So welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast this week. We've got a special guest and a good friend joining me on the podcast She's the founder of thrive global and you probably know her as the co-founder and former editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Ariana Huffington Welcome Exciting to have you on the program now. We're going to be discussing the importance of sleep one of your favorite Subjects, this is her best-selling book from the New York Times diet and I also want to talk about your experience with the plant paradox and What success really means and who better to talk about success than you? I mean you've been named Time magazine's top 100 most influential people and that's pretty important you're on Forbes most powerful women's list and You've authored so many books including the sleep revolution and I must say over the holidays. I read your book on Picasso biography of Picasso and boy, I got to tell you it changed my opinion Picasso I even have an etching of his and I don't I look at it in a totally different way now They will get into that so two years ago or actually almost three now You stepped away from your positions at AOL and the Huffington both and you mark launch thrive global So you're offering science-based solutions to try and end stress and burnout. Is that a good summary? Absolutely So how the heck do you do all this? I mean you're gonna tell us that you can avoid stress and burnout with what you do Well, what happens is that now that you can avoid stress, but you can avoid stress becoming cumulative until it becomes burnout and I actually Reach that conclusion the hard way. I actually collapsed in 2007 At two years into building the Huffington post.  So I became more and more of an evangelist I wrote a book called thrive and Then because everybody wanted to talk about sleep. I wrote a book about sleep and two years ago actually I left the Huffington post which was a very hard decision because it was like a third child and There's a global media company with my name on the door But I felt that I wanted to spend a hundred percent of the rest of my life helping people lead lives with less stress and Avoiding burnout because as you know stress is so connected with disease and it is preventable and That's really what thrive does it's both a media platform think of the Huffington post without politics Hard to separate and also B2B we're going to companies and help them improve their cultures and see the Return on investment see the impact on productivity on engagement on nutrition on health care costs, etc And then we've productized all that Into behavior change micro steps because as you know There is a new year resolutions don't work is because they are so big and People do them maybe for a week two weeks and then they give up. So our behavior change Prescriptions are all based on what we call micro steps too small to fail Okay, so that's give me so it's the new year. Give me an example of a micro step that You can't fail that great, let's say that you want to Reduce your addiction to your phone and to social media and to technology Which as you know is a growing source of stress. Yes, because we are all increasingly addicted to this thing and We find it hard to disconnect at night to go to sleep 72% of people sleep with their phone by their bed So if they wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom or for whatever reason They are tempted even if they tell themselves. I'm not going to look at my phone if they can't immediately go back to sleep and They go to their phone and that again all the science tells us is incredibly disruptive to getting deep sleep so and one of my favorite micro steps and we have like over 700 is Pick a time at the end of your day that you declare the end of your working day It's an arbitrary and Because the truth is that anybody who has an interesting job does not really have an end to their day I mean you could spend all night, right answering emails and handling things. Correct. I could do the same and If anybody tells me I can do everything I could possibly have done by the end of the day I say I think you should change jobs. Your job isn't interesting and challenging enough Right, you're right. Yeah, so given that we need to pick an arbitrary end To declare an end and we declare the end by turning off our phone and Charging it outside our bedroom. So that's a little step. It's a ritual But it's very significant because you have a clear demarcation between your day life with all its challenges and problems and Your night life, which should be all about recharging and Reconnecting with a deeper part of ourselves We've even produced a little Product which is a charging station that looks like a phone bed And it has a little blankie it can charge up to ten phones and iPads So it could be for the whole family and you're supposed to put your phone under the blankie Tack it in say good night and reconnect in the morning and you're fully recharged both the phone and you Perfect. Now, you know my friend Dr. Makola would say that the other reason not to have your phone by your bed is the electromagnetic waves that are constantly coming out of your phone, right and Disrupting almost every like every cellular function that we have and you're right sleeping with a cell phone near your bed is a really dumb idea and even if you turn it off and You don't have to worry about the electromagnetic waves It's still a reminder of everything you have to deal with in your life because our phone It should never really be called a phone anymore The last thing we do on our phone is phone anybody and it's really the repository of Every challenge every problem every demand on your time and attention and we need to disconnect from that Is there is there a time during the day that people should have a time out from a phone? Like we used to have in kindergarten We had to take a half an hour nap whether we wanted to or not absolutely first of all I'll try for example We all are meetings, you know leadership meetings product meetings anything our devices free Because you know what happens at meetings and people claim to be taking notes. They're not They're alleviating boredom. They're texting them updating their Facebook's whatever and We tell everybody listen if you have something more important to do don't come to the meeting If you're in the meeting you need to be a hundred percent in the meeting and what's happened at the moment our Attention span Has been dramatically reduced. I mean it's now actually lower than that of the goldfish and So Anytime we there is a moment of boredom in the conversation whether it's an over dinner or in a meeting We automatically go to our phone looking for stimulation. What were you saying? Oh? I Exactly so if you can stay present then we're really going to be able to contribute right, so You know you're You're a woman and you know I have two girls and a wife and three female dogs One of the things that I'm particularly Empowered by What do we do with teenage girls and young girls whose lives have suddenly become focused on their phone and Facebook and Instagram and how they appear it How is how is thrive going to help with all this so here's what we are doing first of all That's such a major problem and we have the data that mental health problems, especially among teenage girls Depression anxiety are skyrocketing and it's a global problem. I just got back from China and India Yes, we have a We have an office in Mumbai thrive is doing a lot in India our biggest investor in our series a was Jack mine Joe Tsai so we're from Alibaba, so we're doing a lot in China and The mental health problems among teenagers are a real Epidemic right now. So what we are doing at thrive is Bringing them all the latest Data Ancient wisdom and new role models because people's minds and hearts are more likely to change through storytelling than data So we'll bring them the latest science, but frankly what moves the needle is Bringing them people they admire Who are talking about why they are going on a digital detox or why they are disconnecting from social media? We had Selena Gomez for example Riding on thrive about her digital detox and taking time off social media and that moves the needle in the same way That among business people when I had Jeff Bezos right on thrive why he sleeps for eight hours a night It went crazy viral people could hardly believe it, but he had this whole analysis of how it improves his decision-making So you can give people the science you can give them mentioned wisdom which is validated by modern science But the stories we tell Are what help convince people that there is another way to live and to work Yeah, you know, I mean our all of our cultures are based on verbal storytelling Up until you know just a few thousand years ago. There is no written word There was no other way and Almost everything and we're we're hardwired to receive stories. And that's a brilliant idea There's a professor of neurology at Arizona University of Arizona Blanking on her name, but she says that knowledge Does not imply action and so you can know what you're supposed to do But actually doing that so I think having somebody like yourself or Jeff Bezos say If I don't get eight hours of sleep, I'm not going to be a good, you know captain of industry Yes, just he actually analyzed and he said if I get less sleep My decisions he said are five to 20% less good and the future of Amazon depends on the quality of my decisions Not the quantity of my decisions so and we have a lot of People who are going to be listened to either in business or media or Entertainment writing about what they are doing to take back control of their lives now I Approach this as you know from the gut and food and The longer I've been at this the more impressed I am with the power of Not only foods, but also the microbiome the guts that live in our Gut the bugs to actually affect our anxiety and depression and you know I have some personal experiences with that with one of my children and It is amazing at least in my humble opinion the power of food certain foods To absolutely make your brain crazy any any mother of a four-year-old knows that You know a trip to Disneyland with simple carbohydrates that you get a hyperactive Child who suddenly then collapses screaming and crying and you can see just immediately the power of certain foods to affect brain function If you I'm sure Thrive is incorporating that into your absolutely and We have incorporated The number one country rule Which is that your health depends more on what you don't eat Rather than what you eat because people may Follow different prescriptions. I mean there may be vegan there may be meat eaters but if they can stay away from sugar and Simple carbohydrates and processed foods That's already a big victory and also as you know this sleep Movement and diet are incredibly interconnected like I have all the science in the sleep book that if you are Sleep-deprived your body physiologically craves carbs and sugars So it's not even a mental decision It's like physiological. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right years ago in my first book doctor country's diet evolution I had a study of Actually college students who were put in a slight sleep lab And they were allowed to sleep for eight hours and then they were Awakened and they looked at a hormone that suppresses hunger Called leptin and the leptin level is nice and high so they then took them and allowed them to only sleep six hours and Their leptin level was very low, but the hunger hormone ghrelin went sky high so then So that actually proved in fact what we're talking about that lack of sleep makes you hungry and It makes you hungry for simple carbohydrates. I learned that as a heart surgeon to stay awake all night You know, I just eat simple carbs to stay awake But the interesting thing is they took the same students They told them that they were going to let them sleep for six hours, but they let them sleep for eight hours Interestingly, they behaved as if they only had slept for six hours. They're hunger hormones sky high So psychologically they were prepared for a short sleep period So it's amazing. You know the power of even anticipation of what's going to happen Do you ever use an aura ring? You know, I love the order ring and I used to use it, but now after and All the work I've done on sleep. I'm kind of good on sleep. You don't need it anymore. Well, it's like I I do get my eight hours 95% of the time like in all our lives, you know Something happens. There's a delayed flight or there is jet lag But 95% of the time it's my biggest priority and I tell a lot of my friends if they are trying to lose weight or Get feet and they wake up before they've gotten enough sleep To go to the gym.  Maybe nine mine is eight But there is one to one and a half percent of the relation that has a genetic mutation and they don't need a lot of sleep We know it if we have it. I know I don't have it And they're the people who wake up after four hours and they're feeling great and Yeah, you know Michael DeBakey one of the most famous heart surgeons in the world only slept about four hours and He lived into his late 90s on four hours of sleep. The problem is the people who worked for him If they thought that because dr. DeBakey and slept for four hours, they should too That's the problem and there are some people in Positions of authority who have this genetic mutation and that's why we need to inform people There is a test as you know, there is a genetic test people can take if they're not sure But normally I think if you have any kind of awareness, you should know if you have the genetic mutation or not No, it's true My my brother-in-law who's a cardiologist really wanted to be a heart surgeon But he knew that he could not go, you know, without the sleep that heart surgeons often do And so he became a cardiologist so he could sleep more and he's obviously much more intelligent than I am But yeah, I could I the longest I ever went without sleep Seriously was 72 hours on call in my residency program And then I went for and then I slept for four hours and actually went to see an orchid show. It's true story now looking back You know we most residents before the rules of how long a resident could stay in the hospital We were so sleep deprived and made quite frankly bad decisions But you know our our mentors had done that and doggone it. Hey, we're gonna do it You have you would do it But we've done a lot on the thrive media platform about a doctor burnout as you know It's a real crisis. Yes, and they increase in doctor suicides and we had a great surgeon from Cedar Sinai who wrote a very powerful piece and About his own experience and the changes that have to happen So we are trying to put a spotlight on this crisis in the same way We're trying to put a spotlight on the crisis you mentioned among teenagers and we've launched the program of Mental health on campus. We have at the moment Thrive editors in over 70 universities working with students Writing about what's happening because as you know a lot of colleges don't have enough mental health facilities or The ability to provide the help that students need but which often is incredibly simple and Just the right foods the right sleep and Movement can deal with an enormous amount of mental health problems. We're not talking about You know bipolar disorders or schizophrenia. We're talking about garden variety Depression and anxiety and they are so connected to what we eat How much we sleep and are we moving? And those three things are the things that really are lacking and you know in most colleges plus Most of us were away from our parents for the first time and often Extended different distances and you don't have the the family unit.  So it's Thrive forming communities in campuses where that's what we're trying to do to form communities to to give people Platform where they can share their problems where they can support each other and to also offer them Knowledge and microsteps. I love what you said knowledge is not enough Yeah, unfortunately, it's not I mean I have my Apple watch, you know, you can it can tell you a lot of things And it's going to be able to tell you more and more things It can tell you your heart rate variability your blood pressure But if it doesn't tell you so what can I do? That's exactly You know, so my blood pressure is high. What do I do? Do I go to emergency? Maybe it was just to chill out go to bed Maybe it should do that Actually, this crazy thing says, you know, you this morning it says you should try to go to sleep between 745 and 9 o'clock tonight, and I you know, I'm looking at my phone 745 I'd love to do that But I'm actually probably going to be driving back from Gundry MD up to San Barbara about that time But you know the watch is actually right, you know the ring says that's what you should do and You know in the good old days and wasn't that long ago We slept with the with sunlight and when the Sun went down Time to give it up and when the Sun got up It's time to give it up and I try to learn from my dogs, you know dogs when the Sun goes down They start looking at you like hey, you know, let's get to bed Now unfortunately when the Sun comes up, but you know 430 you one of my dogs is on my face thing Time to get up Sun's up but even Speaking of sleep up until the light bulb was invented our source of light was candlelight or gas lamps which have a lot of red and yellow spectrum light which Actually is very Calming and sleep inducing now we have Very white light which has a lot of blue light in it and most of our devices are Blue light and as you and I know blue light is what keeps us awake And I think one of our struggles with sleep in the modern era is we're just constantly Bombarded with blue light. It's on our TVs. It's on our phones. That's why it's so important to disconnect from screens and And leave yourself a little time for a transition to sleep and In the sleep revolution I write about What we do with our babies, you know, we don't just drop them in bed. We lower the lights We give them a bath. We sing them a lullaby We prepare them To disconnect from the world with we read them goodnight moon, which is a very psychologically profound book Disconnecting from every item of your room and your world. I actually recorded on audible a parody called goodnight smartphone Because we need to help ourselves of a transition I get a transition to sleep I try to make it 30 minutes before I'm going to turn off the lights But even if it ends up being 10 minutes, I like to have a hot bath or a hot shower which is which is really like a ritual cleansing away of the day and We're dedicated sleep clothes that I used to sleep in the same clothes that went to the gym in not literally the ones I wore that day, but you know the same t-shirt and sweatpants and Then in bed, I only read physical books and Books that have nothing to do with work, you know reading poetry philosophy novels and All those things prepare our brains to go to sleep because it's not our bodies That need preparation our bodies are exhausted by the time we get into bed, but if our brains are going going going We need to slow them down so what I'm getting from you is I'm gonna Call Penny my wife and so I want her to give me a bath Sing me a lullaby before I go to bed every night Well, you don't need your wife to do it now. You can do it for her Tell Penny I'm coming tonight, and I'm going to prepare you for bed I'm going to get you for bed, and then you can get into bed and read Rumi or your favorite poet together All right, I'm gonna pet my dog or something So you're you know you are the epitome of the Powerful successful woman. What what does success mean to you? Do you have any well in in thrive the book I wrote before the sleep revolution? I try to redefine success because Success in modern life has been reduced down to these two metrics of money and power status and I feel this is an incredibly shrunk and definition of success So I wanted to expand it to include what I called the third metric Which includes well-being our health, you know if you don't have your health It doesn't matter how much money or how much power you have, you know your life is so diminished and Wisdom, you know, how can you tap into the wisdom? We all carry in us, but so often we're disconnected from The third part of the third metric is wonder, you know life is so filled with wonder whether it's nature or the goodness of human beings or music or Anything that we are drawn to and so often we are so distracted That we miss it. I mean, I remember when I started changing the way I worked and lived Walking down the streets of New York in Soho where I live as you know and For the first time I actually looked around as opposed to being on my phone or texting while walking And I was with a friend and I remember saying to her this building is so beautiful When did it go up and she said 1930 and You know, I wonder what else have I missed and the final Part of the third metric is giving, you know, a full life includes giving and Whatever form it takes and it doesn't have to be financial giving it can be giving of yourself. It can be having Personal connections with people that we normally tend to have in personal transactional connections with whether it's the barista in the coffee shop or them the person who cleans our office and So I think that's what creates what the Greek philosophers called the good life So that success that success. Yeah, I tell you an interesting story that I talk about in my next book the longevity paradox That when I was a during college in a medical school I was a scrub tech scrub nurse in inner-city hospital in Atlanta called Grady Memorial and I worked the night shift and We had a black gentleman who who mopped the floors and he always had an unlit cigar and he always had a giant smile on his face and he was always singing as he mopped the floor humming and One day I said I stopped in the middle of the night and I said, you know, you are so happy and You know, here's a menial job. I said, why are you so happy and he says, are you kidding? I have the best job in the world Really he says you guys you doctors and new nurses and new techs have to see to do the operation And to see you have to have good light and you see if I don't get these floors mop clean There's not enough light reflecting off the floor So my job is the most important job for you to do what you do well And what if I don't keep these floors clean you guys can't save lives and That was great success and great happiness and it stayed with me ever since and I actually write about it in the next book That's amazing because it was really he had found meaning in his job. Exactly, you know, and he was right And you know, and that's why he was singing all the time and happy So yeah, you're right that we got to find meaning and that's that's success. I agree with you so Similar thing why are so many people?  There was no there's nobody who has succeeded was not failed along the way We could do an entire podcast on my failures Mine and so she used to say, you know failure is not the opposite of success Failure is a stepping stone to success So she kind of made us be willing to take risks Because if you're not willing to fail, you are not going to take risks and anything interesting in life has no guarantees true and so and I feel very lucky that She gave us unconditional loving meaning Her love wasn't conditioned on whether we succeeded or failed and that was like a foundation For us to aim for whatever we wanted to try and do So she didn't say you only got an A and why didn't you get an A plus? Exactly. No, she would come home from school with our grades with flowers for both of us. No matter what we got No matter what? Yeah, because she knew we were making an effort So, you know effort, it's like it's not like if we're lazy or not working But her love was not just conditioned on whether we got the A and you see now We talked about teenage girls and mental health problems We see so much pressure being put on them to excel to get into an Ivy League college or again None of that is is really what determines a good life even a successful life in a broader sense of success So what do you tell like a tiger mom just to use an example that maybe this You know getting your kid into the best best kindergarten and you know, they better have straight A's and you know They better have SAT scores off the top or their failures. How do we help this current? Well, actually, I love a mature who wrote the tiger mom When my book Thrive came out she actually invited me. She's a Yale law professor and She invited me to Yale and she and I did a conversation called Striving versus thriving. Yeah, and and we talked about that and my argument to The ultimate tiger mom was that you look at the data It's not working. It's like he drives kids to major problems and to lacking and The self-confidence which is so key to Achieving things and trying for things and so I think we need to look at the data of What pushing our children too hard is doing, you know, the over-scheduled child that goes from violin class to an additional reading class and then another And preparation for SATs, etc. Etc. And what for? Yeah, I mean Nobody has a time to be a kid anymore as far as I can tell and you know that need for playfulness, which is part of our own need as adults to to ability to play and To ability to enjoy life And No matter what because there is no life that doesn't include challenges. He's something that you learn as a child So I thrived you do you have playtime? I mean can here at Dundee MD. I mean we have Jim. We have dogs Is there playtime schedule? Yes, we have first of all we have and our cultural values and One of them is Relentlessly prioritized and get comfortable with incompletions Because if you are not comfortable with incompletions You are never going to have that arbitrary end to the day which always includes incompletions during the day we have free must you know massages chair massages and healthy food that we bring in and We have Our own workshops that will provide for companies. We also provide for our own Employees and I think one of the things that one of my favorites is Whenever we hire somebody part of the onboarding is what we call the entry interview You know everybody does exit interviews We do entry interviews and the first question is what's important to you outside of work And how can we support you and our chief content officer for example? Said what's important to me is to be able to make my therapy appointment every Tuesday You know at seven o'clock whatever this is not It's a very reasonable request and You know she had not been able in her previous job to to to go for on time forever so we She found in the company and account we call an accountability body and the accountability body is Responsible for getting her out of the office by six so she can make her appointment at the other end of town by seven Literally, you know she could take her things and put them by the elevator So you are you know and I Feel this is just a small example of how you can support each other at work not just In terms of what you are doing for work, but what you are doing to actually make your life healthier and More effective as a result and then it also creates real bonds among core workers so try Now is teaching companies How how to do this right yes because you mentioned earlier, and I totally agreed that you know work If you don't have healthy employees everything falls apart the days lost from illness in this country the Insurance costs are really what we're killing companies. You may have great people, but if they're not yes So give me an example. How do you come in to a company and affect change? so we come into a company and we have a lot of multinational companies like Accenture JP Morgan Nestle the Hilton Hotels and We do pro workshops which can be Half day day long two day leadership work workshops executive workshops Call center employees, you know at every level we work with them to reduce stress and One of my favorites is the call centers Because a lot of companies have terrible problems with attrition among call center employees And as you know attrition is very expensive. Yeah, so but they told us Listen, we need you to fix our problem on call center employees, but you can't take a lot of their time because they're So we created this Minute interventions as you know because you're a scientist It takes less than 60 seconds to course correct from stress so and We know through machine learning when a call center employee has gotten a particularly nasty stressful call From a customer Yeah, and the next call is a thrive call That in under one minute tells them We now want you to stop and remember three things. You are grateful for Or we want you to stop and stand and stretch and we guide them through a stretch sequence We want you to stop and breathe consciously inhale and exhale for 45 seconds and these Simple interventions have a game-changing impact because as we said at the beginning You're not going to eliminate stress What we can prevent Categorically is stress becoming cumulative Until we get home and we can't Go to sleep because we're so wired and our cortisol levels are up Or we have to self-medicate to bring ourselves down So instead we're going to have a hot bath and hot bath love lullaby and lullaby and lighter candle Whatever works for you. So tell me about your experience with the plant paradox so I loved reading the plant paradox and Practicing it and because it runs so true and then and I saw how good I felt when I avoided You know the simple carbohydrates the processed foods and the Meets that were not grass-fed and I love the sort of How deep you go into this? distinction between really grass-fed and Quote-unquote organic Which you know may mean simply that the chickens or The cows have been fed corn or all the things that actually Are not what our bodies need So it's been Really great, and I love it. I can eat good cheeses since that's my weakness And I I can give up sugar but a good Swiss cheese or good Cheese that's not processed and and found already pre-wrapped and everything. Yeah, and just changes the way you feel and Your energy and how will you wake up? Well, and I haven't seen you in a couple months now, and you look fantastic Thank you. Thank you. I think you've made and you make it also science-based which I love and And simple to practice. We're gonna go to the audience question now Bethi Butterfly at Dr. Stephen Gundry. Can you help me clear something up? I'm having a debate with some folks about this. Oh, I love debates Elderberry syrup for the flu is this compliant. That's a good question. So Elderberry can actually Be useful, but it's actually useful because of the polyphenols in it So you don't actually need the syrup you can even take bilberry or elderberry capsules and eliminate all the Sugar that's in the syrup, but I'll give you a better tip Vitamin D. You've heard me say this before is incredibly antiviral and you need to take a large dose of vitamin D when you feel a colder flu coming on I Personally take a hundred and fifty thousand international units a day for three days That's about a half a million international units If you feel squeamish about that try fifty thousand three days in a row The University of California at San Diego has shown that forty thousand units a day Every day cannot produce vitamin D toxicity. So please don't be afraid of high-dose vitamin D3 That's the best way to break the flu if you catch it early Second question she has what about veggie juices? Here's the problem the really good stuff and vegetables is in the pulp and when you juice a vegetable You're throwing the pulp away.  That's in all my recipes make a smoothie out of it If you are going to juice believe it or not throw the juice away Take the pulp and put it in what you're going to prepare in fact I'm going to have a book coming out in the fall on how to do this So where can people find you and thrive? so thrive is thrive global dot com and Also on every social medium Ariana half with 2f on my Instagram and thrive And thrives Instagram and What we love is to invite you all to contribute and share your stories. We have Over 35,000 contributors People who write about their own experiences and you never know who is going to read it and be influenced and be helped by it To make it super easy. I'm going to give you my email address and you can email me directly Ah at thrive global dot com and then we give you a password and you can post whenever you want and we social All the good things and that's how we create a thriving community But you're not allowed to do this in the middle of the night, right? Not at all not in the middle of the night. You have to sleep and recharge in the middle of the night That's it for today Ariana, I can't thank you enough Thank you so much. Thank you and thank you for being such a proponent of the plant paradox I love plant paradox and thank you for writing it and for spreading the word and thank you for spreading the word So this is Dr. Gundry. We'll see you next time and I'm always looking out for you


Jesus promised that he wouldn't leave you alone to live the Christian life. He promised to send a personal and able helper. I am telling you these things now while I'm still with you, but when the Father sends the advocate as my representative, that is the Holy Spirit, he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you. That's John 14, 25 and 26. If you're thankful for the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life, type I love you Holy Spirit in the comments section. Perhaps you've heard of him, maybe in one way or another you've seen him at work, and it's quite possible that you even felt him, even if you didn't realize that it was he. But whether you're familiar or unfamiliar with him, it's my passion to tell you more about the precious Holy Spirit. You see, you received the Holy Spirit the very moment you were born again. You were born again of the Spirit. Jesus answered very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flash gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to Spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying you must be born again. The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear it sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. That's John 3, 5-8. Everyone who belongs to Christ has the Holy Spirit. He's our distinguishing mark. You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh, but in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. That's Romans chapter 8, verse 9. You didn't receive a portion of the Holy Spirit, a baby Holy Spirit, or the new convert Holy Spirit. No, when you believed on Jesus, the Holy Spirit came to dwell within you in the fullness of His presence and power. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit who lives in you. That's Romans 8, 11. The Holy Spirit is not a badge of honor for only the spiritually elite, if ever there was such a group. He's not a reward for the super spiritual. He's your only hope of ever being spiritual. In fact, not only could you not be spiritual without the Holy Spirit, you wouldn't even desire to be spiritual without the Holy Spirit. He gives you not just the how to, but also the want to. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. That's Ezekiel 36, 26, and 27. So when I talk of surrendering to the Holy Spirit or becoming a friend of the Holy Spirit, I'm not talking about receiving Him, but acknowledging and obeying Him. In so doing, it's not that you suddenly get the Holy Spirit, but rather that you begin to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. It's not a matter of you getting more of the Holy Spirit, but of the Holy Spirit getting more of you. Now, there was a time when I didn't know that the Holy Spirit could be known as a friend. I had long imagined Him to be like a mist in the air or like a cloud that hovered above a church service. He's more than a foresore feeling. He can be known as a friend. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. That's 2 Corinthians 13, 14. Yes, the elating reality is that His friendship is for all who bow to Jesus as Lord. The Spirit's presence abides wherever there's a love for Christ, and He cultivates that love to greater measures. If the name of Jesus is on your mouth, if a love for Christ rests in your heart, then the Spirit's presence belongs on your life. For no single person is more passionate about Jesus than the Holy Spirit. He'll reveal Christ to you with such clarity that the reality of the Savior will grow with vivid intensity. He makes Jesus more real to you and draws you closer to God than you ever imagined possible. Your friendship with Him will give you everything you need to be, do, and have all that God desires. He'll help you to pray more powerfully, worship more sincerely, love more truly, serve more effectively, understand Scripture more deeply, and live your life more spiritually. Whatever your issue, question, concern, or struggle, He will personally see to it that you are guided in the right direction. But the Holy Spirit isn't looking to check into a hotel. He's looking to buy a house. He's not looking for a visit. He's looking for a residence. You are His dwelling place. He's attentive and relevant to your every moment. You can go to Him when you're sad, when you're happy, when you're frustrated, when you're mad. He can be the first to greet you in the morning and the one who hears your final thoughts of the day. Talk to Him about your desires and your dreams, your fears and your failures. Speak with Him about the people in your life, from old friends to new acquaintances. Let them guide your conversations, your plans, and your decisions. And as it goes with conversation, He is disturbed by neither the trivial nor the significant. Though magnificent, He's approachable. In whatever you involve Him, you honor Him, and you welcome His voice, His perfect instruction. And through friendship with the Holy Spirit, you'll know God in greater measures. But it was to us that God revealed these things by His Spirit, for His Spirit searches out everything and shows us God's deep secrets. That's 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 10. The Holy Spirit has divine insight to the mind of God, and He shares those secrets with you. The Scripture elaborates on this profound truth. No one can know a person's thoughts except that person's own spirit. And no one can know God's thoughts except God's own spirit. And we have received God's spirit, not the world spirit, so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. That's 1 Corinthians 2, 11 and 12. Your spirit knows you best, and God's spirit knows Him best. The spirit of God communicates with your spirit. That's how we come to discover divine depths. So it is by the spirit that we come to know God. The Holy Spirit is the keeper and the giver of God's secrets. Only those who are in fellowship with the Holy Spirit can be entrusted with this precious insight. For secrets are not shouted, they're whispered. And to hear a whisper, one must be near. So if you're near to the spirit, a friend of the Holy Spirit, you'll come to know and appreciate God more intimately than ever before. With confidence, you will hear His voice. With love, you will live in His holiness. With power, you will walk in His miraculous ability. The Holy Spirit lives within you. He's God's indwelling presence. God the Father sits upon the throne. Jesus is seated at His right hand. And the Holy Spirit dwells in you. What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? It's 1st Corinthians 619. When you walk in the awareness of the presence of the Holy Spirit upon your life, every room is a prayer room. Friends of the Holy Spirit don't follow signs. Signs follow them. They don't have to chase an atmosphere because they become an atmosphere. As a friend of the Holy Spirit, you become a carrier of His glory. And wherever you carry that glory, the dominion of heaven is established. Are you a friend of the Holy Spirit? If this message blessed you, make sure to leave a like to help spread the message. And let's stay connected. Subscribe for more messages on the Holy Spirit prayer and spiritual warfare.  Help our ministry fulfill its mission to spread the gospel all around the world through events and media. Sign up to become a monthly partner right now by going to davidhernandezministries.com slash partner. And remember, nothing is impossible with God.