You are now listening to The Model Health Show with Shawn Stevenson. For more, visit themodelhealthshow.com.

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.

This episode is inspired by a true milestone and an event that I attended last night which was my oldest son Jorden's high school graduation. And it was kind of a surreal experience because I feel like I just graduated myself, but then I really absorbed the experience and I’m just so grateful for him and his story and what he's been through and what he's been able to accomplish thus far. And his vision for the future is just super inspiring to see. 

And today I really wanted to help you to connect with something that is just going to be able to take your life to another level if you really embrace this today. And it's embracing your story. 

Because he's actually graduated from the high school that I went to, that I graduated from, and my story was radically different. And we do tend to carry on a lineage and we tend to pass on our struggles and our progress to our children. And so there were many things that I had to address in order to get him to this place that he had to be. 

A little snapshot of what's to come in today's episode, my story was I almost didn't graduate because of some drama, because of some disempowering stories that I was carrying about myself and my reality. 

And I, fortunately, did graduate with my class and it wasn't due to academics and I graduated in three years of high school and you might hear them be like, "Well this sounds cool, like Shawn was awesome Doogie Howser, indeed like just getting through school—" it wasn't like that. 

And what resulted from that experience was something I still didn't address, I still was coming up against opposition, self-imposed limits in my success. And this is the truth, is that everything that you are capable of achieving is right there in front of you, every single one of us has the potential to achieve massive success in every area of our lives. But the only thing stopping us is our limiting beliefs about ourselves. 

And so this is the most important factor to address because I want you from this day forward to understand that the pen is in your hand, in writing your story and I want you to start to write it consciously from this day forward. 

Because I used to be embarrassed about my story, I used to be embarrassed about struggling with high school, I used to be embarrassed about my experience with my health and failing in my health. 

And I didn't want to tell people because I was was in fear that I would be judged and it really broke through one day when I realized that this is what connects us, our stories are the things that connect us because we've all been through stuff. 

And we have more stuff to come and so the more that we can become aware that it's our limiting beliefs that are holding us back and the more that we have tactics, specific things that we can do to break through those things that present themselves, the more capable and powerful we're going to be moving forward. 

And so today, if you're in need of a breakthrough this is for you. If you've already had some breakthroughs in your life and you just want to keep going, you want to sustain that success, this is for you. 

I think you're going to get a lot of value out of this episode and I can't wait to share this with you because I'm going to be sharing some insights from my experience and through the years being able to go from where I came from to impacting the lives of thousands of people directly in my practice and events and then millions of people at this point which is kind of weird and crazy to be able to say, just like my son graduating because of breaking through these limiting beliefs. 

I am really excited about that and speaking of story, what a great story when you learn about Aubrey Marcus, right? He's a CEO of Onnit, and to see what they've been able to achieve and his whole thing was human optimization. 

And he wanted to have a company that integrated fitness, nutrition and personal development into one brand and providing products for the population at large to be able to take advantage of, that had this huge ethical control and huge personal development driven faculty behind it. 

And this was the birthing of Onnit and his flagship product Alpha Brain is just like taking over, it's out there, all kinds of different, even like mom and pop stops here or there, because it's really taking a more holistic and using earth-grown nutrients to hit on that same front that these fake, crazy, energy drinks and all this stuff that people are trying to take, these different nootropics that can be beneficial, there are many that are beneficial, but doing it from earth-grown nutrients. 

And they've run a clinical trial so what's been found in double-blind placebo-controlled studies that Alpha Brain does, in fact, help to improve your working memory, specifically verbal recall. What?! That is incredibly powerful, it's just really tapping into those channels in our own brains but not some kind of weird stimulant or not some kind of an artificial means of doing that. And so Alpha Brain is incredible, so if you've yet to try that out, definitely check that out. 

But for me, I'm a huge fan of their MCT oil and MCTs are well known especially with keto being so popular today. Taking these Medium Chain Triglycerides does help your body to directly create ketones which can potentially increase your metabolic rate directly in and of itself, reduce the inflammation, all the good stuff. 

Now, something else really fascinating is the impact that MCTs have on your brain because MCTs are able to cross that blood brain barrier and to feed your brain cells. And so this was published in the annals of the New York Academy of Sciences has found that MCTs can provide energy to weakened, damaged brain cells to help them to live longer. That's so remarkable, so remarkable, literally brain food supporting the longevity of our brain cells. 

And if you know anything about the brain and some of these things we talked about in past episodes, our brains, we have certain areas of our brains that continue to have this plasticity and neurogenesis like the hippocampus, for example, has a capacity but there's a lot of areas of our brains that don't have that same level of cell replication and many experts things that a lot of the brain cells that you have now, as you lose them that's kind of all you get. 

We do have some kind of bounce back but for the most part, these are very important cells we need to take care of. And so, MCT oils do that, they have kind of the classic MCT oil which is like a clear fluid, then they have the emulsified. 

This is where they are making it into like a coffee creamer basically, and I'm a huge fan of the emulsified MCT oil because it's super easy to mix into coffee and tea and things like that and it tastes amazing. They have strawberry flavored, they have a almond milk latte flavor, that's my favorite one, vanilla, coconut, definitely check them out. Check out their Alfa Brain, check out the MCT oil, I think you'll absolutely love it. 

And again double-blind placebo-controlled studies funded to really affirm the benefits that Onnit's products are carrying, so check them out, it's Onnit.com/model, and you get 10 percent off every single thing they carry— fitness equipment, the nutritional products, the foods, everything. Pop over there, check them out, Onnit.com/model. 

And now let's get to the Apple podcast review of the week. Another 5-star review titled "Thank you Shawn Stevenson" by Will and Jess. 

iTunes Review: "I've been listening to The Model Health Show for over two years now, and can definitely say it has changed my life. I'm applying what I learned from each podcast, growing steadily towards my health goals, but the real reason I'm writing this review is to tell you 'Thank You.' 

I was introduced to you through the Secret to Success podcast and I am part of the Breathe University. The way you do your podcast is fantastic, everything said is well thought out, funny, relatable and compassionate. 

Your guest speakers are unmatched and continue to inform us of the necessary information to move in the right direction for our health— we love you all for that. Some day in the podcast hall of fame will be your picture, Shawn, here is The Model Health Show, all podcast attempt to compete with the greatest podcast of all time. The bar has been set very high. May we all strive to reach its success. God bless. 

Shawn Stevenson: Wow, that is one of the greatest compliments that I've ever received, thank you so much for sharing that over on Apple podcasts. And listen everybody, if you've yet to do so, please pop over to Apple podcast, leave a review for the show, let everybody know what you think about the podcasts and just whatever platform you're listening on, if you can leave a review, leave a comment below the video and let everybody know what you think of the show. All right, I appreciate it so very much. And on that note, let's get to our topic of the day.

Today we're talking about embracing our story and breaking through our limiting beliefs. And as I shared at the top of the show, just going through the patterns that I was experiencing in my life, the thing that was holding me back, annoyingly this was like an invisible force, was my story, these stories that I was buying into about my life, about what was possible for me. 
And of course, seeing the feedback in my environment. 

But going through this process and consciously starting to change my story, to write my story, to change my beliefs enabled me to completely change my life. And the person that I once was I am no longer today. 

I do have those memories there of the life I once experienced and we use those things because the thing is, it's all still there, it's all still a part of us, but we can use those experiences to then be able to pay it forward and help others with it. 

My first question for you is, "Have you seen the movie Karate Kid?" I'm talking about the original, no disrespect to Jaden and you know Jackie Chan, I love those guys, but the original, Daniel LaRusso, Mr. Miyagi. 

And this was a truly defining moment in my life watching that movie when I was a kid. We were all at my grandmother's house, gathered around the VCR if you even remember what the VCR is. We're gathered around watching the VCR, and somebody, maybe it was my grandfather, my uncle, went out into the wilderness to get the VHS tape, because that's what it was really like back then, right. You go to Blockbuster it was a hunt, you go in there with the intention, and if you got a family it's like everybody picks one movie, you get three or four movies and you track back to your house. 

First of all, who had time to watch four— how? But anyways, as I digress, and then you know especially a new release movie, you're standing there by the door, looking at the return box, "Hey did you get such and such," right? So it was the thrill of the hunt, but anyway, so they brought the movie back and we all gathered around to watch it. 

And this was a truly defining moment in my life. Emotionally for me, I was very invested in it because I felt like I was Daniel LaRusso. I felt like I wanted to be that guy, I wanted to stand up to the bad guy, I wanted to win, I wanted to stand for something. 

And I just really felt that energy and, of course, afterward I'm like doing a crane kick everywhere, I might have kicked my cousin on accident, but I was crane kicking, I don't know if you watched it and did the crane kick too, but I was just very inspired. 

Shortly thereafter, I moved in with my mom and this was going from a suburban neighborhood living with my grandmother to the inner city with my mom, it was a real culture shock for me. I was begging my mom to give me karate lessons. I wanted to do the thing, and I begged her. 

And then what ended up happening, because of lack of funding, we'll put it like that, instead of taking me to like— she said, "Okay, we're going to get you the karate lessons," I thought I was going to a Dojo, right. I thought was going to get the jump off the belt, all of that. 

We ended up at like a friend of hers, friend's husband's basement. Some random place, it was like one of those houses that has a gate on the door. We ended up going to his basement and it was an unfinished basement and he had like a picture of Bruce Lee and like a couple of mats like around some pillows in the basement and we were just doing punches in the basement, next to the washing machine, right. Taekwondo punch or whatever. 

And I'm just still going with him, I like, "Okay, I was thinking I was going to get Mr. Miyagi, I got Dragonfly Jones, but it's all good, he's good, he's good at what he does, I guess." But even then, we couldn't even afford my man Dragonfly Jones to be able to help me with my endeavors and getting into karate. 

But I just wanted this outlet, I felt like I wanted to be able to protect myself. Because I was in a volatile environment and I felt like I wanted to defend the little guy and to be able to really stand up for good. But the truth is that life really didn't end up being so black and white, there are many shades of gray in between and that's kind of where I fell in. 

Because when I talk about wanting to defend myself and stand up for the little guy, my mother taught me when I was very young that the world is not a kind place, and that was one of my initial stories. 

And this might be a story that you were carrying as well and that's developing a level of fear in you, that's controlling your actions, that's controlling what's happening with the ways your cells are communicating because they're constantly in fear of what might happen in fear of the world. I know that this was my case. 

I was just 4 years old, I was in preschool, I was just a sweet little kid and I just wanted to be happy, I wanted to play with my cousins. 

And when I would go to stay with my mom, I would play with the kid next door, we were living in a four family flat that I literally drive by when I come to the studio every week, I drive by where the four family flat was, literally right by the highway, like you could stand on this huge highway and throw a rock and hit the apartment building, but the apartment building is actually gone, it's been knocked down. 

Going and playing over there with the kid next door, we were getting the little scuffles, little kids scuffles, like they do, you know little boys get into it. And so because it became an issue for our parents apparently, my mother, my own mother and this child's mother decided we're going to sit around, we're going to have these two little boys fight each other, we're going to pit them against each other, face to face. 

They sat on the stoop of this four family flat, my mama one side, his caretakers on the other side, I don't remember if it was his mother. He was a bigger kid, I think he was in first grade, and so he was probably around six. And they made us fight. 

And I remember thinking consciously, I remember this so clearly, "I don't want to be here, why is this happening? I don't want to do this." But boom, they push, they push us together to fight and this kid literally just pushes me one time and I go right into the corner of a brick wall and crack the back of my head and blood is everywhere. 

I'm rushed to the hospital and I remember laying on the stretcher being wheeled into the surgery room and just seeing the lights flashing over me as I'm going by. And I was just so irate, I was so upset, I was so mad and I wasn't feeling like I was hurt, I wasn't feeling painful. I was mad because I lost, because I was taught from an early age that if you lose, if you are fighting and somebody is hurting you and you don't hurt them back, when you get home you're going to get hurt again. 

My parents teaching me that, “I'm going to hurt you if you don't get out there and defend yourself”. That's the kind of environment that I'm raised in, and it was in a strange way well-intentioned, because my mom was wanting me to be a strong man. My mom was wanting me to be a capable man, to defend myself in a world that's not always kind. I get that, the way that she went about it, obviously, not healthy, obviously not healthy. 

I got the stitches, I still have this huge scar on the back of my head even today and I said, "I'm going to get him," when I was yelling and screaming and getting wheeled into the surgery room, "I'm going to get him, I'm going to get him." 

And I did. As soon as I got back to the neighborhood, he was out like digging hole or something like kids do,  and I went over and I hit him with his big truck. And I remember feeling so proud of myself like that was courageous or admirable of me. 

And it wasn't. Neither of us should be in this situation. Now fast forward, that behavior of solving conflicts with violence stayed with me and it was one of my main tools, I saw violence in my household and this was the tool that was used. 

Because nobody's going to punk you, nobody's going to make you feel like you are less than, you stand up for yourself and you fight. And so that was a major tool. 

And when I share at the top of the show my son graduating, and I got kicked out of middle school several times for fighting and once I got to high school I already got suspended one or two times for fighting. 

And every time I justify my story it’s "they", "they are causing this, I don't want to fight, but they—" And at the end of the day still, I have responsibility for my two hands, I have responsibility for what I'm doing in response to whatever's coming at me. 

I'm not saying for people to put their hands on you, none of that stuff, but I was looking for a problem. I was looking for a reason even though I didn't, consciously I was telling myself I don't want to fight, I was looking for a reason. Because I was operating from fear, I was operating out of, "This is the tool you use." 

And so this particular fight, it was my junior year, I had been in school for maybe a month at the time, and this kid had been giving me a hard time for several years at this point. And I kept on, and it was just kind of sporadic, but I just looked the other way, I was practicing there because I knew that it wasn't worth it, and so to the degree that in my junior I was a student advisory, I was a scholar athlete, I was in a new program at the time, first year inroads where I was going to get college credit for these classes I was going to be able to take at St Louis University here.

And I was also selected, which is crazy, this is life now, I was selected to be a teenage health consultant. It was the name of the organization so I was a teenage health consultant there were like four of us elected by I think it was like by our teachers and faculty. 

And so we go to different classes and talk about health which I knew nothing about. I just got out of class, that's it and I enjoyed it, to get out of class and go do anything. But ironically, this is my life today. 

And so I had a lot on the line, things were looking great for me, really, really great. But in one moment, when I felt threatened, I reacted with violence and I ended up getting expelled from the school. 

The day was kind of like a big brawly situation that took place and I was already in a situation where I am being bused out to the "good school" in the county, the suburban school from the city, it was called literally The Desegregation Program, Deseg for short. 

This school wasn't trying to give me a shot, they didn't care about all of the good stuff that I had achieved and the person that I was, I was judged on that one action. But it wasn't just one action, it was my story that was just manifesting itself that violence is a tool, when you are hit with oppression or when you're hit with difficulty, violence is one of your tools you go to. 

And so 180 days kicked out, here's the worst part of the story— no one in my family, no one of my advisors had the wherewithal to withdraw me from my classes because it was such a short amount of time that I was in school that year, I could have been withdrawn from my classes. 

And instead I get a notice at the end of the semester, I got straight F's on my transcript, straight F's. And it took my GPA from whatever was 3.9, 3.8, whatever to like 3.1 or something like that. I don't member the numbers exactly but it was devastating for me. 

And the story really took a change when I really realized that I have the potential here still,  because I had done so well prior to that, I had a couple of extra credits, and if I took some home correspondence courses, and if I went to a 0 hour class my senior year, which is going to school before school started, I would get exactly the amount of credits that I needed to graduate with my class. 

And so I did it, I did everything that I could and I was there. Very different from my son's experience but my graduation, I was there and I just barely made it by the skin of my teeth. My senior year was not the senior year that somebody might envision being all this fun, I was working, I was working

And it was an experience, it was quite an experience but the thing that I really want to communicate is that— you would think that I would learn the lesson at that point, but the reality is this— life is only hard for two reasons: because you're leaving your comfort zone or because you're staying in it.

And I was still in my comfort zone of, "I'll get by, but still, my modus operandi is to fight back." And so I get into college and fortunately again, with my story, I was able to get accepted to every college that I applied to but I wanted to stay close to town and so I went to the school and the first year went by somewhat without a hitch. 

But the second year, I got kicked out of school for guess what— fighting. Who gets kicked out of school, from college, for fighting? Just like, grow up, right? And so it wasn't even a joke anymore. 

Now at this point, I'm really practically an adult and so it's not just a fight like there's other legalities involved. My good friend Eric Thomas, Dr. Eric Thomas, ET The Hip Hop Preacher, he has been on the show several times, and just one of the best human beings that I've ever met. And he shares a story about it took him 12 years to get a four-year degree, something like that, maybe 10 years but it took me about seven because I got kicked out of college, it was about two years. 

And then once I got back, accepted to another school, fortunately, this was when everything really changed. And this is really where the writing of my story and how things are playing out, this is the low point. 

And so again, there are two reasons that life is hard because you're leaving your comfort zone or because you're staying in it. And I feel that life is always, if we tell ourselves that we have these great goals and things we want to accomplish, and we say we want these things, but we don't actually do anything about it, I believe that life is going to present us with trials and tribulations and situations that help us to cultivate the qualities, the character qualities that we need to achieve that thing that we say we want. That's what I believe. I hope that makes sense. 

And so I believed that I was going to be successful, I didn't have any example of success around me and so life had to literally put me through the fire in order to become the type of person I needed to become to be successful. 

It did that by taking away the one thing that I held in my highest regard as my advantage, it took away my health. 

Because all the while when I'm walking around these different campuses and different clubs and situations, everywhere I am at, I feel like I was very capable like an animal, like a predator and I'm very capable walking around, ready to handle myself. 

My health was stripped from me. I was diagnosed with the incurable spinal condition, so-called incurable spinal condition, and I go from being this capable predator to really feeling like prey, to feeling like I was nothing, like my identity was stripped from me. 

And so I'm hiding out, literally hiding out now in my cave. 20 years old, I get this diagnosis and I go in with this nuisance of a pain in my leg and that translates over into being chronic, debilitating pain within the next few months, because of my two herniated discs in my spine and this damage that was just really taking place with the communication between my brain and my body. 

And I was just breaking down inside, you know, basically, Degenerative Disc Disease was a diagnosis Degenerative Bone Disease, so this osteoarthritis really because my bones were breaking down. And I had actually broken my hip at track practice when I was 16 years old, I was already dying inside, breaking down and I had no rhyme or reason why this was happening to me, neither did my physicians, that was the story they were telling me. 

"There's nothing we can do about this," my physician, my first physician told me, "You have the spine of an 80-year-old man," when I was just 20, and"This is incurable." And he sent me on my way. And he gave me prescriptions and I eventually got fitted with the back brace but he said, he literally said these words, "This is something you're just going to have to live with". 

Our minds are so powerful because my story, what I was doing at the time was, I was giving the pen to this well-meaning physician to write some of my story for me. You have to take back the pen. You have to take it back. 

Because the reality is, he's not living my life, he's not living my story. Do you think he really has the very best ending to the story in mind if it's not his story? He's focused on his own story and part of that is helping patients. But the one he was trying to write for me was not the ending that I wanted. 

But I accepted it at the time. That screenplay got turned in and I accepted it. And it took two years, it took two years, two long years of suffering, pain, weight gain,  at this point I gained about 40 pounds on my frame. 

And this just added more pressure to my spine and I was just more making my tissues out of the same garbage that caused a problem in the first place. Because real talk, and this is something that changed everything for me was really understanding the role that our nutrition played, but I didn't get that, it took two years, two long years. 

And it all came to a head after I saw the fourth physician and he told me the same thing, he gave me the same bill of goods, "There's nothing you could do about this, I'm sorry, here's some medication." And at that point, because I had been trying to put my health, I just kept passing the pen around like, "Maybe this guy can write my story, maybe this guy can read my story." 

They can be great advisors, they can write a few jokes for me, but they can't write my story. This is my story. 

And so, after those two years I was sitting on the edge of my bed and you might know a little bit of my story, but it really just came rushing in that I had been giving my power away and all these people were telling me that they can't do anything for me and that I can't get better. "Why am I listening to them?" It just hit me like, "They're saying I can't get better but yet I keep going to these people to help get me better." 

I realized I didn't do anything myself, I didn't take responsibility for myself. This whole time I've been putting the responsibility of my health off on other people. I didn't know a thing about what was going on with my own body. 

And it started from those two years ago, and this is why it's also important to get good counsel and to be aware of the person that you're listening to. Do not seek advice from somebody who doesn't have the thing that you're wanting. It doesn't make any logical sense. 

My first doctor was clearly not healthy, clearly. He had the whole leg mirror thing on his, he had like the band with the mirror on it, I've really felt like I was in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. And I'm like, "Listen, doc, what can I do to get better?"

Listen, this is one of the most miracle moments of my life still to this day, I did not know how, where, why this came from. But I asked him, "Does this have anything to do with what I'm eating?" And he looked me dead in my eyes and told me, "This has nothing to do with what you're eating. This is just something that happens." 

He told me this has nothing to do with what I'm eating. My bones, my disk in between the vertebrae of my spine are made of the food that I eat! Right? Of course, it matters! But at the time, I didn't have any sense of just I guess it would just be really just basic, logical thinking when it comes to matters of my health. And so I believed him. That was my story. 

It's called the nocebo effect. The opposite of a placebo, which placebos give you a positive injunction, that something good is going to happen potentially by taking this fake drug, pills, sugar pill or sham surgery or an injectable of nothing but saline. And we see clinically 33 percent on average placebo is working. 

So if you believe, in a clinical trial somebody believes they're taking a drug that's going to lower their blood pressure, but it's just a fake drug, on average their blood pressure, 33 percent of the time on average across the board in placebo-controlled studies, we see people getting results just by believing they're taking something that's changing their body. 

Nocebo effect, on the other side, is giving somebody a negative injunction, "You're never going to walk again", "You've got 6 weeks to live", "This is incurable," and you believe it and you proceed to have that take place and that's what I was a victim of. But I was a willing victim, I was a willing victim. I did not know at the time that this was a Nocebo effect. 

And so everything unravels from there. Once I believed that there was nothing I could do about it, it gave the responsibility, it just took it away from me. But here's the thing, and this is just being real with you right now— there was a big part of me that didn't want it and there's a big part of you as well most likely that doesn't want it, it doesn't want the responsibility. It doesn't want the responsibility of doing all the stuff, doing the hard stuff, doing the work. There might be areas of your life that you were willing to and these other areas that you're not. 

But you have to do it, you have to do the hard stuff and you were built for it, you're equipped to do the hard stuff. And you're going to go through it anyway because the hard stuff is out of two things— either you are leaving your comfort zone or you're fighting to stay in it. Either way, you become equipped at handling the hard stuff, everything you've been through, you've made it, you're here right now, you're here. 

And so it just hit me that night that I've been giving my power away and I decided to get well. And so from my story and where everything took a change and where the low point starts to rise is me really realizing at that moment that I had been asking these really disempowering questions. 

And I remember thinking about it, I was just like, "Why me," in my head all the time, "Why me? Why me?" And your brain is driven, literally, your brain is hardwired to answer the questions, that's what your brain does, 24/7, 365 it's wired up to answer questions. 

There are parts of our brain we now know, ventricular cortex, ventricular activating system, they're just driven to seek out answers to the things you ask it. This is how great TV series get us, all right. We are driven to close loops, we're driven to close loops, we have to know what happened.

We have to get the questions answered that we have, right? Game of Thrones, this might be a sore spot for some people. But I just had this experience of like, "I got to know what happens with Khaleesi, right, Danny burned down the whole city because she got attitude problem, "What's going to happen, I got to know." So where am I going to be? I'm going to be there Sunday, at 8 o'clock Central getting the answer, I've got to find out, your brain is always doing this. And I'm sorry if anybody's bitter about the last episode, I didn't write it— it's somebody else's story, okay?

I could have advised, you know. But anyways, and so to wrap up this point, our brains are always seeking to answer the questions that we ask it. Questions truly are the answer, questions are the answer. And when you're asking, "Why me," I was looking for unconsciously, subconsciously scanning my environment 24/7 to find answers to affirm why me. "Why am I the one stricken with this illness and this condition?" 

And I'm seeking out answers to the question of, "Why won't somebody help me?" Or, "Why does it have to be so bad?" And I'm finding proof, I'm finding evidence to affirm the answer to that question and it really boiled down to the way that I was living my life. 

I wasn't living as an honorable man that I saw myself to be, right? I wanted to be successful but yet I was very self-centered. And I was self-centered and I could justify that because of the environment that I grew up in, it was a very volatile, dangerous situation, dangerous places that I was in. And things that no kid should be exposed to. 

And so I withdrew, I went in, and I became very self-conscious and self-centered and any realm of success and happiness and growth and relationship, I had to get away from being so self-focused and become more other-focused.

But I didn't know that at the time, I was asking these disempowering questions and so I literally started to flip these questions over on their head right, and with that, questions start to arise like something simple, "How can I make this better?"

It started with that, "How can I make this better?” ”How can I have more energy?” ”What is it that I need to do to learn from the situation that I've been through already?” ”What are my bones made of?" Really practical questions like that that I had never asked before. 

And again, when you ask the question it begins that process, it knocks those dominoes down and starts the process of learning. 

And so what really came up for me, and this is huge and I want you to get this, is that I realize that my fighting since I was a child was really a metaphor for my life, and I had been fighting tooth and nail to keep my limitations. I've been fighting to keep my limitations. 

And so I want you to think about this for yourself and your own life, where are you fighting to keep your limitations? Where are you fighting to keep this story that you've told yourself that you can't because _______, (fill in the blank).

“I can't because I don't have the connections.” 
”I can't because I'm too old.” 
”I can't because I'm too young.” 
”I can't because I don't have kids.”
”I can't because I have kids.”
”I can't because my husband told me so.”
”I can't because my wife told me so.”
”I can't because I don't have the support.”
”I can't because I don't have the energy.”
”I can't because I don't have the health that I really need to be able to achieve what I want right now.”
”I'm not where I want to be yet, so I can't. 

You're never going to get there because of your story. The only way that you're going to get there is to begin to take steps in that direction and to change the story that you're telling yourself. 

And of course, we're going to go through some tangible ways to go about doing this, but that was the first step really for me. And I want you to think about this honestly, where have you been fighting to keep your limitations? Where you've been fighting in your life to keep your limitations? 

You might have thought that you were Daniel LaRusso doing the crane kick, but now it's just like you're some weird dude who's out like picking fights, okay. You're Cobra Kai right now, those YouTube series that I haven't seen but I heard it's alright. 

For me, and I have put an episode of the show where I really go through my physical transformation for you in the show notes, but what I want you to get from today is that to my surprise, changing my body was first ignited by changing my mind and they really went together, they really were bonded to each other. 

And I'm so grateful, I'm so grateful for life stripping me of my health. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. At the time it was a nightmare, it was literally the worst thing that ever happened to me, but it gave me the opportunity to become the man that I was born to be. 

And having the opportunity to say yes to the things that continue to lift me up and to consciously proactively change my story but I had to realize that I had the power to change my story because I've been told by my environment that I didn't have the power. And so because I'd never seen anybody in my family graduate from college, I was doing everything I could to self-sabotage that. 

And so once I transformed my health, and just a short version of that is, after I made that decision to get well and changing the questions that I was asking, and starting to consciously write my story, changing the way that I was eating, changing the way that I was having my movement practices and my sleep, my body transformed. 

And about six weeks later I had lost almost 20 pounds, and this is not typical, this is not typical. In my family, I was like this skinny kid in my family but my fat gene got flipped on big time, and so but the weight once I started doing the things that my genes really expected me to do would just flew off of me. 

And I became on fire to help other people to experience what I was experiencing, all the things I was learning. There's a phase I went through where I was upset, I was angry that people didn't know this stuff, we're being told all these disempowering things about our health and our lives and even in school, I wasn't taught about how do you can be successful in life. I was taught all these rudimentary metrics, the stuff that really didn't matter. So I became upset and I was driven through like this passion to change things and eventually that had to change as well. 

But for me, going through this process and then being dedicated to other people was a huge turning point for me as well, and this is going to go into our three strategies coming up here. 

But through that process and why I'm so grateful with that that happened to me is life stripped everything from me to help me to develop the qualities, the capacities, the gifts, the talents, the things that I didn't even know were within me, to become the man that I was born to be. 

And there's still more to come because it never stops being challenging, but you can fall in love with the process and you can embrace the challenge and understand that you can do hard things, you can do difficult things. 

And as a matter of fact, they can start to become so ingrained in who you are that it doesn't really even seem like it's that difficult. Because we want comfort, I love comfort but comfort is a killer to success, comfort is a killer to happiness. And once you're successful, I promise, it's comfortable too. 

Now, a big part of this change physically was a change mentally. And so one of the things that holds us up in the story that we hang on to, that we don't know we're doing this is that we believe that we can have the life that we want, that we can have the body that we want, the relationship, the finances that we want by being the same person.

This is a huge, simple, logical mistake that we make, it's illogical but it's a logical solution, you can't bring the old you to the new life, you can't bring the old you to the new party. You have to change. 

But we don't want to do this, like when we hear this, nobody wants to be told that they need to change, but you don't have to have somebody tell you that, you need to know that yourself. I need to change, today. 

You need to change, you can't be the same person who you are right now to get to the place that you want to be. And so you can choose change, you can proactively ease yourself into it, you can lean to the discomfort of not being the person you are. But this causes turbulence. 

When we start to change from the person we are, we start getting hit with resistance and so so many of us withdraw. A challenge comes up in life, we withdraw right back into our turtle shell, right? We're just in the shell, we've got like cable TV, air conditioning, we got Uber Eats. So we just stay in, right? You got to poke your head back out, you got to get back. I just thought about Austin Powers now.

Austin Powers: "I've got a turtlehead poking out."

Shawn Stevenson: He's like, "I've got a turtlehead poking out." Never mind. Hopefully, you don't get that. 

Anyway, so people think that we could bring the old us to the new party but it just simply doesn't work like that, it really starts with a change in our mindset, in our beliefs about who we are that elicits the change in our physical results as well. 

And so with that said, and thank you for allowing me to share more of my story, and thank you for having compassion for me in opening up and sharing this, and some of the process, and some of the insights, and some of my experience, because some of this stuff is really tough. 

And as I've spoken them out it has become easier but, please, I encourage you to share your story, share your story because somebody needs to hear it. You might not have come from trials and tribulations and turbulent home, and you've gone through other stuff. Maybe you failed at something, maybe you didn't achieve something that you were really set on achieving. 

Share that because that's what connects us, and your story matters, and the more that you become aware of how valuable your story is and in owning your story, the more power that you're going to have to be able to change it and to write it consciously the way that you want it to be.

And so with that said, we're going to jump into these three tips to break through your limiting beliefs. And the beginning was the very first thing that I did and this is making upgrades to your environment, that's number one, and owning your story and breaking through your limiting beliefs is changing/upgrading your environment. 

You will be what you see, you will always be what you see. And this is why it was so difficult for me to break through. And I became the first person in my family to graduate with a four-year degree, throughout all of the turbulence and I'm very grateful for that. But it was so much that I had to go through because I simply didn't see it, I didn't see it done from where I came from.

But once I got around it and I got in the environment, and once I'd changed and turned health around, after everything was stripped and I changed my perspective about what was possible for me and my future became more clear and I realized that there's something that I'm actually dedicated to, that can start to pull me, really it pushed me, it pushed me to graduate. 

Because I had a reason, I wanted to help people, I wanted to have this degree and I wanted to be educated in health from this prestigious institution. And so that urge was pushing me, it was pushing me, but eventually, my vision pulled me and pulled my life right through that process, right through graduation, right through opening my practice, right through all of it. 

It's the vision, the vision will pull you, you can continue to push yourself, situations, circumstances can push you, but when you cultivate that vision and you have something bigger than yourself in front of you, it begins to deploy you. 

And so part of that was changing my environment, becoming more clear on what that looked like. And so you need to proactively get yourself in the environment of positive, supportive, goal affirming environments and also create those conditions around you so the people that you are in conversation with, if you want different results, you need to talk with different people. 

This doesn't mean that you forfeit and just not talk to the people that you love, I'm not saying that. I'm saying if you don't have the experience and the reference point of what the success looks like in whatever space you are trying to get into, you've got to get around it. 

If you want to have a successful relationship and you've never seen one, you didn't grow up with one, you need to talk to people who have a successful relationship. It is really simple, you will be what you see. Change your environment, upgrade your environment.

Start hanging out with people with good relationships, if you've got drama in yours, you're always hanging out with people with drama in their relationship, that's all you're going to see. 

But again, it could be comfortable, it's comfortable talking about the drama, the drama is addictive, it's addictive that we have a primitive part of our brain that loves drama. But if you want to see happiness and success in a relationship, you've got to make it a study, you've got to get around that, and that's like with anything, whether it's success, getting myself successful in my career, financially successful, came from getting myself around people who had those things.

It literally is— I can't even stress to you how simple it is, it is literally that simple! Get around it. You cannot help but be influenced by it. But if you don't proactively get around it, sometimes it does take for you to muster up some courage and some resources to get around it, but you can. 

And for me it started with— I was learning these different things about health, I was going hanging out at Wild Oats, I don't know if you remember Wild Oats before Whole Foods bought them up made and made them disappear, it's a magic trick. Wild Oats was like a little bit more Oaty, I guess, a little bit more wild. 

And I would go there just hanging out, I was reading all these packages and pill bottles and learn about these supplements, and they had the books there and I could read about this thing and that thing and I was just obsessed. Really just finding out different ways that I could take what I was learning and to help other people because this environment that I was putting myself in was very different. But I didn't know anybody else that was talking about this stuff. 

And then I was doing some googling, Dr. Google became my primary doctor and so we set appointments and I started researching these things and I came across like these different health summits with these lectures, with these different doctors who were like integrative physicians and things I'd never heard of before. Like Dr. Bernie Siegel was an early one and he's a part of this like online summit and this was like 2003. 

All right, so this was a while back and then they would have these free summits and then I would buy them as well, so I could listen to him over and over and over again. I'd put them on in my car, I'd play them and listen to these lectures over and over. We didn't have the iPhone then which is like you got the CDs, I was burning CDs at my college apartment. I got all these CDs, and also it was limited, podcasts were not a thing. 

Now you've got access to all, infinite amount of information and knowledge. And so I would listen to these over and over again and really that environment, it changed my environment and my car became automobile university. At my apartment, I am not watching or what was out then— Flavor of Love, I don't know, I'm not watching that.

I'm learning how to improve my health and how I can help other people to do the same thing. I became obsessed with it. Not to say you can't watch Flavor of Love, okay, I'm not saying that. "Is he even, is he okay?" I don't know, anyways, it's not to say you don't have those opportunities to dabble in there, but if that's what your life is revolved around, that's what you're going to see, you're just going to see more of that.

So, get yourself around that physically, mentally, emotionally, every aspect, spiritually, immerse yourself, this is how you really change. Break through those limiting beliefs. If you're around those messages long enough, it cannot help but have an impact on you, especially if you physically get in the presence of it. This is the number one thing, number one thing, I promise you, bar none is nothing even close. You will be what you see. 

And so with that said, some action steps to put into place with this— every day, every single day schedule it, make time maybe for you it's in the morning, for me it's in the morning, maybe it's right before bed or maybe it's for your lunch break or maybe it's when you're in the car to put on something that is affirming of the direction that you want to go in your life. Every single day. Every day. It accumulates, which you appreciate appreciates. So begin to appreciate that. 

And the other part is physically set a mandate of a certain number of events that you will attend live each year. Put the excuses to the side, "I don't have the support, I don't have the finances," whatever, find a way. 

Find a way just like anything in your life that you really, if you really were, your back's against the wall, you can find a way. I promise, one of my first events that I went to, this might be the first, no no this is the second big event, life-changing event, The Model Health Show came into existence, this was one of the first stepping stones of it happening, was getting to this live event. 

I did not have the money for, like not even close, literally even getting the plane tickets, we got standby from a family member who works for the airlines and I shared this story on the show back in the day, but we went a  through a lot of drama. I don't know if you know what standby means, but that means you're standing by, you don't get a ticket, you stand by just in case they got some room. Alright, so it's not pretty, not pretty. 

I did what I had to do, we got there, the things happen that needed to happen at that moment, but it would not have happened if I didn't get out of my comfort zone, changed my story that I can't and get there. 

All right so, your environment, upgrade your environment, your personal environment and then there are tactical things as well, understanding that your outer world is a direct reflection of your inner world, your outer world is a direct reflection of your inner world. 

And so if there's chaos around you, it's very difficult to have positive, affirming focused thoughts. It just is. Research that Preston University found that clutter, the clutter around you in your personal space can actually make it more difficult to focus on a particular task, specifically they found that the visual cortex in your brain can be overwhelmed by task-irrelevant objects and making it harder to allocate your attention to complete tasks efficiently. 

When I was struggling with my health, my apartment reflected that. Man, my car reflected that, I had all these notebooks and papers in my trunk for no reason, I was like, "Oh yeah, I'll review it someday." No, you won't. If I bust the right turn I hear the papers in the trunk just move to one side, I bust the left papers move to the other side. "Why, Shawn, it was not cool." 

You've got to get the practical stuff, like get your environment fixed up sort up, change, upgrade your physical environment to make it feel more like the person in life that you want to have. You can't be like, "I want to have this beautiful home," and you're not taking care of the one that you have. It doesn't even mean that have to do it yourself. If you have kids, recruit them, they live there. 

Just saying. I got a friend of mine Katie, Wellness Mama is her brand, Wellness Mama, shout out to Katie, she's got five kids. After three I stopped counting, I am just being real, okay. But these kids, they're like building furniture, they're cooking meals, doing their own laundry at like four or three years old. 

We don't think our kids can, we just think that they're not capable, man. So it's just another story we tell ourselves, recruit those kiddos, you know, get some help from your mom or your mother in law, whatever. We have to stop acting like we got everything handled. Recruit and ask for help, people are willing to help. 

And find a way to give value to them though, by the way, we should be like, "Hey can you come help me clean my house, mom?" Moms probably do it but you know, your best friend, okay, go best friend. It won't be your best for no more if you ask her to come clean your house for nothing. So recruit people, you can pay with your time or your energy as well, I'm sorry— your time or your money. You can pay with your time or your money. 

So maybe you invest $50, $85 a week into hiring somebody to come in and help with something with the house, whatever. If that frees you up to do the thing that will make you more money, then there's no need to spend your time doing it, if you're not passionate about it anyway. If you're not passionate about dishes. 

Actually I've never met anybody who is passionate about dishes, that are just like, "You know what, when I grow up I want to wash dishes," I've never heard that I've never seen like people walk around like, "Hey  what do you want to do when you grow up, little boy?" "I want to wash the dishes." I've never seen it, never seen it, you see me I looked up, I looked up.

"I want to wash dishes, and I saw a gleam, a glittering sparkling plate". I've never seen it, but some people might enjoy it for maybe it's meditative. I personally don't not like doing the dishes to put it like that, because you know, I put some music on, I can put on a podcast. We could dance and do dishes, if you follow me Instagram you've probably seen it, we would dance while doing the dishes. I am at shawnmodel on Instagram, by the way. 

So your physical environment itself— clean that, clean it up. So your physical environment itself. And another thing that I was thinking about in regards to having a clutter free great environment, just as our living space and/or our working space as well, is again, you don't have to be like Martha Stewart level, but why is it when I think of Martha Stewart I immediately think of Snoop Dog now? Is that is that even okay? 

Anyways, you don't have to be like that level but just get just stuff organized and also understand that, and this was in "Sleep Smarter" there was a study that was focused on the sleep quality of day shift workers found some shocking results when compared to office workers who have direct access to windows at work, those office workers who didn't have access to windows got significantly less exposure to natural light and as a result, slept an average of 46 minutes less each night. 

And this sleep deficit resulted in more reported physical ailments, lower vitality, and poor sleep quality, simply by the environment itself. If you're not getting exposure to natural light and you work during the day, we're not Vampires, okay, I think that's how you say vampire in Portuguese, I don't know, I'm guessing. 

But when you realize that sun exposure is like, just even get natural lights coming into the room that you're in, it really helps to set your circadian rhythm. And so the office workers who were getting adequate natural light exposure tend to be more physically active, happier and had an overall higher quality of life. 

So again, optimize your living space, your workspace to promote health, to promote a more clear and stronger mindset of health, something that is supportive to cultivating good thinking. And Jesse Itzler talked about that we had him on the show recently and he's the most, I call him the world's most interesting man, and all the things he's been able to achieve come from where he's come from, a big part of his approach today with, now he owns part of the Atlanta Hawks basketball team, he is a New York Times bestselling author, he's sold his companies, his aviation company for like it was valued at like five billion dollars or something, it's crazy, all right, but he just started off as a guy would not the best circumstances and he was a rapper. 

He grew up as this young Jewish kid in the East Coast and hip hop was coming on strong, you know early 1980's and he just fell in love. And to see where he is now, but every day, every day he's thinking about these different things and one of the things that he's put into play is consciously having time, creating an environment, finding the best environment for him to think. And just I'm going to tell you right now, if you encourage yourself to get your environment a little bit nicer, it's going to help with the thinking. 

And so, speaking of which an incredible place that has a great culture, the environment itself is just so engaging and supportive of happiness and thought and collaboration. And I just went there in San Diego, not too long ago, and it's at Oganifi. 

Those guys, I think it's voted like the fourth best place to work or something like that, it's crazy. We talk about nationally, they're located in San Diego, so shout out to those guys. And if you're in the neighborhood, I think they would love to see you, if you want to pop by, and I love those guys, Drew Canole's been on the show a couple of times and I've seen Drew's story, man, oh my goodness, we'll put his most recent episode in the show notes. Wow, there's some stuff I didn't know, wow, so powerful. 

But the culture there is one of service and one of growth, and it's just such really great energy to be in and they've done stuff the right way. They're taking real whole organic superfoods and making these concentrates with their Green Juice formula, the Red Juice formula, their Gold product and several other things that they now have in their lines. They're taking these products,  wheatgrass and Spirulina and Chlorella and low temperature processing them to retain all the nutrients so that you're actually getting all the good stuff you're looking for. 

And there was a study, this was a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Appetite, they found that chlorophyll, which is the reason they put Spirulina, Chlorella, wheatgrass in there, these are three of the most chlorophyll-rich things in our universe. And they found that chlorophyll can actually aid in weight reduction and reduce our urge to eat hyper-palatable foods. 

So if we're struggling with like cravings and weird addictions, different foods, getting it more chlorophyll especially in the form of these superfoods that are super dense in chlorophyll, plus these other vitamins, nutrients and other capacities that it has, it's really one of those powerful things for helping us to modulate our appetite. 

And also, this was published in The Journal of Endocrinology found that chlorophyll is able to increase the release of something called glucagon-like peptide 1, which has been found to stimulate the decrease of visceral fat, so that's that organ fat that we call, it's called belly fat that is really putting a lot of pressure on our organs and it's the most dangerous type of fat, that can help the release of this visceral fat and trigger to migrate to our subcutaneous fat which is right under our skin, which is a much more protective, healthier place. 

But even potentially, if we can get the visceral fat to be released in the first place, it gives us the opportunity to actually get rid of it, period. So really cool stuff, and again, Organifi's Green Juice is where I get this from and my family as well, I definitely recommend checking them out if you haven't gotten onto the Oganifi train yet, you better get on, because it's definitely going places. 

It's oganifi.com/model, 20 percent off everything they carry, huge, huge fans of those guys. The work culture, the environment, it's definitely a winning one. And they're doing stuff that is just super, just out of this world. So head over check them out, it's organifi.com/model. Now let's jump into number two. 

These are 3 tips to break through your limiting beliefs and number one was to upgrade your environment, there's many different ways to go about that. 

But number 2 is to interrupt your pattern. Interrupt your pattern. So this is been something that has been super valuable in my life and also in my practice as a nutritionist and coaching, is helping people to interrupt their pattern and even proactively interrupting the pattern for them. And so what does that mean? 

Well, we tend to have these habitual negative thoughts and Dr. Daniel Amen who's been on the show as well, I'll put it in the show notes, he calls them ANTs- Automatic Negative Thoughts. A-N-Ts, ANTs. And it's kind of like a record that gets played and we'll tend to have the same habitual negative responses when we have opportunity, when we have positive things start going our way or even when things are already negative we have these automatic negative thoughts coming up. 

And so what tends to happen is we might be presented with an opportunity to maybe make more money in a different career choice or something like that. I'm just using this as an example and automatically it will come up of, "It's too hard, I don't have the support to do it, I'm taking a big risk," and these negative thoughts, these stories will start popping up. And my encouragement is to interrupt the pattern. 

And this takes a level of awareness about your thoughts, period. Okay? And so this is why meditation can be so helpful in this, in interrupting our pattern, in changing our thinking, changing the record that's playing with these automatic negative thoughts that come up and putting on a different record, flipping it over on the B side or whatever, and playing more positive, affirming things.

But you have to be able to catch the thoughts when they come up and that's the work, that's being aware that you have a presence, you have an awareness that is beyond your thoughts, you have an awareness that listening to all of the thoughts going through your mind. 

They are crazy sometimes amazing, sometimes just super weird, sometimes like you should be arrested for thinking that thought. There's a presence that's listening to all of those things going across the movie screen of your mind, there's a watcher sitting in the seat, watching the thoughts. 

So if you can make that separation and realize that you are not your thoughts and you can start to see them when they come up and then automatic negative thought presenting itself saying, "It's a big risk," even though you want big reward, you want this life, you want this lifestyle, but the place you currently are at cannot possibly get you there and you're presented with this opportunity you have everything you need within you to achieve it but the negative thought comes up.

Interrupt your pattern— when it comes up and says that you can't because, you change the language. You change the story, you immediately dissect, cut that piece out and you add in another idea, you say something different.

There's a situation where I had a patient come in and he's dealing with always different health issues, medications, it kind of feels like he maybe shouldn't be on them, and he's got this story that he can't focus, he can't focus he has adult ADD and it's just causing him issues to focus. But what was so interesting is that when I was talking he was focused, he could recite back everything that I would share. When he was talking about something that he was interested in he was like hyper-focused and aware.

But the story he's been telling himself is that he can't do it without, it's the medication that helps him. But the truth was he was able to focus on the things that were really important to him. 

And so I interrupted the pattern when he was saying that he can't focus and I literally just interrupted him and said, "Are you focused right now?" And he's like, "Well, well yeah." I was like, "Well you have the capability within you, it's just the story you're telling yourself that you can't focus, you're not broken." 

And of course, there are situations there and after doing my assessment and of course a lot of times working alongside physicians and helping these people to be able to eliminate medications potentially. It's really learning the person and I knew that this person was carrying the story about what they couldn't achieve because of their past. 

And he came from a situation, a very volatile situation similar to mine, and so this was one of those ways that he was hanging on to the story that this was why he couldn't be as successful as he wanted to be. 

Interrupt the pattern when it presents itself and ask, "Is this true? Is this really true?" And be honest, it's hard to be honest especially when you've got this habitual negativity that you spout about yourself. 

And so reframing it, interrupt the pattern, insert something more positive and so now he's one of the most, I mean he's focused. One of the most focused individuals that I've ever seen. 

And with his conditions that he has, because he has over 3 kids as well which I stopped counting, so many kids, and the ability for him to focus and to execute is amazing, so amazing. 

Again, we have that capacity, we have to interrupt the pattern, change the story, insert a new story. So that's number two. 

The final one here today. We're going through our three strategies to break through our limiting beliefs so we hit changing our environment, we hit interrupting the pattern and finally this one is something that changed everything for me. This is where I went from being self-centered to other-centered and really understanding that to change, to break through your limiting beliefs, one of the greatest strategies we have is to dedicate yourself to someone else. 

And now I've got some science to back this up, this might sound crazy, but this is what did it for me and so many other people. It was no longer just about me and my little life, it became about helping is many people as I could to experience what I had experienced and more. 

And to break free from their limitations and their health concerns and to become the person that they wanted to be when their health was the thing that was seemingly holding them back, it seemed like my health was a thing holding me back. But it wasn't, it was my mind, it was my approach to life itself. 

And so that became my modus operandi, that became my passion, to help other people to achieve the success that I was seeing with my health. 

And so when my attention shifted I became more passionate like, " I'm not just learning for myself I have to learn for them, too." And it took on more responsibility to fuel that fire even more. 

And so there are two ways you go about this and break it through your limiting beliefs. With your relationship, you can live with just choose somebody who you love very much, who is close to you. It could be significant other, it could be a child, it could be a parent, a grandparent, but beginning to fuel when the limiting beliefs that you're telling yourself really start to embrace imbuing them along with the mission of, "I have to be better for them." That was the initial trigger for me as well, was my grandmother. 

And using that to your advantage because you're putting it all on the movie screen of your mind you are consciously putting on the movie you want and the movie you're choosing is, "I'm doing this for them, too. I can't let them down." And using that as fuel and even outside of that, just even with people that you know, also others that you might not know, and finding a way to serve. 

Service— because here's the thing, whatever limiting thing that we're telling ourselves, things are never so bad that you can't help just one other person. There's always somebody that can be helped by you, there's always somebody who's struggling more than you are, no matter how bad things might be. You always have the capacity to help at least just one other person. 

And the number one thing that anchors a transformation in breaking through these limiting beliefs, the number one thing that anchors the transformation physically, mentally, spiritually or the like is to teach what you have learned.

My friend Jim Kwik says that when you teach something you get to learn it twice. Because you are simulating that information and you're sharing it and you're learning it in a different way, in a way of communicating, your brain is listening as well. Now two people have that fire, right?

We think that sometimes if we teach somebody something we know or give away a secret, we are giving them our fire, we're putting our fire out, we're passing our candle over to them. In reality, we are holding our own candle and we're simply putting our flame over to theirs and now we have two fires, right? 

And this is so important because we need to strive to share our time, share your energy, share your knowledge, share your experience, share your story. Share your story in the service of other people. 

Because again, personal achievements just for you solely will never be enough to sustain your fire. 

And we've got some health affirming things when it comes to service and these are results of a recent study of a large, ethnically diverse sample of older adults that showed no association between receiving social support and improving health.

However, the study found, shockingly, that those who gave social support to other people had lower rates of mortality, meaning they weren't dying, they weren't dying as quickly or haphazardly as other folks, these are the folks who gave social support. Also, this was controlling because, for me, I immediately think like, "What about other factors in life," this was controlling in the study for their social economic status, education. marital status gender, age, ethnicity.

Giving to other people, being in the service of others, was a factor that rose above all these other things. Please get this, it doesn't make sense. But this is speaking to how we are connected. This helps us to break through our limiting beliefs because when you can see it and help another person, it really does something for us psychologically and with our hearts to help us to elevate beyond our excuses. 

Also, this was a recent study from Carnegie Mellon University which was published in The Journal of Psychology and Aging and found that adults over age 50 who volunteered on a regular basis were less likely to develop high blood pressure than non-volunteers. And this has been correlated to obviously high blood pressure with premature death again.

There's a 2012 study, this was in the Journal of Health Psychology found that participants who volunteered with some regularity lived longer but, but— only if their intentions were truly altruistic. In other words, they had to be volunteering to help others not to make themselves feel better. That's saver, that's saver, saver. That is selfless service, saver. 

So service and doing something good with that body and that mind and that success that you're wanting to achieve, that's what really takes it to another level. All right, so that incredible body that you're wanting to build and the muscles that you're putting on, go use those muscles and help build houses for Habitats for Humanity. 

That incredible mind that you're working on, and the new nootropics you take and the brain food, use that beautiful brain that should be developing and go and speak to teachers and faculty members at schools to help them to feel better and optimize their brain so they can help our future generations. 

Do something with those gifts that you're developing, make it bigger than you and it's going to help you to break through those limiting beliefs.

I appreciate you so much for hanging out with me today, and we've said this many times that knowledge is not power, it's potential power, it's taking these things and applying it. And it could just be one of the insights today, one of the tactics and working on that one thing maybe it's just interrupting the pattern, you will find very quickly that that starts to transform your entire life when you start to interrupt those ANTs, those automatic negative thoughts in placing and sliding in these positive, affirming thoughts, it starts to change your character, it starts to change the way that you see your life, it starts to change your story. 

Because if you don't realize that you are the viewer in the theater watching the movie and you think you are the movie yourself, you're destined to whatever outcomes some random producers put out for your movie. But if you realize that, "Hey I'm sitting in the watcher seat and I could put on the movie that I want," you start to change your entire reality. 

I hope you got a lot of value out of this episode today, and again, thank you for having compassion for me to be able to share my story and I want you to please, please be proactive in sharing your story, because people need you, they need to hear it, they need to connect and to know who you truly are. So start to open up more, start to be more courageous in sharing your experience, because it's a big part of you growing and expanding and impacting the lives of other people and truly embracing the mission that you are signed up for, here in your life experience.

I appreciate you so much and, of course, make sure to share this out with your friends and family on social media, give them some inspiration for today. You could tag me, I'm on Instagram and Twitter @shawnmodel and on Facebook at The Model Health Show how and we've got some incredible— Listen, when I tell you, incredible guests, I don't think you understand, I don't think you are ready— are you ready? We've got some incredible guests coming your way and some powerful, powerful show topics as well, so make sure to be ready.

I appreciate you so much, take care, have an amazing day and I'll talk with you soon. 

And for more after this 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.