[INTRODUCTION]
[00:00:31] Jon: Achieve Your Goals Podcast listeners, Jon Berghoff here. Hey, happy day to you whatever day you are listening to this podcast on. This next episode is a conversation I recently had with Drew Canole. And before I tell you about Drew or this episode, I am going to tell you that this conversation that you’re about to listen in on, it’s a two-part conversation so you’ll hear maybe 20 minutes or so of it today, 20, 30 minutes and then we release the rest of it next week. I will tell you there were moments, several of them, during this conversation where I thought to myself this might be one of the most deep and meaningful interviews that I’ve had the privilege of being a part of since I’ve been standing in for Hal for the last six months. This was a conversation that I will go back to. It will be one of very few, in fact, I have never yet done this. It might be the first that I go back and listen to. It was so awesome.
So, I hope you love my conversation with Drew Canole. I’ll tell you a little bit about him here. Drew is a best-selling author. He’s the Founder of Organifi, an organic, incredibly delicious greens powder, full of superfoods to make juicing super easy for you. He’s also the Founder and CEO of Fitlife.TV. I could be incorrect on this but I think he’s got 4.5 million or 4.7 million viewers, followers, subscribers. And when you listen to Drew talk about what he values and what has driven him in his life, you probably won’t be surprised at the success that he has had and the impact that he has made in the world. So, I hope you have as much fun and you get as much out of this as I did. Again, it was amazing.
Last thing here, a couple of shout outs. If you listened to our last two episodes with brotha James, you missed out, you gotta go listen in. Brotha James, the last two episodes, we together played five or six brotha James songs during these episodes which I’ve never done that on a podcast. I’m sure he does it all the time but we also debuted the Miracle Morning song for the first time ever on the last podcast episode with brotha James.
[00:02:31] Jon: So, go listen to our episodes with brotha James. He is an incredible guy. He’s also a pillar of our Best Year Ever Blueprint Event and you hear in the first episode of brotha James, we talk about the history of my relationship with him and how we became really good friends over the last four years starting with the first ever Best Year Ever Blueprint Event, the first time he and I had ever met.
Last thing, a couple of shout outs, we have had folks pick up tickets to the Best Year Ever Blueprint Event and we get a little notification every couple of hours every time somebody buys a seat right now and I saw the last couple of days we have somebody coming from France, from Poland, from Australia, several from the UK and I’m just reminded that this community of people who are passionate about changing the world, passionate about growing themselves and helping each other is really one of a kind. So, as we’re closing in on selling out the event, if you’re planning on joining us, now is the time to finally reserve your seat. Come for all three days. Join us for Entrepreneur Day on Friday. Bring a friend. Go to BestYearEverLive.com. Enjoy this conversation with Drew Canole.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:03:41] Jon: All right. Welcome, Achieve Your Goals Podcast listeners. Jon Berghoff here. Super special episode with Drew Canole, a rock star in the world of fitness, nutrition mindset, has a huge heart for others. He’s changing the world and has a huge community. You’re going to learn all about this. You’re going to meet Drew, Founder of Fitlife.TV and the Organifi products and we’re going to figure out what all that is. We’re going to talk all about it but, Drew, thank you for being here today, my friend. Super cool.
[00:04:10] Drew: Jon, thank you for having me on. It’s always a pleasure to be a part of a community that is boldly waking up every single morning with new goals and strategies to impact not only their life but the people around them. I think that’s cool. And I’m excited about the podcast today.
[00:04:25] Jon: Hey, appreciate that, Drew. Appreciate that. I think it’s fun for me to share with everybody that you and I just met like a moment ago. The spirit of this podcast, as everybody has gotten to know since long before I was here, is its total transparency and authenticity. So, one thing that’s fun for me is I’m going to get to know you right now just alongside all of our listeners and I’m looking forward to that. We’ve got some great mutual friends that connected us, Hal and Neils. So, this is as fun for me as it is for them.
[00:04:56] Drew: Yeah.
[00:04:57] Jon: Hey, did you grow up in Northern Michigan. Is that right?
[00:05:00] Drew: Lake City, Michigan. Twenty-four years of my life growing up in Michigan. Loved it.
[00:05:06] Jon: Yeah. So, I would love to know what did growing up in Michigan do in shaping you and what you value? Because I’ve read somewhere that there’s something about those values for you that are meaningful and I’m a big fan of people constantly checking in with themselves of, “Hey, what is it that I value? And how is that guiding my life?” How did growing up there shaped who you are today?
[00:05:28] Drew: Well, I think you can grow up anywhere and you can choose the values that you want in that moment through that interpretation, that filter of life that we have. But for me growing up in Michigan, what really was amazing was that everybody wore their heart on their sleeve, completely vulnerable and some of the biggest givers I’ve ever met in my life. You could be in a grocery store in the middle of nowhere which Lake City is in the middle of nowhere like 800 people in the town, you’re walking through the grocery store and a complete stranger comes up and asks you if you need help and you’re like, “Oh, you don’t work here?” And then they guide you to that thing that you’re actually looking for.
So, there’s this overtly openness to being helpful that I think society and the rest of the world sometimes can shun upon depending on where you are in the world. You go to New York, that would never happen. LA, San Diego a little bit more lenient when it comes to that kind of stuff but growing up in Michigan really taught me that. It taught me that there’s more than just image that really what’s inside of you is your heart and that’s what the world wants to see. It taught me to me that five-year-old child always and be vulnerable and rage into the day with this level of authenticity and vulnerability that wakes people up. So, my mother growing up in Michigan, my father, I’ve had many mentors in my life but really, I can say that about Michigan. It’s just really, really good salt of the earth people. It’s a very dear place to me.
[00:07:04] Jon: Wow. That’s awesome. It was fun for me to hear you share that. So, a few things that I got to call out here. One of them is we just, on this podcast, our guest that launched today so if that means if you’re watching the live stream, what is today? Wednesday the 16th is Jeremy (brotha James) Reisig who’s a musician from just north of Traverse City and, Drew, I was with my team in Traverse City last week with Jeremy when we filmed that.
[00:07:31] Drew: Get out of here.
[00:07:32] Jon: Yeah. And he’s a pillar to this whole community so he plays live what he calls musical affirmation so all of his songs are positive. He’s an incredible musician and he’s been playing – he kind of launched part of his career through our Best Year Ever Blueprint Live Event four years ago. So, he was actually the episode that was released today. The second part is next week and then yours might be after that. So, this is like the month of Michigan which is great.
[00:07:56] Drew: I love that. Wow, synchronicity, it’s always amazing to me to like to see how much the universe just lines it up.
[00:08:03] Jon: Yeah. The other thing, as you were sharing, I love what you just said, Drew, about this openness to helping others. It struck me right away that I grew up on the West Coast. I grew up in the Bay Area and then I lived in Northern Virginia. So, it was like I went from San Jose to Washington DC where you have these really strong cultures, very different and then I now live in Cleveland where I love raising my kids with my wife. And people are often asking, “When are you going to move to San Diego or to Austin?” where we have friends or customers or business partners but I love the values that are so clear and present here in the middle of the country. And so, as you shared that, I thought, well, we have the opposing journey that I started on the West Coast. Now I’m here. You started here and now you’re in San Diego, right?
[00:08:49] Drew: Yeah, in San Diego. I live in Florida for a little bit too and then came out here.
[00:08:53] Jon: Yeah. That’s really cool. Well, Drew, tell us about how you grew up there in Michigan, it instilled these values in you and then you had kind of a transformational moment for yourself that was kind of like a tipping point that had to do with your own well-being and then I think eventually led to you realizing you could help others with their well-being. Tell us a little bit about your journey, because today you’ve got, and please correct me on these statistics if I’m wrong, your TV show you’ve got millions, 3 million, 4 million followers, viewers, fans?
[00:09:27] Drew: Yeah. Pretty profound.
[00:09:29] Jon: So, that’s a big deal. Let’s unpack. What led you there? Because you are in the finance world, right? And then now you’re helping people transform with their well-being. How did that happen?
[00:09:39] Drew: Well, right out of college I grew up, like I said, in Michigan and at the time it was very, you know, the average per capita household is, I don’t know, $30,000 to $40,000. So, it was kind of blue-collar, a little bit above maybe in some parts of the world. But I had this hunger inside to go off and prove myself to show the world how great I was through stuff that was outside of me, the car, the bling, the house and my clothes, the appearance, everything was external. And I met with one of my mentors, Frank, every morning for like two years and we would get into the Scripture. We would get into other spiritual work, self-development, raising our consciousness. And what happened, over the course of the two years I realized a lot of the things that I was chasing after were so fleeting and they were so false and they were so fake. And doing credit and finance I liked helping people but I didn’t like the medium in which I was doing it.
So, I really had this idea and it really started at a young age when I was 12. I’ll close this loop in a little bit but when I was 12, I was literally sitting at a stoplight with my parents in a car and I willed the light to change. We’ve all done that, right? Where all of a sudden, you’re sitting there and we’re like, “We need a green light.” So, I did that and then I started this onslaught of lucid dreaming. Every night I’d go to sleep and I was creating my own reality in the dream space which was cool. So, as I woke up, I’m like I had a dream with that. Now let’s see if I can create in the world. So, I’m like if I could design, fast forward to meeting with Frank, the perfect lifestyle, what would I do? What do I love doing that maybe I am not representative of? And that was health. At the time, I was 40 pounds overweight. I was out of shape. I was lazy, lethargic. I didn’t have the vitality that I have today. I probably looked older then than I do now.
[00:11:38] Drew: And I’m like all right and I get to help people and I get to change the world and I get to make money doing it. I’m like this is the perfect career. Now how do I do it? And this was six-and-a-half years ago. I had an HD flip cam and I’m like, “I’m just going to be vulnerable and open.” So, I drive the camera, set it up and I told them, “Guys, I’m going to do a 90-day transformation. I’m going to lose this weight. Watch me. Follow along. If you’re trying to lose weight, I’m going to reveal some of the miss that are out there, some of the misconceptions of dieting, of juicing, of cleansing, of detoxing, all these things. So, follow the journey.” And then 90 days, I lost 40 pounds and I started to see our first 12 views on my video, a hundred views on my videos and I would text my dad. I’d be like, “Dad, see this video yesterday? There were 12 users. Still 12 users today. What’s going on? Watch it. Can you?” Tracking people down to get viewers.
And then, sure enough, over two to three years, we started gaining momentum, picking up 200,000, 300,000 fans a month and now today we have about 4.7 million and it’s cool because it all started from the heart and everything that we do is from the heart and it’s just a different business. The culture, we take company trips two, three times a year. It’s total like the Miracle Morning Community but it all started really having this authentic desire to change the planet and help people on a really deep level regardless of how much money or external validation you’ve got. Because when I do a video, I could really care less how many people watch it, how many views, subscribers, Instagram likes, whatever. People are chasing a lot and I’m caring more about that one person that’s listening to this right now that’s going to take one piece of this message and absolutely have a life transformation. So, I would do that every day for the rest of my life until I die and it’s something that I’m really, really inspired by and proud of.
[00:13:39] Jon: Yeah. Wow. It’s so cool to hear how you’re describing that story. A couple things I just was noting as I’m following along is you talked about how there was a moment where you realized that everything that you are chasing in your life was external and here you said fleeting and you used the phrase that you were constantly trying to figure out how to elevate your consciousness. And as we follow what you just shared in your journey, it sounds like you went from a place where, and I’m just going to oversimplify here, and I’d love to hear what happened for you that allowed this to actually happen? But it sounds like you became less focused on yourself and more legitimately focused on others. How can somebody go through that process? What did you go through? You said you met with your mentor, Frank, every week for a couple of years. What did you have to do to create that kind of shift that legitimately changed what was motivating you?
[00:14:40] Drew: Yeah. Two parts. One, and this leads me into the Miracle Morning because I established a really strong morning ritual. I’ve always woken up 6 AM, sometimes 4:30, 5:00 if I’m writing a lot, working out, drinking my green juice. And we can talk more about the morning ritual later, but starting that, build the momentum up and crossing things off the list, getting the psychological reward centers, the dopamine, the serotonin to light up. Day in and day out, building the momentum up and that’s kind of what happened in the very beginning. But in order to do that, I had to bring myself into the space of what if and it was what if I continue to live the life that I’m currently living, the way that I’m living, the impact that I’m making, the selfishness that I’m showing up in the world as? And the selfishness really was coming from not giving my gifts, holding onto my gifts, not inspiring the world to change through the gifts.
And when I made that shift, I was doing a visualization and I visualized that I died. I had like this near-death experience. And I saw how many people showed up, I saw the language that they were using at the funeral, the emotion, the feelings, everything behind it from an observation space. As I’m observing this, I’m like, “Oh, I really got to get my act together.” Here I am. I want to change the world but I’m not doing anything to change myself. In order to change the world, we have to be the change, right, as Gandhi would say. And just from that day forward, I’ve constantly had this mission, this movement, everything on my mind to how can I impact? What difference can I make? How can I serve? How can I demonstrate source?
[00:16:34] Jon: Yeah. Tell us what you mean by that when you use that word, source, and demonstrating. What does that mean?
[00:16:40] Drew: Getting sourcy. Basically, that means realizing that we are all part of this divinity, right, of God like Mother Theresa said we are a pencil in the hand of God and I believe that. I believe I’m just a reflection. Everything I do day in and day out is in alignment with that in my soul, soul like in my heart of hearts and I believe we’re all connected. We are so vastly more connected than we ever even thought possible. And if you look at quantum physics and quarks and all these other things like even talking to you now there’s this energy that’s not just going to the computer screen but it’s traveling through the rest of the universe to where you are, Jon, and it’s my light showing up to you and your light is responding to it even outside of this on a subconscious quantum physics level. So, I believe that when we are in control of that light that’s inside of us, that source, that miracles can happen day in and day out. It’s just washing the mirror off over and over. Wash it off, wash it off, wash it off. The human things that trigger us that cause our emotional intelligence to go on a rampage, that trick the ego or the rackets or the – what does – I’m trying to think The Power of Now. What does he call the things that – the pain-body, right?
[00:18:13] Jon: Yeah.
[00:18:14] Drew: In The Power of Now. So, we’re so conditioned to get into that pain-body and the more we separate ourselves from humanity and realize and have compassion for humanity but also that we are part of divinity and we can live from that space, I believe that’s where the magic. Closing the gap in between those two is where the magic is happening and will continue to happen as the planet takes it to the next level through the power of nutrition, through the power of mindset, through the power of morning rituals, through everything that we’re doing which is really what’s exciting to me.
[00:18:48] Jon: Yeah. Oh man, this is so great. This is so great. For me, Drew, I have a colleague, a friend named Chris Laszlo who did a lot of work in introducing to the corporate world what sustainability is or what it could be or what it might be. And his next research project that he’s working on right now, and it’s already been funded and it’s sponsored by Stanford University Press which is a big deal considering the topic, is the consciousness of connectedness. And one of the things that they’re exploring through some really rigorous research is the correlation between leaders who have certain practices that nurture what you’re talking about what I would call or Chris would call a consciousness of connectedness. And they’re talking about how in the future that will be viewed as a form of capital that how connected I’m able to become through my consciousness becomes an asset just like anything else, just like my health or just like my ability to manage emotions or make a smart business decision. For me personally, I nurture that by going and hanging out in nature. It reconnects me in a big way.
[00:19:55] Drew: Yeah.
[00:19:56] Jon: So, let’s talk about the physical well-being where nutrition, wherever you want to go with that, and I’m an amateur on this stuff. I’m fanatical about it but I’m an amateur. I consider myself my own lifelong experiment and the only way I could put it for myself and you really have taught very deeply on this but I’d love for them to hear from you is that I noticed there’s no separation between what I put in my body and what my mindfulness practices are and what I do to take care of my body and the success of my business, the success in my relationships, the success as a parent, as a husband. There’s no separation between how I take care of my body and everything that happens in my world. That’s the only thing I figured out. I don’t know that I can explain what’s actually happening, why all that works but tell us about this role of physical well-being and what you’ve learned on this journey about that.
[00:20:49] Drew: Yeah. I think like you said, how you do one thing is how you do everything. And if I’m putting crud in my gas tank and I’m expecting it to run like a million-dollar racehorse then I’m not showing up in my full potential. And as human beings, we have this vagal tone, this vagal nerve. It’s our oldest nerve in the human body from biology. We talked about connectedness before. It’s what causes seagulls to flock together and the gazelle to run in herds together, this vagal tone, this vibration. So, when we’re vibing at a certain level through the thoughts and through the food that we’re putting in our body, we’re attracting concordant vibratory other people in our experience.
So, when we’re increasing the nutrition, the ORAC value of the fruits, the alkalization of the greens, the lemon, you know how the different things that we can get into we are thereby increasing our frequency and the whole world’s frequency. So, I think the good first step in my morning ritual is making sure that there’s going to be times when you go out and maybe you have a drink or you’re eating pizza or from the Midwest maybe had a good burger that waking up in the morning it’s time to alkalize. It’s time to bring the body back into homeostasis. So, always being cognizant of where you are kind of intuitively, trusting your intuition, what do I need now and doing that is going to give you long-term health and it’s worked really well for me.
[00:22:27] Jon: So, if someone’s listening and they’re thinking, “Well, this all sounds important,” what are some simple how-to steps when someone wakes up to alkalize the body? And please don’t hesitate to talk about your products here because, look, if they’re helping people to do this, we should make sure they’re hearing about it.
[00:22:46] Drew: Yeah. So, the first thing that I do is really check in and I close my eyes and I ask myself, am I operating at a level 10? And if I’m not, and this is kind of like what I call the alpha state where it’s like you’re kind of in consciousness but you’re not. You’re like in between the two worlds and then you wait for the answer. And if I’m not at level 10, I’m consciously asking the question, maybe I’m a seven, like what’s happening that I need to clear in my mind? Or reframe or interpret? Because emotions actually create discord, actually create acidity in the body. So, I’m working on the emotional realm first before I wake up.
So, I work on being a level 10 and if you’re in a relationship, you can do this with your partner, it’s awesome. Like, “Are you level 10? Is there anything you need to clear about us, about our language, our communication?” It’s so awesome, let me tell you. So, that’s the first thing. And then I take a series of big breaths. Not just any type of breathing. It’s more of a breathing in through your nose which increases nitric oxide in your body. It’s the only way. Breathing in through your nose, breathing out through your mouth, just like that. I do that for about 10 times and then I stand up and I do a little qi gong. Are you familiar with qi gong?
[00:24:13] Jon: A little bit. Yes.
[00:24:15] Drew: So, if you’re watching the video, you just shake your body up. You get it moving to circulation. There’s what’s called cooking in bed too. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that but you can literally kind of jump on the bed with your body and roll around like you’re sizzling and like a little pan like your human body. What you’re doing is you’re touching every single point on your body. You’re increasing the circulation, you’re getting the blood flow because how often are there parts on your body that are left neglected? Maybe a certain part of your neck or your underarm never gets touched a lot. So, you’re just really becoming, you’re accessing your whole overall body and you become vastly more present to the feelings and sensations in your body.
[00:25:00] Jon: This is so great. I’m just imagining one of our listeners, right, who’s married and tomorrow morning they wake – and what did you call this? Cooking?
[00:25:08] Drew: Cooking, yeah.
[00:25:08] Jon: Yeah. Can you just see like some guy wakes up and his wife’s wiggling around in the bed and he’s like, “What are you doing?” She goes, “Look, I heard it on this podcast. I’m cooking right now.”
[00:25:20] Drew: Yeah.
[00:25:21] Jon: That is so great. I love it. I love it. So, keep going. I love it. This is great.
[00:25:24] Drew: Yeah. Because movement changes the physiology. We know that like exercise increases the blood flow, increases breath. It sends the dopamine, those feel-good hormones, into your head and gets you ready for the day. So, cooking, even if you don’t go to the gym, it’s just a good way to wake up. So, you can do that, qi gong, move around, shake around, get some stretches in and then I do what’s called super hydration and I learned this from my buddy, Sean Stephenson, a while ago. He has a great podcast as well. And I drink about 32 ounces of warm water with lemon and apple cider vinegar in it.
So, lemon and apple cider vinegar is actually going to help you curb those cravings that you may have late at night. You’re reaching for the cookies, right, or whatever it is and it’s going to alkalize your body. You’re going to realize, and it also does something really awesome. It clears mucus out of your body too. So, there are people that have stuffed up noses, allergies from the Midwest, wherever it is, apple cider vinegar works and it also helps you mobilize fat cells. The lemon helps with phase 2 liver detoxification which is incredible. It’s one of the only citrus fruits on the planet that does this and your liver is very, very important at keeping the system running correctly, right?
[00:26:42] Jon: Yeah.
[00:26:43] Drew: So, I drink that water. From there, I’ll do some spiritual reading. I will read about 15 to 20 minutes to get my mind in order. They say people that read for 30 minutes a day add an extra two to four years in their life based on a Harvard study that I read recently. So, the simple act of breathing is very powerful especially as we age. Alzheimer’s rate, diabetes type III is on the rise. Alzheimer’s, people are forgetting a lot of stuff. Reading really, really helps with that. So, reading every morning and then it’s time to hit the gym up. I get 45 minutes to an hour-long workout. I have a home gym. Sometimes I’ll go to get prepared for the day and then I come back and sometimes I’ll sit in my hot tub and then I’ll do like a cold and hot shower as well if you don’t have a hot tub. But I get that lymphatic system going because that’s another operating system that we have that we oftentimes neglect as human beings. So, what I’m really focusing on is getting all the systems in this miracle of a machine plugged into the Miracle Morning so that I can have a miracle day and it’s really, really worked so far.
[00:27:57] Jon: It’s working for you, Drew, and it sounds like it’s working for a heck of a lot of people that you have helped. So, we ought to go try some of these things out. I’ll tell you, I’m documenting your routine here and it’s actually surprising how similar it is to what I do to start my day.
[00:28:12] Drew: Yeah.
[00:28:12] Jon: So, I love hearing it but you definitely threw some things in here that I had never thought of. This is fantastic.
[CLOSING]
[00:28:21] Jon: Achieve Your Goals Podcast listeners, what did you think? Was that pretty cool? Hey, let us know. Drop a note on Facebook, tag myself, tag Hal and hope you enjoyed part one of my conversation with Drew Canole and look out for part two next week. Hey, take care, everybody. We’ll see all of you coming up. We’re closing in on our Best Year Ever Blueprint Event, BestYearEverLive.com, San Diego, Manchester Grand Hyatt, November 17 through the 19. Hal and I and about 300 or 400 people from around the world over 15 countries right now have bought tickets, people from 15 countries. We cannot wait to be with you. We’ll see you then and enjoy part two when we drop it next week of my conversation with Drew Canole.
[END]
