SHAWN STEVENSON: I'm about to let you in on a little secret. So many of us are working our behinds off. We're striving and struggling. We're doing the things. We're trying to muster up the will to change our bodies to get the health and the fitness that we truly want. But the secret that shouldn't be a secret is that all change, that physical change we wanna see starts on the inside. It's an inside job. It's a change in our mindset. First, it's a change in our perception. It's a change in our identity. On this episode, I'm gonna share with you four powerful mental habits for you to use to transform your body and your life. And these four mental habits are coming from four of the most successful, inspiring, insightful, and proven experts in their respective fields.

And to kick things off, you're gonna hear from somebody that's on fire right now. She's absolutely on fire. She was just hanging out with Oprah. Her book is a number one New York Times bestseller, and her podcast has risen to number one on the planet. All right? Number one podcast of all podcasts, not just in one particular domain, number one. And it's the one and only Mel Robbins. And a little while back, she was hanging out with me here at the Model Health Show Studio, and she's just one of the most insightful and generous people I've ever met. And I shot her a text the other day because I was just at some random restaurant, like little, it was like a little cafe section of this restaurant.

And they got like some, some little pastries, a little fruit collection, some drinks, and there's her books. There was a couple copies of her books just sitting there on this counter. They don't really sell books like this at this restaurant. And I sent her a picture and just like talking about this impact and how her book is reaching out and landing in all these unique places. And she shot me a message back and that was the catalyst for today's episode. And so there's no better person to kick this off with than New York Times bestselling author mindset expert Mel Robbins. In this first segment dedicated to this first mental habit she's gonna be sharing with you how you can literally reprogram your self-confidence starting right now. Enjoy this first segment from the one and only Mel Robbins. 

MEL ROBBINS: I found myself one morning. I, I walked into the bathroom. I'm standing there in my underwear. I am leaning against the bathroom stink sink. 

And this is a moment that I think everybody can relate to. I'm brushing my teeth and I catch my reflection in the mirror, and I think, God, you look awful. You look exhausted. Your neck is saggy, one boob is hanging down lower than the other. Your gray hair is coming in. Woman, you are tired. And I felt tired. I felt the weight of responsibility and sadness on my shoulders. And then of course once you have one negative thought, it's like lint in a dryer.

It starts collecting. And so then I think, oh my God, I got up late and I, my Zoom calls in eight minutes and the dog's at my feet, and I hadn't walked the dog yet, and I just wanted to check out. I just wanted to go to the couch and lay down. I did not wanna have to deal with the responsibilities of my life. I was so overwhelmed, and I know everybody can relate to this moment. And even though I am one of the most booked motivational speakers in the world, I couldn't think of a f**king thing to say to myself. And so, as corny as it sounds, I literally found myself raising my hand and I gave myself a high five in the mirror. Cheese ball city.

But I'll tell you something like flipped. I was kinda like, okay. I felt my shoulder. I'm like, okay, I can do this. Get back in the game, Mel. Let's go. That was it. That was it. The next morning, this was when the next weird thing happened. I woke up and I immediately thought about that moment in the mirror. And here's how I would describe it. You know how if you and I were gonna meet for a cup of coffee and, you know, for me, if I'm about to walk in and see you, I'm getting excited 'cause I'm about to see you. When I wake up that second morning, I'm actually thinking about that moment in the mirror and this idea of seeing and being with myself.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Hmm. 

MEL ROBBINS: Now look, I'm 52 years old. I probably have spent the first 45 years of my life either criticizing the woman I saw in the mirror or ignoring her. So I get into the mirror and there I'm, I, I'm with myself and research, new research out of the University of Florida shows that if you have an intentional moment in the morning of reflection about how you're gonna show up for the day, it changes your mood, your productivity, it changes your impact on people. And so I stood there with myself and I really looked at myself and I raised my hand again. Now, here's where it starts to get crazy. 

I know you're a science guy, so let me just lay some science on you because this is fricking bananas. First of all, it is impossible to high five yourself and think I suck. It's impossible. It's impossible to high five yourself and think today is gonna be a sh*t day, neurologically impossible. And let me tell you why you have high fived other people for your entire life. Tell me what a high five means when you give it to somebody or they give it to you. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Awesome. Good job. You're amazing. Let's, let's go. 

MEL ROBBINS: Yep. All those things keep going. If somebody's attitude's going down, you give 'em a high five. It lifts 'em back up. Yeah, all of that messaging. That is affiliated and associated with the physical movement of raising your hand. This is a field of study called neuro aerobics. I didn't make that word up. This is about neuroplasticity and neural pathways and the aerobic movement of an arm being married together. All of that subconscious messaging is stored right here in your basal ganglia from a lifetime of doing that, I believe you. I love you. We got this. I celebrate you. I see you. Keep going. Come on.

Here we go. So when you raise your hand to your own reflection, it activates all that messaging and marries it with your own reflection. Is that not crazy? Silence is the critic and starts to reprogram the neuro pathways in your mind. And because it is associated with physical movement, what we know based on research is the fastest way to create new, new neural pathways is an unexpected physical movement married with a thought pattern. So that's just the beginning of this. So I did this for a couple weeks. I started to feel my mood lift. I started to feel myself feeling optimistic and positive. I had my high five attitude back on like this moment's preparing me. Just stay with it. Mel. Keep your head up.

You can, you can. You got this, you can face this. I know this is hard, but keep going woman. And so I post a photo on my story and within an hour there were a hundred plus people that had high fived themselves with their kids all over the world by themselves. And I thought, okay, there's something here. And so that's when I dug into the research. First I talked to our audience. What were we feeling and what they had to say was profound. And the second thing I did is I picked up the phone and started talking to some of the world's leading researchers in habits in neuroscience and brain and behavior. And the motivational power of a high five is not only documented, it is irrefutable. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Let's talk about that, because there was one study that was done on school age children. 

MEL ROBBINS: Yes. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, let's talk about that. That one is what really got me. 

MEL ROBBINS: Oh, I know, right? So you, you have two kids, right? 

SHAWN STEVENSON: I have three. 

MEL ROBBINS: Oh, three kids. Yeah. Okay. Well this works with all ages, but the study that you're talking about is super cool. So they wanted to know what's the best way to motivate somebody through a challenging problem or a challenging situation. So they divide kids into three groups and they give them a very challenging problem to work on and they use three forms of motivation. One is verbal praise in terms of praising a trait. We know this fixed the fixed mindset. Hey, you are so smart. You're doing a great job, right? That is the least motivating way to help somebody through a challenging problem. The second group got the growth mindset, which is to praise somebody verbally for their effort.

Oh my gosh, I see you working so hard. I see your grit. I see you putting in the effort. Great job. That certainly works better than telling somebody that they're smart because you anchor them down in something they control, which is the amount of effort they put in. The third group of kids working on a challenging problem. Got a simple high five from the researcher. No words, no nothing, just a high five. Those kids that got the high five, they outworked everybody else. They had a better out. They had a better attitude. They worked through more challenges. They like five x the whole thing, and the answer is why? Here's why a high five communicates even more than I believe in you.

We got this. Keep going. I celebrate you. I love you. A high five. Validates your most profound fundamental emotional needs. Every single human being on the planet has three emotional needs. You need to be seen, you need to feel heard, and you need to feel celebrated and accepted for the unique individual that you are. When you receive a high five, especially during a challenging moment, you feel seen, you also feel heard because you feel like that High five represents the get that I'm going down and you feel celebrated. It is a shared moment of emotional affirmation, and so we have for our entire lives looked outside of ourselves for that. 

We chase likes, we chase validations. We think if we're dating or married to the right person, it means that we're lovable. The truth is, you gotta learn how to give that to yourself, and I am here to tell you that if you create a habit in the morning, just habit, stack it right with brushing your teeth where you stand there, you be with yourself. You set an intention for how you're gonna show up today, what game are you gonna play, and then you seal that sucker with a high five. You are literally building in the habit of self validation, self support, self-respect, self-esteem, self-confidence, self celebration. It is so freaking powerful and I am so passionate about this, not only because I am standing on the research of people way smarter than me, but I am seeing the millions of followers that I have profoundly change their lives.

A woman, for example, check this out. A woman, for example, who had dysmorphia for 20 years could not look at herself in the mirror. Just five days of doing this can now look at herself in grin because she's not seeing a body, she's seeing the human being. We receive the most amazing testimonial from a woman who was in a, a, a domestic violence shelter for battered women. She wrote to us about how she has severe childhood trauma. She's just escaped this very violent relationship. She has nothing but herself and her two kids, and by looking in the mirror. And setting an intention and seeing herself and being with herself and high fiving herself, she said, I am realizing at least I have me.

Yeah, I can have my own back. Affirmations and mantras don't work unless you believe them. So if you hate the way you look, you cannot stand in front of a mirror and be like, I love myself. I love myself. I love it, because you don't yet. There are two reasons why the High Five works though, because number one, you don't have to think or say anything because the messaging's already programmed here with the physical movement. And then there's a second reason, and this was just validated by Dr. Daniel Amon, who I know you know. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. 

MEL ROBBINS: And so you know, the world's leading brain expert with 65,000 brain scans. So I just met with him about the High Five Habit, and here are two really killer things about the High Five Habit and why it's so impactful to High Five yourself. So this motion. And this motion, the high five. We've been like raising our arms in celebration. What do you do when you score a touchdown? Ah, what do you do when you cross the finish line? Ah, what do you do when the band that you love comes out? Ah, what do you do when you see somebody you love? Gimme a hug. Right? When you high five somebody, you're raising your arm. The, the raised hand physical movement is wired into your nervous system as a celebratory wa kind of thing. 

And so it gives you this jolt of energy when you do it, whether you feel energized or not. And more importantly, it also gives you a dopamine drip. And so in addition to the subconscious messaging, the physical movement impacts your nervous system. It also gives you a little dopamine drip, which boosts your confidence in your mood immediately, which makes you more receptive to feeling that positive messaging. What the hell? I mean this like one movement has so much that's just, you can unpack with it.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Alright, I hope that you enjoyed that first segment. We're gonna move on to our second expert. Again, we're covering four mental habits to transform your body and your life. All change is truly an inside job, and it's being able to be empowered and not just superficially, not just the conscious mind, because there's so much going on beneath the surface that is running our lives. And so how do we get to that subconscious? Well, there's nobody better to fill us in on what to do then neuroscientists and New York Times bestselling author, Dr. James Doty. In this next segment, he's gonna be sharing with you how your brain automatically finds what your subconscious is interested in. And how to program your subconscious mind and more. Enjoy this next segment from Dr. James Doty. 

DR. JAMES DOTY: You have to understand how do I embed something into my unconscious or subconscious? And you do that through a process called value tagging. And what I mean by that is you have to demonstrate to the brain that something is important to you. Now that can be done, outta fear or anxiety or, a deep question that you fixate on or, defining an intention you want to manifest. And the reason I use the example of something, as an example, fear as a neurosurgeon, I see patients who have different conditions and, I may tell somebody as an example, well, you know, you have this tumor in your brain.

It's benign. It's called a meningioma. And they'll say, I've never heard of that yet. You see them among, they're too late. And they go, it's the most amazing thing. I've seen five people who I met who have the exact same condition, or it's like seeing, I saw an orange Mustang the other day, and I'm going, God, I've never seen that color. And then within a few days I saw four or five of them. And that's because you put that into your subconscious. It got embedded. And now you're attuned. You tagged it. You tagged it. Yeah. And so your subconscious is always looking for situations like that where you would've normally ignored it before. So if you have a intention that you wish to manifest, you have to make it salient to your brain.

So the first part is, and a lot of people don't appreciate, we have 10 million bits of information through our sensory organs that are coming through all the time. Now, 99.9% are related to maintaining homeostasis or bodily functions, but there's about 50 to a hundred that we can have access to on a conscious level. And when you embed an intention consciously through the acts we talked about, thinking about it, writing it down, reading it, et cetera. Then it makes it salient. So what happens is this part of our brain, this network is called the default mode network. It is self-referential. It's associated typically with mind wondering or daydreaming, but it's all about.

The representation of who we are or how we see ourselves or how we wish to be. Once that gets embedded there and activates that, then it next activates, and that's called a Task Negative network, actually, but then it activates the Task Positive Network, which is the salience network. We've now made it salient, we've, it's as if we took that intention, put it in a file and embedded it in a filing cabinet and our salience network and said, this is important to me. Then once that happens, and this activates our attention network, now we are going to, because it's important, we're going to attend to it with our consciousness in the sense. And as a result, then you start looking around for any instance in the book, I, I use the example of the bloodhound, that once it smells what's in that file, it has to find it.

So it's looking everywhere. And this is the nature of coincidence or synchronicity. You go, that's amazing. I was just thinking about this. Now I, it's here. And, and this is how it works. And once it's been tagged as important and your subconscious has looked around for it, then your conscious through the executive control network, which if you will, makes things happen. You track it down. And, as an example, I was at a coffee shop several weeks ago and there's a project I've been working on, but it was very noisy and you can't hear anything yet. In the dent of all of that, I heard somebody talking about the exact same thing I was working on and it resulted me in getting up and introducing myself. But it's like you being at a party. I mean, parties oftentimes are really noisy. Yet if somebody says your name and the dent of all of this, because your identity is so deeply embedded in you, you turn to it right? And it's the same type of thing. You have activated these brain networks, which work together to help you manifest your intention.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, those moments happen for us all throughout our lives. And I think, again, we forget that that happens, you know? And what do you think about the idea of having, we'll say a magic notebook where you write down when those moments occur and you write them down so you remember how powerful you are in kind of co-creating these. What we would deem to be magical moments. What do you think about that? 

DR. JAMES DOTY: No, I think that's a good idea because again, it strengthens your belief system, right? 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right. Yeah. 

DR. JAMES DOTY: And, so I think that's really important. It's changing your mindset and really that's what we're changing. We're changing your mindset that that many people have, which is a negative one, which is it's not possible for me to wanna, oh, it is potentially possible. It can happen or it has happened. And once you see it happen a few times, you go, yeah, I can do it. And in some ways this also brings up an important point, which is the nature of habit. Habits are important and, you don't go out and say, I'm gonna run a marathon and wake up and run a marathon. Right? It's like for yourself, as you changed how you saw yourself. And ultimately it wasn't that you became a stud with six packs the next day when you woke up and said, I want that. What had to happen? 

You had to go to the gym every day probably, and you had to look at the other guys who were built and you go, shit, I don't look that good. But you persisted every day and then suddenly over two months, three months, six months, you're like going, wow, I looked like these guys. Now that's amazing, but it's because you created a habit where you showed up every day, you did the work that's necessary. And this also emphasizes a point that there's no free ride. It's not like, okay, Jim, I read your book. Okay, tomorrow it's all gonna happen for me. It doesn't work that way. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Now this speaks to a really phenomenal fact that I don't think a lot of us ever think about, which is. No two humans have the same brain. Every single person's brain is vastly unique, but we just kind of see it as this like squishy, almost softest butter organ. But you actually, in your work, you, you have seen many brains and you know that brains can be very functionally different. But also this practice of entraining our beliefs, changes our brain, our physical brain, and also different activities. So if you could talk about how our thoughts can change our brain, but also how things like playing an instrument can literally make our brain different.

DR. JAMES DOTY: Well, that's absolutely correct. Every brain is different. But that being said, most people have the capacity, which they don't appreciate to change their brain or how they think, or their mindset. And this is extraordinarily powerful, and it gets back to this idea of self-agency. Many people frequently give their self-agency away. As an example, I remember, when I was an undergraduate, first of all, I, I mean I struggled because I didn't have a background for going to college. It was not a high priority at all in my family. And, also here I had many "friends", but almost all of them were from affluent backgrounds.

And here I was struggling in school. I mean, my grade point average when I applied to med school was 2.53, where the average to get into med school was 3.76. My "friends" would say, you'll never get into med school. It's a waste of time. Why are you trying? You're never going to make it. And this is actually also something that's horrible because while each of our brains are unique, they're different, they have different capacities.

The reality is though, that every brain has the ability to change. And if you listen to people tell you what you can't do and you believe it, that becomes truth or reality. And I was fortunate in that Ruth made me understand that nobody had the right to decide my destiny. And I think that's really true, you know, people will listen to friends. Sometimes they'll listen to parents or siblings or others who somehow believe that they have the right to tell you what's possible for you, and nobody has that. Right? 

SHAWN STEVENSON: I hope that you enjoyed that segment with the amazing Dr. James Doty. And by the way, the full episodes, full interviews with all of our experts are for you in the show notes. So if you wanna do a deeper dive into any of those episodes or if you wanna refresher. You know, just pop down after this episode and dive in deeper on anything that jumped out and spoke to your heart today. And just to reiterate this point, one of the things that he talked about was making it a practice to really keep drilling down and going deeper into that subconscious.

It's through repetition. It can be through an emotionally charged event and situation, of course, but repetition really does work. And so whatever your goal is, whether it's for your physical health, whether it's for your financial health, whether it's for your relationship health, whatever the case might be, or maybe you could take your top three goals and have one goal in each of those things, but writing them down. But he says to make a practice, make it a daily practice of writing down your goals, speaking them either mentally or out loud, and then reviewing your goals on a regular basis. So just pop in and check out your goals. A few times throughout the day, just a reminder, and it keeps your mind on track of what is most important to you.

As he talks about the salience of it, the salience network of the brain, it is telling your brain that this is what's important to me. This is what I want to focus on. This is what I want to reveal in my life, what I want once me. It's already here, it's already present. It's a possibility in the infinite sea of possibility, in this quantum phenomenon that we're all swimming in. This possibility exists and I'm interested in it. And so making that a practice can be an absolute game changer. Now, with all that we're talking about, of course, no matter what situation and circumstance we find ourselves in, we are so powerful to create change in our lives. And another important truth is, if we feel good, if we feel healthy, if our brain is healthy, it does. 

Of course, this is very logical. It makes the process easier. It is more attainable. We can touch it. We can get closer to those feelings that we desire to our goals, to we stay in that frequency. And when our brain is healthy, because we're talking about changing our brain and changing our life. When our brain is healthy, it makes this process so much easier. So, of course we wanna be mindful of our nutrition, we wanna be mindful about our hydration, we wanna be mindful about our movement practices, make sure that we're getting good circulation to our brains.

When we move our bodies, our brains get nourishment and blood flow as well. So these are all foundational absolute. These are called givens automatics. If we're not doing these things, then we're trying to superficially do other little things. We're really missing the point. So making sure that we're getting our givens taken care of. And in addition, there are some time honored, time tested things that can give us that extra 1%, 5%, maybe even 10% if we're doing this habitually, consistently, as far as nourishment for our brains, and many of these very specific nutrients and nutrient compounds are being utilized today, and the science is emerging today.

But in reality, they've been utilized by cultures for thousands of years. And in particular, one compound that's being studied for its nootropic benefits for improving cognitive function and brain health was highlighted in the study, published in advanced biomedical research, and it found that Royal Jelly has potential to improve spatial learning memory and our attention. Alright, attention is, it's on the endangered species list. Let's just put it like that. So anything that could support our ability to pay attention is incredibly valuable. In addition, the researchers noted that. It has anti-microbial, anti-tumor and anti-inflammatory properties as well. And on top of that, researchers recently in Japan noted that Royal Jelly is able to differentiate our different types of brain cells and discover that royal jelly has the power to stimulate neurogenesis and the memory center of the brain.

This is incredibly remarkable and something I've been utilizing for many, many years, and thankfully I have a brand that I can trust who's combined this with one of my other favorite neutropics called Bacopa, which was highlighted in a randomized double-blind, placebo controlled human study published in 2016, finding that after just six weeks of use, bacopa significantly improves speed of visual information processing, learning rate, memory consolidation, and even decreased anxiety and study participants.

I'm talking about the brain nootropic, the brain fuel. From Beekeepers Naturals, go to beekeepersnaturals.com/model and you're going to get 20% off when you use the code model at checkout. All right? So again, get your hands on their phenomenal brain fuel beekeepersnaturals.com/model. That's B-E-E-K-E-E-P-E-R-S naturals.com/model for 20% off. They're phenomenal brain fuel. They're Propolis Immune spray is something I utilize pretty much on a daily basis and don't sleep on their super food honey. It's a staple in my family's home. I absolutely love it. Been utilizing it for years. So many other incredible products. Head over there. Check 'em out. Beekeepers naturals.com/model. 

Now moving on in this compilation of these four phenomenal experts dedicated to four mental habits to transform your body and your life. Now we're moving on to something that if not handled and addressed and utilized properly, this is likely the ultimate supervi against our goals, against our wellbeing, against our overall health. And on the other side of this, however, this is not a bad guy. All right? So this super villain, like many villain or origin stories, something happened. Something happened, and they can have a character arc. That really unites them along with the Avengers or something like that. And what I'm talking about here is the word that is so inflammatory in and of itself, but it, it means so much in our culture.

It means so much in our lives. And I'm talking about stress. Stress can absolutely take us out. But in truth, we need stress. We deeply need stress to become more resilient, to be healthy for our bodies to grow and to change and to adapt. Everything that we do, every step that we take in getting better is a result of adapting to a stressor. And so we know that stress can have a tremendous impact on our health, including our mental health, physical health, and even our body composition. So how do we do stress? How do we address this in a way that is empowering for us? And for that next step, you're gonna hear from Dr. Sharon Bergquist. 

She's a physician and in leading research scientists in the field of stress science and stress medicine, she's actually conducting the trials and looking at the impact of stress, what we deem to be good stress and bad stress. And you're about to learn why stress makes you more resilient. The difference between good stress and bad stress, or we can call it chronic stress. And also one of the most powerful ways to build up your stress resilience. Enjoy this next segment from the amazing Dr. Sharon Bergquist. 

DR.SHARON BERGQUIST: I love this opportunity to talk about stress because. What we associate with stress is what we associate with the chronic forms, the continuous stress, that's the predominant type in our life. And there's no question our bodies aren't made for chronic stress. The financial hardship, bad relationships, difficult work situations, we just weren't made for that. And for sure it harms. And, and truthfully, I spent the first half of my career talking about the harms of stress and it really was about a decade ago that a lot of the literature that had started to come out about how stress can benefit us is what I started reading. And there is a type of stress called hormesis. It's the science of good stress and it's a different type in that it is brief and it's controlled. This type of stress can enrich us and help us grow. And the counterintuitive part is that we actually need these brief controlled stressors to build resilience against the chronic stressors that we can't control. So we're really entering this era of stress 2.0. It's a new stress management where the goal isn't to get rid of stress in our lives, we need to optimize stress.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Hmm. That's so powerful because I think our instinct today in our modern culture, and maybe not an instinct programming is to run from stress. 

DR.SHARON BERGQUIST: Yes. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: And we've created a culture that has taken a lot of our natural stressors that we evolve with out of the equation. 

DR.SHARON BERGQUIST: A hundred percent and that has a cost. So as you said, too much stress is harmful, but not enough stress, which is termed sutres is just as harmful as too much. And even though I believe a lot of the work around curbing stress is very well intentioned, what we are not really realizing is that when we swing that pendulum too far towards su stress or inadequate stress, we are handicapping our innate ability to be our strongest self and to really serve with our highest potential. Think of stress as being defined as by three variables. Okay. The design of the stress, the dose, and the duration. By design, I mean the kind of stress, is it unpredictable, uncontrollable, or is it generative? Motivating? Is it aligned with your personal beliefs? The dose meaning intensity, the types that help us thrive are mild to moderate versus the types that harm us, which are severe.

And the duration, the stressors that we are made for are short, brief. The stressors that we are not made for are chronic and continuous. The nuance, Shawn, is that the relationship between stress and response is not linear. Right. We are made to think that if we get too much stress, it harm. So our goal then must be to bring stress down to a level where it just doesn't harm us. Right. But what we don't. Always see. And what we don't know is that the relationship is curve linear. So, if you think of the St. Louis arch right? It's like an upside down you. And that's the relationship with stress. When we are in this middle range, which is like a Goldilocks sweet spot range, we not only not get harm from stress, but we take off, we grow that mid range is called a hormetic zone, okay, from hormesis. Hormesis is from the Greek word to excite. When we are in this goldilock zone, we take off, we benefit, which is very different than not getting harm from stress, right? And this is the relationship that has gotten lost in really decades of the history of stress being understood as a medical concept.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Alright, now, now we get to get into why I'm so excited to have you here. 

DR.SHARON BERGQUIST: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Because I know we have these terms and culture of bouncing back from stress. Yes. Right? And your data indicates that we don't just bounce back when this is done. Right. We don't just bounce back, we come back better, right? We build, we build resilience. And so now I get to ask you about how it happens, like what's happening beneath the surface. Is this impacting our genes? Are there cellular changes? How does stress make us more resilient? 

DR.SHARON BERGQUIST: Yeah. So there there are two parts to this, and as you just said, Shawn, this is such a key insight in stress biology. When we endorse stress, we don't ever go quote back to normal. We are somehow changed from every exposure. When the stress is harmful, we net at a set point that makes us weaker, right? That's the depleting, exhausting burnout type of stress. When we have a stressor, that's a good stress. We net resilience. We emerge at a higher set point. And what's really happening is that any stressor is a challenge to us, whether it's physical or mental, and it disrupts an certain balance in our body that we call homeostasis. Our body has a wisdom that it tries to maintain health, and it's trying so hard to reestablish that homeostasis, but when it does, it resets at a different set point.

And when we are exposed to a good stress, you know, we think of the stress response as being the simple fight or flight, right? Everyone is running from a saber tooth tiger, right? That's like all we think about when we think of stress, and that's a very immediate alarm system type of response. But our stress response is so much more complicated than that. What's happening down at the level of ourselves is really the story that hasn't been told, okay, we have cellular stress responses. The goal of our stress response is not to harm us, it's to benefit us. It's to help us adapt so we emerge more resilient and able to handle future stressors. 

At the level of ourselves, we have seven cellular stress responses, and what they do is what I call the four Rs, okay? They resist damage, they repair existing damage, they recycle ourselves, and they recharge the energy within ourselves. And that is happening on a timescale that's very different than the alarm system fight or flight hours to days, even a lifetime. After the stress exposure, we are becoming stronger. We are reconfiguring our body to this more resilient state when we expose ourselves to these hormetic or the stressors that we're designed for. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: And I'd love to, to. Dig a little bit deeper into that specific point, which is we evolved, our bodies have this capacity to adjust according to the environment. Yes. And the temperature in particular. And now we live in these perfectly climatized habitats that we've designed so we never get too hot or too cold. And if we do, we're mad, upset. You know, we're com we're, we're uncomfortable, we don't like it. But most of our time is spent without adaptation and we're missing certain things, the cellular stress response, because we're not getting these exposures.

DR.SHARON BERGQUIST: It's a hundred percent it. Shawn, you know, the body works through this process of bioplastic, which is essentially saying use it or lose it. Okay. If we want our brain to be stronger, we have to challenge our brain. If we want our heart to be stronger, we have to challenge our heart and blood vessels, and they grow stronger. It happens at every level. And when we are not challenging ourselves with the heat and cold, we are essentially doing the opposite. The lack of exposure to the challenge does the opposite, right? So we have to continually push ourselves past this comfort zone, but not to the point of overwhelm. I wanna be clear about that and then recover. And it's this process of stress, recover, repeat stress, recover, repeat. This is the blueprint that unlocks our incredible innate capacity to fight all these diseases. Feel better, live longer. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Now, what about exercise? How does that come into the fold? Obviously we are existing in the most sedentary society. Yeah. In human history, but we, and we know these inputs are important, but we tend to think about it in terms of looking a certain way, right? Yeah. But the exercise input is far more valuable in different ways. So what are the recommendations around that? 

DR.SHARON BERGQUIST: Yeah, and exercise is probably, I think, the most potent of all these hortens, because so much of our physiology is tied to exercise and energy expenditure. When we exercise, that is the most potent way to upregulate our cellular engines, our mitochondria, and our mitochondria. And our energy play this outsized role in this bigger process of creating cellular health. When we exercise, we rapidly deplete energy and that sends an alarm signal. We have sensors, we mention the sirtuins. We have another energy sensor called A-M-P-K-A-M-P kinase. And these energy sensors send the signal to our brain that there's a stressor. Our bodies respond by increasing the number of mitochondria that we have. 

So back in biology class, the way I was taught, probably maybe the way you were even taught, but I'm older is that every cell has one mitochondria. But the reality is that we can have thousands of mitochondria and we can ramp up that capacity. Mitochondria and our cellular energy base ultimately controls how much energy our body is capable of making. Right. So our mitochondria have this vital role where they take chemical energy from food and they convert it to cellular energy in the form of ATP.

And if our mitochondria are impaired, our cells cannot make the energy we need for basic functions within the cell. All the repair that we're talking about requires energy. We don't have the energy to think clearly to digest properly, right? And over time that leads to disease. So mitochondrial impairment is probably one the most under talked about components of health in modern medicine right now. And exercise is the most potent way to increase the volume because every time we stress our energy system, our body responds by making more mitochondria and by starting that process of mitophagy that we talked about of making healthier mitochondria. And the fascinating part is that when we do high intensity, we send the body this stronger signal of rapid energy depletion and that signals a stronger adaptation.

Right? So when you look at clinical studies, about 40% of people can do not significantly improve their cardio respiratory fitness measured by VO two max, which is really in very indirect way of measuring mitochondrial health. But 40% don't achieve improvement with moderate intensity. Right? And we have this need for the vigorous to really push the needle on our cardio respiratory fitness and mitochondrial health. And the reason that matters so much is that is the single biggest predictor of mortality and disease, right? Our cardiorespiratory fitness, whether you're a man, a woman, a child, an older adult, cardiorespiratory fitness is the strongest predictor, right? And we need healthy mitochondria. We also need a s strong heart.

We need strong lungs to have good cardio, respiratory fitness. But exercising with those bursts of intensity is really the pathway to improving our longevity at the greatest potential we can. So what that looks like in a week is roughly an 80 20 blend of some moderate intensity with about 20% of high intensity. A little bit more would probably be better, like maybe a 70 30 mix with high intensity for people who are more casual athletes for, really elite athletes. I think 80 20 gives you enough of the high intensity. So, trying to get one workout a week maybe of a high interval intensity workout. And again, I don't want the term to be daunting to people.

It's what's intense to you, okay? If you are a sedentary person, what may be intense to you? What gets you out of that comfort zone? Maybe just walking fast to the mailbox, right? But for an elite athlete, obviously it's gonna be hitting very high ability to generate power, right? So focus on these nudges of what's intense to you recover. You expand capacity. It's a process of continual stress recovery until you build that resilience. So don't let this sound daunting. We have this as a gift in our DNA. Every one of us has the human capability to be doing this. This is the gift that has been handed down over 2 million years. Our body is made to do hard things.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Alright, we're at our final expert in this powerful compilation dedicated to four mental habits to transform your body and your life. And this is from a conversation that resonates with me to this day, to this very day. Now if I had to, it's very difficult to choose like a top 10 episodes of conversations or moments, but this is definitely within that top 10. And this room was so full of energy and the ripples from this conversation have impacted so many people and I'm so grateful for that. So many people, even in my family, have been deeply impacted. And I'm just so excited to share this with you because truly when we're talking about change, we're talking about. Our choices, our beliefs, our actions that we take in the world. This is all rooted in who we believe ourselves to be. It's all rooted in our identity, and there's nobody better to give us insights on how to master and to change and to transform our identity, to transform our lives then bestselling author and speaker Ed Mylett. Enjoy this final segment with the one and only Ed Mylett.

ED MYLETT: I think it's the most powerful force for human beings is their identity and the identity. Your identity is the thoughts, beliefs, concepts that you hold to be the most true about you. And I said this to you another time. It's like a thermostat that's sitting right there on that wall right there. It sets the entire temperature for your life. And so if your happiness thermostat is set at 75 degrees, or your wealth thermostat, or your health thermostat is set at 75 degrees, let's just use financial, 75 degrees of financial worth you think you have. You can acquire all the skills in the world, and you can begin to produce the results. You find the right business you're producing.

You're at 85, 90, 95, a hundred. You're cranking. Somehow within a year or two, you find a way to turn the air conditioners on and cool it right back down to what you believe you deserve. And you think it's coincidental. Ah, the market changed, the stock market, the real estate, supply chain. I had to loan some money to a friend. My car broke down. Nope, that ain't what happened. What happened was you turned the air conditioners on because your results exceeded your identity. And when that happens, you'll always find a way to bring it back. Even in the health space, you know this, you'll see somebody with all the tools you've given 'em.

This is how you can drop that weight. This is how you can become more healthy. They implement all the tools, but internally they still believe there's 75 degrees of health or wellness. They find a way within a year or two to put the weight back on in spite of the tools they have. And so there's a lot of tools in the book, but how do you change your identity? And I say there's a holy trilogy of the identity change. And I believe there are these three things. I'll say 'em quickly. One is faith. It's ironic, but if you have faith, it's amazing to me. No matter what your faith, I'm a Christian, but no matter what your faith is, it's amazing to me how you'll have faith on Sunday at church or at your synagogue or your mosque.

Maybe even go to a Bible study on Wednesdays and you pray so you got the Lord, you have a meal. Let's hold hands and pray. You're a praying person, but man, when you walk into a business meeting, you're alone. Oh, you walk into a boardroom, you're alone. You got on a sales call, you're all of a sudden alone. The nerves come up. You go back to this old identity you have. But if you're really the son of the highest king of gods, right? If his DNA's running through your blood, your identity ought to be off the charts. So link 'em two intention running on a beach. I'm 30 years old, Maui. I went my first trip to go to Maui.

Running the other way is this bald dude with like a sweaty, hairy back. He's running towards me and it's like the sun's not up yet. So it's dark. And I'm so old brother. I'm wearing a Sony Wok man with a cassette playing and so is he. And we run right by each other and it's Dr. Wayne Dyer, who's one of the gurus of all time of thought and spirituality and life. And I said, Dr. Dyer, you changed my life. And he turns and he, he's got a deep voice like me. He goes, and like you, he goes, I doubt that. But he goes, you did, but how did I help you? And he walks towards me. We spend about an hour and a half sitting on the beach next to each other, watching the sun come up.

And I have this beautiful conversation with this man who becomes my friend the rest of my life. And at the end of it, he goes, ed, you're gonna change the world. And I said, thank you, and I'm sure he said this to other people. He goes, and you're brilliant and the way you think through things, your mind is very unique. And he goes, but that's not what you should attach your identity to Ed. You're always gonna be chasing it. I said, what is it? He goes, your intentions are so beautiful. You have such beautiful intentions. You wanna serve people. You want to make a difference. Please do me a favor in the rest of your life, attach your identity to your intentions and it'll never go backwards.

And so the second one is your intentions. Begin to give yourself more credit and raise that thermostat for what you intend to do, the difference you intend to make, and you become very resourceful. And then the third thing is association. It's who you're around. And not only are who are you around, but their proximity to you. If you're around someone who's got 150 degrees of wealth in their life and you're a 75 degree, or they will heat you up to their proximity eventually over time, or at least close to them. So faith and tension and association will shift your identity. One thing I wanna tell everybody here is that you know when you see a happy or successful family, either or at some more point back in their lineage, they weren't.

And then the one shows up. And that one changes freaking everything for that family. And Neo's the one in that movie. I'm the one in my family. I changed the way my family thinks. I changed the way the world treats us. I changed the way we live. We're never going back again. I've changed it. The world does not have their thumb on my family ever again. We call the shots now, man. Right? And in every family there's the one that eventually shows up and they change the dynamic, they change the emotions, they change the, in your family, you're, you're the one, right? And everyone listening to this, even the fact you go, nah, I'm not the one that's probably makes you the one.

But it's not. 'cause I wanted to, I fought for it. I fought to be the one in my family. We changed who we are in the world in one generation. My dad made the decision to get sober and then I took it to the next level and we changed it. So I love that part of the matrix. The one, 'cause I believe in every family the one eventually appears. The second part though, is probably more important, which is that there's a part of your brain called the reticular activating system. There's, there's what they call really bullet time in the movie where things slow down and you can begin to see things that you. There were always there that you couldn't see before.

The RAS is the filter. It's in the prefrontal cortex of your brain. It's the filter of your entire world. It scans in things that are only important to you, so you don't go crazy. Otherwise, if you think about the blood rushing through your right ear, the people in the corner moving around, you'd be crazy. So it keeps you sane. So when something becomes unbelievably important to you, filters in and slows things down for you. So I just was telling you guys, I just bought a Tesla. Brother, everywhere I go now I see Tesla's, huh? Red one, but babe, there's a white one. Hey, there's, there's a plaid there. Three lanes over other side of the freeway.

I'm like, babe, black Tesla just drove by. She's like, how in the world are you seeing these cars? I don't see 'em. I says, babe, 'cause they're important. Now here's the hook. Those Teslas were always there before. I never saw them 'cause they weren't a part of my matrix. They weren't a part of the RAS. So the hook in life is really, really simple. It's like when you walk in a room auditorily, it's really loud room. There's 300 people in there. Someone in a normal voice says, Shawn, you hear that voice because auditorily your voice is important to you. So you hear, see, and feel things that are always in your environment, but you were oblivious to before.

The key in life is programming your matrix. The key is that the Teslas of your life become those meetings, those relationships, those thoughts, those decisions. And when you get it going, 'cause you've had this too, you're like, my gosh, there's another one, there's another one, there's another one. You're like, this is, I'm vibing in a different way right now. And that's the difference. Not in anything in your environment. Anything in your life. Completely different in the filter to which the world reviews itself to you. And that's your matrix. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes. 

ED MYLETT: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: The most powerful thing that you said there is that you get to choose it. You do. If you become aware. 

ED MYLETT: You become aware. Well, that's what it says. What's he say in the movie? Free your mind, neo free your mind. And that's what everybody listening to this or watching this needs to understand. Free your mind. You can have all the tools in the world. Here's who I am in this space. There's brilliant dudes in this. I use practical things that are proven scientifically in your life that you can apply and understand pretty easily. And freeing your mind is the process of repeated visualizations of what it is that you want in your life because your mind moves towards what it's most familiar with. So it's most familiar with your worries, your problems, your to-do list. You gravitate right into that. Most people at some point in their life begin to operate out of their history and their memory.

That's their operating system in their brain. And so there might be different people, there might be different circumstances, but the emotions and the results are pretty much the same. They repeat history and memory over and over again. Rare people operate out of their imaginations and their dreams. That's their actual mindset and their life is their imagining and dreaming. The majority of the time when you're a child, you're happier. Why? I believe? 'cause you were just with God more recently. And two, you're operating out of your imagination and your dreams 'cause you have no history and memory. And then around 10, 11, 12 years old, we start to shift.

By the time we're 2025, we're operating out of history and memory most of the times. Now, one thing I would advise everybody I, you know, I write about what is thinking in the book. Because if you're gonna change your thoughts, you ought to actually analyze what is a thought, and the thought is the process of asking and answering questions to yourself. So if you want to change your thinking, you need to change the main questions that you're asking yourself. And you have some regular questions you ask yourself. So, and some of them are programmed deep into you. God bless my daddy, he stayed sober for 35 years, Shawn, but maybe 25 million times my dad, at the end of a conversation will say to me, Hey man, I love you.

Be careful. Be careful. I'm 50 years old before my dad dies. I'm worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Hey, love you. Be careful. I don't even know if he knew what he was saying it, right? I'm like, what the hell am I supposed to be so careful about? Right? What is this? Be careful thing. Well, if you heard that a bunch of times in your life, what that causes you to do, to start asking your questions, like you just said, where's the threat? What do I need to be worried about? Who's out to get me? My big thing is worry. What am I worried about right now? I'll literally, if I don't have anything to be worried about, if I'm not taking control, my mind will just loop until I find something to be worried about. I. And most human beings are unaware of their unconscious questions.

They're asking themselves all the time. And these create thoughts, and those thoughts create emotions, and those emotions create behaviors. And then you reinforce them over and over again. So everyone says, change your thinking. How do I do that? You have to take control of the questions you ask yourself. And sometimes for me, it's as simple honestly as me saying to myself, what would I need to believe about this right now? So that it would actually serve me? Let's even say you're right. Let's say that the deck stacked against you. Okay, fine. You could choose to believe that and you'll reinforce it. Or you could ask yourself the simple question. David Goggins and I were talking about this. He goes, sometimes I just ask myself, what would I need to believe about this so that I could actually work? And you change the question. You change the thought. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: So simple. 

ED MYLETT: Yeah. But people don't do it, and it's not pointed out to them. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. So we call this your dominant question as well.

ED MYLETT: Correct. Primary question. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: So what is the, what is the thing that is oftentimes unconsciously replaying in your mind? So when I was dealing with my health issues when I was 20, I was constantly asking why me? It was just on repeat, why me? Why me? Why is this happening to me? Why won't somebody help me? And you are going to be filtering your internal and external environment to find things to affirm why you That's right. Why your life sucks, why your health sucks. Why you're unhelpable. Right. And, but as you evolve, so number one, I changed my dominant question. 

ED MYLETT: Perfect. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Which it happened in an instant. That's the thing about decisions too. It's just took me time to get to that place. But I asked, what can I do to be the healthiest person in the world? That was the eventual question. 

ED MYLETT: Powerful question. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right. Crazy. It's crazy for me to think that. Yep. But I, the first question was, what can I do to feel better?

ED MYLETT: And you did it. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. 

ED MYLETT: That's what's more crazy. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. So powerful. But I asked, what, what can I do to feel better? That was the first question. And I just started to replay that. And I didn't realize I was doing it. But I just was looking to feel better. And I feel, I felt like finally I stopped looking for somebody else to be responsible for my health. 

ED MYLETT: I love it. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: And I was just like, I, I can do something. Right. 

ED MYLETT: I love it. I love it. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: And through that process, you know, I started to change my filter. Now I'm seeing things in my environment that were there the whole time. The certain books and people and resources and access to food and all these things that were there this whole two years, I'm suffering.

ED MYLETT: So true. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right. Because now I'm attuned to it.

ED MYLETT: I love that. I love that. I call it your primary question and you call it your dominant question. Yeah. Most people aren't aware they're asking that question, and I, by the way, we can regress if I'm being transparent. About two years ago 'cause we have, I have one more emotions. One of the chapters, so Dispenza talks about this too, but you have an emotional home, right? You have these five, six emotions you're gonna get on a regular basis no matter what the conditions are of your life. You find a way to get 'em. Even if you don't like 'em, you're familiar with 'em and you get 'em. So you could be, have ecstasy, joy, peace, you know, prosperity, whatever they might be love.

Or they could be worried, you know, frustration, anger, fear. And for me, most of mine were really healthy except one. And it was chaos. And I'm talking about like when I'm 45, 46, 47 years old and I'm like. I used to brag. I thrive in chaos, man. I thrive in chaos and I do. And the reason I do is I grew up the son of an alcoholic. There's chaos around me all the time. I learned to function in chaos when I was a little boy and I found a way to get my chaos. 

Even when I was 45 and worth hundreds of millions of dollars married to my dream woman. I find a way to get chaos. And I finally was aware, does this emotion serve me Now, one good thing about these things, thoughts, when we're aware of 'em, often they lose their power over us.

So to some extent, I'm like, I'm doing the chaos thing again, aren't I? I'm stirring this stuff up to make another mess so I can fix it. And so for me, mine was chaos. I didn't write a book because I'm perfect at these things. Some of the stuff I wrote in the book is actually for me to remind me, Hey man, these are things you still need to work on 'cause there's this, there's this dude back there still. That's that little insecure, bullied son of an alcoholic. No self-confidence dude sitting there. And if I'm not careful, he'll show back up sometimes. And so I have to really work on what is, what are the questions I'm asking myself? What are the thoughts?

Because the last thing I'll say about that is it's not the events of our life that define us. We think they are, but they're not. It's the meaning we attach to the event, and that meaning creates an emotion, and that emotion creates more decisions. You know what? You're probably gonna get about 20% of your goals. The truth is, but you'll get a hundred percent of your standards long term. You're always gonna eventually get your standard. That's why standards matter. That's why the standard of, if I don't listen, if you have no self-confidence, we already know why you don't. You don't keep the promises you make to yourself.

You have a reputation relationship with you where you don't trust you. If you want to build baseline confidence, you wanna become a functioning, really successful person. Start keeping the promises you make to yourself. If you wanna be superhuman, keep the promises you make to yourself. Plus one more. I'm gonna do 10 reps in the gym. Nope, I do 10 plus one more. I'm gonna text 10 on my friends today. Or make 10 business contacts. Nope, I do 10 plus one more. I'm gonna tell my daughter I love her. Nope, I'm gonna tell her I love her plus one more time. And so when you start to add a standard that's higher than just what you've committed to doing, now you've transformed yourself.

So that's a huge, huge thing. But in terms of goals, this is what blows my mind. We keep setting goals for the things we want or the achievements we want to have. I want the million dollars. I want the six pack abs. I want the dream relationship. So we go after stuff and things and achievements and benchmarks. What's ironic about it is no one ever takes an inventory of what their emotional goals are. 'cause the truth is you don't want the jet or the six pack abs. You want, how you think those will make you feel. You don't want the dream relationship. You want, how you think it'll make you feel. So why not start out intentionally with what you want to feel, what the emotions are like.

For me, this year is all about peace. This year is all about joy and peace and laughter, and I'm intentional about my goals to get them. Here's what I think. If I can get all the peace and all the joy and all the laughter that I'm seeking, the physical goals will take care of themselves. But when I'm after the physical all of the time, I'm gonna hit very few of them. And sometimes when you get there, they don't deliver on the emotion. You think they're going to give you very long because of this emotional, repetitive pattern you have. So start to get intentional about what's the emotions you want to feel. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. I hope that you got a lot of value out of this. This is one to share these mental meals, these snacks, these nuggets are so shareable and so valuable, and the different notes and, and tenors and essence from the different experts. You never know the impact that they can make. So please share this out with somebody that you care about. Of course, you could share this out on social media. Take a screenshot of the episode, share it out on your Instagram story or X or Facebook, share the love or of course you could send this directly from the podcast app that you're listening on. Write to somebody that you wanna share this empowerment with. We've got some incredible 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 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 and powering great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.