Health Beyond the Body: Longevity, Connection, and Purpose with Dr. Ryan Lazarus

Health Beyond the Body: Longevity, Connection, and Purpose with Dr. Ryan Lazarus Speaker 2: It's like everybody is telling me you're supposed to rest, nourish, move, and be successful, and I'm all these things, and yet the juice of life seems missing. Speaker 1: I rolled over a half wall in indoor soccer, and instead of crushing my ribs, breaking my ribs, or rupturing my spleen, I split my pancreas in half. Speaker 2: How do we go from chronic, lifelong health problems to you being so dialed in? Speaker 1: There's the biohacks, there's the shortcuts, the magic supplement, the magic pill. That will never change. It will always be that way because that's what we want. Everybody wants to know the shiny man. What is the thing I take? What is the thing I need? I mean, why are we doing what we're doing? Why are we entrepreneurs? Why do we want to be successful in our professional career? You start playing the why game, you'll start to get down to some layers where if you don't know, you should probably start investigating. And that's kind of what I call the spark, the mission, the soul, the passion. I mean, that's the real pandemic. The juice of life is missing. Speaker 2: Dr. Ryan Lazarus, good to see you. Speaker 1: It's great to be here, my friend. Speaker 2: Why do people come to you and what do you do for them? Speaker 1: Well, I'm a functional medicine practitioner, so the most obvious thing is I have patients seek my advice and protocols to solve a pain point. Their health is compromised. And so I identify where the issues are, where the vulnerabilities are, solve pain points. Speaker 2: And it's mostly high performers, people who have accomplished a lot, but something's still missing, right? Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yes. That's the framework that I use. That's the framework we'll dig into and talk about. Yeah, they're hitting all of the important milestones, but something is missing and they need a recipe or a formula for performance. Speaker 2: Where do you see people missing something most often? Because as entrepreneurs and high performers, we are Obsessed with getting the most out of our lives, out of our businesses, out of our experiences, but we tend to over-index in a couple of areas, oftentimes money and productivity. So where do you see people like us under-index and overlook the most? Speaker 1: It's that classic work-life balance. Entrepreneurs, we're almost obsessed. We have a goal. We want to see success in our business endeavors and in our career and in the projects and the workflow. And sometimes it's at the expense of the foundations, the absolute anchors of what people need to do to be healthy and well. In their health and in their personal life. So it's an imbalance issue. Speaker 2: How did you become fascinated with this? Speaker 1: Physician heal thyself. This is a mission of mine and will always be because of a circumstance that happened to me when I was 18 years old, a very traumatic injury. Speaker 2: What happened? Speaker 1: Man, it was a routine play. It should have been just a broken rib or a busted up knee, but I was playing indoor soccer, about to graduate high school in 1995, and I rolled over a half wall in indoor soccer, and instead of crushing my ribs, breaking my ribs, or rupturing my spleen, I split my pancreas in half and crushed my organ. Speaker 2: You split it in half. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: What does that mean? Speaker 1: Means a higher power pushed me into the wall to let me realize my path was going to change. Speaker 2: That's one interpretation, okay. Speaker 1: Yeah, the mechanism of injury was that of such a unique angle that it crushed the middle of my pancreas and needed to be removed immediately. Speaker 2: So most of your pancreas was removed. Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 2: Your spleen was removed. Speaker 1: Correct, yeah. Speaker 2: Was there more? Or just two organs. Speaker 1: Yeah, just two. Luckily, they saved my liver and my heart. Speaker 2: They had to expand to take up more space. Speaker 1: Yes. Now my heart had to expand twice to make up the room. Yeah, it was those two. And so as a result, There was a lot of darkness. There was a decade of darkness and a lot of fear. Speaker 2: That made you a diabetic, correct? Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a type 1 diabetic and I struggle with digestive failure and I have a whole host of... Speaker 2: Your insides got all messed up, right? You had organs removed and now you've got a whole... A lifelong battle with chronic dis-ease, right? You're going to have digestive issues. You're a type 1 diabetic now. How do we go from that to you looking like this? Because you're 149 years old, and you look like this. No, you're 48 years old, right? You look like you're in your early 30s. You're fit. I've seen you with your shirt off. You're the NVO, all the guys at the pool. 18 losing organs to being the fittest guy at the party and the man that men want to be like and the man that women want to be with. Speaker 1: Man, I really appreciate that. Speaker 2: That's the most homoerotic thing you'll ever see at Capitalism.com. Speaker 1: I'm going to send this to my wife and make sure she. Speaker 2: So how do we get there? How do we go from chronic lifelong health problems to you being so dialed in? Speaker 1: That's why I'm here. That's the message that I present. That's the formula that I offer. There was, I used kind of three different words to represent three different decades, because it was 30 years ago. The first one, tragedy. Like I said, darkness, fear, anger, victim. And I went to all the conventional docs to get the formula and prescription to be able to heal, and I did not get it. Conventional medicine, it was great. It saved my life. It was an emergency. I hit a wall, and that's where the strategy came. Speaker 2: It kept you alive, but it didn't make you well. Speaker 1: No. It was, you're gonna be a diabetic. It was, you need to take these medicines. It was, there were some curses that I believe that they set on me, which is, you're not gonna be normal. Life is gonna be different. You know, the vision of yourself is going to be different. And I was not going to take that. And that's where the strategy emerged. And which is, I need to figure out how to heal and how to heal myself. And I'm not going to put it in anybody else's hands. And that's where I started to I mean, I basically became a personal trainer, a kines major, pre-med, go to school, get my doctorate to be functional medicine, clinical nutritionist. Like I was obsessed with all of the education that I needed to try to heal myself and then realized This is the way to do it. And that's where the advocacy comes in. And now that's what I do. And so to answer your question, it was through many, many years of experimentation and applying this new knowledge and these protocols. And now I can do it in a personalized way with everybody. Speaker 2: So we will get to the whole protocol, but I got to start with The sexy part, if you will, which is you're almost 50 and you look like this. There has to be some anti-aging protocol that you are on in order to turn back father time. What are you doing that is different or sexier in terms of protocol than other people? Speaker 1: Great question. And you and maybe your listeners aren't going to like the answer. Speaker 2: It's going to be the basics, isn't it? Speaker 1: Everybody wants to know the shiny shit, man. It's what is all out there, right? Look, you just get on social media, you read a book, you listen to a podcast, they're all over. There's the biohacks, there's the shortcuts, there's the magic supplement, the magic pill. That will never change. It will always be that way, because that's what we want, especially high-performing entrepreneurs. I don't have time for all this. What is the thing I take? What is the thing I need? And so my answer... Speaker 2: I never put that together, that the biohacking entrepreneurs, they want the secret thing because we're sort of wired to look for the extra edge. I could actually never put that together before. Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm an entrepreneur too. I mean, I have my own practice and I have my own line and you know, I get it. I'm not up here. I get this. I see it in myself. I work with many of them and so that's where I can help and really bond with them. But the answer is it's the fundamentals. It's the foundations. You cannot negotiate sleep. You cannot negotiate eating crap food filled with toxins. You have to move. And we can talk about different ways and different strategies. And that's the basis and the anchors of my framework. Speaker 2: And that's where most of biohacking really lives. Biohacking your sleep. Biohacking your movements, biohacking what you eat. Speaker 1: Supplement and nourishment. Speaker 2: Yeah, these are what we talk about as the foundations of health. And we have all these arguments about what the best way to do it is. So how would you define those fundamentals in terms of the protocol that you recommend to the most people? What do you suggest people eat, how they sleep, and how they move in order to optimize performance? Speaker 1: Every one of those is personalized, every single one. And that is the era that we are in right now. This is the new paradigm of health and wellness and performance is there's a level of personalization. There's so much stuff up here. It's where is the funnel and how does it apply to me? There's so many different diets, so many different macros, so many different supplements. The answer lies in your ability to stay consistent with a food plan and a movement plan and a sleeping protocol that works for you. Speaker 2: So is it a matter of finding what works for you because you stick to it? Or is it a matter of finding what works for you because of your DNA, because of your ancestry? Speaker 1: Both. I run blood chemistry. I run adrenals. I run microbiome. I run genetics. I run food sensitivities. I'm a functional doc. I mean, there's so many lab tests that I use to help quantify where each patient is. And data is great. Data's awesome. The, where the juice is, is what you alluded to, which is can I stay consistent with this? So I have the data. Data is great, right? I can put it into GPT and it can tell me everything that I need or the robot says, here's what it is. Here's what you need to do. The magic lies in the ability to do it consistently and have balance and flexibility in your life. That is the prescription. There's so many things that we could do, but can you stick with it? So the best diet is the one that you can stick to that is balanced. And look, I'm a nutritionist. I can tell you all the benefits of what a plant-based might do and what keto might be able to do, what paleo and what macros. And I do this, I build this for people. Again, the best food plan is the one that is personalized for you and the one that you can stay flexible with and adhere to in the long term. Speaker 2: So you're talking to a group of entrepreneurs who are building seven-figure brands or pursuing eight and nine-figure visions. What do they need to think about in order to optimize energy, in order to maximize their focus, in order to feel alive when they're sitting in front of the computer, having a hard conversation with an employee. What are the levers that you pull at the beginning? Speaker 1: I identify each person's vulnerability first. So, is it a movement thing? Is it a rest? Is it a sleep? Is it a diet? Is it a supplement? And then, you know, there's the top of the framework that, you know, we'll get into more about challenge and learn and connect and your mission and your soul. But on the bottom, the anchors, the foundations, which one are they most vulnerable? Which one are they not doing that they can take a simple step To introduce. Speaker 2: Walk us through your framework because that's not how I expected to answer the question. We actually look for where you're most efficient is what you're saying. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: And that's the lever that we're going to pull first. So walk us through your framework and then we'll play a little role play with me as the patient. Speaker 1: Love it. Yeah, this is a great idea. So there are seven essential health elements, and it's in the book, The Essential Health Playbook, and it's what I do in the program, and the bottom is what I allude to. That's the anchors, the foundations. Everybody knows. Rest, nourish, and move, okay? And I can, whoa, I can geek out on every single one of them. Why don't I just touch really quickly on... Speaker 2: Yeah, give me a sexy hack for each one of those. Speaker 1: The three pillars, which is cardiovascular, pulmonary endurance, which is your ability to maintain a heart rate for a duration of time, right? That's cycling, that's rowing, that's running. We all think about that, right? The next one is resistance, power, and strength. That's lifting weights. That's metabolic training. That's where actually a lot of the testosterone and a lot of the metabolic hormonal benefits come from in middle-aged is resistance. And then there's flexibility, mobility and stability, which is often always overlooked, which is I don't have time for this. I got 30 minutes. I'm going to get my heart rate up. I'm going to sweat and hit my protein shake and I'm off to work. That's non-negotiable. The getting on a foam roller, I call it spinal hygiene, stretching every single day for mobility, making sure your core is strong, brother, that is the juice for the 40s and 50s. Speaker 2: So give me what your routine is there because that sounds like a lot to manage in order to, for one part of the seven part protocol. Speaker 1: Yeah, first thing I will do is I'm on a foam roller and it will take me four minutes. I'll do my back, I'll do my glutes, I'll do my hams, my calves, turn over, get in my quads. My shoulders are tight, I'll get in through my lat. Non-negotiable, just like brushing my teeth, spinal hygiene. Speaker 2: That's the first thing that you do? Speaker 1: It's the first thing I do in the gym. And then I stretch. I stretch my hip flexors. I stretch my hamstrings. I stretch my back. It is a non-negotiable necessity for me. And I have injuries, you know, and so before I'm lifting weights and dead lifting and squatting and running and playing and all of that, that's what I do first. And if you're efficient with it, you can knock it out in 10 to 12 minutes. And you want to know another cheat code? You can meditate and you can listen to things. You can put in some pods. You can go silent, but you can set intentions. You can. Recycle mantras. It can actually be a really important time of presence where you're just down and it's just you and you're flowing, foam rolling, stretching, doing some planks. I have some of my best thoughts and ideas and concepts when I'm just down and doing it. So it doesn't mean that you need to sacrifice other things. It's just adding. It's pairing a couple of things. And then after that, I'm usually lifting weights, doing functional movements, squatting, deadlifting, pull-ups, push-ups. Speaker 2: The big compounding lifts. Speaker 1: Compound lifts. You don't have to go to the gym and do an hour and a half. You can do them really quick. Speaker 2: So how long is a workout for you and what does it look like? Speaker 1: After I do that mobility, it's about 20 minutes of lifting. Speaker 2: Get out of here. Speaker 1: Yeah, give me a kettlebell, make it heavy. I could do so many different things with a kettlebell. Give me an Olympic bar and I can go through some different complexes. Yeah, squat, deadlift, bench press. I mean, they're all that and then give me a kettlebell. Speaker 2: You're lifting weights for 20 minutes and you look like that. Speaker 1: Yeah, well, You gotta be strategic with it and you gotta use the right weights and it's progressive overload. And so it's a little bit more complicated than that. Like I know my body, but that's what I help people do is where are they, meet them where they're at and let's just start with doing that. It's foundational things. And then, yeah, I mean, if I have time, I'll go for a run, I'll hop on my bike, you know, do a trail run, anything that, you know, I love and enjoy doing that just makes me sweat. Speaker 2: So that's move. Tell me about the other two. Speaker 1: Let's talk about sleep and rest. I'm a morning person. I thrive in the morning. That's when I am the clearest. And so I go to bed early, brother. I go to bed early. And I have two teenagers. So it's easier for me. And if you don't have two teenagers and you have younger kids, it's not that easy, right? But there's like this non-negotiable window for me. I mean, it's no later than 10 p.m. I'm usually 8.30 to 9.30. What's early in terms of waking up? So I never use an alarm unless I absolutely need to. So I'm really in tune with my circadian rhythm. This is what I coach people to do, to be in tune with what that rhythm is, because it is so much more than sleep. It's neurologic. It's gut. It's so many other things. Oh, yeah. Your circadian rhythm is super important for hormones, for neurotransmitters, for performance. Speaker 2: So define circadian rhythm. Speaker 1: This is the rhythm of melatonin and serotonin. And so you get as we kind of get tired, we have a lowering of serotonin and a spiking of melatonin. And that gives us all the cues it's time to go to bed. And then as we sleep, and it's generally six and a half to eight and a half hours, that is where like the bell-shaped curve of humans need. There are anomalies where you need more or less, but if you hit that and you hit your deep sleep and your REM sleep properly, I'm waking up around, you know, between four and five. Speaker 2: Okay, so how would somebody figure out their circadian rhythm and what What chronotype of sleep hygiene they need, right? Speaker 1: Yeah, great, great chronotype, exactly. Speaker 2: How would I figure this out? Speaker 1: So I am a morning person. Speaker 2: I would love to get up at four o'clock, right? But if the alarm goes off at four, I curse God and die, right? That's what I want. I'm getting up at six, and it takes work for me to practice that as a habit, but it's a discipline that I am making myself a morning person. Walk me through what you would do with someone here. Speaker 1: So you brought up a great point, which is it's chronotype. Not everyone is a morning person and it's understanding you're either morning or you're night. And there is, there's an easy questionnaire. I mean, most people know, but some people thrive in terms of attention and focus at 10 PM. So I'm not telling you or the listeners do what I do. This is just me. We know the benefit of getting up early and having that morning miracle of setting an intention and meditating and exercising and journaling. I mean, there's some great power in doing that and setting your game plan and being on offense. And by the time you hit work, you're feeling on top of the world. I can tell you all the benefits of that, but not everybody is like that. Speaker 2: That's genetic. Speaker 1: Yeah, there are some genetic clocks that play a role in that. There's genetic variations that allow us to either be a morning or a night. But you can leverage it. You can utilize your strengths. It doesn't mean that if you're a night person that you can't get up early. Back to your question, it just means massaging your circadian rhythm a little bit. Speaker 2: So tell me more about that. Speaker 1: Well, you just don't want to do things that F it up. The ideal sleep formula is the routine is always generally the same, okay? There's times where you're on a weekend and you're on vacation, but minus those anomalies, you want to generally have the same routine because that's what your circadian rhythm loves is routine. Speaker 2: Okay, is what you're saying that if someone maintains a consistent schedule, That their body will adapt to it or are you saying that your body has certain rhythms and you should adjust your lifestyle to that? Which one is more true? Speaker 1: Back to the original question, how do I know my circadian rhythm? If you remove all of the noise and all of the distractions and you don't use an alarm clock and you don't fall asleep with melatonin or anything and you remove blue light and a lot of the artificial light, like camping, like literally, if you just kind of disconnect from all of that over a couple days, you'll generally know your circadian rhythm. So you can find that out and then you can't, answer your question, massage it. You can move it a little bit earlier. It takes time. And it takes effort and a little discipline. But if you want to be a morning person, you can alter your decisions in your sleep routine to move it earlier. Speaker 2: Is it bad to take melatonin? Speaker 1: It is not bad. It is not the first thing that I present to my patients. It has a lot of power if done in the right dose for the right person at the right time. So I use it. I use it with my patients, I mean. And if there's sleep issues, like really identifiable sleep issues, it's a great lever to pull to help people to go to bed earlier. So it's not that it's bad. No, it's not bad. Speaker 2: The one takeaway that I'm, tell me if this is correct, If you were to maintain a consistent schedule, that your body will sort of adapt to whatever that is, but it requires some consistency. And it helps me understand why when I just stick to a wake-up time, my life gets better in ways that I cannot describe. Once I adapt to it, my stress is less, I am more present, I respond to challenges better, and I can't even explain why. I just know that if I get up at a specific time, I feel more prepared and more able to tackle problems, whereas if I'm waking up at 7.30 one day and 5.30 the next day and all over the place, I just feel like The day, like I'm the bitch of the day. I am just blowing in the wind. Speaker 1: Yeah, this is what I call in my book and in my programs and with everybody, this is the difference between offense and defense. When you have a consistent routine, you wake up and you perform a couple things, you're on offense. Offense feels great, okay? Offense is order. It's goals, it's structure, it's momentum. We love that. I'm accomplishing things. Defense is different. Defense is you're waking up and there's a little bit more chaos. Speaker 2: You wake up, you check the phone. You wake up, you check your messages. Speaker 1: Connect to the matrix. And now all of a sudden it's, I got all these things and got to do this. Whereas if you wake up and you have a moment there, a little buffer to check in with yourself, take inventory. How did I sleep? How do I feel? Where the decisions that I'm making in alignment with what my goals are, my health goals, take inventory. You have a crucial moment in the morning where if you instantly connect to the matrix or your phone, you've lost that. You can still go back and get it, but I've seen great success with people that really preserve that first interval of time and offense. Now they said offense, and it doesn't mean that defense isn't going to come up. There's a bunch of BS that's going to happen. My argument in the book and my game plan for entrepreneurs is be prepared for defense. Have an offensive game plan. These are the things I want to accomplish in my health and in my work. It's not all offense, brother. There's a lot of defense. There's a lot of pivoting that you need to do and then it's realizing I'm on defense. Okay, now what do I need to do? In my defensive game plan, and sometimes it's checking boxes, it's the minimal amount of effort to stay consistent, but about the sleep, if you're waking up and there's a lot of things going on, right into defense is a hard, it's like starting a game right on defense and just being like... Speaker 2: Why do you think we do that? I mean, it's so alluring to wake up and immediately check the phone. Why do we do that? Speaker 1: Well, I can tell you my experience and my experience of my patients. It's really, it's programming. It's an operating system that we have right now. It's who called me? What did I miss? What's going on in the world? What do I need to do? I think this is what everybody, it's crazy what patients have said. They're like, I'll give them an opportunity to do this. And it's like, oh, I can't. What is going on? Okay, I'll brush my teeth. Okay, I'll make coffee first. It's like luring them. It's an addiction. I think it's FOMO a little bit, right? It's what did I miss out on? What do I need to do? Speaker 2: Is it a dopamine addiction? Is it just. Speaker 1: The answer is yes, right? Dopamine is thrown out all the time right now because of phones and social media and all of that. So the answer is yes. Dopamine is way more complicated than people think, but yeah, it's also, again, it's a habit. If it's there, right there, and you wake up, the first thing you think about is, oh, there it is, and then boom, I just start doing, I go through my protocol. So it's a cycle that you can break, and it's powerful when you do. Speaker 2: My life has gotten, I go through cycles of this where my life is just better if I wake up early and go right to the gym. Or if I wake up and have some time to myself and then go to the gym. But those first 90 minutes of my day are where I do the two things that I will resist the most, which is waking up and lifting heavy things. So if I do those two things, I've sort of avoided a lot of the distractions and chaos. What I'm hearing you say is I'm going on offense. It's funny when, you know, I've shared with you and I've said this publicly, I've had bouts of depression my entire life. I go through periods in which I just go through funks where I can't get myself out of it. And I know that I know that I know that if I can get myself to wake up early and go to the gym, my depression will be alleviated within days or weeks. It's the process of actually getting myself to just commit to it and do it. And thankfully, I'm in one of those cycles now where it's a habit. The darkness does not control my life right now. But what would you say to someone Who is in one of those cycles that they can't break out of where we know that if we were to have consistency with rest and we would move and we'll get to food next, but if we would just change those two things, life would be better. But if it was easy, they would have already done it. So what do you say to that person? Speaker 1: You said a great word and it's the buzzword and it's change because humans do not like change. We are very comfortable in our operating system. And that is, that's the secret sauce is how can you change at a way that is comfortable for you that doesn't feel like it's torture and doesn't create a lot of that resistance. And that is what has helped me and help all of my patients. So I'll give you a couple of examples. There's a great quote, I'll lead with this, is change occurs when the pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of making the change, right? And so if you know that in the morning you thrive off this, but you don't do it and it just starts to tailspin the rest of your day and it's affecting your relationship with your kids and your efficiency at work and You know, your body composition, when you start feeling those pains, then you're like, now I am incentivized. And now, can we go back and find out where the big issue is in the sleep? And it's usually, it's going to bed too late. And so, if you start to see that it's affecting you in multiple aspects of your life, And you can dissect where you can make that, that small little tweak. That's huge. Also, you know, Change has... I do this with my patients. So if you can recognize that you need to make a change, just recognize, okay? And then release the judgment with it, okay? So you're aware of these habits. You know you need to make a change. That's the first Step and then release your judgment or your guilt or your shame about it because that's a lot of it too, is we have, oh man, I keep doing this. This is so frustrating. And then that can move you down that, that emotional rollercoaster too. And no one likes to feel that. And so that's where a lot of resistance can come to. Another thing is the reset. I recognize it. I release it. How do I reset it? Great thing for the listeners and for you is what would your life look like if you were waking up every day, in a week, in a year, on offense, accomplishing these goals, these ambitions that you have? What would that look like? Literally reflecting on it. And then what would happen if you just kept doing what you were doing? What would that look like? And so I think it's really important to see those two definitive different paths and know that's why I'm doing this. I want to be on that path. And so when you recognize it and you release and then you can reflect on why I'm doing it, that's when the reset becomes way easier. Speaker 2: And it sounds like you're suggesting that making a manageable change is more sustainable than making a drastic change. For example, for me right now, I feel best when I'm up at 530 and I go right to the gym. Right now, I could not commit myself to waking up at 530, but 615 I can do. 615, I'm up. And now I move. I can dial it back a little bit each month or every couple weeks until I'm at my target wake-up time, but I couldn't get any momentum. It was just like, hey, guess what? You got to start waking up at four. It's just not going to happen for me. And so making those manageable changes is how I can start to turn the dial in the right direction. I want to hear you talk about the third pillar of nourish. So we talked about move. We talked about rest. Tell me about nourish. Speaker 1: It's diet, it's hydration, and it's supplements. So, it's, you know what? Diet is, it's a four letter word that starts with die, brother. Speaker 2: Can't argue with this. Speaker 1: It is and will always be what gets people's attention. What is the next diet? We've seen these just decade after decade. Speaker 2: What is the best diet? Speaker 1: The one that you can stick to that has balance. Speaker 2: Define balance. Speaker 1: People should have a baseline understanding of what a macronutrient is. So there's a level of knowledge that people should have. You don't need to track your food every single day and weigh it. Tracking food is great. I have people do it in my program. They do it for as short as two days and as long as two months. Some people absolutely love it. But once you start getting into the analytics of it, then you start becoming a diet robot. We don't want to do that. But everyone should have a baseline knowledge of macronutrients. The macronutrient balance of a lot of people, entrepreneurs, is off. They're having way too many carbohydrates for their level of activity. And that's a formula for fat growth. Speaker 2: So it's not about going low carb, per se. It's not that carbs are bad. Speaker 1: No. Speaker 2: It's just that you see a lot of desk jockeys who are having marathon sessions sitting. I have done this. I do this often. And the balance of carbs and sugars in comparison to how much they are moving, that's what's out of balance. Some people will say, okay, guys, I gotta go low carb. Maybe not so much the case. It's just about balancing that carbohydrate ratio with how much you're moving. Is that what you're saying? Speaker 1: Yes, your metabolic activity. Carbs are not bad. Carbs are the quickest form of glucose, which is the quickest form of energy. They're not bad. There are bad carbs. I could go through all of those. And there's evil foods that we should all stay away from. But if it's a purely a macro thing, carbs aren't bad. If you're waking up and you're training for something really hard, that requires you to train for 45 minutes to an hour at zone three or four, which is a high heart rate, you're gonna need carbohydrates. That's a performance protocol. But if you're sitting, And, or commuting or in meetings a lot, your carbohydrate intake does not need to be, you know, 250, 300. And so just understanding where you are in terms of your metabolic activity and just dialing that in, that's a great way to start. So knowing your macros, okay? Everybody should be eating foods that support their microbiome. The microbiome is a hot topic. If your listeners don't know, this is the totality of the bacteria that lives and resides on and in us. There's over a hundred trillion. Strains of bacteria. Speaker 2: Strains, not just bacteria, but strains of bacteria. Speaker 1: Correct. It is in our mouth, it is on our body, it's on our skin, and it's in our gut, but the majority of it is our gut microbiome, and that's why our immune system is, 80% of our immune system is in our colon, and it requires that gut bacteria to be there and flourishing and be diverse, because that's how we're communicating with the outside world. Yes. Speaker 2: How we're communicating with the outside world? Speaker 1: Correct. That's why our immune system is in our gut. Speaker 2: I need you to keep talking right now. This is fascinating. Speaker 1: Yes. So the microbiome is understanding the information that we are putting into our mouth. In functional medicine, and we call this nutrigenomics, and I can go down this, it's super interesting, but nutrigenomics is basically The study of the nutrition that we're eating is zeros and one. It's information and we're feeding our body this information and it's information that if it recognizes and understands, it's perfect. I need this. It's recovery. It's repair. It's make neurotransmitters. It's make hormones. If it is information your body does not understand, that is defendant repair, that is inflammation, and it will infiltrate your body. Speaker 2: Okay, so give me an example of something that would be recognized or not recognized by the microbiome. Speaker 1: So there's the microbiome and then nutrigenomics. So there's one in the same, but they're very similar. So the microbiome loves Live bacteria. This is kefir. This is sauerkraut. These kombuchas. These are the live cultured bacteria that we eat that feeds this. And then there's prebiotics, which are foods that break down and feed. They're super foods for that microbiome. Speaker 2: Give me an example of what a prebiotic would be. Speaker 1: Man. Jerusalem artichokes. Speaker 2: Okay. Yes. So just add some Jerusalem artichokes to your diet. Speaker 1: Fiber. Speaker 2: Fiber, got it. Speaker 1: Prebiotic fibers, dandelion greens, different vegetables, different fruits that feed this microbiome. Speaker 2: And then give me an example of what would be a zero on that, that it does not recognize and says defends, become inflamed, we're in trouble. Speaker 1: Artificial ingredients. Speaker 2: I was whole afraid you were going to say that. Speaker 1: Yes. That, you know, I have something called the nourish target. Maybe we can put this in the notes. The nourish target is aim for the greens. The greens are the great macronutrients, the food that is information, the foods that feed your microbiome. Then there's a yellows in the middle, which is, it's not terrible for you, but there are better foods. That's in the middle, and then there's the reds, and stay away from it. It's the toxic foods, the dyes, the artificial ingredients, the glyphosate, which is like Roundup. Those are foods that slowly break down our body, create inflammation, and if over time, will eventually turn on genes that lead to disease. Speaker 2: What are some of the evil foods that we should never eat? Speaker 1: Guys, artificial preservatives, seed oils come on there. That's a really hot topic in the world right now, which is hydrogenated fats, fats that are not seen by the body, not recognized, they're not natural. Speaker 2: Artificial sweeteners. Speaker 1: Yeah, debate on artificial sweeteners, right? I mean, I've always learned and I was taught that, you know, stay away from them because they're excitotoxins. They change the wiring in our nervous system and they can cause overeating and kind of trick this really important primitive feedback loop of why we eat and that's through things like hormones like ghrelin and leptin and they can just kind of confuse us and trick us. And there's this new emerging thing that there's never been studies showing that artificial sweeteners do that. And so I'm sitting here listening to all these people play out the scientific literature. But if it's not from the earth, that just makes evolutionary sense to not have it. Now you get into the stevias and the monk fruits and the erythritol and xylitol, what we call the sugar alcohols, because those are considered artificial sweeteners. But I would say like the real, true artificial sweeteners, that it would be wise to absolutely minimize those as much as possible. Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been, I grew up in thinking they were The devil. And as I've gotten older, it's like there's better things to optimize here. I know my macronutrients if I'm eating mostly whole foods. Ryan, I had a diet Dr. Speaker 1: Pepper today. You'll be okay. Speaker 2: Yeah, it's gonna be okay. Speaker 1: Yes. There's a lot of people that don't see it that way. And so this is where the balance and being realistic and practical with that. But if you're having three Dr. Peppers and you rely on it every single day, the aggregate of that, along with other things like hydrogenated fats and seed oils and other preservatives and things like that, over time, your body will become inflamed. Speaker 2: Ryan, these are the basics. Rest, nourish, move. It's when we get to the other part of the protocol that I really perk up and listen. Because these things have to be in place. And I would say I personally have done a relatively good job in my own life of moving, nourishing, and resting. Resting, historically I've gotten so much better and my life is better. It's these other areas of your protocol where when you talk about them, I go, that's what's missing. That's the juice of life. And I can move and rest and nourish and be an entrepreneur, and I can still feel drained. I can still feel sad. I can still feel empty. And it's like everybody is telling me you're supposed to rest, nourish, move, and be successful, all these things, and yet there's still the juice of life seems missing. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: I'd like for you to comment on that. Speaker 1: Boy. I mean, that's the real pandemic. The juice of life is missing. This is responsibility of talking about these things, right? I mean, why are we doing what we're doing? Like, you know, why are we entrepreneurs? Why do we want to be successful in our professional career? You start playing the why game, you'll start to get down to some layers where if you don't know, you should probably start investigating and that's kind of What I call the spark, the mission, the soul, the passion. So this, I could jam about this for days. Speaker 2: Let's start by talking about the other areas of your protocol. Speaker 1: Let's do that. Speaker 2: So we've built the foundation of move, rest, and nourish. Tell me the rest of it. Speaker 1: So the top is the expansion zones. This is mindset, growth, performance. The bottoms are energy and vitality and strength. And so I call them learn, connect, and challenge. So let's just dissect each one of them. Learn is your ability or inability to take in new information. And to want or yearn for new experiences that enhance neuroplasticity. And if the listeners never heard about that, if you've never heard about that, neuroplasticity is the ability to forge new neurons in your brains that allow for flow states and optimal thinking and to be able to think outside the box and provide perspective. When you don't do that and it's neurorigidity, you kind of live in the same loop, which is you're going through the motions. It's also about challenging conventional wisdom, challenging information, being open to new novel experiences, new information. That's what your listeners are doing on podcasts is listening to the new information. When you don't do that, you can become stale and that is not a comfortable place to be. Speaker 2: So when you say learn, you're talking about variety of experience, surprise. You're looking at novelty, something that challenges your paradigms, looking at things through different experiences. That's what you mean by learn. It could be practicing a new skill, but it's not necessarily reading something about business. It's not necessarily feeding your mind. It's more challenging your paradigms. Is that right? Speaker 1: That's where challenge comes in, but it's a great point. When I say learn, you and I both think about, okay, I'm opening a book. It's a textbook. I need to learn. I'm going to read this. That's a form of learn. It could be documentaries, it could be podcasts, but I'm really expanding learn on just being open, be curious, curiosity. Yes, it's great to open up books, but find something that interests and inspires you. Expand this knowledge sense that's maybe a little uncomfortable for you. Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm having a braingasm right now, and it's because I'm thinking about what I call learning is cracking open a book and reading about business and getting better at my craft, right? And great. But what really excites me is when I find a debate about a topic that I'm curious about and somebody says something that challenges what I believe and it makes me think about something differently and then I go down a rabbit hole of understanding their perspective and I see the world from a whole new lens. I get so fired up. I mean, the funny story about this is I saw a debate between economists recently And there was someone who was arguing from the perspective. This is going to bore so many people. Just nerd out with me for a second. Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm interested. Speaker 2: Somebody was arguing from the perspective of modern monetary theory. And that is basically we can just print more money. As long as it doesn't cause too much inflation. And I was like, people believe this? But it challenged some of my assumptions and I had so much fun for the next month listening to everything I could about this economic theory because it was so different from what I understood. And there were some things that I ended up learning and most of it I ended up just discarding and not seeing as practical or applicable. I was so fascinated by something that challenged my paradigm. That's what you're defining as learning. That's fascinating to me. Speaker 1: Be curious. I could see it in you. I could see it in your eyes. I could see it in your body language. It was very energetic. You shifted some of that energy currency and bandwidth into something to explore. Speaker 2: There's a liveness to that. Speaker 1: Look, that is in us. We are explorers. That is a requirement by a human being. Adventure, exploration. And if you compare that with a challenge and then connect, meaning connect to your brain and connect to a tribe, that's, man, like I said, that's the juice. You're excited. You want to learn. You want to set challenges. You want to share it with people. When you can allocate energy into those three things, man, the sky is the limit. Speaker 2: So hit me with the other two, the challenge and the connect, and then I have some questions for you. Speaker 1: Yeah, let's go to connect. My definition is connect to nature. That is, in my opinion, another non-negotiable. It doesn't mean you need to go out and do a vision quest for a week, although that is pretty, very cool. My parents sent me, I was, before my injury, and we're like still now, I was a I was a child that was very curious and not really thinking and processing before making decisions. And it got me in trouble when I was young. And they sent me, well, my father and all his brothers were all Eagle Scouts, old school, go through that, go through the rite of passage with that. He sent me Two Boy Scouts and I quit. And so he says, okay, you're going to learn in a different way. So he sent me on a survival camp when I was 16 years old in Wyoming in the Grand Tetons. And for 32 days, I learned how to engage and have a relationship with nature. Wow. Yeah. And so it was sent for disciplinary reasons, but what that was another huge milestone in my life where if you can remove noise and you really truly be fricking bored, bored, there's no impressing other people. It's you move from A to B, you get your food. There's nothing else that's important. That can shape another lens in your life too. And so connect to nature does not need to be that, but there is a restorative property to just going for a walk, getting in the woods, going to the beach, just That is a priority. There is, though now there are studies that are showing how it can reset our adrenals and our nervous system. So that is why I put that in Connect. It's necessary. And so if you're just in a city and it's just you wake up every day and you're in your car and you're in the office and you're always just looking at the walls or the computer screen and you're feeling neurologically like something is missing, the easiest change is Go for a walk. Spend an afternoon and go into a lake or go to the beach if you are by a beach. Find an opportunity to just remove the noise and be in nature. So that's part one of connect. Brother, it's connect to here, okay? Connect to self. And this is where mental fitness comes in. And mental fitness is learning how to train your mind. Because if you don't train your mind, your mind will train you. And that means if you have an untrained mind, it's very hard for you to disassociate yourself from your thoughts and your emotions. And you are not your thoughts, your emotions. We are just consciousness. We are just an observer, a witness of all of this, all of this story. And if you don't practice training your mind and flex this brain muscle, You can now start to be taken by these thoughts and these worries, and when you can't differentiate that, that's where anxiety can come in. Speaker 2: I'm just thinking about the times that I have been most out of alignment with these areas where I'm not learning anything new, where I have no control of my thoughts, no space around my thoughts. I'm not following a routine. I'm not moving. The natural order of things is going to mean that I am fat, unhappy, lost, and not in control of my life. And especially as entrepreneurs, our entire dream is freedom and control over our own lives. And we pursue the money and financial part of this Because that's what we want to solve first. Speaker 1: That's what we want to control. That's the means, right? Speaker 2: And oftentimes it comes at the expense of we're sitting inside at desks, in front of screens, eating processed food, waking up and checking our phones. We're doing the same thing for a long time. We're disconnected. We're working from home. We're not in nature. We're not with other people. And so I'm starting to see where I have fallen out of alignment in my life and how I can bring back the juice by optimizing in some areas. But Ryan, I know what levers to pull for movement, rest, and nourish. I feel out of practice with learn, challenge, and connect. Speaker 1: Let's talk about it. Speaker 2: Yes, please. I have a friend who lives off in the woods. Once a month, I go visit him. He requires no phones in his house. He went extreme. I love going to visit him. But apart from that, I live in society. So tell me how I can welcome and invite more learning, challenge, and connection into my life. Speaker 1: Let's do connect first off. Dare I say the M word? Meditation. Speaker 2: I thought you were going to say masturbate. Speaker 1: Oh, well, we could talk about that for hours, too. But that's a different podcast, right? Look, there's three buzzwords that people think about torture and restriction, and that's diet, exercise and meditation. They're probably the three most powerful levers, right? I don't say meditation. That's why I've called it mental fitness. Learn how to train this thing. If you've never done it before, it seems daunting because no one is good at it because the human mind is a monkey mind. And your recognition of that is part of the process. It is very, very hard to sit and meditate. And so I help people. I help them lean into it in a really simple way. It is very hard to not think. And that's where people fail on this thing. So just Having an opportunity anytime it could be in your car. It could be while you brush your teeth. It depends on you or your listeners' knowledge or experience with this, but it does not need to be this position in this posture for 20 minutes, okay? That's a big challenge for many people. It could literally start with just focusing on your breath in and out. What does it feel like on your nostril or in your belly for three breaths? It could be Brushing your teeth. When people brush their teeth, most of them are not thinking about the bristles on their teeth and on the gums and what the toothpaste tastes like and what their fingers feel like and the flexion in their arm. They are thinking about what is next? What do I need to do today? What am I behind on? Speaker 2: And most of the time that's negative thoughts. Speaker 1: It's what do I need to do? Yes. The endless to-do list. Whereas if you just take a moment and say, I'm just going to commit to 30 seconds while I brush my teeth of being 100% present on what I'm doing. That right there is just flipping, not being present at all. Got to do these things. Haven't done this. This is a problem. We need to make that call. I got to figure that problem out to just what does it feel like doing that? That all you're trying to do is just be present on one single thing. Could be in the shower. The shower, we're usually thinking about so many different things. In fact, I've thought about some really great things in the shower, right? Back to the other M. But if we literally feel like, what does it feel like with water on our body and soap? I mean, you're just taking something you already do and making sure you're present at that moment. There's so many benefits of doing that because ultimately what mental fitness is doing is it allows you to be present right here, right now. It doesn't mean that there's other thoughts. It doesn't mean that this thing is distracting you, but you can recognize it because you've practiced it. It's a witness. I feel this. I feel this pattern of energy. I feel like this. This looming issue that we need to figure out, but it doesn't mean that it can take you. You can see it. You can witness. You can observe it. And that builds a buffer that allows you to respond how you want rather than react because there is a difference between reaction and responding. And when you practice this and you realize You're just observing all of this and you can respond brother that the power that comes from this is power. Speaker 2: When the clients upset. And you want to react to that and be defensive. Having the mental fitness of stepping away from the negative thought train and responding more in alignment with who you want to be is a superpower that very few people have. Speaker 1: Well, exactly. Couldn't say it better myself. That is a muscle that all of us should be able to Train and flex as much as possible, especially entrepreneurs. So that's the connect part. I don't want to overlook this part of connect. It's connection to your tribe. We are hardwired as humans to be part of a tribe. Speaker 2: I know it. I want to do it. Practicing it. How do I do that? How do I practice just getting more plugged? It's like I care about y'all, but we're all busy and no one's setting up the time for us to all hang. Yes. What can we change about this? Speaker 1: So many different ways to do it. It could be a simple text, literally a text. If you're super busy, really, really busy, just a text to somebody and say, hey, I'm thinking about you, a phone call, just something to pull you out of the loop of problem solving and figuring it out. Just to like maybe tie in a different aspect of your life, just to kind of like reconnect with different people at different phases of your life. But this, sitting and talking about the journey that we're in, and these are my challenges, and this is the stuff I'm dealing with. And you reciprocating said, oh, I realized that too. That's super hard. Not even maybe for trying to solve anything, but just to talk about it, super important. I have something called a Thrive Tribe. It's in my book, but a Thrive Tribe is also people that prioritize health and performance. And it's really important because it's the law of five. The law of five states that we eventually make decisions and have priorities with the five closest people in our life. Really interesting science. If your law of five or your tribe is not in alignment with health, wellness, or performance, sometimes you can validate making bad decisions that are not healthy. And so finding a thrive tribe doesn't have to be five people, but it could be a person. You know what? It could be your podcast. It could be somebody that you don't know, but someone that is advocating doing these things and doing it consistently so you're reminded by it. That's really, really important as well. Speaker 2: Is the average of five who you physically spend the most time with, or is it the five people that have the greatest influence on you, either in person or otherwise? Speaker 1: That's a great question. I don't know that answer, but I think both of them are equally important. Speaker 2: Sometimes you can't change who's around you immediately. Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 2: But you can change who you listen to. Speaker 1: Correct. And that's where if you realize and audit your circle, and your circle is doom and gloom, problem, unhealthy habits, And you want to break free from that? You can do that with listening and learning and absorbing information and maybe protocols or decisions that other people make. Speaker 2: So I want you to challenge me on something or wrestle with something with me. Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do it. Speaker 2: So I have areas in my life where I've built really good systems. For example, when I Committed to a long-term investing practice. I freed up so much mental capacity because I was no longer wondering, should I put money in this or should I do this? I had a plan. When I committed to or when I recommit to waking up at a specific time, it freed up so much energy in my life because I'm not wondering how I'm going to bend my schedule When I committed to a fitness plan, you see where I'm going. As I built systems in my life, in each of these areas, my life has gotten exponentially better. The area where I have not built a system has been connecting with tribe. I can connect with self. Nature, I get in spurts. So nature and tribe, these are areas that I've had a really hard time building systems to maintain a high quality of life or that juice of life. What would you recommend that I prioritize or start with as I look to build better systems in this area of my life? Speaker 1: It's a great question. Right. James Clear said it. You don't rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. And that is the offensive game plan and the defensive game plan and learning how to pivot. Speaker 2: And so having my defensive system right now is at nine o'clock respond to the 37 texts that I have unread. And, you know, I resent them. Speaker 1: Yes. So if you're saying, I want to get better and connect to tribe, well, guess what? You've already have awareness there. So boom. Okay. We're already on the right track. Second thing is, is taking action on that. And let's set an offensive game plan and a defensive game. Offensive game plan would be You actively identify people in your tribe and say, I want to meet, meet for coffee, and I want to talk about how we're getting better. Speaker 2: It would be having my assistant block off the third Friday of every month to have those five people over for dinner, and she orders it so I don't have to think about it. I show up and my friends are there. Speaker 1: Love it. Okay, we're hardwired for that, right? But that's an offensive game plan, okay? Not everyone can make it. You're really, really busy. Things come up, right? Let's talk about a defensive. You're busy. You're stressed. You're in the loop. The kids have summer camp. I mean, we can go on and on about defensive. What's the minimal amount of effort that you can do on a daily basis to connect with somebody that interests or inspires you or has health as a priority? Speaker 2: Well, what's coming to mind for me is every morning when I wake up, I send my coach a text that just says, I'm up. And that little bit of accountability makes me get my ass out of bed. And every Friday, I send him a voice message, just like an update for the week, and he usually responds. That's very small, but it's actually been very helpful for me. So could I do that with a group text of people, that is five people that I want to spend more time with? That actually, that I could do. That would be the minimum liable thing that I could text one person or group of people. Speaker 1: I love this and I recommend it to people in my group and we have this. This is part of what we do. We have a Thrive Tribe and we send articles, we send videos, we send challenges for ourselves, we check in with each other. We check in personally every two weeks. We meet from 7.30 to 9 and what it eventually becomes is just therapy because we're all talking about it. We air it out, we talk about it, and it's some of our favorite times. It's a great, great group. But it could just be texting if you don't have that time or opportunity. But set a little check. Hey, you know, I identified you. You're in my Thrive Tribe. There may be three people. There may be 11 people. But let's do this. This is all for our goals and interests and intentions. And let's set a challenge and let's just throw something in there. Speaker 2: That's really cool. I'm becoming aware of the areas of my life where I've been okay making small changes knowing that they'll compound into something, but with connection, I've assumed that I've either got to meet somebody or hire a mentor or some big change. But I could make small changes that made a profound difference in this area. Speaker 1: You could and I think you will because you're seeing the ROI of this. Look, isolation kills, connection heals. Being isolated doesn't need to mean like literally isolated. You could really feel energetically isolated and your brain doesn't know the difference between being isolated out in the woods and having no one to talk to and isolated where somebody is not around you to discuss your goals and your dreams and everything in between. Speaker 2: Tell me about the seventh pillar. Speaker 1: And your spark, my spark, all of our sparks is your passion, your purpose, your potential. And that's the energy that drives us. That's why it's in the center. And it could be outward energy that feeds that spark. And when that spark is lit, that's a raging fire. And when all those elements are balanced, brother, watch out. I mean, that's the goal. That's the goal. You're inspired. You have strength. You have endurance. You have energy. You have gratitude. You're resilient. Speaker 2: Does the spark feed all the other areas or do the other areas make it possible for the spark to come on? Speaker 1: The answer is yes to all. Yes. But once you understand the framework, I live it and practice it and that's what I do. This is how I share this because everyone has their own different roadmap. I have a framework. I teach it to people and they take it and they build it for themselves. I don't like fixed formulas. I don't give fixed formulas. That doesn't work. It's not one size fits all. I give this to them. They practice it. I understand where they're vulnerable. And then they just balance it out and then they take it and they build it for themselves. And so the spark is different for every single one of us. I'm not going to tell you your purpose, but I'm going to nudge you to if you don't know what it is or your passion to help you find it and to build energy and have you create bandwidth that feeds it. Speaker 2: Well, you know what's going to mind for me, Ryan, is the times that I think, what's my purpose and what am I doing here, are usually the times that I don't have a consistent schedule, am not moving, am eating crappy food, haven't seen my friends in a month, am not learning anything new and don't feel inspired or challenged by anything. I'm like, what's my purpose? MFR, why don't you get up early and go to the gym? Let's start there. And all of a sudden, after a while, the spark is like, I feel some aliveness coming back. Speaker 1: The spark turns into a flame and the flame becomes raging. That is living life, brother. I mean, that's why we do what we do is to have a raging fire and feeling inspired and feeling connected and feeling motivated and having that energy and strength and confidence and resiliency. To answer your question at the very beginning, that's the formula that worked for me and that's the formula that I've been giving to people for 20 years in practice. That's the formula that I put in the book and that is the most rewarding thing ever is to give the people the framework and have them figure this thing out and then have this thing grow. And I think your realization right there is as I think of that epiphany is what I love seeing. Speaker 2: What's the most dramatic transformation that you have seen someone make? Speaker 1: Oh man. So there's been some crazy milestones with like and I very careful as a practitioner to say heal, but I've seen remarkable conditions healed by addressing every single one of those like lab values completely changed no longer. diagnosed as whatever they came in with. And it goes from type 2 diabetes to autoimmune conditions to neurodegenerative problems. I mean, you name it, I've seen it. And so there's those conditions, but then there's the epiphanies that are the hard ones to quantify where They get it and they realize that they've been running an old operating system with trauma and old programming and have cracked through that and are better parents, better partners, better bosses, better employees, better people. They're countless. I've had, I mean, I can, I would never give you names, but I can just throw out people I've had. You know, I have, my office is in Silicon Valley, so I have a lot of tech. I have a lot of people that come into me and are dealing with startups and have, you know, leadership positions and high level CEOs and are completely not present. They are not present. It is just waking up and it's tasked and it's check this box and move on to the next thing. And I sat down with a guy and he was not present at all. I mean, it's good. Hey, did you get my labs? What do I need to do? Tell me what I need to do. Look, I want to get in shape. Just tell me. And interrupting me, not present, checking his phone all the time, really frustrating to work with somebody. And I'm like, okay, this is my challenge right now. And built a mental fitness protocol where he started to become present. He started to realize How short he was with all the people in his life and how important it was that he there be present and he explains, this is what I admire about you. This is what you're doing well. Practicing mental fitness, expanding the brain, waking up, finding the ROI, realizing he was an observer of his thoughts, and then that's starting to translate into everything. And then once he had that, then he's like, okay, I get it now. Let's start dialing in the nutrition. Now the energy came in. The body composition started to get better. He started to build confidence. People are starting to recognize that they're like, bro, whatever you're doing, you're like on a different wavelength. And he's then it's like, OK, well, I want to eat perfectly. I need to get sleep. I want to dial this in. And he just started to do it himself. And it was a remarkable spiritual transformation that permeated into every aspect of his life. And it happened quick. The reason why I brought him up, I called him Trevor in the book. His name wasn't Trevor, but it started with just the realization that he was not present. And all of a sudden, it just, it was a wildfire. It was very, very rewarding to see and I still think about him all the time. Again, I find areas in those seven elements where I feel like the most bandwidth and energy is needed and I start with that and then it just kind of translates and it moves. Speaker 2: Based on our conversations today and prior to today, where do you think that I am under-indexed or need some energy or attention? Let's do a little mini diagnosis. Speaker 1: Let's do it. This is cool. I think from our conversation in the last hour, I think it's connect and rest. Speaker 2: Rest? Why is that? Speaker 1: You're yearning for waking up. You thrive. You want offense, right? Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: Okay. We haven't even talked about the aspects of your sleep, but if you went to bed and had a consistent routine and got, let's call it your seven and a half of quality sleep, your HRV was high and you were hitting all those metrics, and you woke up consistently and felt rested and went through your offensive protocol, I have no doubt it would translate into being remarkable and performing well in every aspect. So I would say your structure, your routine that is based around a good restful routine. And connect. You have challenges. I don't see challenges being one of your issues. I don't see nourish. I mean, you're a lean. Speaker 2: You know what, Ryan? Sorry to interrupt, but when it comes to challenge, I have many to choose from, but when I am not energized, I don't want any of them. Who wants challenge when they're exhausted? No one. And so I have plenty that pop up that are intriguing enough to pursue I had never thought about from the context of if I am properly rested and prepared to pursue them and to solve them, then the challenges are delightful. Speaker 1: Yeah, rest is sleep, but it's also sensory rest, right? Rest is more than sleep. It is. It's optimal sleep because that is the most crucial time of how our body repairs itself. We all know this, right? But there's other forms of rest. It's sensory rest, getting off the devices, getting off the computer and just being. That allows the ability to contemplate, interpret, process. That is missing. I'm not saying in you, but it's missing in me. It's missing in kind of all of us, right? I mean, We wake up and we grind, we grind. These are the things that we need to do. I'm not saying you just need to sit there and like, you know, do nothing, but having opportunities to get off the distractions, get off the devices and process, that goes a long way. And that can feed that element that then feeds other elements. It takes some prioritization though. Speaker 2: I'm sitting with that because I think that's right. Like that feels right. And I've resisted that for a long time. Speaker 1: If we're not doing something, we're lazy. I mean, I have that. I feel guilty if I'm not doing it. Well, I could be doing something at the house. I could be doing something for my business or my patients, or I could be doing something that my wife needs, or I could be spending time with my kids who are teenagers. I could be doing something. In the book, I call it telec activities or a telec. Telec is you're doing something to try to accomplish something. Atelic is you're not doing anything. I call them purposeless pleasures. You're just being. And that can reset some things. And it doesn't need to just be sitting there staring in the woods like a hippie, although that can be very therapeutic too. It's just being okay with not trying to perform and check frickin' boxes. Speaker 2: Not accomplishing anything. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: So I'm thinking about Making a fire in my backyard and just sitting there with the fire. Yep. That's the only example I can think of right now. So throw me a couple more. Walking to walk? Speaker 1: Walking to walk, it sounds so damn boring, right? Not walking to burn calories, not walking to go somewhere, but going for a walk and just processing your headspace. Sitting there and observing, they're called sit spots. I mean, Native Americans and Native people have been doing this forever. Sit spot, you're just literally observing. Speaker 2: You know, this didn't come to mind earlier, but something I've been practicing that I think qualifies for this is When I feel that temptation to just mindlessly scroll or do something to numb myself out, I pause, put my phone away, and go see what my kids are doing. And then I just sit with whatever my kids are doing. Oh, my son's playing with his wrestling figures? Let me get really into playing with his wrestling figures with him. Oh, my daughter's drawing? Teach me what you're drawing. And there's nothing to accomplish except to connect with my kids. And it turns off, it actually, at first, there's something in my brain that's like, you should check an email, you should do this, and so I sit with that and observe it, but I'm just with them. And that is one of the ways that there's nothing to accomplish. I'm just checking in and being with whatever they're doing. And that sort of satisfies a bit of the connect part as well. But I'm mostly doing it from my own mind. I'm doing it as a way to not accomplish anything. Speaker 1: That's connect right there, that moment of a decision. That's a decision. I mean, really, all we're doing every day is just making different decisions. And you want to know somebody who's healthy, they're making better decisions more than bad decisions. That's, I mean, If you're making way more bad decisions that are not alignment with your goals, your values, your priorities, or these health elements or whatever elements you subscribe to, You're going to be unhealthy. If you're making a lot of good decisions that are aligned with your values, your priorities, your goals and have health in mind, you're going to be healthy. You made a different decision right there. You could have gone and done that, but you value your kids and you recognize and you had a moment of presence there. You said, this connect is important to me. All I'm What I'm sharing here is that each one of these elements is important and can you make a different decision based on a bandwidth or an energy that is low in that. If you're feeling really disconnected from your kids and yourself and your tribe, it does not make sense to go for a longer workout if you're a 9 out of 10. If you're eating perfectly, you don't need to prep more food. You know what I mean? It's taking inventory and seeing this dynamic process and saying, I'm a little low here. I just need to allocate a little bit of energy, but that requires making a different decision and a little bit of a change. And that's how I coach people. But once you do it and you start to see this, It's a dynamic thing. My ultimate goal for being healthy, like I said, is beyond the decisions. It's balance, it's flexibility, and it's consistency. And the balance is once you know the roadmap and you know the framework, how can you just make a little different decision based on what you need at that moment? If you don't know that or don't have a framework, you're just gonna end up repeating the same decisions, right? And that's the loop. Speaker 2: How long do you think that you'll live? Speaker 1: I've asked myself that. In fact, in my dark days, in the first... I was scared. I did not know if I was going to be healthy. And that's why I became obsessed with doing all of this. And now I've come out of the woods and have this kind of balanced protocol. There was times where I didn't know. I hope that I don't want to give it a number. I would love to give it a number, but I will tell you the quality of life where I feel strong and confident and clear and motivated and resilient and mobile and the people in my life that are important to me that We're doing enjoyable things together and having quality experiences. That's the most important thing. Longevity right now is a big thing and anti-aging and all of that. And I get it, right? There's so many biohacks for this stuff, these devices and supplements and NAD and peptides. And I love these things. I know them well. I give them to people. I take them. But what is the long, like, Why? As long as I'm in balance with those things and I'm doing these things and I'm feeling like that spark is lit, I don't have the time, but I'm hoping it's a long time and I'm accomplishing all of those characteristics. Speaker 2: How long do you think humans are capable of living? Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you ask a couple people, they're saying 200 plus years, right? Speaker 2: Do you think we'll see that? Like in our lifetime, and I know people who say, We're going to see people who live to be in the multi-hundreds. Speaker 1: I think we are learning so much. Speaker 2: I'm at the cutoff where it's like, we're just going to miss that. In our generation, how long do you think? Speaker 1: Well, you start looking at Sinclair and these people that really truly understand the aging process. You know, cellular sustenance and autophagy and all the biohacks of why we do these things. I won't name names, but we have people that have dedicated their entire life to absolutely optimizing every freaking decision for that of longevity. Speaker 2: You're not going to say the name of Brian Johnson? Is that what that was? Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. Speaker 2: You're not going to say Dave Asprey? Speaker 1: I watched his documentary and found myself judging him. And who am I to judge? That's his role, right? I find it very, very interesting. That's not for me because, again, I see through the lens of balance. I think I was judging him through my framework. I'm like, there are some things that are really lacking there. But who the hell am I? That's what his mission is, right? To answer your question, I think we'll learn a lot and we are learning a lot and we will be... Speaker 2: But what do you think today? How long can we live? Speaker 1: I have no doubt that we will start pushing in the 150s. Speaker 2: In our lifetime. By the time you and I are in our 7580, we're going to see people... Speaker 1: There's emerging science about aging and oxidative stress and mitochondrial function and where these theories of aging come from, and they're being explored right now, and there's some promising information that would reveal that, yes, we could probably get this in the next 50 years. So yeah, in our lifetime. Speaker 2: Well, here's what your work has made me think about. Peter Atiyah says in his book, in the last chapter, he's talking about mental health, and he says that a therapist shared with him, why would you want to extend your life if you're so unhappy? And I think so much of the biohacking world, so much of the longevity world is about the areas of move, rest, nourish. But if we don't have the things that challenge us and inspire us, what's the point? Because that's what we're doing all of this for. And so you've helped me contextualize why sometimes I can feel so accomplished and yet still feel so empty. And not only that I feel empty, but there are little changes that I can make. In order to change that in the same way that I've changed my body, the same way I've changed my diet, the same way that I've changed my portfolio size, I can also change the amount of inspiration and challenge and creativity that I feel as well. But thank you for being an example of that. I hope I look and feel like you when I grow up. Dr. Ryan Lazarus, it's great to see you. Thank you for being here. Speaker 1: Thank you for the opportunity and I wish you the best, brother.