Shawn Stevenson: Welcome to The Model Health Show. This is fitness and nutrition expert Shawn Stevenson, and I'm so grateful for you tuning in with me today. We've got a very powerful episode lined up for you today. We're going to be talking about how we can make the most of this situation that we find our society in right now. With 2020, it seems like 2020 came along and threw our lives into a blender, but today we're going to talk about how we can make it into a delicious smoothie, you know what I mean? And right now here in the state of California, that I just moved to, we haven't even been here a full year yet, society has re-shut down. They didn't just shut it down, they opened it a little bit, opened the crack, and then shut it back down. And right now, for the upcoming semester, children aren't going to be able to go back to school. We've got millions of people who are unemployed, countless businesses are closed, and this is a very trying time, and I truly want everybody to understand that we have not seen the fallout yet, the true fallout, and I want to help to make sure that as many people as possible are in a position to overcome this because our mental health is going to be stressed, our financial health, our physical health, our relationships, but we can come out better.

Albert Einstein said that in the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity, and we have to shift our mindset to that though because when things are going bad when we're faced with obstacles, especially uncertainty, we tend to go to the dark side. This is how Anakin Skywalker went down the wrong path, he was presented with those trying times and trying opportunities. So shout-out to Darth Vader, shout-out to Spaceballs, I don't think they get enough credit. One of the greatest movie parodies of all time. Instead of Chewbacca the Wookiee, they had Barf, played by John Candy. A big shout-out to them.

But again, in the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity. We have to shift our mindset there. This has been a trying time for many, but I believe that we are strong, I believe that we are capable, and I believe that this is a time in history that is offering a great reset. It's offering an opportunity for humanity to elevate. It makes me think of the original Nintendo. The original Nintendo, the game console itself had two buttons, one was a power button and one was a reset button. First of all, if I want to reset, why don't I just push the power button off and turn it back on again? They're like, no, you're going to need this reset button. The reset says I'm playing the game, maybe I made a mistake, maybe I was exposed to a glitch, maybe I want to do something different, but the reset says I'm going to keep playing. I'm just going to tap this real quick, I'm going to keep playing. And I think that life right now is a big reset button that is getting pushed, whether we like it or not, and so we need to embrace it because it's happening. Fighting against what is, is what leads to a lot of suffering.

But the thing is, we don't have to be content about it. We need to accept it, realize what's happening, realize what is, and then put in place an intelligent plan of action, which starts from the inside. Truly, all change is an inside game, and really getting our mindset right and taking control of our own personal economy inside of our minds, our own personal health, and wellness inside of our minds, so that we can take that and spread that out to our family and our communities.

So very excited about this episode, and as I mentioned, this is my first full summer here in California. I grew up in the Midwest, STL. And here in California, it's amazing the consistency in the weather, but something that I've noticed is very different from the Midwest summers is that here in California you've got the heat, it might be... Just say it's 90, 95 outside but then if there's a piece of shade you go and get into the shade, and it's cooler, it's like, "Oh, there's some nice shade here." In St. Louis, it doesn't work that way. We just say, if it's 90, 95 in St. Louis and you see a little piece of shade, you go and get you some of that shade, but the heat's like, "Where do you think you're going?" We have this little extended arm called humidity, and it'll grab you up by your collar, make you holler for a dollar kind of humidity, it doesn't feel good. So it's like, I've got a true experience now of going into the shade and being like, "Oh, this is nice nice shade." But St. Louis doesn't work that way. And shout-out to all my friends and family in St. Louis, everybody listening in St. Louis, I love you guys so much.

And another thing from St. Louis summers was Kool-Aid. I was a Kool-Aid barista, maybe? A Kool-Aid alchemist. I was a Kool-Aid alchemist. I would take... Well, first of all, sometimes we didn't have money so we had the Flavor Aid, so that's like the off-brand Kool-Aid. Kool-Aid cost like 15 cents a packet. Getting off-brand Kool-Aid, you got to be trying to stretch a penny, so the Flavor Aid. But anyways, I was the alchemist with it, so I would mix flavors together, take the cherry, combine it with the black cherry, give it a little flavor note. I'll take the orange, combine it with the fruit punch, give it a little bit more orange flavor. So that was that deal. But the craziest part was the sheer amount of sugar that was put into those 2-liter... Like you know how you get your 2-liter pitcher to make a Kool-Aid, it'd be like 2 cups of sugar, something outrageous. Outrageous.

But today, we're able to radically upgrade those experiences and actually get something from it. Because of course, you look at the Kool-aid packet, it's 0% juice in the juice. So we've evolved from there, but we have to still understand that trying to get somebody to change their habits by doing something totally different is usually not an effective plan of action because people want change, but they don't want to change that much if that makes sense. And so this is why I really love products that create a bridge for people, something that's very similar or familiar, yet it's done in a much more ethical, healthy, health-affirming way.

And so even for my kids, for my son's best friend next door, shout-out to Avery. He and my son, they go in there and they grab their little packets of Organifi Red Juice, and it's basically for me, it's just like upgraded supercharged organic Kool-Aid in a sense, but this is made with real, whole-based foods and nutrients. Let me tell you about a couple of the ingredients in here. So number one, they've got acai in the formula. Now, I've known about acai since we were calling it acai because nobody knew. Twenty years ago, I was getting this stuff and seeing what it can do, and so now everybody knows about acai, they've heard about it, they get their acai bowls out there. But why is acai popping?

Well, acai, compared to most fruits out there, we're looking at about 10 times more antioxidants. But listen to this, so this was a peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, and they found that acai, when test subjects actually consumed acai, it actually raised their antioxidant levels in their body. It wasn't just like, "This is supposed to do the thing." It actually did the thing. And this just shows the researchers alluded to that this is demonstrating how effective the consumption of acai is in being absorbed in the gut and making its way into circulation and being able to do cool jobs. Antioxidant. Oxidation is a part of aging, in a sense. If we see extreme oxidation, it's like metal rusting, you know what I mean? But we need some of that. We just want to make sure we're not dealing with excessive oxidation, like free radical activity and antioxidants come in and just pair up these bouncing around free radicals and neutralize them.

So, it's super important, we want to support our body's production of its own endogenous antioxidant, antioxidant systems, but getting it from our nutrition is obviously important as well, especially today when we're exposed to so many things that accelerate the aging process. But that's just one of the things in Red Juice. Another thing is it got concentrated blueberry in there. Researchers at the University of Michigan published data demonstrating that blueberry intake, so the consumption of blueberry can potentially affect genes related to fat-burning. So this isn't just trying to get your body to just burn fat, it's actually affecting the genes that are responsible for that activity. So powerful. So cool. So that's just a couple of the ingredients in the Red Juice. We've got acai, we've got blueberry, we've got beets. Beets is all about that cardiovascular performance. Beets is utilized massively now in sports performance because of the increase in oxygenation, like oxygen actually being able to get into your bloodstream and fuel like boost and increase stamina. So we've got a lot of clinical evidence that beets can help to improve your endurance.

Pomegranate in there. We've got some medicinal mushrooms in there too, like reishi, cordyceps. You know cordyceps is about performance as well, and it tastes good. That's the thing at the end of the day, that's why the kids will have it, and no sugar. It's not like the Kool-Aid I used to make. It's not like the Kool-Aid or the Flavor Aid I used to make. There's no sugar, it's sweetened with natural sweeteners, like monk fruit, for example, very low glycemic to no glycemic, and you get all these benefits as well. So, pop over there check 'em out. It's organifi.com/model. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com/model, you get 20% off their Red Juice formula, the Green Juice, their Gold, and all their other products. It's incredible, incredible deal, 20% off. And it's something again, my kids go and grab the little go-packs, they've got Organifi GO Packs as well, those are great to travel with. So pop over there check 'em out, organifi.com/model. Now, lets get the Apple Podcast review of the week.

iTunes Review: Another five-star review titled, “Positive Energy in Your Life”, by Mic3000live. "Two weeks in and forever thankful for stumbling upon this podcast. Consistent positive energy injected into your life with every episode. Reinforcing ideas, practices that promote a life of progression of the physical and mental."

Shawn Stevenson: Alright, thank you so much for leaving me that review over on Apple Podcast, I'm so happy that you found me. Guys, this is why it's so important. Please pop over to Apple Podcast and leave a review for the show. It means everything. Right now we're really working to create a movement, and even as we're working to really help to shift the conversation that's happening right now with health and wellness, we really need to look at... Again, all change is an inside job, and what can we do to take control of the things that we can control because the world has changed rapidly, and there's still so much more change to come. So I want to make sure that we're in the right mindset to put ourselves in the position to be able to thrive under these changing conditions.

And so, there's this other statement that says, "Never let a crisis go to waste." Never let a crisis go to waste. When one door closes, another door opens. But in my perspective, when one door closes 10, 20, 100 other doors open, we just never paid attention to those other doors. Oftentimes, life has to force us to see the other options that are available, but we also have to make the decision to open our eyes and see them, open our hearts and see them, open our minds and see them. And so, the first thing is always understanding the power of our minds to find those things for us. The solutions are there for whatever struggle you might be going through or somebody in your family is going through, the solutions are there and ever-present. However, we have to be able to utilize the power of our incredible minds to be able to see them, to be able to act upon them. And for me, this always goes back to the principle of something called instinctual elaboration. Instinctual or instinctive elaboration. And this is a mental reflex. Literally, your brain does this automatically whenever you pose your brain a question.

Your brain is a servomechanism, it's a heat-seeking missile, it's a locked-on to its target, but it needs a target. When you ask a question, it engages this instinctive elaboration. Your brain begins to seek to find the answers to the question. Now, the catch is, the qualities of your questions are going to determine the qualities of your answer. Because you can ask negative disempowering questions like, Why me? Why is this happening again? Why are they doing this to our school system? Why are they doing this to my friend's job? And all that's going to do is lead you down a road of things that are going to continue to make you feel disempowered. And it's not that those questions aren't justified, it's just that we can actually do something to change those conditions if we change the quality of our questions.

And so, in the midst of this that we're experiencing as a society, asking a question like, What is this experience of COVID-19 economic shutdown trying to teach me? What is this experience of civil and social unrest in the United States trying to teach me? What quality is trying to emerge in my own personality? What quality is trying to emerge in my own character? And another question to ask in looking at right now, we're seeing a big shift taking place with challenges with mental health and specifically for our children. Several reports and these are all things we're going to be talking about, we're going to be doing master class episodes dedicated to these issues. But we're seeing these rises in mental health challenges for our children and also as a community when there's, again, so many new obstacles, so much uncertainty, so much fear. This is just part and parcel that comes along with it.

But again, we have so much capacity and we've got so many resources for you here with The Model Health Show, and the things that we've created this incredible archives, this incredible library with natural solutions, clinically proven solutions to support mental health. So we'll put a couple of those episodes in the show notes for you, specifically with anxiety and depression. But it's simply again, working with the brain, working with how the mind is wired up, and so using that instinctive elaboration, asking yourself, please do this, just take a moment and ask yourself this, What makes me happy? What makes me happy? And I know it's not to negate all the other stuff going on in the world. It's not to negate or ignore all the challenges because that's where our mind tends to go. But just ask yourself, What makes me happy? And if you allow that question to process and simmer, it might be spending time with my children. It might be painting. It might be gardening. It might be spending time with my friends. It might be doing the work that I love. Ask yourself, What makes me happy?

And the greatest thing that you can do right now to help push humanity forward is to take some proactive conscious time to invest in that thing that makes you happy. I hope that that makes sense. Also, another big question is, asking yourself proactively, What is my biggest challenge right now? Just ask yourself, What is my biggest challenge right now? What is the thing that has me feeling so off-center or out of sorts? And just get face-to-face with that, because sometimes it's just like this shadow, it's like speaking of shadow or the shade in St. Louis where the humidity's at, it's like this shadow just kind of hiding in the background, we don't even know what it is that we're having this dark night of the soul, or this feeling out of sorts. Now we can bring it forward by asking, What is my biggest challenge right now? Is this something that I'm proactively, unconsciously, or subconsciously, creating a bigger problem myself? Not that any of us do that. We don't create bigger problems ourselves, do we? That's called sarcasm. They're teaching my son Brayden about sarcasm. He's a little too good at it, it's annoying.

But, once we bring that forward, now that we've asked, What is my biggest challenge right now? We can couple that with an empowering question, which is, What action steps can I take to overcome that challenge? It's just like a GPS, we need to know where the heck we are so we can know the destination. Okay? So we find out where we are by asking, What is my biggest challenge right now? And then we find out how to get to the next point, our ultimate destination by asking, What are the action steps? What are some action steps? What are three action steps that I can do right now? Or within the next week or the next month to help me to overcome this big challenge?

So, again, utilizing instinctive elaboration, utilize the power of your mind, don't let your mind just use you. Your mind is a wonderful tool, but it's a terrible Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor. Alright? Your mind is a great tool for you to utilize, but if you allow it to use you, it's like that show, Home Improvement. I don't know if you used to watch that, he'll be like, "Ha ha ha." Shout-out at Tim Allen. How do I know this stuff? I don't know. But, he wasn't very good at the whole tool thing, he wasn't very good at being the handyman. His partner on the show was. But, you take control. Utilize this amazing tool that we have atop our shoulders. And don't allow it, because your mind is infinite. Your mind has infinite capacity to imagineer terrible scenarios, and also just imagineer wonderful solutions and wonderful scenarios as well, but we need to direct it. Not to ignore that there are problems right now. But in order for us to solve these problems, we need to utilize the power of our mind in an intelligent way.

Another question to ask is, again, when we're looking at a lot of economic oppression, a lot of health oppression, a lot of social oppression. That weight, it's something that we need to be stronger to elevate and move the bar of these things. So this is a squat analogy, but it's asking ourselves in this time of confusion, and chaos, and change, what are my greatest strengths? What are my greatest strengths? What are my greatest strengths? I sound like Mike Tyson the first time I said that What are my greatest strengths? And you know why this was there? Because of the Nintendo analogy earlier. I was thinking about the game that we had. First of all, when you had Nintendo, if you're going to beat the game, there's no save. You have to play straight through, so you better be lined up for a few hours, three, four, five hours, or you're going to have to start over.

Now just imagine right now what it was like for people who actually had a job. I was a kid, but my stepfather, he had Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, which was one of the best games ever to come on Nintendo. But you had Soda Popinski you had to fight. But you were average Joe, that's who you were. Nothing impressive, you got a couple of little moves, but you had to figure out everybody else's pattern. Shout-out to Mike Tyson's Punch-Out. And so again, so asking yourself, What are my greatest strengths? Maybe it's... I have a great strength of perseverance of problem-solving, I always figured things out. Maybe one of your great strengths is your ability to bring people together and to facilitate connections and collaborations. Maybe your great strength is leadership and helping to guide and support teams and individuals. Maybe your greatest strength is your music and your art, and being able to express a passion and emotion and inspiration through your music. Asking yourself, What is my greatest strength? And with that, asking, What is it that I can do right now to add value? What is it that I can do right now with my strength to help the situation that our society's in right now?

But start at the micro-level. What is the thing that I can do right now to support and use my strength to support myself and my family? Because truly, this is where we start the movement, we have to take care of ourselves so we could show up better for everyone else. So we don't want to get lost. We don't want to lose ourselves in the mission to help to change the world, to help to change society, to help to change our communities. I know that many of us, especially people listening to this, feel a drive and a call to be able to help to effect change and to bring a positive change to the world right now. For us to do that, we need to make sure that we are governing our own psychology, our own health, and so that we can spread that out. Now that's not to say we can't help everyone else at the same time, I feel very called to do that. It's not always perfect, sometimes I extend myself a little bit too much, and that kind of mentality of laying my life on the line to be able to help to change the world. But in reality, if we can really work to make sure that we are good, we could show up better and bring our very best to the situation.

And so that's what I want to talk about next. I want to zoom in and talk about some specific pieces of this for us to identify and hopefully to gather some insights on. So regardless of what's going on with the health of society right now, you have got to take control of your own health. Regardless of what's going on with the health of society right now, you need to take control of your own health, and you traversing that and finding your way through there, it's just going to help you to be able to share that with your family and to be able to share that with your community. But again, most importantly, we have to look at taking control of what we can control right now. We know that first and foremost, the number one risk factor for dying from infectious diseases like coronaviruses, like influenza, is having a pre-existing chronic disease. It is the number one risk factor. As you know, people are not talking about this enough. Major media is not talking about this, they're not shedding any light on it, and what can we do to actually help to eliminate or reduce this number one cause of susceptibility to infectious diseases like coronaviruses and influenza.

So with that said, we might not be able to transform society right now, but we can transform our own inner culture. So what can you do right now to ensure preventative measures that you don't personally become stricken with a chronic disease? This is the time to do those things. Take control of your own health, first and foremost. If you are dealing with a chronic illness, what are some steps that you can do to reduce those symptoms and/or eliminate the chronic illness? 'Cause as we know, many of these are lifestyle-driven, the vast majority are diet driven. The Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA. JAMA is a good little acronym. JAMA has confirmed, just a brand new study, I think it came out last year, that poor diet is the number one cause of poor health in the United States. Number one cause. Number one cause. The thing that makes us susceptible to everything else, but who is talking about food?

But this is what we do here, and we're going to continue to do that. But today again, we're just laying principles down right now. So we need to take care of our own health, take control of our own health. When the rest of the health of society seems to be in such flux, this is a time for us to zoom in and really take care of our own health. Are you doing that? If not, today is a call to action. It is time. Again, what can I do right now? Asking yourself utilizing instinctive elaboration, What can I do right now to lower my risk of developing a chronic disease? Or, what can I do right now to help to reverse or eliminate a chronic illness that I'm dealing with? Ask the questions. We know what the things are in our own life. They're going to be individual.

And also with gyms closed, what can I do? Gyms opened up, my son, Jordan, 19 years old, college football player. By the way, you know what they did with the college football season for my son? Not only is it not happening this summer, the football season isn't going to start until January. Malarkey. It's bananas. Bananas. What does that do to the... I don't know, I don't know but... So he had... The gyms opened up, he had to make a reservation to go into the gym and do all the protocols to be able to go. And my son was getting up at 6:00 AM every day. I've never seen him as dedicated, but he was just like, I guess he missed it. It was like the gym was his boo, I guess. And so he was getting up every day, 6:00 o'clock in the gym, and he was just in the zone and then they got closed again. But he has to know that he cannot rely on any of these systems, any of these structures, he needs to be self-sufficient, whether that's through relationships. Who do you know that has a gym? Who do you know that has a squat rack? What can you do to gather some equipment that you might need to help to maintain a level of fitness?

Right now obviously, when everything first shut down, for example, all the dumbbells got gobbled up, they got snatched up from retail stores, online, you couldn't find you a pair of 5-pound dumbbells. It's going to cost you a cool grand, a cool thousand bucks to get you a couple 5-pound dumbbells. Again, it's just understanding how to be more self-reliant. Do you need those 5-pound? They might help but what are some other creative things that we can do in the interim? In truth, even having a resistance band, there are dozens. I mean, there's so many exercises you can do with a resistance band, it's crazy. But it's getting that education. And so, for us, we have a community that for many years thriving community, folks who got the program, the Fat Loss Code, continue to get continuing education long after they got the program. So many years later, we got so much in their archived workouts, but we're actually starting new workouts that we're putting in there because the community needs it, people need it.

So we're actually putting in a brand new resistance band workout for everybody who has the Fat Loss Code. If you don't have the Fat Loss Code, pop over to thefatlosscode.com and check it out and see if you want to join the community. Awesome group of people there, but more importantly, their education is just out of this world. And we're talking about metabolism, fat loss, and just having access to very targeted exercise and nutrition programs too. So thefatlosscode.com.

And again, just asking yourself, what are some things that I can do so that I'm more self-reliant when things outside of me are in chaos? And to take care of my physical fitness? Can you simply go outside and do stuff? Is there a trail somewhere near your house? Is there a park that you can go workout at? Can you just move stuff around in your living room and get it in that way, put on Shaun T, put on my guy Shaun T, one of his videos. Are there some dynamics that you can do with friends and family? I think this is a great opportunity.

So many times, myself or my wife is working out with our youngest son, Braden, during this time. So whether he's doing yoga with his mom or doing some weight training with her or same thing with me, it's just a good time for us to get together. So my son doesn't just see me on the internet working out, he can actually firsthand work and do some of the things that I'm doing. And it just really helps to ingrain that process, lay down those connections, those neuro-associations in the mind. So we've talked about this many times in the show, we have specific cells in the brain called mirror neurons that are essentially simulating the things that we witness, that we watch in the environment around us. So if we're watching somebody working out, there are programs in our brain that are simulating us doing the thing. This is why if you see people working out online, it can be inspiring to you to go and work out. We see that message so many times, people will see in my Insta Story pieces of workout like, "That's it, shutting down Instagram. I'm going to work out now." I love that, I love hearing that.

And so providing that for our friends and family, checking in on them, posting your workouts, maybe sending them a little video clip of you at the gym or going for a walk, do little things to inspire them. You can't necessarily make them or tell them what to do, but inspire them to take care of themselves. And especially if you have kids under your roof right now, this is huge. Even with performance, with focus, performance in school, that physical component, we've talked about this, the mind-muscle connection here on The Model Health Show, we'll put that in the show notes for you, one of my all-time favorite episodes. It literally makes you smarter, exercising bumps up your IQ. And we've got the data, we've got the data.

So, again, regardless of what's going on with the health of society, you've got to take control of your own health. Ask the questions, utilize your brain to find out what are the things I can do to ensure that I'm procuring healthier meals. We went hard with DoorDash for a little while there. But my son, my oldest son, he did food prep, he finally did food prep just this past weekend. My man, I mean he went in, he went in, he's a great cook. But just like what are the things that you can do right now to start to cement and create new habits? Use this as an opportunity to create the habits that are going to lead you to success. Success doesn't just happen. It's the step-by-step process. It's your habits that truly tell the tale of your end results. So now is the time to take control of your habits. And matter of fact, we'll put a habit... The science of habits and habit creation for you in the show notes as well.

Alright, so let's move on because that's just one aspect of what we're dealing with right now. And regardless of what's going on with the economy, you have to take control of your own personal economy. More than ever right now. More than ever. The fallout from what's happening is one of the most disheartening things for me, it's something I've really had a lot of inner turmoil about because I'm just so concerned. And we've had on a renowned epidemiologist to just talk about some of the things that were not looked at effectively or intelligently with how our societies handled this situation when we see 40 million people unemployed. When unemployment goes up, it's not just suicide that goes up, it's also the ramifications and lives that could potentially fall apart from mental health conditions.

Another thing that goes up is about a 50% increase in your risk of having a heart attack if somebody's unemployed. There are many other ways that literally end people's lives when they're not able to have gainful employment or able to make money to provide for their families. And we're looking at millions, millions of lives that are at stake right now, and I just want to do something about it.

So again, I don't want to get too much into that because we... But we definitely will. We have to, as a group, if you're listening to this right now, you have the power to take control of your own economy. Regardless of what the economy is doing, you can take care of your own economy. I know the story might come up in your head, "But I can't, this thing... They won't let me... This thing is closed down, I don't have access." We have to stop because you're just going to talk yourself into not being able to do the thing. You've already ordained it that it's not possible by you saying that. Where there's a will, there's 10,000 ways, but we have to think differently. You, if you can hear this right now, you have the capacity to get your own personal economy strong even in the midst of economic turmoil. So how do we do this? Again, utilizing instinctive elaborations. Asking, What are my strengths? What are my strengths? Because within your strengths, within your gifts, maybe it's music, maybe it's art, maybe it's writing, maybe it's speaking, whatever it might be maybe it's leadership, maybe it's management. The list goes on and on.

There's hundreds of things that can be a strength. Within your strength, within your gift is probably some money, and we want to get your economy, your personal economy strong right now. So ask, What are my strengths? Also, this might be... My friend Michael Beckwith, who we had on the show, says that this is the Corona bonus. It might be a Corona bonus right now for you to now engage in the thing that you actually were born to do. Maybe now is the time to engage in the thing that you truly love, but you didn't have the opportunity before because you were so caught up in that life.

There was a time when I was working at a casino, and I know... If you ever heard this before, you're like, "Shawn? Working? What are you doing there? Were you dealing blackjack?" No, I worked in hard count, the hard count department. We counted the hard money, the hard coins. I had to be at my job at 3:30 AM in the morning. We had to wear jumpsuits without pockets, steel-toed shoes, knee pads, we're on the ground emptying every bucket. There are full buckets of coins throughout the entire casino every day. And people love their slot machines. And so, I've always had this thing. I've always had this thing that you have to acknowledge, you got to acknowledge it in yourself like, Who are you at your core? Even then, 19 years old, I end up being the manager of the department. How? I'm the manager of folks who were in their 30s and 40s because... But my big driving point was: I want to get this job done. We've got a job to accomplish, let's get it done.

So I had this, which I could have transferred over to somewhere else, but I told myself the story that this is the best job I can get right now, 'cause it did pay. It paid great compared to a lot other jobs, but I could have taken those skills, and created something else, started my own business. Created The Model Health Show. Eventually, of course, everything qualifies you to be able to do those things. But part of the reason I didn't do it, to get out of that dreadful... 'Cause see, they lock you in a room. They lock you in a room with a jumpsuit on to count all the coins. You cannot get out of the room unless you call security, and sometimes, it's kind of like a East Coast/West Coast beef with us, like the security and the hard count, they just wouldn't come sometimes. It'd take a long time to come get you, and they got to wand you, they got to scan you in case you got a coin in your butt. It's crazy. But I subjected myself to it, and the reason I kept telling my... I'm going to get something else, but I had this job and it made... I was tired. On my days off, I didn't look for a new thing to do. I was just trying to have some free time because this job took so much of my life and my life energy. Maybe the Corona bonus is freeing up your life energy to now start doing the thing that you were born to do. Let that simmer.

So, this is another thing to really look at. Asking yourself, What would I love to do every day? If I can get up and do any job... If I can get up and do any type of work, what would I love to do? What would it be something that money doesn't even matter? I just would love to do this actual thing. I would love to do this each day. What would that be? Would you love to paint every day? There are ways, man. There are people making a killing right now doing art and selling it online. You got to start somewhere. So ask yourself, What would I love to do for a living if money wasn't an issue? But jumping back into the reality of the situation for many of us is that money is an issue. It is a major issue. So another question to pose your amazing mind, and literally take out a piece of paper and do this. Ask yourself, What are five things I can do right now to make more income? What are five things I can do right now to make more income? And let your mind run free because I promise you, you're going to come up with probably more than five things.

There are so many different things that we can do. But not right now. We got to be a little bit scrappy. Scrappy Dappy Doo. Scooby-Doo was his nephew? We got to get Scrappy. And Scrappy was about their life. They had to hold him back, but this was what we talked about on the episode with Amy Porterfield, which we'll put in the show notes for you. I really want to have her on when the inception of this started to get our minds focused on like, What are some things we can do potentially online, especially when so many businesses are closed and you can't do person-to-person business? So write down, what are five things you can do right now to make more income.

Another question or something to look at is maybe another Corona bonus is a lesson for us to diversify our income and not be dependent on one thing. Corona bonus, not be dependent on one thing. For myself, a nice chunk of my income would come from... I traveled and spoke all over the world. I'm from the loo, man. Ferguson, Missouri, South St. Louis, East St. Louis. I spoke in Nova Scotia, Portugal, Philippines. Man, aah, it's crazy. It blows me away. And obviously, all over the country as well. Saint Martin, let me stop. But that paused. Major pause in that. But over the years, I've been working on ways how can I diversify things so I'm not depending on that one thing. More so with me speaking is really that's a love. That's something I just love to do. And I put myself in position to be able to have income to support my family, doing the thing that I love, but I don't want to be dependent on that one thing because who knows what can happen. You feel me? So I hope that that makes sense.

The Corona bonus is, what are some ways that I can diversify my income and just start to think differently about that, because there are many different ways that we can be diversifying, creating what Bob Proctor... When I first heard this term from Bob Proctor, one of the goats in personal development to create multiple streams of income. Multiple streams of income. Shout-out to Bob Proctor, we'll put a Bob Proctor interview for you in the show notes as well. I can't believe I talked to Bob Proctor. How cool is that?

Alright. So maybe another thing right now for us to focus on, to strengthen our own personal economy is simply taking on the mental and heart shift required to become more self-reliant because it's not just about a mental shift. It's also a shift in our belief system. It's a shift in our core, in our spirit, in a sense, because when we are working for a job, we have to have a value extraction paradigm, where we are going to a job, we're exchanging our time for money. That's how it works, and there's nothing wrong with that. However, if you're shifting to find something to be more self-reliant, maybe creating a sidepreneurship or becoming an entrepreneur, starting your own thing, you have to shift your mindset away from a value extraction paradigm to a value creation paradigm. Now, you don't get paid for your time. You don't trade your time for money. You get paid for the value you deliver. So it takes a shift in your heart. It takes a shift in your core to be able to do that.

Not everybody's wired up to do that, and that's okay, because the value extraction paradigm, with a job, you can still do exceptionally well. You can create new revenue streams and income and bonuses and all kinds of stuff within that construct, but if you're shifting over it to look at how can I be more self-reliant, it takes a shift in our spirit. And so right now, a big part of that for so many people, this internal shift is being forced upon us. And, again, it might be another Corona bonus.

So just examining our mindset like, Are we looking for another job to accept us and to possibly become a lynchpin within that organization so that we're not fireable or layoff-able or we're incredibly vital to the organization so that we can ensure our livelihood within it? Are we looking at, "Well, I need to be a little bit more self-reliant because you never know."

So we talked about our personal economy, and so this leads us to another domain we need to pay attention to right now, which is regardless of what's going on with the relationships around you, we need to take control of our own relationships. Regardless of what's going on with the relationships around the world, in the relationships outside of yourself, what you see out there on the inter-webs, what you hear about on the streets, now is the time to take control of your own relationships. Right now, we're in a time where we're experiencing the entanglement. There's a lot of entanglement going on in relationships. People that dabble in and then they entangle. And that's okay, that's okay. We have to define what relationships are going to look like for us right now. Now is the time to gain clarity on what we want.

Not worrying about what everybody else is doing, what everybody else wants, what everybody else wants for you, but taking this time to get clear on what it is that you want from your relationships. Whether that's your intimate relationships, your relationship with your children, friends and family, co-workers, whatever the case might be, now is the time to gain clarity. And so asking what can you do right now to strengthen the bond between yourself and the people that you love? So maybe this is... Let's use the significant other paradigm. So right now, there are a lot of people who are in close quarters, but they might be more distant than ever. You would think that now that people are working less, they're in the house more, they're spending more time together, and maybe there are time periods that that did happen, especially early on. People are looking at this like, "It's just an indoor camping trip for a couple of weeks." Nah, they shut it down again, and so people might be just be fed up. This is the time to proactively work on strengthening those bonds.

Now, not to say that you don't need your own time, your own QT, your own quality time for yourself, but this is the time. If the relationship that you're in is the relationship you want to be in, to invest in it right now. So what are some of those things? The complicated part is that the things we typically do with our loved one, with our significant other, it's not available. We can't go to the movies, you can't go out to eat, you can't hang out with friends, you can't go to the art museum. Is that what you do? I don't know. I went to an art museum once with my wife. It's pretty dope. But it's shut down. So one of the things that we've done is simply just go for a drive. Go for a drive. We get in the car, put on some music, we talk. Another thing that we've done is making sure that we have family time together, making sure that we're sitting down to have a meal. It's not been perfect. It's not been perfect, but proactively making a decision like a blank number of times each week, we all sit down together and have a meal together.

But also with my wife, and one of things that I plan to do, Shhh don't tell her, and I got this idea from Chalene Johnson, take the dinner together, the lunch together outside. So maybe I could set up a little joint in the backyard. That would be cute. We got a little deck thing. Or we can go to a park and have the little Yogi Bear jump off. "Hey, Boo-boo, pic-a-nic basket." You feel me? We could do that. But finding creative ways. I hope she can't hear me 'cause... Of course, studio's closed. We're doing this gorilla style from Casa de Stevenson. I hope I said that right. No disrespect. No disrespect, I took French. Bonjour. Je m'appelle Shawn. Comment tu t'appelles? Come on, look at that. La piscine avec moi? That means "Go to the swimming pool with me?" Man, let me stop, let me stop.

Alright, another thing that we can do right now to help to increase and improve those bonds is... I mentioned this a little bit earlier, is to work out together. This is another time where everybody is together, closer proximity, and it's such a great thing to be able to accomplish goals, to sweat together in a different way, but to sweat together. To go for walks together. To go for a walk and to talk and to spend time. Do something special for them. Even as I was looking at this for today and examining my own mind, I was thinking of things that I could do that I have not done yet, and I was just inspired to do it. Maybe you can order some flowers. Are they delivering flowers, though? All of this is going to be an adventure. The flowers might come with a spacesuit on it, I don't know, but maybe getting a gift somehow or obviously, online shopping is still jumping off but just finding a way to do something special for them. And also extending this out to our family and our community. Finding creative ways to spend time together.

I know people that have not seen their loved ones, their parents, grandparents in months who they normally see because of fear and because of their precaution. It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking that we're experiencing a time like this. But what are some creative ways that you can help to bridge that gap? There's nothing like the touch and being able to hug the person that you love. But maybe of course, like Zoom is jumping off, being able to Facetime. Maybe you might go old school and write a hand-written letter. Penpal! Alright, Penpal that bad boy. So just finding creative ways to create and sustain those bonds. Spend time proactively. If your relationship matters, invest in it. So again, regardless of what's going on with the relationships around you, a lot of people are dabbling in the entangle right now.

You've got to make sure to take control of your own relationships. This is a great time to get clarity on what you want your relationships to look like. Maybe something you've never even thought about, maybe the relationship has just been happening. Get clarity on what you want, get clarity on the direction you want to go. My wife and I finally sat down and planned out. We looked at what are some of the things we want to do in all the different areas of our lives. We sat down and talked about it. We usually do it every year, but stuff had just gone kind of bonkers. That's literally the first time I've ever said bonkers. Outside, I think it was a Bonkers Candy maybe, but it did. But these are the times to do it because once you gain clarity it's like a new energy, a momentum takes place when you know the direction that you want to go.

So, one other area that I want to discuss. There's so many different areas for us to look at, but I want to really cover these four main areas, which is our personal health, our economic health, our relationship health. But regardless of what's going on with the mental health of society, you have to take control of your own personal mental health right now. My friend, Dr. Daniel Amen, would call it mental hygiene. Practicing your mental hygiene is more important than ever. And right now, if you look around us, it's understandable that we'd be struggling with our mental and emotional well-being when there's so much uncertainty. When there's so many things that are driving fear. When there's so many things that are just upside down and inside out and twisted 30 different ways in our lives. The reality that we once had is no longer existent for so many of us. It's understandable that we have heightened emotional sensitivity, struggling with our mental well-being and our mental hygiene. It's understandable.

But now is the time to take control. We cannot keep outsourcing our mental health to the world around us. For them to give us a, "All clear, everything's okay. Now you can feel better. Now you can feel more certain and safe." We have to take control right now. And when we are experiencing so much uncertainty, again, it's natural, because the more primitive parts of our brain, the limbic system, the amygdala, these parts of our brain that are highly emotional parts of our brains tend to be much more overactive when we are experiencing fear or uncertainty. It's just how we're wired up. And you can see a great demonstration of this if you go on social media right now. You've never seen so many people fighting. People are literally just looking for problems. They're going online to get into a fight. They're just like, "I'm pissed off, man!"

Like Chris Tucker. They're just looking for problems. And this is what happens with the emotional brain, that amygdala hijack takes place. Our higher-order functioning gets hijacked. And actually one of the things that we do is that because everybody thinks right now that they're 100% right. And that is a big, a major point of contention, a major dividing force is that everybody thinks they're 100% right. And people are taking sides. In reality, most of us operate, the vast majority of us operate in the middle at different places, but now we've become so extreme and we all think we're 100% right. And we've talked about this on a previous episode about our cognitive biases and our self-serving bias, specifically that we look for information to affirm that we are right. And so with that said, even though... And not to say there isn't some dumbass things that are getting said out there on the internet right now, because there definitely is, okay? In major media, there definitely is. There always has been. Now it's just at a whole different level. It's at a whole different level.

But even though that is the case, most people aren't saying things that are illogical or doing things that are illogical because they're malicious or they're trying to hurt people. Mostly, they're just afraid. Most people are just afraid. They're trying to figure things out. They're trying to find some sense of certainty in their lives. And with everybody thinking that they're 100% right and they're trying to justify things that are illogical, and this might be speaking to somebody right now, somebody you might have been dealing with. The complicated thing that happens when we think we're 100% right is that we'll use our logical executive part of our brain to rationalize emotional decisions. So I hope that makes sense. We'll have an emotional response to something, and then we'll use our executive brain to rationalize it and make it sound like it's super real. Like it's super authentic and true and 100% right.

It's a sketchy time out there. It's a sketchy time out there. But all that process does is make us fight harder for our belief, and it reduces our capacity to listen. That's the truth. Because in truth, right now, we can go a lot further in our connection, in our communication, if we take a moment to truly understand where other people are coming from. Because believe it or not, the greatest bridge to transformation in thinking is having rapport, is creating rapport and understanding. Seek first to understand and then to be understood. I know that a lot of families are divided right now in different issues. A lot of communities are divided in different issues. Seek first to understand and then to be understood. We have to set aside our drive to be right and listen. And there's a lot to listen to right now, obviously. But many of us have a lot more time that we didn't have. This is a good time to listen, to learn, and then to speak after. To let things process, let it marinate.

2020, again, came in, threw our lives into a blender, hit the Vitamix Blendtec. But low key, we can create a delicious smoothie out of that. Throw some cacao in there, a little Organifi. Come on. So, I just want us to be aware of that, to proactively look for ways to listen, to understand, to perspective take, to be more patient, and to take care of our own mental health. Because truth be told, a lot of people that you're arguing with, or you're trying to convince, wow! What's the opposite of mental hygiene? Dirty mind? They've got dirty brain, their mental hygiene, their mental health is struggling right now, that's why they're so offended and offensive. So just keep that in mind, Just be like, "Oh, you look, you’re off right now. And that's okay, I wish you the best. I'm going to keep it moving though." Because in truth... And here's a big, big truth: Trying to convince somebody who's saying crazy things online that they're wrong, trying to convince somebody who's saying crazy things online that they're wrong is like trying to understand why Marvel had one actor play Iron Man, and DC has had like eight dudes play Batman. Like, what are you doing? It makes no sense, right?

We got Val Kilmer, we got George Clooney, we got Christian Bale. We got the dude from The Gotham TV Show, super random. We got another Batman on Teen Titans who was an actor who played in the Game of Thrones, pretty good actor. Another guy. We got Batfleck. Do they call him Batfleck? Ben Affleck? And we've got the OG, Michael Keaton. We've got.. Now we've got Robert Pattinson, boy, right? Twilight fame, but he's ventured out, he's done his own thing, independent films. Showing he's versatile, showing that he's not about the glitz and glam. He's Batman now, guys. Eight dudes, I'm confused. Marvel had their stuff together, they had a 10-year plan.

Anyways, but that's what it's like trying to convince somebody who's saying crazy things online that they're wrong. It's like trying to understand DC's universe. It's not your job to do. It's not your job to do. So, with that said, this is an opportunity for us to take control of our own mental health. What are the things that you're doing? Write down three things that you can do every day to support your own energy, to support your own mental well-being. Write three things down. Is that journaling every day? Is that reading or watching a personal development book or video every day? Get your mindset right. Is it listening to a podcast daily? Is it taking time to write your goals? There was a time for about three months, I wrote down my same three goals, my three biggest goals every single day. I wrote them, every day. Every day, my three biggest goals. And every one of those three audacious goals, I accomplished. Every one of 'em. It seemed like a miracle 'cause at the time it did not seem very tangible. But it really helped to lay down that myelin, lay down that belief, it became a part of like, "This is where I'm going, this is who I am," and I believe I got that strategy from Jack Canfield if I'm not mistaken, who again, I'm very grateful to have had on The Model Health Show recently.

So, listen, these are four major categories that, regardless of the health of society, we need to take control of our personal health. Regardless of the economic status of society, we need to take control of our own personal economy. Regardless of the relationship status, whether it's complicated, in a relationship, entangled, regardless of the relationship status of society around us, we need to take control of our own relationship status. Regardless of the mental health status of the economy and the society around us, we need to take control of our own mental health. And then we ask, How can I serve? How can I help? How can I help to make an impact on the millions of lives, or even start just with my family? You can expand out from there to make a difference when so many people need it. That's what we're here for, we're here for each other. Most importantly, we're here to be great. We're here to become the best version of ourselves, and this Corona bonus, we were born at this time in human history because we're qualified for it. We are here to utilize this time to usher in the next stage of human evolution.

So many things have been askew, so many things under the surface have been off-track, so many systems that are in place, with the government to our social structures, have allowed so much abuse and so much suffering. Right now, we live in a time where the third leading cause of death, according to a study from Johns Hopkins, is medical intervention. Death by doctor is the third leading cause of death after heart disease, cancer, death by doctor. And not to say, because this can create a stigma, not to say that there aren't amazing, wonderful, well-intentioned physicians all over the country, which there are, absolutely. But our system is amazing at emergency medicine, but the treatment of chronic diseases, we've got a lot to learn, we've got a lot to go, but if we keep acting like the problem isn't there... Me even saying this, that this is the third leading cause of death, is going to ruffle feathers. But we have to look at it. You know, and that's from neglect, that's from mistakes in surgery, mistakes in medicine, prescribed drugs. This is from treatments that actually take people's lives instead of save them. The list goes on and on.

And you can look this up for yourself. But these structures need to change. And we see it right now, all of the unnecessary suffering and fear because we have a system that is not about health, it's not a healthcare system, it's a sick care system. And this is our opportunity, the Corona bonus is, we can change this stuff, we're alive to do it, but we need to be the model, we need to be the representation of what's possible. And I just appreciate you so much for taking the time and hanging out with me. Again, this is an opportunity for so many of us to really step up and to become the best version of ourselves, but we have to start to think differently. I know that there's a lot going on, there's a lot of turmoil, there's a lot of confusion. But right here, low key, we've got each other's back. Alright, I'm standing for you, and I'm going to continue to push the envelope, I'm going to continue to set a precedent, I'm going to continue to elevate myself to be a force of good in your life. And I appreciate you for inviting me into your world, because your world matters, your world is important, you have gifts and talents and capacities that you are here to share, and I'm just grateful to be a part of the story.

If you could, make sure to share this episode out with the people that you care about on social media. Of course, you can tag me, I'm @ShawnModel on Instagram and on Twitter, same thing. I'm popping the Twitter. Twitter gets popping sometimes. And on the, on Facebook, I'm like, "The Facebook"... I sound like grandma. On the Facebook, I'm @TheModelHealthShow. And shout-out to the grandmas, by the way. Man, my grandma, wow, such a force of good in my life. And this is what we all can be for each other. She gave me the opportunity to see what unconditional love looks like. She gave me the opportunity to see what magic can be created in somebody's life, the magic that can be created in a child's life. Man, I still feel her hug. And I can't wait for so many of you guys to be able to hug and love on your family members again. Let's help our society to do the same thing, but it starts with us. It's time to take control. I appreciate you so much for tuning in. Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon.

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