Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1365: Is the Way You Stand & Move Making You Sick? (Featuring Aaron Alexander)

Episode Date: August 24, 2020

In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin speak with Aaron Alexander, author of The Align Method, about the importance of posture, mobility, and movement on health and longevity. The interesting dance with... your ego. (3:53) The detriments of leading with your imposter versus authentic self. (6:09) The perception of safety. (10:12) How humans are extremely complex. (12:55) The stigma around cannabis. (15:08) The practiced skill of thinking slowly. (16:52) Disorganization can lead to parasites. (18:33) The skill of reading body language. (21:11) Always question the things you feel most passionate about. (23:05) How your thoughts and moods affect your movements. (27:12) How there is a lot of wisdom in spiritual practices. (30:42) Do people store emotions in their bodies? (33:34) How we are a product of our childhood. (40:30) The fine line of not letting your insecurities consume you. (45:23) How your perception of yourself impacts the way that you carry your movement. (48:57) Best practices to be a happier person. (59:14) The importance of disrupting your day to day life. (1:05:17) Be more honest with your biology. (1:08:45) Consistent movement matters. (1:14:47) Leveraging leverage. (1:27:18) Best practices to incorporate hip hinging into your daily life. (1:29:36) The Western Medicine bottle. (1:32:43) The power of proper nasal breathing. (1:35:15) Are we heading towards being plugged in? (1:42:34) Our perceived happiness over possessions rather than people. (1:45:20) How LA is like an oven. (1:54:05) Are you consumed by the game or a witness? (1:55:51) Ancient wisdom and science have polarities. (2:01:22) The unintended consequences of capturing rather than viewing. (2:06:26) Featured Guest/People Mentioned Aaron Alexander (@alignpodcast)  Instagram Website Bishop Robert Barron (@bishopbarron)  Instagram Amy Cuddy, PhD (@amycuddy)  Instagram Joan Vernikos Andrew Huberman, Ph.D. (@hubermanlab)  Instagram   Related Links/Products Mentioned August Promotion: MAPS Performance ½ off!! **Promo code “GREEN50” at checkout** Visit ChiliPad for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! The Align Method: 5 Movement Principles for a Stronger Body, Sharper Mind, and Stress-Proof Life – Book by Aaron Alexander Thinking, Fast and Slow – Book by Daniel Kahneman Mind Pump #1165: Bishop Robert Barron On Physical Fitness, Satan, Evolution, Psychedelics & Much More Amy Cuddy: Your body language may shape who you are | TED Talk Your face and moves seem happier when I smile: Facial action influences the perception of emotional faces and biological motion stimuli. Paul Ekman: Detecting Lies, Facial Expressions, Body Language | Ep. 175 A Simple Test Assessing Ability To Sit Up From The Floor Predicts Mortality Risk Hand Grip Strength Associated With All-Cause Mortality, Other Adverse Outcomes Astronauts Showed Us How Sitting Ages Us Amazon.com: Joan Vernikos 3 Tips for Better Muscle Growth – Mind Pump Blog Home on Apple TV+ Idiocracy (2006) - IMDb HOW THE PIRAHÃ PEOPLE BECAME THE HAPPIEST TRIBE IN THE WORLD? Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction – Book by Derek Thompson Joe Rogan Experience #1513 - Andrew Huberman

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Starting point is 00:00:00 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, UP with your hosts. Saldas Defano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pumped the World's Top Fitness Health and Entertainment Podcast, we interview our good friend Aaron Alexander. He's a movement specialist and the author of the Align Method. Now in this episode, we have some really, really good conversation and discussions around movement
Starting point is 00:00:32 and posture and how the way you move, the way you stand, the facial expressions you make, actually give your brain feedback and tell you how you can actually feel or how to feel. Believe it or not, how you stand affects your mood and there's a lot of evidence to support this. So we dive real deep in that subject and we talk about a few other things.
Starting point is 00:00:54 Aaron is a great conversationalist. He has a podcast himself. So we always have a good time when we get him on our show. You can find his book, The Align Method, five movement principles for a stronger body, sharper mind and stress proof life at his website AlignPodcast.com, his podcast, of course, is called Align Podcast. Now this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Chili Pad. Now, Chili Pad makes some of the best bed cooling or bed warming devices you'll find anywhere.
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Starting point is 00:02:14 Now Adam Justin and myself love the chili pad and the uller, which is their other product. It's made a very big impact on how well we sleep. And because you listen to Mind Pump, you get a huge discount. So here's what you do if you want to check out their products and get the MindPump discount. Go to chileatechnology.com, that's CHILI-technology.com forward slash MindPump, and then use the code on the page and get between 15 to 25% off their products. Also this month, Maps performance is 50% off.
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Starting point is 00:03:22 to move better overall. This is a very important thing to train in your body and you'll get into a better position to move better overall. This is a very important thing to train in your body. Mass performance comes with video demos, teaching how to do all the exercises. Of course, it tells you which exercise to do, when to do them, how many sets reps, et cetera. Again, it's 50% off. Here's how you get that discount.
Starting point is 00:03:39 Just go to mapsgreen.com, that's MAPS-GR-E-N.com and use the code green five zero that's green fifty with no space for the fifty percent off discount. It's an interesting dance that we have with our egos right and I remember when we first had that psychologist on on the show sell that you that you brought. Oh, yeah. And she assessed all of us. Yeah, I love her. And she really like broke down like narcissism and that there's a healthy dose of it.
Starting point is 00:04:11 It's a positive version. Right. And then there's obviously an unhealthy version of it. And so I think that, you know, in our space with our peers as you get a larger audience and more people paying attention to you, there's that fine line that you have to constantly dance. And I think this is a conversation that the four of us have a lot.
Starting point is 00:04:33 And one of the things that I appreciate about these guys so much that I think we all have in common is as that grows for us instead of seeking it more or letting ourselves fall into it, we actually want to kind of run away from it. We'd prefer to become more detached and not feed into it as much because we want to stay grounded to your point that you brought up before we got on. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:05:01 I've, there's a quote or an idea and I heard from some basketball coach. The key to be the best player is to be good enough, no enough about the game to play the game well, but not so much to realize that the game doesn't matter. I feel like, oh, wow, I feel like a lot of the, this whole experience with, I still thinking books or podcasts or social media or any of that stuff. You can be so deeply in the tunnel of the game, all that matters is growth and more and numbers and quantities. And then certain things can happen in the world, such as what's happening right now, which I think has been immensely healthy for my own mind, where I've kind of drawn back
Starting point is 00:05:41 and I'm like, I don't even know what the hell matters. Which I think is perfectly healthy. It doesn't always feel great because a nice healthy inflated ego and puffed out chest. Temporarily, it's like cocaine. While you're donna, you're like, this is cool. Yeah, well, what are they?
Starting point is 00:05:54 Then the effects with long-term use, it's like, oh, that was problematic. Right. But there's another quote, like a bad day for the ego is a good day for the soul. And I think that's super, super true. If you're back to the narcissist testing that we did or what I was part of this psychological profile
Starting point is 00:06:15 that we had done on us on air, which was kind of cool, she said, you have to have a certain dose of narcissism in order to go out and put yourself out there. If you didn't think that you had something valuable and that maybe people would find, well, you have to say interesting, you would never put yourself out there in that way. You wouldn't go on media. You wouldn't promote yourself that way. But when it becomes unhealthy, is when you're no longer, you can no longer take criticism. You are the greatest. You're not open to growth.
Starting point is 00:06:44 And you can become very addicting. And like anything that you get addicted to, it can become very, very destructive. And the worst thing that I see, we've met many influencers, right? People with lots of followers and, you know, in their space or whatever. And one thing that really struck me about some of these people is how conflicted and how much in pain these seem to be because the persona that they have created and that they're loved for is not their real persona.
Starting point is 00:07:12 They're leading with their imposter and not their authentic self. And it creates this turmoil within them. There's one person, I won't say their name, but one person in particular who presents themselves as a super outgoing charismatic, you know, talks to lots of people and girls and whatever, and this is part of their brand.
Starting point is 00:07:30 But in real life, they're one of the most shy, introverted people. And he says it feels conflicting, it doesn't feel good because people love him, but they don't love him. They love the person that he becomes. And I don't think that's a good place to be. So when people ask about like social media and how do I build my business and what's important?
Starting point is 00:07:53 I say, well, you know, this isn't gonna guarantee success or failure, but try to be as real as possible because if you do get popular, you at least won't be in hell. You'll be popular for being who you are and not for being someone you're not. Yeah, well it's just not sustainable, I think is the big thing. No way.
Starting point is 00:08:10 You know, and so it's like, if you want, I mean, you can deceive people for a certain amount of time. There's some quote around. I don't remember what it is exactly. Well, your first one, Dean Smith, do you know who the coach was? It sounds very Dean Smith. you know who the coach was?
Starting point is 00:08:25 It sounded very Dean Smith. I guess so many. Yeah, okay. I think it was Pat Ryan. Yeah, stop that. He's got, he just throws. He's like some, he's got grease tape. Yeah, I know Pat Ryan.
Starting point is 00:08:33 It's the only coach I know. Yeah, throw it out there. What is, what is this is nothing to do with how I was going to say? I just want to get to the bottom of what the idea was. It's like you can fool all of the people sometimes and some of the people all the time or something. But not all of the people all the time. That was totally separate idea has nothing to do with what I was gonna say.
Starting point is 00:08:48 Um. So, I feel like you need a whole wall of quotes to refer to. I have one in my house, that's what I do. Yeah, that's why I'm so quotacious. Anytime I hear something, you're so well-savent here. Like a well-savent. You know, you can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friends now.
Starting point is 00:09:06 I think it's because I'm suspicious of my own ideas. That's an interesting way to look at it. I think that's healthy. I can be unhealthy, but I think that's healthy. You know why? You just gotta be careful, though, when you're talking to yourself. You just gotta be careful because sometimes the quote sounds good at a context, and then you realize where it really came from.
Starting point is 00:09:24 A Marxism quote that you posted not to another day. That was so good. I'm still in agreement. I think the four alienations makes a lot of sense. Beyond that, I think it's one of those things where there's an individual, like you could say Adolf Hitler, maybe you had a handful of,
Starting point is 00:09:40 of course it would be nice to people. Of course he had some power, or a way that man got to, or Trump, or any people, it's like if nice to people. Of course, he had some power, or there's no way that man got to, or Trump, or any people, it's like if you just, we're very binary, we're very dualistic, it's like, you're either good or bad. Or bad.
Starting point is 00:09:52 Yes. I got it on my cardboard sign, I put it out, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, eight syllables in the boom, that's my point. It's in a tweet, 280 characters, whatever it is, like that's my point. And that's the way that we communicate because we're trained by the medium.
Starting point is 00:10:06 The medium is the massage is an interesting book all about this. Well, we have a, so we evolved obviously in tight communities, so we knew everybody. And we evolved thinking of people along those lines. But then when you have media now and the fact that we can know about a lot of people that we don't know, where it's a little bit counter to how we evolved.
Starting point is 00:10:29 So if I hear bad news and I'm going to try it, right, so we're going to try a 15 or 30 people, which was most of human history. And I hear bad news, it's bad news because it's affecting me. Like, there's a line over there, killed three people. Oh, shit, I need to worry about that, right? So we still have that inside of us. But now I read something about something happening, you know, 150 miles away or a thousand miles away or 10,000 miles away. And it still has that effect on me. Like, I'm going to read about a story about a kid that got kidnapped and it's really terrible. Now I'm going to
Starting point is 00:10:59 be really afraid that my kids are they did this great study. It's one of my favorites to talk about. Remember the movie, Jaws? Of course. Great movie, right? When Jaws came out, they were doing polls and people genuinely thought, and this is because of Jaws, news outlets reported rare shark attacks,
Starting point is 00:11:18 and it became like people would want to read about it, because of Jaws. The perception was that shark attacks were going through the roof. The reality of shark attacks have been about the same all the time, but people were all of a sudden very afraid of getting attacked by a shark when you're far more likely to die by slipping in the shower and hitting your head, for example, the same thing goes for the perception of safety. You ask anybody today, you ask anybody that's like Doug's generation or older and you say something like, is it more dangerous or less dangerous now for kids
Starting point is 00:11:48 to be outside by themselves? Oh, way safer than when I was a kid. Statistically not true. Statistically the kid nappings and assault on children far higher decades ago than it was than it is today. Today is far safer, but we perceive it as being so much more dangerous. And I'll take it back to our expertise, which is health and fitness, the way that we eat
Starting point is 00:12:09 doesn't match the way that we evolve, since we run into a lot of problems. The way that we move doesn't match the way that we evolve, so we run into a lot of problems. We created a society where our desires to move less, because that made sense a long time ago, conserve energy, don't injure yourself. Today doesn't make sense to continue pushing that, because eventually we'll be like the movie, Wally, you're watch Wally? No.
Starting point is 00:12:33 A cartoon where the all robot guys. Yeah, and the people are like, they're basically like these rascal scooters on one of the spaceships. It's like basically a crucian. Yeah, and that's all they do. That's all they do is drink out of slurpees. And they don't move, so they're like super obese. Their bones got really small. The screen's right in front of their eyes. Yeah, and that's all they do. It's all they do is drink out of swerpes. And they don't move. So they're like super obese. Their bones got really small.
Starting point is 00:12:46 They're screens right in front of their eyes. Yeah, and they don't look at each other. They eat yawker six. Yeah, there it is. Yeah, a lot like that. And they made it to your eye. They eat yawker six. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:12:55 So, I don't know. Does it exist? So it's always a problematic. It's a bad idea to bring up Hitler within like six minutes of any podcast. That's what I'm saying. Wow. Wow.
Starting point is 00:13:04 I'm curious if there is's what I'm talking about. Wow. I'm curious if there is an instance with a human being where it actually is necessary and makes complete sense to destroy any idea or devalue any idea that ever possibly came out of that whole time person's timeline because of some evil shit they did along the way. Is that a reasonable thing to think? No, actually, I think you have to be careful
Starting point is 00:13:29 because somebody like Hitler, who I think is, we could all agree in here that was generally a pretty bad person. Yes, rough childhood. If you, great salesman. Yeah, if you talk about ideas that he had or quotes that he had that may be valid, what
Starting point is 00:13:45 ends up happening, I think the fear is, I should say, that you end up validating them in some way. And then people start to look at the other ideas and say, well, these other ideas might be okay. And I think he meant it this way. Like cracking the door. And not that way. And I think that's the fear.
Starting point is 00:14:02 You know what I mean? You have to kind of be careful. But I can see how that also goes against reason. People are extremely complex. I mean, you have heroes of ours, for example, you might worship a celebrity or a past figure that did something really great. And you don't, and maybe you learn later on that they also do terrible things. We're philanthropists or cheated on the wife for one time they abuse someone or whatever,
Starting point is 00:14:29 and it's like it conflicts with, but I thought that they were all good. I'm like, no, they're human, they're complex, so they probably aren't all good, and somebody might not be all bad, although I do think historically, maybe there are some characters that fit in that category, but for the most part it doesn't. I mean, I think I'm a good person, I don't think I'm all good. I guarantee you there's are some characters that fit that category, but for the most part it doesn't.
Starting point is 00:14:45 I mean, I think I'm a good person, I think I'm all good. I guarantee you there's parts of me that are not good either. Yeah, I've been cursed. It's been problematic for me that my typical tendency is if I'm told not to think a thing, my immediate reaction is to go deeper into it. I think it's very common. And so that was like we were talking about the history of cannabis before this. And it's a really interesting example of we've had this institutionalized guilt and shame and all of these stereotypes
Starting point is 00:15:18 of the idea that a person would vaporize this plant and maybe go for a hike or exercise or meditate or they have glaucoma or like any of the issues eating disorder and so That's been put into this bucket that it almost makes it be you know if you have a brand you're like oh can I talk about this Plant you know because if there's all this stigma around it. I think charged subjects like that often times have deeply held meanings that are actually even more potent than the things that culture deems permittable, permissible for you to explore. Adam and I used to talk about this all the time. He worked in the cannabis industry. I have a very unique experience with cannabis having helped somebody who fought cancer with it, having it help me with some health issues
Starting point is 00:16:09 in the past. So I had a different perception. I remember being him and I would talk about it and we'd be like, you know, it's funny. You know, imagine you had a girlfriend, right? And you wanted to talk and you met their parents for the first time. And then you introduced yourself and they're like,
Starting point is 00:16:21 hey, what do you do for a living, Sal, and they say, oh, I have a vineyard, you know, I make wine. Oh my God, what a great guy, he makes wine. Now, what if I said, oh, I grow marijuana plants, and I, you know, we provide that for all the dispensaries, you know, oh my gosh, she's dating up. A guy goes, yeah, weed, like that's crazy. Isn't that funny?
Starting point is 00:16:43 Yeah, have you discussed the origin story of cannabis? Oh, early days. That was a big topic. We talked, yeah, we talked a lot about cannabis. I want to go back to something you said though that I disagree with. That you said that the practice of someone saying something and forces you to kind of go deeper or want to inspect it more and that's a common thing. That's actually not a common thing.
Starting point is 00:17:06 It's a trained skill that you've learned to apply that I think is very important. There's a really good book I talked about on the show a while back called Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow. Brilliant, brilliant man who wrote a conumin. A conumin? Yes. Yes. Have you read that?
Starting point is 00:17:23 Yeah. And so that skill is, you've trained yourself to switch over to the second part of the brain where you think logically about something. And we're not wired that way. We're actually wired to take in information and react. That's the faster part of the brain. Short cuts. Yeah, it's more advantageous for us.
Starting point is 00:17:38 And it's important. It's important that we have that skill set to survive because if you've stopped and you tried to unpack every single moment of your life, you would never get anywhere in your life. So there's value to that first part of the brain, but there's also, it's also very important to know when you need to switch over to the other one
Starting point is 00:17:57 and be like, wait a second, just because everyone's saying this or just because this is my initial reaction or they're saying, don't do this, I'm going to go deeper into it and think logically. So yeah, I don't think it's as common as you think. I think more people are easily persuaded by the first part of their brain that is just a quick reaction. And it's a practice that more of us, including myself, have to constantly be trying to think
Starting point is 00:18:22 like, okay, is this something that I'm just going to take a face value and react, or should I go deeper into this and look more into it, even if the majority is saying otherwise? Yeah. You guys have heard the idea that our conscious mind is able to perceive something like 40 bits of information and that our unconscious mind is something like 40 million bits of information. Yes, very easy. And so we're always to kind of bring it onto a subject in relation to body and movement and fitness and all that, not that that's necessary.
Starting point is 00:18:49 We only talk about that in that stuff. But we're continually doing that from a body language perspective. So when you see somebody, there's interesting, some interesting research that I included in my book about when you take a mugger and show them a bunch of different pictures of various different people, you'd think the common tendency would be, and they actually did this, it went to prisons and people that had violent crimes,
Starting point is 00:19:16 you'd think the common tendency would be just like, okay, I mug the small, defenseless, vulnerable chick, probably. And it's like, no, no, no. The person that they would be the highest likelihood of trying to, trying to mug, to steal from them, to be a parasite and attach one of them, would be the person that has,
Starting point is 00:19:37 their movement doesn't seem integrated. So if they're kind of like, they're, they're, they're, they doesn't seem like they're going in a straight line. It doesn't seem like they're well oriented, doesn't seem, they're, they doesn't seem like they're going in a straight line. It doesn't seem like they're well oriented. It doesn't seem like they're, oh, interesting. stacked and strong. It doesn't seem like they know where they are.
Starting point is 00:19:50 So if they're looking around and there's like any semblance of disorientation or disorganization with that person, then all of a sudden, the parasites of culture will start to, to grab on because it's, it's an easy target. Like finding prey. Yeah. It's finding prey. So we're continually doing that with our,
Starting point is 00:20:09 I think our 40 million bits of information that's streaming through our minds. I think we're continually doing that in every instance. Every time you have an interaction with any person, you are noticing the location of their eyes or eyebrows. You're noticing the style in which they breathe or don't breathe. You're noticing the location of their eyes or eyebrows, you're noticing the style in which they breathe or don't breathe, you're noticing the position of their shoulders, you notice the position
Starting point is 00:20:29 of their hips, of their feet. And so we're always in this, we're having this plethora of information and then you have your 40 bits that's like thinking about checking your intricate notifications. But meanwhile, you have this mammalian reptilian center that's just gathering all of that information and by going through things like starting to pay attention to how the hell you move in daily life,
Starting point is 00:20:49 I think you can start creating successes in your world and you don't even know what's going on. It's just like, oh, when I come into the room, people kind of are more magnetized. Yeah, yeah. Or when I come into the room like this, people are more like, oh, that guy's a loser, or we should steal from him, or... The math of that is so fascinating to me, right? Like, what your brain is having to calculate to put that all together.
Starting point is 00:21:10 Not like that. So I like what a cool conversation because I have this where I, because of this stuff, I'm into psychology. You're more on the movement side, so it's interesting to see how they merge. Do you have, because of you are so read in this department, right? And you enjoy learning about it so much, do you have tendencies like right away? We just, you walked in, you know, 30 minutes ago and we all said, hi, I agree to that. Do you
Starting point is 00:21:35 have a tendency to read the scan the room? Yes, scan the room and read each one of our postures right away. Is that, or is that just subconsciously happen for you? Well, I daily get to a point with any skill that you'd be unconsciously competent. Yeah. You guys are familiar with that, probably. Start off consciously, uncompetent, ideally. And then, you know, works your way up.
Starting point is 00:21:54 Or stages. Till eventually, you get to the point where you're just, you just naturally are, you know, like MJ. You just, you know, you do something with the ball. You just see the scenario. I'm not at all like MJ with anything, including body language. But nonetheless, he gets that point. He's never thinking about what he's doing.
Starting point is 00:22:09 Right, right. You know, so anytime, you know, there's a whole slew of different books that I'd recommend for reading body language. You know, my book has a lot of stuff in there, but there's, if I'm reading a specific book about the thing, I will notice all that stuff.
Starting point is 00:22:26 I personally haven't read a specific book about that thing for like six months. So that's disengaged. Now I'm thinking about more like Russia and conspiracy theories. Oh, please, please, please, guys, please about that. Don't get me in style, go. Yes, I wrestle with these guys every day on the podcast right now because I think conspiracy theories are at an all-time high in our life. Everything is. Well, I mean, you mentioned everything's fair game right now.
Starting point is 00:22:56 Let's be honest. I mean, reptiles do run the world. Yeah, I mean, these guys themselves. No, aliens are coming next. No, it's all happening. You guys were talking about fast and slow thinking. One of the best ways that I found to slow my thinking down, there's two ways.
Starting point is 00:23:11 One is to debate and discuss because in order to organize your thoughts enough to explain yourself well, and then be able to listen, it's because you also in order to debate, you have to listen, right, listen to the other person. It allows you to work things out. I love thinking like this. I love talking to people. I love debating people. Not because I'm, you know, some people might say, oh, you just like to argue, the reality is that it helps me think and I can think things through. The other way is to write.
Starting point is 00:23:37 When you write things down, you have to slow down and put things down. And that's why therapy utilizes reading and speaking, or excuse me, writing and speaking. Those two tools are very powerful to slow the thought process down and to work things out. It's literally what you're doing. Oh, I have another exercise for you. And that is to always question the things
Starting point is 00:23:57 you feel most strongly about. And that, to me, is one of the most challenging, because when you start to unpack how the brain is operating with the fast and the slow part, one of the most challenging because when you start to unpack like how the brain is operating with the fast and the slow part, much of the things that you've decided that this is my truth, it's just because you've had a collection of things that have confirmed your bias, and so you feel passionately about it.
Starting point is 00:24:18 So a great exercise to challenge that or to work on the logical side is to, if I feel, so whenever I catch myself in a debate or an argument or a conversation where I'm getting emotional about it or reacting or feel strongly about it, like I'm already, it's defending myself before you finish your sentence.
Starting point is 00:24:36 Those are the things that I go back and go really deep in on because it's like, okay, why do I feel so passionate about? I'm right in this situation. And I think that's really challenging for us because you've already had enough things in your life that have happened that have confirmed that bias that it's going to be really hard for you to change your mind unless you're open to it, right? Yeah, that's one of the reasons why I love fitness so much. Not necessarily, I love it for me, but I loved it more for when I trained other people for that particular reason because as a trainer, I trained people for over 20 years,
Starting point is 00:25:11 and I really wanted to help people. I know you do the same Aaron, when you work with people, your concern is you wanna make sure this person does the best, you wanna set them up to be able to do the best for themselves on their own, well beyond, maybe forever, when you don't see them anymore. So if you're constantly working towards that, you end up questioning things as you go through
Starting point is 00:25:31 the process, you have to, because I'll work with this many people who, my techniques and my recommendations work great with, but then I run into somebody that they don't. And if I really want to help them, I can't be dogmatic. I can't. It's impossible. I have to question things. And so it forces you to grow. And fitness is such a great way to do it because it's unassuming and it's not threatening.
Starting point is 00:25:54 You know what I mean? People don't go into fitness thinking they're going to experience tremendous personal growth and all things. They don't think that. They think I'm gonna go get ripped and I'm gonna get a nice six pack and I'm gonna look sexier, whatever.
Starting point is 00:26:07 But you stay out alone enough and you learn a lot about yourself. You also learn how to fail, you learn how to take criticism, you learn that pain isn't always bad and struggle is many times good. But the growth that comes from fitness is phenomenal. Nobody talks about it, but that I think is the biggest benefit of it. Well, fitness also makes the human that's doing the fitness more malleable to new ideas.
Starting point is 00:26:36 Totally. And so when you, like, our, we can talk about anything, and I'll just like steer it back to how it relates to the mind body connection because that's like where I'm most comfortable Beyond that I just I don't know, you know, I get lost very easily It's not if it's not about that specific cover smart stand your legs. I heard that enough during BLM and Krodevirus Stade your legs and I'm like all right All right My son's over here
Starting point is 00:27:03 Let's work on shoulder mobility today I We think about Russia, shoulder mobility. But so, a couple things. One, in relation to arguments that's kind of fascinating, you guys can just bounce off this as it feels interesting. When we're communicating with each other, typically I don't know a lot about the argument at hand because I just I'm just confused what the hell is happening in the world. But what I can see is I can see body language and the way that people communicate. And so you can and that's why you know you see like like a
Starting point is 00:27:37 Martin Luther King giving a speech compared to like I don't, some present-day politician because I don't wanna be, you know, bias-nade direction. He goes off of the speech and speaks through his heart and you can see it in his body. And it's like, whoa, you viscerally feel that experience because you're feeling him. You know, and so when we're communicating to each other, if you're a person that is, say, chronically stuck in some, you know some hyperlordotic spine,
Starting point is 00:28:08 or you've got the forward head posture, you've got rolled four shoulders, you've got valgus, collapse knees, all of those patterns, intentionally using unnecessary anatomical terminology because there's a direct link in the way that people think, feel and communicate. Totally.
Starting point is 00:28:23 Based off of that, those's anatomical terms. Totally. And so an interesting example of that is a person that goes into a shopping mall is another reference from the book. When they are pushing a cart, so says research with specific subjects. So I don't think anything's a law.
Starting point is 00:28:41 But when a person is pushing a cart, so they're in a more upright position, shoulders are back, and they're also pushing the cart away from them, they will end up being less inclined to get sugary bullshit. And when a person is clutching a basket, all of a sudden, and puts them into that medial rotated spine, puts them into that clawing kind of flexors, contracting with the hand, they will end up being more likely to buy-
Starting point is 00:29:12 Fascinating. Yeah, to buy all some big- So shop with shopping carts, not baskets. And the similar thing happens for people that have storefronts of some sort. If you pull the door open, that puts you into the more inclined towards, okay, I'm bringing in. If I you pull the door open, that puts you into the more inclined towards, okay, I'm bringing in. If I'm pushing the door away, I'm more inclined to say, okay, I'm pushing,
Starting point is 00:29:31 I'm starting the conversation with push away. And so when I move into that, all of those little subtle, again, this is that 40 million bits, every subtle little action throughout the day, starts to inform the way that we perceive the room ourselves, this conversation, and so if you were a person that is stuck in that all the terms forehead posture and having the hunchback spine, all that stuff, perhaps your tendency would be,
Starting point is 00:29:58 you'd have a higher inclination of being more defensive or maybe feeling like you're under attack and you are already defeated. And some versus the person that's able, like, before they go into a conversation, they wiggle out their shoulders, maybe they hang from a bar, and they kind of, so maybe they do like a little dance
Starting point is 00:30:13 and kind of open themselves up a little bit. Maybe the right and cursive, which is, you know, showing to have all sorts of great effects as well, because you're going through that fluid movement. They will go into that conversation much more fluid, much more open, much more open, much more receptive, much less judgmental, much less defensive. You know, it's always feel like a Jedi opening the automatic doors.
Starting point is 00:30:31 No, I'm ready. I need to press my power. I need to press my power. I need to press my power. You know what? You know what? Perfect. You want to know an area I would love for you to read and learn about, Aaron, because this is an area that you have a lot of interesting and expertise in, in
Starting point is 00:30:49 terms of how movement affects mood and thoughts and vice versa, how your thoughts and mood affect movement. Look into, and this was a very fascinating point that was made in a podcast that we did a while ago, look into religious practices. We interviewed Bishop Baron, who's a Catholic bishop, and one of the questions I had from was, what's up with all the, you know, I grew up Catholic, right? So you go to church, the Catholic church,
Starting point is 00:31:15 and there's all this standing, sitting, kneeling, moving, all this ritualistic movement, and I said, what's up with that? Like why kneel on the ground to pray? Why do all these different things? And I thought to myself, to somebody who's not privy to it, I thought it's all traditional, ritualistic, whatever. Why do we even do that?
Starting point is 00:31:33 And he said, I thought it was very wise, it's how you integrate the body. All the movement is how you integrate the body, which allows you to, in their words, integrate the soul and being a fitness expert, I thought, to create the body which allows you to, in their words, integrate the soul, and being a fitness expert, I thought, oh my gosh, that's brilliant. There's a lot of wisdom in spiritual practices
Starting point is 00:31:52 and in the culture of movement that they have. And every single one of them has different movements and practices that they do that are very characteristic of that particular religion. That's the value people were tapping into that before they knew anything about any of these studies that you are talking about. It also links you into, so it does a handful of things
Starting point is 00:32:11 and probably more than what I've picked up, but another one is it moving in synchrony with any group of people, i.e. like a military marching. All right. So if you see the march and everyone's legs go at the same time or you go to a typo class or some kind of a robot class or any of that stuff, the reason that those cultures or sometimes cults get so big and powerful
Starting point is 00:32:36 is because you're extending the organism beyond the individual. And so you start to become in sync with other just by witnessing your movement happen in tandem. And so when you go into that church, what you're doing is you're connecting with beyond your lonely isolated individualist self, and you're going into something bigger than you,
Starting point is 00:33:00 well, you're quite literally from a neurological perspective, an emotional perspective, becoming the group, because we're all moving together, and then beyond that, I think if you get more spiritual about it, the group is a part of the grander community, is a part of the country, is a part of the world, it's a part of everything. And then eventually you have this pop out of eye, and you go into something that's bigger than just this skin bag. And by moving in synchrony, it creates the potential to feel like you're starting
Starting point is 00:33:30 to almost like merge with something bigger than your individual skin bag. I have a question for you, Aaron, because now we're talking about this. There's a question that I wanted to ask you for a while. I used to have a wellness facility, and in there, I had like rooms that people would rent and there was a massage therapist who worked there and rented this place for a long time and she was exceptional. She was very, very good at what she did. And she used to say that, and when I first got the wellness facility, I was at least open enough to bring different modalities in and respect them, but I still was extremely ignorant to what they did. So she would say things to me and I wouldn't roll my eyes in front of her.
Starting point is 00:34:08 I don't want to disrespect her, but when she was in the room, I'd say, oh, whatever. That's her thing. That's fine. People like it, but whatever. And she would say things to me like people store emotions in their body. I remember thinking that's so silly. It's in your brain. What are you talking about? It's not in your body. And then she would talk more about it and how she would find a tight area in a person's body and she would work through it, release it and the person would have a memory that was stored within them or a feeling that they hadn't processed and they would cry on the table or they would laugh or they would get this.
Starting point is 00:34:39 And I experienced some stuff like that when she would work on me. What's going on there? And I do believe now that emotions can be stored in the body in the sense that you create a pattern, that pattern maybe, maybe protecting you or whatever from this particular thought. And until you fix that pattern. Sure, that was fascia. Yeah, you don't process the emotion. What are your thoughts on that?
Starting point is 00:35:01 So that would be subject of potential book two, because I think that's like a topic that a person could spend their whole entire life digging into and still not completely understand it. But the lens that I take from the way that emotions and such are stored in the body is less of a, you have anger in your liver and you have mother issues in your kidney and very specific in that way. More coming back to very nuts and bolts, masculine, mechanical. If a person is scared, how are they scared? How are they physically scared? Everybody knows what that looks like.
Starting point is 00:35:40 I don't need to describe your shoulders, go up, your jaw might clench, your wrist glens, you go into like a fight, fight, type response, or you could go into a freeze response, which is, you know, even deeper down the chain. You know, so if a person is, so every day you are continually aggregating various different patterns based off of your perception of the way that you interact with the world. You know, so you have a certain, like, you could call it like an identity of self, which is something that, you know, you, how old was your kid's health?
Starting point is 00:36:09 My son's 15, my daughter's 10. Okay, so you had, you got to experience, do you guys have kids as well? Yeah, I'll do now. I was about 10 and 7, one year old. Two boys. This is the dad crew. All right.
Starting point is 00:36:20 Dad's cool again. That's exciting. Dilves. Yeah, Dilves. That's great. I'm dating a girl that's all about Dilves. Oh, oh, she's gonna have a kid over cool again. That's exciting. Dilves. Yeah, Dilves. That's great. I'm dating a girl that's all about Dilves. Oh, oh, she's gonna have a kid there. Oh, I'm gonna have a kid there again.
Starting point is 00:36:29 I'm trying to just try to sell you on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, careful. Yeah. What was I talking about? I subscribed to. Oh, yeah, yeah. So the identity of self identity of self. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:36:38 So when you are, this happened last time. Remember the trees? I get lost in the woods. Yeah. So the identity of self, that's something that you, when you first come out, these are tangential points, when you first come out into the world as a baby, you are your mom.
Starting point is 00:36:55 So the umbilical cord gets cut, but you're like, what are you talking about? I'm still mom. So if I'm hungry, mom's hungry. If I'm thirsty, mom's thirsty, there's no separation. And then eventually you come into a point, which I think that's what they alluded to
Starting point is 00:37:07 being like the terrible twos, where you're starting to get that rip. You're like, I'm separate. You're asserting yourself in that way too. Yeah, exactly. So that's interesting. And then from that point forward, perhaps a little before or after,
Starting point is 00:37:22 you're starting to structure this story, this narrative of who you believe you are. And so zero to seven, you're predominantly in like a theta state. It starts alpha delta for the first two years, and you're going to the state, which is essentially like a hypnotic state. And you're just gathering information, like a sponge everywhere you go, you're developing these belief systems of who you are, that impacts the way that you move in your body. So if you are a person that's like, man, I feel great.
Starting point is 00:37:52 And I feel loved. I feel part of something bigger than myself. So people that are part of religions or married, they end up having longer lifelines and being a little bit happier and all that. It's like, wow, man, I just feel, oh, man, I feel good. I feel like I feel in my body. I feel at home in myself. That person's probably going to have more balanced blood sugar and blood pressure and
Starting point is 00:38:14 probably less tension being held in their body. Less chronic pain, right? Less chronic pain, all that stuff. And then there's perhaps another person. Obviously, there's like tens of thousands of different types throughout this, but in the other scale, it'll be somebody that perhaps they had some big pivotal, traumatic moment, for example, that all of a sudden they got the signal, and maybe it was like before that age seven time frame where they're just kind of gathering, and they got the signal that
Starting point is 00:38:37 the world is not safe. The floor could fall at any time. I need to bulk up, I need to muscle up, I need to get strong and protect it and show superficially that I'm good enough. I'm loved in all those things. Maybe my shoulders are chronically stuck up in this position where it feels like my shoulders kind of creeping up to my ears. Maybe my fist are chronically tight.
Starting point is 00:38:58 Maybe I have, you know, this TMJ, my jaws are, you know, and you could isolate that and look at it like more like Western scalpel type lens and go and isolate and say, oh, you just got TMJ. You know, you just have some tension up here. We're going to do some MFR or whatever release that stuff. In the process, whatever tool you utilize in order to start to open up that body, in order to create meaningful long-term change, you're going to actually start tinkering into that person's identity structure. So if you bring a person that's in a place of, I've been held intense and ready to fight, and I have this physical expression of that, and you start to creep in and start to change some
Starting point is 00:39:43 of those toggles and pulleys, that all of a sudden the person gets up and their their shoulders drop and they're breathing through their diaphragm as opposed up into their clavicles and they're they feel like their feet are on the ground. You better believe that person will start to interact with their relationships differently. I see this with raw thing bodywork like I mean I've seen it lots and lots of times historically working with people. Oh, I remember hearing, especially female clients would say the following, that then getting stronger in the gym made them feel stronger and more confident in the real world than the person.
Starting point is 00:40:14 And I mean, they're not like way stronger. They may be 10 pounds on something. But the experience of strength and struggle and grinding through a squat or a lift made them feel just generally stronger and more confident in everyday experience. So we've only known Aaron as Aaron of a line, and you've already, we were already this guy,
Starting point is 00:40:33 like that was into all this. So was there a process for you where this really, you know, like a pivotal moment where you started to see this in yourself and you started to change behaviors and movement and then how did it impact you? Was that a process? Was it an overnight thing?
Starting point is 00:40:49 What was it like for you for that transition? I think, I think I've talked about this before. I mentioned it in the first chapter of the book. My dad, he's done very well now, but growing up, he got really obsessed with crack cocaine. And he was like pimping women and he'd come home and have like bullet holes in the car. And it was like, wow.
Starting point is 00:41:07 Very interesting time. Did I mention that before? No, I don't think he mentioned it. I knew you had a ruff or childhood. And I feel even more like a bitch talking about my rough childhood when you talk about things like that. Because mine doesn't seem so bad anymore. I had his mind, I was fine overall.
Starting point is 00:41:21 But I think that that created this stimulus of sorts of feeling like the world's not safe, the floor could fall out from you at any point, going into much more of kind of just like clinging in general. I would always have savings of money and I was just always planning for a rainy day. And I think that in tandem with being obsessed with bodybuilding, you obsessed with packing on as much muscles I possibly could, all because I wanted to show that I was strong enough.
Starting point is 00:41:53 I think there was a big thing of like being enough. That would get into probably sensations of like, oh, why did daddy leave me? Oh, because I'm not enough. Right, right. I think as a young person, you're so narcissistic. Everything's like kind of about you. Right.
Starting point is 00:42:10 And so now social media, everybody's kind of narcissistic, but I think growing up, it's like, okay, dad's just on his trip. He had his own childhood trauma and all of this stuff. And I placed that on me. So there's kind of a sense of like moving away. And then that kind of led to just doing everything to create sense of validation.
Starting point is 00:42:29 That going into don't press training, eventually going to like, Rolfing School and massage school and studying psychology and psychedelics, I think have been impactful for sure of unbinding some different nodes in my brain, kind of like pulling the map out and saying, okay, where are we here? You know, and then coming back and kind of folding the map back up and putting it back in. So I think it's been an evolution of different events
Starting point is 00:42:56 mixed with the environmental conditions of, you know, the world's not safe. And, you know, now here we are now here we are talking about it. I definitely think that we are obviously a product of our childhood, even as older mature adults still dealing with many of these insecurities from childhood. Do you have a particular one that tends to resurface in your life that you're constantly having to address because of how you grew up? Well, I think that, I mean, you can see a lot of people
Starting point is 00:43:30 that have a lot of things, you know, or, you know, I obviously, to some degree, crave validation, or I wouldn't, you know, put images of myself doing exercises on Instagram. You know, and you can say, it's, oh, it's just a business, I need to feed myself, but nonetheless, like I chose that route of, look at me, I can help you, I can be your savior, in a sense,
Starting point is 00:43:52 you can see, keep on drawing it back and giving, I'm not saying that that is why I do anything, but you could certainly kind of, you know, toss that dart at the board and be like, how does that feel? Is there something to do that of like how you got to that point? So people that have a lot of wealth,
Starting point is 00:44:05 people that have a lot of followers on the internet, whatever, I think a lot of that could be drawn back to their seeking some form of validation from the outside world. This was a conversation that Katrina and I had literally last night and we were kind of going back and forth with our own insecurities that we see. And one of the things I said to her that I've kind of come full circle on it, because
Starting point is 00:44:27 I think that there is a positive side to them also, if you use to fuel yourself to grow and be a better person. And then there's a very fine line of not allowing it to rear its head. And do you agree with that or do you think think that like, you know, any sort of motivation from insecurity is bad. And I'll give you an example, like, so give people context of what we were talking about last night. So, you know, I've been, I've been fascinated with real estate since I was in my early 20s. And, you know, I've read, I read several books in my 20s, even more so, now as I've gotten older. And, you know, Katrina's family, there was times where they were refinancing their house or trying
Starting point is 00:45:09 to make decisions. And I felt like I had the answers for them. And nobody asked me. And it bothered me. And so I told Katrina, I said, here, I'm trying to figure out, why does that bother me? And then I also have noticed that there's patterns like this in my life, where if people don't think that I'm smart enough in an area, it's also motivated me to go and learn and be smarter and be better at that. So I get that attention that they recognize
Starting point is 00:45:37 like, oh, shit, this dude knows his stuff in that area. And I think a lot of that, although fueled by insecurity, has also driven me to success. So where is the fine line of allowing it to drive you to be better, but then not letting it control you and consume you to make bad decisions? Do you think about that? Totally, yeah. Well, I think you come back to, you know, Ramdas or like Alan Watts, I like the spiritual people coming into
Starting point is 00:46:07 the witness part of yourself. Like the more often that you can tap into the witness part of yourself, the less you are just being kind of tossed around. Like I imagine like a rag doll in a dog's mouth just kind of like getting wiggled around by that person loves me. That person doesn't like me.
Starting point is 00:46:23 Like you become the stock market essentially. So any relatively decent investor. Just reactive, everything. You wouldn't be like, dude, don't even look at it today. Let's check in on this in 10 years. And then you still say, wow, you've really grown over the last 10 years.
Starting point is 00:46:37 Wow. But that takes a savvy investor to be able to kind of give you that education of like let's just kind of go more in the overview and be able to witness as opposed to being completely stuck on each individual person's reaction. I love thinking of it like that because that was this was the great and I love having these deep conversations with Katrina because she's very self-aware and we like to do this where we'll go back and have these healthy debates. healthy debates. And the point I was trying to make to her is that I think that, and this, you just validated that, is that the real important thing is the awareness piece, is to know that. Like, I didn't react. Like, it's not like, uh, her mom didn't ask me advice, and then I was a dick, or I was just, or I tried to force my information on it. I just observed that it made me feel
Starting point is 00:47:20 a certain way, and then motivated me to want to learn or do something more in that area. So I'm aware that there's work to be done inside and have an insecurity there, but I'm also aware enough to not allow it to, you know, change my mood or just react to it. So I don't totally think that being motivated by some of these things are all negative. I think that there, if you, and I like what you just said, and I think that's true, like if you are more of a witness of it and pay attention versus just like the stock market reacting to, you know, at things all the time.
Starting point is 00:47:53 It's your situation in your context can make you a much better person. Challenge is what makes you grow. It's like that, there was a wrestler, he had no legs. I forgot his name and he was He did very well and he did very very well for himself and he talks about how If that if he didn't have that if he wasn't born in that situation He probably wouldn't have been as great as he was but it drove him to grow and be this incredible person. There's another person who's
Starting point is 00:48:26 another disabled individual who climbed, I think it was Mount Everest, and he said the same thing. I don't know if I would have done this had I not had this particular challenge. So I think you're presented with your challenges and it's up to you how you use them. Does it break you?
Starting point is 00:48:42 Does it crush you? Or does it make you a better person? And so in that way, your mindset makes all the difference. This is a gift versus I'm cursed. That's all in your perception. You know, you're talking about how you feel in your emotions and how that affects your body. Can you reverse engine, you're that in the sense that, you know, does it go both ways? In other words, the way I feel in the inside affects how I look on the outside.
Starting point is 00:49:10 Can I change my body and then affect how I feel on the inside? Yeah, well, so Zion, we pulled up that, I've actually got to train Jiu-Jitsu with Zion. No, wow. Yeah, super, super interesting. That's right. I never, that was the firstiu-Jitsu with Zion. No, wow. Yeah, super, super interesting. Better. I never, that was the first time getting to roll with a,
Starting point is 00:49:29 what would that be called? Amputy, what's up with that? Oh, yeah. His legs are gone from the femur down. What is that called? I don't know. But it's just, yeah. Yeah, so it's like chicken or the egg.
Starting point is 00:49:41 So it's like, what is the answer? I think it's both. It just really depends or the egg. So it's like, what is the answer? I think it's both. It just really depends on the scenario. So all of the stuff, your perception of yourself impacts the way that you care your movement, and then right back to the other side, you can move yourself into feeling a certain way. So you could look at that from the postural perspectives
Starting point is 00:50:03 is one lens, but you could even say just like, your muscular system, it's like an endocrine organ. So it's releasing hormones and proteins and myocons. And irisin is like the exercise hormone that's helpful with thermoregulation and helpful with burning fat. And they compare exercise to being as effective or potentially more effective to antidepressants, that's beyond my scope of even having an opinion, but it literally informs the way that you think the way that you feel.
Starting point is 00:50:31 Like anybody knows listening to this certainly, that if you're feeling kind of shitty and you go do a workout with some friends, afterward you're like, what happened? Oh, 100%. Like, what was that? 100%. And you're like, well, there's a 100%. Like, what was that? 100%. You're like, well, there's a lot of things, man.
Starting point is 00:50:46 It was community. I'm connected to something bigger than myself. It was exercising and flexing and pumping this endocrine organ, the organ that we call muscle, slash massaging all of the rest of your organs. It was moving yourself through postural patterns that if you get into like research from Amy Cuddy, as an interesting example
Starting point is 00:51:05 which is very contentious. You know the Harvard researcher the whole you guys from this probably right? No. Same because you will as I start talking about. So she was she was the one that studied people going into like the the power woman position. Oh power postures. Yeah. Yeah. And so there was I mentioned that in the book as well as well book as well as the contention around it. It's interesting creating a book because it feels finalized. You know, when you put something down in the book, you're like, this is, I'm really saying something. You know, where's when you're writing a Instagram post and you're toilet, you know, and
Starting point is 00:51:41 you're like, you're just, you're scared of that. This is what we got in two weeks. It's not just beginning on the wall. It's a real thing. and you're toilet, you know, and you're like, you're just, you're scared of that. This is what he got in two weeks. Not just beginning on the wall, it's a real thing. When you write the book and you say some shit, you're like, wow, this is like, I'm defining my life. This is how I feel. This is how I feel.
Starting point is 00:51:56 It's very fascinating. Yeah, no, it's, what on, I wanna tell you about the idea of how it goes, go, go, go, feel. So anyway, so what she was suggesting with the power poses is that she had various different samples of people. They had one group of people would go into a hunched over position that I had described previously, and then they would do saliva samples,
Starting point is 00:52:15 measuring cortisol, stress hormone, and testosterone. And so testosterone is associated with cognitive function, energy levels, feeling strong, comfortable, and that stuff, yeah. And then cortisol is like, you're feeling, you're waging out, you're getting ready to fight, fight all this.
Starting point is 00:52:30 And so what she found with that, that was that consistently when a person be an upright, strong, what I would call a lined position, then they end up actually increasing their testosterone levels and decreasing their cortisol levels. And then the inverse would happen when a person was in a more of a hunched over kind of Position which is essentially is submissive. Yeah, which which the the kind of the really where this gets into book two as well
Starting point is 00:52:55 And I get into book one, but I want to go deeper into it Depression is the number one leading cause of disability worldwide presently. Yeah, you know, so you know It's leading to Marshall McCluen. Meeting him is the message is like a big idea from him. So when we are in this room right now, or school would be an even better example, when you go to school, you think that your kids are being educated by, you know, the contents that are in the books. I'm learning math.
Starting point is 00:53:23 I'm learning Abe Lincoln. I'm learning math, I'm learning Abe Lincoln, I'm learning poetry. What you are actually really, truly being formed by is the positions that you are assuming while you're in that desk, the manner in which you're being educated by, you know, now it's the screens. You know, so that screen education, that is the medium that is actually the overlying, overwhelming message that is forming you. So we think it's just the contents of what we're getting
Starting point is 00:53:51 from the medium, but in fact, it's the medium itself. So when you are a person that's getting all this information and you're inside of, say you're inside of a boxed room, maybe all the walls are just white. And maybe you're getting these artificial blue lights. Maybe it's, you know, thermoragulated air conditioned air. It's always at this one set temperature. Maybe you learn that, okay, I need to raise my hand
Starting point is 00:54:12 and ask politely if I gotta go pee pee. Maybe like all of these different things. No more realistic judgment wrong, right, good, bad. You know, but the fact that you're learning some math along the way, I think is very small potatoes in comparison to the actual, the constitution of the mold that you're learning some math along the way, I think is very small potatoes in comparison to the actual the constitution of the mold that you existed. I totally agree and your because if you think about this way to simplify right, you're, you have a feeling within you that it presents itself in your body, but then the way your body is positioned also sends feedback back to the inside of you, maybe your brain. Your body is positioned also sends feedback back to the inside of you, maybe your brain. It can easily become a feedback loop.
Starting point is 00:54:48 No different than when you have a microphone and a speaker, you take the mic, you connect to the speaker, bring the mic close to the speaker, you get that super loud sound because the speaker is picking up the sound from the microphone, but then projecting it and picking it up. It becomes this positive feedback loop that obviously, you know, is very offensive and loud. If you feel afraid or sad and your body forms itself in the way that exemplifies fear and sadness, then you also perceive the position
Starting point is 00:55:18 that shows the inside of you, the brain and the body that I'm scared or that I'm sad. And then you feel it more and your body does it more and you get this positive feedback loop. And one of the best things you can do with any loop is you get to stop it in a rubber. You have to disrupt the loop. And so if you're feeling,
Starting point is 00:55:36 here's an easy thing you can do. If you're feeling like a bit out of control with negative feelings or whatever, and it may sound, it may feel silly. It may seem like this is whatever, what do you mean? And I don't wanna do that. And what's funny about feedback loops is you wanna stay in one, which is interesting.
Starting point is 00:55:54 Just try this, you feel like you gotta go stand or move in a way that is different than the way you feel. So I am feeling sad and I'm feeling unmotivated. I'm gonna stand tall and work out, you know, as much as I don't want to, I'm gonna go do this. What'll happen is your brain will receive the signal that, I know we feel this way, but here's what we're getting
Starting point is 00:56:15 from the outside, this person standing in a way that tells us that we should probably feel a little bit better, we should probably feel a little bit more motivated. There's a study with, this was an interesting one, where people held a pencil in their teeth. Yeah, smiling. Yeah, which mimics smiling, and because of that, people felt like they were happier. The inverse happens if you put a golf tee in your eyebrow, so you go resting bitch face. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:56:38 Fascinating, right? And when you see a person with resting bitch face, quite often, they're kind of aggravated more than a person that kind of moves around all jubilant. Like, it's not just like a coincidence. Like, you literally, and so there's another guy that I've had on my podcast actually called Paul Ekman. He's like one of the most cited psychologists in the world, Noam Chomsky. Noam Chomsky the most. I think so. Yeah. You've seen a recommend for American dream. No, I haven't seen it. Woo!
Starting point is 00:57:06 Yeah. You gotta watch that. Do I? Oh, man. I saw that long time ago. I can't even remember it though. Holy shit. All right, so Paul Ackman, he's, he's interesting.
Starting point is 00:57:14 I don't think he liked me. I think we were a conversation. And I was like, I was like, Paul, I respect you a lot, but I think you hate me. So anyways, he was a fellow that studied various different facial expressions around the world. And he, his perspective went against Darwin's perspective that there was, you would learn certain facial expressions based off of your cultural influence.
Starting point is 00:57:41 And then Mimicum. Yeah. And so that is true with like gang signs and like waving, like waving isn't a thing that just everybody just does. That's like, I have no weapons. You know, that's like something that you're learning and showing.
Starting point is 00:57:54 You know, now we do elbow bump because of, you know, because of the things the exact, that's not like just a natural thing. Hugging probably is quite natural though, as my guess. But anyways, facial expressions though, he mapped out something like 10,000
Starting point is 00:58:10 different specific facial expressions that had specific meanings to feeling angry, sad, scared, happy, and all of the different things. And each subtle little change of any of the muscles on your face are indicative of a very specific meaning to the outside world but also to yourself. And so you see those very overt examples of a smile or the frown that causes a thing will now extrapolate that out times 10,000 and you have like, wow, like I'm always painting a story with my face,
Starting point is 00:58:48 all African Jim Carey. Why is he so successful? He can contort his face into anything. So he plays, he's like a, he's like a, like a survive with playing the instrument of facial expression, which invokes a sensation much like, if not exactly like an instrument of person playing a saxophone.
Starting point is 00:59:08 And then you're giving it to yourself. You're giving it to yourself and others, just like when you're playing a sax. So what are some best practices then that we can give or what you would give to clients without going down the rabbit hole, right? Because what we know from, you know, all of us have trained many, many clients and I know that there's just this plethora of information that I've learned over decades of training and nutrition and movement
Starting point is 00:59:32 and I have to be very careful on how much of that I put on a client. If I really want them to put into practice and to see change and continue to grow in this area, are there some best practices, because you can get into cold therapy, you can get into meditation, affirmations, posture, mobility, there's so many things that are...
Starting point is 00:59:53 Now, where do you start? Yeah, where do you start? And are there small things that you give clients to start with this and make this a habit, make it become unconscious and then move to this. Do you have things like that? That's what the line method is. So breaking it down, I was kind of crying earlier about how the publishers forced to be
Starting point is 01:00:15 called five movement principles for stronger body and stress proof life and all the words and I'm like, I hate this. I think this is so it's so much more than that, but you know, because people need something to grab on to, they need like a good handle, we do have the second section of the book, breaks down five fundamental principles that every person ought to have in their daily experience, if they really give a dang about driving their body well. And so the first thing that I would recommend to almost every client would be, I mean, one walk. Like, you just got to walk more.
Starting point is 01:00:47 And at any time that you have the opportunity to go get groceries, it's like, dude, your family at some point probably made a pilgrimage across a continent, for you to get to this point. So you can sit on your ass and order food off of your phone and wait to be delivered to your face. And so if you have the opportunity, make it be a fun thing to get some reusable bags or a backpack and like cool,
Starting point is 01:01:14 I didn't get to hike in any mountains this year, but I did a bunch of little mini pilgrimages to the grocery store. While I was doing that, I got sun, maybe I took my shirt off, I mixed with my whole body of the sun, maybe I took my sunglasses off, so took my whole body of the sun, maybe I took my sunglasses off, so I'm getting that full spectrum of light
Starting point is 01:01:27 onto my eyes, which is helpful with all sorts of things, helps your body's production of neurochemistry, literally makes you a happier person. Serking rhythm, all kinds of stuff. All the stuff. So that would be one thing. Another thing that I recommend to everybody is just spending a little bit of time on the ground each day.
Starting point is 01:01:44 So while I'm sitting in the chair here, I'm treating the chair kind of like as though we were sitting around a fire and I'm sitting on a rock or on a ground. In this case, I'm sitting up on a cushion, my legs are crossed, the reason that's valuable, I'm not just gonna go through all the five things, I'll probably stop after this,
Starting point is 01:01:58 but I mean, we can't if you want, but it's good to go, I'm enjoying this little monotonous. But the big thing with spending time in the ground, one, you end up in the book we call Resting Postures of Repose, which I borrowed from muscles and meridians by Philip Beach. But so these resting postures of repose
Starting point is 01:02:18 are these natural tuning mechanisms that our bodies had had since the beginning of our evolution. You've naturally squatted all the way down to the ground, then you kneel a little bit, then you might reach your arms up overhead for a little bit to grab something. All of those positions, in this case, just specifically spend time on the ground lying down in your back, lying down on your side. You know, when you're in those positions, you might notice, oh man, like, my hip feels
Starting point is 01:02:41 a little like sensitive, feels like beef jerky on that side. You're massaging your beef jerky hip by being on the ground as opposed to floating in space all day, just getting clogged up like a dam. And then when you're going that, you're also taking your hips through a full range of motion. So now you're opening and expanding and contracting those pelvic floor muscles.
Starting point is 01:03:01 You literally are a closed hydraulic system that needs to be pumped with regularity. If you are, you will are a closed hydraulic system that needs to be pumped with regularity. If you are, you will be a healthy hydraulic system. If you are not, then you will be a stuck up, damned up body. Dams are where festering and disease and things of the sort manifest. If the body is well circulated, then the body heals. When the body has obstruction, there's an Andrew Taylor still quote who's the founder of osteopathy says,
Starting point is 01:03:28 harmony dwells where obstructions do not exist. So anywhere in your body that there is obstruction, that is the beginnings of disease. Anywhere where you can open that obstruction, allow new fluid in the form of lymphatic fluid and blood and you know all the things things to circulate and move your body, it starts to heal. Imagine that. And so that's a lot of people, they may have various differing issues ranging from whatever the ailment may be.
Starting point is 01:03:58 Then they might go to, maybe say they go to Peru, and they do ayahuasca. And they're like, wow, like I got healed of my thing. They have to be in Peru for a month. It was the ayahuasca, you know, it was the shaman. They had, they cut a chicken head off, and you know, they, they, they, these crystals and like all this stuff. It's like, what, what else happened on that trip? You were in Peru.
Starting point is 01:04:19 You were, what else happened on that trip? Like you, you probably, you know, you got in a different bed, maybe it was lower down the ground, maybe you were forced to change your identity structure because now you're in a new place. People don't even speak the same language. You can't be in that same rut pattern of get up, drink too much coffee, get in the car,
Starting point is 01:04:37 sit in that same 90 degree position, get up, stumble into the next place, I'll revved up on coffee and I'm already kind of in like this fight, fight, response, sit in that same position in the office, get up, walk into the next place, I'll revved up on coffee, and I'm already kind of in like this fight flight response, sitting at same position in the office, get up, walk to the other room, sit in the same position, getting back in the car, then go to the gym, do the same position,
Starting point is 01:04:52 sit on some seated row machine, get up, get back in the car, same position, go home, eat dinner in the same position, then sit finally, relax and have some Netflix on the couch in the same fucking position. You know, you go to another place, and all of a sudden your body gets like, whoa, everything starts to kind of change and shift. You're starting to perfuse new fluid into all these places
Starting point is 01:05:12 by changing your physical environment. It's crazy. We're talking about how important this is to fight off chronic pain and have about the body. But there's also the side of mental and like relationship health, then this was part of actually the conversation that Katrina and I talked about last night too, that we hacked into a long time,
Starting point is 01:05:32 that speaks to your point. We make it a point to disrupt our daily life and go somewhere out of this environment because of that exact reason, because I feel the same thing for relationship health. It's very easy to get in the minutia of going through your day of laundry, clean, walk the dogs, go to work, and it's just a cycle that you can... We schedule sex on Tuesday.
Starting point is 01:05:59 Right, right. You start to lose sight of... Talk about Tuesday. Your relationship and the growth of it and the health of it. One of the best things that we found is to always schedule a trip away from home, even if we're just going up an hour and a half to the beach and we stay two or three nights at a hotel room or whatever on the beach, is just to interrupt that same pattern that we're always in. And I think it contributes to a lot of the success
Starting point is 01:06:31 our relationship has. And I think that's parallel to what you're talking about with the body. Chinese and aeravetic medicine talk a lot about congestion and blocks of energy. And I think that years ago I had a acupuncturist that was in my wellness facility. And she would that, you know, years ago I had an acupuncturist that was in my wellness facility and she would explain how acupuncture works, but through Chinese medicine
Starting point is 01:06:50 terminology. And so I'd say, you know, it's interesting. I've seen the studies, the Western studies on acupuncture. And it does have pain relieving qualities. They've proven us why insurance now pays for acupuncture. How does it work? And she said, oh, well, the needles open up energy flows from Chi and this and that. And she's talking through Chinese medicine terminology. And I thought to myself, okay, well, here's what I know about Western medicine.
Starting point is 01:07:13 I know we have referred pain. I know that oftentimes when you go to the doctor and you hear, you hurt somewhere they know that you might have an issue with your kidney or your heart, for example, your left arm, everybody knows that, right? You left arm pain, if you get in a heart attack. Maybe it's affecting the nerves,
Starting point is 01:07:28 but really the point is it doesn't matter how we explain it. It's been observed. It's been observed by many, many people and this congestion, this blocking thing that you're talking about, aerovetic medicine, Chinese medicine, talk a lot about it. And here's some more interesting stuff
Starting point is 01:07:43 about getting on the ground. They've done studies on people and they're constantly trying to find one way, one test that can help predict all cause mortality, right? Cause that would be beautiful. That would be great for insurance purposes, for medicine purposes. We, and it's hard to find it.
Starting point is 01:07:59 Is it blood pressure? Is it cholesterol? Is it triglycerides? Is it fasting insulin? Is it all? But now they're starting to stumble upon it and there's there's one that they found which was Can you get up off the ground? Yeah? Can you get out? Can you if we put you on the ground and don't help you?
Starting point is 01:08:14 Can you get up all by yourself? That is a greater predictor of all cause mortality than any other singular Measurement that we have the second closest would be your grip strength test Just how strong you are with your hand. How interesting is that? So I have, so that the, one of the third movement principles in the book is, is hang with regularity each day. So my recommendation with spending time on the ground is, I recommend 30 minutes, but that's like half of a yoga class. So if you're a person that just eats breakfast on the ground, where you get some big cushions,
Starting point is 01:08:48 and you maybe get a low coffee table, maybe you go outside and some grass, and you're getting sun, you're stacking variables. Got to stack variables. When you're living in an environment where you're very kind of like medicinal, isolated, supplement form of fitness and life and all of the things, you're not living life.
Starting point is 01:09:07 Like you're living this broken narrative of the way you're supposed to do it. If you just take your ass outside, you know, a nice day, get down the ground, eat some food that's maybe, you know, helpful for your body, maybe do it with community, you know, all of those different things. It's like, whoa, it's this whole storm of positive variables. I'll stack together. And so the, so that's just one thing of kind of like making the spending time on the ground, you know, make it comfortable, you know, put your ground territory like near a window or something like that, get a really comfy rug. And we get some foam rollers down there, maybe put a yoga
Starting point is 01:09:41 mat down on the ground someplace so it welcomes because you become your environment. Marshall McClellan, me, it was a message. But then hanging, that's another one of those things that it could be hypothesized or argued that we are ancestors where these arboreal creatures in Africa that started off in trees, whether that's true or not, you know, I don't really care. What you do know is that human hands are really good at reaching up over your head, grabbing onto trees or things of the sort
Starting point is 01:10:11 and pulling yourself up. Well, look at the shoulder structure with the scapula. Yeah, but it's longer. We are able to do it. We evolve to be able to reach up above our head, hang into throw things. Correct. Otherwise, we would have totally different shoulders.
Starting point is 01:10:23 Yep. And so that's one of those things that what do you naturally is, so if you hear that study about how grip strength is a higher indicator of cardiovascular disease than blood pressure, then you're like, okay, cool, I'm gonna go get a, you know, one of those denominators and just start squeezing the shit out of it.
Starting point is 01:10:41 It's like, no, you're doing the supplement bullshit form of life and fitness. Do shit that naturally engages that whole chain of muscles that would be indicative of a strong grip strength. Play Jiu Jitsu. Grab a lapel. Grab, go climb a tree with your kids. Like why are kids such good teachers?
Starting point is 01:11:02 Because they're more honest with their biology. They don't know they're not supposed to. They don't know they don't have to play for you. They don't have narrative yet. And so at some point you were taught, you were misinformed that it's not mature to play. You were misinformed that it's not mature to balance on that curve. Or I'll just climb that trace. No, we have things to do.
Starting point is 01:11:25 I've got my watch here. I've got my Apple cell phone. I've got like, I'm in the limo. I've got my schedule, my agenda. Kids are like, what? Yeah. This is a play opportunity. What are you talking about?
Starting point is 01:11:38 I don't want to leave right now. What a great lesson. No, it's a, what a great lesson. And that has always been such a big advocate of rotation. And like, that's something I've just noticed right away, just being in the gym environment, how little that's incorporated in anybody's programming. Doesn't matter if you know,
Starting point is 01:11:54 a personal trainer is having their client go through exercises, they're not really incorporating rotation as much as, and this is a vital component to our body moves. You know, it's funny, Aaron. Again, having trained people for so long incorporating rotation as much as, and this is a vital component to our body moves. You know, it's funny, Aaron, again, having trained people for so long towards the end of my career is when I really learned how to be really effective.
Starting point is 01:12:12 And one of the most effective things I ever did for a client was integrate movement into their day into their everyday ritualistic daily life. It was so effective at getting people to move more. So instead of doing the do 30 minutes of cardio every morning on your stationary bike, it was, well you already breakfast lunch and dinner, so that's already a ritual. Walk 10 minutes after each one. Yeah. The consistency was amazing. Here's the thing, studies also show it's more effective.
Starting point is 01:12:39 When they compare a one hour cardio session to three 20 minute sessions, the three 20 minute sessions burn more body fat, improve stamina better, and have physiological benefits that are better than the singular, the single time of spending on a piece of cardio equipment. We notice this with strength. You go to the gym for an hour and you wanna just get stronger.
Starting point is 01:13:01 What if instead of doing 15 pull ups, three sets of that in your back workout, you know, doing 15 pull ups, three sets of that in your back workout, you had to pull up bar in your house and every time you walk back by, you do one pull up. Every time you walk by, you just did a pull up. You know it's funny, the studies support that and then try it out by the way. The strongest I've ever been at certain lifts was when I practiced like that rather than doing the structured one hour or two hour workout, it's literally integrating these things in your life.
Starting point is 01:13:26 So that's why I love so much what you said about eating breakfast on the ground, because sometimes, and here's what I'll even, I'm even guilty of this. When I hear you say, get on the ground, I immediately think, I'm gonna schedule 30 minutes of just being on the ground. Instinctually, right?
Starting point is 01:13:41 Oh, I gotta do this. I gotta put this in my routine. Then you said eat breakfast on the ground, and I'm like, oh yeah. That was about five minutes. I'm already almost there. I'm already eating breakfast Yeah, I might as well get on the ground. What about watching TV on the ground? I watch TV every night for 30 minutes Or an hour, you know hanging out with my wife. Why don't I just sit on the ground? Yeah instead of on the couch It's in it's in from a psychological standpoint or from a consistency standpoint People are far more likely to be consistent
Starting point is 01:14:05 when it's integrated in that way versus the, make sure you schedule your cardio, make sure you schedule your weight training session, make sure you schedule your mobility session. It's like, well, what if you just, when you brushed your teeth, you got down into a squat or you were barefoot and did some calf raises, or what if, you had a pull-up bar in your house
Starting point is 01:14:27 and it's next to the TV and whenever you're watching TV, you kind of hang a little bit and play on the pull-up bar. Way more effective. Well, you alluded to the research around the physiological part, there's research to support the behavioral side. That it's more likely to be consistent if you do pair it with another ritual. So I mean, it's funny, I love that you started with the walking thing too because we've talked
Starting point is 01:14:48 Probably at Nazim on the show about How we used to scoff at that in our early years as a trainer when a client would say like oh, I walk every day You're not working out. Yeah, you're not training. You're not exercising. Show me burpees bitch Yeah, right and and then you look you look at the way I talk to a client full circle, and that is actually the very first thing that I address. It's just, let's move. And let's pair it with something you're already doing. I'm not going to ask you to go get on a treadmill
Starting point is 01:15:12 for every single day to do cardio. Let's break down your day and let's see a way that we can integrate that into your lifestyle. Because I know that 20 minutes of that for the rest of your life, every time you after dinner, it's far more valuable than a six monthmonth run of doing one-hour cardio every single day. Totally. And here's a big part of it, too, Aaron, because we're constantly trying to get people to
Starting point is 01:15:34 adopt some of these habits and to do them. First, we have to get them to accept them. So you get to sell the idea. So I'm going to sell this for you right now, right? Years ago, a device hit the fitness scene and it was a big part of the gym that I started my career in, 24 fitness. It was called a body bug and a body bug
Starting point is 01:15:53 and there's a lot of these things now, but there were the first ones. You put it on and it was relatively accurate at calculating how many calories you burned. And it did through soup, through movement and skin temperature and it was a very complicated device. It was actually groundbreaking, and it was relatively accurate. You put it on, and you could, you know, get into your computer and look at it, and be like, oh, I burned 2,500 calories today, I burned 3,000 calories today, or whatever. And again, it was relatively accurate, and even when
Starting point is 01:16:18 you compared it to the very complex metabolism measuring machines that you have at universities. And I remember this. It was just mind blowing for me. I'd have clients that would come in and work out three days a week with me or two days a week on their own, five days a week. They put on the body bug and we would look at their calories. And I remember that we would look at their, I'd pull it up on the computer and I'd be like, oh man, what did you do on Saturday and Sunday? You burned like 30% more calories on Saturday and Sunday.
Starting point is 01:16:47 Like, why, did you work out? Like I thought you only worked out five days a week. Oh no, no, I was just, oh I was gardening and then I washed the car. Oh that's when I went to the mall with my friends and we were shopping. And I remember like melted my brain because I'm like, holy cow,
Starting point is 01:17:02 five days a week you're in here working out for an hour. But then you go to work and do nothing all day long. On those days, you're not even scheduling a workout, and you burned way more calories. So here's how I sell what we're talking about. You just want to get lean, do this anyway, incorporate it into your everyday life anyway, even if you don't care about all the other stuff that Aaron's talking about, and what I'm talking about, if you want to burn fat effectively, the most effective way to do it is to incorporate it into your daily life, into small doses, into the rituals
Starting point is 01:17:33 that you already have, far more effective than trying to do scheduled calorie burn workouts. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, that's exactly what the intention of making this thing called the align method, which again, I wanted to call's exactly what the intention of making this thing called the align method, which again, I wanted to call it a line because I have resistance towards dogma. And so, as soon as something's called a method, I'm like, oh, no. No. With a poet like, no, bitch, like, it's a method. We're selling a method.
Starting point is 01:17:58 I'm like, all right, whatever. But that was the whole thing is being able to be somewhat of a Trojan horse and be able to slip into people's lives without Feeling as though we are adding something new. Totally. You know, so it's with anything It's like you know start the book out with it with an analogy of the golf swing Which isn't my analogy, but you know when you're swinging in a club or swinging a club in a ball You know, it's all it takes is the little fraction of a centimeter to be off You know in any direction.
Starting point is 01:18:25 You don't notice the change right in the beginning, but then give it 30 yards, 50 yards, 100 yards. You're like, oh, that's, oh, wow, that's where that ball ended up. That's what you are moving throughout the day. What I created the book for was essentially to give people the lens to be able to examine what's the angle of their club in any instance throughout the day so they can make literally every moment an opportunity because you've got the know how to do it. Beyond that, whether you want to or not, it's up to you.
Starting point is 01:18:56 I don't really care. I'm going to bring it all down to the current situation. Okay. This is why I love home gems so much. So a couple of years ago, I invested in a home gym, I have a garage gym, basic setup, but everything you need, right, power bell, dumbbell, cage, you know, bands,
Starting point is 01:19:11 all that stuff, right? And there was a weekend that was coming up and my wife and I, like, we don't really have anything scheduled this weekend. I said, you know, I remember reading these Soviet studies on Olympic weight lifters and how, when they'd work out all day, they got these phenomenal results. I said, I'm going to give this a shot.
Starting point is 01:19:27 So what I'm going to do is every other hour, I'm going to go out to the garage, I'll pick three exercises, my goal is going to be strength. So I'm going to do like a row, a bench press, and overhead press or something like that, right? And I'd go out and I'd do six reps of each, three sets each, and it was moderate intensity, not intense, not super easy but nothing crazy. And I'll do that every other hour.
Starting point is 01:19:48 And the strength gains I got from a single session and how I felt blew me away. So I'm going to bring it now to the current situation, current climate. A lot of people at home, they can't go anywhere, they can't do anything. Here's a great opportunity to do, instead of your 60 minute workout, why don't you do three 20 minute workouts or six 10 minute workouts throughout the day? Schedule them throughout the day. First of all, you're gonna feel better
Starting point is 01:20:13 because you're gonna get those good feelings for movement throughout the whole day. It's like an IV drip of a feel good chemical rather than a single shot of it one time during the day. And on top of it, you will notice that your body will respond a little bit better. It's crazy, but it's 100% true. And watch how that bleeds into every other aspect of your life, your communication with your friends, your business that you're doing, like the production that you get done,
Starting point is 01:20:39 get done, it's amazing. So that's, it seems like there's not a necessity to keep one confirming the point that consistent movement matters, but another person that I've had on the podcast called Joan Vernecoast, she's worked with NASA for like the last 40 years. I don't think she liked me either actually. I think you're so likeable though. What are you doing, bro? I think there seems to be a consistent trend with when I do podcasts over the internet remotely. And if it's with a baby boomer,
Starting point is 01:21:11 I think there's been a consistent trend where I'm like, I think that person kind of hated me. Afterwards, I think it's something maybe I'm arrogant. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but that's what I've noticed. You're pulling right here, my eyes are in peace. But nonetheless, I like her and I like her books. One of the things that she pointed out was that astronauts, she was studying the health
Starting point is 01:21:34 of astronauts in space without gravity. She found that the astronauts that would do small bits, like little titrails, so you said like, drips of fitness throughout the day, they would age significantly slower. Typically, versus the ones that would do like the CrossFit blowout workout in space for three hours and just really don't it. And then the rest of the day just kind of float in space, you know, and work with instruments. And so the people that would do that, they would go through literally this rapid aging process,
Starting point is 01:22:03 where their bones would become less dense and their muscles would atrophy and cognitively and it doesn't even work in space. That's cool. That's cool. That's cool. But so what's really interesting with that is it's like the same analogy that you were referencing,
Starting point is 01:22:18 I have, I've referenced before describing this, like you wouldn't drink all of your water first thing in the morning or three days a week. And you see, you wouldn't say, okay, cool, I want to have whatever you want to have. So you want to have a gallon of water a day, which might be a lot or a little whatever. But you don't smash out two gallons on Tuesday
Starting point is 01:22:38 and then another two gallons on Thursday. It's Sips. You know, and so those systems are literally, they're congruent. They're working with each other. You drink water, you eat food, and then you move it through your body. So all of those systems are integrated, and they're all based off of continual movement.
Starting point is 01:22:59 And so when you start to look at things like that, like, okay, cool, I'm having this conversation. Maybe we could do a walking meeting. So throughout the day, like, where can I start to look at things like that, like, okay, cool, I'm having this conversation, maybe we could do a walking meeting. So throughout the day, like, where can I start to fill without, how can I just make my day more efficient, better, more productive, more happy, and not lose any of the progress that we were doing, or lose any of the productivity? And so if you go for a walking meeting with you, you actually get more productive.
Starting point is 01:23:26 You get more productive. Absolutely. And you start thinking outside of the box. And so if what you need is your employees or yourself to be more of a scantron type thinker, you have the information or you just got to jot it down, study show that sitting in that, you know, sitting on the chair or I would recommend be on the ground and just being focused in and getting it down. Study show that sitting in that, you know, sitting on the chair or I would recommend being on the ground and just being focused in and getting it done, you can access that information quite fine, even more effectively. But if you want to
Starting point is 01:23:54 go start thinking outside or divergently thinking, then you need to diverge your body out of that same stuck focused, convergent position. I don't know if convergent divergent exactly work in that as far as like describe moving to the body. But when you move the body in a way that's not just the standard mold that we get when we're sitting in a church shares all day long being cogs in a wheel, when you go outside of that, all of a sudden you start thinking, Oh, what if we, you know, Steve Jobs, he had walking meetings with everybody. And so that's like you start sudden you start thinking, oh, what if we, you know, Steve Jobs, he had walking meetings with everybody.
Starting point is 01:24:27 And so that's like, you start thinking of things like, man, what if we made these computers different? Like, we have, I have all of this intrinsic information that's already in my brain, you know, and the way that I've been formed is such that I can kind of treat myself like a catalog and just go in and sit and go through the catalog. But if I start to move a little bit differently, then I start bucking against the system. And then I start becoming somewhat of like a revolutionary, but it could potentially start from actually the way that I move my body as I move my body, I'm moving my mind. Yeah, there's many systems of adaptation of the body that
Starting point is 01:25:00 react and adapt better when it's small doses and frequent. The way your skin tans, for example, is a good example. Going outside and getting just absolutely hammered by the sun, isn't gonna give you a great tan like going out and getting doses of it throughout the day. The way that we learn, it's better to,
Starting point is 01:25:19 rather than doing one eight hour class, it trying to learn everything, doing eight one hour classes throughout the week is probably gonna be more effective. And the way you build muscle, the way that we designed our maps programs, for example, is how we've observed that frequency just works better for most people. I identified this with blue collar workers in my family
Starting point is 01:25:40 who didn't work out, but my mechanic uncle had muscular forearms and my male carrier aunt had great looking calves. Everything else looked at a shape. I couldn't figure out what was going on. It was because of that frequent stimulation. We even injected that even into the workouts that we designed where we're throwing in these frequency builders because it works. Even from a superficial build muscle burn body fat, and here I am selling it again, but
Starting point is 01:26:01 I think this is important. You just sell these ideas to get people to even try them. These frequent levels of stimulation, these small doses, they get your body to get in shape more effectively. And then again, you throw in the behavioral aspect, you're more likely to stay consistent on top of it. So it's something that is, we often don't talk about. I know fitness tends to be designed around hard, intense, singular sessions and then rest.
Starting point is 01:26:26 And I know bodybuilding was like, hammer your biceps on Monday and then wait till next Monday to do it again. It doesn't work nearly as well for people to do it that way versus instead of doing 20 sets of Monday for your biceps, why don't you do, you know, five sets, four days a week and see what happens. Start looking at your fitness, which I always do fitness and quotations, because I think it's kind of a funny word. You're fit for whatever you do.
Starting point is 01:26:48 You know, if you're sitting on a computer, you know, hammering out tweets all day. That's how you're gonna fit for that. And you're fit for that. You'd be better at that than a person that's climbing trees and stuff, because the tree climb in parkour, Jiu Jitsu, sun beach guy,
Starting point is 01:27:03 is you're like, ah, like it's freaking me out. Like I'm not fit for this. You know, so fit. First, it's just define what your goals are. And then from there, if you have a vision, then you can define what the best approach or route is. Yeah. What's method for?
Starting point is 01:27:18 We have we've addressed three. What's four? Oh, hinging from the hips. Okay. That's a really big one. Yes. So, so, so, so a really so so leverage leveraging leverage You know if if if if give me a lever and I can I can move the world, you know, it's like it's said that
Starting point is 01:27:33 Philosopher philosopher fella. It was I don't remember Got it written there. It's really what is it look it up? Doctor. She's doctor That's my favorite philosophy. Yes, so figuring out okay, I've got all these levers on my body. I've never been taught to take advantage of any of them. So in high school or middle school gym class, it's like, okay, you need to remember to bring your shorts. You need to show up on the Archimedes lever. There we go.
Starting point is 01:28:00 Can't believe that. I know I can't believe that. That's very sad. So that's a big thing is understanding if you've ever done any kind of martial arts, maybe did judo or maybe did juditsu. You can understand that the difference between my hips being just half an inch this way or that way.
Starting point is 01:28:15 Oh, here's difference. Is all the difference in the world because you've granted yourself the power of leverage. So as you are moving through the world, you can do certain things. You can make it to literally your whole entire day is like an opportunity to make yourself better. Like I truly a million percent believe that. And one of those things is when you say you pick something up off of the ground, maybe you're chopping vegetables, maybe doing anything, you can start to play with
Starting point is 01:28:39 those basic mechanics that you would learn. I'm sure you guys teach in your maths program, or if anybody's ever had a trainer or read a muscle and fitness, they'll talk about hinging those hips. So nice, long, neutral spine and driving the hips backwards. As you're doing that, you're literally, you're starting to be able to activate all of the powers of the hips. If you don't do that, then you're going to be outsourcing more of that energy into the knees and the quads and into thoracic spine and all these places like that's not that you're not doing it right. Like you're trying to you're trying to lift your car up and short cover thing. Yeah, it's like dude, who gave you a three inch lever?
Starting point is 01:29:19 It's like, I have a six foot lever in the garage. Like do you want me to grab that for you? Yeah. You know what I was like? Oh, no, I got this thing. And you're like, you are so ineffective at picking your baby up off of the ground. So let's, okay.
Starting point is 01:29:33 So four is hip hinge. So what are some simple best practices? I mean, I could think of just simply, you've already touched on getting on the ground, just you being down in a squad, I love to talk about squat and scroll, right? Practicing if I'm gonna get on my phone and I'm gonna go on Instagram or whatever,
Starting point is 01:29:48 to drop down into a full deep squat. I mean, you're practicing the hinge there or do you have other things that you like to incorporate with clients? No, I mean, with working with clients specifically, so in my programs or book or any of those places, I give you the mechanics, I give you a few basic examples. Like, okay, here's how you do it.
Starting point is 01:30:07 Now, what I'm really interested is, can you start to be curious about making this happen in your daily life? What do you do with your creative with your movement? Anytime you pick something up, you know, hip-hop. You know exactly how to do it. Whether you do it or not, totally up to you. Do you know how to do it?
Starting point is 01:30:23 Most people would say, I don't know how to do it. And if you really look, if we got 1,000 people in here and everybody did a squat, I mean, all four of us would be like, oh, oh man. Yeah, yeah, majority. It's bad, all bad. Yeah. People can't hit, that's something,
Starting point is 01:30:38 it's one of the fundamental things you have to teach as a trainer. As a foundation. Yeah, bend here, not here, bend here. And it's like, well, they can't do it. And so it's like, of course it is. And so it's like, why was that not in your assessment as a eight year old?
Starting point is 01:30:54 You know, we have designed a world where you don't do that. You don't do that. You don't do that, you lose that. And then you start blaming your body for failing you. And then you start seeking out to heal this system that it's inherently healing. If you give it the proper fundamental raw materials, nuts and bolts, schematics of how the freak to move,
Starting point is 01:31:12 how to eat, how to be in nature occasionally. You know, how do you maybe, okay, can't be in nature, I gotta be in this office all day, bring some nature into your office. You know, maybe open the window and let that full spectrum of light come through. Maybe bring some plants in there. Maybe get a little bit of waterfall device.
Starting point is 01:31:29 Next studio we build, we've talked about this that we're gonna have a retractable. Oh really? Yeah, all those things. Yeah, so we can just open it up and have some. We have to do it all, and we'll do it right after this because we've already been in here now, this is this morning since we have four or five hours.
Starting point is 01:31:42 We always, always fill this. And we've now made it a practice that if we've spent a couple hours in here, that we stop whatever we're doing, we go out and we walk around the block four or five times. If you're having pain in your body, it's been shown that people who have access, I know you guys are familiar with this, if they have access to looking out a window,
Starting point is 01:32:00 or even seeing a painting with nature, they'll have less necessity for pain killers. Yeah, that's interesting. If you give them, if you give them the power to choose how the dose of painkillers, they will choose less because you've empowered them. So I care way more about empowering a person to say, give me an equation, I learned how to process this. It doesn't matter what it is. As opposed to saying, okay, I don't know any of the, you know, tens of thousands or whatever people that are listening to this, I don't know what you do.
Starting point is 01:32:32 But I can give you the basic fundamental equation that will relate to any situation. Man, it's like, oh, okay, cool. Kind of off subject, but you just reminded me of something. Have you seen the, I think it's Apple TV that did a series called Homes? Did you see, have you seen that? No.
Starting point is 01:32:50 That was amazing. So you just made me think of something that I hope that we have some research in the future because there's like a movement. And I believe it started in Sweden just then. I don't know. I think it's becoming popular where they're building these greenhouse homes.
Starting point is 01:33:03 Yeah, greenhouse homes. So a home inside of a greenhouse. And so it'd be really interesting to see like a family that was raised in that. And if we had multiple people that we could measure like what kind of long-term effects that potentially has, I mean, I love the idea. I speculate that it would make a huge difference.
Starting point is 01:33:20 Yeah, everything. It's boosts your immune system. The fight inside off with the plants, you're literally creating a little hermetic stressor on your immune system that's saying, okay, bulk up, be strong. But if you put yourself into, this is very relevant for the now, if you put yourself into a hyper-sanitized sterile environment, you begin to die. Your body needs something to wrestle with. And so if you're continually just nuking
Starting point is 01:33:52 your own natural microbiome and skin biome with all of this stuff that just, okay, just kill it all, kill it all, kill it all. Multiply that, you can do that, you can wage war on yourself for a little bit. Multiply that times a whole cultural shift for years and see what happens with that. As opposed to the people say,
Starting point is 01:34:11 what do they call the people, the centarians, what do they call the blue zones? There's like, what are they doing? Oh, and there's contention on everything, including blue zones, but what are they doing? Oh, they're doing what's sound like. In the freaking garden, what's in doing? Oh, they're doing what's sound like they're in the freaking garden. What's in the garden?
Starting point is 01:34:26 A whole lot of dirt. You know, kids that grow up with a dog or around a farm, what does a dog bring into the house? Oh, lots of different bacteria and viruses. Oh, I think the contingent. The contingent around blue zones is that many people have cherrypicked the data to support whatever they're trying to sell, right? But there are some things and we've talked about that that are very common
Starting point is 01:34:46 and community and being outside is one of the most common themes amongst all of them. Yeah, we've connected. Yeah, the Western medicine model is to isolate the one thing that does all the stuff, and we forget about the context and the combination of things, you know, like, oh, that solves pain, that's, let's make aspirin,
Starting point is 01:35:04 because that's based off the white willow bark. And then we forget that, it has all this other stuff in it that prevents things like overdose, and actually can be good for you whereas if you just take too much aspirin all the time, it can cause problems. And we forget about that.
Starting point is 01:35:14 So we stopped on four, what's five? You're gonna put me to position where I forget again. The fifth one is nose breathing. Okay. I can't wait we didn't even go there. I was like, of course that has to be in there. I tell you what, talk about one of the most. Breathing in general, but nose breathing
Starting point is 01:35:30 with emphasis on nose breathing. Maybe one of the most underrated ones. Man, so I'm notorious for having a really hard time at night settling my brain down and going to sleep. It just, for some reason, and I'm sure I've trained myself this way to work a long hours. And because we talk about how important it is
Starting point is 01:35:52 to get good rest, it's something I'm always trying to put all these practices in place to improve that. And, but sometimes life happens. Sometimes it's a very stressful long day and a lot's on my mind, or I got bombarded with multiple things. And so it really challenges those practices that I've tried to put in place. And some of them are uncontrollable.
Starting point is 01:36:11 Like I was still working till 11 o'clock and I had nothing I could do about it. And my saving grace is the nose breathing, or taking it or box breathing. It's what I use before I go to bed. And in Katrina and I will actually do it together. And she believes that she can hear me thinking, like she'll be laying in bed,
Starting point is 01:36:30 and I won't even say anything will be up in there for probably 20 minutes, and I'll get like an elbow. Stop it, I can hear you. She'll do that to me. Do you sense the baby? Yeah, yeah, and then she'll do that to me, and then if it's bothering her so much
Starting point is 01:36:42 that it's ruining her sleep, she'll say, breathe with me, and then we'll breathe together. And I swear to God, man, it's wild, how powerful that can be and how impactful it can be. Well, you know, not breathing through the nose changes the structure of your face and your nose. They're actually of shown this. They've done studies where people will purposely
Starting point is 01:37:01 block their nose and the structure of the jaw, the mouth, and the nose actually change. So people with deviated septums, for example, who can't breathe and then they get it fixed, it's life changing for them. And if you look at pictures of them after the procedure, you see some structural changes to the face. I just learned this recently. It's really crazy.
Starting point is 01:37:21 That's why you can tell, I mean, if you want to go just completely superficial, I don't care about any scientific stuff, chicks will be more attracted to a guy with a chiseled jawline. Why is that? It's an indication that, biologically speaking, that's a high functioning male that could provide, they're probably more testosteroneic and they've probably got better sperm count and they're just, it's like a Tesla versus like an old Civic. So the old Civic guy is the person with the receding chin
Starting point is 01:37:51 and they're kind of a little bit kind of just like soft and all of those things, it's like nothing wrong, nothing right, no more realistic judgment, anything like that. But there's a difference between a Tesla and a 15 year old Civic. And the Tesla, you get any, whoa, whoa, what was that? It's like, oh, well, the mechanics are pretty on point. Everything is sharp. And so when you're breathing through the nose,
Starting point is 01:38:16 a lot of things will happen. One, naturally, if you want to get more of an Eastern type perspective, you're connecting the tongue naturally to the roof of the mouth. So if you wanted to get weird, you can say you're completing the microcosmic orbit, you know, it's getting into like meridians and all that stuff, it's like connecting this energy channel, goes all the way up top of the head, all the way down to the front, down to the pernium, and up the back, and I don't know. I think from a, you know, just mechanical, again, nuts and bolts, like lifting heavy stuff perspective, you can get more strength out of that. Calling a thing
Starting point is 01:38:49 a microcosmic orbit immediately puts me into like a tinfoil, kind of like woo, category, but it is interesting. It just so happens that that is, East and West cross the intersect. A lot. A lot. I don't know if all the time, but I think if you give it enough time, it's pretty close to all the time. It's wisdom, it's all wisdom, and there's truths in all of them, and sometimes they say it differently, but they're saying the same thing oftentimes,
Starting point is 01:39:17 and there's different approaches, and I think it's a huge disservice to yourself, to just like with exercise, I'm only gonna do this one method, and I'm gonna ignore all these others, huge disservice. And so just stick to one, just like with exercise, I'm only gonna do this one method, and I'm gonna ignore all these others, huge disservice. And so with more facial structure stuff, so your facial muscles will naturally be kind of pulling you in.
Starting point is 01:39:35 So when you are closing your jaw, and you're going through and you're breathing with the nose, especially like growing up as a baby, if you just kind of allow that just like lack, slack jaw, you'll literally start to cave in on yourself. Like you need to create some internal pressure. You need to push out in order to grow into a strong body. And so that person that's continually just,
Starting point is 01:39:58 slack jaw, you know, breathing through their mouth, you're, they're missing out on filtering the air, they're missing out on changing the temperature of the air to be more ready to be actually assimilated. They're missing out on the production of nitric oxide. So now they're missing out on cardiovascular function. Now they're missing out coming back to picking up chicks. If that's what you're interested in, if you're a guy,
Starting point is 01:40:21 well now ED, rectile dysfunction. If I'm not, if I'm gonna go out and get a supplement, maybe I'll go get beat juice or something in order to increase nitric oxide, well, you realize that you naturally, just through tapping into your own innate mechanics, you can produce this stuff just by, you know, walking through a room and breathing right.
Starting point is 01:40:40 See, now you're selling it, I love it. It's very, you want boners, free-through notes. Dude, seriously. All that stuff is, it, I love it. It's very, you want boners, free three notes. Dude seriously, all that stuff is legit. It all comes back to evolution man. Everything that we're doing it all comes back to where a bunch of animals trying to figure this thing out, we're trying to eat, we're trying to get laid,
Starting point is 01:40:55 and we're trying to create shelter, we're trying to perpetuate the species. And because we're so complex, the big part of that is trying to find purpose and meaning. Because without that, it's too big of a struggle for smart apes like us. What a weird time. Yeah I know. Back to Russia. Hey listen you're you're always a good time. Yeah you're always a great time man. Hopefully you feel like we like you right you know you don't
Starting point is 01:41:20 get the divide that we don't like feels like ta ta Tuesday. Yeah. We're not having sex. Okay. We're not going to have not this time. The pandemic is going to maintain distance. Yeah. Yeah. Or we can do it Canada recommended see what can a Canada had this like this recommendation for sex and they actually advocated for glory holes. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:41:40 Whoa. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Canada. Yeah, yeah, because of the pandemic. Hey, if you want to bang somebody just do it through a hole in the wall Yeah, it'll keep you safe day. Yeah, that was not funny. I saw wearing masks during coitus That was I thought that was pretty interesting. Yeah There was a time there was a time when condoms weren't a thing, you know, and then the hiv came out and it's like well
Starting point is 01:41:58 Yeah, now it's the next the next level. Yeah, pretty soon. We'll just be Full body robot Robot banging. Well, perhaps this gets into Elon Musk simulation stuff. We'll be sitting inside of a tube someplace, plugged up to nutrients while we're leading digital lives. Do you think there's the only safe way to do it? Do you think there's your actual biological body to go out there?
Starting point is 01:42:21 You can die. Do your digital life. I think we'll quickly, we will quickly realize we don't really know what we need. I think we're gonna give ourselves everything we ever wanted and desired and be extremely depressed. Aaron, are you a sci-fi guy? Do you watch sci-fi stuff?
Starting point is 01:42:36 Not enough, I'd be more creative if I was. I'm just interested if you think there's a movie that's out there that depicts our future the best. Idiocracy. Oh, yeah. I haven't seen that. the best. Idiocracy. Oh, man. Yeah. I haven't seen that. You haven't seen that?
Starting point is 01:42:48 Wow, dude. This guy saw it's long time ago, but it's an old movie. He gets frozen wherever. Nice. And he, you know, reanimated or whatever in the future. And it's like pro wrestlers president. And dumb people were having more kids than smart people. Anyway, everything went backwards,
Starting point is 01:43:06 and everybody's really dumb, and they don't drink water, they drink soda. The soda, because that's full of electrolytes, and they feed it for their plants. Yeah, it's a comedy. It's a comedy. Oh, I've got to have some painfully acting. And he's a normal dude, he's an average dude,
Starting point is 01:43:21 but because the future gets so stupid, he's like the smartest man in the world. Oh, they really bring him back. He's an average dude, but but because the future gets so stupid. He's like the smartest man in the world I can't we've never seen this or even heard of this before I've got to watch it I thought Sarah gets Sarah gets to me with Bruce Willis. I feel like it's very close to where we're heading I believe that we're matrix matrix is another yeah, right But that's those are kind of very similar right it that we're loved in I think there's gonna be I think there's gonna be a clear division of Humans and they live that in. I think there's gonna be a clear division of humans in the nature.
Starting point is 01:43:46 That's what I say. Yeah, there's gonna be the plugged in and then the unplugged people. I think we're smart enough, and there's enough of us that see the writing on the wall, and then I think if it keeps going crazier and crazier that direction, that I think we'll revolt and go the other direction,
Starting point is 01:44:01 but I do think there will be a mass majority that will fall in line. I think 100% our own arrogance is going to be our downfall. We're so smart. We give ourselves everything we think we want. We can satisfy every pleasure, which is going to start to get closer and closer to that. And then we're going to realize this is not... It's like that scene in the Matrix when the capture was his name Morpheus. And Agent Smith, is that his name? Agent Smith.
Starting point is 01:44:27 As talking to him and he says, you know in the beginning, the first Matrix was a utopia for humans. We made it perfect. And your feeble mind couldn't perceive that things could be so good and we lost entire crops of humans. So they rejected it.
Starting point is 01:44:40 They had to remake the Matrix with all the challenges of real life in the 90s or whatever at the time of the day. Because humans can't live in a, we don't know what utopia is. We think we know and we create it if we could digitally. Maybe too bored with perfection. Not just that, just no meaning and purpose of things. Imagine if you could just, this is when people ask us this question all the time, what
Starting point is 01:45:00 if there was a pill that made you fit, lean and healthy? Would that be the answer? And I'm like, well, no, because most of the benefits you get from eating right and exercising is the pursuit of doing so. It's not the, the, the, the, the result of it. It's the pursuit of it. Well, we have things. I think we see examples this with the uber rich all the time. I mean, I feel like I see celebrities. Yeah. Like, I, like where I feel like there's more uber rich or celebrity people that look depressed, sad, or have so much pain in sorrow in their life
Starting point is 01:45:31 than I think of that like, oh man, they look really happy or they really like got it all together. So, and yet they have the ability to pretty much lie or have anything that this earth has to offer. Do you know Daniel Everett, don't sleep there snakes. You heard of that book? No, no, no. The Paraha people in the Amazon. No, I say the Amazon. So it's just one country. I think
Starting point is 01:45:51 it was Brazilian Amazon. I'm not sure. But what he found in studying these these Paraha people, he went out there as a Christian missionary. And so his intention was to go and convert him over and get him bibles and the whole thing. And he went out there with his own version of resting bitch face. And the Paraha people, they documented the amount, they documented the amount that they smile to determine level of happiness. It's kind of a weird thing whenever you see like, oh, I've heard so many references. Whatever, university is the happiest place in the world.
Starting point is 01:46:24 I was like, how do you figure that out? Who takes surveys? Like, what is it? But so the way that they documented was literally just measuring the amount of time that they're smiling throughout the day. And comparing it to all other cultures that they compared it to,
Starting point is 01:46:36 these Paraha people apparently were the most smileiest people and what was interesting with that is they don't have any of their language structure and their belief systems are completely different than that of modern hyper analytical aggregate stuff, quantity, quantity, quantity. And so they don't even have any numbers. They don't have any sense of history beyond their life. So if you tell me about Jesus, I'm like, is this your brother? Is this your like, give me more details? And I'm oh, no, this is guy 2,000 years ago.
Starting point is 01:47:08 They're like, what is that even me? What are you talking about? I don't even have a conception of that. You know who talked about that? Justin who went over to the Congo and he talked about their perceived happiness within their community with having like nothing. Like, yeah, like one pair of clothes, a pair of sandals. We're like I don't know enough about computers to team whether this is an appropriate analogy But I think we're like computers in the sense that we only have so much bandwidth and so if you offer the majority of the bandwidth out to material Unankered shit, then that's where your energy goes now
Starting point is 01:47:40 And so if that's where you're thinking that's where your mind is is occupied, and now all of a sudden, well, I have evidence. I've got two lambo's, I've got the new Lambo SUV dog I'm coming up. You know, and that's like, oh, that's me. It's like, no, no, no. So if you don't have any of that, you don't even have the opportunity to make that you. And I made an opportunity to identify with that.
Starting point is 01:48:01 And so if you don't have the opportunity to identify with that, it's like, what do I have around? It's like, well, I have people. I have my body, I have my friends. I have this cool stick that I made. Right? Well, I have this food. Wow, it's not amazing.
Starting point is 01:48:16 It's not, you know, comparison to like, if I was like Paris Hilton, you know, but it's like it's, you know, it's, it's not like, you don't even have that comparison though. That's all you know. Right. But if it's like, if that's what you have, it's like the five movement principles,
Starting point is 01:48:27 like breakdown of like simplistic, like what do I have in front of me? If you have less, it makes it easier for you to actually pay attention to the things that matter because those are intrinsically with you. Oh yeah, well, I mean, you know, we live in these modern market-based societies and markets do one thing better than any other system,
Starting point is 01:48:47 they give us what we want and they innovate very, very well. What's the weakness in that? It's what we want. And we don't know what we need, we only know what we want. And what I want right now is pleasure, distraction, entertainment, good tasting, heedingistic value of the food
Starting point is 01:49:05 and I don't want to move, so you're gonna get a lot of that and it's not really what you need. I think sometimes when you're forced in a situation, then you start to really realize things. The thing is it's no one's fault. So I think it's really easy to like shit on modernity and shit on Western culture. No, no, no, no, no, like these guys, and they don't, they're learning. No, it's really easy to like shit on modernity and shit on Western culture. No, no, no, no, no, like these guys,
Starting point is 01:49:25 and they don't, they're learning. It's a learning thing. No, it's learning. Yeah, and so, but if you think about the amount of commercials that you're exposed to, I think it's something like by the age 30, you're exposed to something like 20 million commercials or some ridiculous number, your whole life
Starting point is 01:49:42 since you're a little person, and then also multiply that time's, you know, your parents' perspectives and the world they grew up, and all the commercials they've been exposed to, it's literally all of those commercials are selling you the idea that you will be enough, you will be loved, you will be supported, you will be all of the things when you have our shit.
Starting point is 01:50:03 And so literally, like your software system unless you choose to actively unlearn it, you need to go out of your way to actively unlearn it is such that I will be whatever, you know, enough when I make this money and buy that thing. Dude, I had such a mind blowing paradigm shift a while ago and I'm going through it now. So my wife's pregnant, right?
Starting point is 01:50:26 She's in the third trimester of pregnancy. And a while ago, on the podcast, I had very minimal knowledge of natural childbirth and the history of it. My knowledge at the time was what I had heard. And I remember on the podcast, I said, oh yeah, childbirth is so dangerous. Number one cause of death and women throughout all the history.
Starting point is 01:50:43 Thank God for modern medicine and blah, blah, blah. Well anyway, I got a message from a midwife who was like, you're so wrong. And that's not how it works. And you know, I, she's obviously an expert and I went back and forth with her and debated and discussed. And she got me to the point where I became open-minded and said, well, okay, well, this is interesting. Then I started learning more about the natural childbirth process.
Starting point is 01:51:07 And I started to see that the way that we treat childbirth in Western societies is the way we treat everything with Western medicine, which is a medical emergency. That's what Western medicine does really well. You cannot compare with Western medicine for dealing with medical emergencies. There is no system that's better at that. but like anything you're really good at, if you are a hammer, everything's a nail, right?
Starting point is 01:51:29 So that's how they treat it. And you see it in movies. This is how I was conditioned. Oh my God, the woman's water broke. Rush to the hospital. Ah, my wife's pregnant. What's gonna have, ah, and she gets to the hospital and then the muscles of the cervix are like sphincters and like any sphinct muscle, and ain't gonna relax unless you're relaxed.
Starting point is 01:51:45 And your body's not gonna have this baby unless you your body feels safe, right? And so we have this cascading event of interventions with, oh, you're not moving fast enough, here's this chemical called pitose. Oh, now it really hurts. We gotta give you an epidural. Oh, you can't have the baby.
Starting point is 01:51:59 Let's do a C-section. And so I started learning about this. So now we're in this process of, we're gonna be doing childbirth with a midwife. I've learned about natural childhood with them taking these courses. And it's so interesting. I didn't know this, right? This is something that happens sometimes with women, right?
Starting point is 01:52:14 They go through the process of natural childbirth. And when they get, there's different stages of it. And once they start to get to the last stage, which is the most intense and things are really happening, sometimes the body will stop for about 30 minutes, 30 minutes to an hour. They'll just stop. And the midwife say, oh yeah, the body knows you need a break.
Starting point is 01:52:31 It'll just stop. Doesn't mean you're not having the baby. It gives you time to get your energy back because the next phase is the baby's gonna come out. The other thing they said was, don't worry about pushing, you will push. It just happens after they said, and they said something to me,
Starting point is 01:52:45 which was like, well, duh. If you do nothing about childbirth, your body would have to say, baby, it's gonna happen. You don't need to know anything, and there's a lot of instinct and natural things that happen. And we've countered it so much that we've created something entirely different. It reminded me of that when we're talking about what we're
Starting point is 01:53:02 talking about, that we go counter to what's natural for ourselves so much that we're causing ourselves a lot of problem and it's everything from how much stuff we have all the stuff we think that's gonna make us happy when in reality a lot of what makes you happy is your mindset what's within you how you perceive things and people people is what really makes people happy in fact it a... People that care about you for more than the shit that you've worn on your side. Right. Good people. So it's been, and once again, it is... I like the idea of taking full responsibility for everything, and also at the same time saying, luckily it's not my fault, because I'm just a part of this algorithm and environment for me and all that. But your friends, the people that you have around you, that it's, you created them. So by you leading with, oh, like me, because I have this sweet car, like me,
Starting point is 01:53:54 because I have this, like me, because I have that. Like, that's the people you'll have. I mean, like what, like welcome to LA, you know, LAs. Yeah, how the hell do you live in LA, by the way? You're so opposite of LA. I needed to be a fish, I don't want to live there. I went to LA, because I've, you know, LA's. Yeah, how the hell do you live in LA, by the way? You're so opposite of LA. I needed to be a fish, I don't want to.
Starting point is 01:54:07 I went to LA because I've, you know, come from like nature, stony mecha's around. And so I lived in Boulder, Colorado, and then Benurgan, and Hawaii for a while, and did a bunch of traveling in between that. And I felt as though the way that I described LA is LA is like an oven. And so you go to the other places in the world
Starting point is 01:54:26 and you gather your ingredients and you make a pizza. And you see, you put it and you get it all sorted out and it's nice circle and you got the pepperonis or whatever it means. And then it's some point. Can we politically correct some exactly? Yeah. Well, there's the only thing here.
Starting point is 01:54:41 I'm afraid. I'm like, I'm withdrawn. I picked up on the hatch. It could be bigger. It could be bigger. Don't judge me. But at some point my sensation, which may or may not have been accurate, was like, I need to put the pizza into the oven.
Starting point is 01:55:00 And so, I drove my car down to the oven. I've been there for the last four years, and now I have the book, and I have the one that I program, and the podcast has grown. Don't leave the pizza in there too long. I was gonna say it. But you don't wanna leave the pizza in too long. And so now I'm planning on moving to Texas, Austin, Texas for a short amount of time.
Starting point is 01:55:19 California is losing everybody, I swear to God. Dude, it's nothing but Philly's signs. Like around my neighborhood, like every block, it's just like Philly's signs. Like around my neighborhood, like every block, it's just like Philly's Philly's. It's almost down there. It's like sad and almost like an interesting game. In a way, we're gonna see another Philly's sign, get this weird dope meathead.
Starting point is 01:55:33 I'm like, whoa, another one, wow. Cause I'm not a landowner in LA, so I'm like, whatever. You know, and I own a place in a more rural setting in Bend, Oregon. So my individualistic perspective is like as people surge out of these places, they're going to go to like nicer, more rural type spots. So Aaron, you living in the secular capital of the world next to probably Vegas, right? Do you do you feel there is a a healthy balance of some of these things, right? We talked
Starting point is 01:56:00 we you alluded to the Lamborghini and you know, Sal's alluded to us chasing pleasure and getting things for the hedonistic value. You know, can we, can we be in pursuit of growth and being a healthy person and also find ways to allow some of those things to come into your life or is it all bad? I think it comes back to the same response is are you consumed by the game or are you able to have more of a witness role of the game? If you're in that position, it doesn't matter what you do, in my opinion,
Starting point is 01:56:39 because you're not consumed by it. You could be consumed by any game. If you think that all you are is, I mean, there's some games that would probably be better if all you are is a father or all you are is this or that. But even within that, you can step back and observe and say, oh, wow, I'm playing this human game here. So I think it's like religion.
Starting point is 01:57:01 It's like because you were raised in this specific culture with this specific book, in my perception, it doesn't mean that that book is true. It's just the one that you happen to have been dropped into. So within that religion, are you able to gather the tools and the benefits from that religion or from that perspective or city or whatever, but not just identify entirely with it because you're not that. I think the person, depending on how healthy they are, and I mean that in a full sense,
Starting point is 01:57:33 that's what determines the things that they chase and the things that they want. So in the sense, what you're saying is true, it doesn't matter what you're doing, but who you are changes what you're doing. And you won't be doing this. The chicken of the egg. The chicken of the egg.
Starting point is 01:57:49 Well, something so, right? I mean, I kind of, I subscribe to what you're talking about, and I really feel like that. It comes back to the awareness thing, right? You keep alluding to the witness thing. I think that is just self-awareness, is that. I'm aware that this is a materialistic thing. I'm aware that it is not me. It doesn't make me anything, but I can also say like, boys, it fucking fun to drive.
Starting point is 01:58:12 Fuck yeah. You know, boys, it's boys, it cool how it corners. You know, I think, yeah, be LeBron James. Just don't drink your LeBron James Kool-Aid. Like do everything you can to play that game well and realize that this is just that. And then from there, I have got no hate for the player. He's like, he's like, damn, he plays the game well. That's great. But does he think that he is that shoe moving around the board? Right. Not really. Right. You know, it's like, do you really,
Starting point is 01:58:47 you really think you're the shoe? It's like, yeah, yeah, I'm the shoe because I'm winning. You know, and then all of a sudden you lose hard. And you're like, I'm not this shoe. And you go through some form of existential crisis where you have to analyze yourself deeper. And now maybe all of a sudden you become, you know, born again, something.
Starting point is 01:59:03 You know, you start to really come out and say, God, I was never the shoe. I was bigger than this. The whole, man, I needed some figure up. Maybe I choose to elect it, some figure in space, some God figure, whatever it may be. That's the leader. It's taking me home. But before I thought I was the shoe my whole life, because I was winning the game.
Starting point is 01:59:21 I'm not even realizing you're the sock. I'm not even realizing you're the sock. Within the I'm not even realizing you're the sock. Hmm. I'm not even realizing you're the sock. Hmm. I'm not even realizing you're the sock. Hmm. I'm not even realizing you're the sock. Hmm.
Starting point is 01:59:31 I'm not even realizing you're the sock. Hmm. I'm not even realizing you're the sock. Hmm. I'm not even realizing you're the sock. Hmm. I'm not even realizing you're the sock. Hmm. I'm not even realizing you're the sock. Hmm.
Starting point is 01:59:39 I'm not even realizing you're the sock. Hmm. I'm not even realizing you're the sock. Hmm. I'm not even realizing you're the sock. Hmm. I'm not even realizing you're the sock. Hmm. Hmm. I'm not even realizing you're the sock. Hmm. Yeah, I mean, it's spiritual physics. I think it's really, there's a science to it. It's the same way that people are built up in culture to be torn down.
Starting point is 01:59:49 You get to a certain level where all of a sudden, it's like, wow, I mean, there's a handful of comedians right now that I've, I'm one of which I'm fairly close with it's going through kind of like the whole, all the stuff of like me too and all that stuff. And it's such an interesting thing to watch the development, you know, watch the, is that they grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, and then all of a sudden it's like, okay, now you're, you're in position. The trees are so much taller, it's, you can see it from miles away.
Starting point is 02:00:20 Now you have, there's like, there's something scientific about it of all the rest of the nodes. I think we'll have the tendency of like, how can we chop that thing back down? Because if that's down, then I'm up. And it's like there's some equilibrium thing that happens with it. And so we seek out to be at that point. And then eventually some people play the game well enough
Starting point is 02:00:41 that they arrive at that point. And then very often they resent that point. So I find it interesting that science wants to prove it that it's some physiological thing that happens or that we can break it down scientifically and then spiritually we want to just attribute it all to God. There's got to be something there and I feel like no matter which one you subscribe to, it's a religion. Everything is science is one of the biggest religions. Well, scientism is a very dangerous obviously religion. It lacks morality. It's purely objective. Right. The computer. Well, it asks, it doesn't ask, should I? It always says, can I? Oh, let me see, yeah, it's not a should, you know, let's see if we can. That's always the question.
Starting point is 02:01:20 I think you have to look at different lenses to understand different types of wisdom. It doesn't make sense to use science to understand art or poetry. It doesn't make sense to use. We sure tried to though. We do. It doesn't make sense to use religion to understand science. Religion and spirituality has its own wisdom. And they're all, look, if you believe in evolution, you have to believe in the evolution of ideas. And if things stick around a long time, it's because it's probably valuable. There's probably some wisdom in there. If something's been around for a long time,
Starting point is 02:01:51 don't just throw it out, ask yourself, why have people found this particular thing valuable for as long as they have? Because it's gone through a lot of different people who, you know, combining them all is definitely gonna be smarter than you. Find the wisdom with that. Don't just cut it out.
Starting point is 02:02:10 Yeah, and all that, I think it comes back to like, the same thing, ancient wisdom, you know, having polarities, Nian and Yang, and light and dark, and sun and moon, east, west, science, you know, whatever the other is, science, science, and whatever other is, it's more like a science, you know, whatever the other is, science, science, and whatever other is, it's more like a holistic, more artistic, more, you know, expressive.
Starting point is 02:02:31 And so you said it with, if we never were instructed how to deliver a baby, we would naturally figure it out, obviously. You know, and so it's one of those things where it's like, we have the scientific flashlight from a Western person that grows up indoctrinated into the world that we have it feels Comforting to be able to come back and say don't worry everything's been defined everything's been measured
Starting point is 02:03:02 We have a scientific term for there's that arrogance, yeah, it's like don't worry We. We've put the definition on it. We got the DSM, you've got the ADHD. And you're like, oh, okay, I got the ADHD, great. Don't worry, we got a drug for that. Great, great, great, great. You got a drug? Okay, go out, go out, go, go, go, go. We're good. You know, and then beyond that, it's like,
Starting point is 02:03:18 so that's the more scientific realm, it's great. I'm glad that we have pharmaceutical drugs. I'm glad that we have surgery. I'm glad that we have all of that stuff. Behind that we have surgery and glad that we have all of that stuff behind that It's like well, how do you define and confine and delineate? You know say someone playing a violin that's making people weep in a subway in Paris You're like, what's the science there? It's like well you see that that's a song It it's struck some chord in the Amid the
Starting point is 02:03:45 Blood, it's like, shut the fuck up. Listen to the song. Doesn't need definition. No, no, no. No, you're not going to solve spiritual illness with medicine, just like you're not going to solve bacterial infection with art or whatever. And that's when the science mind can become judgmental of that same person we referenced before that went to Peru and to the Iwaska journey and all that stuff. And then, but there's a lot of missing pieces that science hasn't completely classified yet, but perhaps in five years maybe we might create some definitions for that. Interesting book, Derek Thompson's hit makers,
Starting point is 02:04:25 have you read that before? No. So you'll appreciate that for this conversation. Just we're talking about the science of art and music and that book makes the case for that. Yeah, yeah, read it. It's a good, it's an interesting read. I mean, it contradicts what I think what we're saying
Starting point is 02:04:39 and what we believe, but they, I mean, they believe that you can scientifically break down all that. I, yeah, I think everything. It's, I, I describe science as it's like you're in a car and you're driving down a dusty road and your experience in the cars, blah, mopping down and switching gears, whoa, that's art. And you're just in the moment, you're feeling it and you're like, I hit the jump from whatever, maybe a power slide, whoo. You know, and then behind that, that artistic expression
Starting point is 02:05:07 that just felt authentically, it was like I was like moved by something, it just came out, I don't even know how to explain it. Behind that, once the dust starts to settle with time, you can have the scientists and the nerds coming up behind, nothing against nerd, it'd be nerd and doing way. They come up behind and they're analyzing the tire tracks
Starting point is 02:05:25 and they're analyzing the type of rubber that was used and it's this very dry, sterile kind of definitive. Okay, this is what happened. We've got it. You put it into the books. It's like, we have some science about that red experience. It reminds me of trying to break down flow state, right? Like that's how it is.
Starting point is 02:05:42 Like when you have athletes and people that have been doing this for decades and probably centuries of doing things and they've been able to just drop into that without thinking about anything and now we're trying to pick it apart and figure out. How do we formulate this? But the person in the car, it would be very easy for them to be like, you know, just right off the nerve grade falling behind and be like, ah, they don't know anything.
Starting point is 02:06:03 You know, just that they're not even in the experience. Yeah. And then the nerve grade could be looking at the people in the car and they're like, they don't even understand the type of rubber in their tie. Like, they don't know anything about this experience. So they're looking at almost, it's like two different languages describing the same thing
Starting point is 02:06:19 and then they're having wars about it. It's like, what if we just team up and then I think that's how people start to respond? That reminds me of the potential consequences that I feel I see when I go to like a live sporting event now. And, you know, because I've been watching live sports for a very long time, I've watched this crazy evolution in the last, like, decade of where you saw none of this before. And then I watched a little bit of it and then more and more of it than the majority of it now, like everybody, when you're at, at like a live concert or a live game has gone from being in the moment feeling
Starting point is 02:06:49 the music, feeling the game and being so into the environment to caring more about recording it through your phone so you could post it and share it on Instagram. They're watching the whole thing through their phones. Yeah, yeah, I always I always think about like what are the unintended consequences of that? Like will they experience less joy because of that or will they never get the fullest feeling of what that is like being almost one with that moment because they are so concerned about sharing that with others. It's just a they're just in a different medium. You know their medium is opposed to being absorbed by the sound and being with the people and all that
Starting point is 02:07:24 their medium as opposed to being absorbed by the sound and being with the people and all that, their medium is capture. I want to capture. And I'm looking into the screen and even inherently looking into the screen as opposed to utilizing panoramic vision, your eyes or an extension of your brain, and the way that you use your vision, if you're narrowing in your focus that goes back into, say I'm pulling a bow back and I'm focusing all my energy into that one prey that's out there. I get my proper cocktail of cortisol and stress hormones and I'm really focusing like a shark.
Starting point is 02:07:52 Versus, say I take in the whole panoramic vision, which is Andrew Huberman, Dr. Andrew Huberman. He's like the, he reviewed my whole chapter about this, thankfully, because I had all sorts of errors, and he was like, this is how it actually should be written. And so he's like he's a research rep in Stanford which is, Sanford is like right beside here, huh? Yeah, so he's he's back and forth through here. Have you done a podcast with him? No. Okay, it would be really great for you guys to have him. Cool. He's like one of the smartest humans in his perception of the way that our visual muscles inform our autonomic nervous system is brilliant.
Starting point is 02:08:28 So when you go into taking in that panoramic view of the whole entire, you're watching all the crowd and you're watching, maybe it's an outdoor concert and the clouds and all that, it literally informs the nervous system that you're in a more open, flow, calm, receptive place. When you narrow your vision in, you organize your nervous system to more executive function,
Starting point is 02:08:54 get shit done, I'm here to capture. Oh, that's interesting because do you remember when we theorized about this? So we talked about this on the podcast, about the experience you have when you go somewhere like you simmity. And you and you have this kind of why do we all have this breathtaking moment? It's just rocks and trees and sky. Yeah, you can look at it in a picture. Right, but exactly. But why when you go there and I we theorized that it had something to do with really at that moment
Starting point is 02:09:21 recognizing how small you are in comparison to something so brand. The scale is overwhelming. But what you're saying is a little bit different than that. That's very interesting. It's both. Yeah, that's interesting. So, first, it puts you into a place of receptivity, and then that allows those pots, those thoughts to start to kind of stir up in that cauldron.
Starting point is 02:09:42 But first, you need to be in a receptive place. So if you are just watching your semity on a screen, you're seeing the same image. But it's not nearly going to hit you in that visceral, boi way. And that's because literally it's like you first are opening the container through those visual muscles. Slash everything else. It sounds, you're being in live end. And so in our modern day where you're taking all of those potential, have you guys hunted ever? I have one, I was younger.
Starting point is 02:10:10 So I went bow hunting for the first time last summer in Maui, Hawaii. And as I was out there, it's this insane sensation, literally all the cliché things, feeling more alive than I ever had and all that stuff It was quite true because I was being forced to have this sense of sound and wind and you know everything like behind me to the left I was measuring distances. Okay, cool like that bushes 20 yards and you know taking my my range find that bushes 30 yards That bushes 50 yards, you know, so I'm literally like just by me b is posting up here I'm I'm in liveening my brain I'm like I'm like an electrical storm inside my mind to be able to cast a net in my environment and like become the environment whereas when you just put all of that information of that moment
Starting point is 02:11:01 into some like bow hunting special on TNT, you're like, you're kind of dying in a way. If the reference point, the other side of the spectrum was becoming alive and by your environment, I think capturing all of that, putting it into a screen and calling that your life, I think that would be kind of opposite. Always an interesting time hanging out with you, dude. Yeah, well thank you so much. Thanks for coming on, man.
Starting point is 02:11:28 Honored to be here, I really appreciate. It's been time with you guys. Thanks brother. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance,
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