Endo Battery

Unlocking the Power of a Resilient Mind with Dr. Niva and Rick Macci

• Alanna • Episode 110

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Join us for a transformative conversation with the inspiring Dr. Niva Jerath and legendary tennis coach Rick Macci as we dive into the power of perspective, resilience, and gratitude. In this compelling episode, we explore their collaboration on the book "Billion Dollar Mind," where they share actionable insights for reprogramming your internal dialogue to overcome challenges, cultivate joy, and build mental toughness for both everyday life and extraordinary achievements.

Discover practical techniques to foster positivity, even when facing chronic illness, unexpected setbacks, or demanding life circumstances. Through heartfelt stories, Dr. Niva and Rick Macci reveal how shifting your mindset and focusing on gratitude can unlock personal growth, deepen relationships, and build community.

In the final segments, hear Rick's reflections on navigating injury and adversity with gratitude and how self-care is essential for both caregivers and individuals striving for balance. "Billion Dollar Mind" is your ultimate guide to embracing small victories, finding purpose, and unlocking the mental resilience needed for a fulfilling life.

🔑 Don’t miss this motivational episode that will inspire you to strengthen your mind, reframe your perspective, and take on life’s challenges like a champion!

Check out neuromusuclar expert youtube channel:

Neuromuscular Medicine Expert - YouTube

Check out a life changing book called "Billion Dollar Mind"! 

You can buy it on amazon using this link: https://a.co/d/1YCiYZJ

Website endobattery.com

Alanna:

Welcome to EndoBattery, where I share my journey with endometriosis and chronic illness, while learning and growing along the way. This podcast is not a substitute for medical advice, but a supportive space to provide community and valuable information so you never have to face this journey alone. We embrace a range of perspectives that may not always align with our own. Believing that open dialogue helps us grow and gain new tools always align with our own. Believing that open dialogue helps us grow and gain new tools. Join me as I share stories of strength, resilience and hope, from personal experiences to expert insights. I'm your host, alana, and this is EndoBattery charging our lives when endometriosis drains us. Welcome back to EndoBattery. Grab your cup of coffee or your cup of tea and join me at the table. Today. I'm absolutely thrilled to be joined at the table by two extraordinary guests whose expertise and passion are sure to leave you inspired.

Alanna:

First we have Dr Navita Jareth, better known as Dr Niva, an unstoppable force in neuromuscular medicine. With training from Harvard, the Mayo Clinic and the University of Iowa, dr Niva has dedicated her career to solving some of the most challenging neuromuscular cases. She leads nationally recognized programs, driving groundbreaking research in muscular dystrophy and clinic trials, and champions her patients' resilience and achievements. Fun fact, she's also a former junior tennis champion who trained with today's second guest, the legendary Rick Macci. Rick Macci is a name synonymous with greatness in tennis. As the coach behind some of the sport's biggest stars, like Venus and Serena Williams, maria Shapova and Andy Roddick, rick is known for his unique ability to transform not just players' games but also their mindset. As seven-time USPTA Coach of the Year in Hall of Fame inductee, rick has been a lifelong advocate for using mental fitness to elevate physical performance.

Alanna:

But here's where it gets exciting. Dr Niva and Rick have teamed up to co-author a powerful book, Billion Dollar Mind, where they combine their expertise in neurology and coaching to explore the secrets of mental strength, resilience and achieving your full potential. Together, they've created a guide to unlocking the mindset that leads to success, whether it's on the tennis court, in the clinic or in everyday life. So grab that cup of coffee or tea and join me at the table as we get ready to hear from two extraordinary individuals about resilience, mindset and how to level up in every area of your life.

Alanna:

Please help me in welcoming Dr Niva Jareth and Rick Macci. Thank you both for joining me today. I'm excited to have this conversation. It's kind of a unique conversation than what I've had in the past and so I'm excited to kind of shift our mindset, if you will, into this new topic of mindset and discipline and thinking outside the box, into positivity and how that can help us grow within our own journey. So thank you both so much for taking the time to sit down with me and talk about this.

Rick Macci:

Thanks for having me. Thank you for having me.

Alanna:

Yes, tell us just a little bit about your book and your journeys to get to that place. In writing the book.

Rick Macci:

I'll let Nev go first. Go ahead.

Dr. Niva:

I think smoke is really important. It's a fundamental tool for improving our mindset and having a control over our mind. And what I realized was that one day I realized I could be happy in one moment and the next moment I could be sad, and the next moment I could be afraid. And it was all generated by me. I found out because I was having a rough day one time and so I was biking and I was doing this long 10-mile bike ride up and down hills and I just kept thinking of the same thoughts of the past. I said how can I get rid of these thoughts? They just make me so sad. And then, all of a sudden, I met a couple and started talking to them. And then we ran to look in the pond and there was a turtle floating. I was like, oh gosh, these moments are so precious and made me so happy. It was full of joy.

Dr. Niva:

I was like living in the present moment and my thoughts were so distracted by the present and I realized, gosh, why our thoughts are so fricking. Like we're going from bike riding nine miles a night just thinking about the past and the sadness, and all of a sudden, just getting distracted changed the way I felt. I said, wow, there's so much power within us. And how do I conquer that? How do I decipher that? How do I decode it? We know how to decode computers right Computer programming. How do we computer programming? How do we reprogram our minds so they're our friends? How do we make our thoughts our best friends? How do we think the right way so they're always happy and full of joy? Rather than you know, having some external experience dictate that, or a sudden, you know change and somebody says something or a little thing, or you know. So how do we generate that from within? And that's what the book is fundamentally about. It's the secrets on how to control our mind and our thoughts.

Alanna:

Rick, how is this for you?

Rick Macci:

Okay, now Nib is down the road a little bit, but I'm going to back the truck up. Okay, I got to go back and let all the people listening I actually taught her and her twin sister back in the day, okay, when they were she was 16 years old, number one player in the South. She was a great tennis player, made the right decision, went to Harvard one of the best doctors in the world. So I think she made the right decision. But you know, her kids came to the academy a little bit, always kind of stayed in touch. And one day she asked me about doing a book about mental strength and this is right up my wheelhouse.

Rick Macci:

I'm probably more a life coach as much as a tennis coach. You know, people know me with Venus, serena Capriotti, roddick, sharapova, moschino, pierce Kennan all these people that won Grand Slams or have been number one. But I deal more with the well, not more as much with the mental part. Okay, and how to flip the script. Take a negative turn a positive, because in the game of tennis you got 20 seconds to flip it in your mind, like it happened 20 years ago. They have approached me about this and the medical point of view. Ok, the science point of view, and then me being in the trenches and doing this my whole life. It was a match made in heaven.

Rick Macci:

And now that we've done the book, not only has it become a bestseller. If people come back and say it changed my life OK, and I don't change strokes, I changed slides on the tennis court. So to me I don't want to say it kind of validated everything I've done through my whole career, but it's been so fulfilling simply because the wild card is this right here tennis and the game of life. It's a game of inches from one ear to another and it's about perspective and how you look at it. So when we teamed up to do the book, it was really a powerhouse combination, a dynamic duo, because she's dealing it from the doctor point of view and I'm dealing it from you know made a lot of champions. Besides, changed a lot of people's lives. So there's so many gold nuggets in the book. It's one of the best things I've ever done in my life.

Alanna:

That's such a great way to put it. There's one word you said in there that I live by. This is the word that is my. I feel like we have. You know, we make New Year's resolutions or we have a word of the year that we're going to practice right, my life word. I have one word in life that I live by, and that word is perspective, because perspective.

Rick Macci:

I knew you were going to say that. I knew you were going to say that you know what and when you do that, you look at the world through a different lens. You do Go ahead.

Alanna:

Yeah. So perspective to me is if you walk circumspect, right, broadly, look around, you see things differently. If you are looking very narrow, you're missing out on a lot of the pieces that are going to help you pave this road forward. And so I'm a big believer in, no matter where our journey takes us, if we walk circumspect, with perspective, we have a greater understanding of ourselves, of our environment, of our purpose and of our future, of where we want to go. It's easier to work through the challenges of life with perspective, and I also think it helps with connection, and as humans, we need connection to feel validated. Like you said, we need connection to be able to feel seen, heard, feel like we're part of something. And if you walk introspective, you don't have and don't have the perspective of others in your circle. You're missing out on that fullness of community. And that's why perspective to me, when you said that is a big key to my life, that is my life word, because I want to walk with perspective.

Dr. Niva:

I was going to ask Rick that I think it was a dream come true that he said yes Because I had come to appreciate him for an award for women in leadership and I come down. I never even expected he would say yes for the award for, like women in leadership and I come down. I never even expected he would say yes for the award. He took a picture and and then, just underneath my breath, I was like no, I got an idea for a book. He has motivational sayings all over his academy and I was always motivated and encouraged by them. Every time I would come there and change my the way of thinking, like he said, the perspective, and it was, like you know, just this sort of think big, be big. It just made me feel so, so encouraged, like I gotta, I gotta be better than what I am. And so I thought I was like okay, you know, I have an idea about a book, I'm just whispering it and I was impressed. I couldn't even imagine that after I told him about the book idea.

Dr. Niva:

But two, two weeks later, it was like yesterday. It was like in the middle of this busy clinic with patients, I was seeing like two patients. I was like so exhausted I was going home and I get a text message Where's the book. I was like let's go. That's cool, that's cool. I was like this is a dream come true. No one has ever really committed to something like working as hard. You got book ideas that take a lot of time. It's a lot of work and I just ran home that day and started writing. But I remember that positivity and recognizing it was like everything went exponential. It was like on fire. We were just great. I mean just together. It was just he was positive. I loved his positivity. It was like on fire. We were just great. I mean just together. It was just he was positive. I loved his positivity. It fed into my positivity and that's how the book came out.

Rick Macci:

So really great, let's get a perspective. You know this has to be right in my wheelhouse and the leader in a clubhouse, because I always tell people what you may see is different than Rick may see, right, this, what you may see, is different than Rick may see, right, this is. It's a whole different way of looking at it. It almost is what it isn't. You got to be able to flip it how you respond to things, and it's not even about tennis. What I do, it's everything Right. And once you get on that hamster wheel and you train your brain to react certain ways, the way you handle things, I mean it's better for your health. The ripple effect or the cascading effect is even more powerful than the actual moment. But people let things control them instead of you controlling the situation brick by brick. And you can relate, because when you said perspective, okay, this podcast is now the leader of Clubhouse because we're on the same wavelength and it all starts with mindset. Yeah, perspective is what it's all about.

Alanna:

Yes, I want to break down just a little bit of what you were talking about just the mindset and the way that we kind of control that, and I want to break down just a couple of the things that you said and we'll kind of expand this a little bit. And you have talked about this in the book. But specifically, how can mental resilience techniques that you talk about in the book help individuals dealing with chronic illness? Because I mean, I think this is a really hard thing for those that are walking through life challenges that are really almost out of their control. But there's got to be some techniques and you've written about these that can help kind of navigate that.

Dr. Niva:

Absolutely. I love that question because I do that every day in the clinic, yeah, and I can give you two examples. For one thing, and my patients are all struggling with chronic pain and chronic illness. And the most important technique I think we're talking about perspective and reframing, but one of the main things is gratitude. As soon as we fill up our parts of gratitude, we see things so differently. And I can give an example I'll never forget.

Dr. Niva:

I was a medical student at Mayo Clinic and all the kids were complaining that they had to work so hard that they don't get any sleep, they have to study and they don't have a life. And I'll never forget. Our dean told us she said go and she said today's exercise all you guys are complaining. She was at the auditorium. The friars were like all of you are complaining. I want you all to go to the lobby of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, minnesota, and just sit there for 20 minutes and watch. Okay, now, we all sat there. I remember watching. There's a beautiful chandelier, beautiful forest.

Dr. Niva:

There you see the sickest kids that have maybe three or four months left to live. You see a kid having a seizure. You're seeing another person with a leg cut off, another one with their arm cut off, and then you see someone, like you know, with dementia and their family members pushing them, and someone with a brain tumor, and all of a sudden there's no more complaining. Yeah, because you're, like, appreciative of what you have. So it doesn't mean that you minimize what you're having. I mean, everybody has troubles and pains, but it's a combination of gratitude and perspective and recognizing that if we're grateful for what we have, then all of a sudden everything else is not as. It's a way, it's a technique to get out of the pain, maybe to improve it, and it's a feel, the situation in a different way. And that's what you're talking about perspective. It really means a lot.

Dr. Niva:

The second aspect I remember there's another story I had was when I was in the clinic last week when a patient came in and her daughter got shot by mistake at 35, you know, incidental homicide, and she loved her daughter, but she had read our book and she was in such good spirits. And the reason why? Because she was again so grateful for the memories she had. She said at least, my daughter is 35 years old and I got to live with her for 35 years and I got to have beautiful memories with her and she didn't think about the homicide. She thought more of the positive memories and all the trips she went with her daughter and she just really was full of gratitude and appreciation.

Dr. Niva:

And Joyce said I'm just so full of positivity today and thank you so much, this book changed my mind. I wish that I'm just so full of positivity today and thank you so much. This book changed my mind. So it's those moments that really make a big difference. She was able to reprogram her mind and make it positive and thank you with gratitude and kind of reframe the situation. So it worked for her benefit. That's why like our mind is like our best friend.

Alanna:

Yeah, absolutely it is. Can you explain you were talking about just going through that and changing that mindset and working with your patients on this, but can you explain the connection between the neurological and mental strength and managing things like chronic fatigue or the unexplained that we have no control over? Yeah, the correlation between those two.

Dr. Niva:

I think about the mental strength, mental strength to manage those chronic situations. There's a lot of technique, so that's a big topic. But if you think about in a big picture point of view, right, when someone's tired there's obviously maybe a biological component to it. Some people might have anemia or whatever, you know, they might be out sleeping at night. But if there's an additional mental piece to that, that mental piece can make the fatigue worse. And so that's why we kind of what Rick said is we're going to feed our mind positivity, kind of like it's its own medicine.

Dr. Niva:

So think of the neurologic system, it's sensory input and motor output, right. So whenever we have sensory input, we have like good thoughts, we have, um, we hear good things, we see good things that are positive. Our motor output will be positive. And that's what my kid she's like. Oh, she's like what? What does positive thinking do? I said, look, positive thinking creates positive action. So I know that if people are struggling with fatigue, there is definitely that or their chronic pain, but if they have those positive thoughts feeding in, that's like a medicine. You know that's going to give them some positive action, even if it's not like they're running up, you know a marathon or whatever. But even if it's a small thing, it's that sensory input, it's that motor output. Yeah.

Rick Macci:

Let me chime in here because I'm backing the truck up once again. You know we go back to perspective Number one. Everybody listening. You got to reframe it. Number one, you should always appreciate what you have instead of what you don't have. That's the starting point. Thank God, it's every day, don't thank God, it's Friday. You know what I mean. Everybody has it wrong. Because then what happens when that's a starting point?

Rick Macci:

Like Nip said, she's at the Mayo Clinic and you're seeing people, you know, because, let's face it, tragedy and death makes people take a deep breath and they change everything and they appreciate a little bit. More than a couple of weeks go by and they're back to the same old negativity and they let things control them. And you've got to get into this routine about what I just said, because when you're in a routine, mentally you become a machine. You're training yourself how you're going to look at it. Unfortunately, some people like to complain and they like problems and they like gossip and they like that and they might not ever want to change, you know. So that's a whole different thing, but everybody has a choice. Okay, and positivity is the leader in a clubhouse. How it affects your nervous system. Listen when people lose a point in tennis, I have the kids smile. Okay, because that's not what you want to do. You know you're going to be frustrated and this is the same thing. We can look at the same thing, all three of us. We might see something very different, but we're looking at the same thing. It's how we're going to respond to it mentally. No one's bulletproof, I'm not saying whatever. We can't be like that but you need to take a deep breath. People always tell you count to 10, count to 100, whatever it might be. Well, you got to train yourself to do this.

Rick Macci:

It's like Niv said everybody's aware kind of what they put in their mouth, but they're not aware what they put into their brain. You got to listen to motivational speakers. You got to motivate yourself. Your best friend is the mirror. You should be talking to yourself every day. I don't know if you want to have people around when you're talking to yourself, but this is very important.

Rick Macci:

But people all have it backwards. They let what they say on TV affect them. Everything affects us. You control the situation, don't let it control you. It's perspective, but the starting point is appreciation. Like Niv said, gratitude. It's perspective, but the starting point is appreciation, like Niv said, gratitude, appreciate what you have.

Rick Macci:

Yeah, because if everybody, everybody would say, well, if I could do that over again, or if I could go back in time, or what the heck was I thinking back then? Or what? Everybody does it because we're human. No one's you got to look at problems as an opportunity. When you know you're going to have problems, right, okay, don't be just happy on your birthday or Christmas, whatever it's. No, you can't look at it like that. You might be happier, right, other people are affected.

Rick Macci:

This is very important, but people don't have discipline, people don't want to change. You know and I'm kind of that way, I'm a really a creature of habit, but in a very positive way the way I've trained my mind over my career and I helped so many others, okay, you have no idea, and that's that's what they need to hear, to uplift. And even Niv said something earlier about all the motivational signs around the academy. There's like a hundred. One word can change a child's life Absolutely, or an adult or adult. And when people forget the ones that have become number one or people that become great. You know they're wired different. Everybody can run and jump and learn the biomechanics of how to hit the ball, but how they look at it. That separates great from good, especially in sports. Yeah.

Rick Macci:

Okay, because everybody has certain genetics and all that stuff. So at the end of the day, it all starts with appreciating what you have, and you got to tell yourself that every day, not what you don't have. Right, you know. Right, and this is key for anybody listening. Okay, because it's a matter of just training your mind. So if you want to be better about what we're talking about, be aware of what goes in here, not just what goes in your mouth. Listen, that will ripple on to your kids, to your friends, your work. You'll be more productive. You'll just look at things so much different. You know so much different.

Rick Macci:

You can't like, just because it's 80 and sunny and a nice breeze, it's going to be a great day. Some people get up and they say it's going to be a bad day. I don't want to be around those people. I don't know what they're. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, discipline. You know to be a champion in anything. You got to have tremendous discipline because you got all these forces around us pulling us the other direction Negative people, the TV, social media it's like it's all that. People would rather see the train wreck sometimes than something else. You know, and you got to be around that type of environment type of environment. Yeah, that's really important, especially for parents and that have kids. You got to really be careful that. So that's my sermon on a Friday afternoon about that.

Alanna:

No, it is good. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that what we put in is what we put out. You know, like, what goes in comes out at some point or another, and if you allow the negative to consume you, that's what you will permeate the room with right. It's important to remember that because we have a chronic illness for a lot of us, or because life doesn't always happen the way we think it's going to happen, or it doesn't pan out the way we wish it would have, doesn't mean that it defines our complete life and that we have the ability to redirect a lot of that based off of what we can control. And no one else can control our mental mindset but ourselves.

Alanna:

And this is something I tell my kids all the time. You know, I have a six-year-old and she tells me today is just not going to be a good day, and I was like excuse me, because you didn't get what you wanted, you know. And I say no, it's going to be a great day, with maybe some hard moments. And she was like no, I'm like yes, because we all have hard moments, and I think that's true in our lives as well, and why I like that mindset is because our lives don't have to be bad, our dailies don't have to be bad, but maybe we have some hard moments and maybe we have some hard and challenging times, but it's how we allow ourselves to come out of that space and into one that's healthy and thriving and is allowing us to have a better quality of life. That's what's important, too, right, but how do you adapt your methods to creating mental health routines that fit the unpredictable nature of things like chronic illness and life?

Dr. Niva:

I can chime in on that because while Rick was talking, I was like well, you just mentioned smile. Yeah, smile is free. It's free. We don't have to go to the pharmacy to get it. We don't have to get it prescribed by anyone. We don't have to do anything to get it. It's within us. That's what this whole book is about.

Dr. Niva:

All these techniques are free and the same thing occurs. You have to deal with struggling situations, like if someone loses a point in tennis, they're smiling. Same thing if there's a bad day or there's a difficult situation, I tend to smile. In the morning, you can get up and smile and say 10 positive things about yourself and get into that routine so the unpredictability is not there and get into that routine so the unpredictability is not. There's no excuse, because all that stuff is within us. You just you can't enter the habit. It's requires discipline. My first set you'll have to train your mind to be able to make it your best friend and to be able to come up with techniques that are just within you, right, saying positive things to yourself, loving yourself, smiling, having a little bit of humor, appreciating others and also the things that you can do, and having a good, just our own mental toolbox and we all realize how free it yeah absolutely.

Alanna:

It sounds easy, right, but then we also are human and it is a struggle. When life is is hard, it that is hard sometimes to find our smile and I think that's why and maybe you can even speak on this why community matters so much and surrounding yourself with people that can support you and be that smile when you're having a hard time, or be that encouragement when you don't have the words to encourage. Remind you.

Dr. Niva:

You know, that's the thing. The words to encourage, remind you, that's the thing. You have to have people that remind you, like what reminds me, you know, like this is all within you. Like, look in the mirror, it's got. You know they can have the smile, but you also have to have it too. So it's just your reminder to have these people around you that are going to be like sometimes they're like coaches or friends or colleagues. Have these people around you that are going to be like sometimes they're like coaches or friends or colleagues, but you have to remind yourself that it's you versus you, and if you don't recognize it, you're never going to change. You're going to go to the same friend who you're going to start becoming dependent on. They're going to make you happy. She realizes within you and all of those powers that you have. That's why I love this book. It's being able to conquer your own walls.

Alanna:

Yeah, something you said that struck a chord with me is you have to learn to love yourself. This is something that is really hard for many to do. When they're mad at their bodies, they struggle achieving certain goals because of physical limitations, and so it's that anger and that grief which is valid when you're going through those things. That's a valid thing to walk through when your body, when you're in pain and it's hard to love yourself and it's hard to love your body. How do we climb out of that mentality? Because I'm sure, rick, you've experienced this with athletes who are upset that they can't reach a certain goal, or they're struggling to reach a certain goal, or maybe an injury that happens and they're frustrated. I feel this Okay, I'm just speaking for myself, as someone who gets hurt a lot. It's frustrating and you can be angry. And how to not live in that anger but reframe that mindset. How do you do that, and how do you do that as a coach, and how do you do that with the science backing it?

Rick Macci:

Well, first off, I love this question because, as I sit here today, back in May I tore a tendon in my plantar plate in the right foot. Ok, I got an MRI. Ok, I tore the tendon, there was capsulitis underneath, it was swollen and so kind of had to go into a boot. And the guy said OK, the best thing is, you can't stand for at least two months, and I teach 50 hours a week on a tennis court and I've been standing out in the sun since age 22. I'm like a lizard, I've been out there for so long, you know. And so when he said you can't stand for two months, I kind of said I can't stand, you you know. So here, but can't stand. You, you know I'm going, what so here? But here's the problem, and Nip has helped me a lot with this too, with the food and all this stuff. And here we are and I still have the problem because I probably didn't listen the way that I should have. I know other people would have, but I didn't. I just wanted to keep going. But to answer the question, okay, other than a boot, I never even told anybody. If they have a boot on, they're going to notice and I tell them, but I never talk about it. I don't complain about it. I actually try harder to do more in other areas. Okay, cause it's me against Mr Planter.

Rick Macci:

Plate tear, that's the way I've framed up my mind and I also look at it like it could be worse. You know. You know it could be worse, especially as you get older. So the fact that I have a tendon tear does it still hurt it older? So the fact that I have a tendon tear does it still hurt? It hurts even as we sit here. But I don't look at it like that because I've trained myself. Now I'm different, because I can handle pain. Everybody could have the same problem or the same pain. How they tolerate it is very different. And.

Rick Macci:

I don't mean you should be like stupid about it Okay, you should ever get help and do all that stuff but I don't talk about it because even Niv said how's your foot? I said it's great and I kind of move on to the next subject.

Rick Macci:

Yeah, you know, so I don't really, because it will get worse, because then it's in my mind all the time, even though I'm aware of it, because I feel that little stone kind of under my foot. But I always think that it could be worse. I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I mean, if this is the worst thing that ever happens to me, I'll take it. But it's the way I look at it instead of just why me you know why this happened to me. I try my best, I help others. You know, blah, blah. I could go down that rabbit hole. I'm not wired like that, but that started long ago and that prepared me for moments like this, because I know life's about problems for everybody. It's how you deal with and now when you have like chronic pain, you know what I'm saying. Or you have that pain, I get it, and I hope anybody listening understands that. And it goes back to what I said earlier about the appreciation of what I have and how lucky I am. She's talking about the Mayo Clinic and all this. You know that's really important. It could be worse, you know. I mean, if someone has a heart attack or they lose a limb, they'll. They'll take a plantar plate tear any day of the week. You know what I mean.

Rick Macci:

It's just like I tell kids I said perfect example, you got to run for every ball. This is how I tell them. And they go well, it was out. And I said I want you to run for every. Okay, I don't care if the ball is out. I said do you realize there's people that cannot run? You were born with the opportunity to run. I want your butt running as fast as you can. There are people in wheelchairs. Now I'm getting into coaching. I'm still kind of on the court, right, you know, and listen, I flipped a script, you know, and they could be a little lazy and they're ready to call out and celebrate like it's their birthday out. They keep running like a little squirrel on steroids.

Rick Macci:

Okay, I get them to change everything because, appreciate what, would you run your fastest? Okay, I mean, some people can't run, you know, and I teach one student or fathers in a wheelchair and stuff like that. So I try to talk to the kids about that and they have a mentor and a role model and a father figure like Rick Macy. It's very different because the parents are talking to him in a whole different cafeteria, but with me they get a dose of the real world, and if I can infiltrate their brain at a young age, maybe they'll treat people better, They'll clean their room, they get off drugs, they look at the world different. I'm changing their perspective and the best compliment is a lot of these people that I coached over my career ones you've heard of and haven't. I mean there's been over 300 national champions. They just pass a lot of this stuff down to their kids and their kids the way they look at it, and so to me that's what it's all about.

Rick Macci:

So anybody that has a problem or they have chronic illness, take a step back. We understand that's part of the deal. You know, if you're looking, why me, why me? If you're on that, Mary, you'll never get out of it. What's the alternative? You want death. I mean what is?

Alanna:

you know, but it feels like death at times. I'll be honest.

Rick Macci:

I understand that, but listen, it's all perfect example. This is I'm kind of deviating away from what we're talking about. If people are going to go run a mile before they run the mile, I don't think people are going. I can't wait to run the mile. Some people are yeah, think how you feel before the mile. Then, after you run the mile and you get done, your mind is feeling totally different Right Than it was five minutes ago. You see what I'm saying. Yeah, and I tell a lot of people even I'm getting off the subject here I tell all the kids when I give a speech at 10 o'clock every day and they're all dead tired and they're in the bleachers, I say, okay, if I said we're going to go run five miles, even though I'm not like that, okay, we're going to run five miles right now.

Rick Macci:

How many would do it? Half of them put their hand up and they're lying. Okay, because they're not going to do it. Then I said we're going to run five miles. If you run five miles, I'll give you $5,000. And every hand goes up, every kid and they got it wrong. It's perspective. If they run the five miles, maybe someday, if they become a pro, they'll make 5,000 look like peanuts. They got it backwards. You know what I mean. This is what people have to understand. It goes back to the perspective and how we're looking at everything, and chronic illness is a big thing, so it goes down to that appreciation it goes down to that appreciation.

Alanna:

It's interesting you say that because and I'll correlate this with something that I have personally experienced and I say it often so, being someone with chronic illness and chronic pain, I invested in myself. I said I'm worth enough to invest in myself. I have a trainer and my trainer sits down with me and we work through a lot of these things. And I said to him the other day I said I'm so proud of myself and my trainer sits down with me and we work through a lot of these things. And I said to him the other day I said I'm so proud of myself and he's like you should be. I said no, I'm proud because I can do something I couldn't a year ago and it was in that moment. I wouldn't have said I was proud of myself. In that moment it didn't really feel good. I'm going to be honest with you. It took a lot of time and effort and believing that I was worth enough to continue fighting this fight of I'm worth, putting myself in a position to grow. I'm worth growing my body and investing in my body.

Alanna:

And I think, because my mindset shifted into I can do this, and I became proud of that and it was a good thing for me as someone in the chronic illness community and I always tell people be proud of the little accomplishments you make in a day, because they're so big and what seems so minute to some is really big to others.

Alanna:

So it may and I've said this before if an accomplishment for you in a day is I got up and I got dressed, be proud of those accomplishments because it's bigger than sitting and doing nothing.

Alanna:

If your accomplishment and all you can do because you're in a pain flare, is taking deep breaths and is trying to eat food or drink relish in that accomplishment. It may seem small to many but it is big to you. And I think that if we reframe our perspective around what is an accomplishment for you and being proud of those accomplishments, I think that will propel people to make bigger accomplishments and grow even more so when they're not in a flare or when they're not in a state of like just survival mode physically, because that mental mindset is a muscle, your brain is a muscle and so training your brain to be like accomplish something today and being okay with that, I think will speak volumes to those who are struggling to get out of bed and feeling that self-worth diminish because they can't do something. I got out of bed today. That's a big accomplishment for me today.

Dr. Niva:

I love that example. That's what I'm just going to. That's what we talk about in my clinic all the time and that's the book. Right, we have to be our own best friend and our own share leader. Yeah, and that's what you're doing You're being your own share leader. So when, even if there's small accomplishments every day, we don't have to compare to anybody else, we have to compare it to ourselves, and if we feel like we've done more than we can imagine, we've really conquered our mind and our world, that's great and we just keep telling ourselves great job. You did this.

Dr. Niva:

For instance, when somebody has an injury and they hurt their foot, or have patients who are very weak in a wheelchair and they can't really move, but now they can actually lift up their phone, that's a huge deal for them, right? And so they have to tell themselves and you were talking about this concept of self-love, and I think that's really important, especially with people who are dealing with illnesses, because they really beat themselves up. They need it. I had a patient two weeks ago who had ALS and she hated the fact that she had to live with her mom, that she can't walk or work or has no money, and she's just surviving with what her mom made and her mom is looking double just to take care of her. But she has to realize that, like she herself is a blessing you know we went over this she has to love herself and her mom loves her.

Dr. Niva:

It's once she changed that perspective and they realized, like you know, maybe there's a couple months left to live. Then, all of a sudden, like she stopped beating herself up. There's wasting so much time on that, thinking so it's so important to be our best friend, to be our own cheerleader, to take care of ourselves and our emotions and recognize the perspective we should. That you know we have to love ourselves. Alternative is not good, you know Right.

Rick Macci:

So you know, no, this is huge. You know, obviously the little things make the biggest difference and if you're going to beat yourself up one way, you got to celebrate the littlest things, and this is what I do, obviously, on the tennis court with people. I want them to feel good about themselves. The other, you get on that hamster wheel and it just sucks everything out of you. You got to understand the littlest thing is a major league accomplishment and even people that maybe don't have an illness that accomplish something. They take little steps, they take the stairs, not the escalator. You can't look at it like why can't I do that? Everybody has whatever they're trying to accomplish. And you got to feel great about yourself. Just a microcosm of improvement, okay. And you got to feel great about yourself and then that ripples into other things and, like you said, maybe you needed the trainer to get you going. Now you're confident. Your confidence has breed more confident. You even talk about it different. And now you're looking for, you know, for more stuff like that.

Rick Macci:

And this is very, very important for anybody listening. You've got to really celebrate and feel amazing about the little things you can do. And you got to understand you're going to fail, it'll be a bad day at the office, but you got to look at it like you're not failing. It's just an opportunity to do it better. It's all how you look at it. But if you look at it black and white, you're going down a path and you'll just lose so many other inner qualities. I can't even tell you. When it goes back to what we said earlier let's celebrate the littlest things are huge, it's huge. You know. When it goes back to what we said earlier, let's celebrate the littlest things are huge, it's huge. You have no idea. It's almost like you're motivating yourself. Everybody needs a little push, everybody needs some outside help. Like Niv said, be your best friend, motivate yourself. This is such a key thing I can't even stress it enough.

Alanna:

Yeah, niv, can you tell us just a little bit more about the connection between our physical health and our mental health, like, how does mental health affect our physical health?

Dr. Niva:

It's so important. It's a fundamental building block of physical health. So mental health is critical.

Dr. Niva:

Patients and people whom I see who have the most positive outlook. They're grateful for everything they have. I've noticed them just improve so much better in terms of their health, and it's the reason why is because they take positive action to love themselves. They take positive action to take care of themselves. Just like you were saying, they take the right steps to be able to make the right moves for their health. Now imagine someone who doesn't love themselves, someone who doesn't like how they look or they're mad at themselves. Now they do destructive things. Right, they go ahead and they eat now because who cares? They don't love their body, they don't sleep well, they don't sleep well, they don't think well. They do things because they really don't love themselves. And so it's a really big game changer. The thinking positively, the mental health, loving themselves, taking care of themselves, is so important in terms of, of course, mental health, but our physical health, and you can see that right away.

Dr. Niva:

People self-sabotage. It's all them versus themselves, it's you versus you. And Rick says that all the time you have to look at yourself in the mirror and when you figure out why you're self-sabotaging yourself, like why is it that you're making the wrong choices? Why are you eating them? Why are you binge eating? Then you have to figure out what is that pain? It may be from your childhood, maybe from who knows what happened. Someone said something to you and that you see in this like mental room of constantly repeating it to yourself and hating yourself. Or you realize. Once you realize that you're in control of everything, especially those thoughts, and that you have control to stop it right, then you can actually fix it. You know, if you stop those thoughts and then redirect them to positive thoughts, say no, no, that person is wrong or that event is not right. Whatever the situation is, the bottom of your body is beautiful and it will be beautiful and I will make it better and you'll be on the right track for physical health. And.

Dr. Niva:

I've seen such great because I know I deal with a lot of patients who are dying or ALS. I had a patient with spinal muscular atrophy in a wheelchair and she just she can't move her arms and legs, she's paralyzed almost. She's born with muscular dystrophy and muscular atrophy and she can with muscular dystrophy and muscular atrophy and she can. She gets someone to put makeup on, she just makes herself feel good, she can put a little bit of lipstick and she has a boyfriend and they're like going around you know Walmart, and she travels all the time with her wheelchair. It's really important. She makes her mental health so good, she's so positive, she loves herself, she's always glowing positivity and that's how she lives her lives yeah and she's probably one of my healthiest, even though she's so weak.

Rick Macci:

No, tell me not what I said earlier and you've touched upon it. First off, you gotta understand you control the situation, don't let it control you. That's the starting point. It's a choice. But if you're so in that negative, you know thought process, you're in you. The mind controls the body. Everybody has has to understand that. That's like number one the mind controls the body.

Rick Macci:

This is very, very important. It's nothing to do with how smart you are or your opportunity or money or anything like that. The mind controls the body and whatever lane you're in in the game of life and from there you make choices how you want to treat people. And it goes way back to what we said Appreciate what you have, Settle what you don't have, Thankful. So this is very important. And if you think about it every day when you get up, if someone you got all these things going on, the kids screaming, yelling, I'm late, got all these things going on, the kids screaming, yelling, I'm late, this, that the alarm, this you get all these things going on and you have this positive stuff It'll kind of motivate you or give you a fighting chance. You know what I'm saying and this is really important. What you put into your mind every day. This is really important, but people don't. They're letting everything control them.

Alanna:

Yeah, I think something, too, that I have really seen as a benefit in navigating my own journey with this is that I think there's this misconception that grief has to be doom and gloom, and I think we deal with a lot of grief and that's a normal part of humans. We will walk through grief in our life. You are not exempt at all from grief, right? It's just that when you live with a chronic illness, grief can either heal in a different way and it's a stronger sense of healing and you heal the mind of the hurt and the pain doesn't mean that we ignore it or that we forget it. It just means that it doesn't consume us, and I think something that I've seen within you know, living with chronic illnesses, is that if you live in grief and allow it to consume you, you physically are not as healthy, and that is something that I have had to focus on. I can have joy in my grief, and I can have it doesn't mean that I'm not in pain. It doesn't mean that I'm not struggling, trying to navigate my day to day. What it means is that I'm not allowing it to consume me, and I think the effects on my body because of that is better, Like my outcome physically is better because I'm not holding on to the weight of the world, I'm not holding on to things that I can't control.

Alanna:

And something that I've learned and I'm not sure how much of this is in the book, but I think it is is that and we talk about the controlling what's in our mind, but I can only control what I put in my mind and in my body.

Alanna:

And if I put that joy and I put that mindset of healing and I put that in front of me as like I'm not going to let this stop me today, it might limit me a little bit but it's not going to stop me, it's not going to stop me from living. And if I put that mindset there, my body will follow that to the best of its ability. We will have limitations, but it'll follow in the best of my ability and I'm not going to hold it. Tension and stress and anger and negativity. If we hold on to that, our bodies feel it and I know that for me personally that has been a huge part of it. Right, we as humans have the ability to let it go and work through it and that's, I think, part of the biggest part of healing physically is knowing that there are things you can't control and then there are things that you can, but thinking about not having to hold the weight of the world will help you.

Dr. Niva:

Yeah, and I think that's part of the book talks about thinking loops, and so what we try to say is that our baseline state should always be joy, because that's who we are and our thoughts should be programmed to get that constant joy. In fact, if I don't have that, I have to, like actually go through a thinking loop and figure out what it is that's bothering me and fix it, because it's just a matter of looking. It's a simple thought that needs to be adjusted, and so I'll be like why is it that I suddenly felt bad about X, y, z? And then I'll be like okay, back it up and how do we fix it?

Dr. Niva:

So a thinking loop is how our minds are programmed and they occur years and years into your kids. It's how you're born. It's like you suddenly somebody says something and all of a sudden, trade with a domino triggers that thought. Uh, you see something or you hear something, or you know who knows what is taste something, and now you have a sensation that's triggering a thought. It's usually something you know situation, maybe you could be at work or at home and and it dominoes into that.

Dr. Niva:

So something you get into a loop and it's important to journal these or to think about and really train your mind, saying what is it that bothers me? And so if there's like an external event that does that constantly, that stuff needs to be made. It's like a weed you have to take it out and it's just a practice of discipline every day. I do that. So, like joy is your mate, you know, should be your constant state. All right, you know, and I know there's grief and there's stuff like that, and that's understandable. Everyone goes through it. You can even use the thinking loop to overcome what you're saying and to find the joy in something that's maybe a negative emotion, and learn to train our minds to be able to be involved within ourselves, to be able to be programed. We don't realize we have all this power.

Rick Macci:

You said earlier, everybody has to understand you're gonna have problems, that's. Don't.

Rick Macci:

Don't think like oh, today was a great day you know, okay, and then you think every no, you're, there's gonna be problems. The best of the best of all the rest, whether it be in business, sports or whatever, they dealt with more failure, okay, and more setbacks and more problems than anybody. Not so much the chronic illness or that type of stuff. To some degree They've dealt with all of that, but all people do is see where they're at. But all those yesterdays of failure and setback, misery and pain led to the future, all those yesterdays. So people have to understand no one just goes from there over the moon. No way, it's brick by brick. It's like building a house and how you respond to it is I'm going to have problems, I'm going to fail, but if you don't try, you'll probably be undefeated. I tell people, don't enter the tournament, you're not going to lose. I mean, give me a break, but it's all. Once again, perspective. You got to expect that. And then how you deal with it. We could be in the car and we go to a red light and then it turns green and the guy in front of you doesn't. You're going to maybe lay on the horn for five seconds. Okay, you might just ignore the whole thing because you are calm and you're gonna do this, or you might say they're number one, who knows what. How you're gonna respond to the situation, you know. But by just knowing okay and being calm, it's better for your health and you train yourself.

Rick Macci:

I'm not saying any of those are wrong. I mean that's up in the eye of the beholder how they handle that. But it's very important that you just don't overreact. You know, and everybody says you'll get better tomorrow. Good night, see what's changed other than time. Why don't you change it immediately? Good night, see what's changed other than time. Why don't you change it immediately?

Rick Macci:

How you look at it, okay, you know, some people get upset all the time. They make mountains out of molehills and some people have the same exact thing. They're going to respond differently. It's crazy and it goes all the way back to all these gold nuggets, all these gems that we talked about. And you can imagine the mental strength of some of the athletes I've worked with. It's not that they were quicker, faster, bigger, stronger, better forehand, backhand or circle, it's all how they handle things. If you look at Federer and Alan Djokovic, when they played they lost 45% of the points, but they have more grand slams than anybody. That's a lot of losing of points. You know you might think it's like 80% that they won and they only lost like 20%. No, it's how you handle the key moments. That's different than chronic illness, but I'm just the same thing how you handle things and frame it up in your mind. You know and motivate yourself and look at the world to a different lens.

Alanna:

Absolutely. There's a huge correlation with that, though. I mean, even in the chronic illness community. I think how you frame your mindset and how you allow what's been handed to you propel you to do something more will change. If you have purpose in your pain, if you have purpose in the things that you've gone through that are challenges, if you find that purpose, it propels you out of yourself. It's kind of a weird mind shift, right. It's an out-of-body thing sometimes when you step out of yourself to help others because of what you've gone through. I think there's so much power and healing in that, and I've said this so many times to people helping others and stepping outside of ourselves to help others feel joy, to feel seen, to feel validated, is healing for us, and there's so much to be said about that.

Alanna:

Do I love the fact that I've always been in pain? I mean, it's not, doesn't feel great. You know that doesn't feel great, but what I can do is I can use my pain and I can help others, and then it no longer becomes consuming, it no longer becomes about me, it no longer becomes about you know what I can or cannot do. It turns into how can we shift this, how can I help someone and you find joy in helping those people. It just kind of separates that mentality and that's just been my personal experience in doing this is that it brings joy in helping others. Like I don't know one person that helps someone who doesn't find joy in that. You know Easy solution to finding joy help someone. I mean there's step one right. So I do think there's a lot of things that we can do to kind of step out of that mental mindset of just pain in the chronic illness community. I think we have to look outside of it.

Rick Macci:

Absolutely. I love what you just said because I've done so many interviews and podcasts, especially since the movie King Richard, plus my whole career, but that's the cornerstone of my career, that's the cornerstone of Rick Macy. I love to help others more than myself. It's not just the technical, the biomechanics, and that feeling to help others is so gratifying. You know, I'm a builder, I'm a life changer, but I've done that for so long. I just be, you become that and then you have pride in that. You know, when I mean it's to the point where my own kids, even when it's my birthday, I'm buying them presents, right, it's a matter of what's going on. That's a little extreme, I mean, I got it, you know, but that's kind of how I'm just put together and I think that baseline that you just said helps me deal with everything and that's why I become you know what I've become, you know.

Rick Macci:

And all around the Rick Macy Tennis Center, you know, it's like Disneyland, candyland, the land of opportunity. Then when the words come out, it's just a place where everybody would rather have a compliment than something you know negative. So what you said earlier to me is gold, but that's been the cornerstone you got. You learn education as you go along, you get experience, you get all that as you go along. But the cornerstone of that any teacher, coach or rule model, okay, it's huge, you know. And when you know you're making a difference in someone's life, you're right, it's huge, you know. And when you know you're making a difference in someone's life, you're right, it can help you. I never really looked at it so much like that, but then you have a standard and a pride, uh, so it's definitely and if can, probably it has. It's probably uh, helped me a lot. So I've kind of been the same way ever since I started doing this. Yeah.

Alanna:

Yes, here's a real question, and maybe, rick, you would know this too, but I think that, because, when you are constantly giving, though, the other side of this is when you give, give, give, say, our caretakers who are taking care of us, who are maybe not feeling good, and there is that caregiver burnout. There is a lot of that how do we support and how do we help those who are the caregivers maybe going through that burnout, reshift that mindset, to find that mental toughness, strength, joy, perseverance, all of these things that we're talking about, because that is a really hard thing to give, give, give of yourself all the time, but maybe not even feel like you're getting back I think that's the hard part about that or like feeling like that's thankless. How can we train our minds to have perspective and gratitude and thankfulness when it's never ending?

Dr. Niva:

I think I deal with that in the clinics. I have a lot of patients who have caregivers, right Right, and the most important thing I noticed is that sometimes these caregivers get themselves in this mental trap where they want to be in that position but then they feel like they will complain about it. So it's very important for them to be very aware of what they need and a lot of times they, because they've invested so much time and somebody, they forget about themselves and they have to keep on reminding themselves every day that they gotta have that balance. And it sounds they say, oh, it's, it's just, but the thing is it is possible in some ways that they want See, and that's where they get a little bit confused and have to recognize what they need and they overdo it. So they just they forget about themselves.

Dr. Niva:

And I think the book is supposed to help refocus who they are, what they like, what their joys are. They have to make that part, the caregiving, a part of who they are, but not the whole thing. And unfortunately a lot of the caregivers tend to make that their whole life and it's very complicated because it becomes a mental sort of loop and everyday, you know, kind of a drain. And the way that they do is separate themselves from the caregiver. And as soon as they separate themselves, I say, well, that's something I do. But then there's also something I do for me. And you know, if they can find, you know, someone to give them that break, even if it's for a few hours, that's worth lots of. You know, it's a lot, but it's worth a lot to these people because they have to find their individual self.

Dr. Niva:

What happens is they get so obsessed with their. They actually mentally get so obsessed and they think that that's who they are. They identify themselves with the caregiving. They think that the other person is so dependent on them. And sometimes these patients are, like either brain dead or you know. Sometimes they have, like you know, no cognitive awareness of the caregiver, and so so you just. But these caregivers have this like whoa, like oh, I'm doing everything and I'm just sacrificing, and they get this like kind of high from it. They forget about themselves. And whatever happens if they stop the caregiving part of it, then all of a sudden there's a huge vacuum, because now they have nothing right. Just very, very important that they recognize what they like they write in a journal. They recognize, like you know, the things that mean a lot. They give them joy, they reframe things and then also balance. That time for themselves is so important. They have to, and and it's if they don't do it. They're going to get into that trap of just being overburdened by someone.

Rick Macci:

I love this question. No, listen, she's a caregiver and to some degree, obviously, when you're in a certain profession, I'm a caregiver, you know. But on the court, I show you how to deliver, you know. That's a whole different thing. But listen, I look at this differently, and Nev just brought it up. This is what you want to do Either you're in or you're out.

Rick Macci:

If you're in the giving business, okay and sometimes the more you give, the more people will take advantage or you'll feel like, oh, they're just sucking all the oxygen out of me. You know, it's just never ending. When you start playing that game like taking advantage of me, this is too much. When you've gone on that, you're in the wrong business. But here's how you handle it.

Rick Macci:

It's not going to be black and white. Some people are going to have more needs than others and you want to give and give and you want to give all that emotion. But you got to be this person because that's your career, job. You got to flip the script and you got to be another person. You know you got to be able to do stuff for yourself, to make yourself feel good. But if you're thinking I do everything for everybody else, no one does anything for me. I just give and give and give. If you're doing that time to get a new job because that's not good, you won't even do the caregiving that good, right, and you're beating yourself up on the other end. You got to be this person, boom, and you got to be able to flip the script.

Rick Macci:

It's mental training. It's like you know, I do all this stuff and then I might come home and there might be, you know, 15 text messages. It's like it never ends. And if I'm thinking like that all the time, it's not healthy. You put up with it. Then you grow not to love what you do. You see, and when you love what you do and you have passion, that's how you extract greatness, that's how you help other people.

Rick Macci:

And if you don't have that balance, it could get a little. You know it could get a little crazy. You know, and you're going to fight yourself. You have to be going to fight yourself. You have to be able to do that. And you know I mean I work a lot and do a lot, but when I leave I do a lot of things for myself. You know it's very important to feel good about yourself. You know you got to work out. This is what you want to do, then fun, whatever fun I have, that's what you make it. Fun is different from everybody. Fun is different. But if you feel you're getting everything sucked out of you as a caregiver and you feel that for a long period of time, new job.

Alanna:

Yeah, you know, I think that's true, and maybe what I'm hearing too is that we should never lose our identity to one situation or one person.

Alanna:

Like, we are a unique human with our own identity, our own love of life, things that bring us joy, things that fulfill us, things that kind of elicit that sense of belonging and self-worth, and if we allow others to dictate that in our lives and we lose our identity to that, that's where that burnout tends to happen, when we aren't finding those pieces of joy, that kind of take over the hard things, you know, and that's I do think there's so much value to that, and I myself have had to grapple with that at times as a parent and as a wife and as an advocate in this space. I'm still me and I had to find that each of these things fulfilled me in a different way, but I couldn't lose my identity in just one of these things and that's been so impactful for me to be like I'm going to take my day off today, you know, and I'm going to fuel myself, I'm going to feed myself, you know, every day.

Dr. Niva:

It should take some time off. That's very good for, like, some time for yourself.

Alanna:

Yeah, that's very that's awesome For people that are interested in learning more about your book and about your journeys. Where can they find your book?

Dr. Niva:

Billion Dollar Mind is on Amazon and they can find it at their local bookstore. I had someone buy it from anywhere. If you go online, you can find copies of it, so they're mostly from Amazon. Okay, and it's been a game changer for a lot of our people.

Rick Macci:

I don't want to interrupt about the book. You can go back to it. Okay, you can go back to it like it's a journal where you can come back. You go back, you take notes, you look at it. It's not just like one and done. You know, oh, it's a great book. No people, this is like the gift that keeps on giving and people go back to it. It's a shot of adrenaline and people go back to it. It's a shot of adrenaline Every day. They should read a snippet, you know, and you got a better chance to get off on the right foot, because right when you get up, a lot of times people are hit with like a lot of different stuff and if you get, like I said, when you get into that positive routine, you become a machine. Yeah.

Rick Macci:

There's a kid's version and a regular journal.

Alanna:

Oh, so there's a kid's version and a regular journal. Oh, so there's a kid's version and a journal. That's great. So it kind of encompasses everyone in the family, every age gap and generation. That's fantastic. Audio book as well Perfect.

Alanna:

I want to leave with this little thing and I'll let you guys give your kind of two cents on this too. I have started a. You know they have gratitude journals and, as someone who is very ADHD, journals to me are like not the best idea because I'll lose everything in there. But if you have a calendar and every day you just write down a little bit of what you're thankful for, a little bit of that gratitude, so every day you're seeing and you can look back at the gratitude piece for each day.

Alanna:

And sometimes I have a hard time feeling that gratitude because I'm in a place where it's maybe not that I'm just kind of like we all have those blah times, you know. But I will go back and I look at my calendar of gratitude and it allows me to see what I can be grateful for and reframes that. So for those of us who struggle just writing and journaling, I usually use a calendar because it's very block-like and it's very clear and concise and you can go back into time and look at the things that you have been grateful for and can continue to be grateful for and I think, just speaking the word of gratitude so you know in my emails or my texts, I'm so thankful for you. Gratitude, so you know in my emails or my texts, I'm so thankful for you, I'm so grateful for you. I think that just makes a huge difference every day.

Dr. Niva:

To you and to the person receiving it, that means a lot. Yeah yeah, rick always talks about like Venus and Serena would say thank you every single time that's like your favorite story.

Rick Macci:

Every day they good, bad, happy, sad Venus and Serena. When they were kids we'd go off the floor and you know, just after six hours it's like Rick, thank you very much. And whether it be a hug or a fist pump Now Sharina's fist pump was a little more authoritative sometimes, you know, she was like, you know that Compton street fight, but no, very, very appreciative. But you just said something that would be great if people would write it down. But they don't even write it down because they don't want to. They don't have the discipline. Now we're back on the self-discipline. If I told people like I have the kids, you write this in your journal, and they did it, okay. But if I said, if you write it in your journal tonight, tomorrow, when you come here, I'm giving everybody $100. You know everybody would do it. They got it backwards again. Something shouldn't make you do it when it comes from you and you alone. That's when mental strength goes on to a whole nother orbit.

Alanna:

Yeah, thank you both so much for taking the time to sit down with me. Thank you both so much for taking the time to sit down with me. It's full of smiles and laughter and great skills. To take out of this in ways that we can shift our mindset and our lives and find real joy and motivation and strength and perseverance. I think that's a big thing for us is to have that perseverance and to not give up and not allow life to consume us but to allow ourselves to have the mental and to not give up and not allow life to consume us, but to allow ourselves to have the mental strength to continue going. So thank you both so much for taking that time and breaking that down and for writing a book that gives us a tool to put in our tool belts to continue to learn these steps how to be healthier overall. Humans right, healthy humans are happy humans. Well, troy, thank you so much.

Rick Macci:

Thanks for having us. There's a lot of fun.

Alanna:

Yes, thank you. Until next time, everyone continue advocating for you and for those that you love.