10 Years Ago I Thought I was Dead

10 years ago I wasn’t sure if I would die or not. I was living my dream as a professional BMX athlete at the young age of 21 when I was told I may lose my life from a massive brain tumor that was found accidentally after a crash during an off-season training day.

After a 6-hour brain surgery, leaving me with 75 staples, 16 stitches, and 4 titanium screws in my skull, I woke up grateful to be alive along with a whole new perspective on life.

I saw the surgery as a way of preserving my life so I could continue riding my bike for a living as I dreamed of as a child.

Little did I know, this was my initiation to transform my entire being, inside and out, and how I showed up in life given this second chance at living.

I began auditing who I was, what choices I was making, how I could optimize my choices to better my life, what I wanted my life to be like, and who I wanted to become. During that process, I found the power of our conscious choice in mindset and the ketogenic diet and lifestyle from the perspective of prioritizing my brian’s health, resilience, and performance so I could ensure my best attempt at becoming a high-performer in all areas of my life.

I used to identify as a pro BMX athlete and multiple brain tumor survivor. Today, even though I live with 4 brain tumors, I identify as someone striving to improve the lives of others around me and live my life to the fullest while giving as little focus and energy to the unwanted masses in my brain. I have created a daily practice of auditing my thoughts, choices, and actions so I can show up as my best self to follow my higher purpose of inspiring others to shift their perspectives, discover their full potential and create the lives they want.

My favorite part of my journey is learning the importance of becoming conscious. This consciousness has transferred to all areas of my life with a higher sense of self-awareness and it’s allowed me to improve my efforts in serving others.

I want to thank you all for the love, support, push to become better, willingness to reach out and share your stories with me, and for believing in my message and efforts to change how we live our lives.

Josh P. 💚🧠✌️

Power of Intention

There’s a lot of fear being shared right now.

I’ve learned that fear is a choice in thought that ultimately creates a chemical reaction known as a feeling or emotion.

These emotions influence our actions on a daily basis and if we’re not careful, it’ll form our identity moving forward.

Something I’ve learned from my virtual and personal mentors is that where our intention and focus goes, our energy flows.

If you’re worried about an outcome in the future that has not yet manifested, how do you think that’ll influence your emotions and actions?

Will it be aligned with your desired outcome or aligned with your fears?

More times than not, it’ll be aligned with whatever our majority focus is set on and it’s why it’s important to audit our thoughts.

It’s ok to think something as long as you don’t give too much energy and focus to it, if it’s an unwanted thought.

Easier said than done, especially right now, but it’s worth the effort from my experience.

Our unconscious mind/brain doesn’t know the difference between “I don’t want” and “I want” as it just takes in the part that follows either statement.

I’d love to know your thoughts so let me know!

Josh P. 💚🧠✌️

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Fear and Purpose

Fearful times like these call for a strong PURPOSE that’s going to be your anchor every day when “motivation” runs out.

Even if it wasn’t for the COVID-19 scare, fear is going to come and go in your life and motivation will do the same.

Motivation is just elevated energy in a moment and I’ve seen it come and go several times until I gained clarity around my PURPOSE.

My purpose is what keeps me moving forward each day even when I feel like giving up, figuratively speaking and literally. Even in my darkest moments, something inside of me challenged those dark thoughts. It was my PURPOSE.

My PURPOSE keeps me focused and living with integrity.

It creates passion for my goals and allows me to become more and more patient with my process because I know each little effort and goal reached is one step closer to fulfilling my PURPOSE.

My PURPOSE is to inspire change in perspective that leads others to take new action in their lives and become empowered to live as healthy, happy, and successfully as possible.

I ultimately want people to see their realities through the lens of my journey and choose to make changes in their lives from a perspective of joy and inspiration rather than fear and suffering.

I suffered long enough and have been in many moments of fear for my life and I’ve realized they were wake up calls to fulfill my higher PURPOSE than self.

Rather than look for “motivation”, why not find a deep-rooted PURPOSE that transcends yourself?

I can’t promise it’ll be easy but I can promise a clear PURPOSE won’t let you down and will pick you up when you fall down.

Josh P. 💚🧠✌️

It Was NOT A Pain Pill Deficiency

A pain pill deficiency wasn’t the cause of me suffering for over a year.

Being denied medical imaging of my brain upon request as a paying customer of health insurance almost cost me my life.

Being judged by my cover almost killed me and I won’t sit by and let others go without a voice and feel as suppressed as I did.

This photo is from after waking up from a 6 hour brain surgery resulting in 4 titanium screws in my skull along with 75 staples and 16 stitches.

This moment was a profound life-altering moment that changed the course of my life in more ways than anyone could have fathomed.

I got back to riding my BMX bike at an elite level while continuing to make a name for myself around the world and continued to live my dream.

2 more brain tumor diagnoses, an ACL reconstructive surgery, and my best year competing later, I decided to make a choice to walk away from my dream to pursue a new dream of coming a worldwide name as a speaker inspiring new perspectives in others that lead to new actions and choices, an author, and someone dedicated to making an impact in society built on a higher purpose than self.

Self, me (Josh Perry), was focused on escaping a plethora of pain as a child and teenager on a mission to prove others wrong by succeeding at something not many other than my parents and brother really believed in me to accomplish.

Self, was living in stress and becoming more and more selfish (focused on myself to survive and succeed). After almost loosing my life more than once, self turned to purpose to serve and support others.

That’s where I am now, joining my path from self to purpose.

Taking massive risks in all areas of my like to be seen as who I truly am and have been suppressing over the years out of deep rooted insecurities.

I’ve learned those past beliefs don’t serve me or my mission to serve others.

You don’t need such a wake up call as I’ve experienced multiple times to make a change in your life to be more fulfilled, healthy and happy.

You can choose to change in a state of joy and inspiration or pain and suffering, but I can tell you making the choice to change from inspiration and joy is much more pleasant.

Josh P. 💚🧠✌️

Truth Will Set You Free

Ever heard the saying “the truth will set your free”? I felt confined most of my life with regards to speaking my truth to my fullest capacity.

This confinement lead to a gap between my truest self and what others perceived of me.

I suppressed my truth in various forms of my life during many experiences in different times.

The voice suppression began at a younger age with a violent and abusive step father that punished me in various forms for speaking out with how I felt, what I was thinking, and in general if it was a time that triggered his anger.

This voice suppression led into my adult years as I have realized I was conditioned to suppress my truth out of fear for getting hurt or being “wrong”. This conditioning almost killed me as I was 21 and let the medical authorities convince me that I was “fine” even though I was suffering on a daily basis until a concussion led to an MRI finding the cause- a brain tumor.

This conditioning led me to not showing up and expressing myself in my truest form, which affected many of my personal and business relationships.

This conditioning almost prevented me from sharing my truth around the ketogenic diet and lifestyle, which has allowed me to support many people around the globe with empowering themselves to improve their health and quality of life.

After a third brain tumor diagnosis, shortly after placing top 10 in the BMX World Series, I left my dream to speak my truth with no regard to anything besides the purpose of serving others around the world.

Since doing so, I’ve felt more free and have unlocked so much potential to do new things, reach more people, and learn more about myself.

I’ve made it my mission to inspire perspective in others that leads to owning their truth and speaking it as much as they possibly can while empowering themselves to be as healthy and happy as possible.

There’s no reason anyone should feel as if they don’t have a voice and it’s our responsibility to support each of our truths and voice to share that truth.

Josh P. 💚🧠✌️

What Are You WILLING To Do?

What are you willing to do for the things you say you “need” and “want” in your life?

Are you willing to sacrifice moments of instant gratification for the long game of sustainability?

Are you willing to put yourself in uncomfortable ale situations or moments of immense pain like I experienced in this photo?

The difference between a pro and amateur is the willingness to push past moments of physical and mental pain, fear, doubt, worry, judgment, stress and whatever else comes your way.

The future vision we create as a pro of our life’s journey is what defines us. We’re not defined by our past, who we showed up as yesterday, the times we fell down or “failed”, or the times we heard the word “no”. We are clear on our purpose behind the vision and won’t let anything stop us, no matter how far off course we find ourselves.

Pain is just information. Use the information to trouble shoot navigating forward to success.

When you find yourself comfortable, that should set off an alarm that it’s time to optimize.

Adaptations are healthy and necessary to build strength, but comfort can lead to stagnant phases in life and lead to unhappiness.

That’s what I’ve found in my life and BMX has taught me there’s always more in us to optimize our current level in area of life, if we’re willing to put the work in.

Get after it with clear, purposeful, and align intent that matches the vision you’ve created for your life.

Don’t settle for anything less and don’t let moment of pain persuade you off the path.

Josh P. 💚🧠✌️

The Cycle

I don’t believe in one over the other. Do you?

To me, they both have biologically responses and both affect our brain and physiology.

We have a choice in what we feed our brains and body every single day and both of these choices make up who we are.

If we are not happy or content with our current status of being, we can change it. Some don’t believe that to be true and find themselves stuck where they are happy. Sometimes they get inspired to make changes but it doesn’t last due to the underlying disbelief in their efforts.

When it comes to nutritional choices, I’ve come a long way and can assure you that you can make changes to better your health, performance and overall quality of life.

When it comes to the mental side of things, I had a deep rooted belief that I was always going to be broke, I wasn’t capable of “success” outside of BMX, and that I was going to work a job when I was done riding BMX professionally because I had no value to offer the world and was destined to work a job for someone else.

Once I began learning how both the mind & body really work, my perspective shifted in profound ways. I began to empower myself with tools to take back my health and to achieve success in other areas of my life like my relationships, starting my own business, my education, the ability to spread my message and purpose to support others around the world, manifesting amazing people and experiences in my life, and the list goes on.

What we choose to consume (food/beverage) affects our physiology and our brain, which in return affects our thinking. What we choose to consume in terms of content and time with people within our lives affects our thinking, which influences the choices we make nutritionally.

As you can see, it’s a cycle that continues until we’ve become conscious of it and make a choice to optimize areas of our lives we desire to do so.

I was one of the many to commonly say “I’m fine now, so why do I need to change”. Then, when I was 21, my life flipped upside down when I was told I may die of a brain tumor.

Change starts with consciousness, or awareness, and progresses with a desire to change and optimize choices.

Josh P. 💚🧠✌️

The Gap

This was the moment I woke up from a 6 hour brain surgery.

This “gap” of who I wanted to be & how I felt internally, & how others perceived me and my life, developed from a young age and continued to grow as I progressed in my BMX career.

On the outside, others would often assume I lived “the life”, which I have been fortunate to have worked my ass off to live such a life with amazing experiences.

Others would assume my life was easy, I must have a ton of money, I was always happy, and would often say “it must be nice” when I got to travel the world, meet amazing human beings, and or design my days to do what I wanted when I wanted.

Although I did and do live such a abundant life, I have been suppressing deep rooted limiting beliefs, insecurities, pain, and unworthiness.

It took being told “Josh, you may die” at the young age of 21 to wake my ass up to begin expressing my true inner self, and to begin letting go of all those emotional blocks holding me back from true joy and fulfillment.

It lead me on a quest of progression to become the best version of myself, inside and out.

It taught me that we all have amazing amounts of potential to change our lives and the lives of others when the effort is put forth with a clear vision of what we want to create backed by an immense amount of purpose and dedication to that vision.

It taught me life is all about perspective- how we CHOOSE to see the world and our lives in regards to our personal reality and the actions we take to create that reality.

It taught me how health is an internal aspect of reality, not solely what’s on the outside or in a scale.

It taught me that our reality is a manifestation of our choices in life- what we consume (nutritionally and mentally), if and how we move our bodies, how we choose to think and what we choose to believe, and how we choose to act in our lives in which create an emotional experience, all of which makes up our identity known as “self”. At the end of the day, this moment in that surgical bed not only saved my life, it led me to my higher purpose of showing others what we are all capable of when the desire to write our own life script is large enough.

Josh P.💚🧠✌️

Keto Context

I can’t stand posts that say “carbs don’t make you fat.” Or “fat doesn’t make you fat” when that’s both true and false.

How so?

Context. Context of the individual and the source of said fat or carbohydrate. Some fats promote insulin resistance while others promote ketogenesis. Some carbs are slow digesting and don’t raise glucose levels nearly as much as others.

Not everyone can eat certain carbs or in specific amounts. Not everyone has the same insulin sensitivity or lack thereof. Not everyone is the same age with the same body composition. Not everyone has the same metabolic health in regards to mitochondria. AND, not everyone has the same lifestyle.

Blanket statements like these cause harm and confusion with people that don’t know that there’s a ton of context involved.

AND yes, you can put on body fat even with consuming exogenous ketones.

Exogenous ketones ARE NOT a fat burning drink. Drinking exogenous ketones to reach a state of ketosis DOES NOT mean you are burning fat. It means you drank a form of energy that puts ketones in your blood. Yes, exogenous ketones come with calories (energy) and can contribute to fat gain in some circumstances.

That’s why having a goal with a clear purpose, a proper plan of implementing progressive steps that bring a ton of clarity to the picture, and a way to track progress beyond just a scale is beyond critical.

Also, someone in your corner that knows how to guide/navigate others to reach their goals without trying to sell you a miracle “fat burning” drink misleading you to think that’s all it takes. Exogenous ketones are an amazing tool, if consuming the correct form and brand and doing so “responsibly”.

Context context context.

Josh P. 💚🧠✌️

Keto= Only Diet With Bio-Marker

Keto is the only diet with a bio marker that can be tracked to ensure you’re making choices that facilitate this metabolic state known as ketosis.

Keto is short for all things pertaining to ketosis, a process of accumulating ketones in your blood stream at it above 0.5mmol while simultaneously having lowered blood glucose, which can range from 60-90+mg/dL depending on the individual.

With that said, just because a particular food is “keto-friendly” or actually “ketogenic”, doesn’t mean you’re now in ketosis.

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 & their goals.

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

There’s various purpose for a variety of therapeutic needs that a ketogenic diet, or, a state of ketosis, can help support thanks to ketones & their unique energy & signaling properties.

Thanks to @justpruvit, we now have the added support of an exogenous (external) form of R-BHB (the ketone body our liver naturally produces while on a ketogenic diet).

This allows people to get deeper into a state of ketosis for specific neurological purposes like fighting cancer, epileptic seizure, or reaching heightened cognitive focus states of being.

As for those like myself not necessarily fighting cancer or seizures, ketones have a profound ability to help support the mitochondria, which can lead to improved and heightened levels of energy, reduction in inflammation & free radical production, epigenetic (gene expression) signaling, improved sleep & recovery, sparing muscle protein, & much more.

That’s what I follow a ketogenic diet & consume exogenous ketones as a “fourth macronutrient” as they do come with calories but are much more than just energy.

This is the keto lifestyle I refer to that involves specific food choices, exogenous ketones, fasting protocols that support my goals, testing my blood, supplementing with berberine & fishoil, & continuing to educate myself.

Do you make &/or take ketones?

Josh P. 💚🧠✌️