The James Granstrom Podcast - Super Soul Model series
Have you been questioning how to live your dreams and enjoy greater happiness, health, and wellbeing? I'm James Granstrom, male model turned international speaker and wellbeing teacher. Join me every other week for new lessons, tips, and conversations on personal growth, health, healing and spirituality with my inspiring guests or straight talk from myself. I'm here to guide you to become your best self and enrich your life, so you can tune and tap into your own natural state of wellbeing.
The James Granstrom Podcast - Super Soul Model series
Revitalize Your Life: Unlocking Energy, Vitality, and Well-Being
In this transformational episode, we dive deep into the blueprint for revitalizing your energy, unlocking your vital life force, and finding harmony between mind, body, and soul. Think of this as your personal roadmap to creating unstoppable momentum in your life, starting with the small daily actions that lead to extraordinary results.
✨ "Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out." – Robert Collier
We explore:
- What vitality really means and why so many of us feel drained in today’s fast-paced world.
- The hidden culprits—mental, physical, and purpose-driven energy leaks—and how to fix them.
- The well-being valve: a powerful metaphor that will change how you think about your energy reserves.
- Proven strategies to supercharge your energy, from harnessing sunlight to simple gratitude rituals.
- The overlooked power of rest and recovery as the foundation of high performance.
- How positive relationships and meaningful connections act as fuel for your life force.
- The power of 1% daily improvements that create unstoppable long-term transformation.
- Aligning with your purpose to energize every area of your life.
This episode is more than a conversation—it’s a wake-up call. Packed with actionable insights and real talk, it’s designed to empower you to take charge of your vitality, own your mornings, and step into a life of greater purpose and fulfillment.
If you’re ready to shift from just getting by to fully thriving, tune in and discover the energy upgrade you’ve been waiting for.
In this episode we're exploring your life force, your vitality, and if, for any reason whatsoever, your energy is dipping, then this episode's for you, because you're going to learn how to tune and tap back in to a natural state of well-being. Having vitality isn't just about energy, it's about your mindset, it's about your habits, it's about how you handle life when things present themselves. So how would you begin to open that valve of well-being? You get magical gains when you move forward in the smallest ways. Hello and welcome to the James Grandstrom podcast. In this episode, we're going to be talking about how to revitalize your energy and how to unlock your vital life force. If you're feeling stuck or you're feeling drained for any reason whatsoever, there is a reason for that, and the answer is not to keep being busy, but it is to address the mind, body and soul. And so what I want to do in this episode is I want to share with you how to unlock that vital energy inside of your body and inside of your mind so that you can tune and tap in and start to live a higher quality of life. But some of us just seem to continue with our old habits of the past. But until you break those patterns, that energy may come around again at another time, meaning that lack of energy might come around at another time, until you address it with a new way. Now, our bodies are meant to thrive. Our body and our energy are always meant to be high. But just remember that we always move through cycles and as we move through cycles of time whether it be a season or a point in your life what's going to happen is is some days you're going to have up days and some days you're going to have some down days. But on those down days, are you still preparing, are you still putting strategies in place for your energy to soar, regardless of what's going on in your life? I know that because when I've had my own experiences and faced my own challenges, when people very close to me have died, I've still managed to maintain a sense of well-being, and that is really important, because death is seemingly the hardest thing that we have to deal with in our physical life, and there are other challenges that we are presented with with in our physical life, and there are other challenges that we are presented with all the time as well, and the only thing that we have control over is this wonderful vehicle or body that we have, that we've been gifted, and we've got to do our best to feed it right, to rest it well and to give it proper nutrition, and we've got to do our best to really take care of this vehicle that we've been given so we can enjoy a higher quality of life. So what I'm going to do in this episode is I want to share with you about how you can maintain a steady sense of vitality and life force, regardless of what's going on.
Speaker 1:Now, we all experience from time to time a slump in energy. Now, what are those reasons? What could that be? It could be mental and emotional, it could be physical, or it could even be something to do with your purpose not being fulfilled for one reason or another. And when one of those areas is absent, we feel a direct hit in energy, or should I say we feel a direct inability to be able to do the things that we can usually do. And the mental and emotional areas might be you're stressed, you've got some unresolved issue right now that could be causing you to have a lack of energy because you don't know how to move forwards. That stuck feeling. That is when our energy is low, and that's often because that's a mental and emotional area that we need to address. Number two it could be physically meaning you might have a poor diet right now. It might mean you're having insufficient sleep for one reason or another, or perhaps you're just not being able to get to the gym and move the body as much as you like. That can also cause a massive slump in energy. And, last but not least, the one that silently gets a lot of people is a lack of purpose and a lack of direction, because when you're not actually pursuing your goals the things that really light you up, that give you joy, that give you focus, that give you purpose that is actually preventing you from enjoying immense vitality. So when these areas are addressed which is what I want to do with some strategies I want to share with you then you find your natural life force becoming more buoyant and rising to the surface again. It's like that valve the well-being valve just turns wide open again. What I've understood about well-being is that there's a three-part aspect the mind, the body and the soul. And, like I've mentioned previously, well-being is like a valve, because when you feel good, that valve is wide open, but when we feel awful, or we feel low or we feel like lack of clarity, then that valve is closed. Now, we've all experienced that. That's part of the human condition, that's part of the human experience, but it's really, really important to recognize that when you feel good, that valve is wide open. So what can you be doing to keep that valve open today? And it's always to do with the three areas we've talked about. We've talked about something mental and emotional, we've talked about something physical and we've talked about something to do with your purpose.
Speaker 1:And vitality is more than just about having plenty of energy. It's about having higher quality of life, and one of the things that strikes me about having a great sense of vitality is that it becomes way easier to manifest your intentions. It becomes way easier to reach your goals because your energy is high, but when your energy is low, you're far from it. So we've got to match our intentions. We've got to match what we wanted to manifest and draw into our lives with higher levels of energy. So energy is a currency. That is one of the best ways to look at it. And the faster your energy, the happier energy, the more focused, the more clarity, the more enthusiasm that you have, then your energy is going a lot, lot faster, and I noticed this in my own life in so many ways that two areas might be going well, but then one area I hadn't given much attention to, which in the past, for me, was to do with purpose. So when I started to apply all of these three areas, I noticed I had so much more energy, and then things really began to click into place, and they will click into place for you as well.
Speaker 1:Now, just remember that energy is like a currency, and wherever you invest, it is where you're going to get returns. So it's important that you consider where you're investing your energy. Is it in meaningful, healthy ways, or is it in just ways that are just trying to help you stop thinking about some of the challenges that you've got going on, and we're all going to be faced with challenges, but it's not what they are. It's how we respond to them and how we deal with them, and the best way to deal with any challenge is to increase your energy and increase your vibe. So here are a few simple strategies that you could begin to implement and will help you move one millimeter forward every single day.
Speaker 1:Now you don't need to do this all at the same time, it's really just about implementing something new today. So you open that well-being valve just a little bit more to let in more vital life force. The first thing is just to get a little bit more sunlight on your skin and one of the best times to do it is first thing in the morning, particularly on your forehead if you're sitting in the sun. First thing, that's actually stimulating the chemicals that make you feel good. So just 10 minutes in the morning isn't burning the skin. It is really really helping awaken the good feelings inside of your body, particularly after you've had some rest where you've been in dark. So when there's light, it just increases the melatonin levels inside of your body. This is fantastic for your well-being and makes you feel happier.
Speaker 1:Number two one of the first things I tend to do in the morning is I start the day saying thank you, thank you for this amazing day ahead, and I begin to read my intentions and goals that I've written as if they're already done. So it already gives me a good feeling because if you're ever feeling stuck, it's often because you don't know where you're going. But when you've got your intentions and your goals and where you're going and written them out as if they're already done, then your mind knows no difference, because your mind only operates in the present, and if you read them, it can make you feel good, even though it might take some time for them to manifest in physical reality. It's amazing to know that you're reminding yourself of where you're going, and this is really what the mind needs. It just needs reminding, and we all need reminding of things that are important to you, and that is perhaps why you're listening to this episode or watching this episode, because you need to be reminded of what you already know at some deeper level. But we're just using some simple explanation to just make it easy for you to digest and give you that emotional driver to go. Yeah, I can do this, I know it's possible and I know it's going to help me.
Speaker 1:Number three another thing you can do to begin to increase that vitality in your life is by stretching the body, and I have this one minute regime to stretch my body every single morning and I swear by it, and it's just a really simple yoga sun salutation. Now you could pick any stretch exercise that you could find on the internet or find in a book, but really it's just turning up and stretching the body in some way, this really begins to elongate the muscles and this actually also massages at some level the organs inside of your body. And when I began to do this I recognized that my ability to reach, my ability to be flexible, became so much easier and my movement became far more fluid. And I really boil it down to just one minute a day of stretching, first thing in the need to do Just start somewhere, but make it a regular habit.
Speaker 1:Number three first thing in the morning I'm hydrating and if you're reaching for a cup of coffee that's okay, but just remember when you're drinking caffeine it puts spikes in your blood. But if you're reaching for something like a lemon water, you're actually cleansing the gut and when you cleanse the gut, all that bacteria leaves the body because of the pH levels in the lemon water being at a highly alkaline level. When that cleans the gut, it releases more steady energy rather than you having these spikes throughout the day of highs and lows. So lemon water is a really wonderful thing to reach for first thing in the morning and I kind of use like a warm to hot lemon water, particularly in the winter months, to be able to cleanse that gut. This is a brilliant way to open that valve to your well-being.
Speaker 1:The next thing on the list, which I've talked about already, is to practice and give thanks for at least five things going on in your life. But don't just go thank you. Thank you for this, thank you for that. Try and feel the thanks, because it's actually the chemical, and the emotion of gratitude produces some oxytocin which is similar to the love chemical, and when we can really feel thanks in the morning for five things and it might only take you a couple of minutes to even get there the more you practice it, the easier you activate that wonderful good feeling. This actually keeps your body healthy, and so all these things and strategies that I'm sharing with you actually begin to assist your body in maintaining a great level of well-being where that valve is open. Now the next thing is when you're reaching for your breakfast, really love to have a juice, straight after that lemon water, and just stay on liquids for about half an hour until my body is now up to speed and I can take in some foods. Mother nature is the best thing you want to go to first thing in the morning when you haven't eaten for a little while, because when you go to mother nature, she has all the natural ingredients to help you rise and become buoyant to the surface when you're coming out of that slumber into activity. So the next thing we need to be considering that will help open that well-being valve and increase your life force is movement.
Speaker 1:Now I have this little thing that I do in the morning, and you know, some people go for a walk, some people go to the gym. All of these movement things are absolutely fantastic, but I have a simple thing when all else fails is I do this morning jump. I jump up and down, and you could do it on a rebounder, you could do it on a trampoline, if you have one, if the kids have a trampoline, but I just sometimes just jump up and down on the spot for two to three minutes with a song that I particularly like, and what I'm doing when I'm jumping up and down is being grateful at the same time. Now, this sounds absolute lunacy, but what I'm actually doing is doing two of my exercises at the same time. I'm practicing gratitude and and I'm imagining all the good things coming into my life that day.
Speaker 1:Plus I'm jumping up and down because I'm moving energy and when we wake up in the morning, our chi, or our life force, is stagnant until we begin to wake it up. So when we start jumping up and down for two to three minutes, we are waking up the energy of the body, we are moving the lymph, we're moving the energy all around the body system and this becomes a really great place, and I've always noticed that I always feel pretty happy after jumping up and down for two to three minutes, and this is why it's kind of helping you revert back to a childlike state, because we're following some of the things that the kids do, and just that simple movement first thing in the morning will actually help move the lymph, which will create more health inside of the body. Now you've got to do what you can. If your joints are in pain or you're in finding that difficulty, maybe you can't do that, but if you have the ability to jump up and down, do it, because what you're actually doing is, like I've mentioned, you're waking up the life force in your body and if you want to achieve your goals which I know you do then you need to have an energy that matches your goals on that same energetic frequency, and one of the ways you can do that is by feeling more enthused about your life, and simple things like dancing, jumping up and down, actually help you raise your frequency, raise your vibe. It looks silly, but if you can do it privately, you're going to notice that you feel great. And another thing, or a caveat, that I often do is with the jumping, I get the skipping rope out, and I like to do that as well. I find that really, really enjoyable and I notice how much energy and clarity that I have just after doing a few minutes of skipping or jumping.
Speaker 1:Now the next essential part for your wellbeing, to enjoy greater vitality and increased life force is rest and recovery. Seven to nine hours of sleep is essential, and one of the athletes that I always love to refer back to is cristiano ronaldo, because ronaldo talks about. He spends two-thirds of his day in rest and recovery and only a third in the day in activity, so he has really really taken on board how important good rest is. Good nutrition is, good sleep is play time with the family, connecting with loved ones, as well as being able to rest and recharge the body. This keeps the body healthy, vital and alive. So how well you rest and how well you recuperate is how well you're going to be able to go out and perform when you need to perform and you can focus when you really really need to focus.
Speaker 1:The next thing on the list for your rest and recovery is do you have a pocket of time where you might be able to take a power nap in the afternoon? Now, this may not be easy for everybody to be able to do, given their schedule, but if you have the flexibility to take a little nap, this is much more healthy for the body and for the mind, so it doesn't feel it's under constant pressure. Because when we're always trying to push, push, push, we're coming from the ego, which is actually fear-based, but when we're coming from the soul, it's expansive and timeless, and just making sure that we're actually topping up our energy by having a little respite it means we come back so much stronger. Burnout will only ever occur when you're not listening to the wisdom and the messages that your body is sending you. When cultivating a sense of long-term vitality, then it's about your attitude Control what you can control and let go of what you can't.
Speaker 1:Also, having immense gratitude I call it the art of extreme gratitude is just the only way I've discovered that actually makes life easy, because there's always going to be challenges coming on. But how often are you grateful? And Einstein kept on mentioning, when I've done my research, that he said that a day without practicing gratitude a hundred times is not a magical day. So when I've noticed the green lights in my life, I've noticed it because I've kept this sense of appreciation, this sense of gratitude going on. And when your life gets really difficult, it seems as though that your focus is drawn to all the troubles and challenges that are going on. And when your life gets really difficult, it seems as though that your focus is drawn to all the troubles and challenges that are going on. But in reality, what we really need to do is reset the mind and just focus on what's working, and that seems really difficult. But that's why we need to remind ourselves time and time again about what's working, because what we highlight in the mind gets bigger, and when we're only looking at our problems, they get bigger as well. So, cultivating an attitude of gratitude, and particularly what I call the art of extreme gratitude, finding something to be grateful for all day long when your mind is free, then what you'll notice is that you'll start to see a few more green lights and vitality will rise. But we never see it when we're only focusing on what's not working.
Speaker 1:And recently I had a real challenge where I couldn't control a certain outcome, which was I needed to catch two flights and what? The first flight was delayed, which meant that it only gave me a really short window to be able to catch the next flight if I was going to catch it at all. And remembering I had a bag that needed to go on all the flights back and I really thought that, with the window that they'd given me, which was a 10 minute window, to be able to catch the next flight, I just thought it was almost impossible. So I couldn't control that. So what I did was I went straight into the art of extreme gratitude and I just practiced this, and it absolutely blew my mind what actually happened, because when I recognized that my flight was delayed and there was nothing I could do about it and then it might mean I might need to fly the next day, which would be a bit of a paraphernalia the only thing I had control over was having a sense of gratitude, of gratitude. So I began to be thankful for all the people that were helping that day all the pilots, all the airline staff, all the people that moved the bag. I was being thankful for my partner at home. I've been thankful for literally everything, all the people that really cared, and I was thankful that I'd made it.
Speaker 1:And so I started to be thankful in advance that I'd made the flight, that my bags had made it. And when I got on the plane the first plane I noticed that it was full and I said to the the steward I said I've got a connection and I've got a very, very short window, about five, ten minutes. And they said to me I hope this makes you feel calmer, but we've been given permission to fly at full speed, so hopefully it might give you just a few more minutes to hopefully make your connecting flight. Now, that did make me feel calmer, but I'm telling you, if I didn't feel any gratitude whatsoever, that conversation would have made me feel worse. So, instead of me being upset the whole flight, what I did was, as I just wrote thank you, thank you, thank you. I made the flight, thank you, thank you, thank you that my bags have made it.
Speaker 1:And I went on and on and on, so that that flight that was only about half an hour to 40 minutes before I got the connecting flight, hopefully was just one of appreciation and gratitude rather than angst and fear and worry and concern that I wasn't going to make it. And you know what, when the airline pulled in to the hangar, I had 10 minutes to catch the flight. And I made that flight and, lo and behold, when I arrived at my final destination, my bag arrived as well. So that means that the airline staff had to somehow get my bag, with 10 minutes to spare to catch the next flight onto the other plane. How they did that I'll never know, but I do know this that I couldn't control that situation. But I could control the amount of gratitude and appreciation that I was flowing, because that is vitality when the valve is wide open.
Speaker 1:So when you cultivate this, you're cultivating long-term vitality with this mindset and that attitude. And also, when we're looking at long-term vitality, you've also got to be thinking about the people that you're hanging around with. There are people that are uppers and there are people that are downers, and you've got to just be hanging around people that are uplifting. You know them, you know who they are and even if they're people that you love and you know they don't make you feel that great, minimize your time, but only try and connect with those people when you feel good, because it's really important that we cultivate hanging around people that take us higher and that we can add value to.
Speaker 1:Rather cultivate hanging around people that take us higher and that we can add value to, rather than hanging around people that make us feel worse, because life isn't about getting worse, it's about improving the quality of our life. So we have to be mindful of who we hang around, and birds of a feather flock together, and if you want to be achieving great things and you want to be reaching wonderful goals, then you want to be hanging around those types of people people of high energy, people who are mindful of who they spend their time with, because time is your most precious commodity and it's your most precious gift, and if you're wasting it on people that make you feel bad, then that is energy draining and, alas, you, your life force and vitality will begin to close off. So hanging around better people, good feeling people, will open that valve wide open again and, last but not least, to create a sense of long-term vitality and well-being, you need to have purpose and connection, need to have purpose and connection. And to have purpose and connection means that your purpose, whatever it may be and mine is to help people feel happier, healthier and better in all areas of life and when I discovered that and I discovered that my medium was through connection and communication then I began to feel that energy come into my system in more profound, powerful ways.
Speaker 1:If you don't know what your purpose is and you feel a bit unsure what your purpose is, I'm gonna give you a little secret it's always to help life in some way, because when you're using your gifts, talents and abilities in a way that's really fun, it's also incredibly purposeful for yourself. And when you're using your gifts, talents and abilities in a way that's really fun, it's also incredibly purposeful for yourself. And when you're doing something that's meaningful, you are really really tuning in to a sense of life force that's flowing through your system and you're just going to keep receiving more energy as a result of you showing up, doing things that you love to do that also help life in some way, or help people, or help mother nature, or help the environment, or help add to the arts or help add to engineering, whatever it may be. Whenever you're adding value in some way, you're tapping in to your purpose. So having vitality isn't just about energy, it's about your mindset, it's about your habits, it's about how you handle life when things present themselves. So how would you begin to open that valve of well-being?
Speaker 1:You get magical gains when you move forward in the smallest ways. You move forward now by picking one thing and going for it. The simplest of things, just a 1% movement forward will give you a sense of progression, and that's enough to keep tomorrow being better. And then the day after and the day after when I first started employing wellbeing habits and increasing my level of vitality, I was an alcoholic, and I didn't even know it. And so I began meditating. And when I began meditating, that then made me begin to eat better. It began to make me reduce the amount of alcohol that I was drinking. It made me feel like I wanted to begin to exercise more, and it just compounded from there.
Speaker 1:Now all it takes is one good habit that's new today that you can do for the next thing to show up, and just little by little you begin to compound.
Speaker 1:You know, einstein also talked about the power of compounding being one of the most magical ingredients of the universe, and all it is is just showing up, doing something that you know is good for you and doing it again the day after and the day after, however small.
Speaker 1:So maybe it's just start with a lemon water first thing in the morning, or maybe it's just trying to get to bed before midnight, or maybe it's writing out your intentions and reading them at night time, or perhaps even first thing in the morning as well, so you feel focused on where you're going, because when you've got vitality, nothing is impossible. Then because your energy is going to be high, and then you feel like you can take on the world. But when your energy is low, you feel like the whole world is a mountain range that you're at the bottom of and you've got to try and climb up. I know that from my own personal experience, but now it's time for you to know it in yours. So good luck with all of these strategies and if you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who you think will enjoy getting a good boost of energy from receiving some new ideas that they can use themselves. And until the next episode, I wish you a wonderful weekend and green lights all the way.