Desire Sets The Direction, Habits Carry You There

What if the difference between survival and a life you actually want comes down to one honest question: what do you truly desire? Joe opens up about staring down an aggressive cancer diagnosis and discovering that desire alone wasn’t enough—he needed structure, community, and a mindset that turned fear into fuel. The result is a candid, practical conversation about choosing life with intention and building habits that still hold when motivation slips.

We walk through the turning points: how a clear “I want to live” became daily action; why adherence matters more than inspiration; and how a few days of celebration can snowball back into old patterns if you don’t set guardrails. Joe shares the systems that kept him steady—tight nutrition, planned fasting, routine scans, and simple check-ins that prevent decision fatigue. We dig into the psychology too: how positive focus and gratitude lower stress, how belief can enhance outcomes, and why honest pain tracking can be better feedback than masking symptoms.

Support is the other pillar. Joe found strength in community—from indigenous medicine circles to weekly health calls—especially when family couldn’t fill that role. Expect takeaways on building your own network, reducing cortisol with better coping, and turning setbacks into quick resets. If you’ve said you want health but your actions don’t match, this is your nudge to align them. Listen now, share it with someone who needs it, and leave a review to tell us the first habit you’ll change today.

Intro for podcast

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Chapters

• 0:24 Welcome And Hard-Won Context
• 1:13 Facing Cancer And Choosing Life
• 4:30 Time, Aging, And Health Consequences
• 6:30 Vigilance After Remission And Scans
• 7:44 The Core Question: What Do You Want
• 10:30 From Diagnosis To Determination
• 12:17 Action Over Talk: Effort And Agency
• 14:03 Goals, Consistency, And Temptation
• 16:32 Mindset, Fear, And Positive Focus
• 20:46 Stress Hormones And Proactive Coping
• 23:20 Movement, Resilience, And Momentum
• 24:19 Community Support And Belonging
• 26:12 Long-Term Commitments Over Silver Bullets
• 28:09 Pain, Abstaining From Meds, And Feedback
• 29:26 Belief, Placebo, And Better Outcomes
• 30:55 Closing Challenge: Align Wants With Actions

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:14

Well, hello, and welcome to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and today I want to talk about something that I think affects every aspect of health, or at least can. And you know, this is our third year of running this podcast, and I've had a variety of guests, I don't know, I think almost 200 guests have come onto the show so far. And we've had discussions from physicians to practitioners of all types of healing modalities to um advocates, to entrepreneurs, experts, gurus, all kinds of people. And I think there's one thing I've learned, and if you don't know, over the last year and a half, you know, probably actually more than that, but over the last year and a half specifically, um I've been dealing with and overcame a very aggressive cancer. And I tell that story in many episodes here on the podcast. And I've also sat with uh Dr. Robert Hoffman and discussed my treatment plan and a lot of the actions I've taken to resolve this difficult problem in, I believe, the most um in the way that caused the least amount of harm. And I think that of all the people that have come on to tell their story of resilience, of overcoming difficult obstacles, I think that the one thing that we all have in common was the desire to solve the problem, the deep, passionate desire to maintain or establish or regain a healthy life. And I know for myself, when faced with the notion that this cancer was not only going to kill me, but was going to leave me completely disfigured and dying a horrible, painful death. I just wasn't okay with that. I wasn't willing to accept that on any level. And I have lived most of my life pretty healthy, even when I didn't take care of myself well, even when I made poor life decisions that affected my health negatively, I still was pretty resilient. Now that I'm approaching 60, um, some of the poorer choices I've made in my life have catching up to me and have caught up, and I'm paying my karma for some of the things that, you know, maybe I should have thought about when I was younger. My hope is that some of the youngsters listening to this show will go, oh, well, maybe I should listen. And it's a funny thing, because when I was younger, I was always a wisdom seeker. I've always asked people, you know, tell me the secrets of life. Tell me what um, tell me what to expect. And I had people tell me these answers, and I listened, but I didn't get it. And one of the things that many people told me as I was probably in my 20s, maybe even into my 30s, older people would say life goes by so fast. As you get older, time goes by faster. And I didn't really get it because you know, when you're younger, things seem to take a while. You seem to be waiting for things more. And as you get older, your life is more fulfilled, more busy, more complete, and you don't have time to be waiting for things, you know. You you set things in motion, and before you know it, blink, they're there. You know, I look back and it was 30 years ago I moved to this property and began planting the garden that became the gardens of hope. And that was 30 years ago. Now I'm looking at big tall trees that are taller than I can climb up to trim. And I just go, wow, you know, I can remember that seedling poking out of the mulch, going, Yeah, I think we'll let a tree grow there. And now it's this, you know, 60-foot tall monstrosity that uh, you know, I can't even climb. It's crazy. And the other thing that uh sticks in my mind that people would tell me is whenever take care of yourself when you're young. Because the things you do to hurt yourself when you're young will come back and hurt you again when you get older. And so true, you know, your joints and your uh your body, if when you injure yourself when you're younger, um those pains come back, and sometimes back in a way that requires serious attention and and difficult choices to solve. As I've been going through this journey with solving the cancer problem, and as far as I know, I've solved it, and we're gonna find out soon enough as I get myself to Japan and and get that MetPet scan and determine for real if I have solved the cancer or not. But if I have, it doesn't necessarily change a lot of things because I have a lifetime now of making sure it stays gone. And that's gonna require continuing on the path I've chosen of diet and uh steps that I take to not let the cancer be here, and also routine observation. I have to go and get scanned every so often to be sure. And I've learned that letting things go is not necessarily the answer. You know, I was always the one that believed your body will just fix itself, and I believe it's possible to do that, I believe it's capable of that, but will it do it? Well, here's where it gets down to the point of this podcast. And I think it comes down to what do you really want? And I mean you, including your conscious, your subconscious, your superconscious, every aspect of you, the real you that's survived all the trauma and the issues, the real you that's there deep inside of a meditation or a prayer or a confession or whatever it is that you get to or you see your true inner self. And you know, for people who know me, I I sit with uh indigenous medicines, uh peyote especially, and I find that that is a way that I'm able to really be in connection with my inner self, my deeper self, to be able to feel and know the things that I want, you know. And I I've studied many spiritual practices and traditions, and one of the ones I studied for many, many years, almost maybe 30, 20 to 30 years, um had three primary keys of accomplishing things. And the third key was desire, and I think that's really important. Um people have always come to me, you know, to share their thoughts and problems with me, and and maybe seek advice or just see what I have to say about it and what I learned to ask, and I think this is the critical question we should all ask ourselves about anything, is what is it that you want? And I don't mean, you know, your superficial answer, oh, I you know, this or that, but what do you really want? Because the things that you really want are going to be demonstrated by your actions. When I see somebody that is always negative and and angry or or sad or frustrated or unhappy all the time, and they said they want something that's good and positive, I think to myself, well, that's strange because you don't act like it. You know, you say you want something, but you're not doing anything to accomplish it. And when I was hit with the diagnosis, you have squamous cell carcinoma, and I knew what that meant, as I had already seen people die from that. I've seen what it can do to people, and it hit me, this is what I have now, or had at the time. And it took a minute for it to register, but not very long, really. And after a few days, I was staring this thing in the eye and reliving the memories of the one person in particular I knew that had suffered from it. And he had this horrible tumor that had what looked like gills um coming out of his neck. And I'd never seen anything so horrible in my life. And he was trying to treat it with cannabis oil, and it was just too late. And I don't think he was doing any of the things that I did in the end to solve my problem. And remember, whatever I tell you about what I did to solve my problem, I'm not telling you to do those things. I'm telling you, this is what I did that helped me with the research I did and the effort I put in to solve my problem. Even if you had the same thing I have, you're not me. You have a different set of circumstances. Maybe what you need to do is a little different, but what you do need to do is put the effort in to find out, and that's how you know what your desire is. Um as soon as it hit me fairly quickly after a few days, maybe a week or two, I got an overwhelming sense of I want to live. I want to live, uh, not just survive. You know, people talk about surviving cancer, surviving diseases, and I'm just like, hell no. Surviving is not living. There's a big difference, you know. You can survive a trauma, but then what? You're gonna live a life of suffering afterward? Well, okay, maybe you do. That's not for me, though. Uh my choice was to get back to a healthy body, a healthy life, and this time preserve it, this time keep it. And I think that's the biggest difference that I have between me and many of the other people. So now I have people every week that come to me with cancer, and you know, oftentimes advanced stages, you know, fully metastasized, stage three, stage four, um, you know, bone cancers and and internal cancers and really difficult problems to solve. And I began to tell them about the things that I've done to solve my problem with, you know, my diet and and some of the other things. And they're not easy things to do. Um, and most of the time, frankly, I don't ever hear back from these people. And I think to myself, wow, I'm literally sharing with you the story of something that saved my life and gave me back at least the opportunity to get back to a completely healthy life. And you basically shut me off. And I think to myself, wow, I guess that's not what you wanted. And so I just want to talk about, you know, what it that what it is that you want. This isn't just for people dealing with cancer, this is for everybody in all aspects of life. Overweight people say, I want to lose weight. And then I think to myself, well, what are you doing? You know, I was overweight, I was more than 50 pounds overweight. And it wasn't until I my dad died, and I realized that I was gonna follow in his footsteps if I didn't do something. Once again, I want to live, I want to live a healthy life. And I began to make drastic choices, difficult choices, things that were not easy to do. But I did them and I lost the weight. Well, guess what? That's what happens when you want something bad enough. So, how do you know that you want something? Um, you know, this is some keys that would tell you, you know, goal setting. You when you want something bad enough, you start to create a plan to get to it, and you create goals. And when the second thing, and this is I think the thing that affects most people negatively most of the time, is that we don't stick to anything. You know, January first comes around, and oh, New Year's resolution, I'm gonna go to the gym, I'm gonna eat better, I'm gonna this, that. By now, February, most of the people are already done with that. Oh, yeah, I'll do that next time, next year, next whatever. Um stick sticking to a difficult program. I know with my diet, um it's hard. And I know that when I got my scan back and I realized that I think I'm cancer free, I gave myself a little bit of latitude for a few days. I said, you know, I'm gonna go ahead and eat a little meat. I'm gonna go ahead and enjoy myself a little bit and celebrate. And I saw how quickly that could have turned back into a lifestyle. Just like that. And I've spent a year and a half on a rigorous, difficult diet and fasting, and in just a few days it could have unraveled. And it's just like an addiction. It's just like um, you know, whatever is your drug of choice, if it's, you know, heroin or alcohol or chocolate or whatever, doesn't matter. You can go from walking the line, as Johnny Cash said, um, walking that straight and narrow to just falling down on your face in nothing. So adherence to a program that's huge. Um solving a physical problem is always connected to solving a mental problem. And I think it's important to realize that you know, the mindset of solving a problem. So my cancer was completely a physical problem, but I could have gotten depressed easily, I could have gotten anxious, I could have gotten fearful, I could have gotten all of these things that would have affected my mind in a very negative way and might have kept me from solving the problem. But keeping your mindset positive, I think, is probably the most important and easy way, not easy, but effective way to keep you on track. And if you put your mind to the place that says what you want, and you act as if it's happening and going to happen, I am healthy, I'm going to be healthy, I'm going to continue being healthy, my body is healing itself, all these positive things, affirmations, and just, you know, feeling good as much as you can, acknowledging the goodness. You know, there was times when I was in so much pain, I wasn't sleeping or anything, and I would just try to find something good. I'd go outside and let the warm sun sit on my skin for a minute and just go, oh, that feels good. Something, anything. Somebody would come around and say something nice, and I'd smile and I'd I'd go, wow, thank you, you know. Whatever it was, even just praying, the feeling that that I was being kept and and taken care of, even though I was having for some reason to go through this trial, um, there was a comfort in that. And so keeping a positive mindset is huge. And I talk about this in in greater detail, and I will continue to do so because I think it is that important. And when you focus on a positive mindset, when you think about what you're thinking about, and remember everything we do, everything we create, everything that happens, all starts as a thought. And so if you're thinking about fearful things, you know, in the Bible, God says, I don't know how many times, hundreds of times, fear not. Do not fear, don't fear, don't be afraid. And I believe fear is the opposite of love, right? Love is the reason we're here. We're here to be loving and to love each other. And when you're afraid, it's the opposite of that. And so I think that when we have fearful thoughts, when we think about the things that we don't want, when we think about what we're afraid of, I think we create a place for those things to happen. We give those things power. And when we think about what we do want, we think about the joy and the love and the good things. I think that's exactly also what we create. So that positive mindset is huge. And what happens as a result? Well, you reduce your stress, and yeah, it feels better for sure. Makes it easier to carry on, makes it easier to move forward, but it also has physiological uh responses. It lowers your cortisol level. Um, and we can get into that. We we we'll get into that in other episodes about hormones and cortisol, but you know, it's a stress hormone. Um, it also creates a place for better coping strategies. You know, when you're dealing with things, there are problems to solve, and sometimes we're reactive and we have this thing, so we do that. But when you're trying to actually solve a problem, you look ahead, you go, what's coming up? What do I need to do to keep this thing from happening? And all of a sudden, your problem solving and proactive uh thinking is gonna be increased. And I think that when you solve something before it happens, you're in exponentially better shape than when you are reactive. Also, resilience, when you do end up having an issue to overcome, um, bouncing back again, you know, people have a problem, they fall into a depression, they go into a tailspin, they they go into a cycle that um is is hard to get out of. And uh if you can be resilient, if you can find a way to bounce back, then you know that can be huge. And I think that this is, you know, critical in all of that. What happens? Well, you move more, you get involved in in exercise more, you start creating a good and positive cycle, you start looking at new activities, new things to do, new ways to solve the problem. And then let's get into your social connections. When you are in depression, when you are in a difficult place, I think what happens is you isolate yourself. You find yourself in a place where you don't want to be around people. You don't think that you're good company or whatever. And I can tell you this the community that we've created with the Healthy Living Podcast, the community I've created with Gardens of Hope and the indigenous practices and retreats that we're doing, uh the community that we have through Dr. Hoffman's uh Sunday Zoom meeting, and if you're interested in that, there's details in the show notes, have been instrumental in my healing. Instrumental. And we are social creatures, and when you have a team of support, you know, and don't rely on your family. Maybe you can, but I think most people's families are messed up. And you might have that one beautiful family that everybody sticks together and actually cares about your each other, but most people don't, and I don't. It's funny, I got this big giant Catholic family, and and everybody, you know, is good and kind and loving people. And yet I have most of my immediate family, I've never had a serious talk about my issue with. People who actually wanted for me, wanted me to be healthy and alive and good. So, you know, I think that community support, and I've done episodes on this, and I'll continue to talk about it because of my personal experience. I believe that in addition to all these things, um, you know, again, persistence staying with a program, not giving up. Um being willing to make a long-term commitment, you know, when I talk about, you know, my healing, when I talk about the things that I've done to solve my problem, they're not, you know, quick one-hit wonders. They're not a thing that I just did silver bullet, boom, it's all better now. These are life choices now. This is the road I walk on. I will always be aware of my diet. Most importantly, what do I what am I putting in my body? And then all the other things that come from it, my my exercise, my attitude, my community, and all of these things. And as a result, you know, um, there's a lower risk of heart disease, better blood pressure, uh, all of the things that create a healthy life. Higher pain tolerance, even, you know, when you're going through a difficult time, in my case, it got very painful, so much so that I couldn't sleep. The pain itself would wake me up. And I I don't do, you know, pain medication. I I didn't take any kind of pain pills, I don't do that. And I could have, I suppose, but I believe that would have opened up another problem to solve. And also, I've always believed that you know, you should I should experience what it is that's happening to me so that I know when I'm getting better. I know when I'm making a difference, if I'm masking it with with pain medication, and I'm actually getting better, how how can I tell the difference? And so I think in the end, this gets touches into the placebo effect, maybe. And I think the placebo effect is actually the best medicine ever. The best medicine there is is the placebo effect, and I think that in no small way, all of the things that I did, and I did a lot of difficult things to affect the change that I needed, but I believe that my believing in it caused it to work better, and it's okay. It doesn't mean that the treatments didn't work, it just means that my believing in it caused them to work even better and to get a better healing, to get a better outcome, to get less detrimental side effects, all of those things. And in the end, I know that I've increased my longevity, I've increased the quality of my life, and again, I've expanded my life's mission to tell this story to make it possible for other people can find their way to this healthy life as well. And I hope that you, if you're listening to this, really take it as the gospel truth, because this is my personal experience I'm sharing with you. That you know, why would I do this? Nobody's paying me to do this. I'm not benefiting in any way other than knowing that maybe another person is going to experience what I did and have a better life, and who knows, maybe help make the world a better place. All right, folks. Well, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. What is it that you want? Think about it. And if you really want something bad enough, hold yourself accountable. What is it that you're doing about it? What is it that you're thinking about? All of those things matter. Who are you sharing this with? How are you spending your time? What are you doing? You know what? Let's go find that healthy life that we're looking for. I want to thank everybody for listening today. This has been another episode of the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbin, and I will see you next time.