050 Dr. Jay LaGuardia: The One-Minute Mind Shift and an Empowering Mind

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In this episode, Barbara and Jay discuss:

Jay’s transition from chiropractor to coach.
The three keys to living a balanced and joyful life.
Living a Triple P life.
Habits that lead to success in life.

Key Takeaways:

Choose how you are going to show up each day rather than allowing the outside circumstances to choose for you how you show up.
Take targeted actions – working hard alone isn’t enough.
Serve others according to their needs, not your needs.
Having a written goal is 97% more likely to become reality than having it only in your mind.

“Passion is necessary to overcome the inevitable obstacles and challenges you’re going to face on your path.” — Dr. Jay LaGuardia

TRANSCRIPTION

Barbara: Welcome to Marketing Tips for Doctors. I’m your host, Dr. Barbara Hales.

Today, we have with us Dr. Jay LaGuardia. He has dedicated over 30 years of his life teaching people about the importance of finding balance in their family, fitness and finances so they can empower their dreams, ignite their passions and accelerate prosperity. Through his coaching, speaking and writings, he teaches about the importance of adopting the habits and rituals of an empowering mindset, a healthy lifestyle and belief in something bigger than yourself. He is passionate about sharing the tools and tactics that can unlock our true potential as human beings.

Dr. Jay is a successful entrepreneur, a chiropractor, a consultant, speaker, philanthropist, bestselling author of Change Your Mind, Change Your Destiny and host of the PowerPassionProsperity podcast. Welcome to the show, Jay.

Jay: Thank you so much. How are you today?

Barbara: I’m great. What a wonderful day it is. We’re alive. We’re healthy. And you know, the world is open for us to express ourselves to others. Hopefully, some of our listeners will learn something today. Tell me, Jay, what are some of the major obstacles or hurdles you had to overcome early in life to get to where you are today? And why are you so passionate about teaching people about living intentionally from conscious awareness?

Jay: That’s a great question. And again, thank you for having me and I’m excited to be here and share some lessons that I’ve had from my past that perhaps can help someone on their journey. I started in business early on and I realized quickly that I didn’t have the business knowledge and skills. I didn’t have the leadership skills. And we struggled mightily. In fact, my wife was my business partner. So partnering, raising children and being a couple and also running a business is a very difficult task and it almost wound up costing my marriage and relationship with my kids, my health, the business.

Everything was really at stake because of the stress that I was dealing with not understanding what it was like also to run a business. I knew how to practice. I had the skillset of being able to take care of people and provide service but I didn’t have the skillset how to run the backend side, the business side of it and as I mentioned the leadership side.

You know, when you’re broke and you’re at the bottom, I was fortunate to have a mentor who asked me a simple question. He said, you know, what’s going on with your life? Why are you experiencing so much challenge? And so I sat there and explained to him everything that was going on. And it took about three or four minutes and it felt very good. It was very cathartic but I was projecting it outside. Everything that was going wrong was outside me. It wasn’t anything to do with me. And when I got done, there was a gentle pause and I wondered if I put him to sleep. And finally, he said, he goes, I know exactly what your problem is. I’m like, great, someone’s going to help me solve this. He said and he goes, your business and your life are waiting for a leader to show up and it’s not you. And it was the first time someone had actually held me accountable for my behaviors or lack of behavior and I realized it was an inside issue, not an outside issue. So, all the projections were my issue.

Barbara: Well, that’s so true, Jay. You know, when doctors start their practice especially as a solo practitioner, they know all about Medicine, they know how to heal patients and they’re gung-ho to start their practice. But without a mentor, most doctors know nothing about marketing themselves or how to do the business end. Most doctors probably still don’t have a business plan. You started your professional career as a chiropractor. Why did you leave the profession to become a coach?

Jay: Well, it really tied into part of the first question, is I knew early on that I wanted to have an even greater impact. And I knew that at some point I want to be able to mentor, to coach, to teach. And we had built one of the largest practices in the world. And so, I had many colleagues reaching out asking for help and assistance. And I realized that the information I was providing was incredibly valuable. And so, I turned them into a consulting business. And at that time, we had scaled. We had 10 practices at that time. So, we turned it into how to create and replicate a business model that’s sustainable and effective, that doesn’t require the practitioner to oversee. In other words, it has the support systems in place that allows you to step back and oversee it but not be into the daily grind. And it became very successful. And so, I stepped away from the day-to-day practice and started consulting with other healthcare professionals.

Barbara: As an entrepreneur, you have been successful creating multiple seven-figure businesses. What would you say are the three keys to living a balanced and joyful life? Because that must be hectic.

Jay: It really is. You know, someone asked me this the other day and it really comes down to three things. I take care of my mind, my body, my spirit. Every single day, I schedule time to focus on my mindset. You mentioned earlier about conscious awareness and living intentionally. I have a morning routine that I practice every single day that gets me ready to face the day no matter what challenge lies ahead. I prepare and I decide what emotions I want to show up with each day whether it’s patience or passion or energy or calmness, whatever it might be. I actually see how I’m going to show up that day. I meditate regularly which really helps me clear my mind and get me prepared for the day. I focus and review my goals. And this routine I’ve been doing for 20, 25 years so I can be intentionally acting on the behaviors that I want to take. I choose how I’m going to show up rather than the environment around me deciding how I’m going to react to. So, mindset.

And then physical. And I’ve been working out six days a week for 33 years. I do it six days a week. The only day I don’t work out is Sunday. Because I know if physically I’m not well, I’m not going to have the energy to put forth, to do the ambitious goals that I have or help the people or be there for my family. So I take care of myself physically. And spiritually in a sense is just being connected to something bigger than myself. I remain humbled that there’s a bigger, there’s something bigger out there than myself and then that allows me to be successful in business and the other things that I pursue.

Barbara: You mentioned that your greatest accomplishment in your life according to yourself is your amazing family. How many children do you have?

Jay: I have three children.

Barbara: Do you have them on the road to exercising every day or do they roll their eyes when you run out and they’re watching TV?

Jay: That’s a great question. And the answer is when they were younger, you know, they rolled their eyes. But my wife and I live our lifestyle. So, it became a part of their lifestyle. Eating well and exercising, it’s just what we do as a family. And now literally, we opened up an F45 Fitness Studio together as a family, our first gym. We opened up about three months ago and we’re going to open five of them. So, we not only live it but we practice it in our business model as well too.

Barbara: That’s great but bad timing.

Jay: Yes. Five days before the — After we opened, we were forced to shut down.

Barbara: In your new book, you write about the formula for success. Is there really a formula that can guarantee our success?

Jay: I found it for sure. And I’m going to take a little liberty. It really was a foundational piece in a recent manuscript released from the Napoleon Hill Foundation called Outwitting the Devil. And in it, Napoleon Hill talks about five keys to predict success. I actually added one. I took a little bit of liberty. But he talks about passion, talent, associations, actions, faith and then I added time. I’ve never met anybody who has been successful who isn’t passionate about what they do. Passion is necessary to overcome the inevitable obstacles and challenges you’re going to face on your path. So, passion is essential.

And let’s face it. You got to have some talent. You got to have some skillset. And it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s inherent skillset or talent that you were born with. It’s something that you developed over time because of that passion. So, you have to be good at what you do.

Associations. I mentioned to you earlier about having a mentor. I’ve had such incredible mentors in my life, you know, that were ahead of me. But I was humble enough to listen, watch and learn. That helped me succeed, I believe, more rapidly because they were influencers in my life. So, who we surround ourselves will determine how much success we will experience.

And then actions. We got to take — You know, it’s said hard work is the key to success. I would argue that hard work in and of itself is not. You’ve got to take targeted actions. Because plenty of people work really hard but still struggle financially. So, targeted actions.

And then faith. Faith in self. Having a belief in yourself that even though maybe your success doesn’t come at the time and the moment which you would like it too. It’s faith that over time if you practice this formula it will follow through.

And then finally is the time element of it because no one can predict when and how but know that it’s going to take time. It’s kind of like a stew. It’s all the ingredients, you put it into the pot. You let it stir and simmer. And every aspect of my life when I practice this I’ve experienced success.

Barbara: In your book, you talk about a Triple P Life. What are some of the common traits people have in pursuit of this Triple P Life? What do they share?

Jay: Yeah. One of the many things we talk about is mediocrity is a sin. I believe that we’re given one life to live. Live to its fullest and we should be pursuing excellence all the time. Another one is constant, never-ending personal improvement. We have to be pursuing each and every day to improve ourselves emotionally and psychologically and physically. I really believe that. You know, there’s — I hear people say particularly people who reach out for help, so I kind of like where I’m at. And my response always is, you know, the universe is either moving forward or backward. There is no stagnation. Although there may be a temporary pause, there is no stagnation. You’re either taking steps moving forward. If not, you’re moving backwards. I believe that progressing forward is really, really important.

I believe it’s also important to take care of people according to their needs and not your needs, so not doing it for ulterior reasons. In others words, you know, I’m serving people for their highest self to help them achieve and get what they want. Inevitably, you know, they’re going to have a great experience and they’re going to, you know, want to continue to do business with me. So those are just a few of the many, I think we have 22 in the book, of what it’s like to live a Triple P Life.

Barbara: I agree with you, Dr. Jay. Having complacency goes well towards the path of destruction. We must in terms of succeeding and evolving always be moving forward. And that does not include complacency. So what needs to happen to create your best Triple P Life?

Jay: You need to make a commitment to yourself. You need to make a commitment to your physical and your emotional well-being. You really need a desire for improvement. You know, you’re never going to find your Triple P Life on your couch. You know, you’re never going to find your Triple P Life — And when I talk about Triple P Life, it’s based on our podcast which is PowerPassionProsperity. So, it’s empowering the mind, empowering dreams, igniting passion and accelerating prosperity. So those are the three P’s of the Triple P Life. I should explain that first.

It’s about empowering the dreams. It’s about, you know, always dreaming even — I don’t care what age you are. There’s still a dream inside you of pursuing something that excites you and makes you, you know, jump out of bed in the morning. And then igniting that passion. And so as you go through life, passions change but continue with pursuing different passions because that’s where the joy and the real excitement in life is.

And then prosperity is not so much the financial prosperity. It’s prosperity in everything. It’s in your relationships with your significant other. It’s in, you know, building great friendships. Prosperity in your health and things that we have talked about before. So, it’s that formula of those three on a pursuit from a daily basis that, you know, I really believe that helps us achieve and get to a level that we can all be proud of and look back on our life and go, you know what, I lived my very best life.

Barbara: You talk a lot about daily success habits and the importance of being intentional in everything we do. Can you give some examples of the habits that will lead to more success in our lives?

Jay: Yes. There are eight habits. I wrote about them in my first book, Change Your Mind, Change Your Destiny. And habit #1 is dreaming. You know, kids do this very well because they don’t judge their dreams. But as we get older, we get very cynical so we stop dreaming and then we lose that fire. So the next one is mentorship, having great people around us who can support us and encourage us. Number 2 is authenticity, being true to who you are. I learned this from my son. My son is gay. And my wife and I suspected it early on but he never really came to that realization, I believe, until he was 19 or 20 but, you know, we never projected anything on him. But we watched him grow up and he lived his life, his path even to the detriment of kids who would make fun of him or tease him or whatever the case may be. He didn’t care. He lived who he was and what was important to him. So, it’s one of the great lessons he taught me. So, authenticity is #3.

We’re looking at core values. Number 4 is having a sense of core values in your life that you live by. These are the principles in which, you know, help you make decisions in how you pursue your life. We look at meditation as another one. As I mentioned before, it’s very, very important to clear the mind. Wayne Dyer said that God speaks in only one voice and that voice is silence. And in today’s world, there’s so much distraction and chaos that we have to quiet the mind to really see and hear the internal voice, the voice within us where the real inspiration comes from. I find that through meditation and meditation is a real key for that. Some people find it in prayer.

Another one is affirmations. You know, it’s said that we have about 60,000 thoughts a day. And I don’t know who did this but the study I saw said that 80% of those thoughts are negative which means 48,000 times a day, we’re telling ourselves disempowering thoughts. I’m not good enough. I’m not pretty enough. I’m not smart enough. You know, I’ll never achieve. Whatever it is, whatever that limiting belief is becomes our dominant loop in our brain and that’s what wires our subconscious mind. And that’s how we get this negative attitude and that’s just how we disempower our belief system. So, affirmations literally are words of affirming of what you’re becoming. I am. I am healthy. I am well. I am successful. Whatever it is that you’re affirming to become. You literally break the old negative linkages in your subconscious mind by creating new linkages because as the brain fires, it wires. Therefore, you create new dominant thought patterns and that’s how you can turn somebody from a negative mindset to a positive mindset. So, affirmations are really, really important.

And then of course, goal setting. The mind is target oriented. When we lack a target, we wander aimlessly. And the thing is that only 3% of adults have written goals. And that’s a shame because when having a goal that’s written it’s 97% more likely to come true or become reality than just having a goal in your mind. So, goal writing and having goals, that’s important too. So those are the eight steps.

Barbara: Well, studies do confirm that it’s important to write it down. What also helps you carry it through is when you tell someone because now you’re held accountable.

Jay: Correct.

Barbara: One of the many tools you teach people is the one-minute mindset shift. People listening to this might say, really, in one minute, you could shift your mind? Can you share with us what that is and how it works?

Jay: I certainly can. I’d love to. And it’s funny it takes me longer to explain it than it actually does to do. But I learned this — A buddy of mine, he and I kind of put this together through practice. As a kid, I grew up in a really negative environment. There was some abuse there. And so, I was one of those really negative people. And the thing, I’m so passionate about these eight habits of success is because I’ve applied it in my life and I seemed to change, my family seemed to change. And I’ve taught others as well too. And so, one of the tools is this mindset shift. And so, the first thing you have to do, step #1 is acknowledge what you’re feeling. For me, when I’m stressed, my dominant emotion is anger. I get angry. I have to acknowledge that I’m feeling this anger.

Second step is where am I feeling the anger? Okay. I may be feeling — I’m obviously feeling it in the environment around me. Maybe I’m projecting on someone around me. Maybe my heart’s racing, my palms are sweating. You know, I’m feeling really tense and rigid. I’m feeling it physically in my body. And the reason is because thoughts are language of the brain and feelings are language of the body. So, when we have a thought, it triggers then a physiological response that is manifested physically. So, if I can change that thought, I’m going to change the physiological response.

Step 3 is I asked myself, what is it that I want to experience right now? Now, you may say to yourself, you know what, I want to remain angry. See, that’s a choice. Or you may say to yourself, I want to feel and experience something different. So for me, the opposite of anger is love. So immediately, okay, that’s the opposite emotional that I want to experience. So how do I then feel love in that moment when I’m feeling anger? Well, it’s simple. You anchor that emotion that you want to experience in a past experience. I put myself back — One of the ones I use is when my first daughter was born. I remember it was just my wife and I and her. Like nothing in the world existed. It was nothing but just a pure love experience. And I think of that moment. And I immediately shift the thought in my mind which changes the physiological response from anger to love.

Now, I can’t say that it’s immediate, the first time you do it, you’re going to feel it. But if you practice over time, you’re going to be able to shift your mindset literally in one minute because remember emotions are choices. We can choose to be angry. We can choose to love. We just need the skillset on how to shift that quickly. And that’s what the one-minute mindset allows you to do.

Barbara: Gee! I thought when you’re angry you would break out into a 5K run.

Jay: That’s another good tool as well.

Barbara: Can you describe your five keys to success and happiness?

Jay: Yes. Number 1 is live in the service of others. When you’re serving outside yourself and you’re focusing on the needs of others — I’m not saying that you ignore your own needs. But when you’re serving others, the return that you get is incalculable. And the funny thing is when you’re serving others you think you’re helping others but really, you’re helping yourself. Because there’s nothing better than helping someone achieve what they want.

Number 2 is pursue your passions. A life full of passion is a life well lived. And it’s one that’s going to be full of joy and excitement and it’s going to be one that’s going to be filled with some challenges. But the joy and the challenges are where we see growth and how we build self-confidence and self-esteem. So, pursuing passions.

Number 3 is do what you love and find someone to pay you for it. You know, I was fortunate to find — I was originally in premed to be an orthopedic surgeon. When I got hurt playing football, my mother had suggested I go see a chiropractor. I’ve never heard of a chiropractor. I didn’t know anything about it. And I went and saw this chiropractor and he was a really neat guy. Just great energy. Really passionate about health. I remember walking into his office, the first doctor’s visit. So I walked in and I didn’t feel intimated, you know. And he helped me. I had a concussion, shoulder. I was back on the field in a few days. I thought that was a really cool thing what he did.

I never really pursued it until one day I came out of the biochem lab one night and he was there doing the lecture. And I sat down and I listened to what he had to say and what he said changed my life. And I said, I’m going to become a chiropractor. I went home and I told my mother. I said, yeah, I’m not going to be an orthopedic surgeon. I’m going to be a chiropractor. She almost fell off the chair but it turned out to be a good decision. But I got to practice for 25 years helping people, serving people, loving people, changing lives. And I got paid very, very well for it. And I’m so grateful for that.

Four is learn to unconditionally love yourself. You know, I find this is one of the biggest challenges facing the human race today. If you don’t love yourself, you can’t love others. And when we don’t love ourselves, we sabotage ourselves. We don’t eat right, right? It’s what leads to poor habits and behaviors and addictions. And so self-love is, I believe, one of the core essence that should be taught from early on in childhood. And it’s not a selfish act. It’s a selfless act. When you love you and you respect you, then you’re going to love and respect others. So pursuing self-love unconditionally because — You know, we can do a whole two-hour show on this. But it’s such an important tool.

And then number 5 is we all need to take care of ourselves, physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. It should be a pursuit we do each and every day. I think it’s our responsibility to each other as a race, is to live that example so we can live our highest self, so we can, you know, consume less. You know, when we’re healthy, we consume less. We consume less medicine. We consume less healthcare, you know. We’re focused on good positive behaviors. So be in the pursuit of physical, emotional and spiritual well-being is #5.

Barbara: It’s amazing how we can analyze the path that we are on in life and go back and pinpoint it to one key event or person that put us on a whole new trajectory that we were not thinking of at the time, you know, almost like it was fate, to me, that person to get on the road that we were meant to be on.

Jay: 100% agree. I mean, we all have those seminal moments where we find those people or they come into our life. The question is, we talked about this before, are you consciously aware? And that’s why I said meditation is so important because if we don’t spend some time in quietness, we’ll miss the signals and those people will leave our life and we’ll miss a great opportunity or a direction we were supposed to go.

Barbara: You know, I’d like listeners to know that Dr. Jay here has been very thoughtful and generous. He has prepared a special gift. Would you tell my listeners about what that is and how they could get it?

Jay: Sure, yeah. It’s the first two chapters of our book, our most recent book which is Triple P Life: Your GPS to Success. And the link is tripleplife.com/gpsbook. So that’s tripleplife.com/gpsbook. Yeah, so you could check out the first couple of chapters and see if it’s something you would like to learn more about. And then also of course, check out the PowerPassionProsperity podcast, all one word, PowerPassionProsperity podcast. We’re on every single podcasting app you can imagine. And the things we discussed today, how to be successful in business, are a lot of the primary topics that we discuss on a weekly basis.

Barbara: Well, thanks for being on our show today. We really enjoyed having you. This has been Dr. Jay LaGuardia that I’m talking to. And your host, Dr. Barbara Hales, with another episode of Marketing Tips for Doctors. Until next time.

Connect with Dr. Jay LaGuardia:

Website: PowerPassionProsperity.com & DrJLaGuardia.com

Twitter: @OolaCoach

Facebook: Dr. Jay LaGuardia

Book: Change Your Mind Change Your Destiny

Show: The Power Passion Prosperity Podcast

YouTube: Dr. Jay LaGuardia

LinkedIn: Dr. Jay LaGuardia

Instagram: @drjaylaguardia

Free Gift!: First 2 Chapters of Jay’s new Book

Connect with Barbara Hales:

Twitter: @DrBarbaraHales