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. What determines how we respond to the events that happen in our lives? When we're hit with a negative or challenging circumstance what determines how we react to those things? Are we responding with irritation, with aggression, with sadness, with depression? In the same way, how are you responding to the positive things that happen in your life? Are we rising up and experiencing full joy in appreciation of the good things? Or is there a sense of lack and not enough, or that this thing won't last, so why get excited in the first place? It's strange that when good things happen, we might not experience joy as a result. But here's what we know today with modern science, is that something like a regular exercise practice sensitizes our brains to more pleasure.

It actually sensitizes our receptor sites for these "feel good" hormones and neurotransmitters. So, it has to do with these receptors, right? So, we know about something like, for example, insulin resistance. So, our cells can become resistant to that signal from insulin, And our receptor sites for insulin can become again, desensitized. They can down-regulate so that our cells are not responding to that message or that signal that insulin is present. The same thing happens with just about any of the chemistry that our bodies are creating. We have intelligent systems of these, what are factually antennas, as Dr. Bruce Lipton would call them, their molecular antennas, essentially, when we're talking about our receptor sites that are picking up signals from our environment. Now, here's the most remarkable part about all of this. These receptor sites, these antennas are attuned to a certain frequency, a certain information. And today's episode is going to be about how do we truly optimize that message that we're picking up?

How do we attune to the right frequency to make joyful moments truly joyful, to make the challenging moments less abrasive and inflammatory, and overall building up more resilience? Because here's the thing, there are going to be ebbs and flows in life. Challenging times are going to come and go. Positive times are going to come and go. And on this episode, you're going to hear from an absolute superstar in the world of mindset and personal development and really crafting this connection between our minds, our brains, our bodies, and our outcomes. All right? There's a powerful synergy at work at all times, determining the thoughts that we're thinking, the actions that we're taking, and the correlating results that we're getting. But today, we're going right to the root of all of it. We're going to target the thing that's determining everything, this trickle-down effect. So, I'm really, really excited about this.

Now, later in this episode, our special guest is going to make mention about how our nutrition is affecting our thoughts as well. And there's a tremendous amount of science emerging on this topic. And it makes sense because every single cell in our bodies, including those receptors, including those antennas, are made from the food that we're consuming. So, it's going to determine the quality of the receptivity, the cell's ability to receive information from the environment is going to be influenced by the raw materials that we're giving our bodies. And so, if we're looking at something like, what can we do to improve our cognitive health, there's an emerging field of nootropics as well. People are looking for this limitless pill. All right? Now, obviously the most important things are ensuring that we're getting high quality hydration. The brain is mostly made of water, and then high-quality real food sources of nutrients that build the brain and enable this cell receptivity, enable our neurons to actually talk to each other.

Now, there is something that is truly science-backed and truly natural, has a real resonance with the human body. As a matter of fact, it's been utilized for centuries, and it's now affirmed in real world peer-reviewed data. A study published in advanced biomedical research found that royal jelly, this remarkable product from bees, royal jelly, has the potential to improve attention, memory, and even something like spatial learning. Now, obviously, we have true issues today with our attention, right? Being able to pay attention. We are living in a world of distraction as our special guests are going to talk about as well. And being able to hone your attention to be able to focus your mind is such an incredible gift. And that works through mental practices, but also our nutrition matters as well, and royal jelly is one of the few things found to improve our ability to focus and pay attention to what we want to pay attention to.

In addition to being antimicrobial, anti-tumor. These are all seen in peer-reviewed studies around royal jelly, anti-inflammatory, royal jelly has also been found to facilitate the differentiation of all types of our brain cells. And to top it off, researchers in Japan discovered that royal jelly has the power to stimulate neurogenesis, the creation of new brain cells in the memory center of the brain. Now I just have my favorite royal jelly supplement today, and it's called Brain Fuel, and it's from the incredible team at Beekeepers Naturals. The reason that this is far in a way the very best royal jelly supplement in the world is that it's also combined with bacopa, which is one of my favorite things for cognitive function. A randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled human trial published in 2016 Found that after just six weeks of use, Bacopa significantly improved speed of visual information processing, learning rate, memory consolidation, and even decreased anxiety in study participants.

Again, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled human trial. Truly remarkable. And Beekeepers Naturals is committed to third-party testing for common toxicants found in conventional bee products. Plus, to top it all off, they are dedicated to regenerative beekeeping, and they're really helping to expand and grow our populations of bees. Our livelihoods are deeply dependent upon bee populations for pollinating so many of the things that we utilize as foods today. So this is something we've got to put more attention to in investing in companies that are dedicated to regenerative beekeeping, like Beekeepers Naturals. Go to beekeepersnaturals.com/model. You're going to get 20% off their incredible brain fuel product, their superfood honey, their propolis, and everything else store wide. It's truly incredible. That's B-E-E-K-E-E-P-E-R-S naturals.com/model. Again, you get 20% off store wide. Huge fan of their brain fuel. Definitely check it out, test it out, and see how it makes you feel.

That's beekeepersnaturals.com/model. And now let's get to the Apple podcast review of the week.

ITUNES REVIEW: Another five-star review titled “Happy Healthy Birthday” by BeeStar123. “As I'm creeping up on 50, I had my birthday today and my 11-year-old son gave me a card that read, "This is so amazing being and looking so healthy for your age." This podcast has absolutely changed my life. And with the knowledge I've learned over the past several years, I have a clear picture on how to live a long, healthy, vibrant life. I take Shawn with me on every morning walk and learn something new every day. I'm in the best shape of my life and have more focus now than ever because of the tools and strategies I've learned from the Model Health Show. And I'm just getting warmed up.”

SHAWN STEVENSON: Absolutely, you are. That is so amazing. Thank you so much for taking me with you and making me a part of your world. And please tell your son that he's a superstar as well. Happy birthday and I hope that this is the best year ever. And like you said, you're just getting warmed up so I'm excited to see what the future holds. And thank you so much for making me a part of your life, your incredible superhero story. And again, thank you so much for leaving that review over on Apple Podcast. And without further ado, let's get to our special guest and topic of the day. All right, here we go. Our guest today is the author of 17 books, including multiple bestsellers, and he's been featured on The Today Show, CNN, CNBC, The Golf Channel, Fox & Friends, the list goes on and on. Numerous magazines, newspapers, television shows. He's that guy. And I'm talking about the one and only Jon Gordon. His clients include the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Atlanta Falcons, Dell Computers, Southwest Airlines, the Los Angeles Clippers, the Miami Heat, Clemson Football. The list goes on and on with the incredible organizations that he is helping and serving to really craft and cultivate a powerful mindset for their industries, for their companies, for their communities.

And now, today he's here to talk to our community about some incredible insights to craft a more empowered mindset. Let's dive into this conversation with the amazing Jon Gordon. All right, we have a GOAT here in the building. Jon Gordon, it's good to see you. Thank you for coming to hang out.

JON GORDON: Good to meet you. Man, it's awesome to meet with you.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And I don't use that label lightly, man.

JON GORDON: It means a lot.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And I want to kick things off by talking about something from your book. You say that it's not the circumstance, the environment, obstacle, or event that makes us feel a certain way. Can you start off by sharing what determines how we feel and how we respond to the events in our lives?

JON GORDON: Definitely. One day you're in traffic and it bothers you, the next day you're in the same traffic and it doesn't. Is it the traffic making you feel a certain way? If it was the traffic, you'd respond the same way every single time. And people respond the same way to the traffic, so it's not the traffic. It's like the pandemic. Some people thrived in the pandemic; other people really struggled during the pandemic. So, was it the pandemic that made you feel a certain way? People say, "Well, the pandemic caused this," but did it? It really is never the circumstance. It's never the event. It's always our state of mind. When your state of mind is low, the circumstance happens, and it bothers you. The same circumstance can happen, but you have a high state of mind, it doesn't. You rise above, you move forward. So high state of mind, low state of mind. What characterizes a low state of mind? A lot of clutter, a lot of thought, worry, fear, anxiety, doubt, insecurity. What characterizes a high state of mind? A lot of clarity, focus, positive energy. Being in the zone is the ultimate high state of mind. When you're just flowing, you got confidence, got a lot of courage, that's high state of mind. So high state of mind, low state of mind.

And it's always our state of mind that will determine how we feel, how we respond to the circumstance that we're facing. And why this is so important is because we're always dealing with all these different events in our life. We'll always deal with challenges, adversity, and setbacks. And when you have that low state of mind, you're not going to respond well. When you have a high state of mind, you rise above, you move forward, you have more resilience, you have more grit, and that's what is needed in this world.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Now, here's the thing. I think that just even hearing that, we want to live in a high state of mind, but you share something so profound. I had a huge aha moment reading this part of the book about... It's a rollercoaster analogy, which I want you to share. But it's natural for us to have ebbs and flows with our state of mind. And can you share that analogy because I think it's really powerful.

JON GORDON: You're never going to be in a permanent high state of mind. I wish that was the case, but it's not. It's the ebb and flow. It's like a rollercoaster. We're going to have highs and we're going to have lows. If you've never been on a rollercoaster before, and this is your first time on a rollercoaster, and you're going down, and you think the rollercoaster is going to crash, what would you want to do? You want to jump off. When we're in a low state of mind, or heading towards a low state of mind, we want to jump off. We want to escape. And so many times when people are in a low state of mind, they want to escape the feelings that they have, the thoughts that they're thinking. So, what do they do? They play video games, they drink.

They do drugs, they eat a lot of bad foods people do a lot of things a lot of addictions to escape how they feel. And it's because they're in a low state of mind. The key is to realize that that's part of the ebb and flow of life. Nothing is wrong with you, nothing is broken. You're just in a low state of mind. Don't jump off stay on the rollercoaster. 'cause what happens is you also start to think something is wrong. Something is broken. So, what does that do? It revs up thought. Now you have all these thoughts and you're thinking a lot like the baseball batter that goes 0 for 4, 0 for 3, and 0 for 4 And so that baseball batter is now thinking something's wrong with my swing. Like my swing is broken I got to fix this. Then they go into a slump and then it's hard to go and get back from the slump.

So, what does that baseball player need to do? Just play see ball. Hit ball. And it's the same way. Stay on the rollercoaster. Nothing's wrong, nothing's broken just stay on it. What happens is when you do this so often, you'll ride the wave right back up to a higher state of mind. Once you realize this. Just the other day I'm walking, I'm on my phone, I'm talking to someone at an important meeting and this bus comes by all loud and interrupts my conversation. I'm like come on bus. And I yell at the bus. I yelled at the bus. Yeah. And I laughed at myself. I yelled at the bus. It's not the circumstance John, you allowed that circumstance to bother you because you were looking at the circumstance. And so, I laughed going no it's not the bus focus on you. And in that laughter, I was right back up to a higher state of mind right away.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. That's powerful. What if the bus though was like I'm driving here. You know like but that's not what's going to happen. You know?

JON GORDON: Well, it could happen. Imagine again we're in LA right now. Yeah. So, two cars driving on the road they see each other as the traffic. You're driving I'm driving. You're the cause of my traffic. I'm the cause of your traffic. But there was a sign the other day that said you are the traffic. Guess what? It's all one. We're all the traffic. And so, you're part of the traffic. Don't look at the traffic. But we're looking at each other. And so, we're now fighting over this one spot or one area in the road that we're trying to get into. And we're in a low state of mind. If you're in a low state, I'm in a low state we're probably giving each other a finger or yelling at each other. And that begins the process of road rage and all these incidents. But think about what happens if you're in a high state of mind. I'm on a high state of mind. You're trying to move in. I go eh come on in. I gotcha. You know good. We give each other a thumbs up, we wave, we move on.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Different fingers.

JON GORDON: Right? Different fingers. You're number one you’re positive number one. Or hello a thumb. Right? A thumb up. So, it all depends on the state of mind of how we're responding to the situation. Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: High state of mind. And even when you said that you laughing off that moment humor is more accessible. Right? And it's kind of like a bridge back to like you literally... It's kind of like a reset for your nervous system in a sense. Because if I ever catch myself having a reaction like that which is definitely far more rare than it used to be. But then I literally within a few minutes especially if I'm by myself And I have an irritation thought I just laugh like what are you doing? Like come on. You know? But having access to those tools. And here's the thing when you shared this about the ebb and flows, you're sharing what people don't want to hear because we want that prize that other people are selling us. That you can live this blissful life in eternity. And this whole thing they're selling a false bill of goods. You're talking about reality. But here's the cool thing. What you do share is that by working on these tools you can make the ebbs and flows less steep. Talk about that.

JON GORDON: That's key. So, when you're recognizing this, you won't have as many highs and lows from a vertical standpoint. They'll be more horizontal. So, you will not have extreme highs, extreme lows. And so, when you're dealing with challenges and adversities and setbacks, you'll find yourself you might be affected but not as much as you were in the past. For me someone who is naturally negative actually and struggled with negativity growing up and dealt with a lot of pessimism a lot of fear, a lot of doubt, a lot of worry. Even, even depression on my journey, I had these highs and lows. And as I've been doing this and modeling this and living this it's now become a part of me. I rarely go to the high and the low. I sort of stay you know very balanced along the way. And that's really important to go through life that way in a more powerful way because you don't want to be the victim of your circumstance.

You don't want to allow these situations determine your mood, your happiness. It's good to laugh at life instead of allowing life to make you cry. And as you said I love what you said earlier. When you laugh, what's happening? And when you're laughing, you're definitely raising your frequency and your vibration to a higher frequency. There's no doubt about it. Versus anger and fear and worry and scowling bringing it down to a lower frequency. No doubt that /laughter we know is great for the heart great for our health, great for our longevity. Smiling laughter, real smiles, real laughters. All of that elevates our state of mind no doubt about it.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. So powerful. My mother-in-law introduced me to a teacher years ago and he said that seriousness is a sickness.

JON GORDON: Well, that's good.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And I didn't really get it at that time it was just kind of in passing. He was talking about other things. But I really understand that because we latch onto things like we really understand reality. Like we got it all figured out. Everything is so serious. But we've got to really start to approach things with the state of curiosity and relax back off of this grip that we try to have on life, because everything in life is fleeting. We're spinning around in outer space on this blue ball. Like we're not... Millions of miles from the sun but that sh*t still can burn you. You know like if you... It's so like something could come along and throw off this whole axis.

We don't know. We're just kind of trusting the process. But if we can lighten up, we can enjoy more of these minutes that we do have here. And I want to share this quote right from this particular section in talking about these ebbs and flows. You said "it's normal to have a range of thoughts, feelings and emotions. You are simply human, too often, psychology slaps a label on you, and makes you feel like something is wrong with you, which causes you to work on trying to "fix the problem. Fix what's broken" which leads to more revved up thought more clutter, more anxiety and feeling even worse."

JON GORDON: This happens happened so often. You have these teenagers who are struggling. They're having all these negative thoughts, so then they're freaking out. They're worried, they're anxious, parents get worried about them. They send them to a psychiatrist or a psychotherapist. Now they start exploring what's wrong with them, and they think there's something wrong. They got this label now. Again, I'm not opposed to therapy. I'm not opposed to psychiatry, all of that. But so often, I think that should be more of our last resort or giving medication should be our last resort. Not the first decision. I had a good friend sent his daughter who was struggling with anxiety, and the first thing he wanted to do was give the kids some pills. Instead of talking about maybe the source of the anxiety. What's making you feel this way? What is going on in your life right now that you're dealing with? And then maybe teaching them the truth is what I did in this book would be helpful. I spent some time with a 16-year-old suicidal young man who was in the ER two nights before, I knew his mom. I said, do you have a lot of thoughts in your head? He said, "So many." I said, "Do they bombard you a lot? Do they accuse you?" He said, "All the time." I said, "Your negative thoughts come from you?" He said, "Yeah, they're in my head." I said, here's the next question.

If you believe your negative thoughts come from you, who would ever choose to have a negative thought? Would you ever choose a negative thought? "No, I wouldn't." So, then he started to understand negative thoughts were not coming from him. I told him, neuroscientists have yet to find a thought inside of a brain. So where do they exist? Well, when you're dreaming, having a nightmare, are you choosing those thoughts? No. I am convinced that thoughts exist in consciousness. Thoughts are spiritual, and what happens is there's this internet cloud, this software of thoughts. The brain is the hardware. It's where the activation happens. So, the thought comes in, and it's activated. It's brought to life into your awareness through the brain. Just like right now, we're more thought beings and are light beings than we are physical beings. And when you die, your body turns to the dust. Think about that. And so, you have to understand the nature of your reality. And once you do this, it makes even more sense. And so, I was sharing this with the young man, and telling him about thoughts. And I said, instead of listening to the lies that they tell you, don't believe the lies. Start speaking truth, and words of encouragement to those lies. I said, nothing's wrong with you. Nothing's broken. He was beating himself up for the thoughts that were in his head that he didn't choose in the first place.

So, I taught him, you don't have the power of the first thought, but you have the power of the second thought. And so, when that negative thought comes in, don't believe the lies, choose the second thought. Start speaking words of life. No more shame. No more guilt. He's no longer beating himself up. The next day, his parents said, "what did you do? He's great. He's fine." I just told him the truth. Reached out to him the other day. "How you doing? Doing great, Mr. Gordon", high state of mind. It was like the best feeling in the world. But I thought, okay, I did that with him. Then I did it with another kid, then another kid, another kid. A friend's son, a friend's daughter. I've done this a number of times now. And when I teach this, the light bulb goes off. During the conversation, the kid gets the truth. They see it, and you can tell there's a shift in their energy and their awareness immediately. I want to go back to what you said too. You talked about that life is short. It's fleeting. And understanding that means, okay, we should enjoy life more. I've lost both my parents, and we never talk enough about how death is actually really strange. Like you're here one day, the next day, you're gone. I've lost my parents. They were here one day and then they were gone the next. Like, where'd they go? Like where do you go. You're here and you're gone. This should let you know that, okay, what are we? We're temporary.

We're temporary beings. And this is a battle. This existence is a battle of thought between negative thoughts that are always sabotaging us, trying to bring us down, keep us from our destiny. And you are a hero in an epic story. And then the journey is, I'm going to overcome this adversity, this challenge, this negative source, this negativity. I've got to overcome it with positivity, with optimism, with belief as I move towards my destiny. And when you understand that life makes a lot more sense. So, I told this kid, you're a hero in an epic story, and you have a purpose and there's a plan for your life. And nothing's wrong with you. You're just going through something temporary. This kid changed. I mean, so once I saw that, and then I started sharing with others, and then I shared it with a few NFL players who were struggling, and a few NBA players, and a few major league baseball players. And you start sharing this and they get it. And I start talking to coaches and they're like, "oh yeah, my players are struggling with this. My players are struggling with that." And then they start to understand how thoughts work. High state of mind, low state of mind. It's a game changer. Changes everything.

SHAWN STEVENSON: This is so profound. It's so simple. But you changed his frequency or pointed him to changing his frequency what he is attuned to. Even as we're in this studio right now, all of the Los Angeles radio stations are streaming right now in this room. They're all accessible. All of those different waves, that frequency. We just need a device here to turn it on and then turn it to the station. But all of it's here right now, and so, that analogy with the brain being effectively an antenna and picking up certain frequencies, certain information that's existing in this massive consciousness, that's life. Right?

JON GORDON: Yes.

SHAWN STEVENSON: That is so powerful. So powerful.

JON GORDON: And in that consciousness, there's good, there's evil, there's positive, there's negative. What is Black Panther about? Good versus evil. What is Harry Potter about? Good versus evil. Superman? Good versus evil. Star Wars? Good versus evil. Every major epic movie is about good versus evil. That is the narrative of the universe. So, when you understand this, 'cause why would there be a negative thought in the first place? People say, well, for survival. Okay, evolutionary survival, negative thoughts running from the tigers. But those negative thoughts or that understanding of negative thoughts have nothing to do with you're not enough. If you don't perform well today, you're not going to be loved or recognized.

You don't have what it takes. The future is hopeless. That goes to the core of identity. Those are not evolutionary thoughts. That's a battle for your identity. That's a battle for your soul. That's a battle for your wholeness. That's a battle for who you're meant to be and the struggle that you will face along the way to become who you're meant to be. So that's the epic story. So why would there be a negative thought in the first place, and why would the negative thought tell you that you're not good enough? The health diagnosis is not going to improve. The relationship is not going to get better.

But to make you powerless. But to make you feel weak, to separate and divide you. Because the root for the Greek word of anxious means to separate and divide. And so, when you feel anxious, you feel separate and divided. So, what do negative thoughts do? Separate and divide. What does fear do? Separate and divide. What happened during the pandemic? People felt separated, divided, disconnected. It's why there was so many mental health issues during that time and people are still struggling because of that. So, once you understand where those negative thoughts would come from, okay, there's two main frequencies. So, you talked about tuning your dial. Two main frequencies though, there's the positive station or the negative station, and everything in life comes down to positive or negative. That's why we often talk about positivity, optimism, and we often talk about negativity and energy vampires and people who suck the life right out of you. And pessimism and all sorts of conversations happen for those two main frequencies.

SHAWN STEVENSON: What you're saying right now, I really hope people get this because this is coming from also Einstein-level of thinking. Literally, Einstein said the most important fundamental decision that we make is whether we live in a friendly or a hostile universe, right? So, choosing do you live in a state of positivity or negativity? And if somebody's a smart person today, we would call him an Einstein, right? We just to... Because this is one of the most legendary thinkers in our documented history. And for him to say this is the most important fundamental decision that we make as a human being, maybe he's onto something.

JON GORDON: I think so. He also said E = mc², which means that everything that is matter is energy, and everything is energy. So, when you look out into the world and you see the trees out there, it's just energy. The water is just energy. And again, going back to the nature of our reality, we live in an energetic reality. It's an energetic universe, and you're an energetic being, and your brain is an antenna. And every day it's tuning into the positive or the negative. And when it tunes into the negative, again in consciousness, you have these two forces. Star Wars was right. You got the dark side, you got the Jedi, you got all these kinds of forces and you got these negative thoughts coming in. And you can tune into those negative thoughts, or you can tune into the positive thoughts, the positive words of encouragement. And the more you tune your brain, to that dial, you tune that dial to that frequency, you'll get more and more positive thoughts, and you tune that dial to the negative frequency.

And it becomes a habit over and over again. Now that negative thought starts to affect actually your brain. And I'm convinced I want scientists to study this in the future. I believe in the future, we'll be able to measure the energetic structure of your brain and the antenna actual of your brain, the frequency of your brain. And I'm convinced those negative thoughts lower the frequency of your brain, which then starts to tune into more and more negative thoughts. Which is why we get downward spirals. Why the more you get negative thoughts, you get more and more negative thoughts. The more we train our mind and brain to actually start thinking of positive thoughts, the more you get that. As someone who was negative, depressed, my wife threatened to leave me if I didn't change, and I begged her to stay, she agreed to stay, and I agreed to change. And that began this journey of working to become a more positive person. I looked back, the number one thing I did was I took a walk of gratitude every day. Because the research shows you can't be stressed and thankful at the same time.

So, I'd be walking every day just saying what I'm thankful for. What was I doing? Tuning into the positive every day of gratitude, which connects you instead of the lack and the fear and the worry and the anxiety. I'm tuning every day into the positive. Over time, what am I doing? I'm renewing my mind and I'm actually creating a positive energetic structure in my brain. I'm getting more and more positive thoughts, more optimism, more belief. I'm getting new ideas. I literally changed the course of my life, no doubt about it, by doing those walks every day. Back then, I didn't know why I was doing it. I didn't know how it was working, but it worked, and it literally tuned my mind where I am a different person now. I am literally the result of my thoughts. You are the result of your thoughts. What we believe determines what we create.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, another really profound thing that happens when you're tuned to that positive, is you see more solutions. You become very solution oriented. And we all know a person who has a problem for every solution who's tuned to that negative station. But within that solution, it brings about the ability to see more context. Something you said earlier when you talked about the good and the bad with a tiger, for example, like evolutionary speaking, you know, like having this as a survival mechanism, it would be bad for us from one perspective, but very good for the tiger. He's tuned into the positive 'cause he is about to eat your ass and it's dependent on what angle you're looking at this. And when you're tuned into this positive, you have the ability to see from multiple perspectives, and that negative isolates us.

JON GORDON: Very narrow.

SHAWN STEVENSON: It gives tunnel vision.

JON GORDON: Yeah. A narrow focus lens is what negativity does. Whereas positivity broadens your perspective and allows you to see possibilities. And so, there's a lot of studies on that, especially positive teams outperform negative teams. Positive leaders are able to garner the support of their team to provide solutions as they move forward, as they look towards the future. And that's why being a positive leader is so essential as you're leading people. Because negativity cause you to focus on fear, what you lack and very tunnel vision. Whereas the positivity allows you to see possibilities, solutions, new ideas, new innovations, adaptability, how do we change, how do we grow, how do we move forward? So, you nailed it on that.

SHAWN STEVENSON: You've literally written the books on these subjects in leadership for example. And so, when I started this off by saying, we have GOAT here today, and by the way, I want to circle back to this, because this is one of the most profound things I think that we could ever even learn because it's what is, it's what's happening. Do you know about Dr. Bruce Lipton?

JON GORDON: I know the name. Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: So, he wrote the biology of belief.

JON GORDON: Okay. Yes.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And you're already tuned in. You're like even if you don't know him, you are teaching the same thing with different language. Because he speaks about, he's a world-renowned cell biologist, pioneer in epigenetics. Like he popularized the term.

JON GORDON: I got it.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And in our first conversation, he shared with me that, we have all these receptor sites on our cells and our receptor sites are essentially molecular antennas. And they're picking up signals from the environment, determining function. And he said the most remarkable aspect of these antennas is that they're picking up your frequency, yours, you are not just your body, you're pulling this station from consciousness itself. And he made this analogy or this kind of pivot over into these examples, and I want to share this study actually I pulled up reading your book.

JON GORDON: Love It.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And inspired me to look it up. So, this study, and we'll put it up for everybody to see, this was conducted by researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. The study is titled Personality Changes Following Heart Transplantation.

JON GORDON: I read it.

SHAWN STEVENSON: In the paper, they examined the decades long accumulation of data on this phenomenon. They cite evidence of cellular memory and most notably, energetic memory. So, people are getting this heart transplant, and suddenly their personality is shifting. They're having different cravings, they're doing different behaviors, they have a different perspective, and they're picking up someone else's frequency, basically, and it's integrating in their bodies. It's really powerful stuff. And again, we get to choose, right now, you get to choose what frequency you're tuned into. You've got to kind of a natural... Even as I say natural, it's a station that you might have subconsciously programmed yourself to because of the environment, but you are the one that gets to change it.

JON GORDON: And that shows you that the circumstance has no power over you if you really understand this. 'Cause we always create from the inside out, not the outside in. So, I can look at the outside, I can look at the world, I can think it has more power over me. I can look at my circumstances. I can say I grew up in this environment, in this neighborhood. And people don't create success when they grow up in this neighborhood. But then you see the one person who does, and you see the kid who rise above. And guess what? If he can do it, anybody could do it. And so, what you believe determines what you create. I want to go back to what you just said about the biology of that.

My wife six months ago was like, "I'm getting old. My body's breaking down. I'm sore all the time. I'll never be like when I was younger" I'm like, "Honey, what is going on? Why are you saying this?" 'Cause she was always into health and fitness. And so, I go away to a speaking engagement. I was gone for two days. I was glad to be gone for those two days, I want to say that. And I come home and all of a sudden, she's like bouncing off the walls. She's happy, she's smiling, she's all energetic, like a different person. I said, "What's going on here? Did you find a boyfriend or something? What's happening here?" She said, "No, no, I did that health testing and I spoke to the health coach." I'm like, "Oh, well, tell me about that." She's like, "Oh yeah, they said that you have something really rare." 'Cause they tested the blood, the genes, and the DNA. It's like the real intensive testing. I'm sure you know about it. And they said, "You have the genes of an Olympic athlete. We don't see this often. Olympic athlete."

So now she's walking around the house, "I am an Olympic athlete. I am an Olympic athlete." She's literally saying, "You want to play tennis tomorrow? I'll crush you, 'cause I'm an Olympic athlete." [laughter] Literally talk about nonstop. I kid you not, the soreness goes away. The pain goes away. She's all of a sudden feeling great. She's working out. She's training. She's an Olympic athlete. The words she was saying, "I am powerful. I am strong." I tell people all the time that, imagine if we would say the words, "I am a change agent. I am a culture builder. I am a difference maker. I am able to overcome my circumstances. I am here to take on this world, and rally people to create a better future. I am." That would change everything. And we don't give it enough credit. We think, "Oh, that's from those funny TV shows where we look in the mirror and say, "Gosh, darn it. I'm great and people like me."" No, there is the power of real thoughts, real belief. And I always say like being positive is not going to guarantee you'll succeed. But being negative will guarantee that you don't. And also, the optimism we have, the belief we have on a daily basis and the thoughts we think, that literally is what we become.

I talk about businesses. I've seen it with my sports teams I work with, Dabo Swinney, Clemson, Sean McVay with the Rams. These coaches, leadership is a transfer belief. But as you said, you are leading your body every day by what you say. And your body will listen, and it will follow by what you think, what you believe, and what you do on a daily basis.

SHAWN STEVENSON: This is blowing my mind. It's so powerful. So powerful. Now, the rub is how do we put this into action for ourselves? Because here's the thing. You just shared how our thoughts; our words are guiding the way that we feel. Right? And even your wife, that was an incredible story, because she was able to get out of pain. And pain is all about perception. And for years, science started to kind of guide everything to being something where the brain is picking up pain signals from other places in the body. What we know today is that your brain is actually deciding whether or not something is something to respond to in the first place. There's not even nociceptors in the brain that picks up pain for the brain itself. The brain can't experience pain, but it can tell you about pain somewhere in your body if it chooses to.

So, there was this study done and did a bunch of MRIs on people. People had all... Like 60% of people had all these problems, but they didn't have any pain, which would be associated with ruptured disc and tears in the meniscus and the list goes on and on. They're just going about their lives. But here's the thing, when you're in a negative state, suddenly pain starts to kick in. Now, I'm saying all this to say with your wife being able to change her thinking and to change her biology, psycho-neurobiology, that's a powerful tool we all have. And it's most difficult though when we're in it. When we're in that pain and the thing is happening, can you cultivate the muscle to remember how powerful you are despite the circumstance to speak power and life into yourself, into your cells? And not just the words, but also the movement too. Like we blend those two things together, something special going to happen.

JON GORDON: Yeah, that's why I think taking the thank-you walk like I do.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, that... Yeah.

JON GORDON: And I encourage people to do that. 'Cause even if you're depressed, 10 minutes, just do a 10-minute thank-you walk every day and just start small doing that. What do you say, what you're thankful for? I'm thankful that I can walk. I'm thankful for the ground that I walk on. I'm thankful that I'm healthy enough to walk. And you just start with all the different little things that you can do. I'll even say I'm thankful for my kids that are driving me crazy right now.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah.

JON GORDON: And so, I'm just thankful. And you just say what you're thankful for. Those little things make a big difference. But I think it's important to understand like the five Ds that I'm sure you read about in the book, and those D's are how we go towards the negative. The Ds will sabotage us. And it starts with the doubt. So, there's a seed of doubt that grows into a forest of uncertainty and fear. So, it all starts with doubt. And then there's distortion, which are the negative thoughts and lies that will tell you things about yourself and your future that just aren't true. So, you might have the pain, but then the thoughts come in and say, "Oh, that pain, it's never going to go away. It's going to be with you for the rest of your life and you're never going to get better. And you know what? Your father and your grandfather had that kind of pain, and you now will too for the rest of your life."

And so, my biological father who left when I was a year old, he always had a bad back. And I remember I started to have a bad back in my 40s, early 40s, and I told myself, "You will not have a bad back. You will not be like that like he was for the rest of your life. You will not have a bad... " I just said that "You will not have a bad back." You know what? No back issues. I made the decision. 'Cause I was starting to have a bad back. Like, nope, I will not have a bad back. I truly believe there's the power of belief in talking to yourself, the receptors you just said. I love that. I know that there's 86 billion neurons and every neuron has a transmitter and receiver on the neurons, which basically supports my belief in theory that the brain is an antenna. But what we're saying here is that your body's an antenna, the whole body. And it's always listening to what you're saying.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah.

JON GORDON: Well, guess what? The lies are coming in. Are you going to believe the lies? 'Cause if you believe the lies, the body now believes the lies. But everything is meaning. Like the brain is always giving meaning and creating meaning based on the world we're experiencing and sensing and feeling. And so, for instance, Novak Djokovic when he's playing tennis, if the crowd is booing, he says, "I imagine that they're cheering." So, what is he doing? He's literally taking the sounds and the vibrations and just giving new meaning to it. From which the brain might give one meaning, but now he's changing it and we have the power to change it. We don't realize the power of the brain and what we can actually do. 'Cause what is the brain? But just processing electrical signals and electrical impulses. And the auditory nerve is basically taking the sound vibrations and then translated into then meaning that makes sense, or that gives meaning to what you're hearing.

And then the same thing in the visual context. It's light, receptors, eyes. Then the optic nerve, right, is now converting into those signals into visuals and images. And then we create a visual map of what we're seeing as we're looking at each other. We're creating visual maps of each other right now. But the brain is literally creating this visual map that we're seeing. But all basically by firing neuro synapsis in the brain that's allowing us to experience this. It's pretty wild when you really think about the context. So, I truly believe you can change the meaning. You can change the distortion and the lie and then speak truth to the lie. The third D, discouragement that comes in, we can encourage.

The fourth D is distraction. And distractions are the enemy of greatness. And a distraction is anything that keeps you from being your best. A distraction is anything that keeps you from what your purpose is, what your mission is. And you'll always have distractions along the way that will sabotage you. And then the fifth D is divide. And so, these Ds, as I talked about earlier, they separate, they divide you, they weaken you, they make you feel powerless. So, if negative thoughts weaken us, then how can we become stronger? How do we become more powerful? How do we uplift ourselves? And I love to share an acronym. This is very practical for people. This is in the book as well, but we can share it with them, so they get some immediate benefit right now it's tune. T-U-N-E. Tune.

Your brain's an antenna tune to the positive on a daily basis. So how do you do that? Trust in truth. So, when the doubt comes in trust, you know what I do? Like I'm a spiritual person. I do believe in God. So, whenever I start to have doubt, I go, "You know what God, I don't have all the answers. I trust in you, and I trust in your plan for my life." In that moment, the doubt goes away, and I find more trust and peace in that moment. Truth, I speak truth to the lies on a daily basis. Dr. James Gills, the only person on the planet to complete six double Ironman triathlons, double Ironman, which means you do an Ironman a day later, do another one. And the last time he did it, he was 59 years old. He was asked how he did it. He said this, "I've learned to talk to myself instead of listen to myself." He said, if I listen, I rather fear the negativity, the doubt, all the reasons why I can't finish this race. But if I talk to myself, I can feed myself with the words and the encouragement that I need to keep on moving so forward.

So, what was he doing? Talking to himself instead of listen. So that's the truth part of it. Speak truth to the lies on a daily basis. And that goes to the heart of like helping people understand who they truly are and the power they possess and the greatness that is within them. I always ask people; do you want to be great? Everyone says yes. No one ever says, I want to be average. Okay, you want to be great. Every kid wants to be great. But why? 'Cause deep down we know there's greatness within us. That's the truth. And you're here to do great things. You just have these voices that say you're not great. And that's the battle. I want to be great, voices say, I'm not, okay. Listen to the truth instead and start speaking that truth. So that's the T part.

Then there's U, unite with love. So, minute I'm fearful, I'm stressed, I'm worried if fear separates and fear divides what unites? Love. Love unites and love cast out fear. And love is more powerful than fear. So, this is my number one strategy for athletes, but it could work for all of us. Like even a salesperson, you're selling the minute you focus on loving your client, loving the product, loving what you get to sell, you're going to be so much more powerful in that moment from your state. My son has been now selling since he graduated just a month ago, got right into a job selling. So, he's selling. First week went well, this week, "Dad, didn't have a great second week. I just didn't feel good. I drank on the weekend. And man, I just didn't have that confidence and that feeling and that state." I'm like exactly, you weren't feeling right, you didn't feel good. Your state wasn't right because you weren't loving it. Now you're thinking a lot. You got a little fear, you don't want to say the wrong thing, but when you're loving it, you're just in the moment. What made Michael Jordan so great? Everyone said he hated to lose. He feared losing. Yes, he hated to lose. That... But that will never make you great. Hate will never make you great. Michael Jordan loved to compete against you. He loved to battle. He loved to beat you. He actually loved to destroy you.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah.

JON GORDON: And when he was playing you, it was all about love. He wasn't worried about failing. He wasn't worried about messing up. He was loving the moment. But think about kids today. Think about teenagers. Think about adults. Social media, comparing. When you're comparing, you're despairing. You look at outside, you look at other people's lives instead of your own. You're being distracted. You're focusing on your place and not happy with it. And you look at someone else's highlight reel and see how they're performing. And so, this is going on and on and on. And so, you're living with fear instead of loving your life and your mission and your purpose and loving what you get to do. Now people say, "Yeah, Jon, but I got this job."

I can't, you know, I don't love my job. There's not going to be a lot of things that you love about your job at times. But you can love the people in your job. You can love serving others. Pavarotti, the famous opera singer always said, "Everybody wants the audience to love them. But I love the audience." And the minute you focus on loving the audience. What happens? You're one with the audience, now you perform at a higher level. There's a resonance because now you love them and there's now a connection that happens. So why is love so powerful? 'Cause love creates connection. Connection creates clarity. Clarity creates confidence. And confidence creates courage. And that's why tune is so essential. Like you start to have this connection, you start to have more clarity. You see things more clearly, your purpose, your mission, life. And then from that clarity, there's so much more confidence.

Like when you know why you're here and when you're here to do this, there's so much more confidence in how you're showing up. And because of that, you now have the courage to go after things, N is neutralize the negativity. So that's U unite with love, N is neutralizing the negativity. We do have to neutralize it, 'cause let's face it, it's coming our way. And Gandhi said, "I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet." Great advice from Gandhi. I'm not going to allow this negativity to bring me down. I'm going to lift others up. My wife will literally now go, "Stop." When the negative thought comes in, she'll say, "stop". And she'll replace it with a positive thought. Practically. You write down a left side of a piece of paper, write down all your negative thoughts, like your common ones. We all have ours.

I know you have yours. You don't have to tell me what it is, but I know I have mine. We all have it. Everyone has it. The GOATS in the world, the greatest athletes of all time have these negative thoughts that come in. They just know how to deal with them. So, they come in, you write them down. On the right side, you write down the words of encouragement, the words you will say to those negative thoughts. The truth you will say to speak to those lies. And the more you speak truth on a daily basis, what happens is, that starts to become who you are. That starts to become the life you live. The more you speak truth. And does it take work? Of course, it does. But so does eating healthy. That takes more work. But guess what, is it more worthwhile? Yes. Anything that is hard, right, is most likely more worthwhile.

And if it's worthwhile, it's going to be hard. And the reason why that is, is because when it's worthwhile, there's going to be a resistance. It's easy to be negative. There's no resistance to being negative. There's a lot of resistance to being positive 'cause that's the journey, trying to be positive. And then you get this resistance and force that you're always facing that's trying to divide separate and weaken you. And I've got to face the resistance, but as I do, I become stronger. I grow, I become more powerful in this world, the more I face it. So, the resistance is actually part of the journey, part of the struggle. And the more you recognize that and see that, the more we help other people see this, oh, it's just an ebb and flow. Oh, you're just facing resistance. Oh, the battle. Yeah, the battle makes you stronger, but yeah, you're facing it.

And guess what? If you want to be great, you're going to be tested along the way. Everyone will be tested. So, I overcome the test when I neutralize the negativity and E, I elevate my thinking. And every day I'm elevating my thinking. Gratitude, that thank-you walk is key. Success of the day. I'm on a mission now to get everyone to start a success journal. People have been talking about gratitude journals for year. But I want you to, for years, I want you to have a success journal. At the end of the day, focus on your one great thing that happened that day. The one success, not only things that went wrong. What's the one thing that went right? And the minute you focus on that, guess what? You go to bed a success that night. What we look for, we start to find more in our life.

So, what we look for, we start to see, and we actually will start to attract more of it. So, the minute I'm focusing on success, I'll start to experience more successes. So, I get up the next day, alright, I went to bed a success. I now wake up as success. Now I'm ready to take on the day. And guess what? Every teenager in America should be doing this. And would we say something's wrong with them? Would they say they're broken? If they were doing this, would their mindsets be different? Would their life be different? Yes. This is how we could save the country. I actually believe.

SHAWN STEVENSON: We need that. You know, more than ever, you just, I mean if you just think about the distraction portion of this, you know, like we're living at the time of greatest distraction.

JON GORDON: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: You know, it's like on tap constantly. And versus our ancestors, they had so much time and contemplation. You know, if you're distracting yourself, it's going to be with something that is probably related to something inward, right? Versus all this exterior stuff. And so, equipping us and our kids with this information is so powerful. We've got a quick break coming up. We'll be right back.

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I think people would be surprised to hear, you said this earlier, that you are a negative person, and so I would love to dive into your story a little bit and see how you got from that place to where you are today. And like not only are you a representation of what's possible, you're helping so many, I'm talking everyday folks, but also like some of the most influential people today in our culture are looking to you and learning from you. So, can you take us through your superhero origin story?

JON GORDON: It blows my mind that I'm actually someone who is doing that now based on when I look back who I was, 'cause man, it was not looking good years ago. And I lost the battle of my mind for a long time. Former division one college athlete, graduate’s hopeful for the future, but I never fully realized my dreams and my potential. Got in the restaurant business when I was 24, opened up a bar in Buckhead, Atlanta. So as an entrepreneur started a nonprofit, raised money for youth-focused charities, things were going great man. My wife had our kids. And so, I'm striving, I'm pushing. But then eventually I lost my job during the dot-com crash, thought I was going to make a fortune during the dot-com crash, and I lose my job. And now I'm blaming my wife for why our life is so bad and I'm being all negative. And that's when I started to really get hit. Like this was a big test and I was failing miserably. And finally, she said, "Look, I love you but if you don't change, we're over. I'm not going to spend my life with someone who makes me so miserable. Like you need to change." And she was right.

I wanted to stay married, and I definitely needed to change. I didn't like who I'd become. And so, I made this decision, I'm going to work on being more positive and I started to research ways I could be more positive. So, this was during the emerging field of positive psychology. We're talking 2002, no one was talking about positivity back then. There was a little Martin Seligman, a couple of studies coming out on gratitude’s from several professors. Barbara Fredrickson was doing work out of the University of Michigan on team dynamics and positivity. But a lot of people weren't talking about it. Now everyone's talking about, which is great, but years ago no one was talking about. So, I start practicing these ideas and I start sharing these ideas via newsletter. I started a weekly positive tip, and I would share them out. I had five subscribers, my mother, my brother, best friend from college. I'm like 32 years old at the time. And now I'm sending these weekly positive tips out and people start reading 'em. They start sharing 'em. I start getting asked to speak at these small little events and just start doing that and then eventually get asked to write a book.

And that paved the way for what I do now as in terms of writing and speaking and getting to work with all these different organizations. But most importantly what I've realized is like I was on a quest to get better at myself. Like we teach what we need to learn. So, every day I'm literally learning, I'm growing, I'm teaching and I'm having to walk the walk 'cause if I'm writing about it, I'm doing it. And everything I write about, in and the one truth I have lived, I've experienced, but not just me, it's been now 18 years that I've been sharing a lot of these ideas with people and seeing how they've impacted so many lives. So, I used to write about what I thought to be true. Now I write about what I know to be true and especially when I'm saying I know this works. And so, I'm really confident in it. And the one truth is sort of under the hood of why it works and explains it all, which is what I love about the one truth. But if you just want practical things in terms of, how do I be more positive? Like the Energy Bus is a very popular book in terms of that.

But this book is also practical and explains sort of the theoretical and the powerful and the mystical. And it's a combination of science and psychology and all these kinds of things together, which was a lot of fun to write. And I also think it's really helpful 'cause once you understand it, it's easy to put into practice. So, I was doing these ideas for years, the success journal, the gratitude walks, mindfulness, and meditation. I was doing that. And then my mindfulness and meditation actually turned into prayers. And so, I was praying a lot and still do. And that has been essential for mental health. 'Cause again, the brain is in antenna. You want to tune into the highest frequency. Prayer is a great way to do that. Why does mindfulness and meditation work though? Reduces the amount of clutter that you have in your brain. Less thought. So, what happens? Less thought gets that brain tuned into a higher frequency and now you can start to tune into this higher frequency that starts to help with the healing and the renewing that needs to happen for your mind.

And so just along the way from an origin story, like I was on this quest to get better and improve myself and then I started teaching others with it. And it's been like, okay, I get better then I teach what I learn and then I get better I teach what I learn, I get better I teach what I learn. So now it's this journey of just I'm constantly learning, growing, but then sharing, 'cause what good is it? If it's just focused on yourself. And I was miserable when I focused on myself, that's when I was most negative. The minute I focused on others, that's when life became so much more meaningful, so much more rich, so much more enjoyable. And from, I say from a rich standpoint, I became much more successful financially. But that was never my goal. My goal was to make a difference and impact the lives of others. And it still is to this day. It's what it drives me every single day is how can I make an impact? How can I add value? That's why I wake up thinking how can I add value in a conversation? It's something I write. I still do that weekly positive tip that had five subscribers. Now we have about 500,000, but I had five and I still have that weekly positive tip that I still write every week.

SHAWN STEVENSON: That's amazing. That's amazing. And you just shared, you keep sliding these little nuggets too, and even sharing that you weren't doing this for the financial rewards. But here's the thing when you're attuned to value, right? You're tuning your frequency to value, that's going to be a natural side effect of being tuned to that frequency as well.

JON GORDON: And when you tune into a higher frequency and you start to experience more oneness with others and you have this connection, what happens is there starts to be power in that connection. More people start to be drawn to you for some reason. You're operating on a higher frequency, you start to reach more people, your message starts to get out there even more. And it really goes back to oneness and separateness. Do I feel separate and divided, which is a very narrow existence in the world, or do I feel one and connected? And a team that is united and connected is a powerful team. A team that is separate and divided is a very weak team. So what happens is, as you start to get more connected to others, when you become one and you experience that oneness and connection, you then want to go after the one, you want to help the one, you care about the one. I can always tell someone's heart by, are they really, do they really care about other people? 'Cause if they are truly one, they'll actually want to go help and serve and find ways to make a difference.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. Yeah. Earlier when you talked about... And just making this connection to obviously again, our thoughts are creating our brain and our brain is a receiver, it's automation, all these different things. But really again, what frequency are we attuned to? But those thoughts are also affecting our body, right?

JON GORDON: Yes.

SHAWN STEVENSON: So, this goes back to an important point is your thoughts are creating chemistry every thought is creating correlating chemistry affecting every cell in your body.

JON GORDON: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And with this being said, what kind of chemistry are we going to be creating when we're blaming? When you share the story about blaming your wife, you were experiencing these certain circumstances and experience. And then we, many of us have this tendency to point the finger, number one, get into a state of victimhood, but also specifically blaming others. And the people that I've seen over the years that experienced the most anguish and pain and suffering, and also inflicting that on others are the ones who are addicted to blaming. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

JON GORDON: Yeah. We don't want to take a responsibility for our life, and we believe that we're a victim of life and that we're a victim of our circumstances. And so, it's the ultimate feeling of being powerless. And so many people are going through life today feeling powerless. They feel disconnected, they're worried, they're anxious, they're stressed. And it's interesting when you move from oneness to separateness, you move from positive to negative. So, the more separate you feel, the more negative and disconnected you going to feel. And so, think about all mental health disorders, they report feelings of isolation, disconnection. They feel separate. And then as we move towards oneness, we move towards wholeness and peace and joy and love and purpose and confidence and courage. So, as we talked about earlier, the body is always listening to the negative or the positive. And I believe that's why we get health disorders as well, that we get disease so often based on the stress we have that originates with the thoughts we think and how we respond to the thoughts that we think.

And so that's why we know what negative thoughts, negative emotions, all that leads to actually less longevity, more heart disease, more disease, more doctor visits. Positivity is correlated with increase in longevity, better health, better emotions, better experience, better work life, better everything. Like, it's so interesting when you think about it, it all comes down to positive and negative. And these thoughts create the emotions, which then you said creates the chemistry, which creates the body. Ultimately, your body is responded to the thoughts that you think. It's so interesting though, I think about this a lot like the mind and the soul. There's a verse, and I'm going to share, this is not to get biblical on people, but there's a great verse that says, it's Romans 8:5,6. A mind governed by the flesh leads to death. A mind governed by the spirit leads to life and peace.

So, the mind and the soul is the integrator. And what is it, integration? The word integrity comes from the word integer, which means whole and complete. So, someone with integrity has wholeness, they have completeness, they have oneness. So, the soul is the integrator. So, your soul, if your soul and your mind is being governed by the flesh and the things of this world and the circumstances and the events and a poor lifestyle and things that are not good for you, all of that will then wreak havoc and lead to death. If your mind is governed by the spirit.

Then it leads to renewal, it leads to life, it leads to health, it leads to peace. And we all understand the term spirit. And however, you determine spirit. But if you meditate and you pray, you're connecting to spirit. If you cheer someone on, we say that, that school has a lot of spirit. That person has spirit. Cheerleaders are great with spirit. You're connecting the spirit. That spirit lifts you up and encourages you. So, what is governing your soul? And that's an essential part of understanding your life. What is governing it? What is driving it? Now, am I being driven by the things of this world that will then affect me and bring death to my body, to my life or the spirit that will renew me and uplift me and encourage me and make me feel like I can take on life?

SHAWN STEVENSON: Oh man, I needed this today myself. This is awesome. This is phenomenal. Thank you so much. What has really blown me away the most is how you've interwoven into your work. There's so much practical science behind all of this stuff. And I'm just like, oh, that thing, like even with the gratitude walk, the thank-you walks, my goodness, I literally just said, the affirmations of how we're speaking to ourselves, and our cells are listening, plus the movement. Because a lot of the science around affirmations alone don't show consistent effectiveness. It's integrating it with something else. Right? And you were just doing this stuff. You're just like, ah, I just started doing. But then you find the data to back it up. Then you replicate the study essentially with yourself and you have other people doing it. Don't think I didn't do it today. Alright. I did the same thing. I went and did the thank-you walk today myself. And it's so phenomenal like you are a walking representation of this stuff. And the one truth is available everywhere books are sold. And is there anywhere else that people can connect with you? Is there another message from the book that you want people to know about?

JON GORDON: If they go to Getonetruth.com, I want 'em to go there 'cause they can get the action plan. And the whole idea is it's a free action plan. And so, you get the book, you get the free action plan, and you get the TUNE and you get WHOLE, which is another acronym. And as you have these action plans, you're able to put these ideas and practices into action, doing the work that you do you know... It's, information is only as good as if you take action, if you do the work. I was with a CEO on a treadmill, and I haven't seen him in a long time and he's next to me and he goes, hey Jon, we did the Energy Bus with our company seven years ago. We're going to reintroduce it this year 'cause we're sort of losing our way.

'Cause let me ask you something. How many of your clients, sports teams, and businesses and so forth, how many of the leaders you work with actually implement the ideas after reading your books? Or having you come to speak? How many implements it? And I thought for a second, I'm like, oh no. And then it hit me maybe 10%. I said 10%. He goes, it's less than that. I know these leaders; I know these people. It's less than that. And I thought about that. I said, you know what, I've been talking, I've been writing, I've been doing all this work. I'm 52, I don't know how long I have left. Hopefully a long time. My goal is to go to a hundred in the words of the Great American philosopher, Jon Bon Jovi. I'm halfway there, living on a prayer. But you know what, in all of that, I don't, I'm like, I don't want to spend the rest of my life just talking and encouraging without getting people to take action.

And that's the thing. People need to act. They need to go for that thank-you walk every day, just do it day in and day out, becomes your habit. It will change your life. I'm really big on now talking about what actions can you take in addition to doing this? In addition to talking about this and understanding, now, understanding is important, understanding, but then action is everything. 'Cause if the brain's an antenna, you've got to take the time to tune that brain in, to that positive every single day. Or that's going to tune into the negative by default it will go towards the negative, so you got to tune that dial every single day. And the more you do over time, you'll start to see those thoughts and that frequency change the course of your life. That's what I want people to know. Take action.

I just appreciate you so much allowing me to share this with your audience. And I knew you're really huge on health and mental health is essential. And I just love the connection between brain and body, but then also body and brain. Everything we do affects and interacts with everything. We got to look at a holistic approach. So just thinking positive thoughts while you go out and eat all those donuts is probably not the greatest thing either. Can we eat healthy, eat foods that nourish our antenna? See, I wrote about this in the book too. We want a healthy antenna. It's not just positive thoughts. You got to eat the foods that actually make up the antenna of your brain and the healthy fats that allow for the Neuro-synapses connections to happen. The antenna is all working correctly that allows it to tune into the highest frequency.

And the minute you start to actually affect the antenna of the brain, a damaged antenna you watch, you start to have more negative thoughts. And as I share in the book, as people... And my theory is that as people don't take care of their antenna, where they start smoking too much cannabis, too much alcohol, and they start doing drugs, they damage the antenna. And that's the correlation between mental health and brain health. If you understand brain health and the antenna aspect and you understand how thoughts work,'cause everyone always talks about, oh yeah, this affects your mental health, that affects your mental. But why? It's got to be because there's an antenna function and a thought function. And once you have a damaged antenna, you start to tune into more negative thoughts and the more separate you feel, the more negative thoughts. Does that make sense?

SHAWN STEVENSON: Of course.

JON GORDON: And that's what I want people to look to. I want science to go in that direction 'cause they haven't been, they think thoughts exist in the brain. They keep looking at the thoughts in the brain. They think that the thoughts and, the brain. They think that the brain literally creates thoughts. They don't realize thoughts create their brain. The mind creates the brain. The brain doesn't create the mind.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right.

JON GORDON: And so, we have the power of taking care of our minds and the spirit. And the more you have this renewal of the mind, the mind then will heal your brain over time. And if you have a depression, if you feel negative, you can't expect an overnight success right away. Just like if you want to work out, you're not going to get success and results right away. You've got to actually work out for a long period of time. It takes a year before you start to see some really amazing results. And it's going to be the same thing with your brain. Your brain will actually start to look amazing, magnificent; the garden of your mind will look incredible the more you do this over time not right away.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, you just said it again. You just did it again forever. Especially in all of our advancements, we still can't find where is consciousness located in this body. It's because, again, just going back to this initial thing, your thoughts, your mind is creating your brain and it's a tool, it's an antenna.

JON GORDON: Yep.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And we're now creating more language and understanding around this, but this is where the real change happens as well. You know, and also what are the quality of your antennas? Right? So, this is, it goes together.

JON GORDON: Yes.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right? And this is obviously a big thing of what we talk about here, but truly every cell of your body is made from the food that you eat.

JON GORDON: Yes.

SHAWN STEVENSON: What is the quality of those, materials, do you have that like that the coat hanger antenna, trying to tune to a station or do you have that dish network or whatever you...

JON GORDON: Yes. That high def, high def.

SHAWN STEVENSON: We get to choose.

JON GORDON: That's why nutrition is so important. If you understand nutrition, that it's literally now making up your body and your antenna and your brain that will determine in so many ways your mental health, you're going to treat it differently and you're going to act differently and you're going to eat the right foods and no one's making that correlation. I think the fact that your nutrition and your nutrition, and now we talk about mental health and brain health and the antenna, I think this is like the future in terms of helping people get to a healthier state and a healthier mental state through food, through the mitochondria. And the mitochondria is your energy factory. It's what governs every cell. Well, guess what? Your neurons need a healthy antenna and healthy individual little antennas to do what they do. And if they have issues and the mitochondria is actually being affected in your neurons, then you're not going to have good mental health.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. Because this goes back to clarity and vision and all those things. If these antennas are not healthy, you're going to have a lot of static on the line, a lot of snow, you know? And so again, all of this works together. And the one truth is one of these guiding forces that we have right now. And that website again was?

JON GORDON: Getonetruth.com.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Getonetruth.com. Go there now. Support this book, support The Incredible GOAT, Jon Gordon, thank you so much for coming to hang out with us.

JON GORDON: Thanks. I appreciate you so much.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Awesome. Jon Gordon, everybody. This episode was very special for me personally. And I mentioned this during the episode, but this was amazing for me personally. This really hit me personally. Just yesterday, my stepfather passed away and he's been in my life since I was nine months old. So, I thought that he was my father until I was about eight years old when my mother, we went to a 7-Eleven across the street from our apartment complex, and we got home and she was like, you saw that man that I was talking to at 7-Eleven, that's your dad, all right? That's kind of how the story of my life and the dysfunction, like how, what kind of way is that to tell your son? And I just, from that moment on, I felt like, oh, this makes sense. Something makes sense. Because I didn't quite feel like I fit in.

I didn't feel included. I felt from even some of my relatives on that side that I wasn't one of them in a sense. But he never proactively made me feel like I wasn't his son. He was always my father. But what was strange was it also made sense that I called him Glenn and my brother, my little brother just kind of picked it up as well, where he would called him Glenn, I'm assuming he probably, maybe one of 'em called him dad, I don't know. But it just kind of made sense. It's like, wow. And I had my little sister as well, she called him dad. But he's been in my life all these years. And unfortunately, because of addiction, alcohol, drugs, and just us living through the crack epidemic, I lost many family members to drugs and alcohol.

And it was really invasive in his family in particular. And he experienced some trauma and injury to his brain and developed epilepsy from substance abuse. And so, we knew for a while that he was on a downswing, but recently he was on life support for quite some time. And ultimately, he passed away yesterday. And I'm here today representing possibility, representing his hopes and dreams and what he's always wanted for me to achieve along with the rest of my family. And Jon helped me today to remember that because even with all the work that I've done and what drives me and the life that I'm living and my perspective even about him losing this plane, leaving this plane of reality, I've had overwhelming feeling of gratitude. And again, it's really just based on my perception. It's based on what frequency that I'm attuned to.

He actually showed up in my dream last night, and it was strange. It was at the last house that we had lived in together. I moved out when I was 17 to go to college, and I just looked at him, and it wasn't, in your dream, you don't necessarily know who's alive and you know, has passed away, that kind of thing. But uncharacteristically in this dream, I was just looking at him, and just like really looking at him and really seeing him. And so, the funny thing was, however, after getting the news that he had passed, I started experiencing some pain in my neck. Of course, sometimes family can be a pain in the neck. And when Jon talked about being able to speak to yourself in a different way and the story about his wife experiencing pain and speaking to herself in a different way, I did that immediately.

I started to speak to myself in a different way because I started to buy into the pain that I was experiencing and giving myself permission to experience it is one thing, of course, but it's such a disruption to me enjoying this moment and fully expressing this gratitude and being able to fully experience this moment of mourning in my way. Because there's no right way to do any of this stuff. And I decided, you know what? I don't need to attach to this pain right now. And by the end of the conversation, whereas my neck was kind of preventing me from moving my head side to side very well, I have so much more mobility just in that moment, changing the chemicals that I'm producing based on my thinking and starting to think and speak kindly to myself and not attaching or giving so much energy into the pain and focusing more on, I feel good, I feel thankful, I feel possibility.

I don't feel trapped. And so, I hope that you got as much out of this episode as I did and just picking up these tools to be able to utilize during times of stress, during times of strain, during times of struggle. Because that's what it's really all about. We've got some epic master classes and powerful, powerful world-leading guests coming your way very soon. And also, of course, you want to make sure that you're sharing this out with the people that you love and keep this information going. Much, much more is in store. 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 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.