0:01

You're listening to the human upgrade with Dave

0:04

Asprey. Formerly

0:08

Bulletproof Radio. You're

0:17

listening to the human upgrade with Dave

0:20

Asprey. And if you've

0:22

noticed, my voice is smooth and rich and

0:24

slow. That's because I'm interviewing

0:26

the guest who's been on

0:29

the show here at his studio in

0:31

Los Angeles, who has the number one

0:33

most sought after voice in podcasting after

0:35

Morgan Freeman. And

0:38

if that wasn't enough to give it

0:40

away, our guest is none other than

0:42

Sean Stevenson. We're here at the Model

0:45

Health Studio in Los Angeles. Sean,

0:49

welcome to the human upgrade. This

0:53

is the best intro ever. Shout out to

0:55

Morgan Freeman as well. He's

0:57

been old a long time. He's

0:59

doing something. He's been old for like 60

1:02

years. Yeah, that guy's into longevity. I wonder

1:04

if I could interview him about his longevity

1:06

practice. He seems like one of the more

1:08

interesting minds out there. Like he's fierce. Absolutely.

1:10

Yeah. Iconic voice as well. I'm going

1:12

to see if I can get him. That'd be fun. Oh

1:14

my gosh. All right. Thanks for

1:16

the idea. Guys, if you don't know

1:19

Sean Stevenson, he was on the show

1:21

last October of 2022. And

1:24

he's one of these guys who's just got

1:27

a huge embodiment of just peace

1:29

and calm that comes

1:31

from a background of having health at least

1:33

as bad as me and maybe even worse,

1:36

which is hard to do. And then

1:38

recovering and becoming a researcher and

1:40

nutritionist who's experienced in

1:42

biology and nutritional science. And we

1:44

always have these really cool conversations going back and

1:47

forth. Last time we

1:49

talked about metabolic switches, dieting and fat

1:51

loss. I want to

1:53

switch gears. The whole point of

1:55

the human upgrade is

1:58

to upgrade the environment around. and

2:00

inside of you to give you control of your own

2:02

biology. It includes longevity, it includes

2:04

muscle, how your brain works, everything.

2:07

You get to pick where you wanna be and

2:09

what are the things you change. And one of the things

2:11

that doesn't get enough attention is

2:13

the fourth F word in my

2:16

teaching. And if you're new to the

2:18

show, I'm gonna go through this real fast for you and then we're

2:20

gonna get into it with Sean. He's gonna love this intro. Your

2:24

body processes reality before you

2:26

can see it in about

2:28

a third of a second. And first it looks for

2:30

scary things. That's the first F word is fear. Run

2:32

away from killer hide from scary things. Doesn't matter if

2:35

it's criticism from other lot, felt scary, therefore it's scary

2:37

and your body goes into its mode before you can

2:39

think. Second thing is food.

2:42

Eat everything in case there's a famine. So you got fear

2:44

food. Third F word, it has

2:46

to do with keeping the species around forever that all humans

2:48

have to do. Sean, what is it? Fornication,

2:53

wow, nailed it. I was gonna say fertility, but you're

2:55

dirty minded. It's all good. So

2:58

we got fertility the other F word, I thought you might say. Fornication,

3:01

you're the first guy that's ever said that. I

3:03

was channeling Mike Tyson to be honest. That's

3:06

what popped into my head and I don't like

3:08

it. But are you kidding?

3:10

Mike Tyson is a genius. Well,

3:12

yeah, yeah. Like true, I

3:14

mean, you've got brain damage. Absolutely. His

3:18

level of self-awareness is unbelievable where he is in his

3:21

life. Genius has a lot of flavors. Oh, okay, that's

3:23

a fair point. Fourth F word, where

3:25

we were going with all this, is friend. So

3:28

your body automatically says, all right, am I under threat? Am

3:30

I starving? Do I have love in my life?

3:33

And how do I serve my community and my

3:35

people around me? And

3:37

you've done some recent work in your Eat

3:39

Smarter book series and you just came out

3:41

with your family cookbook, which I thought was a

3:43

good opportunity. And no guys, I'm not gonna tell

3:45

you, you have to go buy the

3:48

family cookbook. You can if you want to,

3:50

but we're gonna talk about why the

3:53

family cookbook. Is there why communal meals work?

3:55

And some things about supporting your community. And

3:57

I gotta say, not only did you bring...

3:59

at the book about it, but you're

4:02

probably thinking about it. I

4:05

would say, there's no problem

4:07

there, you are the most

4:09

well-liked podcaster in

4:11

the nutrition field. I don't know anyone

4:13

who's ever said anything bad about you.

4:17

Wow, I had no idea. There's

4:20

always people that have, I have a problem with this guy,

4:22

whatever they said this thing, whatever. Even

4:24

if people disagree with you, you just say it

4:26

was such peace and gratitude all the time that people

4:28

aren't pissed off even if you tell them the

4:30

vegan diet is stupid. And

4:32

all the other bad things you say, I don't know how you get away

4:34

with that. What's the worst thing you've said

4:37

to someone, Sean? Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

4:39

oh, oh. That's

4:41

going great. Yeah, what's so interesting

4:44

even hearing this, and it's

4:46

a really interesting affirmation, because I don't think of that about

4:48

myself. Your mission is calm and peace,

4:50

and it's really profound

4:53

to me because I don't come from that. I

4:56

grew up in a very, very volatile environment.

4:59

And St. Louis, even to this day,

5:01

it's the murder capital of the United

5:03

States. But

5:05

it took down Chicago? Yeah, I mean for years,

5:07

St. Louis is. But at

5:10

the same time, I just think about when

5:13

I was experiencing poor health, advanced degenerative disc

5:15

disease at the age of 20 was when

5:17

I got the diagnosis, which that is years

5:19

in the making before I go in and

5:21

get a scan done. I broke

5:24

my hip at track practice when I

5:26

was 15 years old, chronic asthma, hospitalized

5:28

on rotation. And obviously,

5:32

a lot of this stuff we

5:34

think about is relegated to people who are much older.

5:37

So I'm a very, very old person in a

5:40

young biological, from a biological

5:42

perspective versus the chronological

5:44

perspective. I was 20 years old and I was

5:46

a very old person. But

5:48

at this time, I was also very

5:51

aggressive and agitated. That's

5:54

what I'm saying. So to hear this is

5:57

really powerful because I was

5:59

walking. I'm walking around with this feeling

6:02

of I gotta prove myself, I gotta protect

6:04

myself, very assertive, very

6:06

aggressive. And also having kids

6:08

at a young age too, my

6:11

patience was just really

6:14

non-present. And I wanted to be better because

6:16

I grew up in an environment, a household

6:18

where my mother said something

6:20

once, and then she's screaming. There's

6:23

a lot of violence in the household, there's

6:25

a lot of violence outside my door. And

6:27

so to have the affirmation and you sharing

6:30

that just reflects back to me that

6:33

you can cultivate these qualities. You

6:35

can come from what

6:37

regardless of your circumstances, develop a sense

6:39

of peace and presence. And

6:42

it's not that it's a competition or anything,

6:44

but my wife has seen this transformation

6:46

where I'm the more patient parent now. I'm

6:49

the person who's very much more laid

6:51

back and peaceful. And when

6:54

I'm saying that though, what it

6:56

really is is I'm more conscious of

6:58

the options. I'm thinking

7:00

about the options on what I get to say,

7:03

how I present myself.

7:06

And I'm just more thoughtful, more

7:08

mindful of the power of my words, to put it

7:10

like that. And so even what

7:13

people are picking up and maybe they're talking good

7:15

behind my back is because

7:17

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7:19

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7:32

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10:00

kinds of regulation. What you're talking about

10:02

is nervous system regulation and your nervous system is

10:04

very well regulated. Steven Porges,

10:06

who's the father of

10:08

polyvagal theory, is just kind of a

10:11

godfather of how does your body regulate

10:13

itself. I've had the honor of

10:15

interviewing him a couple times. And he

10:18

talks about how your voice is

10:20

a really strong indicator of

10:23

where your nervous system is. And from my

10:25

first interview to my second, when I got

10:27

on with him, the second was, oh, Dave,

10:30

your body sounds much more regulated than it was

10:32

before. And earlier I was talking

10:35

about your voice. This isn't

10:37

that you were born this way. It's that you

10:39

built this. And

10:41

you built it out of necessity. And maybe that's

10:43

one of the reasons I think you're cool. Similar

10:45

things. I was really old before I was 30.

10:48

Arthritis, prediabetes, three

10:51

knee surgeries. Starting out I

10:53

was 14. They said, you have arthritis in

10:55

your knees. And just like, things are wrecked. And

10:58

when the brain stuff started going for me, when

11:01

you don't have enough energy, you

11:03

get angry real easily. So I mean, same thing. I

11:06

remember you just popped into my head. I had thought

11:08

about this in years. I was, I

11:10

don't know, maybe like 18. I'm going to the swap

11:13

meet. Right now, people under like

11:15

40 don't even know what that is. So

11:17

before we had Amazon, which is basically a swap

11:19

meet, buy all sorts of cheap crap on Amazon

11:21

that doesn't work very well. Because

11:23

they destroyed a lot of small businesses. But you go to

11:26

the swap meet to buy the cheap crap. And

11:28

there's the guy with all the skull

11:30

head spiked rings. And I was

11:32

like, I bought like five of those. I just want

11:35

to be tough. And he's like, man, I

11:37

don't know what's after you. Is it a motorcycle gang? And

11:39

I'm just like, no, I just like having dangerous things. And

11:42

it was some manifestation

11:44

of that. Just like, there's a word for it.

11:46

It's like a bone to pick with everyone. Just

11:49

having a super angry vibe all the time. There's

11:51

like an edge on me. And

11:53

I didn't understand. I was coming from my nervous

11:55

system and from my brain and from the nutrition

11:57

and other things wrong with my biology.

12:00

made me feel that way. And then I

12:02

believed it was, maybe there's an external threat,

12:04

maybe there's a mold in my bedroom. Our

12:07

bodies suck at telling that. You know this parts

12:09

of our brain, our amygdala

12:11

for example, we call it an amygdala hijack. You're

12:13

much more likely to jump into that part of

12:15

your brain when you're not well, when

12:18

you're chronically stressed, when you're malnutritioned. We've

12:21

got a lot of data on this. It isn't

12:23

just something we're just throwing out there. And so

12:25

we're really not our best selves in a lot

12:28

of these situational constructs. And in particular in relationships,

12:30

as you brought this up, this

12:32

fourth F is so important because our

12:35

environment is really dictating what we do. There's

12:37

this profound statement that we're a product of our

12:39

environment. And I kind of lived by that because

12:42

of where I grew up and

12:44

really replicating the behavior that I was

12:46

around. But here's the thing about

12:48

humans, we're not just products of our environment,

12:50

we're also creators of our environment. There you

12:52

go. Right? That's a profound statement. We can

12:55

create environments that create an automation of the

12:57

habits that we want to have. And the

12:59

outcomes that we want, if we

13:01

become aware that we have that power. And

13:04

unfortunately, especially in our world today, we've outsourced

13:06

a lot of that awareness. So

13:08

a lot of the things that we're doing, as a

13:10

matter of fact, I like to look

13:12

at culture itself, is

13:15

really the controller of our thoughts. Kind of like,

13:18

and I remember this in my

13:20

economics class, we had this concept

13:22

of the invisible hand, right? Culture

13:24

really works with an invisible hand

13:26

that's guiding us towards the choices

13:30

that we're making. And depending on which culture you're in, in

13:33

the United States, we have this belief in this

13:35

profound freedom that we have. But our

13:37

freedom is based on our perception of the choices

13:39

that we have that are presented to us. Yeah,

13:41

like if you vote, it changes things. Like people

13:43

just believe that despite the evidence. Well, I'm not

13:45

gonna open up that Pandora's box. I'm

13:48

gonna say, I'm gonna say that if we-

13:50

Let me put any words in your mouth,

13:52

Adam. What's up with that? That if we

13:54

define culture itself, define it, and it's really

13:57

important that we do that, and

13:59

this is the shared. attitudes, beliefs,

14:02

and behaviors shared

14:05

by a group of people that are then

14:07

passed on from one generation to the next.

14:09

And so a lot of our beliefs about

14:11

life are passed down from our predecessors,

14:14

from our parents, our grandparents, and the people

14:16

before us. And so in our

14:19

world today, however, we have infinite

14:21

access to all these different cultural

14:23

inputs. And so we've gone

14:25

a bit crazy. All right, we haven't evolved

14:28

in a place where we're able to even take

14:30

a lot of that on. We might be concerned

14:32

about the opinions of maybe the 100 people in

14:34

our tribe. Now there are, it

14:37

can be a million quote followers that you

14:39

have, that people are on

14:42

high alert trying to fulfill the desires

14:44

of these different people on what I'm

14:46

supposed to be. Right. And so

14:48

now I want to circle all this back to say this. So

14:51

defining what culture is, understanding what culture is,

14:53

we have the power to create our own

14:55

microculture. You and I both

14:58

for many years have been working to change

15:00

the larger culture scape, to make

15:02

health easier for people. Right. And

15:05

we've made a dent and we absolutely have. And

15:07

it's amazing, but it is not a

15:09

good use of our time because it is hard. It is

15:11

very hard. And

15:14

what I found in my own personal experience, I've been in

15:16

this school for 21 years now. And

15:19

I've had, I've worked as a clinician

15:21

working with real people and real families.

15:24

And so I've seen that the most powerful way

15:26

to make change in our community

15:29

is by changing the microculture in your

15:31

household first. Because what

15:33

I've seen is that you take

15:35

your culture with you. When

15:38

people see you, they see the

15:40

reflection of your culture and it's very infectious.

15:44

Of course, especially recently, we've

15:46

really kind of tunnel visioned

15:48

things that are infectious. Good

15:50

things can be infectious as well. And

15:52

so by focusing on creating a healthy microculture,

15:55

my children are a representation of that. My,

15:58

myself, my wife, our relationship. These

16:00

are things that reflect and influence

16:02

other people around us. And

16:05

so where does this stand in the science

16:07

as far as longevity? Because this is one of the things

16:09

that we're both very passionate about. Researchers

16:12

at Brigham Young University did this

16:15

massive meta-analysis. And

16:17

this included 148 studies, huge data set, and about 300,000

16:19

study participants. And

16:24

they found that having healthy

16:26

social bonds, healthy relationships, was

16:28

the number one determinant on how long

16:30

those people are going to live. They

16:33

looked at beating obesity, they looked at smoking,

16:36

they looked at alcohol, they looked at exercise.

16:38

All those things do matter. There's

16:41

something about having healthy relationships

16:44

that stood out beyond even those things. And what

16:46

it is, is your

16:48

relationships affect how you do those

16:50

other things. Because the

16:52

culture, the environment is going to determine

16:54

your choices. When

16:57

you talk about the culture in the home, I feel

17:00

like a lot of culture is

17:02

beliefs about reality that are untested

17:04

and not supported by observation.

17:09

And one cultural belief example like

17:11

that, I learned from, strangely

17:13

in college, I took this class called

17:15

religion and violence. Why

17:18

do people commit violence

17:20

in the name of religion? I couldn't

17:22

understand it as a young Asperger's guy.

17:25

And it was taught by a rabbinical scholar. And

17:28

he said, well, what do all these groups have in common? And he said,

17:30

well, they're all irrational. And he stops, he

17:33

goes, no, Dave, they're profoundly

17:35

rational. I said, what do you mean?

17:39

He said, well, if you believed what they believe,

17:41

what they're doing is rational. And

17:44

so you realize culture instills beliefs that

17:46

haven't passed the reality test. And

17:50

somehow when culture can infuse beliefs

17:52

that are reality based and do

17:54

move humanity in the right direction,

17:56

it's a really powerful tool for

17:58

passing knowledge between the generations. And

18:02

it feels like there's been a lot of

18:05

erosion of culture. And what you're

18:07

proposing from your family dinner is

18:10

a way to put culture back in. But here's my question.

18:12

You're a dad. I'm a dad. Where

18:15

does the culture come from that we start

18:17

in our households? Where do we get it?

18:19

I don't know. It's real. Yeah,

18:22

exactly. Exactly. There's,

18:25

I've got the biggest answer

18:27

is just that's jumping out for me is

18:30

we can look back. And

18:32

this is the most one of the most profound

18:34

things for our health period. Just looking at

18:37

what humans have figured out that that looks like it

18:39

works. Right. We

18:41

evolved eating together for,

18:44

you know, just thinking about this tribal construct.

18:46

We recently for the first time, I took

18:49

my family went to Hawaii, which seemed like

18:51

again, I'm from St. Louis. Yeah, I didn't get

18:53

on the airplane to I was I think 25

18:55

or 26 or something like that. And so to

18:58

say that I'm even going to Hawaii, it that

19:00

is not the magic is not lost on me.

19:02

Right. But I'm seeing this through different eyes than

19:04

other people. And so as I'm sitting

19:06

there at this performance of a luau, we're seeing

19:08

a representation of something that we used to do.

19:11

Right. So everybody was

19:19

involved in food. Right. So the procurement of

19:22

the food, the hunting, the gathering, the food

19:24

preparation, and of course,

19:26

most importantly, eating together. And

19:28

that is also where a lot

19:30

of the culture was getting passed down to

19:32

share. Yeah. Because this is where

19:34

stories before the advent of writing, for example,

19:37

your history and the lessons

19:39

about survival, about

19:42

moving the culture along was

19:44

passed down through stories, right. So there

19:47

was these stories and songs and dance

19:49

and performance. And it

19:51

was a really magical experience that

19:53

become that was integrated into our culture

19:56

at the time through through our evolution.

19:58

And now we just look at it like Oh, wow, that's really

20:01

that's awesome. Look at him go, you know

20:03

doing the little dances and things like that

20:05

But this is how we evolved now From

20:09

there we kind of I'm not gonna say Evolved

20:11

but I did just say it to

20:14

where we start to become more separate, right? So

20:16

we moved from this tribal construct to our neighborhoods,

20:19

right but even within that and there's still

20:22

cultures around the world that still have close

20:24

family, right extended family who are in close

20:26

proximity But that

20:28

further and further starts to dissipate and

20:31

separate To the degree

20:33

today where you have families that aren't

20:35

typically around extended families But today

20:37

we have something new just in the last couple of

20:39

decades in particular the last ten years were in your

20:42

own household You can be radically

20:44

separated from your family members because

20:46

of our screens Because

20:48

of social media, for example, it takes you

20:50

out of the environment. It takes you

20:52

out of the present It inherently

20:54

does that it's just it is what it

20:57

is Sure does and so having four or

20:59

five family members in one household that

21:01

can be completely Separating in

21:03

completely different mindsets environments

21:06

and cultural experiences now

21:09

With that being said I'm not here to villainize

21:11

these things because they enable us to connect if

21:14

used in the right way There's a right use

21:16

of technology and then there's a way that might

21:18

be not as advantageous That

21:20

can separate us and create a lot of mental

21:23

dysfunction But my goal is this

21:25

and this is what the data is affirming We

21:28

know how powerful food is for change and literally

21:30

food is what's making up the cells of our

21:32

bodies Food is influencing our state

21:34

of mental well-being our emotional fitness. The list

21:36

goes on and on our sleep quality The

21:39

list goes on and on What

21:42

if we look at our ancestors

21:44

and see how they did food? You

21:46

know and we come together with this and

21:48

understanding that the dinner table can be a

21:50

unifier it can be a unifier

21:52

and the leverage this

21:54

opportunity we've all got stuff going on and

21:58

My question was is this affirmed

22:00

in the data, are there actual physical

22:02

changes or health changes that happen when we eat

22:05

together as a family? And I'll share a couple

22:07

of quick studies with you. Yeah. First

22:09

of all, some researchers at Harvard were

22:11

tracking family eating behavior for decades. That's

22:15

cool. And what they found was that families

22:17

that eat together on a regular basis just

22:21

seem to naturally eat more of these, what

22:23

they established to be vital nutrients that help

22:25

to prevent diseases in those families. This was

22:27

back when Harvard was based on science when

22:29

they knew what real nutrients were instead of

22:31

the vegan weird Harvard of the last five

22:33

years. Again, I'm not going to open that

22:35

Pandora's box, but they did

22:38

find particular nutrients that

22:43

these family members, because what they found was that

22:45

they were eating far less ultra processed foods. They

22:47

were eating more real whole foods and

22:50

far less ultra processed foods, namely chips and

22:52

soda that were coming along with these nefarious

22:54

ingredients that they had identified in their data.

22:57

Now that's cool. We got some service level data

23:00

and that was actually one of the catalyst for me doing this

23:02

book in this project. And so I

23:04

was like, what about some specific health health outcome? And

23:07

I found a couple of these studies. I share

23:09

one with you. It's published in the journal pediatrics

23:11

because I was most interested in the outcomes

23:13

for our kids. And actually I'm speaking

23:15

at my youngest son's school tomorrow. Nice. I hold

23:17

your youngest for these 1212. Okay. Fourth

23:20

through eighth grade. And it's so

23:23

powerful, you know, to be able to speak

23:25

to these kids and it's a wellness event and

23:27

also to let them know that they have opportunities

23:29

in wellness. Like I never saw anybody that looked

23:31

at like me doing, you know, working

23:33

in health and wellness. But

23:36

I'm saying all that to say that publishing

23:38

the journal pediatrics, they,

23:41

and also I'm a very big fan of

23:43

minimum effective dose. Yeah. There's

23:45

some time to do other stuff, right? Do I have to

23:47

eat with these people every day to live,

23:49

to be a healthy person? And this is not

23:52

the case. What they found was that eating with

23:54

your family, eating these kids in these studies, eating

23:56

with their family, just three meals per week or

23:59

more, but three was. the minimum effective dose

24:01

led to far less incidence of those

24:04

children developing obesity or disordered

24:06

eating. It was

24:08

a market change from less

24:11

than three meals to three meals or more. And

24:13

so this is like an insurance for our

24:15

kids. There's something that happens that

24:18

lowers their risk of one of the

24:20

fastest growing issues in our children. Childhood

24:22

obesity is effectively

24:25

tripled in the last 30 years.

24:27

It's not normal. It's not okay.

24:29

And it's creating this is not about

24:32

vanity metrics, by the way, disease and

24:34

behavioral metrics. It's a huge risk

24:37

factor for essentially everything.

24:39

Yeah. Most of the

24:41

top 10 leading causes of death. Yeah. And

24:44

but the question was, in addition to that

24:46

now, coming from the

24:48

environment that I come from, I'm aware of

24:50

people that are not from where I'm from

24:52

wanting to be social

24:54

justice warriors for

24:57

me. Oh yeah, without your consent.

24:59

And so saying like, well, that's eating

25:01

with your family, eating with your kids,

25:05

that behavior, that's a privilege,

25:07

right? So nobody said that to

25:09

me, but these are the type

25:11

of things that I see conversations about. That

25:13

seems unhealthy, mental and healthy to believe that.

25:16

But I have seen people say that to

25:18

other people conversating about this science. Wow.

25:22

And to reference them to

25:24

acknowledge that because it is a privilege, but

25:26

it's a privilege that we can choose. This

25:30

particular study, and this was

25:33

looking at minority children who are generally in

25:35

the construct of a low income environment, like

25:37

I come from, they track

25:39

the eating behavior of the kids. And they found that if they

25:41

ate with their family,

25:43

their parents and or caregiver,

25:47

four meals per week could have been any meal,

25:49

breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever works for the family, four

25:51

meals per week, those children ate five

25:54

servings of whole foods, fruits

25:56

and vegetables in particular, five servings,

25:58

at least five days. a week. Wow.

26:02

And they found that they ate radically

26:04

less ultra processed foods, namely chips and

26:06

soda. And the researchers noted specifically when

26:08

the TV was never or rarely on.

26:11

There's something about that TV sitting in with

26:13

you guys that and of

26:15

course is telling you, hey, eat some Pringles, eat

26:17

some, you know, but you know, just keeping this

26:19

in mind, if my family would have

26:21

known and this I'm not exaggerating at all, Dave, I

26:24

can count on my hands how many times I sat

26:26

down and ate with my parents. My

26:28

mother, my stepfather, and most

26:31

of those times were holidays. All

26:33

right. And so most of the time

26:35

it was my little brother and sister and I, we eat

26:37

together, but kind of a lot of those times would be

26:39

separate, which grabs some food, goes sit wherever front

26:42

of the TV video game, you know, go

26:44

outside with our friends, whatever. And

26:48

had and this is what I know. Well,

26:50

I would like to believe this. Had

26:52

my mother known, had my family known that this

26:54

could have been a protective element for, for

26:57

her children. I believe she would

26:59

have done it or made it a more

27:01

of a priority to eat with us more

27:03

frequently. But we just don't know that our

27:05

environment and sitting down and being present with

27:07

our food and with each other can

27:10

help to protect our health. It's

27:12

also free. In fact,

27:14

it costs less than going out for food. And

27:18

I hear a lot of people say, Oh, you

27:20

know, biohacking is too expensive. Well,

27:22

being healthy in the world we've created is

27:24

more expensive, but it

27:27

is cheaper to make some white

27:29

rice with eggs, which

27:33

has got some good saturated fat. It's

27:35

got some protein and throw

27:37

some oregano and some other, some rosemary

27:39

in it and some sea salt. It

27:42

costs way less than Taco Bell and

27:44

it's better for you. And if you want to go up from

27:46

there, add some ground beef. Ideally, you're going to get organic and

27:48

grass fed, which is a buck or two a pound more, maybe

27:51

you don't, but it's still so much better

27:53

than what the fashion place had. And

27:56

something else happens. Nourishing

27:58

Another human is a. It's. A profound

28:01

the intimate act. Yeah right,

28:03

The first time we nursed another humans

28:05

are see when mothers are nursing babies

28:07

in the womb an end with their

28:09

breasts and that's first time we are

28:12

nourished by another. And so

28:14

when you prepare food for your

28:16

family, even if it's a simple

28:18

preparation, A you're performing

28:20

or a sense of spiritual assets

28:22

and so there's mindless to it.

28:25

And. It is something that we talked

28:27

about. The beginning to show about a

28:29

regulated nervous system was happening during a

28:32

meal when there's eye contact and offs

28:34

is that the kids are learning how

28:36

to regulate their nervous system while they're

28:38

being nourished by their parents. So they

28:40

go into this. Very

28:42

soft spiritual stay. right?

28:44

And they're They're feeling you when they eat

28:47

and at. So they're receiving spiritual and emotional

28:49

nourishment the same time they're getting physical nourishment

28:51

from their food. And when you look at

28:53

the world through that lens, of course this

28:55

makes sense, but if you were girls who

28:57

wins at what you just have to get

28:59

some calories and all calories are the same.

29:01

I can cancel out a snickers bar was

29:03

a diet Coke. Then.

29:06

You're ignoring this. vast swaths of the

29:08

environmental impacts of the body. gets in

29:10

your kids nervous systems that are you

29:12

know the world. Worse yet so their

29:14

energy says always reading yours and if

29:17

you are constantly triggered it means are

29:19

easy to program the region, are very

29:21

conscious, enemies are going to teach your

29:23

kids meters. And what I

29:25

would suspect my happened with you. Or

29:28

that's really common and it's may learn. As about

29:31

thirty I did my first like really deep hole

29:33

which have a breathing kind of blew my my

29:35

mind open. An.

29:38

Answer is for page checklist of behaviors at

29:40

home and some seem like is to knowledge

29:42

and did you set the table and in

29:44

no man's others were young digital yeah a

29:46

lot and and all the sinks and you

29:48

go through and like okay if this. Happens

29:52

in your house. Lots. of

29:54

check the first bus and talking about

29:56

in a free courses things have in

29:58

my house and around batter goodness necessarily,

30:00

they're just things. And this was,

30:02

oh, if your dad did those, check a box, okay? If

30:05

your mom did those, check a box. And you're like, oh wow,

30:07

that's funny. My parents did most of those things because they happened

30:09

in the house. And the final column, like,

30:11

oh, that one, that one's for you. And I go, okay, so

30:13

I go, shoot, I only do half of what my parents did,

30:15

I'm doing great. And then go over that other

30:17

column, that's to see if you do

30:19

the exact opposite. And I was

30:21

like, oh man, I'm doing everything my parents

30:24

did or the exact opposite of everything my

30:26

parents did, I'm still not free, right?

30:30

And so, well, the way you reverse that is,

30:33

you wanna go through that list, I'm like, oh, that's funny.

30:35

My parents were already deprogrammed.

30:38

They were conscious and free and calm

30:40

and regulated so that they could

30:42

share the best of theirs, no parents' program, I'm certainly not

30:44

perfect. I got pissed off more than a few times, right?

30:47

You can only have so many irrational

30:49

arguments and prefer, like, because I said so, right? We

30:51

all get there. And it's probably good that kids hear

30:54

that too, like, they need to know there's limits. But

30:58

I believe that if you can be someone with

31:00

more healthy behaviors at that dinner table, like you're

31:02

talking about in the Family Cookbook, that

31:06

your kids, when they're done, they don't have to be reactive,

31:10

either by copying or by doing the opposite,

31:12

they can just choose. And it

31:14

just creates so much more energy in their lives. And

31:18

I do remember though, I mean, your son's

31:21

12, you know, you're talking about going

31:23

to school and all. I taught

31:25

my kids a long time ago, I'm like, look, when

31:27

they're five, I start telling them this, I'm like, look,

31:29

there's gonna come a time when you're about 14, where

31:32

I'm gonna be the dumbest person on earth. Like,

31:35

daddy, you could never be, you're the best

31:37

daddy ever. By the way, all kids

31:39

believe their parents are the best ever, no matter how bad

31:41

they are, because we have to believe that. So, I

31:44

will, thanks, I'm so happy you feel that way about me.

31:46

But here's why, when we were tribes of 150 people, there

31:50

weren't enough people for you to find

31:53

a girlfriend you weren't related to, or a boyfriend.

31:55

That means that mother nature is programming

31:57

you to think I'm so stupid. when

32:00

you have puberty, that you're willing to risk being

32:02

eaten by a lion to find another tribe so

32:04

that you can have healthy babies. This

32:06

is to protect our species. So it's okay, between about 14

32:08

and 24, I might be the

32:10

dumbest person on earth, but I love you anyway. And

32:14

sure enough, man, I think it's happening. My

32:16

kids are teenagers now, and I remind

32:18

them of it, and they roll their eyes. There's,

32:20

of course- I've got an older son as well, he

32:22

comes with another feeling, right? But let's

32:25

go back to dinner. I wanna ask you a couple

32:27

questions. Not just that, yeah, not that you're dumb, but

32:29

also that I know. Oh God,

32:32

yeah, they know everything. And

32:35

there's a behavior that all humans have, and I

32:37

do my best at dinner with the kids to

32:39

kind of

32:42

unpack why we're doing it, what are the

32:44

unconscious parts and the conscious parts. And

32:46

we talk about fear, right? And a lot of kids

32:48

are learning how to process fear and how to have

32:51

courage in the face of fear. But

32:53

then there's this food thing, and there's a genuine

32:55

biological fear that you might starve to death. And

32:57

it's not a belief, it's in your bones, because

32:59

humans have died of starvation a lot, if

33:02

you go back over a few generations. So

33:05

when you put the food on the table, the

33:08

teenagers are the ones who are gonna take all

33:10

of the meat, no matter how much is there,

33:12

just gonna take it all. And so I

33:14

sat down and said, especially for my son, I said, look,

33:17

there's something that men do, right? And it's

33:19

time for you to learn, you're starting to learn how to be

33:21

a man. And what men do is

33:23

they make sure that the others at

33:26

the table eat first, and

33:28

you're stepping into that. So it's your job

33:30

not to make sure you have the most on your plate at

33:32

first, but it's your job to make sure you pass it around,

33:35

right? And when you sit with that, you earn respect. And

33:38

there will always be enough food in our home.

33:41

We don't have a problem with that, we grow the

33:43

cows. We don't have a problem

33:45

with that. And every

33:48

single meal, when one of the kids, I need more, it's

33:50

not fair. Did you make sure

33:52

that everyone else ate? Because nourishing another

33:54

person, it's a leadership thing. It's

33:57

also a kindness thing. And when you look

33:59

back at... like a traditional Chinese

34:01

or a Japanese tea ceremony, you

34:03

would never pour your own tea. You

34:06

pour everyone else's tea and someone pours your tea.

34:09

And you do that because it allows them the

34:11

opportunity to be of service to you. Because it

34:13

feels good to pour someone else's tea. It feels

34:15

better to pour their tea and just to pour

34:18

yours. I've worked on teaching my

34:20

kids that. But I think there's a lot of

34:22

service to others in a family meal that just

34:24

goes unspoken for. And it's such an important thing.

34:26

So as a dad, how do you deal with

34:28

that? Yeah. I mean, even you

34:30

having the construct or

34:32

the context, the cultural construct for

34:35

you to have that opportunity to

34:37

have that lesson with your son, that's unique

34:40

in our world today. Was that cultural appropriation

34:42

though? I'm just wondering. Of what

34:44

culture? I'm a Chinese tea ceremony. Oh no.

34:46

Wait. No. No.

34:49

Another Pandora's box. So,

34:53

you know, just love playing those out for you because you

34:55

always handle them so good. Just to

34:57

circle back on, you know, you said something

34:59

so profound to lead that off, which was

35:02

talking about the change in the nervous system. Yeah.

35:05

Right? And opening the door for more connection

35:07

and compassion. This is

35:09

echoed in another study. There's like,

35:11

there's over 250 peer-viewed references embedded

35:13

into a cookbook. I love

35:15

that you put that much research in a cookbook. But

35:17

also I made it fun. I brought it to life

35:20

and made it fun. It's called the family cookbook. Yeah,

35:22

e-smarter family cookbook. e-smarter family cookbook. And so what they

35:24

did was they tracked tech

35:26

workers. So workers at IBM and

35:28

they looked at their frequency

35:30

of getting home, finishing work

35:32

and getting home for, you

35:35

know, quote, making it home for family dinner. Right?

35:38

And what they found was that regardless of

35:40

how high stress was at work, as

35:43

long as those office workers were

35:45

able to eat dinner with their family on a consistent

35:47

basis, their work morale stayed

35:49

high, productivity, they were able

35:51

to metabolize that stress better. But

35:54

as soon as other obligations cut into their

35:56

ability to eat dinner with their family, guess

35:58

what happens? Work morale goes. down, productivity

36:00

goes down, stress goes

36:02

up. Why does this matter? There's

36:05

so many studies on this, but Big

36:07

Meta Analysis published in JAMA today,

36:10

and I've said this many times, so hopefully people have

36:12

heard this before. If you haven't, this should be a

36:15

huge aha moment. According

36:17

to a huge meta analysis

36:20

of office visits for physicians

36:22

today, upwards of 80% of

36:24

all physician visits were stress-related disease

36:27

today, stress-related illnesses. Stress is

36:30

a huge underlying component because

36:32

it's invisible in a way until

36:35

it's not. We don't really think about,

36:37

again, stress doesn't have calories, right? We

36:39

don't think about how that impacts our

36:41

health. And so sitting down

36:44

and eating with our families, there's a

36:46

shift that takes place from this sympathetic

36:48

fight or flight nervous system

36:50

to the nickname for the parasympathetic

36:53

is rest and digest nervous system.

36:56

Keyword digest in there as well.

36:58

We assimilate our food better. We have

37:01

more satiety related hormone

37:03

production. We digest

37:05

and eliminate the food better as well. And

37:09

this is just scratching the surface on some of the

37:11

benefits. How do we see these benefits? So

37:14

you mentioned the change

37:16

with the nervous system, but let's talk

37:18

specifically about oxytocin. Oxytocin is having a

37:21

moment right now. All right.

37:23

This is, it's gotten the nickname of

37:25

the cuddle hormone or the love hormone. Just

37:28

being in close proximity to people that you care

37:30

about, you're going to produce more oxytocin. And

37:32

it's one of these really remarkable hormones that

37:35

appears to have a neutralizing effect with

37:37

cortisol and it

37:40

promotes bonding with humans. Right? So it's

37:42

not the fact that we just are

37:44

producing this haphazardly.

37:47

It's something we evolved

37:49

to do when we're in proximity. And here's

37:51

the key. The psychological benefit

37:53

that you kind of hinted on is when

37:56

I'm sitting with my kids, I can see them.

37:59

I can. And this

38:01

is one of the most important human needs. Tony

38:03

Robbins has talked about this as well. The

38:06

need to feel significant. Today,

38:09

more than ever, thanks

38:11

to social media, we are

38:13

starving for that feeling. These kids

38:15

are doing so much to try to feel seen

38:18

and to feel significant, and they're looking at the

38:20

lives of all these other people, and

38:22

it's creating this kind of psychological loop of

38:24

not being enough. And so to be able

38:26

to sit, to see my kids,

38:28

for them to feel like I

38:31

am being seen, I matter, my

38:33

voice matters, and also you

38:35

can pick things up as well. You have opportunity

38:37

to see potential, because as

38:39

you said, the time is gonna come when you're

38:42

not as smart as you think you are, parents.

38:44

I know you can start to

38:46

see certain things. And

38:50

the last point here, and there's many other reasons

38:53

that are proven in the data, but

38:56

we have an opportunity as well to really

39:00

create a linchpin for our culture around

39:03

the dinner table. And so what I mean by that is,

39:07

why on earth would we, even

39:09

with this great data, want to eat with

39:11

our family and friends are included as well

39:13

more often if the

39:17

Walking Dead is so much more entertaining,

39:20

or Game of Thrones, or Power, or

39:22

whatever you're watching. Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad,

39:24

right? And not to villainize any of

39:26

these, we're living in the golden age of

39:28

television, right? I told Netflix fucked

39:30

it up. And doors, box alert.

39:36

All right, so knowing that there's

39:39

all these things vying for our attention, one

39:42

of the principles with habit change is to

39:44

replace it with something of equal or greater

39:46

value, not just like rip the bandaid off.

39:49

We're gonna sit and eat together. Sean and Dave were

39:51

talking about this, sit down, and

39:53

we're gonna eat together, all right?

39:55

It's creating an environment that is,

39:57

it feels good. This doesn't mean it's always good.

40:00

fun. This could be a time where there's a lot

40:02

of emotion. This could be a time when there is,

40:04

you know, different, you know, bottled up feelings are getting

40:06

expressed. But this is

40:08

creating an opportunity to where they're

40:11

feeling something that is

40:13

real, right? And so some

40:15

of the, and I've shared a bunch of tips on how

40:17

to do this, but coming into this,

40:20

creating a new dinner table culture

40:22

purposefully. And so for my

40:24

family, this is before aspirations of this book,

40:26

we even thought of, for

40:29

whatever reason, you know, we would

40:31

eat, we ate dinner together on a regular basis,

40:33

right? But for whatever reason, and

40:35

we've got tons of video on this too, if

40:37

my family or my wife will be recording

40:39

or somebody recording, we end up dancing

40:42

or having like a rap battle after

40:45

dinner or during dinner. Right. And it

40:47

just like just started happening. And

40:49

that evolved over time to where now we're

40:51

passing around like a fake microphone,

40:54

like a spoon or something to where

40:56

we got a microphone, an actual microphone

40:58

that we started passing around. We

41:00

started making beats to somebody at the table,

41:02

make beats on an on the iPad, my

41:05

son's iPad. And we got again, just

41:07

I didn't know. And this is

41:09

one of the first times I ever even shared this. This is

41:11

cool. I didn't know that this would be

41:13

something that was a documentation

41:15

of what I'm talking about. And

41:18

now that evolved to, and this

41:20

is one of the coolest moments of my life and

41:22

for my family as well. When

41:24

the cookbook came out, I went to, I took my family

41:26

there for the experience in New York. Did

41:29

Good Morning America, all the things, but the

41:32

most fun experience was this show called Sway in

41:34

the Morning. I don't know if you know about

41:37

this. I know the show. All right. So Sway

41:39

was, is this iconic MTV VJ from back in

41:41

the day, right? But he's very

41:44

well respected, probably the most respected

41:46

kind of cultural figure from

41:48

a talk show perspective in hip

41:50

hop. And so shout

41:53

out to his team. One of

41:55

his co-host Tracy G has been listening to my show for

41:57

many years And they invited me on to talk about

41:59

how he's doing. The wanders in the new project

42:01

right but does the week before Ll

42:03

Cool J was there are nice the

42:05

right so you not Missy Elliott kind

42:07

us who are all these are everywhere

42:09

he goes here. But pretty.

42:12

Much every by also freestyles

42:14

as a freestyle rap. On.

42:17

You know, after the interview. I. Didn't

42:19

come there for that days or until you

42:21

have to do that. I would also like

42:23

people that are more you know like in

42:25

new de Grasse Tyson for exemption on a

42:28

date in making freestyle. Been at the freezer

42:30

that are my search was in didn't they

42:32

didn't have be there for that either but

42:34

my son when he met sway my oldest

42:36

son to whispered into his ear my dad

42:38

can freeze the ah that's how how was

42:40

your side of saw I know this until

42:43

later is so the interview is over He

42:45

was powerful like erroneous fuzzy It was amazing

42:47

and didn't understand bag like. Okay job job

42:49

done. Job will die Impact Me and Dance waste

42:51

are as good a hype and they put on

42:54

the track and he's like you know hype in

42:56

the if you see the video this is a

42:58

moment I'm not like what the fuck is gonna

43:00

have a nice the the I heard is is

43:02

healthy I mean in the buildings up in wherever

43:05

knows I was like oh this is happening what's

43:07

that Okay. And. I just he went off

43:09

a what was ever will was in the room and

43:11

I built this muscle. right? To

43:13

do with my family been a block and

43:16

for my son helps and make that

43:18

moment possible. The room was flipping out safely.

43:20

Just saw Ll Cool J since that

43:22

day was not have been out like that

43:24

when I did a lighter than the

43:26

when I read his book has that's not

43:29

expected of me. I'm a nutritionist. right?

43:31

But. I built the skill set up in

43:33

this culture my family had. That's what I'm talking

43:35

about. You take your culture with you. right?

43:38

So we were able to impact. That.

43:40

Moment in so many lies.

43:42

Of. The people listening. right? Being

43:45

that something we cultivated together so whenever

43:47

they could be for you are you

43:49

know, game nights right? So. When.

43:51

There's so many different doors

43:54

after storytelling. Or dare

43:56

these wonderful like conversation started. Little

43:58

card sets. You. know There's

44:01

even, of course, like if you want to use your phone,

44:03

for example, there's like heads up little games and things like

44:05

that. Sometimes

44:07

like we just did a top

44:10

10 list of best Marvel movies, you know,

44:12

we just kind of when it ended up

44:14

becoming a heated, heated discussion. Nice. All

44:17

right. And you know, what was the best one? I

44:20

mean, for me, it's Infinity War. Yeah,

44:22

you're right. But

44:24

you know, so choosing

44:27

for yourself, creating a culture of wellness

44:29

around the dinner table, but

44:31

even proceeding that and maybe if we have time, we

44:33

could talk a little bit about it, but creating the

44:35

kitchen culture, the healthy kitchen culture that you want, that

44:37

makes you want to make food in the first place.

44:40

Right. And last little piece here with

44:42

this, if you think about another

44:46

just psychological transition into

44:48

eating together, if you know, for example, and by

44:50

the way, this is my walk

44:52

away for everybody, this is the take home assignment

44:55

for everybody is a fun homework. Take

44:58

three days. All right, whatever that

45:00

looks like for you, three meals. This

45:03

could be Monday and Wednesday, family dinner

45:05

and then brunch on Sunday. Or this

45:07

could be, you know, breakfast, Monday through

45:10

Thursday, whatever that looks like. Those

45:13

three days that minimum effective dose for your family.

45:16

Take out your schedule, put it on the calendar,

45:19

make it real, give it some tangible action. And

45:23

part of this is we immediately if we know

45:25

I've got family dinner on Monday and Wednesday, like

45:28

with my wife, she's already planning psychologically, she knows

45:30

that, oh, what are we going to eat versus

45:33

some time, especially when we first moved to LA, we

45:36

moved here right before all the

45:38

action of 2020. All right. I

45:41

didn't know it was going to happen. And

45:43

I didn't have DoorDash in where we lived in St.

45:45

Louis. We lived in Wildwood at this point, like we

45:47

moved out of the inner city, inner city and we're

45:49

living like kind of out in the woods. DoorDash

45:52

didn't even mess with us. All right. So

45:55

I came to LA and it's like, I

45:57

can get anything delivered to me, like to

45:59

our door. So we were kind of

46:01

flying by the seat of our pants when the world went upside

46:03

down and But

46:06

even with that my wife Recently,

46:08

you know, we had family dinner planned and she

46:10

got caught up in LA traffic and so

46:13

last minute is just me and my boys and

46:16

Which is like well, I'm gonna have to do it

46:18

as door to have some higher quality food of this

46:20

But we still sat down and ate together. Yeah, it's

46:22

all yeah. I I

46:25

Gotta show you a picture on my phone here. I'll

46:27

put this one up here I got this text yesterday

46:29

and just reminded me of it. It's from it's from

46:31

my son and He's

46:34

14 and He

46:37

I'll show it to you right now so

46:39

hey dad, I had a friend over for dinner and

46:43

Look what I cooked All

46:46

by myself He's amazing

46:48

a medium rare Grass-fed

46:51

grass-finished, New York, he plated it.

46:53

He made creamed veggies with grass-fed

46:55

butter He sliced it up sprinkled

46:58

it with sea salt and herbs

47:00

14. He could

47:02

work at a restaurant because yeah The

47:04

presentation is what we do. Yeah, even

47:06

grilled the rosemary or fried it and

47:08

some fat. I mean, it's it's it's

47:11

gorgeous and The

47:13

kids learn how to cook and this one reason I like

47:15

your book is you like look it's an important life skill

47:18

So I know my kids absolutely know how to cook

47:21

And they actually love it when they get a

47:23

night to themselves just to make their own dinner

47:25

Because it's gonna be delicious and to have you

47:27

know As much of the meat and the animal

47:29

protein that they've learned makes them feel good But

47:32

all the side dishes that they want all the

47:34

good stuff and you realize that's just like getting

47:36

dressed in the morning it's an act of self-care

47:38

and you talked about Feeling

47:41

significant in the world and

47:43

this goes back to that conversation at dinner about you

47:45

know serving someone else first Even

47:48

feel significant take a scoop of whatever

47:50

is on the table and put it

47:52

on someone else's plate and just

47:54

look in their eyes You do it and they're like,

47:56

thank you like you receiving gratitude for and you feel

47:58

significant because you got to do it and And

48:00

the next step up from that is prepare

48:02

the meal for another person or

48:04

for the family. Right, and

48:06

doing that, screw Instagram and TikTok

48:08

and all that. It's

48:10

not the number of likes when you cook a meal,

48:12

it's the way it made the other person feel when

48:14

they were done eating it. And part

48:17

of it was, you know, you made it from good

48:19

ingredients. The other part of it is you actually put

48:21

love in the food. And,

48:23

you know, we talked, when I was on your

48:25

show, we talked about danger

48:28

coffee. We have a ceremonial grade coffee that

48:30

comes every couple months, and

48:32

it's ultra premium, it's super

48:34

flavorful, and it's not meant to

48:37

have it alone. It's the coffee that you use

48:39

when you invite someone over to have a conversation

48:41

about it. And you make a really good cup

48:43

of coffee, and you make it, you know, with

48:45

pour over, and you do it the right way.

48:48

And it's the act of service of

48:51

sharing something special. It's like

48:53

if someone comes over for dinner and if you still

48:55

drink alcohol, you're like, oh yeah, let me open a

48:57

bottle of the really best stuff because we're gonna just

48:59

like be together in quality time. So

49:02

you can do it when you know how to cook. And

49:04

if you don't know how to cook, and you're just gonna

49:06

open a bag of Doritos and throw it at someone, it's

49:08

just not the same vibe. Yeah. So

49:11

I love it that you're talking in

49:13

your book about the ways to start

49:15

doing a family dinner, and then you're

49:17

talking about how important it is to

49:19

teach the kids how to cook. That's

49:22

a skill that a lot of kids have lost. A

49:25

minority of our children now are

49:27

able to actually prepare a complete meal

49:29

for themselves. It's a skill that's being lost by

49:31

our kids. And on the other side

49:33

though, if you think about this too, according

49:36

to this is published in Nutrition Journal, they

49:38

found that people who frequently eat alone in

49:40

isolation do in fact make poor food choices.

49:43

They eat more food, and

49:46

they also tend to have, of

49:48

course, those biomarkers of worse health

49:51

accordingly. But here's

49:53

the key. When it comes to

49:57

just this act itself is

49:59

so simple. Like we're gonna eat anyways,

50:02

but like scheduling a time to sit down together

50:04

and The pre

50:06

part of that is understanding know thyself. My

50:09

wife doesn't really like people being in the kitchen

50:11

with her All right, right, but I do that

50:15

Times that she does things

50:17

she like will schedule it mentally like I'm

50:19

gonna make this thing with my son I'm

50:22

gonna prepare this with with my son and

50:24

now Stay sitting

50:26

here today with you and being proud to say

50:28

like same thing my oldest son is

50:32

Argued I can't say this. All right, okay. I'm

50:34

not gonna say this Okay, you gotta say it's

50:36

not a competition going on but he's a great

50:38

cook. Okay, I almost said arguably the best cook

50:40

No, no, no, I'm not gonna say that not

50:43

gonna say he's gonna hear this But

50:45

he's an amazing cook and he does grilling things that none

50:48

of us even know how to do like he's on a

50:50

different level And so many times

50:52

over the years he's made Family dinners

50:54

for us and it's such a

50:56

great experience when your kid can do that for you It's

50:58

just like oh my god, and then my

51:01

youngest son, he's been preparing his meals since

51:03

he was like seven You know by

51:05

the time he was 10 he can make a complete,

51:07

you know breakfast He can make himself, you know just

51:09

some of the basic stuffs and you know and really

51:12

nourish himself and that's a It's such

51:14

a great gift to give our kids that they can

51:16

feed themselves because here's the other part of what you

51:18

know Which why I mentioned that study earlier with

51:21

kids a smaller percentage of them being able to cook

51:23

What are they gonna default to ultra

51:25

processed foods? Yeah period and

51:27

there's something else really magic it if you're

51:29

a parent Teach your kids to cook

51:31

so you don't have to cook for them Like

51:34

it's not that hard. I remember My

51:37

house is gluten-free and I

51:40

taught the kids how to make pancakes Right

51:42

and we're not keto You

51:44

I'm happy to be keto for a brief period

51:46

to go in and out for cognitive benefits the

51:48

way I teach but a lot of times people

51:50

somehow think I never eat a carb and it's

51:52

not how it works and So

51:55

we make it with rice flour, right and you

51:58

can put eggs in it for the protein and

52:00

you can add collagen or whatever. And

52:02

I just thought the kids had to do it. And

52:04

so my son got really into it with YouTube. And

52:06

so I'm gonna make crepes. Making crepes out of rice

52:09

flour is not easy because you need all that gluten

52:11

and stuff, but he figured it out. And he makes

52:13

a really good crepe so that kind of mastered crepes.

52:16

And he just moved on and then it was pie crusts.

52:19

And I'll tell you, he can make a much better

52:21

pie than I can because he's baked hundreds of pies

52:24

and the crust is rice flour. And he's got all

52:26

the right ingredients and the right ratios. So that needs

52:28

three more drops of water. And you

52:30

realize you're teaching him science and chemistry, but most of

52:32

all, you're teaching him to make you a pie and

52:35

then you get to eat it. Right. Exactly.

52:38

That's the wind that we don't talk about. There's a little bit

52:40

of selfishness as a parent because you're enabling

52:42

your kids, you're giving them the

52:44

power to control that huge environmental aspect of what

52:46

goes into my body. Yeah. It's

52:49

a remarkable experience for parents. If people

52:51

who might have younger kids, there will

52:53

come a time, hopefully

52:55

where your kid will give back to you.

52:57

Right. But the thing is, it's without expectation.

53:00

I just, my oldest son just invited me

53:02

to lunch maybe like

53:04

two weeks ago. And we

53:07

hung out, we had lunch, whatever.

53:09

He paid for it. Nice. He

53:12

whipped out his car. I didn't

53:14

think that day would ever happen, to be honest. Like I

53:16

never expected, I'm just sitting back like, oh

53:18

shit. The first return on investment. Nice.

53:21

Yeah. And

53:23

the same thing holds true with preparing you

53:25

a meal. And it feels good to them.

53:28

It felt good for him to pay

53:30

for it too. That was really, that

53:32

was him nourishing you. Like stepping into

53:34

manhood. That's really a big

53:36

moment. The Five Love Languages. Yeah. Right?

53:40

Yeah. Of course, this massive bestselling book. Food

53:43

ties into those love languages. Oh

53:45

yeah. So deliciously. Because

53:47

if you think about acts of

53:50

service, right? Food right

53:52

there. Yeah. This, and by the

53:54

way, for people who aren't familiar with the Five

53:56

Love Languages, this

53:59

researcher and. I mean, accurately

54:01

in many aspects of this, has

54:03

identified that we all give and

54:06

receive love in different ways. It's

54:08

a great book. Yeah. What

54:10

are your leveling urges? Mine are acts of

54:13

certain, no, words of

54:15

affirmation, words of

54:18

affirmation and

54:21

physical touch. I'm acts of

54:23

service and physical touch. And I think

54:25

I talked about this on the episode. I don't think I've

54:28

had the author on, I really should. Have you ever interviewed

54:30

him? I have not, yeah. We should put that on our

54:32

list. Yeah, let's collaborate and get him

54:34

to come on. And the book's been on the

54:36

New York Times Bestl.List for like 5,000 weeks or

54:38

something. It's a massive book. I think most listeners

54:40

have heard of it. But if you

54:42

don't know this work, your

54:45

partner is showing you love the way they

54:47

like to be showed love. And if it's not in your love

54:49

language, you won't feel it. So if they keep buying you gifts,

54:51

and like, I don't care about gifts, I just wanted her to

54:53

hold my hand. Maybe if she knows she

54:55

should hold your hand, that would

54:57

be useful for both of you and vice versa. Right?

55:01

And it's, for me, I don't care that

55:03

much about gifts. Right? But

55:05

when I know it's someone else's language, I'm kind of stressed.

55:07

I'm like, I don't really know what gift to buy because

55:09

it's just foreign to me. So I

55:11

have people help me figure out what should I buy for

55:13

that person? Because they're like gifts. And then I put it on

55:15

the calendar to make sure I do it. You see, but you

55:17

figured that out. That's the way to go about it. You

55:19

know? But also those are the ways that I

55:21

feel like I receive love. But the way

55:23

that I would give love would be

55:26

through acts of service or gifts. Right.

55:29

You know, like, I remember when my wife and

55:31

I, we'd been together for 19 years. And

55:34

when we were in college, like I

55:36

was just feeling the lovey-dovey vibe. It's

55:38

heavy. All right? And we still have

55:40

it. It's actually in my office. There's this

55:42

big poster board, and I can't believe I'm

55:45

sharing this shit right now. But

55:47

I wrote her a poem, right?

55:50

And so I've been at this a while

55:53

with the writing. I had a- Hey,

55:56

this wasn't a video yet, man. But

55:59

I had a school poem. was read over

56:01

the intercom. All right. All right.

56:04

So I won this school poetry. That's cool. So

56:06

anyway, so I, but I, I, I did it

56:08

after I wrote it. I rewrote it on

56:10

this big poster board with paint, like all

56:13

these different colors. Cool. It

56:15

took a long ass time. All right. And I'm

56:17

just like, Oh my God. But I'm feeling the

56:19

love and do like, Oh, you know, I'm doing

56:21

all the, the curses and what are you? I

56:23

see your rapper, painter, a man

56:25

of many talent. Man. Come

56:27

on. Stop it. I'm the

56:29

master of. Okay. So here's

56:32

the thing. I present this to her and of course she's like, Oh

56:34

my God. Oh, look at that. So sweet.

56:37

And she's kind of moves like it wasn't

56:39

the response that I thought I would get

56:41

from this immaculate creation that I, that I

56:43

gave, right? For her, the gift

56:45

thing isn't, isn't a thing. All

56:47

right. And but at the

56:49

time I didn't, I didn't see it that way.

56:52

Right. Right. And,

56:55

you know, the gift giving part. And

56:57

like for her, if once

56:59

I learned her love language and also some of

57:01

the work of Tony Robbins as well, for

57:03

her, just feeling the sense of certainty

57:06

is very important for her. Yeah. Knowing

57:09

someone's there for you. Knowing someone's there for you and

57:11

also taking things off her plate.

57:14

Right. So those kinds of acts

57:16

of service versus my gift that

57:18

I created is something that for

57:20

her, she really, she opens up more.

57:22

She feels more connected to me. You

57:25

know, all the things, but because she

57:27

spoke in a different language, I thought that she

57:29

didn't appreciate the gift as much. And

57:32

even to this day, she'll sometimes bring it up

57:34

and be like, no, baby, I love the poem.

57:36

It's just like, you know, I didn't, I didn't

57:38

know that you felt that way at the time.

57:40

You know, wow. And so, you

57:42

know, some of these things can get crossed up, but

57:44

just to circle us back to why these love languages

57:47

apply to food and my embarrassing

57:49

story. If you

57:51

look at food and put into those boxes, again, acts

57:53

of service. And I think about

57:55

my mother-in-law when she prepared

57:58

a bunch of meals when my wife We've had

58:00

our youngest son and brought him over and

58:03

being able to take that off our plate so we didn't have to

58:05

worry about food, what we were eating. And

58:07

she felt so good about that. And also

58:09

for us, receiving the gift was

58:11

really important and helpful for our

58:14

mental wellbeing too. Physical

58:16

touch, nothing touches you closer than

58:18

food does. Literally it becomes a

58:21

part of you or it's used

58:23

to drive and fuel this experience

58:26

of being a human. We've

58:29

got giving gifts, right? So receiving

58:31

the gifts, different gifts of food

58:33

are awesome. So whether that

58:35

is receiving a pie or receiving, maybe

58:38

it's a supply of your favorite Dave

58:41

approved nutrition bars or coffee.

58:45

It's funny, you just made me think of that.

58:47

Like I generally am not a gift

58:50

giver, but man, I love giving people coffee. I've

58:52

sent out thousands of bags of coffee to

58:54

people. Not because I'm trying to get them to talk about it.

58:56

I'm like, I was on your show. My

58:59

highest manifestation of coffee right

59:02

now, this is for you and it's

59:04

just what I wanted to drink it. So

59:06

maybe there's a little gift given in there that I didn't know about. You

59:08

just pointed that out for me. That's

59:11

funny. Isn't there another love

59:13

language that we didn't talk about? There's two.

59:15

So one of them is words of affirmation. For

59:21

my mother-in-law, it wasn't that act

59:23

itself. It

59:26

was what spoke back to her and made her feel

59:28

loved. It's the words of affirmation. You

59:31

see her light up. She glows

59:33

when we tell her, Tamusana,

59:36

where she's from Kenya, food

59:39

is so good. And

59:42

that for her feeds her spirit. It

59:44

makes her want to make more food for us.

59:48

But the last one is quality time. That's

59:50

a toxic one. No,

59:53

that's the one that this whole

59:55

project revolves around. No, it's toxic.

59:57

Spending time together with people. You

1:00:00

pulled that, you care about it. That

1:00:04

in and of itself, and the quality time that for

1:00:06

one person it might be what's going into

1:00:09

the preparation of food itself, it

1:00:11

might be the quality time that you spend with the people that

1:00:13

you love around food, but

1:00:15

all of that is gonna feed into, for

1:00:17

us at different degrees, and by the way, these love

1:00:19

languages aren't exclusive, but you're not just gonna have one

1:00:22

or two. You have all of them. They have like

1:00:24

a dominant love language. But you're gonna have a dominant

1:00:26

love language. And so that quality time that you can

1:00:28

spend together with and

1:00:30

around food, especially because here's the thing, food

1:00:33

is already so integrated into all

1:00:35

of our special kind of

1:00:37

social moments, right? Whether it's the first

1:00:39

date, whether it's, you

1:00:41

know, after the game,

1:00:44

right? Whether it's a funeral,

1:00:46

you know, my stepfather just passed

1:00:49

away this past year. And

1:00:51

right afterwards, everybody's going, like where

1:00:53

there's a whole food experience that's

1:00:55

happening afterwards. And

1:00:57

it's tied into so many aspects of our

1:01:00

lives, but it's like in our blind spot,

1:01:02

right? And because in our culture, in the United

1:01:04

States, here in our culture escape, and of course,

1:01:07

this has been infectious around the

1:01:09

world as well, it's usually around

1:01:11

really shitty food, right? But

1:01:14

we can change that. We could change that narrative.

1:01:16

We could change the cultural container to

1:01:18

make real food, health-affirming food,

1:01:20

plus that quality time all

1:01:22

meld together. You

1:01:24

can totally do it. And quality

1:01:26

time is one of the love languages.

1:01:29

The reason I said it was toxic, I was only half kidding, is

1:01:33

that it's good to have some

1:01:35

family time and all that. And

1:01:37

people whose predominant love language

1:01:40

is quality time, they

1:01:42

probably should be dating people who also have

1:01:44

the same love language. Because otherwise, they're going

1:01:46

to need a whole lot of time. If

1:01:49

you're trying to get shit done, if

1:01:51

quality time is the dominant love, they won't feel loved when

1:01:53

you're in a meeting. And

1:01:55

sometimes you have to be in a meeting to pay for the food that you're

1:01:57

gonna cook for them when you have quality time later. So

1:02:00

I feel like that's the one that's the

1:02:02

most expensive love language. I feel, and I

1:02:05

understand what you're saying, I feel it's,

1:02:07

that is in need of a reframing for

1:02:09

that person because we,

1:02:13

unfortunately, we separate ourselves from

1:02:15

ourselves. Pull it

1:02:17

down with yourself. Quality time with oneself. There

1:02:19

you go. Right? And so starting

1:02:22

to appreciate and cultivate and nourish that as

1:02:24

well. And again, giving that reframe can

1:02:27

be helpful. That's

1:02:30

such a profound thing. So you do all the spiritual

1:02:33

stuff in addition to food, but

1:02:35

you never finished the rap story. Do

1:02:38

you have a West Coast style video or

1:02:40

anything? We

1:02:43

can put something to show those for people. So

1:02:45

you did. You actually have a video out

1:02:47

there like any albums. No, hell no.

1:02:50

I don't have albums. I've got three

1:02:52

songs as a West Coast style video.

1:02:56

The line I remember from it is hypoglybic that

1:02:58

once was me. Now I'm rolling with my yak butter

1:03:00

teeth. And they're actually,

1:03:03

that was fine. I

1:03:08

was not expecting that to come out. A friend

1:03:10

of mine who actually was invited to tour with

1:03:12

LL Cool J helped with

1:03:14

it. My friend Craig helped with it, Craig

1:03:17

Hanley. And he's like,

1:03:19

okay, we got to do this. And we did

1:03:21

this whole video and I'm driving the Fatmobile giant

1:03:23

stick of butter. It was a pre-eterned butter with

1:03:25

a coffee cup that spins around on top. Cruising

1:03:27

down like it's a convertible. It was full

1:03:30

on palm trees, West Coast style. I

1:03:32

have no rapping skills at all. Just really

1:03:34

clear. But we did record the video and it's somewhere

1:03:36

up on my social. And I still laugh about it

1:03:38

because that line is hilarious. And I did not write

1:03:40

it. Craig wrote it. But you recited

1:03:42

that bad boy. That's what Dr. Dre does. He does

1:03:44

not write his own bars. But

1:03:47

what's funny for me is, and

1:03:49

I've never shared this before, but

1:03:51

even if I'm going on a

1:03:53

walk, there's a tendency for me

1:03:56

to do that mental exercise where

1:03:58

I'm just thinking these different bars

1:04:00

and this is one of the things

1:04:03

for us. If you think about just

1:04:05

Sonics, we started by and I thank

1:04:07

you for the introduction with my voice.

1:04:10

This wasn't my voice. Yeah. I imagine

1:04:12

so. There was a transformation that took

1:04:14

place. Of course, when

1:04:16

I was younger, get on the phone

1:04:18

with a girl, you might want to have like, what's up? Yeah.

1:04:21

Yeah. It's Sean, what's up? What you

1:04:23

doing? Whatever. But I didn't sound like

1:04:26

this, sorry. But there was a little flavor there.

1:04:30

The truth is, once I started meditating,

1:04:33

and in particular, I was doing this meditation for

1:04:35

my mother-in-law that she taught me. This

1:04:38

was like looking at the different

1:04:40

chakras. She shared

1:04:42

with me in my more analytical brain and

1:04:45

just try to make it make sense. You've

1:04:48

got all these different hormonal

1:04:50

glands along this line,

1:04:54

this track and all this ancient data on

1:04:56

it. But things can get blocked up. For

1:04:59

me, this meditation resonated

1:05:01

because we did meditation for all

1:05:04

of the chakras. But it was

1:05:06

an anahata chakra meditation, so the

1:05:08

heart meditation because for me, definitely

1:05:10

that energy was blocked up. You got

1:05:12

a lot right now. Yeah. Thank you, man.

1:05:15

But it was about what blocks it is

1:05:17

attention need. I

1:05:20

grew up in it again,

1:05:23

like my mother didn't hug me until I was an

1:05:25

adult. You know what I'm saying? I'm sure. Again, when I was a

1:05:27

baby, she helped me, all that stuff. But I

1:05:29

don't have a conscious recollection of my

1:05:31

mom just hugging me and loving on me.

1:05:33

That kind of thing. But it's not that

1:05:36

she didn't love me, it's that she wanted

1:05:38

me to be tough enough to survive in the

1:05:40

environment that we were in. She wanted to have a tough

1:05:42

son, a man, somebody that

1:05:45

can handle himself. So she

1:05:47

didn't make me lovey-dovey and soft and all

1:05:49

these things. But that, of course, created a

1:05:51

deficiency in me. So I

1:05:53

didn't know this even as I'm sharing this right

1:05:55

now, that's more of a recent revelation. But at

1:05:57

the time, I just felt like this

1:05:59

meditation. and feels good, like I feel better when

1:06:01

I do this. And it was

1:06:03

an involved maybe like, we'll just say, you

1:06:06

know, like 20 minutes of humming. I knew you were

1:06:08

gonna get to humming. Yeah. I was gonna

1:06:10

say, if you didn't, humming while you're

1:06:12

cooking, talk about that. Okay,

1:06:15

so interestingly enough,

1:06:17

humming can trigger

1:06:19

your body to produce more nitric oxide.

1:06:21

Yep. Right? And, but humans

1:06:24

have been doing this a long time, this ohm,

1:06:26

you know, this vibe, creating a

1:06:28

vibration and kind of syncing up the

1:06:30

vibration of your cells in a way. Right? So

1:06:33

there's still a lot to unpack with this, but part

1:06:35

of the profound change that I was experiencing,

1:06:37

I'm changing the chemistry of my body significantly

1:06:40

by humming for 20 minutes. And

1:06:43

then I would just, the other part of the meditation was

1:06:45

just to sit there in silence. By the time I finished

1:06:47

that 20 minutes of humming, everything,

1:06:50

it became so clear. And

1:06:55

I've never articulated this before, but empty.

1:06:58

I felt empty, but full of,

1:07:01

full of space. Yeah.

1:07:03

Right. I don't know. Like I

1:07:05

can't. Spaciousness. Yes. Spaciousness. Spaciousness.

1:07:08

Right? And I was able to just feel,

1:07:10

just be present, just, just be.

1:07:12

Like I felt like from doing

1:07:14

that experience, I realized the

1:07:16

very first time that I did it, that

1:07:19

prior to that, I didn't really have

1:07:21

a conscious thought my entire

1:07:23

life. Wow. I was just living. I was

1:07:25

just in the shit. Of

1:07:28

course I thought about things. I did well in school, all the things, but

1:07:30

I didn't think about my thinking. I didn't

1:07:32

see the thought that's getting

1:07:35

displayed on this kind of window of my

1:07:37

mind. From that metacognition, like

1:07:39

being aware of how you think. I was aware

1:07:41

that I was aware. And it

1:07:43

changed everything. And it took time though, by

1:07:45

the way, when that happens, it

1:07:47

takes time to like reintegrate yourself

1:07:50

into life. Yeah. And,

1:07:52

you know, but it was that meditation

1:07:54

and it changed my voice, you know,

1:07:56

doing the humming and the

1:07:58

meditation practice. And I

1:08:00

didn't realize this until years later, there was

1:08:02

a before and there was an after, but

1:08:05

it wasn't just the act of humming that changed my

1:08:07

voice, it was that I changed. There

1:08:09

was a new sense of peace, of

1:08:12

presence, of wholeness that

1:08:15

then comes through in the texture

1:08:17

of your voice. It absolutely

1:08:20

comes through. I

1:08:22

haven't talked about this before. Years

1:08:25

ago, right before I had kids, this would be about like,

1:08:28

maybe 18 years ago. I

1:08:30

just said I was gonna wake up at 5 a.m. because

1:08:33

that's what successful people do. By the way, that's

1:08:35

bullshit. But I did it

1:08:37

for two years straight. And I'd wake

1:08:39

up and I would do an

1:08:41

hour to 90 minutes of

1:08:44

meditation with breath work, I did art of

1:08:46

living. And then I did a bunch of

1:08:49

chanting from this guy named Dharmasin Khalsa. So

1:08:51

all these different intonations and things like that.

1:08:54

And it really did affect my

1:08:56

nervous system. I developed some of the spiritual

1:08:58

awareness that I have now. And I've studied

1:09:00

from lots of different lineages, but I

1:09:03

think that also had an effect on my nervous system,

1:09:05

even though it turns out you can do the same

1:09:07

practice at 7 a.m. if you're not an early morning

1:09:09

person and it still does the same thing. But

1:09:12

I ended up just saying, I'm

1:09:15

actually happy when I don't wake up at 5 a.m. because

1:09:17

genetically that's not my jam. But

1:09:20

then later I

1:09:22

decided, I don't know what I was saying. I

1:09:24

still don't know what I was saying. But

1:09:26

I said, I wanna do this. And I mentioned it

1:09:29

to my friend Ken Rakowski on his metal groups, as

1:09:31

an entrepreneur group I'm a member of. And

1:09:34

he goes, you know who's on the call, Dave? I

1:09:36

go, who? He says, Roger Love. And

1:09:38

Roger's been on my show. He talks about some of the stuff

1:09:40

we're talking about. Roger Tots,

1:09:45

was it Bradley Cooper who's in that movie with

1:09:47

Lady Gaga, where a star is born? He didn't

1:09:49

know how to sing, but he wanted to sing

1:09:51

those parts. So Roger Love taught him how to

1:09:53

sing. He teaches all these professional singers. And Roger's

1:09:55

like, Dave, I drink your coffee. I'd love to

1:09:57

do some lessons with you. So all of a

1:09:59

sudden I have these. voice lessons, he just

1:10:01

taught me more how to like read

1:10:03

my audio books and how to control

1:10:05

my breathing differently than meditation so

1:10:07

that my voice sounds more like me

1:10:10

to me. And it was

1:10:12

really profound work on just understanding

1:10:15

people perceive your voice, but all your cells

1:10:17

perceive the vibration of your voice. And if

1:10:19

you just have the mechanics, right? Like you

1:10:21

see a precision dancer and you can see

1:10:23

it, but a precision singer, you can't see

1:10:25

what they're doing, but it's the same amount

1:10:27

of precision as a dancer. And

1:10:30

the effects on that sense of peace, which

1:10:32

brings your ability to rest and digest and

1:10:34

to nourish and to be nourished. I'm

1:10:37

actually really happy you talked about that. And

1:10:39

it seems like that's a bonus piece of advice

1:10:42

from the Eat Smarter

1:10:44

Family cookbook is

1:10:47

you should hum while you're cooking for someone

1:10:49

else and you get a double benefit, right?

1:10:51

Yeah, I gotta throw this in here too.

1:10:53

You mentioned that the love that you're imbuing

1:10:55

into the food, this is very real as

1:10:58

well. And by the way,

1:11:00

on the other side of that attention

1:11:02

need was unconditional love, right?

1:11:05

And so cultivating that, I really didn't know what that was.

1:11:08

And in this conversation

1:11:10

about love, of all

1:11:13

the different emotions or ideas

1:11:15

that we talk about as a culture,

1:11:17

this is the biggest one. Right,

1:11:20

it's so many, it's integrating

1:11:22

this so much of our reality. And

1:11:26

there was a phantom DNA experiment that

1:11:29

was conducted. I didn't know about this. Yeah, so

1:11:31

this was done maybe 20 years ago. And

1:11:34

these researchers, they had a vacuum,

1:11:37

which can basically, there's nothing in it,

1:11:39

right? So it can literally eliminate anything

1:11:41

from being in this space. But

1:11:44

there's something that you can't get rid of, which

1:11:46

is biophotons, right? The little packets that make up

1:11:49

our reality. And so the

1:11:51

researchers saw inside the vacuum and they

1:11:53

saw that these biophotons were just kind

1:11:55

of in this random scattered position. But

1:11:58

they took a human DNA. and

1:12:00

they put it into the vacuum. All right? And

1:12:04

to the researchers surprise,

1:12:08

all of the bio photons that were in this

1:12:10

vacuum adhered themselves to

1:12:12

the human DNA. They conformed to it.

1:12:15

Now, of course they were surprised by this.

1:12:17

They were interested. They had a hypothesis. What

1:12:20

happened next blew their minds because they

1:12:22

did not expect this to happen. They

1:12:24

thought that once you remove the human DNA, the

1:12:26

bio photons would go back to their seemingly

1:12:29

random organization. But when they

1:12:31

removed the human DNA, the bio photons

1:12:33

stayed conformed as if the human DNA

1:12:35

was still there. It

1:12:38

made a long lasting impression on

1:12:40

the very thing that makes up

1:12:42

our reality. And

1:12:44

so when we're talking about you imbuing

1:12:47

or changing the energy of that food is

1:12:49

a very, very real thing. We

1:12:52

impact the world around us in

1:12:54

profound ways. We impact each other in profound

1:12:56

ways. HeartMath Institute, right?

1:12:59

So they've got, they're able to literally

1:13:01

measure the electromagnetic field that emanates from

1:13:03

the human heart and called the tube

1:13:06

torus. I was an advisor to those

1:13:08

guys in 2008 and

1:13:10

brought them into the world of biohacking and quantified self.

1:13:12

I love it that you know about this research. Of

1:13:14

course. That's so cool. I was in

1:13:17

Ferguson, I was living in Ferguson, Missouri. No, Gary.

1:13:20

But I was like sending little donations to

1:13:22

HeartMath, you know, like, send my spiritual tithes

1:13:24

as I'm like. Wow, so few people even

1:13:26

now know about this. It's profound stuff. Keep

1:13:29

going on this. I just, I'm impressed that

1:13:31

you know that there's kind of like a

1:13:33

little corner of biohacking. Yeah. So

1:13:36

the tube torus extended from what they saw

1:13:38

upwards of eight feet from your body, right?

1:13:40

There's this field. And by the

1:13:42

way, just a very practical real

1:13:45

life example of what

1:13:47

that is, heart monitor, right? You

1:13:49

see it, you see this electrical energy

1:13:52

that's being expended from the human body

1:13:54

that you can measure, all right? But

1:13:56

this electromagnetic field literally extends feet, several

1:13:58

feet from your body. you're not

1:14:00

just in your body. And so when we're

1:14:02

talking about people's energy, right? There is

1:14:05

a real energy exchange and integration

1:14:07

that happens when we're around people. And

1:14:10

so of course you want to be mindful of who you're hanging out with, right?

1:14:12

Somebody has like, we just might say like bad vibes

1:14:15

or good vibes, this kind of stuff, like pay attention

1:14:17

to that stuff. And also

1:14:20

some researchers at Princeton, and

1:14:22

I love this where we are today, we

1:14:24

could do all these really crazy and fascinating

1:14:26

experiments, but literally tracking the

1:14:28

human brain and the brain waves and the

1:14:30

activity of the brain of two

1:14:32

people who hadn't met, they

1:14:34

put them together in a room, just had them talk

1:14:37

for a little bit, create a little bit of

1:14:39

rapport for like 10 minutes. And what they

1:14:41

found was that their brain waves start to sync up. Oh

1:14:43

yeah. They just met, right?

1:14:46

Our brains sync up with each other

1:14:48

when we're in conversation, right?

1:14:50

So again, who are you conversating with, who you're hanging

1:14:52

out with? I love

1:14:54

this statement I just heard from somebody

1:14:57

recently that we hear this statement

1:14:59

that we're the average of the five people we spend the

1:15:01

most time with. They said that we're

1:15:03

the average of the five nervous systems that we

1:15:05

spend the most time with. Ooh, I like that.

1:15:07

Right? Right? Right? There's

1:15:10

an important ingredient to what you talked about, though,

1:15:12

that's spaciousness state that you talked about. If

1:15:14

you create spaciousness and you're in a conversation

1:15:16

with somebody not thinking about what you're gonna

1:15:18

say next, you can start

1:15:20

to download what they're saying. You

1:15:23

don't have to get the words, so you can see the images of

1:15:25

their tone. And that's, yeah, it's an

1:15:27

advanced practice, but it's not that advanced of

1:15:29

a practice. So when you're really vibing with someone, you're

1:15:32

getting the download and someone who's

1:15:34

skilled can actually transmit what

1:15:36

they're saying with more intention. And

1:15:38

that magnetic field around you, it's

1:15:41

just the Taurus if you don't know how to manipulate it. You

1:15:44

can take that field and you can reach around the world with it and

1:15:46

you can touch someone that you love and they'll feel it. And

1:15:48

I have a few friends I can talk with, well, text me

1:15:50

or call me. And like, all I have to do is, it's

1:15:53

not just thinking about them, it's feeling

1:15:55

about them. the heart's

1:15:57

what generates the field, it's not the brain. The

1:16:00

brain is a much smaller field. And when

1:16:02

you just realize, you're not crazy if you think

1:16:04

that your friend calls you and you think about them. That's

1:16:08

good, because this is how it works. The

1:16:10

field, we're all connected. Oh man, here's a

1:16:12

cool thing. I read about this, got

1:16:15

who told, I wanna attribute this, I don't know who to

1:16:17

attribute this to, it's just something I picked up. It

1:16:20

always drove me crazy. I'm a network engineering

1:16:22

guy, how to build TCP, IP,

1:16:24

and WiFi, and you know, Starlink and

1:16:26

all that stuff is my background. And

1:16:30

talk about how Native

1:16:32

Americans would use

1:16:34

smoke signals to communicate. You

1:16:37

can't even do zeros and ones, smoke. There's

1:16:41

nothing you could do. Peeing the fire is more

1:16:43

steamy. There's no signal you can think of

1:16:45

there. And I always thought that was stupid. And

1:16:48

they must know something. And this has

1:16:50

to be a shamanic teaching. But

1:16:52

here's what they're doing. They light the smoke

1:16:54

signal to tell the other

1:16:56

guys that are far away, tune in. All

1:16:59

it is is like, hey, signal coming in and the

1:17:01

guy sits there and you know, just opens up his

1:17:03

spaciousness, opens up his heart and goes, oh, I

1:17:06

know what he's thinking. So this was

1:17:08

not to send information. It was an

1:17:10

attention signal to receive information that was

1:17:12

being sent with intent. That's

1:17:15

how the world really works. And

1:17:17

you can put it in your food and you put

1:17:20

it in the person across from you at your dinner table,

1:17:22

which is why I think your book is important. Thank

1:17:25

you so much, I appreciate that. Thanks

1:17:27

for coming on the human upgrade.

1:17:29

You can go to themodelhealthshow.com guys.

1:17:32

If you don't tune in to Sean's work, just

1:17:34

listen to his voice. I don't know if it's

1:17:37

true or not. I hear Morgan Freeman also listens

1:17:39

to it. Just hear his voice. I'm not sure

1:17:41

about that. But I think it might be true.

1:17:43

Sean, you're a legend and I really mean it.

1:17:46

Every time I've ever mentioned you to anyone, they

1:17:48

say, man, I love that guy. There's

1:17:50

nothing bad in that. Thank you, I

1:17:52

love that man. Thank you, you really helped to

1:17:54

fill my cup today. Not hanging

1:17:56

out with you, so it's truly my honor. Thank you, Dave.

1:18:00

If you like this episode to do, don't order DoorDash today.

1:18:06

This episode not sponsored by DoorDash. What

1:18:08

you should do is go to one

1:18:10

of the other apps, like Instacart or something and order

1:18:12

some ingredients, some good ones, and maybe even go to

1:18:14

the store if you wanna do some and pick out

1:18:17

the good cut of meat and cook

1:18:19

food for somebody you care about. And if you have

1:18:21

time to do that today, then make a cup of

1:18:23

coffee for someone you care about. Yeah,

1:18:25

you could make a danger coffee, but

1:18:27

honestly, just do anything that's an act

1:18:29

of service that nourishes another human being.

1:18:32

And if that's all you did from watching the show,

1:18:34

that would make me really happy. So thank you. You're

1:18:40

listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey.

1:18:45

The Human Upgrade, formerly Bulletproof Radio, was created

1:18:47

and is hosted by Dave Asprey. The information

1:18:50

contained in this podcast is provided for informational

1:18:52

purposes only and is not intended for the

1:18:54

purposes of diagnosing, treating, curing, or preventing any

1:18:56

disease. Before using any products referenced on

1:18:58

the podcast, consult with your healthcare provider,

1:19:01

carefully read all labels, and heed all

1:19:03

directions and cautions that accompany the products.

1:19:05

Information found or received through the podcast should not

1:19:07

be used in place of a consultation or advice

1:19:09

from a healthcare provider. If you suspect

1:19:11

you have a medical problem or should you have any healthcare

1:19:13

questions, please promptly call or see your healthcare provider.

1:19:16

This podcast, including Dave Asprey and the producers,

1:19:18

disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects from

1:19:21

the use of information contained herein. Opinions of

1:19:23

guests are their own, and this podcast does

1:19:25

not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made

1:19:27

by guests. This podcast does

1:19:29

not make any representations or warranties

1:19:31

about guest qualifications or credibility. This

1:19:33

podcast may contain paid endorsements and

1:19:35

advertisements for products or services. Individuals

1:19:38

on this podcast may have a direct or

1:19:40

indirect financial interest in products or services referred

1:19:42

to therein. This

1:19:44

podcast is owned by Bulletproof Media. The

1:19:47

human upgrade, formerly Bulletproof Radio, was

1:19:49

created and is hosted by Dave Asprey. The

1:20:00

information contained in this podcast is provided for

1:20:03

informational purposes only and is not intended for

1:20:05

the purposes of diagnosing, treating, curing or

1:20:07

preventing any disease. Before using any

1:20:09

products referenced on the podcast, consult with your

1:20:11

healthcare provider, carefully read all labels and heed

1:20:13

all directions and cautions that accompany the products.

1:20:16

Information found or received through the podcast should not be

1:20:18

used in place of a consultation or advice from a

1:20:20

healthcare provider. If you suspect you have

1:20:22

a medical problem or should you have any healthcare questions,

1:20:25

please promptly call or see your healthcare provider. This

1:20:27

podcast, including Dave Asprey and the producers,

1:20:29

disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects

1:20:31

from the use of information contained herein.

1:20:33

Pinions of guests are their own and

1:20:35

this podcast does not endorse or accept

1:20:37

responsibility to statements made by guests. This

1:20:40

podcast does not make any representations or

1:20:42

warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. This

1:20:44

podcast may contain paid endorsements and advertisements

1:20:46

for products or services. Individuals

1:20:49

on this podcast may have a direct or indirect

1:20:51

financial interest in products or services referred to

1:20:53

herein. This

1:20:55

podcast is owned by Bulletproof Media.