I am thrilled to have Dr. Josh Axe join me today. He is a chiropractic doctor and certified doctor of natural medicine. He is also a successful entrepreneur and leadership expert dedicated to helping people make better food choices and live healthier lifestyles.
In our discussion, Dr. Axe and I examine the pitfalls surrounding the concept of social proof and explore the importance of critical thinking. We dive into bio-individuality, nutrition, and fasting and examine how emotions influence people’s lifestyles and impact the ability to mitigate and manage stress. We also look at spiritual growth and maturity, and Dr. Axe shares the books and practices he recommends for improving lifestyle and mindset.
Dr. Axe is deeply committed to God and living a virtuous life. You will love this inspiring conversation where he shares his wisdom and meaningful steps you can take toward living a healthier and more balanced lifestyle.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:
Why we must always seek the truth regarding health information
How focusing too much on self-fulfillment can lead to unhappiness
How everyone requires a unique diet tailored to their specific physiology and health conditions
Dr. Axe shares his approach to intermittent fasting
Why we need to maintain healthy circadian rhythms
How different emotions affect different organ systems
How spiritual maturity helps in managing stress and maintaining overall health
Why finding identity and purpose is a crucial aspect of personal growth
How being part of a supportive community of virtuous individuals can help those who want to develop themselves
The benefits of finding meaning and purpose in life
Dr. Axe talks about his latest book, Think This Not That
“The truth will set you free. The truth will heal you.
The truth will lead you to live the best life.”
-Dr. Josh Axe
Connect with Cynthia Thurlow
Follow on Twitter
Check out Cynthia’s website
Submit your questions to support@cynthiathurlow.com
Connect with Dr. Josh Axe
Social media handle: @drjoshaxe
Get Dr. Axe’s latest book: Think This Not That on Amazon
Transcript:
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:00:02] Welcome to Everyday Wellness Podcast. I'm your host, Nurse Practitioner, Cynthia Thurlow. This podcast is designed to educate, empower, and inspire you to achieve your health and wellness goals. My goal and intent is to provide you with the best content and conversations from leaders in the health and wellness industry each week and impact over a million lives.
[00:00:29] Today, I had the honor of connecting with Dr. Josh Axe. He's a Doctor of Chiropractic, certified doctor of natural medicine, leadership expert, and highly successful entrepreneur with a passion to help people eat healthy and live a healthy lifestyle. Today, we spoke about what is so problematic about the concept of social proof, the impact of critical thinking and bio-individuality, the role of nutrition and fasting, the impact of emotions on lifestyle and our ability to manage and mitigate stress, the impact of spiritual growth and maturity, I was really impressed by Dr. Axe’s commitment to his relationship with God and living a life of virtue, specific books and recommendations for lifestyle as well as mindset, understanding your purpose, the role of spirituality and growth. I know that you will enjoy this conversation as much as I did recording it.
[00:01:32] Dr. Axe. I've been really looking forward to this conversation. Long time listener of your podcast and just appreciate the work that you do.
Dr. Josh Axe: [00:01:40] Well, thanks so much, Cynthia, again. Yeah, I'm excited to be here and talk all things, mindset medicine, food is medicine, and a lot more.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:01:50] Yeah, it's interesting, as I was reading your book, one of the first things that stood out to me was the problematic perspective with regard to the concept of social proof. I think, certainly now more than ever, people make assumptions that just because an influencer, a clinician, is talking about a product that somehow that means that it's undoubtably reliable. And what are your thoughts? Especially, and I don't make this political, today is our national election day. But it just seems particularly timely when we're talking about the concept of social proof. Why is it so problematic?
Dr. Josh Axe: [00:02:26] Well, the reality is this. The truth will set you free, the truth will heal you, the truth will live you to living the best life. And so, we want to know what the truth is. And unfortunately, there's a lot of half truths, there's a lot of propaganda, there's a lot of lies out there, and some of it is intentional and some of it's completely unintentional. But if you want to heal, if you want to have a great life, you need to discover the truth of what to eat for yourself, of who to vote for, what spiritual beliefs to follow. All of these things are important to our wellbeing. And so, when I look at the people that are the top 1% of the top 1%, the people that live the most, the best lives, and here's my definition of the best is my foundation is very much biblical.
[00:03:11] It is, I believe, that we are called to love God, love people, make earth a heavenly place. I believe we start in a garden as it talks about in Genesis and we'll end in a garden city as it talks about in the last two books of Revelation. And so, I want to help make this planet a paradise. I want to help love people, help find what their gifts and skills are, help them grow in character. And so, everything that I do is going into with that frame of mind. And so, if anything is not going to align with that, then it's false or it's a lie, or it's propaganda.
[00:03:45] I even see this. I see this in the health space. I see in the personal growth space. The personal growth space is very much like, make yourself happy, live the life of your dreams. But it becomes all about you which at the end of the day, the psychology research and the Bible and plenty of other things will state that actually leads you to be unhappy. I mean, it was really interesting as I was writing this book, think this, not that. One of the studies I came across and actually was repeated multiple times was if your goal is personal happiness, that's your primary goal, you will be unhappy, versus if you instead say, you know what, I want to help other people fulfill their dreams. I want to raise up great kids, I want to care for people that need help, then you're full of happiness and joy.
[00:04:34] So, it's counterintuitive maybe for some people in that. And so, I would just say, when we're looking at health information online and people posting on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook and all these social platforms, oftentimes we're seeing a single post or we're seeing a 30 or the 60-second clip, something very short. And then somebody sees and they're like, “Oh, okay, I'm going to run with whatever that is,” that I need to, I don't know, do intermittent fasting. I'm not saying that's wrong by the way. I'll get into that. [Cynthia laughs] But it could be, there's a lot right about it.
[00:05:10] I actually think it's very personal but we can get into that. But I'd say, should you fast, should you go carnivore? Should you go keto? Should you go vegan? Should you go, how do you know, right? How do you know? And so, I think in order to do that, you need to find, okay, who is somebody or multiple people that have helped people with the exact same thing I have going on. And then also, where do their principles meet. So, let's say somebody wants to heal their thyroid. And maybe one of the people they listen to is, Izabella Wentz, who knows quite a bit about thyroid health. And maybe another person could be, I'm trying to think of other thyroid experts I know, I don't know, Dr. Alan Christianson, Dr. [unintelligible [00:05:51], Mindy Pelz, these people.
[00:05:56] And then, I would say that, “Okay, well, where do they overlap? What do they all saying that's in common? Which of them has helped that women get the best results?” And then I'm going to look at those pieces of advice, and then I'm going to decide for the truth from there based off the wisest people, but a social influencer that, again, I'm not saying you can't be very wise in your early 20s, but you are just reposting something that someone else posted. Again and the other thing I'll say is that when I do podcasts, because I have my own podcast called the Dr. Josh Axe show, and we've had everybody from, Carrie Underwood on there, Mark Hyman, Jillian Michaels, a lot of people.
[00:06:31] And I can tell pretty early when I'm interviewing people if they've just memorized facts and they're just spitting those out versus if they understand the principles of the way things work. When I’ll think about somebody and some people may not like him, some people might like him a lot. I'm a huge fan of Jordan Peterson. He understands the way things work. I'm saying Elon Musk, he understands the way things work. So, they're experts, they've grown to a certain level of wisdom because they understand the principles of which the world or engineering or psychology, the way they work. And so, I would say, if you want to get yourself healthy, the fastest way to get healthy is to model someone else and to follow somebody who's living it out, who's healthy themselves. So, one, follow what those people do, but also, you want to listen to people that understand the principles, not just memorize the facts and repeat them, because they're going to be off somewhere.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:07:29] Well, it's interesting because I think what you're really speaking to is a degree of critical thinking that ultimately, if we are listening to someone, we want to make sure that they understand the nuances, because it's so easy just to regurgitate information. And I remember back in my medical training, my professors used to really challenge us. They would say, “If you cannot take concepts and break them down succinctly, it's okay, but it means you haven't learned them well enough to be able to understand the nuances.” And without calling this individual out on social media or on a podcast, there's an individual who thinks he knows a lot about a lot. And my husband, who's an engineer, heard him speaking, and he came to me and said, “This individual was talking about thyroid physiology.”
[00:08:13] And my husband repeated to me what this individual had said, and I said, “Well, that individual doesn't understand basic physiology.” And there's no harm in trying to educate people, but doing so from a place of authenticity, which speaks to what you're speaking to, but also understanding enough about whether it's the physiology of the body, whether it's understanding enough about the science so that you can speak from a point of true authentic nature as opposed to having a very surface perspective about a particular strategy, diet, methodology, etc.
Dr. Josh Axe: [00:08:47] This happens with women's hormones a lot. In my interview, I had Mindy Pelz on my podcast, and I don't know if you know Mindy.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:08:53] I've had her on the podcast a couple times.
Dr. Josh Axe: [00:08:55] Oh, great. Yeah, so she's somebody who, when I think about women's hormones, she understands the cycles. She understands what's going on. And this is something I've talked about for years, and I really appreciated her wisdom with this. And that is, when a woman is on her cycle, pre-menopause, you want to do things differently based on where you're at in your cycle. That early part of the cycle, you want to be lower carb, and in the later, higher carb and then in the middle, you want to be high protein throughout the whole thing? But all that being said, there are also better herbs to take at certain times and so it's very particular and here's the other thing.
[00:09:35] I think the best doctors help women understand their own bodies, they gain a level of self-awareness. The people that I see that are the healthiest, they tend to also become the most aware. I know how this food's going to affect me. I know that I need to take some time off now. This is true with everything in life, the people that are the most spiritually mature tend to be the most spiritually aware of what's going on around them. That's when you're around certain pastors and priests and rabbis and monks, there is this almost serenity about them is they know what's going on, they're very aware of the spiritual, the psychological, what's going on.
[00:10:08] But you want to be that same way, that level of awareness with your own body and your hormones and what's going on. And also knowing, my dietary philosophy is very much, you need to eat what's right for you. God made you as a very unique individual. And what happens with a lot of women is they will go, and men do this too. But I think it's even more prevalent with women with diet, because statistically, women do a lot more diets than men. And so, when we look at, you'll have, “Oh, my friend did this diet.” “Okay, I'm going to do this diet and I bet that's going to help me. But your physiology is likely very different than the woman next to you.”
[00:10:49] One thing that I never was taught when I got my medical training was that somebody with cancer and somebody with inflammatory bowel disease and somebody with hypothyroidism, those are all very different diets that somebody should be on, very different. They don't teach that in school. So, I had to learn through practice and through having some really amazing world class doctors learn from them and then learn as I started treating patients and that sort of thing. But somebody who has inflammatory bowel disease should be almost eating exclusively soups. It should be a lot of broth. It should be a lot of, for a carb, a sweet potato, lots of soups, though. Somebody with hypothyroidism, we really need to support their adrenals. It's going to be more like it.
[00:11:35] So, they're going to do some soups, they're going to do rice, they're going to do berries. We need to get them on ashwagandha. We need to get them on Rhodiola rosea. We got to get them on what are called these Qi Yang boosters in Chinese medicine and Ayurveda and get that cellular energy up, support the mitochondria and somebody with cancer, we need to help their body get more catabolic and get into autophagy which is why fasting and keto can be so good, is we need to start cleansing your cells and getting rid of the extra debris and inflammatory things in there. So, we need to do actually some raw foods and not a lot. It didn't need to be all raw, but it needs to be some raw.
[00:12:13] But if I would put that person with IBD, inflammatory bowel disease on the cancer diet, it would be terrible for them. They would have major gut issues. So, it's important that people tap into a diet that's very specific and unique for them.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:12:28] I couldn't agree more. And I think that the longer that I do this, first as a nurse practitioner and then pivoting eight years ago away from traditional allopathic medicine, the one thing I've found is that some nutritional paradigms are helpful for certain times in our lives.
Dr. Josh Axe: [00:12:44] That’s right.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:12:43] An example, I spent 13 days in the hospital with a ruptured appendix, a slew of complications. When I came out, I was full carnivore for nine months. And then it took time to be able to reintroduce fiber into my diet. Now that doesn't say that I'm unsupportive of carnivore diet. I just think that there are seasons and reasons in our lives when certain nutritional methodologies may be more beneficial than others. And the same goes to intermittent fasting. It is a great strategy. It doesn't mean it's the right strategy for everyone.
[00:13:11] Certainly with women, there's a time and a cycle to fast, a time not to fast. If you are a stressed-out menopausal woman who's not sleeping and you have a garbage diet and you don't exercise, I probably would argue that you got to dial in on the sleep and managing your stress before you add additional hormetic stressors into your lifestyle. But once you get those dialed in, that might be a fantastic strategy for you.
Dr. Josh Axe: [00:13:34] Yeah, absolutely agree. When it comes to fasting, I think that I've found that here's how I start people with intermittent fasting. I have them do a 10-hour eating window and that might not seem long because I know-- people are in the eight hour, the six or the four, But I found for a lot of women, I like them to still get three meals in a day. Men, I found, can do a lot better with two meals. Now, I'm not saying this is every time across the board, but what I'll have women do is kind of do a late breakfast and early dinner. So, I'll still have them get those three meals in. And the first meal is typically protein, small amount of carbs, almost no fat. And then I have them do more fat for lunch and dinner.
[00:14:16] In Chinese medicine, in the way that I view it is, you tend to want to do more carbs in the morning, and it goes down as the day goes on to do almost none at night. And then you start with very little fat, and then you do more fat in the evening because your stomach and your pancreas, those organs are the strongest in the morning according to the biological clock of TCM, and then your gallbladder, liver are the strongest in the evening. So anyways, that's the way that I've tended to recommend it. But again, to your point, I think it really depends if we really want to amp things up and get more autophagy going, I will shorten the window of intermittent fasting for them in some cases.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:14:52] Yeah. And it's so interesting because we know, and this is aligned with not just allopathic medicine, but also functional integrative approach when we're insulin sensitive earlier in the day. So, if someone's looking to have some healthy carbohydrates, whether or not it's low glycemic berries, sweet potato, root vegetables, that's the time to maximize earlier in the day. And then appropriately, maybe you're increasing some of your fat intake throughout the day. And that helps support that healthy circadian physiology, the internal clocks that we have, so many of us think about, we just have this pineal gland in our brain, but actually understanding that we have circadian clocks throughout our digestive system. So, that's why eating late at night can disrupt melatonin secretion, can increase cortisol, can make it harder for your body to actually process that bolus of food late in the evening.
Dr. Josh Axe: [00:15:43] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's big. We've heard for years in ancient forms of medicine, you should not go to sleep within three hours of eating. In our house, it was so funny when I was growing up, my grandparents would eat dinner at 05:00 PM and I was like, “What's wrong?” I'm like, “Why do we want to eat dinner now, let's eat at 07:00 PM or 08:00 PM?” And then now I have kids, have a 4-year-old and we haven't had her sleeping in her own bed now, but she likes me to start to lay down with her. And by the time she falls asleep, like I'm ready to go to bed, but I'm laying down in bed at, I don't know, 08:00 PM, and so that's why we eat dinner at 05:00 PM now, my grandparents did 30 years ago, so it's, yeah.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:16:30] It's interesting as the evolution of parenting because when my kids were that age, I now have teenagers, they didn't mind eating early. Now they eat, sometimes they have first dinner, second dinner. They're eating at 6 o’ clock and then they're eating at 9 o’ clock, they're up later. And so, our physiology starts to shift as we get older and then kind of winds back down. And my grandparents too, they would eat very early and they would wake up very early and their sleep was also disrupted. They had less deep sleep the older that they got. And it's interesting seeing how things come in a circuitous way.
[00:17:07] I'm curious for you when, you're working with patients and helping them navigate nutritional choices depending on their own physiology, talking about whether or not intermittent fasting is a good strategy for them. Where does sleep and stress management fall into the milieu for you about prioritization in terms of lifestyle?
Dr. Josh Axe: [00:17:27] One of the reasons why I think that-- I've been blessed to have some really great, I said, mentors and one of them in particular, he's the man from Israel and he's practiced Oriental Chinese medicine for years and years. And he's the best doctor and acupuncturist that I've ever met. And so, I've been training with him for 10 years and I found very early on in practice that if I was going to get the best results, I had to prioritize spiritual and emotional health, sleep and stress. Now stress really goes along with that spiritual mental component and a lot of people don't realize how harmful. It's not stress, just stress, it's how you perceive and react to the stress. And it's more of that, it's even more of that.
[00:18:17] I mean, I would argue when you look at certain people that, I mean, you could have one person-- two people that have the exact same amount of emotional stress and one of them is an absolute wreck with depression and anxiety and struggling with loneliness and a number of things. And another one is absolutely happy and has very low levels of actually, like, we look at their HRV and other factors regarding stress and cortisone, completely normal. So, I think it's important to understand first off, so much of stress is how you react to it. The other thing is we were created to deal with a tremendous amount of stress if we also are getting plenty of rest. I mean, imagine it's like building muscle.
[00:18:59] It's like, okay, you can go in the gym and over time your body can handle, you can squat, you can deadlift, you could go sprint on a bicycle. I mean your body can handle a lot as long as you're resting in between the bouts of stress. So, there's two main problems today. So, one, going into how we deal with the stress. This all has to do with spiritual and personal growth. Now it's known within Chinese medicine different emotions affect different organ systems. And this is also known within Western medicine. So, it's all medicine.
[00:19:27] If you have a lot of fear that leads to a fight or flight state. And by the way, fear could be not just fear of dying, it could be fear of disappointing your parents, fear of failure. You're a people pleaser, you want everyone to like you. So, that's a level of low-grade fear. So, living in a state of fear starts to cause your adrenal glands to pump out adrenaline and cortisol. And then that of course affects insulin, everything else. And so, we know that's a stressor of your adrenals, which then also really affects your reproductive organs and to a degree your thyroid. And then we have the emotion of worry, you're overthinking, you're obsessing, you're doing those sorts of things and that affects your digestive system primarily. And then we have the emotion of anxiety, nervousness, okay. You're worried about maybe a future event, something like that happening, the election. So, you're into something and then that affects your heart. Your blood pressure will start to raise over time if that gets stressed.
[00:20:21] You've had something happen in the past and it still bothers you today, it could be a form of abuse, it could be a regret, could be shame. Something has happened in the past and you're still carrying it with you today. That affects your immune system, primarily your lungs and colon, and then issues regarding anger, resentment towards others, unforgiveness. A lot of that is liver, gallbladder, lymphatics, that's detoxification system. Different emotion and everybody is wired to deal with confrontation in a different way. And if you get imbalanced, most of us tend to pick one of those five categories or it'll affect one of those five organ systems.
[00:20:54] And there's a unique study out of Stanford, and they found that primarily they looked at about four to five different organ systems and they said most of us have one organ system that physiologically, when we look at blood work, is much older than the others and that's the organ that kills us. So, this is why, you have a man die at 60 years old. No history of anything else, looks young, big muscles, fit, heart attack. Well, his heart should live to be 120, I'm going to say 60 years older than it should have been versus maybe his muscles were that of like a 40 year, he's like younger, they are very physiologically young.
[00:21:32] And, so the first thing I would say is work on spiritual growth where you are that priest, that pastor, that rabbi, that monk, that person that has a very high level of maturity. You're not petty, you care more about what God thinks than what others think. And you walk through the world like if somebody says something negative to you, your first thought is that you can step out of you, instinctively want to verbally punish them back, and instead you're able to say hurt people say hurtful things. I wonder what's hurting that person. I wonder what's. “Oh, I remember they lost their spouse, they're going through a divorce. I think there's something going on with them.”
[00:22:10] What can I say comforting or what could I see to get the root of the issue? “Hey, how are you? What's going on in your life?” So, you get to that point where you can do that and you can live with virtue and character and then also with that. Now if you're dealing with that constantly all day, eventually even the high character people can start to suffer. And that's where you also need to stop striving all the time, stop trying to be perfect, stop trying to be all things to all people at all times. And in order to fix that, you need to understand that you're a child of God, you're not just created to produce, you're created to enjoy and love and be nourished as well, not just nourish others.
[00:22:49] And so you give yourself some downtime, you schedule time into your week to do the things you love and to spend time with the people you care about and unplug or plug in and get recharged, metaphorically. And so, I would say I probably more than almost any physician I know, prioritize spiritual and mental health because I think it's the foundation of health. I think it's more important than the food we eat. And so, I would say it's the primary. And I do think sleep accompanies that. And I think, here's what I found personally, the single greatest factor that allows me to get better sleep at night. It's proportional to the amount of time I spend outside.
[00:23:33] Now, there are other things, like the spiritual health piece, eating quality diet, using my BluBlockers at night, my weighted blanket and get in the room cold and dark and all those things. But spending time outside, like if you ever go on the lake for the day, you'll notice this. You go out like boating or something like that and you're outside all day and you go home, you'll notice you will sleep like a rock. Because we're meant to live in tune with nature. We're meant to be in tune with what's going on with the sun and nature all day. And most of us are completely out of tune. And so, it's really throwing off our biological clock. So, I know I've talked a long time here, but to just answer your question, I prioritize spiritual life, stress, and sleep above food.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:24:20] I think it's so interesting because as you were talking about the role of emotions, whether it's fear or worry or anxiety, etc., how that can drive a biological mechanism that is then stressing specific organs. It really brings back to me, especially as a middle-aged woman, how many listeners that are women are people pleasers or reformed people pleasers. Because I feel like when I'm looking at patient’s blood work or talking to women, I think fear drives so many decisions, whether it is rooted in childhood, rooted in lifestyle experiences. For me, that adrenal aspect, if it isn't an issue in your 20s and 30s, it absolutely will be in your 40s, 50s, and beyond. Because just like women go through perimenopause, menopause, our adrenal glands get overtaxed. There's adrenal pause, there's thyroid pause. So, understanding how critically important it is to invest in yourself, do you find beyond talking about the Bible and the teachings there, are there other books that you feel like have been instrumental for you personally in terms of your spiritual growth and maturity?
Dr. Josh Axe: [00:25:27] Oh, there's numerous, but I'll just share this. For me, it's either the book or books about the book. Let me think of a few specifically-- I think that the biggest issues plaguing people today, and I think if they can learn about this, it will change their life more than anything, spiritually, mentally. Mental health issues are on the rise more than anything, there are identity issues, most of them. And your identity will then feed your purpose. Only 25% of people know what their purpose is, clearly.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:25:57] Really? That's unbelievable.
Dr. Josh Axe: [00:25:59] Yeah, that's one of the things. When I was writing my book, I was so shocked by it because it's actually very important for longevity. There's another study I read years ago that showed when somebody retires from work and if they don't soon after find something else that is meaningful for them, they die very early because their work gave their life meaning. If they don't find something else soon after, if they decide to retire, then again. In Chinese medicine, purpose is very tied to adrenal health. Your adrenals will tank over time in your cellular energy. It's really tied to your mitochondrial health, actually.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:26:34] Well, it makes so much sense because and not to interrupt you, I look at my parents who've been divorced for a long time. My dad was able to take an early retirement, didn't invest in, despite being a very intelligent person, really took retirement unplugged, became less social, and really became much less happy than he had been when he was working full time, versus my mom retired and now does a lot of philanthropic work, she got a Master Gardener certification. She likes keeping herself busy, enjoys interacting with others, enjoys the social aspects of retirement, and she's doing so much better. I mean, my dad is now deceased, but I could look at both of them and could see such a huge disparity in how they approach that phase of their lives.
[00:27:20] And I agree with you. If you lose your sense of purpose or you don't have a purpose. That's why I think when I worked in clinical cardiology for 16 years, my patients that had pets, now, their pet could have been a rodent, their pet could have been a cat, a dog. But the patients that had something, they had to get up and care for every day did so much better than those that did not.
Dr. Josh Axe: [00:27:42] It makes so much sense. It makes so much sense. So, going back to this, I do think that, now the biggest thing that feeds your purpose is your identity and it's what gives your life meaning. And now that we have more people that are less religious. If you don't have religion, let me just say this, I'm going to rhetorically ask everybody this question. What's more meaningful living for today only, living for your temporary life here, or living for eternity? The longer you put something out? Like so again, if I do something and it only makes difference for today, it's not quite as meaningful if I do something today and I know it's going to impact me for the rest of my life.
[00:28:30] What about for the rest of my life beyond this current life here of 100 years or whatever it's going to be right? So, we know that the longer you put out time, the more significant something is. Also, you make something more significant when it impacts more people. Okay, the greater number of other people that are impacted. So, let's play this out. If one of my parts of my identity is as a dad, and a very low fatherly identity would be, “Okay, I'm a dad if I impregnate a woman and that's it and I can’t even run off.” Okay, I did something one time, one day, one moment, boom, done. Actually, when you look at societal downfalls, fatherlessness is like one of the top five that will cause an entire society to crumble. So, anyways, so there's that.
[00:29:21] Now what's a big step up from that? A father who sticks around, shows up and is there, maybe provides financially for the family too. That's a big step up. There's more meaning there. They're going to be there for their kids for their lifetime. But is there a step beyond that? There is. And it's this is that I believe I'm called by God, my God, my perfect father who pours into me with perfect love. I'm called to build up world changing kids where I help them grow in their character. I help them find that unique thing that God gifted only them to do in the world. Like my daughter right now we're like, we're getting her into swimming because I think she's going to be a good swimmer or looking at helping craft her character to be more kind and compassionate towards others.
[00:30:04] I want to do that also. Not just thinking about her, but her kids and their kids and their kids. In helping my daughter become an amazing Christ like individual that impacts eternity. And so, when I go in with the frame of mind of my identity as father and my role or my responsibilities are to either impregnate or provide or help transform and lead and guide and mentor to the highest level and the greatest life possible. Like one of them is very motivating, like thinking and knowing every single thing I do has eternal significance.
[00:30:45] Even talking about, like I'm now more passionate, I'm more purpose driven because of that. Here's something that this is so key for people to understand. You don't find your identity in yourself. You find it in community. I can only be a father because I also have a wife, like, part of my role is within a family structure type of a community with a wife and with kids, okay, so that's part of that. Our identity is always anchored to something else. So, people will anchor themselves, hoard my identity. People today would be like, it's a social activist thing, like I'm an environmentalist or I'm a Republican or I'm a Democrat or I may, whatever, right?
[00:31:29] What you want to anchor yourself to is the thing that's the most significant and the thing or the person that's most significant. And then you want to also grab onto the role where you can have the biggest impact, okay. And so last thing I'll say about this, I hope this isn't too confusing for people, but my point is this is that, the best thing to anchor yourself to is God. For me as an identity, the strongest anchor is I'm a child of God. That's called [unintelligible [00:31:56]. I'm an heir, I'm a king, I'm a priestess, I'm a queen, obviously for women as well there. So, if you can do that, it just gives your life so much significance. Now there's a lot of books I like on this topic.
[00:32:11] I think again, the Bible is number one after that. There's a book I really like by called And David Perceived He Was King. That's by Dale Mast. I think that's a great book. John Bevere has one called The Awe of God, which I think is a great book. There's a Book by Bill Johnson called Born for Significance. And these are books, I think, that hit on identity, and I think getting to know your identity and then God's identity, which should feed your identity. Those are the biggest things, I think, that will impact people mentally and spiritually. I think they're the things that will have the biggest impact.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:32:46] Yeah, thank you for that. And if someone's listening and they have limiting beliefs around identity or their purpose or their relationship with a higher power, where would you suggest they start in terms of, you talk in the book and it isn't per se wrapped up in this question about how limiting beliefs can impact us as they are excuses that can keep us from living our best lives. How would you help them find that reframe of figuring out for themselves what is their true purpose, what is their true identity? How do they cultivate a relationship with God or their rabbi or their priest that will allow them to feel more fulfilled and feel like they are more connected to something other than just themselves.
Dr. Josh Axe: [00:33:39] Yeah. So, I would say that there's a few things to consider. One is, I think going with a mind frame of this matters. Your eternity, it matters. And so, pursue it like you would something that's incredibly important. For me, I decided once when I was in college, I. And I grew up in a Christian home and I was really blessed to have great parents. But then I had a couple years of going to college and going out and drinking into parties, quite a bit. And then I got to a point, like my junior year where I just felt really empty. That's what I'll say. I think there's a lot of people that feel like this. They feel like, “I feel empty, I don't know if my life matters or if it has great meaning and significance.” And there's just this longing and wanting for something. So then, people and myself at that time, are you trying to fill yourselves with alcohol or food or a hobby? For me it was triathlons. It was different things.
[00:34:37] And finally, I decided, you know what, I knew what it was like earlier in my life at certain points to have a relationship with God. And I'm going to pursue that again. And so, I just got down on my hands and knees and prayed to God and I said, God, I want you, I want to live a significant life, I want to live a life that matters. I just am asking you and begging you to come into my life and to intervene and I'm going to do my part in pursuing you and getting to know you, but I pray that you would also pursue me and in that same way. And I started showing up places and then God showed up in different ways. I went to a church, and then I had a guy come up to me and say, “Hey, I'm starting a men's group. Do you want to be a part of it?” And I was really looking for community because I didn't have it at all. And I said, yeah and I felt like that was God showing up for me in that same way right there. I think, getting plugged into a group.
[00:35:26] I could give you a book, but I think plugging into other virtuous people that have those values is the single greatest way. I mean, I was interviewing Dave Ramsey on my podcast, and we cover a lot of health, but we also cover personal growth. And I wanted to talk to Dave about his beliefs and his career. And he told me that they did a study at his company, and they found that your average net worth becomes the average net worth of the 10 people that you spend the most time with. And it's very similar to that principle of you become the five people you spend the most time with, but it's true across the board and everything. You become like the people you spend time with. And I encourage a lot of people to do this. Write down the people you're spending time with. Rank them on a scale of 1 to 10 on how much they are challenging you in helping you grow and become the greatest version of yourself, which is more loving, more kind, better at your career, all those things, better parent, better spouse. And a lot of people will look at that. And by the way, don't count your spouse and that you need to count the other five people. And then most people are like, “Okay, maybe I have one person, but then I got like four people that are actually negative.” And so, if you have people that are below five that they're not really spurring you on, then go and find other people in your life that are going to be our iron sharpens iron and help you live the best life possible.
[00:36:49] So that's the single greatest thing I would say, is one, connect with God personally. Spend time in prayer, in reading. I think the book of John in the Bible is the best. John and then probably Acts and Romans, and then I would say Genesis is the best place to start in the Bible. And then there are other good books. I mentioned And David Perceived He Was King I think Born for Significance. There's a lot of great books, but I think that's where I would start.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:37:12] And I think it's so interesting that, you brought up the five people you spend the most time with. And I think if you are growing as an individual, spiritually and otherwise, that will adjust as you progress in your career or progress in your life. I feel like I have wonderful friends from multiple points within, throughout my lifetime. But I can tell you the friends that are willing to give me their honest opinion, even if it's unsolicited and I may not want to hear it. The people that are constantly encouraging you to push yourself, like I'm an introvert. I just spoke at an event called Eudaimonia that was amazing. And my typical introverted self would be happy going to do my talk, speaking on a couple panels, seeing a few people, and then going back to my hotel room.
[00:38:01] But my very good friend who unsolicitedly said, “You're going to be in this amazing environment. There are amazing people. Do not go back to your room. So, every single night I did things socially, push myself outside my comfort zone. But a real friend, a person that is looking into not just your entrepreneurial journey, but also your personal professional journey, is going to encourage you to push yourself, to not fall back on, I don't want to say maladaptive behaviors, but behaviors that ultimately are not going to serve you well. You should take advantage of the circumstances that you're in and ensure that you are growthful. And I think one of the things that I like people to understand is that growth is uncomfortable. Growth is not meant to make you comfortable.
[00:38:47] And that's also what you're speaking to is that sense of community, being around others, being inspired by people of the same value system, the same goals, the same connection to. For you, certainly it sounds like connection to God is paramount. And so, I think that's applicable to so many people that are listening to really not get to a point where you are not encouraging yourself to be growthful.
Dr. Josh Axe: [00:39:12] Yeah, yeah. absolutely agree. And I think it's important to remember-- There was a psychologist, actually it was Jordan Peterson, and I was watching a lecture he did, and he started going over some of the psychology research on what makes somebody happy. And part of what I mentioned earlier was one of the things that makes you not happy is when you focus on self-fulfillment. But he said, “When you feel like you are growing and you're moving forward in life. It could be growing leadership in your business, or a certain skill, or growing in your character virtue. That's what truly makes you happy.” There's lots of clinical studies to show that. Nobody likes to feel stagnant in life. I mean, it's depressing versus you feel like, “Okay, I'm moving forward.”
[00:39:59] I remember I went to a John Maxwell seminar years ago, and he asked this question. He said, “What's your plan for growth?” I was in my 20s and at the time, and I thought, “Well, I don't have a plan for growth. Nobody's ever asked me that question.” And so, I really had to sit down and write down, like, “What I want to do with my life, what are my goals?” And let's think even bigger. Let's now 10x those goals and what person do I need to become in order to achieve those goals? And most people don't think about that. Most people feel like, “Well, I'll be the same person in 10 years that I am now.” When in reality, in order to achieve anything great, it's not what you accomplish that matters in life. It's who you become first.
[00:40:40] Because the accomplishments will come from becoming. What happens is if your whole focus is on just accomplishing things, you end up like Lance Armstrong. It's like you'll gain the world and lose your soul. And there's many other people. I don't mean to pick on him. I was just a triathlete growing up and really, admired him at some point. And then it was like, “Well, obviously that admiration was gone.” But there are other people who became certain types of people who like my grandfather's one of them lived to be 96, helped thousands of people he had a campground, had a retreat center, did so much for people.
[00:41:18] I remember being in his funeral, and the pastor asked, and they don't always do this at funerals, but somebody said, “Does anyone have any final words about Howard?” And the man next to me just blurted out in tears, “Howard was my best friend.” And at first, I actually was a little bit like, “Well, I don't think he's your best friend because that's my Uncle Don,” anyways. [Cynthia laughs] But then I thought, “No, you know what? I'm sure he was there's 150 people here and probably half of them truly believe that my grandfather was their best friend that they ever had.” Because he was the guy even in his 90s, and walk up to you, put his shoulder on you, you know, this weathered figure. He was like World War II Navy veteran, and say, “Can I pray for you or how can I help you today?” And he died with like almost nothing because he just gave everything away.
[00:41:58] And I thought that's real success becoming that. And that's actually biblical too. I've never read the Bible where it says you need to accomplish something. It's talking a lot more about becoming like Christ, which is a sacrificial servant for all, which is loving other people and being very generous with your gifts and your time and your money. It's those sorts of things. And when you become that type of person, you're physically healthier for it. We're living in a culture today, they actually call ruminating.
[00:42:29] I've seen some psychological studies on when you think about your problems all the time, the psychology culture or this counseling culture where people go and sit with a counselor and talk about their problems over and over and over again. It makes them more ill because it puts their focus back on all their problems versus if they would just go and focus on the things that they're gifted at doing or on serving other people. Depression, anxiety, loneliness would all typically lift and be gone in most cases, so, yeah.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:42:59] It's so interesting. And it's one of the things I enjoyed about reading your book was the tremendous love and respect and admiration that you had for your grandfather and how that influenced you as an individual. And I think what a tremendous gift to have grandparents and family members that you can look to to model behavior that you want to then imbibe and provide to your own families. And it's interesting, I think for every person out there, I'm very solutions oriented. So, as an example, and I'm married to an engineer who is very solutions oriented. He always says, “Don't come to me--” This is this prevailing philosophy. “Don't come to me with a problem without asking me to come up with a solution.”
[00:43:41] So, when you're talking about things like even if it's talk therapy for some people, they need to just get it out and then they move forward. For others, you appropriately stated, sometimes it just makes them feel overwhelmed with all the things that are going on in their lives. And I think when things do not work out for us ideally, it's because something better is coming or it's something that is improved upon is coming. I'll give you an example. I was at this event. I never trip. I've been talking about this on social media. I tripped, I fell on my elbow, I fell on my chin, which is why I've got a big bruise on it. And I kept saying, yeah, I'm going to be sore for a couple days. I didn't break anything. I've had x-rays done. But it could have been so much worse. I'm so grateful that I was at this event and I'm so grateful I was participating. And thank God I didn't actually end up with something that was going to limit my ability to go out and do my purpose and be able to interact and show up for these interviews and be able to share this with my community.
[00:44:38] So, I think that so much of what you're speaking to is finding these reframes, taking things that happen to us in our lives and finding a way to make it better or find the reframe or find an ability to permit us to contribute more to others, the communities that we serve, our families, our relationship with higher spirits.
Dr. Josh Axe: [00:44:59] Yeah, yeah, 100%, yep. Absolutely agree.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:45:03] Well, Dr. Axe, it's been such a pleasure connecting with you. I really enjoyed that went a little bit off script. So much of what I prepared for our conversation, we just did what was organic. Please let listeners know how to connect with you, how to purchase your new book, listen to your podcast, etc.
Dr. Josh Axe: [00:45:19] Yeah, so, yeah, my podcast is called the Dr. Josh Axe Show. It's on all the networks. We're on Apple, YouTube primarily, I would say. And we've had a lot of great guests. By the way, one thing that I've covered a lot of topics over the years, so if there's something specifically you want to know more about, you could always search Dr. Axe hypothyroidism or Dr. Axe menopause or Dr. Axe vitamins or something like that on YouTube or Google or on iTunes and find out more. I've covered a lot of these topics in depth and then social media is @drjoshaxe. And then the new book is called Think This, Not That.
[00:45:55] And I think that's a great place for people to start if they want to build a rock-solid identity, build their purpose and then go from there. I think that's a great place to start as well. Yes, thank you. So, and I again the book really, we didn't even get into this. I mean I wrote this book where I didn't walk for a year. Two years ago, I was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness which was based on a simple-- had very minor surgery, they made a mistake, I got infected at disc, my back got infected, my spinal cord almost died. And so, the book turned into really something else.
[00:46:26] I spent probably 10 times more on that book than any other book I'd written because I was bedridden for a year and I was able to really think through how do I live the most meaningful life possible and really focus on healing with the power of the mind. And so, it's a book I'm the most proud of, most excited for people to read again. It's called Think This, Not That is a New York Times bestseller. It's on Amazon. And so yeah, people can check out the podcast and the book as well. But Cynthia, thanks so much for having me on. I really enjoyed the conversation and I love talking about nutrition. I focus on that primarily, but also really do love talking about spiritual health and mindset because, all of these things are interconnected.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:47:05] Absolutely. Thank you again for your time today.
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