I walked out of the restaurant kitchen lugging a very big and very heavy tray of food on my shoulder.
I looked around the main dining room and the laughter, fun and festivity in the air punched me in the gut.
At 23 years old, I was exhausted. It seemed like all I did was work.
In those moments, it seemed like no one in the room could ever match how hard I worked. I stood there tired and sweating and baffled. They sat there having fun.
I mean, I was always working, and these guests were always coming to the restaurant to have fun and enjoy themselves.
That moment unwittingly spurred a lifetime of inquiry into the inner-tickings of human potential. I wanted to understand why some were successful and having fun with life, and why I wasn’t.
Over the past 25 years I’ve learned much, but three things stand out as key to achieving our best and being our best:
WHAT WE EAT MATTERS. It’s irrefutable. In the most basic understanding, our bodies are simply biochemical machines, a system of connecting impulses, chemical reactions, electric currents and shared information that work synergistically together. What we eat drives these actions.
To achieve full potential, all of those processes need to happen.
But during those days at the restaurant, I didn’t eat healthfully. And because of it, I suffered with several chronic health problems, like Leaky Gut Syndrome, chronic urinary tract infections and chronic allergies.
So the notion of achieving my fullest potential was not even in the realm of my life experience. Full potential? What’s that? Find me a doctor who can tell me why I feel so poorly, and then we can talk about anything else you want to talk about.
But when I put nutrition first, the most amazing thing began to happen. As my body got healthier, the horizon of opportunity literally began to rise up for me in ways I didn’t even know existed when I was sick.
WHO WE SPEND TIME WITH MATTERS. It’s said that we are the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with. So it stands to reason, that if we spend time with people who are committed to their personal growth, we’ll spend our time committed to our personal growth.
But I had quit high school, so I didn’t go on to develop new friendships with people who were talking about things that interested me as I got older, so I had to get resourceful to find them.
I began to find my tribe in the books I read. Authors like Marianne Williamson, Tony Robbins and Jack Canfield inspired me to think far beyond the circumstances of my life… and soon my sphere of influence included motivating and educational audio tracks, YouTube channels and even basic seminars in the basement of a local hospital.
Who we spend time with matters. It can make the difference between reaching for excellence, or accepting ‘good enough.’ It can make the difference between living with chronic symptoms, or finding a tribe who can help you heal your body, so you can achieve your full potential.
MORE THAN FOOD MATTERS.
One afternoon I discovered that my body was unable to digest the supplements I was taking. Yes, that meant my body was unable to break them down. But what I also got was, if my body couldn’t break down the pills I was taking,
Eating healthy food alone was not enough — If my body couldn’t break down the supplements I was taking, how could it break down the food I ate?
That we are not what we eat, but rather we are what we digest, and that healing the digestive wall is the essential first step for any health protocol, and…
That every choice we make contributes to the quality of our health and wellbeing, so we must include personal practices like meditating and journaling, to strengthen our relationship with our self.
The alternative is, every choice we make will pivot off a self fragmented by the demands of a busy life, rather than a calm, centered self.
Back in those early restaurant days, when I felt overworked and exhausted, sick and disheartened, I never even considered that there could be another way, which is probably why I’ve loved this quote from Copernicus since I first heard it, “To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.” For me this quote says that by acknowledging that there are things that I don’t know, I can find comfort, and even excitement in the questions and the challenges new learning asks of me, rather than a test of my intellect or ability. From this perspective, answers appear that I might not have ever known existed, like, what we eat matters, who we spend time with matters, and more than food matters.
TELL ME ABOUT YOUR MOMENT
Now that I’ve shared one of my stories on the power of a moment, I’d love to hear from you.
When looking back, what moments inspired big life change for you? Did you act on what you learned? Why? Why not?
How did the a-ha moments shift your health or your life?
Fill me in by leaving a comment below.
