. Cause he says, if I'm going, you're going. I go to Super Bowl that night before he says, Greg, I'm going to bruh, wait till tomorrow. He's jacked out of his mind. He is visualized scoring. He plans on, I'm going to put my team in position to win. He's deliberate and intentional about what the plan is, what the vision was and how he's going to operate. And that the team, not him saw it. At that time, the other team, which was the Patriots, weren't committed to special teams like Green Bay was. And they were going to exploit it. It was a planned action. What else you want to know?

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Hey, again, the results speak for themselves. I mean, that's, that's seemingly miraculous, but there's a strategy, there's intentionality, there's a plan behind it all, to make it manifest. And it's like putting yourself in position. I love that about your work as well. Repeatedly throughout the book, you're talking about how so many people, again, this habit of complaining that they're not getting an opportunity instead of focusing on being ready. Like again, Tom was like six string, right? And just being ready, working on the things that he can work on, controlling the controllable.

GREG HARDEN: My man. Yes, sir. Because I can't control with the other, with the coaches thing, except by demonstrating and being consistent. So my ability to decide how I'm going to respond is different from reacting. So I have to learn to respond to what's going on around me. I can't control, I can barely control my dog. I'm trying to control other people and what they think. I can't. What I can control is how I think. I can control how I feel. I can control that you are not going to have power over me. I can decide. And we're not talking about the extremes and the traumatic relationships where someone is being abused. We're talking about outside of the, outside of that realm, we're talking about my ability to decide that if I don't bend over, you can't ride me, you know, I'm going to decide how I feel. Now, the most difficult lesson. Tom, Desmond, Shawn. It's when you say 100%, 100 percent of the time. You have to add the phrase, win, lose, or draw.

Now everybody hears the 100%, but they don't want to hear the win, oh and they hear the win! But they don't want to hear the lose or draw. So I'm going to give you a hundred. I want to be that guy. The athletes, the executives, the people that I've worked with, I've got to teach them that even if you lose your opponent is saying, dang, I hate that guy. I wish he was on our team. That's all I want. I want to win. I'm gonna be mad if I don't win, but I'm gonna get over it quickly. Because I know that I gave a hundred percent and the guy on the other side is talking about how in the heck did this come to pass? Who is this guy? I want him to be part of my program That's what we want.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Absolutely. Absolutely. I've got a question for you, and this one would be helpful for a lot of parents, and just a lot of people in life in general. And you gave a very simple formula for these people that we see are so exceptional. It's the double H, humble and hungry.

GREG HARDEN: Yes, sir.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  And the hungry part, I think people can connect with that. The humble part is that That's another story, you know, because I think a lot of us come into situations really feeling like we got things figured out. And to hear something, again, you're pointing out Desmond being 19 years old and really being so humble and so coachable because, and I see this also in my older son, Jordan and him really, and of course, like there's conditions to where he'll seek counsel and ask my opinion on things because I, you know, him growing through all this with me and him being there living in Ferguson, Missouri with me sleeping on an air mattress to him just getting back from Maui, you know, two days ago.

Right. And so he's been on this journey with me and he's seen the outside results. And I put him in position also to not just listen to me, but listen to other teachers, right? So tuning him into you, for example, and rather than me trying to like pine away and hammer this into him, let other voices that he respects him.

GREG HARDEN: Yes. Absolutely. And, but that's grace. That's being able to understand that you, you can't control anybody else, but you're going to invite and create opportunities for him to grow. You're going to let him fail and you're going to let the guy down the street say the same thing you've been saying for 10 years and he's going to say, Oh my God, dad, guess what Mr. So and so said, but you'll set it up. If he runs away from home back in the day when he was a young buck, you set it up so you knew he was going to run away and you knew it was going to pick him up and take him to their house. You would encourage him, get out then. If I kick my son out, I already have somebody ready to pick him up.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  That's what it's all about. You know, just it's the ability to be forward thinking, of course, and to create what I call them safe stressors for our kids as well. And also, you know, what I want to ask you about is knowing that we tend to be a know it all, right? We tend to think we got things figured out. And I think it. I don't want to make this too dichotomous, but it tends to be men more often that really just like, I know what to do, I know things. How is it possible to instill or to teach people to be more coachable, to be more humble?

GREG HARDEN: Yeah, if they want to be successful. See, the carrot in the fantasy of being successful. It's how we, you, you rope them in, and you surround them with successful people who tell them I had to ask. Michael Jordan had to ask for help. You know, you can come up with a list of names after name after name of people who we admire and respect. And in their story, there will be someone who believed in them before they believed in themselves.

There'll be someone in their story that helped them to learn how to have breakthroughs and how to think differently and see the world differently. So asking for help, turns into an art form and you teach them. It's an art to use consultants. When I talk about trying, when I, when people want to narrow it down to mental health, and take it out of the realm that I'm talking about mental fitness. When we're just talking about mental health, teaching people how to use counseling, you know, we have a lot of communities who don't want to go into counseling, they have great reasons not to go into counseling. And I teach people, counselors are like, oh my God, how much does the person who's running Google make? And they'll say, and they'll say billions, no, no, let's assume they, they make a few million dollars.

Okay, but we know that we're talking about people who are making a ton of dough. And then I'll ask them, do they use consultants? And they say, of course he does. I said, well, why, why does he, she need a consultant? Because they can't see everything. Guess what? Counselors are like consultants. See, some of you get confused because you have to open up and be honest and share your feelings. And that's how you see counseling. You need to see counseling as hiring a consultant. If you don't like him, fire their ass and get another one. 

Until you get one that fits who you are and can hear what you're saying, but you've got to teach people that getting coached, being counseled, having consultants, having mentors is how you stack the deck in your favor. That's a selfish act to go into counseling. It's brilliant to use help.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  That's powerful. That's the power of perspective. You know, that reframing things for people. Thank you for sharing that. That's..

GREG HARDEN: But that's what we do.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah.

GREG HARDEN: That's what you do. How are you going to get somebody to work out? Hey, change my eat. What? But I love. I won't say names, but certain beverages that are marketed as hydration drinks. So, but how do you get people to shift? You want me to drink beets?

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Beat it.

GREG HARDEN: You know, so we help them by reframing. We teach people, In one of the chapters we're talking about, uh, the angel and the devil on the shoulders takes us straight back to cartoons, right? I mean, you know, the cartoon is saying, well, you, we shouldn't be like that. And the other, on the other shoulders, nah, screw them, let's get it, you know? So when we talk about self defeating, self defeating attitudes and behaviors. One of the pieces that we have to examine is letting go of yesterday's baggage. Man, that's my favorite out of all the things that I've come up with. Letting go of yesterday's baggage is universal if ever there was one. Teaching people how to reframe, reinterpret what happened to a 12 year old that you're dragging around.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  At 50.

GREG HARDEN: At 50 years old, boom, boom, boom. Trying to get people to re-evaluate how that experience affected them. And giving them a chance to re-invent themselves and reinvent their perception of the event and seeing it as something that prepared them for who they are today. It's work, but it's the best work you can do. It's teaching people how to reframe, restructure some of their old memories because you can't have an adolescent running an adult's life. You can't have a wounded 16 year old running your life and telling you who you are or how to respond in relationships. But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  I don't think so, Greg.

GREG HARDEN: I'm not, but I could be.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  You know, that really reminds me of, you know, my, my, my father recently passed away. My stepfather, and, you know, I was just sharing this with my oldest son and my wife that In the household, there was always this looming feeling of fear, right? There's always this feeling of fear because, you know, he was very, very deep, deep in the realm of being an alcoholic, you know, the drug use and he would flip like, you never know what's going to happen.

Right. And so there's this looming fear. And I have two younger siblings, my brother and sister, and our lives are very different at this point. And I was just thinking about with him passing, I experienced so much gratitude and this feeling of deep thanks for him being a fixture in my life. And in some instances, teaching me not what to do, right? Teaching me how I don't want to be, but also what are the qualities that I picked up no matter what, even with his alcohol abuse, he showed up on time to go to work. He got it done no matter what the circumstance, right. So I took that on. I took on the things that were beneficial for me and I let the things go that were not.

And whereas I have my little brother who's in a state of disarray during this time period. Hopefully he's processed when this even comes out. Hopefully he's made a breakthrough. But losing his father, he expressed to me, you know, he loves him, but he also hates him because of not having that father figure who is, you giving him the things that you talk about again in the book, giving him the affirmation, giving him that acknowledgement that he's looking for, making him feel important. But the thing is for me, again, I'm saying he saw me as important enough to come home and to be there, right? He could have left, like, and so I'm just looking for those things. And also most importantly, and this is another thing that you share in the book too, is making the decision to see that he loved me, although he might not have known how to express it.

GREG HARDEN: Because he hadn't been trained. His daddy didn't show him any love or affection. I remember my favorite piece with my pops was, is talking about how he programmed me to be a rigid, narrow minded individual because a man don't need help and you don't ask for help. You know, I'm eight, nine years old, go out into the yard, see, and he's working on a car, working in the yard, something, and I said, Pops, you know, can I help? And he looks at me, boy, let me tell you something. If you see me in a bear fight, don't help me, help the bear. I mean, you don't even know what he's talking about at eight years old, but over time, he repeats the same thing over and over, the man don't need no help. If that bear going to need all the help he can get, if he fighting me. Man, my subconscious mind, I'm socialized program to believe that a man has no need for anyone else's assistance.

Man, that messed me up for years. I was a helper and asking for help was a struggle for me. I'm a professional helper telling people to ask for help, but me asking for help, I've got it. Not a problem. You know, I'll figure it out because what I'm supposed to do when I surrendered and allowed myself to believe that my father didn't mean any harm whatsoever. He may have been harmful, but he didn't mean no harm. And his love was real because of going to work every day, making sure you had everything you could possibly need. His ability to express care, compassion, and concern. He didn't know how to do that. But once I realized that he cared, that his heart was in the right place.

It was hilarious when I ended up, my wife and I, Shalia, were the primary caregivers for him in his final days. And it was, it was magical. It was unbelievable. And one day we were, uh, take, I was, I was taking care of him. And like you take care of once a man and twice a child and everything is before a while. Bob Marley Circle Lottie Dottie, you understand? And we were sitting up and I'm taking care of him and he looks at me and he says, who would have thunk it? And we cracked up. We are, we're in the bathroom cracking up, looking at who's taking care of who and the opportunity to have that full circle because I can remember him taking care of me, but he has to take care of me. And so it was great to have that experience, but showing love, showing I mean, love isn't love until you give it away.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Got a quick break coming up. We'll be right back.

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SHAWN STEVENSON:  Man, you know what I'm hopeful. Even more so, like, reading your book, I don't know if it was a catalyst, or just the timing, or if I would have done this automatically. But I sought out counsel. I'm, I definitely have that same affliction of not asking for help. You know? And this was another thing I picked up from my, from my father. Because I didn't really even see he didn't even mess with a lot of people, you know, very skeptical of the world around him period.

Right, and so, you know, again, I didn't pick up the parts of that that can be healthy and put the other parts down, but I sought counsel. Losing him and then having this inflammatory thing going on with my siblings and like seeking counsel from my friend Michael Beckwith. And I reached out to him and I asked him, you know, about how to perceive this in a more healthy way because I was experiencing pain in my neck. It popped up, right?

GREG HARDEN: Yes, sir.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  It was a physical manifestation. I had a lump that showed up and it moved to the other side. Like once, once, once I got better, it went to the other side. Like I'm not done with you yet. And I'm just like, I feel such a sense of peace and gratitude and all that. But my body's like, nah, bro, you're, you're, you're holding on to something. And what it is, that he pointed out, which he nailed it was expectation, right? I was expecting that my brother and sister would learn from this and grow from this, but that put my father into a nursing home for the last 15 years as still a young man. And you know, the brain damage from the drug abuse. And it's just like, you don't see where this is headed. And so what I'm hoping for and in this moment, and you really point this out and I sat with this, I just sat with this and just spend some time thinking about it.

And hopeful that he'll put it down. He'll, he'll put the baggage down. You know, the story that he's not enough. The story is that his father didn't love him. The story that he was just a victim of abuse. Put all that down and focus on all the good. The family that he has. That he's created despite all of these things. The lessons that he's picked up. You know, but I'm just really hopeful that. And for everybody listening, like, what do you need to put down?

GREG HARDEN: And how do you use the word forgiveness? See, one of the most difficult challenges in life is to forgive. And, you know, you can imagine in certain sessions you're talking to people about forgiveness, and they look at you and say, you nuts. Why would I forgive somebody that did A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and go all the way down to Z to me? And you have to share with them. You don't forgive them for their sake, you forgive them for your sake. Because the madness, the when we're talking about staying sane in the insane world, we got to take it all the way to that level. Because I'm not, I don't mean I forgot, doesn't mean that it wasn't wrong. It doesn't mean any of that, but I am not going to keep dragging you around and letting you live in my head. And hold me hostage to things that were yesterday. And so to let go, I have to be willing to forgive, not what they did, but forgive that moment and how it affected me.

I've got to let go and forgive you because, you know, you're a human being. Because our fantasy is our parents should have been Peter and Priscilla Perfect. That's a great fantasy. But that's all it is. They turn out to be human beings. And, if you really want to know who you are, Study your parents and then study your parents parents and where they're from, what continent, what ethnic group, what years, what was going on at the time.

Your parents are a direct result of their parents and it goes on and on. You need to study your family to know who you are, and then you, as what you said brilliantly. Opens up the door for us to understand that we can extract from who they are great qualities and characteristics that they had. I don't care what they were into or how unhealthy they were. There's some things that they did that make total sense that worked. And you want to take all of those characteristics because in hating your parents. If you, the secret to mental health is letting go of yesterday's baggage. Forgiving parents for not being perfect because they just couldn't, they couldn't pull that off, but you can decide.

What really worked well, when they did it well, and you can also decide what you're not going to emulate or copy from the family history. Because we understand, well, diabetes is in our family, so you know what to do. You know, heart disease is in our, so, but we don't think about alcoholism and addiction. We don't talk, think about negative attitudes or depression that's not necessarily triggered by a chemical imbalance, but by habit and routine and whining and complaining about everything and blaming everyone else.

So those habits you can look at and see which habits were good. Which habits were not, I'm going to keep these and that's what you should do, not just with your parents, but with people around you. Take the best from me. Don't take my bad habits. I cuss like a sailor, right? I'm good at it, but it's not my best habit, but I have some good habits that you can extract that you could take away. There are people in your family and people around you, people who you've met. There are people who you're studying. who don't even know you're studying, you should have mentors that don't even know they're mentors. But you're studying the way they move, the way they groove, the way they articulate their moods, et cetera, and say that works.

What we teach in the book is like identifying what works, And what doesn't work in our lives. That's the simplest formula you can give people. If getting drunk every day is working by all means, continue. If it's not? If it's deteriorating relationships and destroying your financial health, if it's doing ABCD and E, you have data, look at the data. The data says it's not working. Every time I get drunk, things don't go right. Look at the data, turn it to a scientist. When I'm not drinking, boom, boom, boom. So we begin to become so sophisticated that we, to become the world's greatest expert on you requires you to look at the opportunity to do critical self assessment, how you evaluate what's working and what's not working in your life.

Self defeating attitudes and behaviors simply talking about how I think and how I act their ways that I think that are not healthy their ways that I act that are not healthy, switching it over to the positive side that what are the self supporting attitudes and behaviors I can incorporate into my life to increase the chances that everything is going to go. Just the way I dreamed, the way I visualized it, how I organized my think the way my thinking and my behavior. So just be deliberate and intentional about creating who you want to be. I mean, that's what you did, Shawn. You created this beast, this monster, this go get it guy who was supposed to be broken and you said, no, I refuse. It was deliberate and intentional.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. And your intentional message as well on becoming the world leading expert on yourself.

GREG HARDEN: You're trying to be an expert on everything else. You know, yeah, yeah. The know it all. Okay. How well do you know yourself? I know myself. Okay. What are your weaknesses? Well, I don't have any. Okay, that's the weakness right there. We've already exposed one of your weaknesses. Your ego structure needs to be changed. It's not your friend. Your ego must become your ally, not your enemy.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  I love that. Within that extraction process that, that we've talked about it multiple times. It just reminded me of something else. Like sometimes you gotta dig, sometimes you got to dig. But if we have that muscle built of self inquiry, then it becomes more readily available to be able to do this. And one of the things that my, my oldest son, when I was talking to him about that looming fear in the household growing up. And he said this to me, that the only memories that he has of my father is this jubilant person. This person who's just Kind of glowing with this kind of childlike nature.

And that was there. That was there then when I was living in that household and had that looming feeling of fear. This man I'm talking, you know, he's old school, you know, hard knuckle that kind of you know mentality. He was the first person, first person that I ever met that beat a video game, right? So he got Mike Tyson's punch out. And he'd be up late at night playing this, you know, and it was, I couldn't beat it. I was, you know, probably eight or nine years old and I was just blown away that this man beat this video game. And so this was one of the ways that we bonded was over these video games randomly, you know, and again, he had this childlike nature about him. And that's one of the things that, little did I know, I brought that with me and it's still in my family. We have a, we have a, a family culture of play.

GREG HARDEN: Mm hmm.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  That I was able to extract and again, I can carry the bad stuff, the "bad stuff" with me and let that be the domineering story or I can focus on the good and keep sharing that.

GREG HARDEN: Yes, sir. And it's crucial that you extract as much as you can from your father and your father's father and the people who raised you. Because it won't just be mommy and daddy. There are people who are powerful influences in your life. I talk about one in, in, in my TED talk, where this person had a profound influence until I got to the point where it wasn't that good. And all I could do is extract some things from him, but I had to reject a whole lot of things that he was bringing to the table. Yeah, it's, transforming yourself, is an art. Yeah. And that's what we're talking about. Teaching people how to decide that they're not, the greatest, look, a dog gonna be a dog, right?

A cat gonna be a cat, a cow gonna be a cow, a lion gonna be a lion. The only creature that was made by whoever you believe in. That can decide to be different than they were yesterday, is a human being. A human being can decide not to be a dip in a dog and an abusive person. And change, they can decide to change their lifestyle, they can change, decide to change their attitude, they can decide to be stronger, they can decide to like, to let go of fear and self doubt. They can do, the human mind, the only thing that separates us from animals. It's our ability to process and ponder the nature of our existence. Your dog has all these characteristics you love, but you don't know if he's pondering, Hmm, how should I change? What creature? Well, my wife busted me immediately.

She said, well, a butterfly. Caterpillar is going, I said, no, she went even deeper, a tadpole, tadpole is in the water and becomes an amphibian and can walk. I said, yeah, but they don't decide. They don't decide to be different. Human beings are the only creature that can, yesterday, how I was and how I operated. I've got to shift as fast as I can if I want my life to work. My desire to have my life work can trigger change. Oh my God. We keep going back. That's what you did.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  This is, I'm telling you this episode here, this interview, this, this conversation, this is, this is something that I'm going to take with me forever. Even in that moment when we got to listen back to a little bit, we had a little brief pause. Just hearing your voice again is something that for me, I'm so grateful for this moment because I needed this right now. And also I know a lot of other people are going to feel the same and I want to talk now about putting things down and you, you specify this, these self defeating attitudes and behaviors and you break these things down so that we can really start to identify and again with our self inquiry and self assessment, the ability to be honest with ourselves and to look at the results and then then choose other than, and I want to talk about a few of these.

Yeah. Okay. That you call the quote, usual suspects. And, you know, of course we talked about putting down that baggage. You also talk about self doubt and how dangerous that can be. Overgeneralizing, refusing to ask for help, we've touched on a little bit. But, I want to ask you about this one. And this one was obsessing over criticism.

GREG HARDEN: Being totally uncomfortable with being critiqued. And we're not talking about criticizing you. We're talking about people trying to give you honest feedback and being overly sensitive to any feedback that doesn't make you feel good or makes you uncomfortable or feels like they're passing judgment. Well, that might be true. But there are times when people aren't doing that.

There are times when people are trying to give you a perspective that you can't see. Uh,When we talk about a SWOT analysis, where the story in the book is about this. One of the best stories I have is about this kid who I'm introducing to SWOT analysis. Anyone with an MBA or in the business school knows this or in organizational consulting does know what a SWOT analysis is. And you're going to create a quadrant and you're going to identify the strengths of our organization, the weaknesses or challenges in our organization, opportunities to success and threats to success.

Well, I was fascinated with that and decided human beings are running a company. And I mean, it came real easy when I'm talking to athletes who have a fantasy of being professionals. So I would ask them, like, given the way you're making your decisions, and the way that you're operating and your behavior, and if I had half a million dollars to invest, would I give it to you? Based on How you're living your life right now, and it would be instance in how you would Not the way I'm operating now And so let's talk about if you were to run a company and you wanted to have a business before NIL And you're trying to create a brand Given how you're operating Would I invest? No.

So let's look at your strengths, your weaknesses, or challenges, because some people don't like to wear weakness. Opportunities and threats. I want you to do a review of what you think is working and not working. Boom, boom, boom. Internally, externally, boom, boom, boom. And I need you to come back and we're going to review it and see if we can come up with personalized goals. All right. I say, but if you really want to go deep, I need you to identify two to three people who love you, who you trust, who are not going to abuse this opportunity. And I want them to give a SWOT analysis of what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are, opportunities and threats. And then we're going to come back and we'll review yours first. And then we'll look at theirs and see if they're congruence, incongruence. Are they seeing things you can't see? Boom, boom, boom. Man, this one kid. He said, I'm going to do it. He chose his ex-girlfriend and the guy who fired him.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Oh man, glutton for punishment.

GREG HARDEN: And they were, they had done such a good job because he chose them because they cared about him and he knew what he was doing. Because I thought he was nuts, nutsy bobo, as my wife would say. When he came back, the overviews were just. unbelievably on target and he grew and learned so much about himself. The ability to critique and examine yourself is important, but being overly sensitive to people right now, we've got, it's not right now. Historically, there are, there are amazing athletes.

There are amazing CEOs and corporate attorneys. Who can't take any feedback. Who you can't tell them anything they need to work on. They don't want anyone to give them any advice. Because they know everything. You'll have a 17, 17 year old who's not coachable. Because they are so, if you critique them, they go, they lose it. It's sad to see. That you, it's hard to. To try to get a young person who is so sensitive that they can't have any feedback, and even if you structure it, and you know, some of us are trained to structure it in such a way that it shouldn't be offensive. They still don't get it, and they're still offended, and they're still upset with you.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  So there's two parts here. Number one is developing more of a student persona. And I encourage that with everybody's to be a lifetime.

GREG HARDEN: Lifelong learning.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yes. So that's, that's the first part with being able to absorb. And I think it's important to have a sense of not necessarily comfortability, but confidence in where you're getting that criticism from. As you just mentioned, you know, like do a surprise my ex girlfriend, you know, just like, but he knew. And that's one side of it. And the other side is we tend to latch on to the negative criticism, right? And so that prevents a lot of people from taking action or from growing because they're so focused on the negative, right? And you shared this story about giving a talk, I think it was middle schoolers, like it was like a hundred middle schoolers. Can you share that story? He's like..

GREG HARDEN: Oh God, how can you forget that story? Because one of the beauties of our work is that we have to learn to practice what we preach. And if we practice what we preach, our recovery time, we'll get back to that, it changes. So middle schools are the toughest audience. And this time it's the middle schoolers and their parents and all the teachers in the school showed up. I had written it for middle schoolers, but now I've got half the audience is adults. And so I can't, in my mind, I've got to figure out how to alter it, edit it instantly so that I'm covering it for everyone. Well, I tried it and I'm anxious. And at the end, it's the first time anyone ever asked me, could you sign our program? Oh, you, oh my God, thank you. And I'm signing little programs and I'm getting feedback.

So it was about 200 people there and about 98 of them stayed after, you know, to chat it up, and it was fascinating. I'd never had an experience like that. And I got all this feedback that how many people loved it. About 98 percent of them loved it. And it is two people said. And they were not impressed at all, and they shared that with me. And for two weeks, I was so distraught about what, what I didn't do and how I failed and how, you know, distressful it was. And then it dawned on me, wait a minute, 98 of the people loved it. Two people didn't like it. Hmm. Wouldn't that be like 98 percent on an exam? I said, I really need to rethink how I'm approaching this.

And I had to catch myself. We have to learn to catch ourselves when we go into the spiral. Because it's predictable, therefore manageable. We have habits that we know are going to show up. And we, but we still get trapped into how we can be upset and disappointed and overwhelmed by any criticism. Those two critiques wore me out for two weeks and I finally caught myself and restructured, recalibrated and reinterpreted the whole thing.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  That's powerful. The game is being played in our minds. You know, and so again, this is the road map to really understanding this. We're just scratching the surface. Now, we keep on putting a placeholder for recovery time. So let's talk a little bit about that.

GREG HARDEN: Especially with you. It's going to be exciting for me because we're talking about a fitness guru. A fitness guru, you understand. This guy has learned to change his body and your body. Anybody's body. It's tell you how to, to, he's like a performance nutritionist, a sports nutritionist. He is a guy that can get you into show enough shape. Let's imagine that I'm from another planet and I have no idea what physical fitness is. And anyone who we talk to, even if they have never been in shape, know somebody that knows somebody that's been in sure enough shape of seeing somebody. And of course we talk about cardiovascular fitness. We talk about endurance. We talk about strength. We talk about. Flexibility, right? We talk about all of these things, but until you say the word recovery, you don't know anything about fitness.

Until you understand that I want you to give everything you've got to the point where you can say you've spent and then shorten how long it takes you to recover before I ask you to do it again. So right now we could go outside and we could run a hundred yard dash you and I and you could recover in like 30 seconds. I could recover in 30 days perhaps. So when we talk about fitness we have to include the word recovery time. So then what is mental fitness? Mental fitness. See, everyone talks about mental toughness, and everybody talks about the game is mental. It really is. But when we're talking about life. Not just sports. When we talk about mentally fit, we're talking about training for it.

We're talking about practicing, training, and rehearsing to be more fit physically and mentally than the average individual. What does that imply? In our lives, we're going to have trials and tribulations. We're going to have loss and grief. We're going to have heartache. We're going to be disappointed. We're going to fail miserably. But how fast you recover tells me how mentally fit you are. Again, we have to learn how to grow through it and not just go through it. Not to be broken by it. Our ability to recover faster from disappointment. Our ability to make a horrible shot and get over it. See? The past is like, okay, I don't know who told me this was years ago.

The past is like a canceled check. The future is like a promissory note. The only cash we have on hand is in the here and now. Mindfulness is teaching us not to wallow and be obsessed with the past and not to be preoccupied with what should have, could have, what might, and stay focused in the present. When I'm mentally fit, I get over making mistakes quicker than the average person. I threw a 28 to 3. 28 to 3? What could that conjure up? Atlanta and New England Super Bowl. Now, the only reason I'm watching at this point is because I love town. This is the two best teams in the world.

28 to 3 at halftime. It's over, but I'm not going to bet against him because it is Tommy, but it's over. But I'm watching it out of respect and in the back of my mind, if anyone, but it's not impossible, but it's improbable. But if you are mentally fit, you still believe that there's a few more minutes left in the game called the second half. If you are mentally fit, the interceptions, the mistakes that were made in the first half can be neutralized. If you're mentally fit, you're not preoccupied with the score. You're preoccupied with what can I do next?

And you play to win regardless of what the score says. So mental fitness, to keep it simple. It's your recovery time, getting, and sometimes we're simply talking about shrinking how long it takes to recover. You may still struggle mightily, but it's no longer going to be a month, a week, all during practice, you're going to recover after one mistake, instead of making five more thinking about the one. You bounce back and keep rolling.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. It's the definition of staying ready. So you don't have to get ready.

GREG HARDEN: Come on, bro. That's all we're talking about. How fast can I recover from a loss from disappointment, from making a mistake? I don't make five more because I made one and teaching people recovery time includes recovering from success.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  That part.

GREG HARDEN: Bruh. It's not as easy as people think.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. Wow. Man, that hit different. Yep. Yeah.

GREG HARDEN: Yeah. You felt that one, didn't you? Cause bruh, I mean right now, you better prepare yourself for success. Cause your work, things are blowing up. And so your ego is trying to say, you know, what team are we on? Is it me? This book, this book ain't about me. It's about the wonders of being able to work with individuals to try to be a change agent, trying to teach people how to get the best out of themselves, just to leave a legacy. My day are limited, but I know I'm in the fourth quarter of the, if you like hockey, the third period, whatever you want, this is an eighth inning, whatever you want to say. Bottom line is this ain't about me. It's about you. How will I be remembered? Will I have made a difference? Will I have my sense of purpose be real? My sense of purpose is being a guy who can challenge people to be the best version of themselves and teaching them how to do it.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. This is such a special book and I really want to encourage everybody to get a copy. Get a copy, not just for yourself, but for somebody that you care about reading together. And again, I don't usually put this kind of emphasis on getting a book, but this book is truly special. You just said it. This isn't even, this isn't about you. You're here on the cover, but this book is for all of us. And this is an honor to sit with you. I'm looking forward to doing this more often. And I'm very grateful for you just having the audacity to put this into writing for us to be able to pass on this knowledge. It's truly powerful.

GREG HARDEN: Well, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to be with you and, I told you when I, when I read about you and studied you, I was totally fascinated. And your life story is one that sets a standard and it gives a model for people who are struggling. And so, thank you for the time and the effort. And I really hope that people like this book because I put everything I had into it. And I've got more coming.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Stay sane in an insane world. We need this right now. The book is out right now, Greg Harden, get your book everywhere that books are sold. And is there anywhere else that you want people to connect with you to give more information?

GREG HARDEN: I have a website I know that's ancient. But I have a website. Shane Salarno is my guy who is set all this up. Blackstone Publishing is creating great opportunities for me to, to get out of Ann Arbor and go around. We're in LA today talking to an amazing human being. So, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, apple. Those are all vehicles that are going to be, we hope, excited about this. And I just, I just hope people will pick it up.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Absolutely. Again, Greg Harden, stay sane in an insane world. Pick up your copy right now. I appreciate you. Thank you. Greg Harden, everybody.

Thank you so much for tuning into this very special episode dedicated to the amazing, the one and only Greg Harden. And please, I highly recommend checking out his phenomenal book, Stay Sane in an Insane World. We could definitely use more of that for sure right now. You know, we're going through a lot of turbulence, respectively, as a society. And it's also ripe with opportunity. And it's really about our mindset. It's about our perspective. It's about what lens we're looking through. We have an opportunity to stay sane in an insane world and to make that contagious we could bring more sanity into the fold and it's about following these principles. And so I know that supporting his book will support his family. And again, this is one of the two books that has been sitting on the arm of my couch for over a year since I first met Greg and again, thank you so much for sharing your time and energy with me today and honoring Greg's memory.

We've got some amazing, amazing things in store. We've got some amazing masterclasses that are lined up for you. We've got some incredible world class guests coming your way very, very soon. So make sure to stay tuned, take care, have an amazing day. And I'll talk with you soon. And for more after the show, make sure to head over to themodelhealthshow.Com. That's where you can find all of the show notes. You can find transcriptions, videos for each episode. And if you've 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 the 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.