Dr. Axe: Hey, guys.
Dr. Josh Axe here with Dr. Chris Zaino.
Chris, good to be here with you, bud.
Dr. Zaino: What's up, Josh?
Good to see you.
Dr. Axe: We're going to be talking about today daily success.
Chris is one of the most successful people I know in, really, all areas of his life.
Chris, I know that I've been really impressed with you.
I know I've gone and stayed with you in The Woodlands there in Texas several times, and
I've just seen the way you are with your wife, Whitney, the way you are with your kids, the
way you are in practice, and the way you are physically with working out.
You and I were having a conversation about what it really takes to be successful in business.
The thing that you brought up is it's not really about being successful in business.
It's about your daily habits and being your identity.
It's about the way you conduct yourself and really how being successful really should
permeate every area of your life.
Talk about you, your daily life.
What is the mindset you have to have?
Number two, I'd love to kind of get a glimpse into your daily life.
What are these habits and things you're doing every day?
Dr. Zaino: That was a great point, because for the longest time, and I don't know if
you went through this too, I felt that my identity was in what I did.
Therefore, if I was a good doctor, I was a successful person.
What would happen to the rest of my life?
My life was in a compartment, in a box.
Then over the years, I realized, "Wait a second.
Being a doctor didn't make me successful.
I'm a successful person, and I bring that into whether I'm a doctor, a dad, a husband,
or I am speaking with you right now."
It's like, wait a second.
It was the opposite.
That meant that something dictated my happiness versus, "I'm going to become a successful
person."
Developing me, mentally, physically, socially, spiritually, was the key foundation to actually
be successful in all the other areas of my life.
Dr. Axe: I see this with a lot of doctors, especially chiropractors as well.
There's this low self-esteem.
Talk to me about that a little bit.
Why do you think that is?
Again, there are a lot of chiropractors out there who lack self-esteem.
What are some things for yourself . . . Again, I know you're a really confident person.
You're not egotistical, but you're very confident and have a good self-esteem, which we should
all have.
You know who you are.
Why do you think chiropractors have that issue and what are some things that you've done
or that mindset you have that's caused you to have this this level of confidence?
Dr. Zaino: It really came to personal development, because I believe the low self-esteem issue
was . . . I can only talk for myself.
When I started in chiropractic, I came from a part where . . . Really, my whole life,
I was raised in a dogma where if I was anything that was considered prideful or ego, I was
actually considered anti-God, a bad person, sinner.
As a chiro, I was trained to go out and serve and serve.
Because I wanted to avoid any pride or ego, I swung the pendulum over this side but not
humility, false humility.
False humility is this martyring.
I wouldn't accept the thank you from a patient or the love from the patient or the appreciation
from my peers.
What started to happen?
False humility, what it does is it drive self-esteem down, it pulls out your human value, and it's
this martyring thing that takes all self-importance away, and then you wonder why you stay depressed
and resent things.
I realized that it was okay to say, "Hey, this is the gifts and talents I've been given,
and I could be okay with that."
I realized if I can't accept love, how can I give it away?
If I can't be confident or be proud of the gifts and talents and have the level of self-importance
that I am helping people, how can I give that away?
Then I said, "I've got to work on me and be okay with it."
That's not a sin.
In fact, it became what I call "selfish unselfish."
If Josh doesn't work on Josh, if I don't work on myself . . . I work on myself so I can
be a servant and serve to such a capacity that the world has never seen before.
That's how that shift happened.
The self-esteem thing is just saying, "Hey, wait a second.
I am a hero.
I'm not this this piece of meat that means nothing.
I am an important person."
I think it just comes from some people's dogmas.
For me, that's what it was.
Dr. Axe: It's a huge point, Chris.
This is something that I've seen in working with a lot of chiropractors and other entrepreneurs
and practitioners.
I was really blessed to have a dad who all the time came up to me and said, "I'm proud
of you."
I think for a lot of chiropractors out there, they've never . . . Maybe they didn't have
that family environment where their dad or their mom or loved ones said, "Hey, I'm proud
of you.
You are great.
You're doing a great job."
I think a lot of people never had that, so you're right.
A lot of these groups and organizations today, they instill this thing in you, this false
humility, which is so damaging.
Again, that's one of the reasons why I know you're so successful.
As Dr. Chris is talking about, some of the things that you can start doing with that
is working on personal growth.
Go back and find out why is it that you have low self-esteem?
Is it because you didn't have a coach or a father or somebody telling you they were proud
of you?
Then there's a biblical way around that knowing that you have a Father in heaven who is proud
of you and really meditating on who you are.
Again, if you're watching this as a child of God and those types of things, these are
things that Dr. Chris and I both meditate on in a regular basis.
Dr. Chris, let's look inside your life right now.
Again, you've got a lot of stuff going on.
Dr. Zaino: Tons of stuff.
Dr. Axe: You recently won Mr. Universe.
Dr. Zaino: Last year, yes.
Dr. Axe: I came out of, early on, and it's been years, doing a lot of weightlifting and
just a little bit of bodybuilding.
I know the amount of time it takes.
It's crazy the amount of time and focus.
You've got a great relationship with your wife, Whitney.
You're spending time with your kids.
You've got to practice.
You're building other brands, so a whole other entrepreneur.
With all that going on, let's look at your week.
Break it down.
What does a morning look like, an afternoon?
Walk me through your day from waking up to the time you go to bed.
Dr. Zaino: The greatest commodity you have is not money, it's time.
We could always make more money.
I saw you scoreboards out there.
I love it.
We're never going to get more time.
Waking up early, if I wake up at 8:00 a.m. versus at 4:00 a.m.
. . . If I wake up at 4:00 a.m., I created four extra hours.
In one day, that's a lot.
Compound that over seven years.
Think how much extra time you have.
The morning is so important to me because the kids and wife are sleeping, and that's
my personal time.
Here's my whole routine.
I work on me first, so I wake up.
I do my detox protocol.
I wake up, I do my sauna, the coffee enemas.
I do all those things.
I read my personal development books or anything I'm that thinking about.
If I'm working on a keynote talk, I work on that.
My morning routine is almost like an hour and a half.
I do the vitamin D bed.
In the morning, I'm listening to podcasts.
I'm just multitasking.
I'm just filling myself up for two hours, and it's setting my spirit, my mind and my
focus to true north.
I am filling myself up.
Now I'm recharged.
I eat a good healthy breakfast and then I'm off.
I'm off to work.
From 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., I could pour into those people.
That morning routine is so important because that's when the day gets going.
Circumstances might take you around, but the morning is so important.
The reason why in the afternoon shift I work out is because, for me, competing meant . . . I
always have the urge to grow and expand as a human being.
We all do.
Growth.
We always have to grow.
That's why if you feel stagnant, even though you're doing great, you're never satisfied.
We're drivers, so that's why I competed again.
It's because I wanted to flex the discipline muscle.
When I competed, when I wake up early . . . Four o'clock in the morning always feels like 4:00
in the morning.
It's never, "Hey, it feels great today."
It's like, "It's 4:00 in the morning.
It sucks."
My phone is in the other room, Josh, so I have to get out of bed to shut the thing up.
That's how I get out of bed.
Dr. Axe: That's smart.
Dr. Zaino: It's strengthening this discipline muscle because the discipline muscle is really
the root foundation for the successful day.
It makes you do things where others wouldn't want to do it, and it's just those other little
things that make you successful, and discipline is the cornerstone for that.
I work out for discipline.
I do all those things for discipline, because as that muscle gets stronger . . . When I
eat the things that . . . Trust me.
We both like the way food that's not good for you tastes.
Come on.
Dr. Axe: Yeah.
Dr. Zaino: We all like the taste of pizza, but I don't because I know it's strengthening
my discipline.
I'm feeding my body.
When I eat food, I think in my mind, Josh, and you do the same, "Food is medicine."
I think, "My body's recreating itself, what I'm about to put in my mouth."
Think of it that way.
I am recreating myself from what I'm about to eat, so there's such a big why behind what
I do.
All these things keep that mindset huge, body, mind, spirit.
I need to be on my A-game because when we're dealing with patients, what if I'm off?
What if I didn't speak life into them when they need to?
What if I wasn't sharp enough?
We're talking about people's entire future in the balance if we're not able to lead them.
Dr. Axe:It's huge.
Dr. Zaino: When I when I want to build something else, like another brand, just like you do,
we make the decision.
Can we do it at 100%?
If I can't, I'm out.
I won't even do it.
If I could build it in the system on my life, if I could get my wife on board and the family
on board . . .
For us, we're taking the kids out of school because I want them to travel with me now.
We'll get them tutored.
Whitney is the CEO.
I made her the CEO of the new brand, the I Am Hero brand.
Why?
She feels a part of it, and now she realized it's not just Chris going off and it becomes
like what happened . . . Here I was doing this in chiropractic, and she was home with
the kids.
That caused resentment.
Now she's the boss and I'm the Avatar.
I've got to get everybody on board, and then when my wife's on board and my kids are on
board, my wife lets me drive as hard as I can because she knows it's worth it.
Her allowing me to do me, she has the best husband she'll ever have.
Everything has to be in there.
She allows me to do my thing.
She allows me to work till 10:00 p.m. or 11:00 p.m. if I have to, because she knows we're
all part of the whole journey together.
Dr. Axe: It's so awesome.
Involving your spouse in what you're doing is . . . I know for myself, Chelsea and I,
our personalities are . . . We just get along and we mesh, but there is definitely more
energy and empowerment when we're doing things together.
We love working out together.
We love doing part of the Dr. Axe Fitness brand together.
When we're doing that together, there's absolutely this invigorating effect that happens.
I want to mention this as well.
What Dr. Chris said here is so critical.
You've got to have that morning time to invest in you.
I used to say, "Even if after 8:00 a.m. the rest of the day didn't happen, I still had
a successful day."
Dr. Zaino: "I won."
Dr. Axe: I'm not quite 4:00 a.m., and this is why Chris' biceps are still so much bigger
than mine.
He's doing curls for one and a half hours before I get up.
I'm a somewhere before 5:30 a.m. guy.
Anyway, you get up at 5:30 a.m. and still . . . Let's say you can't do 4:00 a.m.
Let's say you can just do 5:30 a.m. to 7:00 a.m.
Again, an hour and a half or for just an hour, just 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m., do something.
Dr. Zaino: Even 20 minutes.
Dr. Axe: There you go.
Dr. Zaino: That's the thing.
What we don't want to do is . . . Josh, how long did it take you to develop the routine
you did now, honestly?
How long you've been doing it for?
Dr. Axe: Fifteen years.
Dr. Zaino: When you see my life . . . I apologize.
I'm apologizing right now that I even told you my morning routine, because my morning
routine just started with 10 minutes.
Then you're looking at over 10 years.
Start with the 10 minutes.
I was able to develop the capacity to add that one thing.
Then when I learned something from you on detox protocols, I said, "I'm going to add
this detox protocol."
It was all that.
I added maybe one thing every couple months.
See, you're looking at the end result of 10 to 15 years of it.
I don't want that to overwhelm someone to say, "Screw it.
I can't do this."
Dr. Axe: Another point I want to bring up too is all of these things work together.
If you get home from the office and you're sitting down and drinking half a bottle of
wine and popping some chips and watching TV up until 11:30 p.m., don't try to get up at
4:00 a.m.
That's not going to work.
Dr. Zaino: What would you say for the night owls?
You and I are early morning people, but there are some people that have the luxury where
they do their best work . . . They hustle until 2:00 in the morning, and they have the
luxury . . . It just shifts.
If you wake up at 10:00 a.m., you wake up 10:00 a.m. if you are that late night worker,
but I need to be in bed.
What happens, Josh, is your body becomes sensitive.
I know when I lose that one hour of sleep.
I know when my routine is off.
Your body becomes so sensitive in a good way because you're so in tune to your performance
that you know immediately, "I shouldn't have eaten that last night."
Then you don't eat that, because if we drank and ate tonight and we felt . . . It only
takes a couple next mornings of feeling like this to realize, "I don't like this."
Then it's not a motivator anymore to eat that stuff.
Dr. Axe: My wife and I were reading something recently, and they were putting people in
categories of their circadian rhythms and where they operate in their strength the best.
I was a lion and Chelsea was a bear.
They're talking about . . .
Dr. Zaino: You don't call her a bear, do you?
Dr. Axe: No, never.
If she calls herself a bear, that's fine.
Dr. Zaino: You're a lion?
Dr. Axe: Yes, a lion.
Lions like getting up early and at like 9:00 p.m. they're like, "I'm ready.
I'm ready to go to bed because I'm so excited about the morning."
For Chelsea, she is so productive in the morning, but she goes and finds her quiet, special
place.
She goes somewhere in the morning, a room by herself, spends time with God, goes from
there and works out.
Different personality types can do it different.
That's the thing.
It comes back to that thing, Chris, that you're so good at, and it's that discipline of creating
that daily habit and putting this force field around it, having it protected to where nothing
interrupts this special time to where you're growing and building your self-esteem and
confidence and your relationship with God and your family.
Dr. Zaino: It makes me the best version of myself, and that's the best thing I could
give others.
Dr. Axe: One of the things we'd love to encourage you guys to do is this.
Spend some time and write down the most important things in your life.
Write down the time you're going to spend with God, the time you're going to spend with
yourself, the time you're going to spend with your family, and the time you're going to
spend on your mission.
You need to make sure, every single week, those things are given time, because if they're
not given time, they'll never grow.
In fact, a lot of those things are ignored, so they start to deteriorate rather than grow
over time.
Make sure you're giving those things that time.
Implement those in your daily schedule.
I want to thank Dr. Chris for your great wisdom today.
You rock, my man.
Dr. Zaino: Thank you so much.
Dr. Axe: Thanks so much.
Dr. Zaino: For full circle, doing those things, Josh, what would that do to your self-esteem?
Dr. Axe: It's going to take it to the next level.
You'll see as well . . . It's amazing.
Chris, I think a lot of times people think, "This is going to take five years."
Honestly, if you start doing these daily routines, after three months, all of a sudden you'll
notice.
You become a different person in three months.
It can happen that fast.
Dr. Zaino: Absolutely.
Dr. Axe: Awesome, guys.
I want to encourage you to check out some of Dr. Chris's inspiring information.
Check him out on Facebook DrZaino, and DrZaino on Instagram.
I love this brand and how inspiring it is.
I love watching these videos and content myself.
www.IAmHero.com.
Guys, thanks for watching.
Hi.
Dr. Axe here.
I want to say thanks so much for checking out this YouTube video.
Also, don't forget to subscribe if you want to get more great content on things like herbs,
essential oils, natural remedies, and how to use food as medicine.
Also, check out more of our content on my YouTube channel.
Thanks for watching.