Busting Health Myths with Deepak Saini

Welcome back to Your Brain On Positive. All the love and support you need is residing inside of you. And we're going to make it easier to turn it on.

Welcome to Your Brain On Positive. I'm Jackie Simmons, the host of the show and we are about to take a positive turn with my friend Deepak Saini. Deepak, you were sharing with me before we got started, that is not been the most positive of days. And yet, you made it to the interview, and you showed up in a good mood. So tell us a little bit about the journey to get here.

Yeah, I won't get into the details, Jackie. But yeah, it's been a challenging day, some things so the calendar and things going on some family issues, my dog and all puppy. But I mean, ultimately, like, you know, not the house is on fire is not on fire, you know, all those things can be managed, I was able to move one appointment, you know, two different day, I was able to leave one another early, you know, to make it here today, I was able to help my daughter take care of the dog. So I mean, you just we just got to come with, you know, gratitude and joy in our in our life. And that's something I work on with my clients. Yes, sometimes, you know, stuffs gonna hit the fan, but you just got to do your best to deal with that for sure.

One of the things that you're dealing with that I find so interesting is a tech glitch with the calendar. Because I'm hearing a lot about that recently, someone said there were like five planets in retrograde. And I'm like, yeah, like Gatorade. I don't know exactly how it works. But apparently, that's been a story going on in people's minds. Making it mean, nothing is a great way to have your brain stay on positive where it doesn't mean your whole day is going to be Shrek, or anything else. So I love that about you. When it comes to what you do, and the message you want to share and how your world shifted into a more positive tone, Deepak take us back to this journey that you're on what have been the highlights of it for your brain shifting?

Yeah, and then we can certainly get into my background if you like. But, you know, I overcame some significant health challenges about eight years ago. And then in through overcoming that the biggest thing for me was, you know, besides overcoming some depression and stuff like that, but once I started once I got myself healthy, and started informally helping others because they're like, What did you do? You know, and then as I've evolved with not only my health, but what I want to do and help people like I opened my mind to the possibilities, and not limited myself, to what is possible from a health point of view. And that's, you know, to transform not only myself, but also like my practice of how I work with people and I work with people who also have that open mind, you know, that have that positivity, and you know, what's what's what's out there for them, you know, no limiting beliefs.

Oh, there we go. What would life be like if we live with no limiting beliefs? Now, there's a good question. What dream? Would you dare to dream? What vision? Would you dare to envision? What would you allow your imagination to cook up? If you had no limiting beliefs about what was possible?

Yeah, so I mean, there's lots of things, but I'll just share the one that's, you know, kind of been the center of my life and my business go forward is many of us, you know, I came from a corporate world, you know, 20 years in corporate, you know, corporate world, you know, you just and the health challenges I mentioned, and you're just trying to make it to the end of the day, you're just trying to make it to the weekend. I'm just trying to get to, you know, a vacation three months from now, if I only got that next raise, if I only this, this this right. But then overcoming what I went through, which I would not wish on anyone realizing what are the important things in life, your health, family, it's not the next promotion, it's not whatever. And then having, again, that open mindset, so I have a publicly stated goal now to be a centenarian. 100 plus, now, many people think like, Oh, I've never want that because people have this image of their grandparent or a parent who struggled maybe with dementia or some other, you know, unfortunate disease, and they're in the hospital or in hospice or long term care, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about living in your own home, controlling your own destiny, I plan to stand up paddleboard to my last days, etc, etc. So that's a mind shift, mindset shift. And that's what I personally am working towards and what you know, many of my clients want as well.

I think that reimagining ageing, reimagining our heard people call it our encore years. Our second act are, there's all of these euphemisms to describe what life is going to be like now on the high side of 70, it used to be on the high side of 40. But you know, times have changed. And so have we. So now what's life gonna be like allowing ourselves to reimagine that creates a very different expectation. And your path when you're when you were like going in, you know, and yes, I'm depression, and I'm like, my own journey includes surviving to bouts of clinical depression. So I'm not going to gloss over what that journey is like for someone, and just my public service announcement, if this is what you're dealing with, get intervention, work with anyone you feel called to work with, but get intervention, so that you can envision something better, because when I was in the depths of that hole, I couldn't imagine life being any better. I never thought that's the way it was going to be. And I didn't want it to be that way for very long. So coming from that background, I know that that's what drove me for a long time, to work on my own personal development to work to become a better version of myself. Anything to kind of put a buffer between me and that edge. Is that what drove you.

Now I'll tell I'll take a step back again, so probably about 10 or 11 years ago, I had this mindset in one very, I guess, maybe two areas of my life. So I wanted to climb the corporate ladder ladder, because I thought that's what I needed that next promotion that next title, that's what would make me happy. That's what would fulfill me. In parallel, I was trying, I had gotten into running after being many years dormant of doing any sort of physical activity, as if some many people do when they get into sort of the workforce. So I had gone back into running, started doing half marathons marathons, I started really focusing on performance. So I want to get better, you know, that was kind of my competitive my competitive juices. I was trying to stroke that. But then when I injured myself, so I had a back injury. Besides a lifelong history of obesity, I was morbidly obese as a teenager at 18 years old, a lot of immune condition for as long as far as I can remember. But the impetus was, I hurt my back and my youngest daughter was just a baby at the time. So I had I have degenerative disc disease in my alfoil 505. This one so low back for those who know that I couldn't bend over, I can tie my shoes can put on my socks could barely get on and off the toilet. But the biggest thing of all that was I couldn't pick my daughter out of the crib, I couldn't bend over pick up a 10 pound baby out of the crib, I couldn't get out of a chair, if she was in my lap, I'd have to like hand off to my wife, just to sort of gently get off. That's where my depression came was. I couldn't golf anymore. I couldn't run. And I couldn't pick up my daughter. Well, luckily for me, you know, I wouldn't wish you know what sounds like you had Jack on anyone. But luckily for me, it wasn't as severe. So I took that performance edge of trying to become a faster runner and pivoted on to healing my back. The Western medical system I like to say wasted 18 months of my health, ineffective treatments, bouncing around places I finally took matters to my own pay out of pocket, healed myself healed my back and doing so clear on my autoimmune condition. And the last 60 pounds of that 100 pounds. just melted away, you know, in a matter of months now is my aha moment. And that's what drove me then to there are no limitations once you have the right tools and the right mindset. And then that's what made me pivot to you know, what I do now and helping others on their journey as well.

It's an interesting place to be alright, so you had dropped 40 pounds working at it. And then you said the last 60 pounds just melted away. You know, there's a place in my brain that's going I'm not buying it. And that's just because I have never experienced that. What was that like for you to after after 40 pounds with effort to have 60 pounds just melt away?

Yeah, no, that's a great question. So I'll just preface one thing so that 40 pounds that I had lost over 30 years was you know, lose 25 gain 20 lose 25 Gateway like that yo yo for you know, it's slowly slowly over 20 years trended down right. Some of that includes some you know, what many people have tried, you know, starving yourself ineffective diets. Overtraining essentially was overtraining and that's what ultimately led to my my back injury. Finally, but

emulation I needed translation overtraining for You look like what what were you doing? Right? So

I was, I was training for half marathons and marathons. So overtraining for me meant doing a little bit of cardio Monday through Friday, like, like an hour, and then on the weekends doing 18 kilometers, 20 kilometers 24, you know, etc. You know, pounding it Saturday pounding at Sunday, and then resting on Monday through Friday meant doing just an hour. Oh, my, you know, type of thing? Yes, yes, an hour or so. And being someone who, you know, I played football, and very heavy, obviously, I have most of my life being overweight, being obese, a lot of that damage, carrying a lot extra weight to the knees, the back, etc. That's what, that's what overtraining meant to me. So I'm trying to heal my back. And really, it boils down to inflammation, which is a root cause of so many things, including, you know, a lot of things cognitively. So I'm trying to heal my back from inflammatory point of view, that got me to change how I my nutrition from an inflammatory point of view, and I made those changes, and sustained them over, you know, a number of months, the weight just melted away. And I didn't even realize it till one day, I put on a pair of pants that were not in the regular rotation. And I thought, oh, did I lose some weight or something? And my wife was like, What are you an idiot, like, of course she had, you can totally see it in your face. And I was just, you know, for someone who struggle with weight, their entire life, I was never one to really always step on the scale and sort of sort of see I just was just trying to heal it heal and back and have mobility. And then that weight loss was a welcomed byproduct. But that's that's not what I set out to do.

That's an important thing from mindset. From a mindset point of view, from a law of attraction point of view, from everything that I've been understanding on my journey to be true. What we focus on, expands, and when people are focused on weight loss, because the brain really doesn't get this whole negative thing. What we get is more of what we don't want, we get more weight. And so I loved your story. Yo lose 25 gain back 20. That's sort of a story that many people think of live man. Oh, yeah. They call it yo yo dieting for a reason. Yeah, this

is my typical, and maybe some people can and not to dwell on this. But yeah, it come to the summer, it's warmer out, you get more active. Oh, it's Beach, whatever you like having a t shirt or you know, tank top, whatever. So maybe, maybe make some small mental changes, like, I'm not going to have that or whatever. And I'd like you know, by the by September, come around, like, Oh, I've lost 25 pounds, then it gets a little bit cooler. And then you got like Thanksgiving and Christmas. And I'm born in January, that's my birthday. It's like a three month celebration almost type of thing. You're like, Come February, you're like, Oh, I'm gonna put most of that back on, and then do another cycle the next summer, you know, typing out? That was, that's how I went through. So a university in my early working years, isn't that you that kind of cycle.

Got it. So you had a lot of practice being on the cycle, where what you focused on or didn't focus on made a difference. And then you decided to focus on being able to pick up your daughter? Yes, the difference between losing weight, looking great running a marathon. And being able to pick up your daughter is so significant. All of those other things mean a lot to our heads and to how we represent ourselves maybe to other people, picking up your daughter mental lock your heart.

Yeah, and I'll just add one more thing, Jackie, it wasn't just those other things. I want to be very clear on this. Because I was I'll be the first to admit, and I'm not proud of it. Now I was on the very, you know, I need to get that next promotion, I need to get to the next level, because I'll provide security for our family. And that's what I think they need. Whereas what they really need is a dad who can be interacting with them, ie picking them up playing with them crawling around on the floor. So when that hat went when I was going through that journey, I could care less if I even got fired. Like I show up to work I did my job. Not as good as I could because I was in so much pain sitting in a chair for eight hours a day, etc. But I didn't care about that next promotion or if I got a raise that year or whatever. You're absolutely right. I just focused on healing myself. So it wasn't in pain. But ultimately, yes, it was so I could pick up my daughter, my daughter's and you know, play with them and like pick them up and spin them around and stuff which I at that point I can do.

It's one of those things that all of a sudden, sometimes we miss is the things that we weren't doing anyway. But once we can't do them, then they become important. And I think this is something that if we can wake people up to, what is it that you're missing out on now that you're not even paying attention to, but if I told you, you couldn't do it, all of a sudden, it would be important. Someone once told me air is not a big deal until you don't have any.

No, that's absolutely right. Jackie, one thing I like to explain to people and who maybe are in their 40s and 50s, as you know, maybe they have young kids or maybe their kids are teenagers. And because like, once you do you hope that you're gonna have grandchildren? Oh, yeah. You know, hope to god bless you should have grandchildren? Do you wanna be able to pick them up? You know, maybe this is 2030 years? And you throw them up near like you do with your kids? Yeah. Are you preparing for that now? Oh. And then think about it? What do you want to be able to do when you are 7080? Physically, you know, movement wise mobility? Well, you got to back into what you got to start working on now. Right? So if you're, let's just use a simple example here. So let's say you know, when I'm 80, I want to be able to pick up a 20 pound kid and throw them up in the air. Okay, well, what kind of weight do you need to do that motion now when you're 40? Because you will, you will lose? I mean, you can mitigate it, but you will lose muscle loss, you will lose, you know, testosterone, you know, hormones, etc, that's changed. So what do you got to do now. So that's kind of what I work on feels like, getting that mindset now, for your longer term goals.

You said something earlier about how you were living your life before you injured your back before you had what we'll just call your wake up call. And you will pretty much head down. And your focus was on the career on the next promotion on this. I think many of us live our lives kind of head down focused, we're told that we need to focus to to get ahead, this is what we're supposed to do. And yet, life can really lose its meaning pretty quickly. When we focus in to that extent. And there are so many good songs, I'm a big fan of the lessons in Mary Poppins. And towards the end of the movie, the chimney sweep, Bert is like, you know, and then they're grown and then they flown and it's too late. Yeah, for you to give that little bit. And for you, you've had your wake up call while your kids were still young, something to be immensely grateful for. There's not much sadder than somebody who's living that old Cat Stevens song. The cat's in the cradle. Yeah, the the son grew up to be just like him didn't have time for his dad, just like he didn't have time for his kid. That's the legacy that I don't want anyone who listens to this podcast to have to live. So Deepak, let's give them a checklist. Let's give them some things they can pay attention to.

Can I just share one thing? I think your audience would really appreciate this before we answer your question. So I started after I had my transformation, and people started asking me to help them like what did you do, etc. So I started you know, coaching people as like a side thing. You know, it's kind of like I like doing this but you know, that security I still holding on to that old world. Eventually, the universe released me from from that corporate world

as a euphemism that we're going to unpack,

yeah, so so that was in June. So the summer the kids were like, literally had to love what we collect the school I lose, I'm bringing this up is that summer, where I just thought I'm just taking, I'm not even going to focus on like growing this coaching business. I'm going to focus the summer on the kids. So we spent two months every day hanging out. Going to the park, we have an amusement park, that's kind of close to our house. We went there and we had a pass, we went there like a couple times a week. That was like the one tennis day that's still the best summer I ever had. So I just wanted to share that you know, that's again that whole you know, life gives you some level where you think are lemons at the time, which are maybe you're actually they're like nice sweet oranges or something. But I made lemonade with it. So sorry, your your you want some tips?

Yeah, there we go. Let's let's take a tangible and I do love that example. You made a decision to take advantage of an opportunity that many people might have thought was a disaster. And for you it was an opportunity to just explore what it's like to be really present for your kids. You'd regained your health you could pick them up you could do things with them. Why? What the heck not. This is what we used to tell young people to do after college to go take and Vagabond around, you know the United States. Yeah. Take the summer and Vagabond go Vagabond around Europe go while before you get tied down to a job or career. And that whole language that whole visual of adult Oh, yeah, shameless plug. My oldest daughter's got a podcast called adulting sucks. And it doesn't have to. Because this was the lessons we got is that it was hard to be a grown up and you didn't have a choice you were going to have to. And yet, you decided you did have a choice. And I love that story about the summer that you were just present. So thank you for sharing that. All right, now, lay it on us. It take us take us to some tangibles. The tangibles of somebody who decides that they want to change from living head down, totally focused on career totally focused on the next promotion or the next milestone. And maybe they're so focused on the destination that they're missing out on the journey.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. You know, I don't wish anyone to have to go through that type of journey that I or others have gone through. So where are you?

There, I don't want anybody falling down. That guy was

low, I had my aha moment at my lowest point. And for some people, that's their low point is even lower at Unix. So let's put that aside for a second. So if you're just for that, let's call it that, that that other person, that average person, you know, I'm a true believer, one of the first things I will tell my clients is really on, I call it mindset and motivation, but it encompasses a lot of things. So, you know, it's, you know, incorporating gratitude into your life, if you don't are journaling, you know, that type of thing. That's something I did after going through that. The other thing is, you know, meditation or you know, it can be different things for different people. I mean, there's a difference between praying, there's different if you're spiritual, and there's a difference between meditation but something like that, or combination. And I think there's, you know, calming yourself breathing getting within your own body, I personally find so many things come up for people. And then of course, working on your personal relationships as well. And I think that's part of it means part of your community that's, you know, your, your bigger community, you're, you're that next level of your family. And then of course, your immediate family and working on those relationships, spending time with them, getting to know them, all those things matter. And I think that's a great first step. Obviously, I'm talking high level, there's a lot of intricate things people can do. But starting some sort of meditation practice, practicing gratitude, and really focusing on your personal relationships, I think is a great first step to get you out of that head down. mindset. All right,

now we're going to talk Stach, we're going to talk tangible, we're going to get it really nitty and gritty. Because spending time is such a big concept. Your example was way more concrete than that it was taking advantage of the fact that there's an amusement park nearby and going there a couple of times a week with your kids. So finding something very specific, whether it's once a month family picnic, or once a week, family picnic, something that everyone can look forward to something that is planned, something that is scheduled, taking and making it real for yourself and for your family, that's a great way to focus on your personal relationships, and make sure that you are spending some time with them. And I only got a

couple examples. That would be awesome. So in our film, they get to each their own right, this is just what we've currently working on. It's ever evolving. So, you know, obviously we celebrate our kids birthdays, but it's not just like birthday family party, blah, blah, blah, we do a special thing as well. At least it's special for us. We don't eat out a lot. So when it's when it's one of our kids birthdays, we they go to a movie, we as a family, go to movies, their choice, whatever is playing, sometimes we have to wait a couple of weeks if that thing's that one movie hasn't come out yet. And then we go out for dinner as well and make something special besides the family birthday. That's something special, just the four of us do. The other thing we do, and I'll be honest, when I was sick and fat pizza was my favorite food. Now that I'm healthy pizza is still my favorite fruit, but it just doesn't serve me. But my daughter, my youngest daughter, the one I was talking about earlier, you know, and she has got different genetics than me. And she's younger and she can get away with it a little bit. That's her favorite food. So it is in there. It's in the family rotation at once a week to 10 days or so. So we have pizza as a family. Now it doesn't serve me for any of my goals. But I eat it as we eat it as a family and I participate but I have it with me right intention, and the intention of spending time. So as a family meal, I'm supporting my daughter, this is her favorite meal. And I will mitigate the deleterious effects to me by using techniques. But instead of me eating, oh, I'm just going to have a salad or I'm going to have, you know, a salmon or whatever I'm eating with the family thing that she wants, and I prepare for, for the family with intention, and I know, I'm going to have, you know, some bad effects, but I'll try to mitigate them as much as possible. So, you know, just some things, you know, some food photography,

for some people, that pain that you just described, that investment that you're willing to make, could be as simple as getting up a half hour early, or turning off your cell phone for a half hour in the afternoons and actually having a conversation. Yeah, what a concept, actually listening, which is a huge skill that I think is undervalued, and that we're actually losing as a culture. So listening is really key. And you said that earlier about one of the other pieces you just shared, not just spending time in your relationships, but spending time with yourself, listening to yourself, which is what for me, prayer, meditation, journaling, all of those are different ways of listening to what's going on inside my own head inside my own heart.

Yeah, people are very familiar with this, because most people have flown, you know, you go on airplane, or put your own oxygen mask on first before No, I wholly 100% believe that. Some, some could view that as saw my self care routine, again, over you know, what I explained earlier, the back challenge, thought immune, etc, etc. You know, so my self care routine is two hours a day. And I still managed to get my, you know, six and three quarters of seven and a quarter hours of sleep and attract that sort of stuff. So, you know, so besides my sleep two hours of self care now, that might sound like oh, you could spend time with your family, etc? Yes, I absolutely could. But it's not a justification, this is reality. If I don't do that for myself, not only can I not move properly, I am not the best version of myself, I am not the best father, I am not the best coach for my clients, I'm not the best husband, I'm not the best son in law, etc, etc, is a million examples. All my relationships are better, when I'm the best version of myself, and I need to do those things for me. So that includes physical that includes the mental, as you know, as we described earlier.

It does, that's amazing. Because you're right. We're taught to focus outside of ourselves. And yet, I find that to be the most unhappy way to live, that I've ever lived. Because trying to be what other people want, trying to meet other people's expectations kept me from having that time to get to know my own, what I wanted, what my expectations were. And if I didn't know me, I me could not show up for anybody else. It's just not possible. So you're right. I really do believe it's an inside job. That P Xu said about journaling. Journaling is a big concept. Do you have a journaling strategy that you prefer?

Yeah, and there's a lots of different ways and I'm not gonna say one's right or wrong. I don't. I don't have like, just a drop everything that's in my mind dump type of journal, I have some key prompts that I use over and over again, that I've modified from other, you know, mentors of mine. So I list my successes of the day, I list at least three things I'm grateful for that day, the actions I took towards my big dreams, whatever that might be in the actions I took towards my happiness. Summit. Those are the minimum things that I write down every day. Now I know a lot of people do morning pages and this that for me, personally, I prefer to do that towards the end of my day, because I like that to be fresh in my mind before I go to sleep. relatively close to before I go to sleep, that's when I do my, my, my journaling. All right,

I'm unpacking it because this is my job successes of the day, asking yourself what are the successes from today? What am I grateful for today? A minimum of three things every day. And then what steps did I take today towards my vision or goal? And what steps did I take today? To improve myself to take care of myself to better myself is sort of what I was hearing. I call it happiness. But yeah, happiness, okay, because I knew I had missed the word as I was trying to take notes as you were talking and I'm like, I missed a word. Okay, I'm just gonna go with it and you'll curse Correct. Those four things right before you go. to bed at night is a key component because I am well aware with all the work that I do it with neuroscience that what you feed your brain right before you go to sleep is what your brain will chew on all night long what your subconscious mind will mull over. This is why people some people like to sleep on their decisions before they make a major decision. It's a brilliant plan to do this at night. That doesn't mitigate that whole morning pages thing from the artists way which can have a lot of advantages. It just means that this is what works for you. And so that's what we're talking about. This is not good or bad this or that. This is just what is your truth. And I love this practice. It is amazing. Yeah,

I say to people, sorry to interrupt, I feel the best time to journal the best time no matter at the best time to exercise is whenever you're going to do it.

Yeah, consistency helps. So whatever makes it easy. I tell people if you want to create a new habit, the easiest way is to tag it onto a habit you already have absolutely your journal next to your toothbrush, so that when you brush your teeth at night, you pick up the journal. That's an easy way to tag two habits together.

I like to have clients when they brush their teeth do balance work at the same time balance work, um, stand on one like.

Yeah, if you got a vibrating toothbrush, this could be a little more interesting microcurrent to your body. Cool. Balance work is critical and bringing our brains, our bodies into balance with whatever your vision is. Deepak Thank you very much for sharing your journey, your vision and your steps, the things that are working for you. And what motivated you. Motivation is the missing link for many, many people. So thank you for sharing what it took to motivate you and your encouragement for other people not to wait for something like that to motivate them.

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for having me.

Hi, you're very welcome. All right, thank you for being part of the journey. same bat time, same bat channel. Make sure that you tune in, subscribe, have fun, go about your day, and be a little bit mindful about what makes your life worth living so that you can have a little more of it.

Okay, remark.