5 Ways To Lower Stress And Maintain Peak Performance During Unpredictable Times with Brian Lima: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:02Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Talking Too Loud. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives, and we'll be breaking down five ways to lower stress and maintain peak performance during unpredictable times. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Brian Lima and to EO Fire Studios. Brian is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, award-winning cardiac surgeon, and he's performed the first heart transplant on Long Island.

0:34And in today's foundation, we'll talk about how heart health is not separate from our overall self, how to let things fall as they may. And working harder than those around you will make up for what you lack in natural talent and intellect. Brian has experienced in this and so much more, Fire Nation. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Brian and our sponsors. Marketing Made Simple, hosted by my friend, Dr. JJ Peterson, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Marketing Made Simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy, and more importantly, make it work.

1:06A recent episode all about how Liquid IV is using marketing to shake up the beverage world dives deep into the strategies that have propelled Liquid IV to remarkable success. A must listen. Listen to Marketing Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker, Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions.

1:39Dr. Brian, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. So what's up, Fire Nation? One thing I would say that most people don't agree with is this whole idea of having to be, quote, well-rounded. The fact of the matter is, I believe, honestly, that to be successful in whatever field, in whatever market, you really can't be all things to all people at all times. You have to focus. and so at the expense of other things be it friends um excelling in your own health and physique you know for to pursue your dreams and your goals and your career and they have to come at the expense of other things because you have to put so much time and effort into it and i know that's really not popular but i know i can speak from a first person experience that that's really the only way I think in most endeavors to really come out on top.

2:40Well, I personally love that you use that word focus. It's my favorite word. Follow one course until success. It's not follow 100 courses until success because that's just not going to happen. It's follow one course, Fire Nation, until success. And Brian, let's be honest. You're an award-winning cardiac surgeon. So I have to ask, what made you put down that scalpel and pick up that pen? Why did you write the book Heart to Beat? I felt like maybe a, just like a pen is mightier than a sword, maybe a pen is mightier than a scalp in many ways. I felt like I could impact many more lives. Of course, I love what I do.

3:21I wouldn't trade it for anything. I love doing heart surgery and saving lives on that individual patient I'm operating on. But I just felt this drive within me to get out there, this message that, you know, anything is possible. There's really a lot we can achieve. It's just, you know, you got to put in time, you got to put in work, you got to focus. And I just had this sense that there really wasn't a lot of that going on out there. I thought people were apathetic, listless, you know, without real true purpose. And I felt like I could really make an impact on a number of people by sharing my story about how I was able to get to where I got to.

4:00And so that's really why I felt like I needed to get this story out. Now, you got the story out, and it's a Wall Street Journal and a USA Today bestselling book. So I just have to say, you obviously hit a nerve. You obviously figured out something that people wanted to read about, wanted to hear about, wanted to learn about, because we are in these unpredictable time. So what advice do you give in this book? And can you share right now about lowering stress while maintaining peak performance? Because, you know, a lot of us still want to be peak performers, but we also want to have lower stress simultaneously.

4:36I mean, we want it all, doctor, give it to us. Of course, sure. I think many of us, myself included, suffer from this wanting to conquer everything all at once and spinning our wheels. So part of what I talk about in the book is my heartway approach, where if you think of what the heart does, the heart does one thing really, really, really well, and it just never stops doing it our whole lives. It's beating to sustain our lives. And I feel like so many of us get so worked up and concerned and stressed about things that are beyond our control. And we forget about the things that are directly right under our noses, within our control that we could do.

5:13And if we did that, if we just said, okay, look, there's these X, Y, Z factors that are beyond my control, but I have direct control over this and that. I'm going to focus on that. I'm going to put everything I have into it. And you'd be surprised how many doors open when you do that, how you start to develop this growth mindset, this optimistic view of life. And that's really the central message of the book. Do knock out of the park what you have directly within your scope of influence and let the rest fall as it may. Let it fall as it may, Fire Nation. And one thing that I love that you did, just like the word focus, is follow one course till success.

5:57You developed the HEART way, H-E-A-R-T. Break down that acronym for us. So the HEART way. So think of the HEART again and what it does for us. So H, hard work. Everything and anything that's worth doing that's going to achieve success starts with hard work. There's no way around that. E is being eager, having sort of a positive growth mindset outlook on things. A is being aligned with your moral compass, with your overall purpose, being grounded and really concerning yourselves only with weighty matters and making sure that whatever you're doing day in, day out, it aligns well with your big plan.

6:41Um, R of course is being resolute, um, sticking with it, uh, despite the failures along the way, getting back on the horse, you know, not giving up and T, which was for me, the final lesson, I think, which did really come along until, uh, older when I was older is being thought is thoughtfulness, being mindful, having that self-awareness of what it is that you're feeling, why you're feeling that way, how you're perceived by others, being empathetic, all those things is the last component of the heartway approach. And then you combine all five of those elements, and I really think it's a recipe or blueprint, if you will, for a success, without a doubt.

7:23So I want to put the ball into your court for a second here. Take one of those five, just choose any one, and let's dive a little bit deeper. Again, we're not going to go through in-depth all five. You obviously do that in the book, Heart to Beat, but just pull out one now. Let's go a little deeper in one of your favorites for whatever reason and kind of expound upon it for Fire Nation. Sure. So it's the simplest one. It's the first one. It's the foundational element of hard work. And the reason why I believe that's obviously the one I selected and I think the most important of all of them is because for a long time, I suffered at various points this sort of imposter syndrome.

8:01Do I really belong here? Am I really supposed to be in this same playing field with these other amazingly talented people? And the fact of the matter is, yes, I was never the smartest person in the room, in the classroom, but my hard work ethic was the equalizer. I refer to it in the book as artificial intelligence. Using your heart, your own just bare-knuckle strategy of just putting in the time, working harder than those around you. And you can make up for what you lack in natural talent and intellect, which is sheer hard work. And I feel that's really been the core of my approach to academics and my career in achieving success.

8:45And I think that's, above all else, the most important element. Artificial intelligence. Love that, Fire Nation. Thanks for sharing that. I mean, to me, that just kind of sums it all up in a great way. And we're going to be talking about some really important things, Fire Nation, coming up here. about how we can stay healthy and enjoy a high quality of life simultaneously. I mean, you know, those aren't mutually exclusive and a lot more when we get back from thinking our sponsors. Things change fast in the online business space. And when you have a team to manage and a business to run, it can be tough to keep up with all the latest and greatest marketing trends.

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11:41Join Taylor to learn exactly what TEDx organizers are looking for in their speakers, how to write a talk that goes viral once it goes online, and more. visit thought-leader.com slash fire. Join Taylor for this free training and get your message out of your head, out of your heart and out into the world where it belongs. That's thought-leader.com slash fire. So Dr. Brian, we're back. I kind of want to move into how the heart way became your personal life philosophy. I mean, you obviously have developed this methodology, but how did it actually become your personal life philosophy day to day, week to week, month to month?

12:21It dawned on me during one of my heart transplant procedures. And it was a miraculous moment when I was doing a heart transplant. And as I was taking the old heart out of the recipient, passing it off, it began to spontaneously beat in my hands. And it was captured on video. It was the first heart transplant we did on Long Island. So it was a big occasion, a lot of cameras, et cetera. And it just dawned on me at that moment, like, wow, I mean, this heart has, is just not given up. I mean, here it is in its last ditch effort to try to keep going. And that's when it all clicked for me when I felt I was searching for a unifying philosophy for how explain what it was I wanted to get across.

13:10How was it that I was able to start from nowhere, low-income family, immigrant family, and get to where I was? And I felt like that really captured it all in a heartbeat, right, for play on words. And so that's kind of where it started, and that's what really enabled me to put everything together and write this book. And once I had that concept in mind and everything else fell in place as far as how it all worked together. These various components, the five elements we discussed earlier. So let's talk about what I teased a little bit before the break here, which is staying healthy and enjoying a high quality of life.

13:50Like what does that even look like? How is that even possible? A lot of people like to compartmentalize things. Well, they factor, okay, heart health, being healthy, physically fit into one box, one bucket and then emotional health, that emotional well-being into another bucket. But really, those are part of the same. They're one in the same. If you are physically fit, if you take care of your heart, if you eat right, if you sleep the amount of time you're supposed to, that's going to lead to better emotional wellness, overall well-being. You're going to click better. You're going to be at a higher functional status.

14:29You're going to do better at work. You're going to thrive in your personal and professional life. And I feel like that's why you can't put these things into compartments. It's all one and the same. It's taking care of your overall greater self, doing the right things for your physical and metaphysical heart. Let's talk about the heart way and specifically heart to beat. What else do you really want Fire Nation to know about this book? What they can learn, the takeaways that they're going to have, and who it's specifically for? So first and foremost, I want to emphasize that it's a book for anybody.

15:04Anybody looking to what I like to call a kind of a jolt to the system, a call to arms to sort of abandon a passive life and really shoot for the stars and do what it was that younger you wanted to do. When you were asked as a kid, what do you want to do when you grow up? Whatever that was, whatever that dream was that maybe has kind of gone by the wayside, I think this book is a way to reawaken those dreams that we've kind of buried along the way to not be afraid of failure. One of the things I talk about a lot in the book is how to overcome the fear of failure, how to avoid complacency along your way to being the best possible version of yourself.

15:50And I think for those reasons, this book really is just overall a blueprint for success. how to deal with the inevitable failures along the way. And at the very end of the book, as we kind of alluded to here briefly, it does touch on heart health, which again, it's not really separate from our overall selves. It's part of us. You can't really be the best version of yourself if you're also not physically in good form. So that's really in a nutshell what the book is about, what I hope it can do for others as I've kind of poured my heart and soul out into writing the book as well. So where do you want Fire Nation to go to learn more about this book and to make that investment?

16:32On social media, it's BrianLimaMD is my handle. The book is available on Amazon or anywhere books are sold. You can also go to my website, BrianLimaMD.com. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And hello, you've been hanging out with BL and JLD today. so keep up that heat and head over to eofire.com just type Brian in the search bar his show notes page will pop up with everything that we've been talking about today best show notes in the biz and Brian I just want to say thank you brother for sharing your truth your knowledge your value with Fire Nation today for that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side thanks my man I appreciate it hey Fire Nation today's value bomb content was brought to you by Brian and successful entrepreneurs they accomplish big goals That's why I created the Freedom Journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days.

17:25And we're talking step-by-step. So visit thefreedomjournal.com, use promo code podcast for a$15 discount as a thank you for listening to my podcast. And I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. Marketing Made Simple, hosted by my friend, Dr. JJ Peterson, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Marketing Made Simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy and more importantly, make it work. A recent episode all about how Liquid IV is using marketing to shake up the beverage world, dives deep into the strategies that have propelled Liquid IV to remarkable success, a must listen.

17:59Listen to Marketing Makes Simple wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker, Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions.