Keto is “Difficult”?

Prioritizing your health via lifestyle choices isn’t “difficult”. What’s difficult is being diagnosed with a brain tumor and told you may die with or without the surgery.

What’s difficult is living in a state of pain and suffering whole accepting this state to be a new reality you’ll always live in.

What’s difficult is watching those you love suffer with no control and in worst case scenarios, not wake up to see a new day.

I’m here to share how lack of prioritizing my brains health, and making lifestyle choices we often dismiss as harmless because of how “normal” it is, all led me to finding and researching keto and a level of consciousness.

I believe keto is not a food, it’s not a diet, it’s not who you are or what you do, it’s a metabolic state that can be achieved in various forms for various people and their goals.

It’s a profound state of optimal brain energy and is a lifestyle that’s naturally reduces body fat mass, inflammation, oxidative stress (free radicals), and disease risk factors.

If you asked me 10 years ago if I’d live a ketogenic lifestyle, I’d first ask what is that and then I’d follow that up with saying how crazy you were that you’d ask me to give up my soda and candy, or go hours, let alone days without eating anything but water and salt.

Who I am today is vastly different than who I was when I began my BMX journey and although I believe consciousness is the first step to creating the life we desire, that piece came to my awareness last after nutrition and fitness.

My favorite part of a ketogenic diet and lifestyle is the level of consciousness that’s transcended into all aspects of my life.

I believe it’s my responsibility to share my journey & experiences with others in an effort to shift perspective in terms of what we think food, health, and our reality really are.

What most of us forget or even lack the basic understanding of, is that we have a profound ability to shift our reality based on the choices we make every single day.

A choice to see the world & our lives from a new perspective that serves our desires rather than limits our potential to be healthy & happy.

My effort is to help facilitate this shift.

Josh P. 💚🧠✌️

Flat Linning

Not many people know the story of when I flatlined at a contest back in 2011.

It was summer 2011 in Ocean City for the Dew Action Sports Tour just shy over a year after brain surgery and we were competing on a set up built over the beach.

I was so excited, confident, and ready to compete with a fresh start to the season after a wild ride of events the year before recovery from an unexpected brain surgery.

It was just practice and I was going over a line for the third or fourth time figuring out how I wanted to connect tricks to specific parts of the course for my contest run.

I was focused but relaxed at the same time as I came around a corner wall ride at about 10+ feet, putting my head at about 15 feet off the flat bottom of the ramps.

I came up a bit short into the landing resulting in my back tire clipping the top of the landing and catapulting next over the handlebars straight to my face.

I tired my head to the right, as I always did, leaving the left side of my face/eye socket taking the majority of the impact.

I didn’t even have time to register what was happening and my hands never got out in front of me to brace for the fall. All I remember is seeing the ground coming up quickly and saying to myself “oh, shit! This is going to suck!” The medics and athletes on the sidelines said I was out snoring right away.

As the medics got to me and rolled me over, that’s when they found my heart had stopped beating for almost a minute.

I woke up confused and in so much pain I didn’t realize my right hand was broken as I threw up almost immediately upon awakening.

I remember the first words out of my mouth being “I’m done riding. This ain’t worth it. I can’t keep doing this”.

2 weeks later when I was cleared to ride, I found myself back on my bike on top of the ramps back home.

This was a crucial perspective teaching moment and how majority of ya respond to stress, fear and pain, typically suppressing our dreams and aspirations for a vision we dream about.

What BMX has taught me over and over again is that if you fall down once, you get up twice and try again. This concept of perspective can be applied anywhere in life.

The more clarity I’ve gained in regards to perspective, the more and more I don’t add stories and meanings to an experience or situation the same way as I used to.

Rather than thinking “why is this happening to me” or feeling as if I want to quit and move on, I try to focus on “why is this happening for me” and how can I learn from this in order to move forward more efficiently and closer to my desired outcome.

Life is all about perspectives and choices and the moments of pain and challenge is what I believe highlights our personality and how we respond to life.

Once we gain clarity of our personality/state of being and decide how we want to move forward, we’re able to learn and grow with a choice to transcend our current realities.

I’ve been learning how our true personality is made up of our thoughts, feelings and actions, all of which are influenced by our experiences in this time and space.

What I’ve been learning and experiencing is being defined by a future vision in terms of what I choose my state of being / personality to be helps me overcome obstacles along the way and bring me closer to that desired outcome in my life.

We can choose to put our focus in a specific manner, which is where our energy goes. When we say “I don’t want….” rather than consciously choosing to focus on “I want….” the subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference and focuses on the end of that phrase, ultimately influencing a chain of events influencing our personality and ultimately creating our personal reality.

I believe it starts with clarity of our personality and our personal reality, and the next steps are to focus on our desired outcomes / future, make a plan by reverse engineering that future to our current state, and acting accordingly with inspired purpose along the way.

Josh P.💚🧠✌️

FOR us

Life happens FOR us, NOT to us. That’s what I believe.

This belief allows us to transcend any undesirable reality we’re living because it means we have the power to change that reality with a focus on our perspective of our lives the events that take place.

Allowing our personality (thoughts, actions and emotions) to create our personal reality rather than allowing our personal reality dictate our personality is key.

The first step is creating a space of consciousness or awareness and observation without judgment. Once we’ve done this and identified some key aspects we were overlooking, we can then begin to catch ourselves in the moment and rewrite that story we’ve been telling ourselves or rewrote the action we’re taking now and will continue to do so moving forward.

If we want a new desirable reality, we have to overcome ourselves and our reality to do things differently. We must not be defined by our circumstances if we want to create something new in our lives.

“Doing the same thing expecting a new outcome is the definition of insanity” we’ve all heard before, but it’s so true when you stop and think about it.

I will leave you with these 4 questions I love asking at the end of my presentations.:

1- what do you want in your life?
2- what do you need in your life?
3- what’s holding you back from what you want & need?
4- what are you willing to do about it?

Tag a friend you believe would benefit from this post.

Josh P. 🧠💚✌️

Iraq 12-day tour 2011

March 2011, 11 months after brain surgery to remove a massive tumor, I found myself in Iraq and Kuwait for 12 days performing for the US military.

What an incredible honor to be able to share my passion and my story formally for the first time.

I almost didn’t take this opportunity due to fear of the unknown and speculation from the media and other influences in my life.

I find we’re conditioned as a society to give into fear and for whatever excuse we give the lack of pursuing our dreams/ goals, we let fear take control of our lives.

They told me not to follow BMX as a career and to just work or go to school.

They told me BMX wouldn’t take me anywhere and I better have a backup plan.

They never told me how to take care of my health or how to create a vision for my life that I can work towards. “They” were not my parents. My parents supported my decision to take a massive risk by dropping out of school and moving away from my family at 17 years old for my BMX dream.

Now I’ve been to over 15 countries, performed for the USA military in Iraq, become friends with my idol Dave Mirra, started my own business, impacted lives around the world, and have spoken to thousands of people from a stage I never fathomed being on.

I share this because I’m a kid from Cape Cod with nothing more than the love and support of my family, my bike, my dream, and the work ethic to put the effort and time in while never settling for anything less than my desired outcome.

Crazy where I am 13 years later after embarking on this chapter of my life. I’m now evolving into a new route on track for a new purpose and new passions but bringing BMX with me everywhere I go, mostly in story but someone in action.

I had/have a lot of odds against me but the most important thing I’ve learned is that we create the reality we think and envision in our own minds.

The actions we take are influenced by that thinking and envisioning. Jim Carey said “our eyes are not just for viewing. They’re also projectors.” Envision the life YOU want and work your ass for it and it can be manifested into your reality.

I’m proof of this concept as I don’t teach theory, I share experiences.

Josh P. 💚🧠✌️

Always Wanted To Be A Pro Athlete

I grew up wanting to be a professional athlete, but it started with a dream to be in the NBA.

Then, thankfully, BMX came into my life and as I reflect on that probably dream to go to UNC to play ball like MJ on my way to the NBA, I’m thankful I found a passion for BMX and my 5’8” height wouldn’t have cut it 😂🤣.

To have the opportunity to perform at UNC men’s and woman’s basketball, Duke Men’s basketball, and other NBA and NFL halftime shows is incredible.

Huge shoutout to @kingbmxstuntshow for making that possible!

It was rad to be able to hang out with @jimmyfarris and @chukkybasics this weekend for a business mastermind and to be able to relate, share stories, encourage others, and for me personally, be inspired by two SuperBowl champions that manifested their dreams and took that experience into creating a business for themselves helping others.

For a solid 2 years, I battled the “identity crisis” of who am I if I’m not the BMX athlete and what do I do with my life, even though I had found my purpose and was excited about it.

There was still this gap between who I felt I was, what I wanted to do and why, and what others perceived me as or expected me to be like.

I’ve come a long way this past year to find my confidence and clarity around the fact I’m who I decide to be and to know Jimmy and Chukky have done the same has helped me solidify this belief in myself to help others and own my value.

I’m sitting in an immense amount of gratitude, optimism, faith, and excitement for what’s to come and for becoming friends with these two legends.

Follow your heart, you never know who you’ll run into, what experiences and opportunities you’ll come by, or who you’ll inspire and help along the way.

Josh P. 💚🧠✌️

Beware of what you “want”

The topic of consciousness and the subconscious mind has come up a ton in my last 3 years of life.

One thing that keeps presenting itself is this understating that the brain doesn’t know the difference between “I want” and “I don’t want”, it just takes in the outcome in which we’re referring to, even if it’s not the desired outcome we want in our life’s.

We’re motivated by two main purposes in our lives and that’s fear or pleasure, also known as the “carrot and stick” concept.

When we focus on the fears, we tend to find ourselves further away from the desired outcome along with the path being one of more difficulties, challenges, and pain.

When we focus on the pleasure, we tend to find ourselves in a elevated state of being that draws the event closer to us in a quicker sense without all the bullsh** trying to hold us back and even if obstacles are presented, the perspective held on the pleasurable future outcome keeps us going and pushing forward.

We have all experienced this in our lives and a great example is in BMX whenever I or other athletes focused on our fear when trying a new trick rather than the pleasurable desired outcome, what happened?

More times than not, it didn’t work out and we would experience what it felt like to hit the ground from a distance in the air most humans don’t ever experience.

I can trace back so many times I fell and where my focus was to prove this point as well as the times I focused on visualizing my riding away from the truck and the outcome manifested the way I envisioned.

It’s not always easy, but is super SIMPLE. Where our focus goes, our energy flows.

The most important step to any aspect of life, I believe, is creating a sense of consciousness or awareness. Once you can become conscious of your thoughts, you can note how they influence the actions you choose and the experiences that are a byproduct from said behavior.

I believe that if all the experiences in my life, the most profound takeaway is to create a level of consciousness in our every day lives and really audit our choices once we become aware.

It’s not about perfection, it’s about progression.

Josh P. 💚🧠✌️

Best Friends That Didn’t Know It

I met @isaacstegman shortly after stepping away from the childhood dream that I was living and made into a career.

It was about 2 years ago at an event we’re attending together again next month.

After a third brian tumor diagnosis, I found myself coaching others with the ketogenic lifestyle as a way to fulfill my purpose and provide for myself.

An interesting opportunity to perform for a corporate event in February of 2018 and coach the companies EVP and team leading to the event brought Isaac into my life.

I believe things happen for a reason and that reason is our intention, our life vision we take action towards, and what we focus on and where our energy goes.

My intention to serve others from the wisdom I’ve gained throughout my experiences in life led my to acting in a way that I left my former vision for a new vision I had made. I’m doing so, it aligned me with others like Isaac on a domaine path to serve others and be focused on a higher purpose than self.

That’s when Isaac shared “off self, on purpose” with me, which gave me so much clarity and comfort in my decision of leaving BMX behind for this new found passion to share all I’ve learned and continue to learn with others in an effort to empower others to be as healthy, happy and successful as possible.

Isaac and I were best friends and brothers that hadn’t met for 30 and 40 years, but now we’re changing lives together and I’m beyond grateful for his friendship and support.

Had I not made my decision to pursue a new path, more like carve a new path for myself, I may have never encountered such a friendship that literally has brought us around the world and in contact with other amazing human beings.

I reflect on our friendship in my suit at this ski lodge resort in Utah at Isaacs @kaizenprocoaching mastermind after sharing a bit about myself and this story with the group.

I’m beyond grateful for the opportunity to provide as much value to others and to learn as much as I can along the way from other successful people.

I appreciate you, Isaac, and I love you. Thanks for believing in me when I doubted myself, and going above and beyond to support me.

Josh P. 💚🧠✌️

Investing In My Purpose

Along the last 10 years, I’ve awaken to the opportunity my life experiences have presented me with to inspire perspective in others that leads to a belief in ones self to create the life they desire and to make changes that manifest that desire from a place of joy and inspiration.

I believe we all have the potential to achieve greatness in our lives and are capable of much more than we tend to believe is possible for ourselves.

BMX injuries and enduring such pain to achieve a goal set me up to overcome some of my life’s toughest challenges. Being diagnosed with a massive brain tumor at the young age of 21 after riding X-Games (a childhood dream) showed me what more I possessed internally in regards to strength, courage, belief, and possibilities.

My mission in life is to inspire a perspective shift in others that leads to a belief of such potential in power to achieve what only we believe we’re capable of from that place of inspiration rather than pain and suffering as I learned from.

I believe we can become proactive in our lives rather then reactive, ultimately making the process to achieve our goals much more efficient and enjoyable.

People say any of the three brain tumor diagnosis have to be the worst things to happen in my life but I believe they’re the best things to happen to me as they showed me what I was capable of, gave me a voice for those that are hiding behind fear and have allowed me to inspire others to let go of fear and see what’s possible, changed the trajectory of my life in such beautiful ways I couldn’t have asked for, and put me on a path full of purpose rather than focused on myself.

That said, I’ve invested in @createdbybrian to work with me to share my story, my perspectives,and all I can to help others around the world on a larger scale.

I never fathomed being in a position to pay someone more than I’ve ever made in my past to help fuel my life’s mission but as I reflect, it makes sense as to majority of my focus being on the vision I’ve been creating and critiquing as the years go by.

Josh P. 💚🧠✌️

Virtual Mentors

Stop waiting for permission to live YOUR life the way YOU envision.

I almost denied myself the potential to live the amazing life I’ve been living and experiencing all that I have by almost choosing fear disguised as practicality to live a “traditional life” defined by majority of society.

I say “traditional” life because what I chose to make a career out of and continue to do so is considered “unconventional” and full of risk / against the grain.

I know not all people are fortunate as I was/am to have my family support my decisions but the truth of the matter is, once you’re an adult you don’t need support from anyone other than your own state of being.

Easier said than done but there have been times where I felt isolated and alone, despite all those in my corner supporting me.

I had to seek out others for inspiration, motivation and support for the path I’ve been carving for myself. I call them “virtual mentors”. By doing so, some of those individuals have become my friends and I’ve attracted other friends on a similar path to become apart of my network and support one another no matter how we may feel.

That’s the motive behind me efforts and sharing these posts. To be a “virtual mentor” as I like to call it.

You don’t need anything other than what you already posses: a heart beat, a vision, work ethic, persistence, and purpose.

The rest of the equation and the path will unfold as the desired future vision and action steps to said vision becomes the focus.

I’ve personally been focusing on letting go of control of anything other than my actions and state of being. Having more faith in stepping into the unknown while letting go of the how and focusing as much as possible on the WHY and WHAT.

I’d love to hear from you in regards to your perspective of this post and what’s helped you along your journey.

Josh P. 💚🧠✌️

National Keto Day

BMX & Keto saved my life. It was 2010, I was 21 years old and I believed I was about to die I sat in that doctors office alone.

I was on top of the world living my dream as a professional BMX athlete, just rode X-Games the prior season, and I believed I was invincible until a BMX crash one day led to an MRI that accidentally found a massive brain tumor.

Because we can’t see our brain, I find we often dismiss how we may harm it on a daily basis. I learned this the hard way but YOU don’t have to wait for something tragic to take your brain’s health serious and make changes along the way.

It’s my life’s mission to shift perspectives on brain health and diet through the lens of my life journey so others can choose to make changes from a state of joy and inspiration rather than pain and suffering as I experienced, which forced me to react to a situation in order to save my life.

In 2013, 3 years after the massive brain tumor was removed from my skull, and 2 other smaller tumors that grew back were treated with Gamma Knife Radiotherapy (& shrank), I read a book called Grain Brain by Dr David Perlmutter. Grain Brain opened my eyes to how important both food choices & blood sugar levels are to consider when looking to optimize your brain’s health, performance, and resiliency.

Fast forward to 2017/18, after a third diagnosis resulting in 2 additional brain tumors in my skull, I found The Ketogenic Bible, Dr. Ryan Lowery & Dr. Jacob Wilson, & Prüvit, all of which changed my life in so many ways.

Thanks to a keto lifestyle (keto diet & Pruvit exogenous ketones), I have been able to improve my brain’s performance, improve my body composition, improve my lab markers, & keto/ketones is why I believe the 4 tumors I live with in my skull today are not progressing or limiting my potential despite no surgery, treatment, or medication this 3rd time around.

Keto is more than who you are or what you do/eat.

Keto, to me, is raising your level of consciousness to optimize your life.

Josh P. 💚🧠✌️