SHAWN STEVENSON: On this episode, we're gonna discover the truth about this incredible power that is teaming, that is locked within every cell of your body right now. And it is unlocked with the science backed strategies that you're gonna learn about today. Theoretical physicist Minchi Kaku says that the human brain is the most powerful entity in the known universe, and we all have one, which is kind of crazy. The key to your physical fitness, to accomplishing your biggest and brightest goals and creating the life that you want, all change, what we see in the real world is a result of what's happening in our inner world. And in this episode, you're gonna learn about the most powerful strategy for navigating that internal terrain and changing your results in the real world.

Whether that's your physical health, whether that's the performance in your work, in your family life, whatever it is that you want to accomplish. This technology is so powerful, yet so misunderstood and underutilized. It is criminal, and that's why I'm so excited about this episode. This is truly transformative. And our special guest is gonna walk us through the ins and outs of this technology. And I'm telling you, this is a game changer. If you apply what you learned today, it's going to transform your life forever. 10 years ago and over 800 episodes ago, I pushed into this medium, the term mental fitness. And I utilize that term because mental health has a lot of stigma that surrounds it, and it tends to be something that we perceive as very fixed.

And even if it is changeable and we have acute instances of mental health challenges, it's something that is very loaded with complexity and difficulty in changing. And so that's why I leaned into the term mental fitness, because fitness is something that is more approachable. It's something that we tend to feel like we have more agency over changing and fitness is indeed a part of health. It's a part of it, but there are some powerful distinctions. And so not only are we gonna talk about what actually creates strong mental fitness, but we're gonna talk about the most powerful tool. That we can utilize to not just transform our mental fitness, but to transform our outer life and our experience as well.

And today we have on the leading expert in this subject matter to unpack all the different pieces and how to utilize the power of our minds to create the results that we want to see in our lives. 

Now, as I always do, when we have guests here at the Model Health Show Studio, we offer them a variety of delicious beverages and snacks. Now, of course, not everybody wants a little snacky snack, but it always makes me so happy when people want to have a cup of tea. Now, our special guest is for the UK, so I knew it was probably 50/50. All right. I knew I had a good chance of her wanting to enjoy some of the phenomenal teas that we have here at the Model Health Show Studio, and she actually surprised me.

Alright. Yes, we know that tea is phenomenal for our health. In fact, a study published just last year in 2024 found that people who regularly drink tea age slower than people who don't drink tea. It's like a little superpower in a cup. Now, with that being said. Yeah, we think about the incredible green tea, the matcha green tea from the incredible team at Pique Life. Yes, we think about the phenomenal Pu'erh that has a variety of benefits that are noted in peer reviewed studies to support metabolic health and body fat oxidation, right? Pique tea has the best purpure in the world as well. But what I need to share more is that they have so many other award-winning teas, including a host of herbal teas, and the one that our special guest chose to have was their electric turmeric blend.

That made me so happy because I got the crack open a new box of these patented cold extraction derived super teas from Pique tea. And why is this formula remarkable? Well, research published in the journal Plos one revealed that the active ingredient in turmeric curcumin is capable of improving neuroplasticity and stimulating the creation of new brain cells. There are very few things ever discovered that have a capacity like this. There's something really special about turmeric and the quality matters and that incredible blend that they put together, it tastes so good and our guest enjoyed it. And she's also very big in neuroscience. And so getting those neuroplasticity vibes going before the show even started with such a vibe.

Head over right now and check out some of their amazing award-winning tees from the incredible team at Pique Life. Just go to piquelife.com/model. That's P-I-Q-U-E-L-I-F e.com/model. You're gonna receive up to 20% off their award-winning tees, free shipping and some other goodies like a frother. I'm about that froth life. My frother is something I use every single day. They got a frother, they've got a beaker, little bonuses that come with some of their kits. All these incredible bonuses are something that we can take advantage of and really uplevel our tea game. And again, as mentioned, people who drink tea live longer. According to massive amounts of data, tend to live longer than people who don't. There's something special about it, so definitely pop over there. Check them out. Piquelife.com/model. Take advantage of all the incredible goodness that they have over there at Pique Life. And now let's get to this special YouTube comment of the week. 

YOUTUBE REVIEW: Another YouTube comment of the week by @BigRickEnergy. I've been listening to Shawn for a few months now and have probably taken in somewhere around 400 episodes while driving to and from work. This dude blows my mind every single episode. Keep spreading the word, Shawn. This country needs to hear this stuff over and over. We're on a bad path that things don't change soon. You need to become the next surgeon general for reals. Keep up the strong work. Fine, sir. And your bars were fire. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: That's just fire. I appreciate that so much. Thank you for sharing your voice over on YouTube. Wow, that was amazing. That's truly amazing. Listen, whether it's on YouTube, whether it's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, share your voice, leave a review for the Model Health Show. It really does mean a lot. And without further ado, let's get to our special guest and topic of the day. Maya Raichoora is the UK's leading mental fitness and visualization expert dedicated to helping elite athletes, executives, and global brands think, feel, and perform like the top 1%. She made history as Nike's first ever mental fitness trainer and has transformed thousands of lives worldwide through her pioneering approach. Let's dive into this masterclass on mental fitness and visualization with the one and only Maya Raichoora. Alright, let's start off by talking about the difference between mental fitness and mental health. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Okay. Yeah. So mental health, everyone talks about it. And really, if you've got a mind, you have a mental health. It's a bit like if you've got a body, you've got physical health. But if you think about our bodies, you're only physically fit if you, let's say, go to the gym, you do yoga, running, dancing, whatever it might be. So in the same way, you are only mentally fit if you are actively training the brain. And I think, you know, whenever I'm on like panels or having conversations with people at schools or companies, everyone stops at the awareness of mental health.

But then what's after that? Like what are you actually doing about it? It's like me sitting here being like, running is so good for you, but then we never go on a run. Now that's the problem. And I think it's also worth saying that then you have mental illness, which is where just like when you get physically ill, you would go to a doctor or you know you might be injured. So in the same way you would go and seek help. And then you also have mental weakness, which is a very human thing. You know, maybe you've had a bad sleep or you've had heartbreak, something's happened. So naturally you're not gonna be performing the best you can mentally. But then again, do you have the tools to come back to a better state of mental health because you know how to stay mentally fit. So it's really a spectrum, but ultimately mental fitness is when you are empowered with the tools to maintain good mental health. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: I love that. I love that. And what it really is, is like something that has tangibility to it versus like, health seems to be this kind of broad, very difficult to move thing. But fitness is something that's more like proactive, malleable, is something that I have more influence over. And I think that's a good lead in because as you know, and we talked a little bit about this before we got started, mental health is, there's a lot of stigma behind it. Right? And it seems to be unfortunately, more fixed. Like I have poor mental health, or I have good mental health, and just the conversation around it. And so to put in the terms of mental fitness makes it something that we have some power over. And you've actually broken down what constitutes good mental fitness. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: So let's talk about some of these points. I really wanna dig in on each one of these, by the way. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah. Yeah. So I think it was, I think you're right. I, everyone talks about their mind when something is really wrong. And it's the same thing. You don't just go to the gym. If you are obese or unhappy or, you know, injured, you would go to maintain a good life. And so I thought to directly basically, use the analogy. So when it comes to mental fitness, you've got cardio. Cardio is, are you using your brain? So whether that's debates, whether it's questions, whether it's you are learning something like a new language. Are you using the brain? You've got to use it, otherwise you lose it.

Then we have reps. Reps are really important because ultimately it's consistency. You know, it is the same as you don't get abs overnight in the same way. A lot of people want like a quick fix to their mind, or they just wanna get rid of all of the anxiety or negative thoughts. But it really is about the little things you do every day that build that consistency. Then you have rest. So just like again, with the body, you may, you sleep or massages, things like that. The brain also needs rest. And the brain is interesting because when you go to sleep, it's still pretty active. It's dreaming, right? It's thinking. And so we really need a form of active rest. And that can be, again, it can be meditation, it can be sleep, it can be any form of just letting your mind switch off just for a moment.

Then we have strength training. And this is really my niche and strength training. Just like the body, you essentially rip the muscle to make it bigger, better, stronger. And you can only do that with the weight training. And so for the brain, that's basically neuroplasticity. That's you being able to rewire the roads and the patterns in your brain. And that's where visualization is such a powerful tool to build a stronger brain so you can think, feel, and perform better than you ever have. And then we lastly have diet. And this isn't food, this is really the thing we consume the most in the world, which is content. It's the things we read, it's the things we watch, it's what we are listening to.

And to have a good mental diet, you need to be feeding yourself with stuff that actually serves you. Whereas most people we will watch, I don't know, reality TV or you know, we, we gossip, we compare ourselves, we're on social media. All of that is feeding like the bad wolf in the brain. And so just thinking about what am I inputting into my brain? So those are the five components and it's not to say, okay, you've gotta do all of these immediately. Just start with one, one of them and do one little thing to help that area, and then you can build over time. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. I would imagine that great mental fitness is a lot like great physical fitness. Like you can do so much and so much of life becomes easier and accessible to you. And so my advocation for everybody's like, this is something. I'm hoping that you really want to have, you really wanna have good mental fitness and there are very practical things we could do to get there. I want to stay with diet first because I wanna dig in on all these so everybody could feel like I know what to do. Gimme some practical things. You mentioned, and this just with diet, there's so many great analogies here, but I remember even when I was in college, you are what you eat.

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: You are what you eat. It's, it's so superficial in the way that it sounds, but there is a lot of practicality to it because what you eat does become a part of you and used to run processes, but it's shortsighted because it's not just you are what you eat as far as like making your tissues. It's you are what you drink, you are what you breathe. It's also, you are what you consume mentally as well. Because, and this is the big takeaway, what you, when you're scrolling through your, your social media, what you're picking up is becoming, and especially if you're habitually watching certain things, it becomes a physical part of your brain.

It becomes a physical part of your body, and your brain isn't just in your brain, by the way, like your cells are picking up this data and what are you habituating? What is your, what is your mental diet? And so with that being said, pretty much everybody's scrolling today. So what do you recommend as far as like that mental diet? Because we're going to be consuming stuff? 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah. So two very, very simple things you can do to improve your mental diet. Number one, I would honestly look through whether it's the people you follow, it's the content you are watching and just unfollow or curate your algorithm so it's actually helping you. So rather than, let's say, watching people that when you see them, you're like, oh, I wish I could be like that, or their life is so much better. You're constantly then telling yourself you're not good enough, or you are really behind. Do you think you're gonna feel good? No. So just unfollow it. Even if they are your friends, it doesn't matter.

Be selfish. If it does not serve you, get rid of it. The second thing, and this is very practical, is as soon as you wake up in the morning, your brain is a bit like, it's like fresh snow. And just think, what is the first footstep I want to make in that fresh snow? Now, for most of us, it's, let me look at my emails, let me get really stressed, or let me put the news on and just feel like, oh my God, the world is a really scary place. But instead, if you can be intentional with, okay, I'm gonna say, show me how good it gets today. Or I'm gonna just take one moment to think of something I'm grateful for, or I'm going to close my eyes and just take a few deep breaths. That one moment of intentionality paves the way for that first bit of the fresh snow, which then can help you carry on your day with just a better chance of feeling more positive or more calm or more confident.

And I'll just tell you a little story about a client I had where. You know, she's such a high performer, brilliant at work, everything. And then she was like, Maya, my relationship is just falling apart. I was like, what's going on? She was like, I just keep lashing out. I just lash out for no reason and I create arguments for, again, no reason. I was like, okay. Instead of even going into the depths of what was going on, I just asked her, I was like, what are you watching at the moment? And do you know what was really fascinating? Because she gets home and she's really stressed and tired. She just puts on those reality TV shows that, you know, you see all these couples arguing or it's selling, it's just for tv.

But what she didn't realize is that she's learning that behavior. Her neurons in her brain are telling her to act like that, and. So naturally with her own partner, without her knowing it, she's gonna start mimicking what she's watching. So I just said to her, why don't you decide to either watch something that's more relaxing, calming, or useful? Well, you know what? Don't watch tv, listen to some music, read a book or something. And genuinely within a week, she was just like, I just feel so much calmer and I don't react like that. But it also works in the other way, right? Like there's this great sports coach who works with a baseball team and they had never been to the worlds before.

And so what he did is in their changing room, he would put this TV on of a team. It just a random team playing at the worlds. And naturally, as the players were going into the changing room, they'd just be watching this. But very slowly, it's priming their brain to show them. This could be me or this is me. And so you can see that whether it's adverts, whether it's tv, whether it's what you say to yourself in the morning, it matters. But you have the power to just take that one step and then it gives you the right foot to start. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Oh, that's so good. So you mentioned, and by the way, you talk a lot about this in the book as well, in setting the framework for how powerful this is with our mirror neurons, right?

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And so this was years ago we put that episode for everybody in the show notes, but we had on Dr. Daniel Goldman, who really pushed that into popular culture. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yes. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: And one of the things that he shared, and it's even more present today, is that when we are witnessing something, there's a part of us this, these cells that are simulating us doing what we're witnessing. It's a big part of how we learn. And one of the things that's kind of built into us as human beings. And so this is why we feel what we felt when you just mentioned the baseball game, for example. That feeling, being a fan. Like you feel like you're in the game.

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right. It's because of these mirror neurons. There's a part of you that's simulating you being in it. And with this being said, this is very powerful. So are you chronically watching The Walking Dead or are you constantly watching it? You just mentioned these dating shows and reality tv. And just to be clear, I it's out here. All right. And this doesn't mean that you can't have a little, we'll call a little junk food sometimes.

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah, exactly. Cheat day! have your cheat meals. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: You know?

MAYA RAICHOORA: For sure.

SHAWN STEVENSON: But if that becomes the, the predominant part of your diet, the bulk of your diet is junk food, no disrespect, but junk food. What do you think that's gonna do to your brain? And your mental fitness. Right?

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: So keep that in mind. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: And, and I think really at the foundation of all of this, it's awareness.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes.

MAYA RAICHOORA: Like, don't get me wrong, I have days where I just wanna lay in bed and watch Netflix the whole day, but because I'm aware I'm doing it and I'm like, you know what, today I'm choosing to do that, it's so different. 'cause I'm not just blindly, you know, watching all these things and not realizing what is what it's doing to me. This allows me to then like reset if I've just watched a really like dramatic movie or show, okay, I'm aware that that is what it's gonna do to me. So I'll just take a moment and then go back to life again. So it really is about awareness. That's what's key about the diet. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, and we tend to seek out things that kind of, we're matching the energy as well. I haven't shared this before. I'm going to just go ahead and share it. So, last year I had a very challenging year. Just a lot of changes at one time. People passing away in my family, kids moving out the house. That kind of, a lot of stuff happened at once. And there's, just to mention, the Walking Dead, like I would see, like, I was like, I've never watched anything like that.

I'm not trying to watch zombies and all this stuff, but I knew that it was a good show. It had all these seasons. And you know, during this downtime of a year, I put this on and my wife and I started watching The Walking Dead together. All right. And we got in it, right? Because you know, of course with Netflix, it's just all right there. Next episode. 

Next episode. And it's like a apocalyptic, you know, doomsday scenario. A lot of human drama. But there's these beautiful moments as well, which is great tv. But there came a point where it's just like, yo, this doesn't feel good. Like this is like, I don't feel like this is matching where I want to be. Like there's this doom and gloom kind of vibe about the show, and you never walk away feeling great. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: You know? And there's this particular character named Negan. He's like one of the worst. TV villains of all time. And at this point, it's like in the next season with him, I'm just like, oh, they're just doing a Tom and Jerry cat and mouse thing. They're never going to get 'em. And it's just like I started getting a little annoyed and my wife wanted to keep watching. I'm like, I'm out.

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: I can't do it anymore. So I stopped watching it and just so happened things started turning around and getting better around that time. Now, I'm not saying this was a chicken or egg scenario, but my energy just didn't feel like that was a good compliment to be investing my time and energy into. And she ended up watching like one more season and she was like, you know what? You were right. You know?

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And he, by the way, Negan is still out here on the streets. I think they got like a whole new spinoff show, multiple seasons, whatever, because you, you just want Negan to get taken out.

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Unfortunately be respectfully, but you know, yeah. I could see where it was going and I see, I saw there wasn't adding value for me. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah. And, and look, it's addictive, right? The shows that do really well are the ones that have most problems or the dramas, and that's just because humans are addicted to that stuff. Partly 'cause we relate to it, and partly just because we're so used to it that of course we're gonna watch it. It's like you have it in your day-to-day life and then you're like, no, let me watch more of it so I can just, you know, feel even worse. But I think as well, you are right. Like I remember, you know, watching some stuff now for example. But because I'm in a very different mindset, I notice different things. I learn different things.

And I think that also just says it right? So again, the awareness, just know, okay, how am I feeling and why am I watching it? 'cause sometimes if I'm sad. I love watching a sad movie. Or I love listening to sad music. It's actually a way to help me just feel it even more. So it's all good, but again, awareness.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah.

MAYA RAICHOORA: You know, I'm aware that I'm choosing to feel even sadder for a reason. Um, so yeah, just start really small though. Just think how can I start to curate what I'm actually inputting into my brain? And that includes self-talk as well, not just the things you watch. It's also the things you say to yourself.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes.

MAYA RAICHOORA: Because that's actually everyone's worst mental diet. You know, it's the little snacks that they have. Like, that's the bad bit because most of us are, whether we're putting ourselves down or we are judging ourselves, telling ourselves we can't do it. And so if you can just start to give yourself and feed yourself words and sentences and ideas that are just a bit more healthier for you, then you'll start to also see those differences.

 SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes. Yes. Love it. Okay. So we've got diet. Covered pretty well. So let's be intentional about what we are consuming mentally. And I want to ask you a little bit more about cardio. Because that was one that, again, just using this fitness comparison, cardiovascular health isn't just about the cardiovascular system. 

This is about overall brain and body function. We can just do more and feel better. So can you give us some more examples, like what are some things that we could do to build up a good mental fitness level of cardio? 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah, so cardio for mental fitness I think is really easy. One of the simplest ways is to ask better questions. So for example, if I asked you a question like what is a part of your personality that you are working on at the moment? 

SHAWN STEVENSON: So you're asking me. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Go for it. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: It's just very difficult being this handsome in a world that is, I'm just kidding. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: That's why I love America. It's so good. Confidence. You know, 

SHAWN STEVENSON: I just thought about Zoolander popped into my mind and I just went with it. Let's see. Part of my personality working on? For me right now, I would say I'm working on not thinking. So let's see. How do I, how do I say that? 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Okay, so, but this Okay. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Okay. Oh, go ahead. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: This is cardio. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Because you are having to think. It's not just a question like, oh, like what did you eat for breakfast?

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah.

MAYA RAICHOORA: And most conversations are like that. Yeah. Now you've actually spent a few minutes being like, you know what? Yeah. Actually I haven't thought about that before. So now Yeah, go ahead and answer. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. Yeah. I've been thinking about my thinking a lot. I've been thinking about. What do I want to focus on, right? I've got all these options and opportunities and different places where I can make a difference in the world. And I know that I'm in a powerful position and that my life is gonna be directed a certain, once I make a decision, it's gonna go in a certain direction. And so I've been really just taking time to process, consider things like I've never done before. And so that's, that's what I've been doing. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: And I love that. And I think so not only yes, do I feel more connected to you, and I understand it's made me think as well. And so just a power of a question never underestimated, but a lot of us, when we meet others or even just our own reflections for ourselves, we limit to, okay, what went well today? What are we grateful for? All good, but just see, can I make my question a little bit harder? Or a little bit more introspective. So just something like that made your brain have to think a bit differently. Really useful. But another really simple thing with cardio is learn something new. Or whether it's practicing a language, debating, I think debating is a really easy way to do it.

'Cause at school, cardio's really high at school. You are constantly, you know, discussing new things. You are writing, you're doing a lot with the brain. As we get a little bit older, we tend to do the same things. So we are losing a little bit of the how do we continue to just exercise it in that way. So that's really cardio. Just think you've gotta use it so you don't lose it. And that's important as well because if you look at our lifestyles, a lot of it is sedentary and you know, we're just at a computer. So just think, is there any way I can even moving the body is useful for it, but just how do I use the brain? So that it's doing what it's good at, you know?

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes. And if you want a easy way to like build and debate into your life, have a teenage son. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Ha. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Alright. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Have a teenage son who's a contrarian, you know, just like him and I are constantly going back and forth. But there's a lot of love, don't get me wrong. Yeah. But also, again, it's, it's a challenging situation.

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah. And, I'll even go as simple as like crosswords, Sudokus. You know, as you get older, the, the people who are engaging in those brain training games, their brains are sharper, stronger. So don't underestimate, don't underestimate those things as well. Like, feel free to do some brain training or card games, board games. It's all really good for the cardio. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes, yes. Awesome. Awesome. Let's go to consistency. Because with fitness, it's not something you do occasionally. It's the things that you are doing on a consistent basis. So with consistency, what are some of the tips and kind of takeaways? Because I think that we tend to try to get some consistency going when things are really messed up, for example, versus like just a wellness consistency practice.

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah. So, the regular reps for the brain is just so crucial because the brain doesn't, so the brain gets good at what you repeat, not what's true. That's really important. So me telling you to, let's say do five minutes of meditation once, it really isn't gonna do much. You might feel a bit better after, but it will honestly have no impact. The key with the mind is to go super small, but regular, become the type of person that can just do one thing for their mind every day. That's all I ask. And so that's why sometimes I'll tell people, just do two minutes a day. Just two minutes. I'm not asking you to do hours and hours, just do two minutes.

And I think often when we think about training the mind, we often have this image of you've gotta be on a mountain somewhere, meditating for hours. But really your mental fitness can be integrated so easily into your day currently, but you've gotta care about it. 

So before even asking you to get consistent, I would actually say, do you care about your mind? There's no point you trying to be consistent if you don't even realize the value it has. And sometimes I say to people, I'm like, imagine if you had to pay for your brain, you would take care of it very differently. You know, you would train it a bit more often, you would update the software a bit more often.

And so in the same way, go really, really small and I don't mind what activity you do, but just go so small and stay with it. So many people will be like, oh my, I tried meditation or I tried visualization. It just didn't really work for me. But that's like saying walking doesn't work for you. You're not gonna see the result tomorrow, but it's only through the consistent repetition, that's when you see the result. So it's not to say that we get scared of it or we should feel overwhelmed by it, but I think if you really want to rewire the brain, repetition is absolutely required. You cannot do it without it, active training. Because the other way to rewire the brain is what you have the most intense experience, let's say you get, you get bitten by a dog.

Now, from that moment, you are scared of a dog, right? It's such an intense experience. But we don't have that all the time. So we've got to be proactive in how we're gonna retrain ourselves. And I think, think of it like this as well. So let's say for the last 20 years you are someone who has been telling yourself that, oh, like I'm just an imposter in all these situations. Or, I'm not a Reagan mother, right? You have told yourself that so many times. So technically you are a master at consistency. You've done it very well. Now to change that it requires a similar level of repetition and consistency. 'Cause otherwise the brain is most familiar with whatever you have been repeating beforehand. And that's why, if you can see it that way, you realize that the consistency is not just a part of the mental fitness. It is an absolute requirement. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes, yes. You're always training. You're always training. So for somebody who is, you know, they made the decision, they're gonna start walking. Right? So they're trying to get 5,000 steps a day. And the alternative, they've been training as well. They just train their body to be very good at sitting on a couch. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: And again, we're always training, but we get to decide what we're investing in. And all the ways are hard, by the way. That's the thing too. We've been talking about this for a long time. Training your body to be very good at chair sitting is going to be very difficult for you in all kinds of ways. It might feel good in the moment or certain times. But the capacity to like train yourself to be physically fit and to be able to get those steps in. And that opens up infinite possibilities of being able to explore the world in a different way.

Now, of course, you could sit on the couch and explore quite a bit, but, you know, so we're always training, and this brings us to the importance of rest when it comes to our mental fitness. And so earlier you mentioned, you know, active recovery, right? Versus just, you know, being unconscious, right? Sleep is gr is wonderful, but you just said the brain is super active during sleep. It's just doing different stuff. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: And so we've got, you mentioned meditation and you just mentioned also just being able to unplug, just to rest our mind, daydreaming, right? Just giving your, giving your brain and your mind just time to be expansive. We evolved doing that. We had no choice. Right. You're either working community, whatever, or you just spent a lot of time in contemplation and in your own head. Today, the average person has none of that in a day. And then once they do plug, unplug, then it's just the voices start up. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah. So I think, if you think about it, your brain is working all the time. So technically it's like running marathons all day, every day. And again, after you've run a marathon, what what should you do? You've gotta, you've gotta rest. But, so something that really helped me as well is differentiating between recovering, rest, and then recharge. 'Cause a lot of people, they will just go straight to, oh my God, I need to, you know, I need to recharge my energy. 

But one second, you've gotta recover from, let's say, the day or the week you've just had. Then you've got to actually rest, actively rest. And now you can fill up your cup again because if you keep just going through this cycle of like constantly having super busy and then just rest, it's a bit too intense.

And then the other thing to consider is there are actually seven types of rest. So you have mental rest, you have physical rest, you have creative rest. So if you're a creative and you know you're always having to solve problems, that's tiring. You have emotional rest. Now this is interesting. Emotional rest actually means that if you've gone through a week of quite busy work, you've probably felt a lot of emotions that you haven't had time to really release or regulate. And so emotional rests asks you to think, okay, at the end of the week, what do I need to just be aware of and release so that I don't take it with me?

Going forward, and that's so important. Emotional rest is everything. Then you also have sensory rest, really important, your screens. One of my, I remember one of my clients was like, yeah, Maya, I've had a really restful day. And I was like, what did you do? She was like, oh, I was just like watching tv, you know, just doing some admin and you know, it's on the phone. I'm like, you've got three screens. No wonder your mind is still so heavy and tired 'cause you're just looking at computers. Then we also have spiritual rest and spiritual rest is taking a step back and actually asking yourself, you know, what is my purpose? Am I feeding my soul? That's super important.

So just also being able to ask yourself, what type of rest do I need today? 'cause sometimes it won't be sleep. Sometimes you can be so well slept, yet you still feel so shattered. So ask yourself, maybe I need a bit more sensory rest or I need a bit more creative rest, or I need more mental rest. But ultimately rest is part of the work and part of your mental fitness, not a reward for the work.

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SHAWN STEVENSON: This is a good transition. Lastly, there was weightlifting being one of these components of good mental fitness. And using visualization is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, and mental extraordinary, like the best gym ever to be to being able to build really strong mental muscles is through, through visualization. Why did you choose this as the primary tool that you focused on for performance, for transformation? Why did you choose visualization? 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah, so if you look in the last probably like 20 to 30 years. It's become so clear now that the brain is always rewiring with neuroplasticity. But past the age of about 25, it gets a little bit harder to do it. We have to be a bit more aggressive with the training. And so visualization has been there for centuries, right? Athletes have been using it and they use it in medicine, even stoicism, right? Marcus Aurelius talks about negative visualization. Now, the actual definition of that technique is the creation of images, environments, and feelings in the mind before they've happened.

And it works because the brain doesn't really know the difference between what's real and what's imagined. And so because you can fire similar neurons when you are visualizing something, just if you were to be actively and physically doing it, then you can actually take advantage of neuroplasticity, which means you can create new roads in the brain. You can rewire the brain and therefore change the way you think, feel, and perform. And so a lot of athletes have used this to enhance their performance. They've used it in medicine to, let's say, recover from strokes or to help you, let's say recover from injury. But when I dived into this, this world of visualization, there was so much that people didn't know.

And I was like, why is this the case? Why? Why does no one know how to actually use it? It's like people say it. They're like, oh yeah, why don't you just visualize this? What does that actually mean? How do you really do it properly? And so the more I've learned about it, but the more I've practiced it and the more I've seen now others practice it and how they can change their lives, it really is a tool that. It has so much power to build a stronger mind and give you a very holistic toolbox to take control of your mental fitness. And that's why I love it, because it's not just one technique, there are several within there that you can apply to different areas of your life. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. I was pleasantly surprised when I found out about you and that you were championing this powerful tool.

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: You know, one of our greatest gifts as human beings. But what really did it for me was how you utilized it for your own transformation and your own health. And obviously this the Model health show.

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And so that connection there was just so remarkable because I've seen it practically as a clinician, but your story was so remarkable. And when you go through things like that, the way that you express even what you've already shared, it's coming from a different place. And so can you share that, that experience that you had when you were younger? What led you to using some strategies with being able to visualize and just how you got introduced to all this?

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah, so growing up I was pretty high achieving. I'm also from a South Asian family, so education and achieving was really high on the list. And I also played badminton nationally, so visualization was something I was probably doing, but for different things in sport. And then when I was about 15, I basically just felt some pain in my stomach and bit of constipation and ended up just going to the doctors being like, can you help out? They gave me some enemas. They were like, don't worry, it's just a bit of inflammation there, it will go down. So I was like, okay. Things were just getting a bit worse. So I ended up going back and getting some tests, like colonoscopy and blood tests, and then that's when they told me that I had something called ulcerative colitis.

Which is an inflammatory bowel disease, but it's incurable. So a lot of people may know of like IBS, but IBD is like, it is a, it's a very, very extreme version where often people will either remove their colon or you basically just live your life on a lot of immunosuppressants and steroids. But I was a very positive individual, so I was like, look, I'll be fine. 

I can deal with this. And I kind of continued my life as normal. I, you know, went to school, carried on studying, I was playing badminton still very competitively, but just things were getting so bad now, like, so bad. And I never know how to really communicate what the next four and a half years of my life was like because it's, it's like inhuman what happened?

And, and I think the only way to really explain it is like day to day, I would maybe go to the loo or the toilet in, I dunno, America about 35 times a day. And it's just pure blood. You are, you are like screaming for your life to just for someone to help you. But then you can't scream because the pain is so consuming that then you like, it's like it's slightly animalistic and paralyzing. And I remember so many instances I'd like wake up in the night, I'd go to the loo and because of just being on there for like 20 minutes and just that agony, I literally had no energy to just walk three steps back to my bed. So I'd have to just like sit there and just pray. And I think when you're then not in pain, you are fearing what might happen.

Like you fear that what if I have to go through that again? Because, you know, human, the human brain is amazing. It just wants to keep you safe. But because it's just gone through such an awful experience, it doesn't wanna do it again. So then you suffer in your mind because you're waiting for it. And I would go through this cycle maybe like every 30, 40 minutes and then anything you would, let's say you took a sip of water, or you try to eat some food, you know, your digestion is now active, so then you are waiting for that, that moment. And I just, I, I guess in, in that process you get so much weaker, naturally, but also your mind and your confidence or your hope for anything. It just goes, it goes. And I went from being such a positive, and I went from being a person with so much light in my eyes and for the world to someone who genuinely saw no hope.

And that is so scary. It's so scary. And then, you know, you get put on steroids, you get put on am immunosuppressants, and you're having these infusions and you just, you try, you survive it. You are desperate. And then day to day, I tried to manage it by wearing nappies. And so I'd go to school wearing nappies, and then I'd have to run out because, you know, I'm having an accident, but I'm also 16, so it's really embarrassing to be talking about this stuff to people. So there's a lot of shame. And it was just, yeah, I, I do not know how I like was able to get through those days. Like I just, sometimes I sit in and I'm like, what the hell? You know? And I think it did get to a point where I was like, you know what? I no longer wanna do this. And I remember people being like, to me, Maya, you're so strong.

I was like, I just don't wanna be like, I don't want to be. It does, it's not strong to me. Like I just, yeah. And then, he was in hospital where at this point I had gone through every single therapy I could imagine. Like I was doing fecal transplants, which were like illegal in the uk. I had gone to India, France, America to try every treatment, go to every surgeon. And there was just a part of me in my heart that was like, Maya, do not get the surgery. Don't do it. Don't remove the colon. Just don't do it. I don't know why. I really dunno why. And it was that night, this nurse, she came to my room and she was like, she was like, you know, if you weren't laying on this bed, where would you be?

And I got so angry at her. I was so angry. I was like, you are looking at this young girl who's been here for like two weeks now and you just asked her, oh yeah, where would you be if you weren't here? And I would've been at uni 'cause I got in, but I couldn't go 'cause I was, yeah, like 35 kilograms. And then when she left, I closed my eyes and the first thing I wanted to do was walk again. That was it. So in my mind I just, I like imagined taking a few steps in the hospital hallway and I like felt it in my body. I really like told it what it would be doing, you know, what it would feel like. My feet on the ground. I was still in my hospital gown. And after that like minute I opened my eyes and for the first time in maybe about four and a half years, my mind was like, what if you could walk again?

What if like you didn't have to be bedridden all your life. And so naturally the mind pushes you a little bit. And then I started seeing myself walking outside with shoes on. Then I started seeing myself running back at home, eating normal food. I even started my, started seeing myself at uni now or college, and I just kept doing it every spare moment I had. And then when I gained enough strength, I left hospital and I was like, right, I need to learn about why this maybe helped me. And that's where I just dedicated every moment of my time to reading books. And these were people like David Hamilton, Joe Dispenza. It was Louise Hay. But then I was also looking at why athletes were using it.

I was like, well, why did it help me walk again? And that's where it showed me the performance aspect of it. And then passion turned into obsession. And I just, I trained with neuroscientists athletes. I went on retreats. But the key was I kept practicing. I kept practicing every single day to the point I was even doing visualizations. Like I would draw my colon and then I would see it. I'd close my eyes and I would step by step, hoover my colon up. I'd imagine a Hoover taking all the bad cells and everything. And again, if you think about the brain doesn't know the difference, actually, you can really, really help heal your body. So kept going.

And then, yeah, I guess now we're seven years on. I am the healthiest and most happy I've ever been. Like I do not have any symptoms and I haven't had any. I'm also on no medication, but I'm also not a doctor. I'm not the one to say like, this is exactly what you should do. It was my journey and it was grueling. You needed so much discipline. And I still don't know sometimes how I did that, but I can genuinely say the mind is capable of so much. And because the body wants to heal. If you can connect the two, so much is possible. So that is how I can sit here today, now teaching this, yeah, to other people. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. It hit me really when you said you don't know how you survived, that was hell. And you survived so that you could champion this mission. You are, you're special. You're very, very special. And some of these sentiments, like life doesn't give you things that you can't handle. I know you didn't want to hear that then how strong you are. Like I don't wanna be strong. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: And the truth is your spirit is truly, truly, truly strong. And your inspiration for all of us, you're showing what's possible. And you also experienced a lot of neglect and you experienced a lot of mental turmoil. That most people would never even get close to and to come out of that. So you're speaking from a place of experience that other people just don't have. And so thank you for that. Thank you. You know, even the, and I know you said, you said the big "I" word, you said incurable.

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: You know, and even that term. Yeah. You know, even spontaneous remission, all this shit is just, we don't know how, you know?

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: But the truth is when you overcome something that is so-called incurable, like you're speaking from such a place of power that was in every word that you shared before we even got to this subject, you know? And so, yeah, you're fucking, you're amazing. You're amazing, you know? 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Thank you. I do appreciate that. And I think, you know, I will be the first to say though, that you don't have to be unwell or unhappy to get in into this work, because now I continue to use my visualizations, not just for my health though. I'm using it for being the best public speaker I can ever be. I'm doing it to manage my emotions better. But I think you're totally right. And I always remember there was, you know, there's that saying life happens for you, not to you. Everyone always used to tell that to me and I'd be like, just piss off. Why is a disease happening for me? Why? And you know, I used to just, I used to sit in my room, beg on my knees.

I was begging God to stop punishing me. When you have that humility to go down and just be like, please, like what have I done wrong for you to be making me suffer this much? Like, you really do have that level of like just surrender and you really do feel that everything is against you. But being that victim, it does keep you there longer. It's so weird. It's every, everything that I was reading and hearing was correct, but I just couldn't, I wasn't ready to, I guess, accept it to then be like, you know what, fine, I'm gonna take this honors maybe part of my purpose and, and see where it can take me in life and would I do it again? No.

SHAWN STEVENSON: No, thank you.

MAYA RAICHOORA: No. But am I grateful for where I am? Yes, a hundred percent. Yeah. Yes. And that's what I'm gonna focus on. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes. Yes. That's so powerful. This reminds me of, I saw something with you and you quoted Einstein, but one of my favorite quotes, just in general is "the most important decision that you make fundamentally as a human being is whether you live in a friendly or hostile universe."

MAYA RAICHOORA: Hmm. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right. And living from one of those places. And you talk about this as well, just being able to deciding, am I living from fear? Am I creating from fear or am I living through love and potential? And it's so difficult, especially when things are not going well. And in your case, hell on earth to be able to gather your mind and to point in a new direction. But that's how powerful we are, regardless of the circumstances. That's what's so remarkable about the human mind, is that regardless of the circumstances, you've said this multiple times. That our brain doesn't know the difference. Mm. Right. And this speaks to something really important. The distinction with the brain and the mind, you know?

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yes.

SHAWN STEVENSON: You're, you're bigger than just your brain. Your brain is about automation. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: It's about habitation, repetition. It's something you can program and then you, then you experience those programs. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yes. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: But you are bigger than that, and you get to choose the programs sometimes it takes time. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: You know?

MAYA RAICHOORA: Exactly. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: And the beautiful part is you're another testament to we can do this regardless of the circumstance. You have agency, you have power. And with this being said, being able to really orchestrate and to share with all of us. Now, visualization isn't just one thing. Right. There's so many different forms of this and different strategies within each different applications. So let's talk about the different types of visualization. And I wanna dig in on a couple, again, it's all in the book. It's all in there.

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: But I wanna dig in and just give people a couple of insights about maybe one or two of these. So what are the, what are the different types? 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah, let's do that. So I think the best thing to remember is that I guess life happens twice, right? Once in here and then once in reality. And so the first and probably most common visualization is outcome visualization. And this is where you are seeing results in advance. So let's say you are running a marathon, you would be seeing yourself cross that finish line. Even if you've never done it before, you cross it, or for example, okay, fine, I was seeing myself what does a healthy Maya look like? I need to show my brain and body it is possible. And that starts to build your belief and your motivation. Then we have process visualization. Now this is where you are using mental rehearsal to make a process or task better, faster, more efficient. And it can be used for something like public speaking, running, even just your day.

So if we use the marathon example here, you would be visualizing in first person and you are seeing, okay, what are my legs doing? What does it feel like You are actually imagining yourself running, doing the movements. And again, a lot of athletes will use this to see their perfect lap or their perfect swing, things like that. It's not so much the end result, it's more the present moment. Then we have creative visualization. One of my favorites, this is where you use mental rehearsal to basically make emotions, pain injury, very tangible. So, have you seen the film Inside Out? 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Kind of use that as inspiration. So I would often tell people to, let's say, visualize their anxiety as, let's say, like a red fire in the belly now instead of trying to suppress it or run away. But what if you just start to pour water on it really slowly cool it down, and the brain will process an emotion really, really powerfully because it loves stories, it loves images, but most of us we're like, oh no, I'm feeling anxious. Let me drink, let me eat. Let me run away from it. Then we have negative visualization. I don't recommend this to everyone because if your brain is already negatively wired, and most of us are already visualizing negative scenarios. Things going wrong, things failing, that is where a lot of us are. But this is where you would see worst case scenarios and you overcoming them. So Michael Phelps, very famously would see his goggles fill up with water and how he would handle that.

And then when it happened in Beijing, he was super prepared. So it can really enhance performance. But then another application of this is what they did in stoicism, so something called the deathbed visualization, or where you visualize yourself losing everything, lose your family, your job, your money, and it really makes you appreciate where you are today. And then lastly, we have explorative visualization, which is what the likes of Einstein, Wal Disney, Nicola Tesla used. So Walt Disney called it Imagineering Engineering Your Imagination. And that's exactly what you're doing. So your brain is like a whiteboard here. And let's say you want to think of a new business idea or you have a problem, you can start solving it, but in rain, new ways.

So it taps into a different part of your creativity. Or like, for example, I create a lot of content online, so I'll close my eyes and I'll just storyboard what I want the video to be, and then I do it. It just makes it so much easier. So those are the five types. I would say you want one or two non-negotiables. Generally that will be outcome and process. Probably in the morning, so you would visualize, let's say, your goals, your character, and maybe a performance or how your day goes. And then I would use creative more sporadically or you know, for gratitude, things like that. And then the other two I would use a lot less frequently. But again, if you have all these tools. Then you have such a good box to really use different things to apply to your life. And that's, that is, I think, priceless. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. It's practice though. Yeah, the practice. I want to ask you a little bit more about outcome. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Okay. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Visualization, and again, there's so many different approaches for this.

MAYA RAICHOORA: Mm-hmm.

SHAWN STEVENSON: But it's so cool, so fun. And it's really tapping into this power that we have. We are just walking around here with this infinite, super computer capacity, and then we're just wasting it, you know? Watching love island or whatever. Respect. No, no disrespect. Okay. But we are so powerful.

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And one of the strategies that you shared in the book was the Batman Effect.

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Let's talk about that one. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah. I love the Batman Effect. In fact, my, the background of my phone is my Batman effect. So, so this was actually created by psychologists for kids. And it was, they basically told kids to imagine they were Batman, and they found that they persevered more, that they had a bit more confidence, they actually completed the task better. But since then, it's really come up in sports. So you have people, Kobe Bryant, who had this Black Mamba mentality. You also have people like Beyonce with like Sasha Fierce. And then, you know, there's a player called Giannis, and he's like a sheep, but he, he brings out this wolf in him. And so mine is called meta. And essentially what the Batman effect is, you create a character for yourself that you can strive towards. Now, why is it really effective? If I said to you, Hey, like, Shawn, why don't you just be a bit more confident? It is like, okay, you're so used to being who you are today, that for you to then be more confident, it's like, well, it's harder to know what to do or to start that habit, right?

Whereas if I said to you, why don't you be more like Shawn 2.0, it just creates a tiny bit of distance from who you are now to who you could be. And then if we go even further, why don't you be like Spider-Man? You could embrace, okay, his characteristics. And so the aim of Batman Effect is to create what we call in psychology, self distancing, where you realize, okay, if this is who I wanna be and then I close my eyes and I imagine, or I practice being this person embodying their energy, how they walk into a room, how they talk, how they feel. You can start training your brain to become that. Now, before someone says, oh, like, but Maya, that just sounds like fake it till you make it. I disagree. I see that as train it till you trust it. And that is how we can evolve our character. We can shape who we are based on identity change. And there's been so many studies, right, that show that if you say if you're trying to stop smoking, it's a lot harder to change the habit versus if you are like, I'm the type of person that doesn't smoke, that identity shift is really powerful.

And so when we can include something like the Batman Effect, you can become a bit more confident, you can become a bit more empathetic because you are embodying this slightly third person version of you. So I do this with every athlete I have. Every client I have is the first thing I do. Let's create your Batman effect. And it's amazing like Meta, who's mine? She's like half monk, half beast. And it means that she can go out on stage and just like absolutely smash it, but she will never sacrifice her health or her peace, or her alone time. And that's why she has this very like in a monk. So she's got amazing boundaries.

Amazing. Now, it's been about two and a half years, I've kind of grown out of her now because I literally embody that version of myself. But two years ago, I was not that person in any way. But every morning I see her, even what she wears, her body language, her energy, and step by step. I can fully say that I am her now and I need to create another one. So yeah, that is the Batman effect. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Boom. Ah, so good. So good. So this speaks to the power, truly. At the end of the day, we want some tangible effect or some tangible proof. Everybody listening, you're not gonna be listening to this if you don't want to be better. If you don't want to tap into your potential to live a full life and to live a rich life on your terms and to create and to love and just to get the most outta life and train it to you, trust it. That is so powerful. And I gotta tell you from my personal experience, I don't know. I cannot tell you whether or not the life that I'm experiencing right now, whether it's like, would this be here, be present, had I not visualized it first? I cannot tell you if I take the visualizing part out of it, if I would be here right now.

It is so tied to my outer experience of life now, and it's kind of similar to what you just shared about the person that you are. And so that tangible thing, the thing that we know practically is that. It is the person you become and how you show up in the world through what you're creating. When you're visualizing beyond that. There's some stuff that we can't even explain. We can talk about sports performance. We could talk about improving, you know, free throw percentage and three point shots and all this. All this is documented by doing it in your mind. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right. And we can talk about the outer results that we see in what we quote manifest in our lives, and that's where we get into this slippery territory with visualization because it can be synonymous with manifestation.

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: But you've been clear to, to offer up the distinction, and not to say that they're in some completely different realm, but can you share that real quickly? 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Yeah. So visualization and manifestation are different and. I can say this 'cause I believe in manifestation. 

And I think manifestation is this broad idea that if we can create something in our mind, then we can make it happen. Great. And we do have the ability to manifest things into our life, but visualization is the neurological mental training tool that rewires the brain. Now, the only real overlap is when people use visualization in outcome, that the outcome technique, because ultimately if people say, okay, I'm gonna manifest.

I don't know, a partner or something or a job, they will visualize themselves already getting it out or already being in a happy relationship. Now, it's not that it's just like magic, it's just that you as a person are seeing the possibility of, Hey, that could be mine. Or like, I'm gonna take action now towards this. So it's not that it just like enters your life, it's more that you know, you as a person are changing. So you see different opportunities. You maybe seek different actions. But then when we get into, yeah, process creative, negative and explorative, it's completely different. In fact, take negative visualization.

That is a manifesto's worst nightmare. I am asking you to visualize everything going wrong. So when it comes to manifestation, that is like rule number one not to do. But the reason I think it's really important to make the distinction is because how you define a tool changes how you use it. I get a lot of people saying like, yeah, I made my vision board and I did it in the beginning of the year. Cool. And I don't touch it till the next year. The thing about visualization is if you can do it every day, like it's just like your physical fitness, you will really start to see results that are sustainable, where you feel stronger, where let's say you're in a difficult situation and you're like, actually, no, I can trust myself, or I know my emotions aren't gonna get in the way.

This is all about training the mind. It's not about you manifesting particular situations. So I think it's just important to see the distinction in terms of one is really a technique and a practice, and then one is this broad idea that yes, we have the power to create our reality. Absolutely. And outcome visualization is a great tool for that. And throughout history, you've got people like Einstein who technically are scientists, but yet they still spoke about visualization kind of in that way. Then you've got people like Neville Goddard, who wrote Infinite Potential. Now he talks about visualization from a. Christian point of view and a very spiritual point of view.

But then you've got neuroscientists like Tarawa, Joe Dispenza, who are like, this is the neuroscience behind why when you visualize this can happen. And then you've got all the sports psychologists, Bob Rotella, Jim Murphy, Tim Grover, who are all like, well, actually this is what makes champions. So I don't mind the language you use. All I ask is that you are at more of an advantage if you can see it as a mental fitness tool. That's really what it's about. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Where can people pick up the book and follow you for more? 

MAYA RAICHOORA: So the book is out in the UK, already in America, 26th of August. So in all the normal book places, Amazon shops, et cetera, Instagram is at Maya, so Maya.mentalfitness , but I, I'm very loud on there, so only follow me if you actually wanna get mentally fit. Then same with TikTok, LinkedIn is Maya Raichoora, but really, yeah, I love having conversations about this. And of course if you're an athlete or a executive leader, then feel free to get in touch. But yeah, the last thing I'll say is that your mind is like a puppy, and if you don't train it. It's gonna shit everywhere, so you might as well train it.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Maya, this has been so awesome and fun and and insightful, and I'm just grateful. Thank you for having the audacity to put all this into a book. I know that it takes a lot of work to even create something like this and just sharing this message, you know, from your perspective, it's invaluable. It's invaluable. It's gonna hit different every single time, and you can't get it off of you. This is just a part of who you are. Just keep showing up, keep sharing your story, share these insights. We need this more than ever, real talk. Thank you so much. 

MAYA RAICHOORA: Thank you. I've had the best time. Thank you. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. I hope that you got a lot of value out of this. Apply, apply, apply. Apply one of the consistent threads throughout this conversation. And just a reminder for all of us is consistency. It's probably more valuable. No, scratch that. It is more valuable to utilize a meditation session. For five minutes a day versus doing an intensive meditation for an hour once a month.

Right. It's the consistency. That's what's really building that neuro association. The same thing holds true with utilizing this powerful inner technology of visualization. Definitely check out Maya's work, follow her, pick up a copy of the book and listen. We've got some amazing, amazing masterclasses and world-class guests coming your way very, very soon.

So make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon. And for more after the show, make sure to head over to the model health show.com. That's where you can find all of the show notes. You can find transcription 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.