Elle Russ: Getting Confident As F*ck (And Watching Out For Its Pitfalls)

“Confidence does provide an evolutionary edge,” says Elle Russ.

I welcome Elle, my longtime Primal coworker and host of the Primal Blueprint podcast, to the show today. Elle has become an authority on thyroid health and wrote the best-selling book, The Paleo Thyroid Solution, but she is also a multi-talented human with a long history as a Hollywood writer and actor. In this episode, you’ll learn about Elle’s book Confident as F*ck, and how we can all be confident as fuck too, and live a happier, more abundant existence.

If you tuned in for Elle’s first appearance on the podcast when she revealed for the first time publicly that she had a severe disability with her hands, you already know that harboring this secret for many years out of fear of being judged ended up framing lots of her life behavior and self-esteem. Elle is passionate about empowering others to become more confident, and she knows how difficult this process can be, because she actually lived through it. That’s why her book is the self-help book for people looking to level up their self-esteem and confidence, while also manifesting their dreams. Elle is also a huge proponent of the law of attraction and helpful practices like vision board building, and she clues us in on the interesting twist that comes with building confidence, which is that there are actually pitfalls to being a highly confident person. She also cautions us to not judge someone’s confidence based on their ability to do something well: “You can be confident in your ability in something, but not be confident on the inside.” She also notes that: “Confident people make others feel worthy.”

In this entertaining exposé on self-esteem and confidence, you’ll learn how to identify and finally ditch bad vibes and negative people who hold you back. Elle calls this “The Downer Effect.” You’ll also learn how to clean up your past through addressing shame and self-limiting stories (about yourself and others) that are holding you back. Elle refers to this as “parental garbage,” which can be both overt and subtle. Elle also makes a good point by pointing out how frequently the most confident person in a room is also the quietest, and you’ll become inspired to speak up for yourself, and take a leap into the arena of self-examination.

By the end of Confident As Fu*k, you will understand yourself and the shortcomings you need to abandon in order to kick ass and take names!

TIMESTAMPS:

Brad talks to another Primal Blueprint co-worker about her experience with thyroid problems as well as her new book on confidence. [01:28]

Many doctors are ill informed about thyroid health. [06:45]

Highly competent people do not want to show vulnerability or appear weak. [08:54]

You can have performance confidence but no confidence on the inside. [12:43]

Drawing appropriate boundaries is really important. [15:29]

We repeat patterns from our childhood whether we like them or not. [16:35]

The opposite of being confident is being a people pleaser. [24:05]

Without realizing it, we are surrounded by “downers”. [26:51]

Look to see if some of your criticisms of other people is because you want to be right. [32:45]

How can we suggest things to other people out of concern without sounding critical? [36:38]

In trying to be supportive, be careful about false praise. Praise the effort, not the attributes. [43:52]

How does one work through the pitfalls in their daily life? Shame will disable your confidence. [47:58]

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B.Rad Podcast

Brad (1m 28s): Here we go with Elle Russ, the Elle Russ, my long time Primal Blueprint co-worker long time host of the Primal Blueprint podcast. We share the hosting duties there. She has put up some fantastic shows and is a master interviewer of numerous guests in the health and primal living space. And L has become quite an authority on her own on thyroid health. She wrote a book called The Paleo Thyroid Solution, detailing her journey to thyroid health, her circuitous journey, where she had to depart from the typical medical advice and figure out how to heal herself. So she kind of departs from her health expertise with this new book that we’re going to focus the show on called Confident as Fuck. Brad (2m 18s): Yeah, she is a multi diverse, talented human. She has a long history in Hollywood as an actor and a writer. And now she’s trending into the personal growth space. So you’re going to get some really interesting insights. And also I believe a fresh look at the, the topic or the quest to boost self-confidence self-esteem. She identifies herself as a confident person. She’s going to come off that way right away. She’s a rapid fire, high energy, big message person, but she also admits that there are some pitfalls. There’s a dark side of being a highly confident person, which could be that you are, have difficulty or unwilling to be vulnerable. Brad (2m 60s): She’s going to talk about hitting both sides of the challenge here, boosting your confidence if that’s necessary in certain areas of your life. And then being more aware of where you might be running rough shod through life and through relationships where you might benefit from a little more self-reflection vulnerability, honesty. And boy, when you listen to our first show together, one of the first shows on my podcast, she talks for the first time in public, she reveals on the show that she’s had a longstanding, severe disability with her hands, that she decided to keep secret for many, many years, because she was worried how people might judge her. And she describes how this harboring this secret framed effected many ways that she behaved in life, especially in relationships, her self-esteem and kind of breaking out of that by telling her story with truthfulness. Brad (3m 55s): And then I think bringing the germination of this idea to write the book Confident as Fuck. So we are you gonna learn about ditching bad vibes and negative energy people who are holding you back? She calls it the downer effect. Also about going back into your past, addressing certain things she likes to call one of them, parental garbage. These are the flawed self limiting beliefs that we formed in childhood and carried with us, both the overt stuff, where you, if you had an abusive situation, you’re working through that and dealing with that for years and decades after. But also the subtle stuff where you might be carrying a certain personality attributes or behavior patterns that emanate from a childhood programming or from past experience that might be worth reflecting upon and moving past. Brad (4m 43s): So I think you’re going to get a really interesting show with a wonderful insights, anecdotes, and food for thought with Elle Russ, Confident as Fuck. Check her out at elleruss.com E L L E R U S S. And as the hostess of the Primal Blueprint podcast and also the Kickass Life podcast, boom, Elle Russ. I’m so glad to catch up to you. We cross paths on the airways all the time, doing those Primal Blueprint podcasts. Once in a while, we sit down and have a joint conversation and readers agree that these are some of the best shows in the history of the entire Primal Blueprint experience. And now I’m so happy to have you over here. It’d B.rad talking about a topic that’s perfectly aligned with the, the brand of the podcast, your amazing book, Confident as Fuck Elle (5m 34s): Yeah, thanks so much. Also you are rad. And if anyone’s listening to Brad for the first time, please go check out his Instagram page where he keeps all of us youngins completely motivated and shamed physical fitness. Yeah. You’re you’re rad, dude. You’re always doing random stuff. So I love it. Love talking to you. And of course, you know, we’ve, we did the first book together, Paleo Thyroid Solution. So, you know, I think I’ve known you now eight years. Brad (5m 60s): Wow. Yeah, that’s right. A lot of good fun with the primal community. And that was your first book, right? That the Paleo Thyroid Solution and it was incredibly well received. It’s still a top seller years later, which is pretty rare for a book, but then it was interesting because you can totally change course and tackle the different topic in, in the new book. But I think let’s go back a little bit and talk about, you know, how that run has been for you with the, with the paleo book and all the thyroid community kind of coming together and seeing things in a different light rather than just taking the drugs their doctor prescribed, and then just kind of morphed into where you get the idea to start this new book. Brad (6m 42s): And then we can talk about that. What it’s all about. Elle (6m 45s): I mean, The Paleo Thyroid Solution, you know, when, when you guys first published it, I was like, all I care about is that they make their money back and I help one person. If I could just help one person, you know, well, it turns out it’s been thousands now all over the world and it’s really great. And people bring their book to their doctors. I’ve had conversations with clients and their doctors to get her on the phone. Really great to see uninformed doctors entrenched and outdated protocols from like 1973, who are like, let me learn. That’s what’s really great. Now, a lot of them don’t, and there’s still the majority of doctors out there are really uninformed when it comes to thyroid health, but it has been such a pleasure to help people all over the world. And frankly, the story is the same. Elle (7m 25s): Everywhere you go. You’ve got these uninformed doctors using outdated protocols. So I’m just so happy that I finally put it out there. And you know, the truth is, is that the best selling thyroid books had been written by patients because we understand we’ve had to tinker with the hormones we get what works, what doesn’t, how it feels a lot of these co-factors are. So I’m just so grateful to have contributed to this whole topic. The other two authors that I love that I always mentioned, and the only other two books that I do suggest for thyroid, the authors are Janie Bowthorpe and also Paul Robinson. So those are the only two thyroid authors that I trust. And also they both helped me individually, helped me save my life. And this is really the story of thyroid patients around the world because doctors haven’t understood because they steer us in the wrong direction and most of them are uninformed. Elle (8m 11s): And in order to get a good one, you really, really got to usually pay way out to a functional medicine doctor or something else, get someone knowledgeable, which people just aren’t inclined to do. And so it’s just, it’s so great to be able to finally like put this out there and, and help everybody. And, you know, honestly it never gets old when someone’s like, Oh my gosh, I feeling so great. Like my mind woke up, you know, I mean every day that there’s one of those messages from someone is, is so it’s so worth it. So I’m glad I went through the hell of the suffering. I suffered for about seven years. The decade in my thirties, about seven years was lost to hypothyroidism, a couple of different bouts and it’s been great. So as I, you know, people were a little bit shocked when I came out with, you know, the Confident as Fuck book. Elle (8m 54s): And they were like, Hmm, what’s this about? And in transitioning to that, I would just say my whole life, every, you know, even at primal, when people used to have to go ask Mark for a raise, they would call me because I think they were like either they didn’t know their worth, they needed a little self-esteem. They needed a boost. Maybe they were a little intimidated. I don’t understand why, but I get that myself and Mark might have intimidating personalities a little bit more, can be very no shit to the point. So it was really funny. So people, my whole life had been coming to me for like the pep talk. How do I have a quick comeback to the bullying? How do I approach this nasty mom at the PTA thing or whatever the thing is, I’m getting those calls. And I noticed this theme, right? Elle (9m 35s): This absolute thing that they all had to do with things that involve confidence, being able to speak up, declaring your worth, draw boundaries, you know, whatever it may be. And so it just, it was just, it flew out of me just like The Paleo Thyroid Solution. It was a topic and something that’s near and dear to my heart. Now I will say this. I learned so much in this process over the years, helping people with competence, because I had a lot of pitfalls as a highly competent person. We don’t want to show vulnerability. We don’t want to appear weak in any way. So that kind of makes us unaccessible inaccessible in a lot of ways. We are not good at receiving whether it’s help or compliments. Brad (10m 13s): So you’re saying this is a, a conflict, a confident person has these things going on. Is that what you mean? Elle (10m 20s): I’m saying is a competent person has pitfalls. And these are the other side. So this is what I realized in all of these people who were coming to me, who needed to speak up, who needed more confidence. They actually were also helping me because they had these qualities of, and you know, you could call it beta versus alpha, whatever. I don’t attribute any negative definitions to this, but I would just say they were more vulnerable. They were more likely to accept compliments, to receive help. They were, they were better at, you know, being vulnerable. They’re also more diplomatic. They, while they may have had issues with speaking of when they do, it’s usually more well thought out and delivered in a better diplomatic way than a highly competent person like myself. Elle (11m 0s): I wasn’t very opinionated, but one of my biggest lessons is, you know, be careful on the set, right? I probably had it happen a couple of times, but then a medical cause of competent people work, you know, where like, Hey, I know it did us and we need to give ourselves 24 hours more than those people do. So while people were coming to me for confidence, I realized that they had qualities that I needed to adopt that were pitfalls to me being this highly competent person. And so that’s really why I decided to do it. And the book is, you know, like, like Mark Sisson says in the forward, it’s not folded with filled with tidy to do lists or acronyms. It’s basically a series of stories about other people. I coach people. I know in my life, my personal stories that help you scrape the barnacles off your life along the way to see where you might need to develop confidence or where you might need to address the pitfalls of being confident. Elle (11m 52s): So this is for people that are highly confident and might need some refining. And it’s also for people that really, really need confidence. Brad (11m 60s): Wow. That is really a great way to present it and extremely rare because we’re hit with all these messages about how to become more confident and assertive and powerful and, you know, kick ass on and dominate your life every day and all those kinds of things. But to expose that flip side or that dark side, or just to paint the entire thing as a continuum from, you know, being a meek and shy, and don’t, don’t have your own voice all the way over to, you know, spewing your way through life, without thinking before you hit the send button. But that’s a really nice way to present it. And it seems to me that a lot of people are dancing at different points along the continuum, depending on what the issue is. Brad (12m 43s): So you have the great leaders in the workplace who have risen to prominence status and their, their name is a popular name on the internet or on the billboard at the towing to come to the auto dealership, whatever. But then as a parent or as a partner or in real life, when they’re not in this, you know, prominent stage setting, that is the workplace, maybe they’re a completely different person and they need to kind of pick and pull from the various attributes that they do have. Elle (13m 13s): Yeah. And you know what, this cuts right into so glad you’re on a highlight this. So this cuts into do not judge somebody’s competence based on their ability and a think. You can be the most competent doctor, brain surgeon. You can also be a bad-ass athlete, but, but can you have a conversation with your, your fucking neighbor? Can you have a conversation with your loved one? I have met people who, again, you can be confident in your ability in a thing that doesn’t mean you have it on the inside. So confident as fuck. What I mean by that is really inside and outside. And I do want to mention that, you know, performance, confidence, what you and I both have you and I have no problem getting on a stage. It doesn’t matter how many people in that auditorium and we can do it, but that is learned. Elle (13m 53s): That’s a skill. And that doesn’t mean that when we get off the stage, that we’re not people pleasers and we’re not low self-esteem. So you can have this performance confidence, but that doesn’t mean you have it on the inside, which goes to the truth of some of them. Most, the most confident people in the world are the quietest people in the room. You know? And so when I say confidence, I think some people were a little bit less outspoken might take offense to that, thinking that I’m trying to say, Oh, you need to be like us. Or, you know, and no, it’s not the thing. You’re going to need confidence as a stay at home mom. You’re going to deal with some other kids, parent, that’s a nightmare. You better learn how to speak up and you’re going to have to protect your kids. So this isn’t about becoming a badass CEO, although you’re going to need confidence to do that. Right. Elle (14m 33s): And you know, since you and I are both, I learned everything I’ve ever learned about paleo ancestral, primal health from you and Mark Sisson. But you know, one of the things that I love that he talks about in his book, Primal Connection, and this is something really important because confidence does provide an evolutionary edge, right? It does. It helps us navigate and challenges, you know, tasks, social situations, all of this stuff. And what that does is it propels us then directions of the, you know, the direction of accomplishing our goals and our dreams and things like that. So back in the old day, back in our hunter gatherer ancestors time, they didn’t have the luxury of wallowing and despair, self pity, self judgment, doubt, right? Elle (15m 13s): Life was hard for them. Okay. Was unforgiving, right? And as Mark talks about in Primal Connection, can you imagine our hunter gatherer ancestors like moping around with their heads hung low, judging themselves as failures, Brad (15m 24s): I’m motivated to hunt today? <inaudible> Elle (15m 29s): Cause they didn’t catch the beast or, you know, no, because they might have been disappointed, but to the hunter gatherer at the victim mindset would have been a recipe for death. Right? And you know, this cat Art DeVany author of the new evolution diet, he’s fond of saying to the hunter gatherer, there is no failure, only feedback. So I feel like we all need to get a little bit more primal with this. What else is primal about being confident. Standing up like, really? You need to let somebody just wander up in your tribe and I’m going to be like, Oh, wait a minute. So drawing appropriate boundaries, you know what I’m saying? And so this is really important. I think we need to get back to more of the primal evolutionary essence of this. Elle (16m 12s): Because now we have all these modern day, like again, walling and self took spare and all of these things, our ancestors just did not have the time to do it was again, a recipe for death. They couldn’t sit around and cry about some water source being tainted. They had to get up, move on and forge ahead, moving forward, taking failures and challenges as things to conquer, not to be feared of. That is a quality of confident people. Brad (16m 35s): Well said. I guess today we have the quote unquote, luxury of engaging in trafficking in all this nonsense, because we’re not going to have a life or death penalty from being meek, shy, unable to speak our truth, all those kinds of things. And so, you know, we, we kind of got into this mess and a lot of your book is devoted to exposing, you know, what happened in childhood, what happens in day-to-day life that kind of kind of pushes you back and how to, I guess, unwind it, you know, acknowledge that it’s there and then make a choice to do something about it. Do you want to talk about some of those, those hot points, like parental garbage and the downer effect and things like that. Elle (17m 18s): Yeah. So we don’t, you know, we’re basically born confident. I mean, unless you are like beaten immediately out of the womb, most children are like, right. They cry when they want something. They’re like, no, yes. Give me that. Like, there is no shame when it comes to kids. Brad (17m 33s): That’s right. Yeah. They’re adventurous too. They’ll take on any challenge. Yeah. Elle (17m 37s): They don’t have fear. That’s why their kids are the best improvisers because they don’t have any fear in that game of looking funny or looking weird. They just play it, which is how you’re supposed to do it. So kids are like some, the best improvisers out there. So yeah. So, okay. So sorry. Talking about, well, first of all, I like great. Everything’s great when we’re born. It’s wonderful. It’s great. But then At some point along the way, right? At some point along the way, maybe you do get beaten. Maybe your parents tell you to do nothing. Maybe a teacher tells you you’re stupid and you’re not going never going to achieve your goals. Okay. So someone’s going to be out there. The world is going to project a lack of confidence onto you. It’s about what you’re going to do about it. Elle (18m 17s): But when we’re younger, we don’t know this. And these things are imprinted. I think the perfect example, and this is why I put it in my book and I have lots of them. But one of the perfect examples of parental garbage that really affected someone in their adult life was so innocuous and seemingly such a throw away event in their childhood, but it affected them so severely in their work. And this is why I want to bring this example of, and this is a story about Brandon. So Brandon’s now in his forties, but he’s been working for the past couple of decades as a contractor on various projects in Hollywood. So each project, no, you have a project manager, maybe the project lasts three, five weeks, and then you’re done. You go on to the next project. So Brandon started to work with this one particular manager who was a little bit of a bully, but this is what the story would happen. Elle (18m 59s): Something would go wrong on the project. Brandon was blamed for it, even though it wasn’t his fault. And then he’d be yelled at and patronized in front of everybody for that thing going wrong. Brandon never said anything was just shocked and stunned. It’s really difficult. And I understand this. I mean, it’s not me and how I act, but I get, when you are confronted in a power situation like that with a bully, it’s really awkward. You’re kind of stunned and shocked. And I, I get that. A lot of people aren’t willing to speak up. So Brandon didn’t and it went on a couple of times, but I said to Brandon one time, I said hold on a minute, this particular thing doesn’t happen to me or anyone else. I know I’ve never heard of this. So where like, where can you remember feeling wronged? That you did something that wasn’t your fault that you got blamed for it? Elle (19m 41s): Does this happen in childhood kids at school? Like where, where are you always wrong in front of people in positions of authority? Because I just, you know, and it tells me the story about when he was a kid. Middle-class household, no one was molested or beaten. Everyone had food and dah, dah, dah, great life. But dad was a little bit of a hot head. And he, so let’s say like the hammer went missing, his dad would be like blaming Brandon Ford. I know you took the hammer. Where is their brand? And be like, I didn’t take the freaking hammer, dad. I don’t know where it is. And then his dad would find the hammer and never apologize. And this one story just was like, Oh, okay. Then this is probably where it’s coming from. And first it was really getting Brandon to understand that he didn’t have to be wrong. Elle (20m 23s): We carry stories from our childhood that are familiar with us, whether they’re healthy or not, that’s psychology 101. Why would somebody who witnessed their mother getting beaten, go and be in a relationship with someone who beats them? Why you think that’s the most illogical shit you’ve ever heard? It’s just an unfortunate thing. We repeat patterns that are familiar, whether they’re healthy or not. So first it was like, Brandon, you don’t have to be wrong. Can we get to that? Then the next stage was again, having him prepare to speak up because it was going to happen again. And it’s going to continue to happen until you do it. Yet. Test is going to be in front of you all the time. We all have different tests. I don’t usually have confidence tests because that’s not something I need to work on, but I got tested elsewhere. Right? Elle (21m 3s): So it’s always yucky and uncomfortable, but it was going to happen again. Brandon prepared himself for, I may get fired and may lose the money. So of course, if you’re supporting a family with a mortgage, yes, you’ve got to, you know, delicately handle these things. So then it happened again. He was blamed for something that went wrong. Wasn’t his fault. The guy yelled at him and Brandon said something to the effect of, Hey, you’re not going to talk to me like that until you can speak to me in a professional manner and walking off this job. Well, what happened was what almost always happens to bullies. They’re stunned. When people call them on their shit, they don’t know what to do. And they often crumbled. And of course the bully was embarrassed. He was like, Oh my God, I’m so I’m in apologized and it didn’t happen again. Then what happened is Brandon started to attract other different managers for jobs where nothing went fricking wrong. Elle (21m 48s): In fact, the opposite he’d get letters afterwards being like that was the smoothest project. Oh my God. We loved working with you. All of the opposite stuff. That for two decades, he kept running into places where he was made to be wrong. Wasn’t his fault. Couldn’t speak up, kept going on and on. And I told Brandon, and this is really my belief. This is sort of what I’ve seen. When you have something, that’s a theme like this. And then you finally speak up to be like, you’re going to get a tester. You are going to get a tester. Right. So I told Brandon, I go, you’re going to get a test or one of these new managers, that’d be great. Someone’s going to say some shit. And you’re going to have to speak up. It’s just, it’s how it goes. And he did, he got to tester and he spoke up right away. It was like, someone pulled attitude with him. And he was like, Hey, not gonna be spoken to like that. Elle (22m 28s): Don’t accept it just real quick. Like ended it. And each time Brandon called me and like, I wish I could bottle that confidence, Brad man, that, that, that day that you’re like, Oh, and now Brandon has great. It’s been years now, like maybe three, four years, Brandon has had no issues. And when the old guy calls him to be on jobs, he says, Nope, it doesn’t work for that person anymore. Even though they definitely corrected their thing, but he’s like, yeah, okay. Too much bad baggage there. So how dumb is that? Right? What is small little event in, in, in growing up, just that thing with his dad that led him to get completely screwed in and disabled his confidence in the workforce, which is no longer the case. Elle (23m 10s): And all it took was looking at some parental garbage and scraping off that barnacle. You know what I mean? So that’s why that example is perfect because it’s not something we would think of. We think of something more traumatic. So I would ask the audience, what is it about your life that keeps happening, that you fucking hate? And you don’t like, would you keep attracting the same psycho chick? Do you keep whatever it is you got to look at that there’s a theme. There’s some parental garbage there there’s something going on there that you can nab and correct. And then start attracting new scenarios. Brandon was going to be on that train forever if he didn’t get off it, but it took him speaking up. You know what I mean? Not allowing someone to bully him and also changing the paradigm and seeing where it came from that, like, why was he always in this situation where he’s getting blamed for shit he didn’t even do. Elle (23m 57s): Very unique to him, but nonetheless really unfortunate as to how it played out in his work-life for two decades until he fixed it. Brad (24m 5s): Yeah. I guess it’s a blind spot obviously. And we can walk through these patterns, typically blaming the situation or blaming all the terrible bosses we’ve had in succession or partners where the thing blew up in a similar manner as the previous one. Cause all these chicks seem to be psycho because they’re from LA or New York City or whatever the story is. And I think we, we get wrapped up so deep into, you know, lack of self-awareness even subtle things where, I mean, that was a pretty extreme example where you’re standing up to your boss finally, who’s been, you know, verbally abusing you, whatever. But I think the nuanced stuff is also important to, to reflect upon where, you know, Elle (24m 51s): Back when it’s not cooked right. That’s a smell. It’s like, are you sending your steak back when it’s not cooked? Right? Brad (24m 58s): Ah, yes. Very good. Yeah. So the other side of the scales, like why don’t, why don’t we do that? Was it something terrible or that we’re going to blame on parental garbage? Probably not, but it’s just kind of, we we’ve worked our way into a certain corner and that’s, that’s how we’re treated and how we treat others. And that’s the part that if we can unwind, it would be really nice. Elle (25m 20s): It’s usually some sense of people pleasing. So if you’re not gonna put the steak back, it’s because you either are fearful and worried about what people are on the table of you think what the restaurant with the chef or whatever might think of you. But again, it all has to do with your projected opinion of what someone else may or may not think about you, which is fricking insane. If you actually look at them, break it down logically, right? So there’s always that essence there. And that is the opposite of being confident as being a people pleaser. When you’re a people pleaser, you say and do and agree to things that you don’t really want to because you’re afraid of hurting someone’s feelings or you’re afraid of being rejected, et cetera. And it creates a passive aggressive behavior, covert contracts, and all sorts of things that happen that don’t need to happen. Elle (26m 3s): And that is why, by the way, we are drawn to and attracted to people who showcase confidence, because we intuitively perceive that these people approach any opportunity with assurance. They have trust in themselves. They, and they’re true to themselves. You know what I mean? I mean, confident people, if you’re dealing with like a really loud outspoken person who seems confident because they’re brutally assertive or bold, they could just be an asshole and a bully. That’s not someone who’s conifident. Cause competent people make others feel worthy because they, them, they themselves feel worthy. They don’t bully people and you know, they don’t compete with people. So that might be someone who has an air of outward confidence, but as uncoached and needs that refinement because they’re using their confidence as dominance, right? Elle (26m 46s): In an, in a negative misappropriated way. Brad (26m 51s): And so what kind of coaching comes into play here? What are some ways that the, the confidence can be properly directed? Elle (26m 58s): Well, I mean, I think, you know, aside from going through parental garbage downers, we also really like one of the biggest components of this is how are we thinking and encouraging or not encouraging other people, which has the downer effect. We’re all downers. We’ve all been down. But what we hate the most is when someone downers us, when you’re like, Oh, I’m so excited about this business. And someone’s like, I dunno, man, that’s risky. Like 50% of businesses fail. Like, you know, those downers that are always like, Oh, I’m going to write a book. Really? I don’t know. You’ve never written a book before though. Like that kind of shit, you get it from everywhere. You get it from the people that most of the love you the most I talk about, I got downered on my first book. Elle (27m 38s): Give the run-through as I was doing Paleo Thyroid Solution, I called the family member and I was about to pitch the book to Mark. And they were like I said, I’m so excited. I’m gonna pitch it to Mark. And they’re like, well, you’ve never written a book before. Now. I said, all right, well that’s just like a different genre. I’m a writer. I’ve written so many different things. This is not a big deal. It’s just a, it’s just a different, different, you know, Avenue. Brad (27m 58s): So that was put on the defensive that’s Elle (27m 60s): Right. That’s downer. Number one, downer. Number two was Mark said, I’ll publish your book. And I went to the same family member. I’m like, Oh my God, I’m so excited. Mark’s going to publish my book. And their response was well, like now you’re going to have to write it. I’m like, okay. So I was like, well of course I’m going to write it. Okay. Then the third downer Barnes and Nobles had contacted you and was like, Hey, we, before the book even came out, they were like, Hey, we’d like to purchase a thousand copies. And I called the family member and I was really excited. I’m like, Oh my God, Barnes and Noble already purchased a thousand copies. And this was their response. Well, that’s silly. Like why would Barnes and Nobles purchase a copy? They haven’t even like have a book. They haven’t even like read yet. That seems really like a risk. Elle (28m 41s): So in all of those cases, don’t believe you can write it. Are you really going to do it? Well, you’ve never done it before. Not sure you’re capable. Also. Why would someone be so dumb to possibly have your book? It could really suck and then they’re fucked. But all this stuff is like what a downer dude. Right? Okay. When I finished writing the book, I showed that exact portion to the person and they read it. I go, that’s you MOFO? And they were like, Oh my God, but I didn’t need it in any of that way. And I go, do you see, they go, Oh my God. I see though. I see. So when are we down during other people’s comments? I’m down with OPC. If you want to be confident, you have to start encouraging others because here’s the truth. Elle (29m 21s): When you’re rolling your eyes at someone’s plan. And I go, I’m going to go to act LA and be an actress and you roll your eyes. And you’re like, good luck with that. You’re hoping they fail. F you you’re garbage, stop it. We’ve all done it. I’ve done it. We downer people all the time in our heads catch yourself. Brad (29m 40s): Do you think it’s coming from a jealousy or the person? All of a sudden, you know, getting triggered because they dream of written a book their whole life. And th the thing just lights them up immediately. And they spew out downer commentary to kind of, as a self protection mechanism? Elle (29m 60s): Could be both, could be one or the other. I also had a friend, one of my best friends, and this is why it’s good to have Confident as Fuck friends, because you don’t get into passive aggressive stuff. If there’s anything that’s disagreed upon, it’s like quick and it’s over. And one of my best friends had called me during the time that I was writing Paleo Thyroid Solution and like a concerned parent the night before a project, they were like, Hey, how are you writing? Like, how are you writing dude? Like, how far are you? Like, what are you real skeptical? And I just said to them, I go, Hey, just because you’ve never written a book before, don’t be projecting that lack of confidence on me, don’t be doing that. Don’t be a downer man. Just because you’ve never written a book. Have I ever not started something? I didn’t finish? Like what they’ve known me for 30 years immediately. He was like, dude, I’m sorry. Elle (30m 39s): You’re right. You’re right. So who knows where that was coming from? Either way. I think we have this tendency to kick into like what’s realistic or protective mode. Right. But short of somebody going and doing something really dangerous, encourage your friends and turn your mind around when you roll your eyes. Yeah. Right. You know, and by the way, great story. Many, many years ago in high school, I went to school with these two girls who were both like, we’re going to go to LA and be actresses. Now, you know, I’m in like, like 16 years old at the time. And they were at my house for a party. And I remember literally in my head going like, good luck, like bullshit, like good luck with that. You’ll be like in my head, that’s what I was thinking like, ha ha good luck with that. Never going to make it. Elle (31m 22s): Both of them turned out to be incredibly famous, incredibly famous well-respected actors incredibly. Now I’m not saying that like my downering them. I do feel like when you get down to it, it does propel you to a level of success. That’s my belief when someone downers me, but you know, like I look back on that and I’m like, ah, that’s interesting. And then when I was pursuing the same thing many years ago, many years later, you know, in LA I thought about that because I would get downer by people, when you tell them you’re an actor and you tell them you’re going to be a writer, et cetera. So people are going to project a lack of confidence on to you. Particularly if you’re an entrepreneur or you’re in a creative space, like a musician, a writer, an actor, any of these kinds of things, people really don’t look fondly upon them because there are no measured benchmarks. Elle (32m 4s): It’s kind of like a crap shoot to them. Right? You go get a job as an attorney, as a firm. And you know, if you’re on track or not to a certain point, there are no benchmarks here in this industry as a writer, as anything. Right. So I think people worry about that because they feel like, Oh, it’s so highly competitive. It’s so risky. But this is what I’d say when someone’s like someone said to me, once they were like, Oh God being a writer must be tough. That’s like so competitive. And I go, is it, is it for all of the people doing well at it? Who’ve already done it. Is it hard for them? Like how about I’m on the side of where it’s not hard. I don’t, you know what I mean? So, so again, we gotta look at the downer effect. Where are we downing other people? Let me give a great example. That doesn’t seem like it has anything to do with confidence. Elle (32m 45s): But I think it’s important because we all do it. We all have these thoughts. I was on a phone call with a friend of mine who is in her forties. And she has never had health insurance, her entire life, which to me is crazy because I was raised where it’s like, you know, walk out of the house, unless you have car insurance and health insurance, you know, you could fall off a cliff. It could be a million dollars. You only have to pay this much. Right? Like I’ve, I’ve been a beneficiary of insurance. So for me, my belief is, Oh my God, you have to have insurance. So here I am on a call and I’m trying to beat it into where I’m like, this is dumb. Something could go wrong. That’s really stupid. Like you carve a pumpkin, you cut a little thing. It’s going to be 80 grand. You’re going to get screwed. Like you have to have insurance. This is so dumb. And she’s like, Oh, I just don’t have the same beliefs about health and health insurance that you do. Elle (33m 27s): I just don’t worry about it. I do not walk out of the house and worry that like, I don’t have like, I’m fine. I feel good about my health and I’m, I can’t disagree with it. But Brad, at the time, man, I was like, girl, you are dumb. And I I’m trying to convince her. I’m still trying to convince her. She, she doesn’t, she’s not having any of it. We get off the phone call. And my first thought is, she’s so dumb. Why something’s going to happen? She’ll see. Ooh, shit, hold on. Think about that. Watch. They’ll see. So I’m wanting to be right there, right? Like I’ll be right. Watch. She’ll see, she’ll see how right I am in order for me to be right. She has to a it health problem. Do I want that for my best friend too? Elle (34m 8s): She has to be so screwed financially because of that health issue that it proves my point. Do I want, that’s hoping terrible failure on somebody for what? For me to be right. And prove a point to say, aha. So you think when she’s in the hospital with, you know, $80,000 worth of injuries, I’m going to go, I fucking told you. I told you I have right. We have these thoughts all the time. It’s ego. It’s whatever you have to recognize it. So at that time I recognize it right away. In fact, I called her afterwards. She’s pretty woke. And I go, dude, I just had this terrible thought. I need to flush it out. But in that moment, how do you know when you’re in that situation where you’re really hoping for someone else’s failure, jealousy, or either you are feeling like you want to be right? Elle (34m 49s): Like you have to prove a point I’ll show that, that kind of thing. And then you need to sit there and go, Whoa, what did I just put out there? I just put it out there. I just put out there. Cause I was, cause she just has a different belief than me and I want to be right. I mean these little thoughts. And if someone say, well, why does it matter, Ellie, it’s just a thought. Well, thought is energy. But also people feel that. Do you want your friends thinking that way about you? So I just canceled it really quick. And I was like, Oh my gosh, no, no, no. Please let her have a healthy life and no issues ever. I don’t want to be right about that. But our ego gets in the way and we downer other people’s confidence or we downer people in these other kinds of ways. Elle (35m 30s): And what it is is it’s really hoping for their failure. That’s also a jealousy is when you’re jealous of someone, you are the thing that you’re jealous of them for. You’re hoping they fail at so confident peopleren’t jealous. They actually don’t compete. They feel like there’s enough abundance to go around, which is why they’re helpful and help other people’s careers. If someone come, you know, you know me I’m so, so are you were helpful. We, we help people get on podcasts. We help promote people’s stuff. We’re very encouraging to other people. But you know, the moment you start to edge back from that, you’re getting into a place of lack and competition, which is really only going to fail you. So if someone came to me tomorrow and was like, I want to be a writer or a podcaster, I’m not threatened. I’m like, great. Elle (36m 10s): How can I help you? I don’t think what if she gets more followers than me? What if her podcasts were popular? Like those are the kinds of things that confident people don’t do, which is why when you come across someone that’s not helpful or competitive, they’re not confident they are insecure. Same with somebody who’s bragging and boasting and name dropping, you know, all night at an event. Does anyone look at that person? Like they’re insecure? No, we feel gross inside around that person because we’re just like, Oh, I’m embarrassed for you. You know? Brad (36m 38s): Yeah. I’m thinking back to the example where you were offering your opinion about the importance of health insurance and it’s coming from a well-meaning place. You’re, you’re concerned about your friend’s wellbeing. And oftentimes when we call people on something that, you know, we take offense to, or seems a little bit off base, they can kind of respond saying, Oh, it’s really, you know, I’m concerned about your wellbeing. And that’s why, you know, projecting these insights to you that you might, you know, take personally or take as a criticism. And so where’s that fine line where, you know, health insurance is an important topic to discuss with someone and, and you know, the eventualities of what could happen, but not doing it in a negative way.?And I, and I tried that, additionally, it was an issue like, Hey, like this is just like, I, you know, I’m just concerned. Brad (37m 28s): I’ve been the benefit that I know what it’s like when something happens is unexpected. And thank God I did have insurance, but again, her, she has a different belief system. And if there’s no convincing the person, then what you’re left with afterwards is that thought like so stupid watch. So you were, you were unable to convince her. Elle (37m 46s): Yeah, I didn’t convince her. I never, I still haven’t convinced her. I’m going to stop convincing her. But again, it’s like that’s yucky vibes and a really terrible vibration. It’s also lowering my vibration at that time to be sitting there going she’s so dumb. Like she didn’t, you know what I mean? All that kind of stuff. So we have to think, where are we? So, so basically if you can telling your sister Mary, about all your exciting things that you want to do, and she keeps downering them, stop talking to fucking Mary. She’s not going to change, man. Mary is a person that downer stuff. Okay. That, that family member with the story I told you about downering my book, that’s just who they are. So I don’t call them when I have something exciting or something that I would call you over. Elle (38m 27s): Some I would call friends that are gonna be like, girl, go get it. Fuck. Yeah. Like encouraging. Right? Who are going to give me that response? And, and here’s the thing. Even if you believe your friend’s going to make it as she’s on his way to LA and you think she’s a terrible actress and you think it’s really stupid of her, she’s wasting her time. Well, that’s great. That’s your judgment. You’re a really shitty unsupportive friend. You need to turn it around even in your head and just go, hold on a minute. Wouldn’t I want her to get better. Wouldn’t I want her to succeed at her dreams. And here’s the thing. You have all these friends around you and you’re jealous or you’re rolling your eyes at all their plans. And don’t agree with what they’re doing with their life. Do you really want a bunch of friends that are all losers? That’s really what you’re kind of hoping for is that every time a friend comes up with a big idea, you’re the dad Brad (39m 10s): That’d be on top. All their friends will be poor and you’ll be a best-selling author. Hey, wonderful. How great you’re you’re buying all the dinners. When you guys go out together, thanks to the energy you spread to your, your friends group. Well, I was going to ask you like, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a tricky situation here at times because there is a such thing as you know, dispensing kind of unrealistic, fluffy encouragement, rather than people call me all the time and ask about the idea that they have to write a book. And I give them the straight up scoop that if you’re thinking of economic success here, it’s a really rough road. Brad (39m 50s): And let me tell you, you know, how the process works in a, in a factual manner. And then you can judge for yourself, whether you have over 300,000 social media followers or not, because then you’re in a different category than a celebrity. Elle (40m 3s): You’re not saying to them, I don’t think you should do it because of these risks. We’re just saying, let me lay it out for you though and tell you all the stuff. And I do the same thing to him. Like, don’t write a book if you think like it’s a means to money. That’s not why anyone should ever write a book. It’s about, you’re compelled to get whatever information is out there. Right? So that’s, that’s realistic. That’s not downloading, you know, that’s just saying, Hey, here’s my experience. And this is what I’ve noticed. And so just keep those factors in mind. You know, for example, someone was sending me to, they were like, Hey, do you think I they’re like, do you think I’d be a good coach? And I said, the fact that you asked me that questions means right now, no, no, you’re, you’re asking the question. And more importantly, in that situation, particularly I think the front that that person was thinking about things that they could be good at, but not what they were compelled to do, what they wanted to do. Elle (40m 51s): Do you know what I’m saying? So again, I mean, I wasn’t trying to downward them in that moment. It was just being realistic. It was like, well, was that emptied? Probably not. You know, and you’ve got to get to a different place or a different level of love and feeling compelled to do it and excited before you probably are going to be successful at it because they asked it very skeptically, be realistic with someone you can do real estate and go, Hey, well, jumping off a bridge doing bungee jumping, like here are the risks I support you. But as long as you feel comfortable, I mean, it’s okay to give some warnings and things like that. It’s when it’s when people are really, and we can all tell when someone sort of doesn’t believe in us, we can all tell that vibe and why I would say when you have that thought, even if it’s not expressed and you had a downer thought about a friend or you were really stop, turn it around, get to a good place, start to wish them well. Elle (41m 44s): Just put, put the good vibes out there. We want all of our friends to feel that way about us. How would you feel if you knew your friend was being like, Oh God, Brad’s going to write another book. Good luck with that, Brad, like, you know, you’d be like, come on man, support me. And all that, that person is going to remember at that time is that you supported them. You can support them with realistic notions or, or help them figure that out. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to encourage to, Brad (42m 9s): Right? And I think the closer we are to people such as friends, family members, partners, where we have no filter on, on what we can say and everything’s fair game because of the dynamics like that. That’s when we can really get into trouble with, you know, offering our straight up honest opinion. That’s not a, you know, false encouragement. And it turns out to be, you know, discouraging someone rather than being really careful with your choice of words, talking about how difficult and challenging the person’s stated goal is, but it’s so important to do your best and go forward. And even if you fail, it’s okay. I mean, that’s a message. You could send you a kid rather than are you crazy? Brad (42m 49s): You know, you’ll run out of money in six months. If you try to start up an app without, you know, expert, venture capital, whatever. And you know, I think we also have to be careful and discern when our advice is solicited, especially here in the health space. And you and I have talked about this a lot over the years where, you know, if people aren’t open to receiving the message, then you’re just wasting your breath. And you’re very potentially being a downer because you’re going to talk to the person about the bottled industrial seed oils you see on their, on their shelf when they didn’t ask you for an opinion about the bottle of industrial seed oils. And so I’m learning Elle (43m 26s): Downer in the other way, trying to help somebody or try to Brad (43m 29s): So hard to help because you’re such a nice person and you care so much. Yeah. Not unless they’re open. Yeah, Elle (43m 35s): No, we don’t do, like if I saw someone, if I saw someone in the house with a bottle of canola oil zipping it, right. Like we know better now, just, I just don’t even bring it up, Brad (43m 45s): Looking for that opening, dance, dancing, and tiptoeing around where you do have a chance to mention it and then at least take your shot. Right? Elle (43m 52s): You know, one of the things I wanted to ask you, or I thought I’d bring this up because it’s in my book a little bit, but I want to talk about like, how can we instill confidence more in children and other people? So you had a thing. Do you remember? You wrote a little bit of an article about like stop complimenting your girls on looks, but then in that article you accidentally did it. And I go, do you remember that? Brad (44m 13s): Yeah. It was the inverse power of praise, a great article that was sort of referencing Carol Dweck’s work and Po Bronson and Ashley Berryman’s work about, you know, how we, we tend to praise attributes rather than efforts. And so people, children form their self-image and they protect it very carefully. So if you tell a kid you’re so smart, you’ve finished all your math problems so quickly, they form an association that they’re smart and good and math to the extent that they are unwilling to take risks and push and challenge themselves to get better because they want to protect that self identity that they’ve been pounded into rather than the, you know, the appropriate example would be you made a great effort on that and Oh boy, all, all the answers are. Brad (45m 0s): Right. So, so that’s good too, but it’s mostly about the effort and working toward improvement. Elle (45m 6s): Right. And what I would say is that, so this, the problem is more with little girls because I think guys don’t know what to say. And we always go to, Oh, look how pretty you are. What a pretty bow, what a cute dress look. There’s no little girl that doesn’t like those kinds of compliments. However, it gets really old over time and the most important and the most effective way to teach. And I worked with kids my entire life. So even though I don’t have them, I taught at preschool. Some of these creators, I, I was even the camp counselor to the CEO of primal kitchen. Remember Morgan. But, but here’s the thing you do want to constantly convince them that they’re smart. One of the best ways to do that is embrace and praise observations. Elle (45m 47s): They make, kids are making observations constantly. They are constantly connecting dots. Okay. When they do that, you know it, cause you’re thinking it, say it be like, that is such so smart. I see you did it. And then you connected that. For example, I’ll give one where it would be appropriate. Remember this last year, and this is not even political, but it was kind of funny. Remember when our former president came out and said, he suggested like, Oh, maybe you can inject disinfectant for the virus. Or maybe you can put some bleach, like he had some ideas now again, here’s the thing that was coming from like a 70 plus year old man, which is why we were like, Oh my God, but here’s the thing. Let’s see a kid said that to you during Corona. And they were like, daddy, why can’t we do it? Elle (46m 27s): You wouldn’t be like, that’s so dumb. You would probably the best way to do that. Or instead of saying, no, no, no, that’s not what we do explain. And also praise because that is a great connection. I see why you would make that connection because the things we spray on the counter clean off the dirt. Very good. But that’s different. These things go on surfaces. They’re not allowed in the human body. That’s a perfect opportunity now, you know, again, it happened with us, but that would be good. I heard that. I thought, Oh, that would be like a third, a three-year-old five-year-olds observation or something. So even if it’s an observation, that’s wrong, there’s something in there that’s probably right. Pointed out, continually reinforce their observations and the connections that they’re making and continually telling them how smart they are. Elle (47m 12s): This is really the best way to build confidence in kids. Brad (47m 16s): Right. And you’ve attached to do something they did. So I think the, the general example is don’t just spew out effusive praise. That’s not connected to any effort. Otherwise you’re just going to get the, the golden child that thinks they can no wrong. And then maybe have some of those, those blind spots that you mentioned at the start of the show. Maybe we could go back and touch on those a little bit where, you know, you, you declare yourself as a confident person and are standing up here saying, that’s great. I know you as a confident person as well, and going up on stage at the paleo conference and, and killing the speech and not having any insecurities or anxieties to work through, you just go up there and tell your story, whatever. Brad (47m 58s): But then you you’re noticing that there’s these blind spots or these, I forget what you labeled them, but the pitfalls. So w what would those again, and how are you working through those in your own daily life? Elle (48m 12s): So my biggest pitfall was, you know, I’ve talked briefly about it with you on your podcast. Prior, I have a chapter in the book called shame disables confidence, because I have a hand disability that I’ve had for like twenty-something years. And I was, I could get away with it cause you can’t see it and I can live a normal life. So it looks like I’m quote normal. And yet I was so ashamed of this, that it really disrupted my confidence. And self-esteem in the internal confident as fuck with friends and colleagues and also romantic relationships. So I was confident in every area of my life, but I was curious, such shame over here and trying to shuffle it under the rug, that it really alienated me. Elle (48m 54s): And, and, and again, like it was part of me having to learn how to get vulnerable and start to be vulnerable and open about this. Now it’s not that everybody has some sort of shame. It doesn’t matter what your shame is about people. You can, no one can tell you how serious or not serious your shame is. You could have shame because you have unsightly moles on your back, whatever, okay. Or you could hit someone as a drunk driver 20 years ago and kill them. And you still have shame. Even if you served your time, it doesn’t matter what it is. You got to get good with it. You don’t have to do Facebook posts or write a chapter, but you got to get good with it. Even if you take it to the grave, you got to have no shame about your shame. This is really the biggest disruptor of confidence. I mean, particularly, let’s say you have shame about your sexuality and you really need to come out as a gay person in this world, but you’re, you know, living in the middle of small town in Nebraska, and this is a very difficult thing. Elle (49m 40s): That’s really going to screw up your life and how you go about the world. Right? So having any kind of shame needs to be dealt with. And for me, it was my physical disability and the way that it disrupted it was in romantic relationships and personal relationships because I could not be vulnerable. So it was like a one-sided relationship. And then I couldn’t really trust you to like me, for who I am, because you didn’t know this big story about me, or maybe I was afraid if I told you this you’d think I was less than or whatever. It was either way, all, all about me. One of the problems with shame though, is when people are ashamed of something and they tell people, well, meaning people like us, your family members will say things like, Oh, I don’t even know why you’re saying about that. Like, you don’t need to be ashamed. Elle (50m 21s): That’s ridiculous. And that is harsh because it only makes the person who has shame go inward further because it’s kind of, you’re dumb for being ashamed. It dates it. So it’s really important. I get it. It’s well-meaning. But when you hear that over and over again from friends and people, you start to just kind of cower inward and go, well, I, you know, every time I bring it up, people kind of tell me I’m stupid and it shouldn’t feel this way. And it makes me feel that even more shame for me, like shame. So shame will disable your confidence. And my confidence was in the arena of, of romantic relationships. I could not speak up. I could not speak vulnerability and intimacy verbal intimacy, because I was like hiding this thing and not willing to, you know, or even if it wasn’t about, let’s say my arm injury, it would be this, this something negative happened in my life. Elle (51m 8s): I would go tell some friends and other people and keep it away from my loved one, because I was like, I don’t want to bring up something negative or a week or something that I’ve, again, just this like facade. And that’s where that’s a pitfall for confident people. And that’s why it made me unaccessible. And I remember years of doing sketch comedy, I stayed on the outside of all of the people to theater. I had a couple of good buddies, but I, I didn’t go to a lot of these barbecues and things like that. I wanted to stay on the outside because they didn’t want anyone to get to know me too well, because then they might find out about this thing and I would have to deal with it. And I don’t want to talk about it. And I’d rather just ignore it. So I wouldn’t know what it could have showed us, but, you know, there were some friendships there that probably could have been deepen. I probably could have had a lot more fun in life. Had I joined and hung out with my friends who I love doing comedy with, but I didn’t because I just wanted to kind of stand outside. Elle (51m 53s): And I remember someone said to me once they were like, you know, no one really knows a lot about you. And I remember being like, you know, like, yeah, I’m doing my job, you know, or when I told you and Mark about my disability, you were like, Oh my God, Oh, I had no idea. And I was like, exactly, because that’s the way I was living my life. I couldn’t even get through this story without sobbing crying, like just a few years ago. So the fact that I can just talk about it with no shame now. And I did a speech at paleo FX called the shame of disability and the disability of shame, because the shame is more disabling than the actual disability itself. And I really, if I could, I’d go back in time. That would be the first thing that I would deal with immediately. Elle (52m 34s): So everyone’s probably got a little something there, or if you do, that’s probably your biggest disabler of the confidence, Brad (52m 40s): Right? Everyone’s probably got a little something there. Yours was the physical disability with your hands, but it very well could have been anything else. And probably a lot of us can relate to, you know, whatever our dark side is that we’re trying to hide from other people. And until, I guess, until you come to terms with it, it’s always, it’s always going to get in the way. It’s just, it’s just a symbol of, you know, putting, putting things in the way. So how have you worked through that since I guess, you know, you’ve made a decision to, to go to go public. And so that’s one step. And then on a day-to-day basis do things come up, that kind of, you have to work through? Elle (53m 21s): I, the way I did it was I had to start to be open and vulnerable about that thing I was ashamed about. And the best part of this story is, and this is there’s a whole chapter in my book. It talks about, you know, me working for Mark and you and all this stuff. So it’s a very in-depth story about my disability. But what happened was, is I realized I started to have to just kind of like speak my truth about this. I had to start to get comfortable cause I would like date someone and I couldn’t tell them any, I wouldn’t tell them, like I just had to get it out right. And just be accepted for who I was. So I was talking with a fellow podcaster, Karen Martell many years ago. And she said, she asked me a very pointed question where normally I would dance around it semantically to avoid getting into the truth. Elle (54m 1s): But I decided in that moment, I was like, you can continue the shame game or you can just rip off the bandaid, right. Fucking out with somewhat of a stranger and just tell him. So I tell her my and disability story, a brief version and her response is, Oh my God, that happened to me. I ruined my hands from 15 years of being a Rolfer, which is, you know, it was very intense body work with your hands. And she said, I always wanted to be a health coach, but I thought it was unrealistic. So I went to go be a Rolfer and then the universe cut the golden handcuffs off my wrist, which is exactly what it did to me too. And then, so after I got off that phone conversation, I started, you know, really teared up because, Oh my God, what are the odds that the first shot I take it just being vulnerable with a stranger. Elle (54m 41s): And she happens to also have a hand disability. You can’t see, then it got even crazier because a couple weeks later I was interviewing a model named Jazlan Moya. She’s also used to be the host of a couple of shows and I’m at Jazlan is her Instagram. And you look at her, she looks totally fine, but someone said, you should interview her. She has a really interesting health story and I didn’t know what it was, but she gets on the podcast and I had to mute the microphone because during her discussion, she says, I had a freak accident that severed nearly every tendon, a nearly nerve leading to my left hand. And when I woke up out of eight out like a eight hour emergency surgery, I could not feel my left hand at all. Elle (55m 23s): And one of her first thoughts, which is kind of, of shame and kind of, of who would want me and also of like the physical thing was, Oh my God, am I ever going to feel a guy, put a ring on my finger, six, her left hand cut. Two years later, she just got a ring put on her finger and I like wanna cry about it. I’m so happy for her. When you add she has chronic regional pain syndrome in any way, she hurt her hand. Like she is in much more pain on a regular basis, way more than I ever could be. So my two, four raise into like, literally just be vulnerable about this. And I meet two chicks with hand disabilities that you can’t FNC. Are you kidding me? And not only that I am less alone because they understand. Elle (56m 3s): So now for the first time in 20 years, I’m talking to two women who like went through this and understand what it’s like. There are things like, even just going to the doctor to get paperwork done is like brings it all. It brings up all the stuff, you know, you know, I, I got like a pitch, a water pitcher from a refrigerator that was like way too big. I’m like, ah, shit, what did I do that I can’t handle it with one hand. I got to do two. So like there are these kinds of things. And, and so I’m really, I’m really grateful for both of them to allow me to share those stories in the book. But also it really let me know that I was on the right path because what are the freaking odds that I open up? And I meet these two people within just like a couple of weeks of trying out, just trying it out. And so that’s when I knew like, okay. Elle (56m 45s): And then it took like telling them that the, the guy that I dated, like just telling it, you know, just telling the story, it’s part of my life. And I have no problems with it now. And I was so fearful. I’d shake. I I’d have friends roped into my lie. I mean, I, everything I could to avoid anyone ever, ever knowing. And so that’s how I dealt with it was actually just embracing vulnerability and being more vulnerable and open. And of course the most vulnerable is getting out and talking about, I mean, you know, I don’t think you can get vulnerable than, you know, doing a speech or et cetera on stage, but also a disability can be a health issue. It’s embarrassing to have a health history for struggling with cancer right now. Or you have MS or, Oh my gosh, you know, any of these things, it doesn’t have to be a, an arm missing. Elle (57m 29s): I mean, that’s also a disability, but it really can be something like that. And it’s, it’s tough and I get it, but you got to talk to someone about it, whether it’s coach a good friend, a therapist, cause the shame has to be worked up. Otherwise you just get choked up in the throat, which leads to can lead to thyroid. And maybe that is also part of what contributed to my, having a thyroid problem as well. I couldn’t speak up in relationships because of this disability thing. And I was very embarrassed and ashamed about it. And I wonder if maybe that all of that hiding and just sort of like trying to mitigate this, this not coming out was, was part of maybe what got me choked up. Brad (58m 8s): Yeah. You said that you described that so well on our first podcast, I hope listeners will go back and listen to that. How you, you lost your voice in life and relationships and the thyroid gland is located right there. And if the listener believes this stuff to be nonsense, then you’re probably right, listener, that it’s a bunch of baloney and the thyroid gland goes South due to a reaction to certain plant antigens or whatever. But I love, you know, I know you’re big in that space of the law of attraction and manifesting and your story of coming out and telling the two people that also had, you know, similar disabilities is another great example of that. And you know, I remember we were talking about this, so you’re one of the first people that introduced me to some of these things like your vision board. Brad (58m 51s): I said, what’s that on your wall there? And you had cutouts from the magazines and it said, bestselling author on the thing. And this was before the book was being published and I’m like, Oh, that’s cute. And that’s, you know, that was my exposure to it because I’m not big on that stuff. But you know, as you learn more and more, and I talked to more and more experts about this, it’s really powerful. It’s real. You talked about the energy at one point in the conversation, you know, the downer energy and the intention and you having to call your friend back so that she wouldn’t get into a health misfortune and see how, how gnarly it was not to have health insurance. And this stuff is, is really important to reflect upon. Especially if you’re a non-believer or someone who’s sitting on the fence and wondering what this stuff is all about. Brad (59m 37s): It’s, it’s really nice to have an open mind. That’s what I’ll say about all that stuff. And I appreciate you kind of putting those stories out there. Like the one you just told, which is mind blowing. Elle (59m 46s): Well, you know, Louise Hay, who’s dead now, but she started hay house at age 60. She died at like 90 something. She, her most famous book is called. You Can Heal your Life, right? Heal Your life. And in it, the reason she wrote this book is she noticed a emotional slash lifestyle coordination between certain diseases. And, you know, she just kept seeing this theme. So if you look up heal your life, you can look up like, what does Louise say about breast cancer or thyroid problems. Right. And it wasn’t until years later that I read her thing, but it was very true. She said, what she noticed with people with thyroid problems are a couple things. One the inability or lack of expressing one’s creativity. Elle (1h 0m 26s): So not expressing your yourself in life and what you need to do creatively. And also just not being able to speak up, feeling like you’re not heard or choked up, inability to express oneself. And again, like at the time that I had gotten to the thyroid issue, when I look back, I was in a relationship with someone who was very moody and I had to walk around, I was walking around eggshells and I was like, and so I was like really choked up in the throat. And I just know that whenever I get that feeling, it’s gotta be examined immediately from here. But it, cause it, it, it goes back to this whole thing. We’re talking about where like, Oh, if that comes up, I got to address it right away. So whether or not that was partially the cause of a thyroid problem. Again, this is the themes that Louise hay has seen. Elle (1h 1m 7s): And again, biology belief, all of this kind of stuff, you know, even Mark Sisson was really skeptical. I remember years ago he told me like, when the secret came out the movie, he was like, ah, bullshit, shit happens. He would show me the manuscript. Apparently he wanted her to write a book called Shit Happens. And then, you know, then his wife, Carrie was like, yeah, you need to be a little bit more open-minded and you know, she’s very spiritual and she’s going down this path. She’s an amazing manifestor. And he started to kind of ease up and go, no, you know, I kind of see, and it’s a distinct, because Mark has done that before. He lived in the apartment before he bought he’s was in Miami now. But he had a gorgeous house in Malibu, in a gated community. But below the gated community, there were some apartments where he used to live. We’d be packing his own, you know, like boxes of supplements, things like that before he made any sort of dough. Elle (1h 1m 52s): And he went to a party of, in the gated community, in a house right next to the one that he bought. And he said, then he goes, I’m gonna live up here someday. I’m going to own a house up here some day. And I was like, that’s kind of like intention manifesting one-on-one. And he did eventually did. So I think when he looks back, he can see some correlations to some of his intentions and vibes that he put out there. But yeah, I mean, I think the girl skeptical at first, the whole book is obviously not about that, but it does go into a few things about thinking about how intention and vibration matters and some of the experiments that have done on it. The best book I think is called the Intention Experiment by Lynne McTaggart who’s an investigative journalist. She’s been around for a very long time. She’s a best-selling author. Elle (1h 2m 32s): She wrote a book called The Intention Experiment. Cause she was like, Oh, really does this shit fucking work? Great. Let me see some scientific experiments on it because I’m not buying it. And that book is really, really fascinating. And the scientific experiments in there that have been corroborated like many times all over the world are really truly something that might get you thinking differently about the thoughts and the vibrations and the things we’re putting out there. Brad (1h 2m 53s): Well said, I love it. I think Dave Rossi, my frequent guests on the podcast, who’s big in this world too. He said, look at it this way. Anything you’ve ever accomplished in your life, you dreamed it up beforehand. Right? You envisioned it. And then you made it happen or whatever you want to say, but how, how can you, how can you counter that? That’s brilliant. Elle, you’re you’re on fire today. I love catching up with you. We’ll have to have regular checkpoints and just check out the state of the health community every six months or so. You’re doing great work, Elle (1h 3m 28s): Carnivore-y. I noticed Mark just came out with a thing today and Mark’s D Mark Brad (1h 3m 32s): s Daily A[ppleaily Apple or something. I don’t know when your releases, but maybe a few weeks ago that was talking about his latest thing. And he’s like, I’m really not eating as many big salads anymore. And I’m eating a lot more Company makes steak sauce too. So he can continue to be the brand ambassador, but Elle (1h 3m 48s): You’re mostly kind of doing carnivores three ish, right? A little less veggies. Brad (1h 3m 52s): I’d say that I have this wonderful document called the carnivores scores chart that I developed with Kate Kretz ginger. You can find it on my website and it kind of ranks the most nutrient dense foods in the world. And of course they happen to be predominantly the animal based foods. That’s where the true nutritional superstars are on the planet. So Elle (1h 4m 13s): They brought some of my chicken livers today. Brad (1h 4m 16s): Yeah. I mean the organ meats being, you know, right there at the, at the very top oysters, salmon row, things like that, that, you know, the true superfoods of the planet. And so I’m trying to emphasize the most nutrient dense foods I can. And I also really appreciate the message from the people who appealed through restrictive diets, especially carnival are probably the most sensible restrictive diet to test. If you have autoimmune or inflammatory conditions Elle (1h 4m 42s): And Kate Kurt singer and Brett, gosh, Lloyd Brett Lloyd are two people that have miraculously changed their whole entire dynamic. You guys got to look, these people up bread was on so many antidepressants and a total disaster, all sorts of medications. So this was all mental anxiety, emotional, all that kind of stuff. Kate Kritzinger had a ton of just physical issues. If she, if that girl is one macadamia nut, there’s Wells on her leg, like she, and she’s a beast too. So if you’re out there and you’re curious about that, those are two people that have so successfully treated like longstanding illness with the carnivore diet. Yeah. I think Brad (1h 5m 20s): The big picture for me is to continue to think critically and maintain an open mind because right now, especially the deeper you go into this space and we live and breathe this stuff all day. So we’re pretty deep into it. You can form fixed and rigid beliefs that confirm have whatever you, whatever you feel is important or whatever you’ve invested in, or, you know, you know, been attached to. And that’s when we get in really bad shape and, you know, we get blindsided and, and kind of left behind because our egos involved and we have to, you know, we have to stay in our box and how we’ve branded ourselves or whatever. So I’m on the journey with all my listeners and readers together. And, you know, we’re, we’re just trying to stay on top of things and see what makes us feel good and test and retest. Brad (1h 6m 5s): And I work with that inside tracker company, you’re probably familiar with them or they put together blood tests, genetic tests, and also fitness data. Like, you know, people you get from your Fitbit. And so, you know, we have today the best chance ever to really go deep and to see what personally works for us. And I think that’s also another huge takeaway. And you talk about this with so many podcasts guests that it’s really becoming individualized so that we can’t make these blanket statements like keto is the bomb for everybody don’t eat carbs. You’re going to feel so great. Well, not for me, particularly because I’m really trying to continue to do high intensity workouts that are difficult, especially at my age and recover quickly. Brad (1h 6m 48s): And sometimes I feel like paradigms, dietary carbohydrates can come in there and assist me with my recovery rather than be another potential stressor along with the workout, along with being an old guy, trying to do crazy workouts and so on down the line. So we have to keep, you know, keep pushing forward and being open-minded and listening carefully to people that are, that are telling their stories. Elle (1h 7m 9s): Because thinking about you, cause I was hiking with you, remember Daniel in front of him. I was hiking with Daniel and Mike and he’s my pandemic hiking buddy. We were hiking over here and I, I Cheeseborough. And I remember you being like, Oh yes, I was telling Daniel on the hike. I’m like bread, bread would be waking up doing this motherfucking eight mile trail here. Like, cause I remember I talked to, I was like, Oh I got this trail. You’re like, Oh, that’s place for it. I do that eight mile or like, you know, every now and then I’m like, Oh my God, breath only. I only wish I, I wish I like you Mark and Tara Garrison. And it was like my, I admire you guys so much. I want to be you in terms of this like amazing athletic prowess. Elle (1h 7m 49s): You guys all have workout. Huh? Brad (1h 7m 53s): Great checking in. We’re going to come back to you in due time, but for now, how do we get all in, on this, on this confident as fuck program and follow you in other ways. Elle (1h 8m 3s): Yeah. On Amazon, you can get it in Kindle or, you know, a soft cover and competent as fuck. You can just type it in, even though there’s an Astros over the sea. And then also Elle russ.com E L L E R U S S.com. There is a thyroid guide there, right on the top, over to the right, just click it. You don’t need to buy my book if you’ve got a thyroid issue. And that’s what you’re interested in, in looking into me for just look at the thyroid guide. It’s got free resources. We’ll kind of test to get, where do you go to figure stuff out? What do you do just to even get you started? But you can also find the paleo thyroid solution on Amazon and Barnes Nobles and all that kind of stuff too. So, and then yeah, every Monday Primal Blueprint podcast do an episode where you interview someone and then every Wednesday Kick Ass Life podcast with Tara Garrison, we would just talk some smack about things that can make her Brad (1h 8m 47s): The Kick Ass Life podcast is always a blast. So go, go check that out. People along with Primal Blueprint, thanks for spending the time with Elle Russ. Good show. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the show. I love sharing the experience with you and greatly appreciate your support please. Email podcast@bradventures.com with feedback, suggestions and questions for the QA shows, subscribe to our email list to Brad kearns.com for a weekly blast about the published episodes and a wonderful buy monthly newsletter edition with informative articles and practical tips for all aspects of healthy living. Brad (1h 9m 28s): You can also download several awesome free eBooks when you subscribe to the email list. And if you could go to the trouble to leave a five or five star review with Apple podcasts or wherever else, you listen to the shows that would be super, incredibly awesome. It helps raise the profile of the be read podcast and attract new listeners. And did you know that you can share a show with a friend or loved one by just hitting a few buttons in your player and firing off a text message? My awesome podcast player called overcast allows you to actually record a soundbite excerpt from the episode you’re listening to and fire it off with a quick text message. Thank you so much for spreading the word and remember B.Rad.

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