92: The Secret to Making Yourself More Resilient with Gratus Health's Mike Shaw

Taylor Atkinson: Welcome to the Colonial Real Estate Podcast. I'm your mortgage broker host, Taylor Atkinson. And I'm your real estate agent host, Matt Glen. What's shaking today, Taylor? Just got down from the ski hill, spent the last week up there.
It was Yes.

Matt Glen: You have asked. Yeah. That was awesome. So okay. So it's been freezing down here.
What's the temperature been like up there?

Taylor Atkinson: It was pretty cold up there too, but we had a couple sunny days in length. Yeah. When the sun was just beaten off the snow, it kinda warmed you up a little bit. Nice. Very interesting kind of segue into today's guess because we recorded this about five weeks ago.
So Mike Shah, who was just like an absolute awesome guy to have on. He was a competitive skier and was coaching for the Olympic team. Gotten a pretty tragic accident and became paralyzed.

Matt Glen: How do you think of his tragic? Didn't seem to have tragic talking to him.

Taylor Atkinson: Well, yeah. I mean, I guess his outlook on life was optimistic moving forward. But, like Yeah. I imagine it's a bit of a difficult time when you have an accident like that. But anyways, I guess, the segue I was referring to is, you know, we spoke to him about five weeks ago and talking about skiing and his big thing is gratitude.
You know, that's how he basically recovered. From being paralyzed, which, you know, spoiler alert, he is functional. He walked up the stairs to the office.

Matt Glen: Literally, a quadriplegic who walked up the stairs to record the episode.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Which is like, I didn't even know it was possible. Yeah.

Matt Glen: I didn't know that was possible

Taylor Atkinson: either. Yeah. I I don't know what the status, like, one in a million or something, but it it's incredible. So his big thing was, like, hey. How I recovered was gratitude?
And, you know, picked out whether it was a positive thing that happened or a negative thing, like, figured out how gratitude. Could, like, elevate him to that next level. That was this week as well. Like, I've been kinda thinking a lot about that stuff, but, you know, trying to teach my three year old how to ski. Me being on skis as well since I don't ski him a snowboarder.
But, like, I was teaching him as ski, and there was great days, which I had a lot of gratitude towards. And there was bad days where, like, I don't know what happened. You know, the previous day he was great at ski and loved it, and the next day he did not wanna ski. He wanted ice skate. Yeah.
But I had to, like, really practice gratitude, be like,

Matt Glen: you know what? Like with the iris law, dude.

Taylor Atkinson: At least I'm here and, like, with my son and we're having fun and finished off the week where Emily and I took him up the plaza chair. And, you know, because we were kinda struggling with the magic carpet. He just wouldn't, like, he wasn't really driving with it in the last couple days. I was like, let's just avoid it and we'll, like, hype up the chair. So we went up the chair.
With three great runs. He absolutely loved it. It was beaming.

Matt Glen: How do you like the chair?

Taylor Atkinson: Oh, I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Yeah. But on the last run, like, man, my legs were burning. My back was killing, like, I'm just doing pizzas, like, trying to hold this kid up. I sneeze it.
I don't ski on. Yeah. And twenty feet to the bottom, I kinda had to turn to, like, you know, I was at the edge of the bottom. I had to, like, come back the other way. And I kinda slingshot at him a little bit with the pole, and he face planted hard.
He chews Yeah. But still a great week, you know. Like, you gotta just

Matt Glen: does she take that?

Taylor Atkinson: He does. Yeah. We solved it with hot chocolate and marshmallows and he's

Matt Glen: had to sell salt oils. Yeah. Yep.

Taylor Atkinson: But anyways, like, the point is, listen to the show, you guys are gonna love Mike. A really, really cool guy. And, like, the mindset is just incredible. So I think you're gonna love to show,

Matt Glen: you know, mindset over everything. I know some

Taylor Atkinson: relevant to, like, real estate right now as we were talking is you know, there's a lot of lot of bad media or a lot of volatile media, especially with, like, tariffs. Damn tariffs. If you look at it in an optimistic way, as you were saying, Matt, in previous shows, you know, there's opportunities in these times. So

Matt Glen: there's always opportunities. Winston Churchill, my favorite historical figures has never waste a good crisis. So it's like it makes sense. There's always an opportunity in every situation if the tariffs come, which they probably won't. But who knows?
They might you know, there's gonna be hurting out there, but there'll be opportunities too. So yeah.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. And in regards to that too, we are having Brandon Ottenstein back on B c r a chief economist, and he's got a bunch of scenarios to review on tariffs. So Matt and I won't even really talked during that episode, we'll just let Brandon.

Matt Glen: Yeah. It's when you think about the repercussions, it's just like it's mind boggling, you think, okay, interest rates are obviously gonna go down, but then you think inflation's gonna go up. So does that mean interest rates are gonna go up? Like, what's going on? So we don't know.
So we got the champ himself Brandon Einstein on to tell us what's up. But even he's not sure about it. Right? Like, I guess no one really knows, but he would have the best idea.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. I mean, he I think he's done quite a bit of data on figuring out potential outcomes. But, again, like, this stuff is like, everything in the past five years, it's all been very drastic changes.

Matt Glen: I just wanted to say this comment. I think if the tariffs do come, I think what Canada needs to do is send out an army of salespeople to every other country. Right? To the east, over the Pacific, to all Asian countries, South America, Europe, and just started selling our shit everywhere else except for the US. Or that doesn't that make sense?

Taylor Atkinson: You would be, like, the lead candidate for that job. Get you out there.

Matt Glen: Get me on there, man. Yeah. Honestly, I don't even know what I'm selling. Just put it in my backpack and I'll come back and contract to everybody. Honestly, though, I think we just go out there.
And just sell ourselves to every other country because, like, that would be an amazing opportunity. So Yeah. So I think there you go. I have a global sense story there. So Yeah.
Yeah. I love it. This episode, like, every episode is sponsored by Century twenty one Assurance Realty. Best Brokerage in town. Best Brokerage in BC, in my opinion, taking over the interior.
We're in Kelowna, West Kelowna, Vernon, Kamloops, Cootenay's Shrewap, punitive agent in the interior BC, Constance twenty one Assurance Realty. Or if you're a realtor looking to switch brokerages or a new realtor looking for brokers to start out with. We got great training programs, but train me. That's the reason why I'm just so damn successful right now. That's good to go.
But, yeah, we are a good spot to be if you have any questions at all. Good. What's the show?

Taylor Atkinson: Hey, I got a question. Super Bowl is happening in about an hour and a half. Who do you think is gonna win?

Matt Glen: I want the Eagles to win, but I I don't think you can beat my homes. I'm comfortable right now saying that mom's gonna win.

Taylor Atkinson: I'm the same, but I just, like, come on, man.

Matt Glen: You know what I want to see in the Super Bowl? Like, this is funny because you guys are gonna be listening to this after it's recorded. But I want Sequan to have a two hundred yard rushing game, if not three hundred. Just, like, absolutely go off. You know, like, that's my main goal for this game.
So

Taylor Atkinson: That's your goal. I love it.

Matt Glen: Less important who wins. More important, sequel one just has the because that dude's a champ. Like, he just, like, suffered for so many years and the worst franchise in the league, and the giants gets over to the Eagles and just has a stellar season to be sweet to see him cap it off with the Super Bowl.

Taylor Atkinson: There you go. Some opportunity, you know? Yeah. It was a grind, but he was probably practicing gratitude, thinking, you know what? I'm playing in the NFL.

Matt Glen: I think that's exactly right. So I would love to see him win the MVP tonight. That's what I'm hoping. So

Taylor Atkinson: Okay. Alright, guys. We'll enjoy the show. Enjoy the game, and, yeah, enjoy the show. Mike Shah.
Welcome to the show, man.

Mike Shaw: Thanks for having me, boys. Thanks. You're welcome. Have a pleasure to be here.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Well, we like to just start our show with what's your perfect Friday look like. What do you do for productivity? What's kind of your daily routine? And what do you do for fun going into the weekend?

Mike Shaw: Cool. Perfect Friday would be skiing waist deep powder wherever I could get that in the backcountry. That's sort of when of my passions that I live for Yeah.

Matt Glen: That's a nice debate. Thinking about your history. So

Mike Shaw: No kidding. It's a blessing to be able to explore the backcountry and Slack country that we have

Matt Glen: Yeah.

Mike Shaw: Nearby in the Okanagan. But perfect Friday on a regular week, I have a pretty consistent morning routine where I wake up between five and five thirty and spend a bit of time for myself either reading or just reflecting and enjoying a coffee. And I heard Steve on the last show say the exact same thing. And I'm like, oh, man. He's he's on it too.

Matt Glen: Recipe for success though.

Mike Shaw: Yeah. I usually start with that intentional time for myself, and then I'll get some physical activity in whether it's a a run or a workout and then I'll dive into whatever I've got on that day. And my fulfillment comes from supporting others or helping them a clinical counselor or a speaker. So I'm usually actively working an event or supporting individuals or organizations. And I think the fulfillment I get from that is what is the most rewarding and would be the answer that I'd I lead with this being helpful and that fulfillment would be a perfect day.

Matt Glen: Yeah. What's your career? What do you tell people that you do for your career right now?

Mike Shaw: It's a good question. One that I've taken a while to learn how to answer Yeah. But now I'm a clinical counselor. And a professional speaker. I've done a number of different projects in the entrepreneurial space over the years.
And so I've led with the entrepreneur title. I'm also an author. I've also been a consultant in, like, the safety industry. I've done a number of different things, but now my big driver is clinical counseling and speaking.

Matt Glen: I was Taylor might need a lot of counseling and the utility head assembly.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Yeah. You won't be short of work here. How'd you get here? Like, obviously, Matt and I know your story, but, yeah, kinda start from the beginning.

Mike Shaw: I grew up in the Okanagan. And I love it here. It's amazing. The accessibility outside here to adventure is like no other. And I grew up doing all sorts of sports, but the one I fell in love with was Freestyle skiing.
As a young person, I was a competitive athlete, turned coach, and I worked my way up to coach the Canadian Olympic development, Half Pipesky team. And in two thousand thirteen, specifically on December sixteenth two thousand thirteen, my life changed forever in a routine trick demonstration for a couple of my athletes. I performed a seven twenty, two full rotations where you take off forwards and land forwards. But on landing, I ended up, like, landing what I call some punchy snow. You know what I mean?
I see that. Like, just I punched through these soft layers or crusty layers of snow. And it ended up stopping my skis dead in my track, pitching me forward onto my head and neck, and my feet came up over top of my body kinda like a Scorpion's tail. Yeah. And they just it's brief, but sharp, pop and pain in my neck and then nothing.
I tumbled downhill, slid to a stop, faced down, and snow, screaming at what I thought was the top of my lungs. Just like, no. No. No. No.
God. No. This brief picture of pain in my neck I can't move. I can't roll over. I can't feel anything in my body.
I couldn't bounce back up to my feet like I'd done countless times before falling skiing. And my world in that moment came physically and figuratively crashing down.

Matt Glen: Did you know what happened right away?

Mike Shaw: It was a really sobering about, like, my mental clarity was, like, I wish I could reproduce that on a daily basis because I'd never been more clear in my mind in that moment, they say, like, your life flashes before your eyes and then near death experience because it's just searching for any kind of experience that's similar to that, to try to pull from, to help you. And so my mind was racing But it was also very clear because one of my first thoughts was, well, I'm lucky I didn't just have a concussion. At the same time, I'd spent about six or seven months that year out with a concussion. But the thought went through my mind like I'm glad I'm not confused and paralyzed right now because I figured that would be a lot harder. But I knew because of one of my great friends and mentors and ski coach that was in my life, had a spinal cord injury broke his back, rocks the world from a wheelchair today.
His name is Josh Dewitt. So I thought of him immediately, and I thought of my situation, I knew the gravity of it. So I did know right away how bad it was. Yeah. It was difficult.
Like I thought about everything. I was like, I just ruined my parents retirement. You know, like, I was twenty six, almost twenty seven at the time. And so I was like, this is gonna devastate my family. I knew in that moment that I'd probably lost skiing forever.
Like, every hope and dream, like wanting to go to the Olympics, which is my original dream as an athlete that I thought I might fulfill as a coach, like leading the next generation. That was gone. Would I ever ski again? Probably not. Whatever have a family.
Like, you know, kids Yeah. Just everything was poof in an instant loss. And my identity, everything that I knew about myself was, like, wrapped up in this person who skied and my actions spoke for themselves, you know, like it was if you could hit the jump or ski the half fight, it was what you could do, not necessarily who you were that mattered. And so, like, my identity, my independence, everything was just gone. So rock bottom.

Matt Glen: That happened in Denver. Right?

Mike Shaw: Near Denver, it was in Summit County, Colorado. So near where Copper Mountain, Breckenridge, Keystone, Aerofo Basin, Northstar. There's a ton of resorts out at that valley, but I was at Copper Mountain in the morning, and then we drove actually over to Keystone. And that afternoon, it happened at Keystone.

Matt Glen: Then you were airlifted to Denver, the hospital. Is that right?

Mike Shaw: Yep. Airlifted to Denver, had surgery that night. They surgically installed two titanium rods and ten screws in my neck using me for my third vertebra down on my seventh. You might say I've got a bit of a stiff neck now. Oh, the rods still there.
Yeah. It's a bad joke. I'm sorry. But my best material. No.
But they're still in there and I've had a remarkable recovery from spinal cord injury. And, technically, I'm still an incomplete quadriplegic. I don't have full feeling or dexterity in my hands, my fingers, I lose sensation on my lower half of my body on my skin, so I lose my balance. I get the fifty times a day. So like balance coordination, agility is difficult.
My strength and capacity takes so much work to maintain, and I deal with pain on on a daily basis, but I am so lucky. Unlike maybe the luckiest of the unlucky, no one's lucky to have a spinal cord injury, but I am grateful every single day for my good fortune.

Matt Glen: Yeah. Because the studio ran right now was upstairs and he walked up here. No problem.

Mike Shaw: Yeah. Most places in the world are not accessible, you know.

Taylor Atkinson: Like Yeah.

Mike Shaw: Talk about, like, you know, most buildings aren't but when you start thinking about nature, A Sandy Beach is a no go, you know, cobblestone pathway is a no go in a wheelchair, like, were really difficult. You're not going down on river walks or hiking or, you know, skiing, adaptations are required for all of it, and when I get to do some of the simplest things, like you say, like, walking up a slightest stares into a building, sometimes it catches me and I just feel so lucky.

Taylor Atkinson: What is the percentage of, like, recovery from an injury like that? Like, I I've never heard of this before. So it's got to be obviously pretty rare.

Mike Shaw: It is certainly becoming less and less rare now, which is awesome with modern medical practices. And there's better research being done right now. I believe that eventually spinal cord injuries will be recoverable on a much grander scale, but right now it's still a very small percentage of people that once you have a spinal cord injury get to get better. So it's not lost on me how unique coin is, like, I don't know if it's one in a million, one in ten million, or one in a thousand, but Yeah. It's not tons.

Taylor Atkinson: Do you have, like, the medical industry reaching out to being, like, how did you do this?

Matt Glen: Studies and stuff like that?

Mike Shaw: Yeah. Interestingly, yes. And it's happened quite recently where in Kelowna at UBC Okanagan, they have like sixteen different, call them labs, but it's under the same sort of umbrella for spinal cord injury research. I teamed up with Chris West on a project. I'm the community representative or the community partner from this spinal cord injury community as a consultant on a clinical trial for quadriplegics to try to reduce the secondary injury that occurs via swelling in the spine for people that have had acute injuries.
So we're actually got a grant going right now, and hopefully within the year, we'll be testing a clinical trial to try to reduce that acute secondary injury, which is part of the reason why I recovered, I had prompt attention from, you know, medical team and my surgery was in eight and a half hours after my spinal cord injury. So that secondary injury and I'm talking about that happens usually delayed within the first twelve to thirty six hours of swelling. That was reduced significantly in mind just because of how quickly they got it, but most people don't get into surgery that fast. I was lucky. And so how can we do an intervention before then medicinally to try to prevent that swelling from happening?
And that's our game plan. But yeah.

Taylor Atkinson: Well, yeah. I mean, that's amazing, but let's not take anything away from what you did mentally to, like, I know speaking to you and you mentioned it already is gratitude. Like, how that has really impacted the healing stage Yeah. Maybe elaborate on that.

Mike Shaw: Roughly a student view because I actually pitched an idea to Chris West at UBCO where I was like, we should do a psychologically driven study to test how mindset and getting your body into a place of homeostasis with good chemistry in your brain and body that's driven through the mind could activate better healing because I know, in my case, tools like gratitude and shifting my psychology open the door to healing. It wasn't just that I had a mechanism of injury and surgery that made it recoverable. My healing has been extraordinary, and I've often walked this in line between how much of it was surgical intervention, how much of it was psychological intervention, and I've had some people in my life, some great mentors say, like, what's telling you that it's not where your mindset was in all of this? And so I've been leaning into that, and I would like to study it personally, to get definite data on it and do an empirical study. But for me, I'm like, I know that the gift of gratitude was so significant for helping me heal.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Well, and how did you get to that stage? Like, obviously, I'm sure there was a very dark time, whether it was weeks or months or you, but, like, you know, that would be a pretty tough reality to come out of the well, not to come out of the hospital, but to come out of surgery and be like, shit. Like, what's next? Like, how long did it take?
And how did you figure that out? Did you have books? Or somebody like coach you? Like, hey, man, this is this is where we're at and this is where the mindset we need to get to.

Mike Shaw: I legitimately stumbled across the power of gratitude. Like, it wasn't an intentional practice. But given the uniqueness of my situation, like, I'd had a devastating spinal cord injury where I was told by medical professionals prepare yourself because you're probably never gonna walk again. In fact, you will be lucky if you get back the use of your arms. And that did not include my hands at the time, which also weren't working.
So it's like, whoa. After surgery, my arms did start working, I could close my elbow. So I had my side function. Yeah. When I woke up the next day, that had changed.
And I couldn't open my elbows. So I had bicep function which closes it, tricep opens the elbow. You probably haven't had to think about that for a while. Most people don't, but I had to start reprogram my body so sending these messages all the time and then my arms started to move. It took me almost two and a half weeks before I could lift my hand to actually touch my face.
So like when I say they could move they weren't moving a lot. It was still very difficult. And my legs came back a little bit sore, but when I did start to change and my physical body started to recover, it was, like, wave after wave of, thank goodness. You know, like, what a really, like, something is done. Every little bit of physical recovery was an opportunity for me.
To feel this overwhelming gratitude to a point where the first time I brushed my teeth, which was at twenty one days, where I could reach my hand up high enough now to touch my face. They put this big rubber stopper on my toothbrush and I I was able to brush my teeth for the first time. Kinda had, like, mobster, clogged grip, no individual finger dexterity. I couldn't use my wrists. So I had to get the toothbrush around to every tooth.
I had to use my tongue actually to get it just to be at the right angle and everything. But with a nurse there, I was in a neck collar. I couldn't get my wheelchair close enough to the sink. They had a bucket for me and they had to do the the taps and everything like that. So it wasn't exactly like I was brushing my own teeth.
When I was brushing my own teeth, doing something, the first thing I'd been able to do for myself and my self care in three weeks and I was in tears, I was so thankful. I had so much joy in that moment and brushing your teeth from most people doesn't show up as something on the radar of things you think you take for granted. Yeah. I started to notice all of those wins. And when I did because I couldn't feel much in my body, one of the first things I started to feel was emotion in my body when I felt emotion, depression, or grief, or sorrow, like any of the negative longing for wanting my body back.
That was all dark and cold. But whenever I felt joy or bliss happiness, like even something as simple as like eating a grape and being like, thank goodness I have grapes. By the time I made it to Canada, and I was, like, supported by friends and family members, like, in in a first world country with a medical system is not perfect, but it's free, and we have it. I was just like, I'm so lucky. So every time I felt gratitude and especially in poignant moments like that example brushing my teeth I would feel these, like, warm waves rushing over me.
And that was some pretty cool neuro chemistry, oxytocin, serotonin, dwarfins, a little bit of dopamine, but all this great neurochemistry, which was putting me in state of homeostasis. And gratitude actually increases your immunoglobulin a molecule, which is like the body's antiseptic. It fights infection and supports your immune system functioning. And when you're in that state of homeostasis, your body can actually divert resources to the proper places for healing like your autonomic functions or your immune system. And so by having this disposition of gratitude, it was evidently helping me heal.
And the chemistry behind it and everything, this stuff I've learned since. So at the time, I just kind of was there by accident, but my recovery has been watched.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Good for you, man. I feel like a lot of people in that position would, like, focus more on the negative. Right? Like, be angry, why?
Why me kind of things? But you turned

Mike Shaw: it I had those thoughts too. Right? Like, survivors' guilt and, like, why this happened to me in the first place? That's not fair. So many of my friends and fellow professional skiers that I grew up skiing with didn't have this happen.
And then on the flip side of that coin, I was like, why am I getting better? And all these other people are around me with spinal cord injuries aren't? Yeah. I mean, I went through a lot of dark times. It was devastating.
I wouldn't wish a spinal cord injury on my worst enemy. There are gifts that can come from it. It just depends on how you look at it.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. So if you kind of translated that knowledge, I guess, now to other aspects in life, the gratitude can, yeah, kind of resolve a lot of these issues.

Mike Shaw: Yeah. My go to is gratitude as a foundation for resilience. Which is a bit counterintuitive. And it doesn't matter if you're in the real estate space or another profession or if you're just wanting to get more out of life like, gratitude helps us frame setbacks in the grand scheme of things and realize that things just aren't as bad as we often think they are. And we all have a negativity bias within us that when we do encounter adversity or setbacks, it consumes a lot of our attention.
And you think about it in life and business though, but it feels worse proportionately to lose a hundred dollars than it does proportionally feel good to make a hundred dollars. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Once you've got it, like, once I was on an Air Canada flight flying tour from a speaking gig, it was one of the first flights where Air Canada had released in flight WiFi.

Matt Glen: Yeah.

Mike Shaw: And I was sitting near the front of the plane surrounded by other people that are business people that are on right and everybody's like thrilled when the headlight attendant came out and said, we're so excited to announce that we have our in air WiFi on this flight today and as the first group you're gonna get to use it for free. People were like standing up in their chair. I was like clapping, cheering, and I was like, cool. This is nice. And then it was like ten or fifteen minutes later people trying to get online where the flight attendant comes back out and she's like, I'm sorry to let you know, but the in flight Wi Fi isn't working.
And, man, the look on everybody's faces like they had just been wrong. There was a lot of air Canada this or, you know, like, it was like a few moments ago, you were just happy. Normal people,

Taylor Atkinson: all of

Mike Shaw: a sudden, you're elevated, and then you crashed to rock bottom. We wait positive and negative events differently. We all have a negativity bias within us, and we can beat it. It's within all of us. It's a bias.
I think it's evolutionary. A really authentic way to beat it is with gratitude and fortify your mindset because if you look for the gift not the gaps. In any situation, you're going to attract more of that positivity for when you'll be more open to it. Your chemistry changes. Like literally, your physiology changes.
You'll be a warmer person, more coachable, more approachable. So many benefits like that, but it's a huge reframe on the exact same situation that is causing you grief. You can look at it and be like, what in this situation do I have to feel thankful for? It's like the glasses have full metaphor, but you're looking at similar set of circumstances just through a different lens which is authentically positive and can actually change your chemistry. And if you can change your physiology, you change your state, you can change the story, you tell yourself about that situation, so you can change the strategy with which you approach the solution.
It's incredibly powerful and it's overlooked or maybe not even looked at at all as a resilience tool, because it's counterintuitive when you're feeling low to think about all that you have to feel thankful for. Yeah. Because of that negativity blast, we get sucked in. What was me? Why me?
Those types of things. So Well, and especially, I I

Taylor Atkinson: find right now, like, in the past four or five years, at least business related or life relate like, it's a pretty volatile time in life. You know, things are busy. People's businesses are struggling. The economies like, you can just kinda go down that rabbit hole. But I guess the question is, like, how do you practice gratitude?
Like, you said you get up early and do some reflecting and, like, is there something that you stick to or a piece of advice you can say, hey, this is, like, a good starting point. This is what people should do, or is it just, like, all day every day. Like, make sure you re center yourself on gratitude.

Mike Shaw: It's a very good question. I'm so glad you brought it up because how do you practice gratitude? How do most people practice gratitude? We might have, you know, around discussion table at dinner one night where you say, okay, kids, what are you thankful for? Some people keep gratitude journals.
That's a common one. Gretitude triggers or things that remind you in your day. That's one I actually like. Because if there's something in your day that can trigger you to feel thankful, then I think that's valuable. Because if you ask most people that tried journaling, it doesn't really work for gratitude journals.
Like, a lot of people say, well, yeah, I kinda get some benefit out of it because the thing that's missing is feeling grateful. If you just think about the things that you have to feel thankful for and you kind of cataract Chrysler collect this list, you might get a little bit of benefit out of it. But if you want your chemistry to change, Like, if you want the benefits of oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins, like I said, a bit of dopamine, those are neurotransmitters that connect different synapses in your brain. You are literally changing the way that your mind thinks to look for silver linings or opportunities. Likewise, if you produce that chemistry in your body and endorphins, it actually counteracts a stress response.
You can't feel stressed and thankful at the same time. So oxytocin is like the love drug. Right? You seek out connection and people like that you wouldn't necessarily if you didn't have that chemistry anymore. Serotonin is the happiness drug or happiness hormone and that's an incredibly powerful neurotransmitter especially for combating depression.
You can actually feel thankful, create that chemistry, and change the way that you look at your situation based on how you're feeling. And so for me, when I say, to practice gratitude, it's a feeling. And you can feel it in the morning during reflection if that's like just a momentary mindful break that you take or even at night, especially if you had a stressful day. You can actually turn it every day in your bad days into good days if you end it with the gratitude audit, whereas most people have a bad day for, like, one or two negative interactions Yeah. Conversations, tough negotiation that you didn't feel like you performed as well as you would have liked to in or Maybe there's a challenge with your spouse or kids or, you know, someone else that's outside your professional life and we hold onto that stuff.
You need to release it and then you can shift to your attitude. One more point I should make that's really important on this and it'll probably be the next place we take the conversation to is how you handle negativity. Because if you don't actually deal with some of the negative thinking that you have going on, or if there is a situation in your life that is truly bad or a bad day. If you just try to suppress it with gratitude, that also isn't a strategy I would suggest. You need to release the negative or process it because I'll ask you guys this.
What would you have more benefit from having more positive thoughts or fewer negative ones? What would you tell me?

Matt Glen: I don't know. Maybe negativity bias, we wait the negative ones more, so probably less negative ones. Yeah.

Mike Shaw: You're right. Maybe that so I set up that question pretty well. Most people want to be optimistic and they're like, oh, more positive. Right? But the answer truly is, like, fewer negative because your negative thoughts and beliefs are the only ones that can hold you back, limit you or keep you stuck.
If you don't deal with the negativity or let emotional content process, then shifting to gratitude right away. It's like the second step in that process. And so you asked me, how do you practice gratitude? There are a number of different ways to practice it and close that lupo by feeling it. But if you don't deal with the underlying negative beliefs, whether it's about scarcity or uncertainty or self doubt, am I capable of doing this?
You know, I'm not great at sales. I don't know if I have what it takes to achieve my goals. Like, all of that negative thinking needs to be dealt with before you can move to something positive. That supports your growth.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Here's a very relative question, I guess, for all of us. But yeah. So congratulations. You're gonna be a new father soon.
Yes, Matt. Congratulations. Second new father soon. You know, Emily and I, my wife, were talking about this quite a bit actually because, like, got two kids, happy, healthy, doing a lot of fun stuff, but sometimes you're like, why are you not more grateful? Like, man, like, I had a good upbringing, but, like, not all the things that we're providing for our kids.

Mike Shaw: Yeah. I'm like,

Taylor Atkinson: you know, so, like, just to we were up at big white all weekend this weekend with our son and daughter and friends and, you know, take our son to ski school and stuff. Hey, man. Yeah. You like skiing? Yeah.
Cool. We're gonna go tomorrow. No. And then, like, he'll just throw tantrum over whatever. How do you teach gratitude at a young age?
You know? Because they're so volatile. Like, they'll be, like, emotions are on their sleeve. Right? Best day ever, worst day ever, over, like, the smallest things.
But and maybe this is a question you'll approach in, like, a year from now. But have you ever thought of, like, how do you install gratitude at a younger age? How do you provide, like, the platform for them to deal with, like, the negative and the positive to close that loop?

Mike Shaw: I think in general, we need contrast perspective. So if it's all good all the time, it's still a flat line. It's like, you know, you need a little bit of ups and downs, peaks and valleys. And so the fact that there are times where it's euphoric and incredible bliss and happiness and then times where it's not that and it could be quite the opposite. Like a full day of tantrums or, you know, that contrast is valuable for anybody to learn to appreciate the good times and appreciate things that are wonderful.
Now, I think in, like, terms of fundamentals, you can teach, say, please, and thank you all the time. And I would imagine even with young people, I haven't tried this. I've done it with some elementary school groups when I've spoken to them. I do mindfulness exercise. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but trying to get them to feel thankful for, like, their parents or things they really love to do and just, you know, have them sit with that for a minute and and feel it would be a strategy to approach that with I think it's gotta be a bit of trial and error.
And then leading by example, most of what kids learn is, like, what I call, caught behavior. And I was talking about this earlier today, what's taught versus caught for raising children and how much do you actually teach them versus how much are they absorbing by, you know, watching you and so on like it's setting an example and truly feeling it that way. And so for us, how do we feel thankful when things are, you know, so good, but we're still caught up in, you know, wanting more, feeling like we're not moving forward enough, perhaps, or generally feeling, like, lack of lust for life, because maybe we haven't had many of those ups and downs lately, and it has been a bit flat lined. Even if it's flat lined and you're at like a, you know, four out of ten or an eight or a nine out of ten for where you, you know, would think happiness lives. If it's flat, it's flat.
I think it's a societal issue though with comparison and especially in hustle culture when you're trying to build things, build your professional life, your career, your net worth, your access to fulfilling activities, like if you're in a place where you're fortunate to move towards financial freedom or that's what your goal is, you're still comparing ahead or up. So you're comparing from where you are in this moment now to where you want to be in the future yourself or up ahead to where someone else is who's at, like, chapter one hundred in their story and you're at, like, chapter thirty of yours. Yeah. You know what I mean? We rarely utilize comparison in a healthy way where if we compare back to where we came from and for most people and I know this isn't an original ideaing.
But if you were to look back five years and to realize where you are now, you've probably achieved most of the goals that you have set out for yourself five years ago. So five years ago, you would be, like, rock on, man, giving you a pat on the back and being, like, you're nailing it. And yet us, we're, like, oh, looking till five years ahead me still, like, we're conditioned to be in that state. But if you compare back to where you came from, and I don't recommend this, but I think it's more of an awareness because I'm like, don't compare down all the time, but be aware of where you're at because and I think you alluded to it at the start, like, I grew up in such a, you know, a great household or in the Okanagan. And, like, for me, that's where I grew up.
I was like, this is, you know, an epicenter of awesomeness. Like, so lucky to get to to the urine. So, like, understanding where you're at because in the hospital when I was getting better for my spinal cord injury, I saw plenty of people that weren't. And so, I had that contrast and perspective there Right. Where I was like, oh, goodness.
Like, if I don't give everything I've got to this recovery, like, there are so many people that would kill for the opportunity too. Nope. And I don't know if that answered your question. I kinda went on a bit of a ten, but I've

Matt Glen: been impressed that Taylor's, like, a full dad now. You're, like, one step away from telling them that you're dew elected if you're still uphill, smooth, both ways.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you I mean, the cot and tot thing is so powerful. Man, they are, like, sponges in everything. But I I guess if you take that mindset, like, throughout life with friends and family and, like, you know, we're no different.
Yeah. We're aged obviously, and we're a little bit probably, you know, less malleable to that. But, like, people still, like, feel your energy and then drive what you're driving. Right? So

Mike Shaw: that's applicable beyond raising children. Right?

Taylor Atkinson: Like, yeah. Totally.

Matt Glen: And I just have that meme in my head where it's, like, it's a Sunday morning, but it smells like cinnamon pancakes. The favorite cartoons are on, the snow is likely falling at the three year old's blind with race.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Yeah. But you're blind with rage because you're a three year old. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, you're probably right. They don't have a lot to compare

Matt Glen: it to.

Taylor Atkinson: Right? It's like life's pretty crazy for them.

Mike Shaw: And let it happen. Let it process because the moment you start trying to suppress that or be like, you can't feel angry or you can't have this this momentary tantrum is like they're learning emotional regulation.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah.

Mike Shaw: And it doesn't matter what the environment is like. If your mindset is like, doesn't matter how much you tell them in that moment to, like, calm down because their experience is their experience in that emotional rage even though if it's, like, on all accounts, you're looking at it, like, why is this happening? This shouldn't be

Taylor Atkinson: It's an awesome conversation right now because, like, even in my head, I'm thinking, Okay. Yeah. Where's the gratitude in that? Like, well, grateful, like, my son's able to throw a tantrum, you know, and he's he's here. And, like, a lot of like he said, people can't have families.
Yeah.

Matt Glen: You're also grateful that you're sitting the baseline for his life pretty high.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. And easy for me to say at three o'clock after a good day and had a coffee and he's at daycare. And then when it's been time tonight, trying to instill that oh, man, I'm stoked you wanna read another book for the fifth time and you're yelling at me. Yeah. It's good.
It's powerful stuff. I love it.

Mike Shaw: It is called the practice though for a reason. And I really do believe that, like, you've gotta feel it. You gotta close out that loop. You've gotta cut out negativity if that's what's holding you back. And, like, maybe tell yourself a different story before you can actually start feeling thankful for your present situation or the one you're about to have and open yourself up to that reality with, like, authentic gratitude.
But the opportunity to, like, shift mentally in times where it is really difficult, it falls back on a better practice. So if you need some repetitions before it comes to default mindset.

Matt Glen: Mhmm.

Mike Shaw: But when it does, it's pretty awesome. I still have to work on it now because the farther I get out from my accident to harder get some days, you know. Yeah. I'm human as well with all this.

Matt Glen: But So with your injury, is your injury always getting better? Like, is your regression risk? Or, like, how does that look for you?

Mike Shaw: It's interesting because my neurological picture plateaued what it felt like between, like, your two and three in recovery.

Matt Glen: Oh.

Mike Shaw: Like, my sensation on my body hasn't changed, but I have continued pushing really hard setting big physical objectives and goals to try to keep myself reaching the next level of what I can handle physically. And my capacity has continued getting better and better, like with endurance training and skiing and stuff like that. I'm back in the mountains and doing it in a way that if you would ask me eleven years ago, if I thought it were possible, I probably would have told you no. So I've even beat some of the expectations or achieved some of the things that I didn't even think were possible. So I'm pretty stoked, but it's been physical plateau, like, in neurological Yep.
Sense, but not in terms of what I've been able to accomplish. I set some pretty lofty goals. So

Matt Glen: Yeah. Good for you.

Taylor Atkinson: And I mean, so many other challenges and achievements you have to make now too. Right? Like, so where is business at now? Your coach machine training, other people, business people, just mostly on mindset now? Like, or are you helping on recovery on injuries as well?
Like, who are you mostly speaking to and working with?

Mike Shaw: Am I speaking and, like, consulting or coaching role. It's more like organizations. And I've worked with some individuals one on one, but it's primarily like sharing a message of resilience and gratitude and team building shared vision, leadership, managing uncertainty, organizational transformation, do all that from the stage, typically, or, like, online. And so I've spoken in front of, like, forty thousand people and audiences over the last six or seven years. It's been a lot of fun traveling to do talks and conferences and stuff like that.
But as of recently, I've just shifted gears more into the mental health space, and I've started a new company called Gladys Health. Gladys is g r a t u s. That's the Latin origin for grateful. My goal is to get into integrative health and support people from mind and body, like psychosomatic healing, people that are either struggling with a physical presentation that that their physical healing is encumbered by their psychology because they haven't got to that place where their mind and body at a place that's open to heal. So help them with mental blocks or if people's physical presentation is directly linked to their psychology because it's something like trauma that they're holding in the body or emotional suppression, chronic pain, and stuff like that, even as much as like functional neurological disorder, I've helped cure non epileptic seizures.
So it had a client that went from having, like, three to four non epileptic seizures a week related to trauma down to about one close call a month. Where they can start to recognize a seizure coming on. And then, with psychology, take themselves back from the edge and prevent it from even happening. So I'm really excited with Greta's health is gonna bring about in terms of blinding mind and body healing. Awesome.
Good for you.

Matt Glen: Mhmm. Before we jump into our wrap up questions here, tell us about the Kelowna marathon.

Mike Shaw: Oh, man. Okay. This year, I ran the Kelowna marathon. Good. I didn't know how hard it was gonna be.
It's like, marathons are such a huge physical challenge to overcome for anybody, but let alone somebody who had a spinal cord injury. And I've done a fair bit of running over the years, but nothing to that extent. And I would like to share with people that you're capable of more than you think you are or you can do more than you think you can do. You may have heard that, but I subscribed to the idea that you can do as much as you think you can do. So your mindset and all this is so important.
And for me, setting a goal, like, doing a marathon was preposterous initially. And even once I got into the training, I was like, man, why did I even start doing this? It's way too hard. But the goal is set and I ended up completing the race. And then it is true that if you choose to change your mind about a certain situation and believe that you've got it within yourself to push through or that if it's not working out right now, it'll always work out.
Because things always work out. That feeling of I'm just not finished yet, I just need to keep going. If you truly believe that you've got it within yourself to achieve your goals or succeed on the backside of adversity, that to me was like the epitome of that. And if everybody out there is listening to it, take that away. I'd say this would be a big success for me in this whole conversation.
It's like you've got it within yourself, like, trust that you're capable of as much as you think you are. So, aim high.

Taylor Atkinson: Man, you're gonna run out of big stuff to do. Like, you're just taking off everything, Nate. Well, that's impressive.

Mike Shaw: Now, I think being a family man is the next

Taylor Atkinson: big thing. That is a big treat for

Matt Glen: a very thought with a young child. Yeah.

Mike Shaw: Yeah. That's the next it's gonna be wild.

Matt Glen: Yeah. Yeah.

Taylor Atkinson: Alright. Well, yeah, we'll dive into our wrap up stuff here. If you could buy a property in the Okanagan in the next twelve months, what would it be?

Mike Shaw: My desire would be to have land, privacy, and a view. So potentially in light country up on the hill overlooking Okanagan Yeah. Or even Kelowna mission would be phenomenal. I love Kelowna. I'm from the North Okanagan, but I've definitely started to feel more like Kelowna is home these days.
But I would look for something where I have a little bit of privacy view of the water and the mountains around here as part of why we live here. Yeah. And that would be my go to for sure. Nice.

Matt Glen: If you could give your twenty year old self any advice, what would it be?

Mike Shaw: I would tell my twenty year old self to not be so hard on yourself. I was in a sport and in a career that it was, like, very much about performance and hitting metrics. And in fact, this is very vulnerable for me to even share, but I gave up on my competitive dreams too soon. And I wish I could have gone back and said, stay persistent, stay in it, and believe in yourself because you're capable of as much as you think you are. And your thoughts are directly related to those self beliefs so believe that you have it within yourself to achieve the things that you want to achieve.
That's great.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. I feel like a lot of people have probably call it a little bit too early, you know. What's the worst that can happen? You're gonna have a bit more fun in life and you know, do something you love. So Yeah.
Good for you.

Mike Shaw: Yeah. It's like so much growth lies on the backside of that uncertainty and risk. Yeah. Like, that's where the magic is.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. What's your favorite charity or how do you get back?

Mike Shaw: My favorite charity, that one's easy, is the winx for life. Foundation. And my big giveback every year is organizing a world run event. I'm doing one here in Kelowna this year on May fourth. It's a four AM run.
So for those of you that don't like getting out of bed, this is gonna be extra special for you because you'll be living outside your comfort zone, but it's definitely

Matt Glen: May the fourth be with you.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Four AM on May

Mike Shaw: the fourth, but I team up with the Okanagan lifestyle crew, Jackson, Ryan, and their team, they open up their doors. The venue, that's where everybody meets. And then we set off from there, but it's a charity for spinal cord injury research. It's all about running for those who can't. There's no minimum or maximum distance.
Once you start running, you just wanna see how far you can go thirty minutes after you start running. Everybody downloads an app. The finish line actually starts coming after you.

Taylor Atkinson: Oh, you gotta stay ahead of

Mike Shaw: the Yeah. Stay ahead of the finish. I see you're being chased. Like for anybody that loves a little bit of an adventure, like, you know, living outside their comfort zone, because nobody wants to get up and start running at four AM.

Taylor Atkinson: Does the finish line just get faster and faster?

Mike Shaw: Yes.

Taylor Atkinson: Nice.

Mike Shaw: And so after thirty minutes of it going, it goes from fifteen kilometers an hour to sixteen. So Most people surprise themselves with how far they can actually go. A lot of people run like ten k's that don't normally run ten k's and some people that are used to running a little bit run like fifteen to twenty. It's all for spinal cord injury research and we're having an event in Kelona in May and it's run all around the world. It's the biggest running event on the planet.
There's like two hundred and eighty thousand people approximately that ran it together last year at the exact same time. That's why it starts at four AM in our time zone. We just have a crazy yeah, we don't have the best time zone for it, but it's a shotgun start around the world. It's a very, very cool project.

Matt Glen: That's a awesome awesome that's a nice event. Yeah.

Mike Shaw: You guys should come

Matt Glen: out where I am?

Taylor Atkinson: I would love to. I'm doing the BMO half that day. Are

Mike Shaw: you? Yeah. Yeah. That snow be with you there. But, yeah, I'll double off.

Matt Glen: It probably doesn't start to line.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. I'll just run to Vancouver.

Mike Shaw: We've got some great groups like accessible Okanagan. It's gonna come out for the spinal cord injury community and north end run group. Like, they've got a lot of members that we're gonna kinda pull out this year and get a bunch of people just to get together and

Matt Glen: Cool.

Mike Shaw: Some good exercise activism. I like to call it

Taylor Atkinson: It's nice.

Matt Glen: How can Taylor or I or our listeners help you What can we do for you?

Mike Shaw: Live with a little bit more gratitude in your daily life. And if you wanna find me and connect, I'm pretty easy to find my website. It's mike shawski dot com. So mike shawski s k I dot com and find me on Instagram or find a copy of my book whenever. Reach out to me connect.
I love to have conversations with people in our community, especially if I can support you in any way and relate it to what we talked about here today. That'd be amazing.

Taylor Atkinson: Love it, man.

Matt Glen: Awesome, man. Just been great talking to you. Thank you so much for stopping by.

Taylor Atkinson: Grateful grateful that you're here. Yeah.

Mike Shaw: Great to hear. Thanks for having me.

Taylor Atkinson: Okay. Have a good one. You too.