Iconic Seasons x 2nd Prime (Craig Miller) Mind, Body, and Purpose

Today's episode delves into the transformative journey of merging mind and body for ultimate wellness and purpose-driven living. We explore the evolution of fitness and wellness practices, bridging the gap between traditional training methods and holistic well-being.

Craig Miller, founder of 2nd Prime,  recounts his journey from basketball enthusiast to fitness and wellness advocate. Reflecting on the evolution of training methodologies, he shares how combining physical prowess with mental fortitude can lead to profound personal growth and longevity.

From debunking conventional wisdom to embracing unconventional practices, 2nd Prime will challenge you to rethink your approach to fitness, wellness, and maybe more. Join us as we discuss a journey of transformation.

https://www.instagram.com/2nd_prime?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

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Transcript

  I think that, your branding with second prime fits into what a lot of people  are doing.  I remember when we were started training, I mean, I'm old enough that We, we didn't lift weights in the, in basketball.

That was like a thing that was like, Oh, you know, if you play basketball, don't lift weights. And that, that changed. Well, thankfully while I was in high school, but now there's just this evolution. And I've been following you, the second prime thing that you've got on Instagram and following this evolution of combining.

mind and body and training for, , you know, purpose and longevity and like a feeling, which I think is a little bit different than, than maybe how you originally trained. But I just kind of wanted you to speak on maybe what got you into it. You can tell a little bit of your origin story and then we can get into the more of the nuance of it. 

Yeah, I mean, my, my love affair, I guess, with fitness has been sort of a two stage, two level thing where, , to your point, mine actually started.  Growing up, love basketball, my favorite sport. Um, diehard IU fan, Michael Jordan fan, living up in the region. , just perfect time to be a kid growing up to get experience.

Michael Jordan. Who knew that would 

be the last time.  

It's been a drought, but we had a little glimpse of hope with the Derek Rose years and that was fun. But yeah, it's been. It's been rough, but, , so just love, love, love basketball. , and really, um, you know, my own estimation and evaluation. I was pretty good in a young age.

And so, you know, comparing Y. M. C. A. Leagues and stuff like that before A. U. Was kind of around, but I don't feel like commonplace. And, um, Um, and just, you know, one of the better players, you know, in the city, if you will, um, I went through just some, some stuff, some family transitions in my life where, uh, divorces and remarriages and things like that.

 And so I went into probably looking back some level of like high functioning, low grade depression almost. And I just talked it up. To, oh, you're always tired when you're, you know, your body's growing and everything like that.

And I think that was part of it. But I went from just playing ball anytime I could, every single day. You know, I was the kid shoveling off my patio so I could play when it was, you know, 20 degrees out and we had 12 inches of snow on the ground. Yeah. , to really like, you know, and the other part is kind of weird, like, you have recess when you're a kid.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Playing twice a day every day. And then you go to middle school and you don't have recess and, you know, I come home and I just like turn on the TV and nap. And, , so I'll have to say, like, the other kids started to surpass me. So, you know, I made the teams through middle school and everything like that.

And  going into high school,  I missed out on a lot of the, summer workouts going in. Um, you know, it's easy to blame other reasons, but like, sure, a report is a small town. It's sort of an insiders club to degree. Our family didn't really have , an established name or anything like that.

So, there's probably a little bit of a disadvantage, I think, going into the high school, but just wasn't really prepared for what it was going to take. . To train and become a good ball player, like at a high school level, really. Yeah. And the program at 

that, the program at that time was at a really high level too.

So  it was coming, coming through  the best era of our high schools, you know, basketball program. So that's a, that's a unique time to come through there. Probably  much different now. Right. 

Absolutely. Your class was great. And, you know, we had a, a. sort of hyped up class that I don't think ever really stand out.

, a lot of the guys never grew taller than what they were in eighth grade and things like that, just, you know, very skilled group of guys. And, and so, , so I got cut freshman year. I made a really half hearted effort sophomore year, just sort of like,  We'll give it a shot. I didn't really work towards it.

Didn't even try out my junior year. And then I had a lot of, , changes happen in my personal life. Again, going into my senior year,  just  transformed and just my outlook and mindset did. And so one of the things with that was, , just wanting to be a type of person that ,  Was present in the moment, didn't have regret, like was willing to work hard for things that they wanted.

And I just knew that if I never gave my full effort to trying to make the basketball team in high school, that I would regret it. And so that's really what started me lifting, , working out, lifting weights, things like that. Like really I'd been sporadically here and there, you know, with friends, but to really be dedicated.

I joined with the conditioning in the off season for, for the basketball program. And we had to run a mile every Friday and we'd run sprint workouts on Monday and Wednesday.  On, , the time mile we do time mile. , I think I was at seven and a half minutes. It's the first week we did it. And the last week we ran it, I was at five 22. 

That's so, 

see, wouldn't it be nice to improve your physics?  That's first, first prime right there.  

Exactly. So just really, and I pushed myself, you know, hard at that. And in the gym, when I was working out, I went, my bench press went from my max was 165. , at the end of my junior year, when I first started, like, you know, probably April or so, like very end of that year, and then when we were back in the fall, it was up to 225, and I'd put on 15 pounds of muscle, , I started taking protein shakes and focusing on that, I was doing push ups every night before bed, ab workouts before bed, , you know, and, and so a lot of this style of training, even is stuff that, like, looking back, it's like, well, You know, the, the mindset was right, but like the knowledge of the body and how to get the most out of it.

Training to be a 

basketball player, you were maybe not, maybe not optimizing for some of that. 

No, definitely not. Definitely not. I mean, I could have done a lot more, , to train quickness, lateral quickness, spend a lot more time just developing the skill and not just the physical aspect, , of it, but just the mindset of like, I'm going to do, I worked my way up.

I was doing 200 pushups every single night, five sets of 40. , and then doing this eight minute ab workout. Well, he worked the same muscle group over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and everything. I could eventually starts to break down and you get negative returns.

And so. You know, and that's, you know, one of these ideas where, , even when you're doing something good  when you're young, like you can, it wasn't good how I was doing it. Right. But you can get away with it because you're young. Yeah, 

exactly. 

Your youth is sort of forgiving. It's forgiving partly because of.

You know, your, your biology and all that stuff. But partly it's just because you haven't done so many things in your life that cumulatively brought you down. And so looking back, it's like, yeah, I could have optimized even what I was trying to gain from those ab and pushup workouts, that strength better, you know, had I taken rest days, had I  upgraded.

You know,  the opposing muscle groups, you know, yeah, not just working the push muscles. Yeah. If I 

knew what the word recovery was, if that was even a word in my vocabulary,  

yeah, that's in addition to going to the gym five days a week. Exactly. Um, and so, but that really started my love affair. I did not make the basketball team.

Just like, it just wasn't, wasn't going to happen.

There wasn't a spot for me, but I'm thankful for it, you know, because that really did. Trigger this period of my life where it's like Craig went from being the skinny, scrawny kid. And to give you an idea, , on my license, driver's license, when I first got it, so, , sophomore year of school, I was six to 150 pounds.

So, you know, very, very scrawny spring beans. Felt that's 

the nice word for it. 

Yeah. And so, you know, and, and it pretty much stayed that way until I started lifting gain 15 pounds, like I said, a muscle in like about four or five months. And then just from there, it kept going. So in college freshman year, I gained the freshman 15, maybe even 20, but it wasn't how most people do.

I was putting on muscle and, , continuing to work out and get strong.  So I ended up transferring from IU my freshman year to a smaller school, Taylor University, and because of their size and because their football program time was not necessarily competitive.

And because of my athletic growth that I had, I actually walked onto their football team, having never played football before in my life. So, , yeah, and you know, I was. I was a standout when it came to intramural football at IU and things like that. Austin, 

Austin, , rivers just started a, a mild controversy saying that, , NBA guys were more likely to be able to walk onto the foot NFL field rather than the, the reverse.

So maybe you, , proved, proved that right. On a small scale , 

oh man. 

I dunno, the mentality. So this is, you could answer this part of the question maybe. So he said, or the, the pushback on it was that. The NBA guys don't realize what it's like to get hit and they would not like that part of it. So what do you think, what was it like to get hit?

Because coming from a basketball background and not a lot of football or very little, , the physical kind, what was it like to kind of transition into that part of it? 

Yeah, I mean, it was a wake up call. They actually tried to start me on defense. So I could beat, especially for like NAIA D2, I ran a 4 6 40, which, you know, for White guy.

Yeah, he's,  you know, , pretty Pretty solid. And so I had speed and I had size. So I was about 185 pounds at the time. I was bench pressing, , you know, a little over 300 pounds as my max and, , had some good size. And so, , they were going to have me be a defensive back and I had the speed for it. One, I didn't have the techniques.

I'd never done it before, but it's a different mentality. Every type of football I'd ever played. I played a little bit of backyard tackle with guys. Especially in the winter, you're all bundled up and just tackle each other, you know, but that's that's different. You're not wearing pads. You're not, you know, there's no form to it.

Those guys don't know how to break a tackle anymore than you know how to tackle and, you know, anything like that. And so, but that mentality shift from like flag football, we're just evading a defender. You know, your bait being getting hit and, you know, have them grab your flag to wanting to initiate that, you know, it was just a different mentality that I didn't, I didn't have.

 I mean, so. Yeah. So I really think there's some of those NBA guys that played high school football and so they, they'd probably be all right with some of it, but the rest, not all of them.  For me, the hardest part though was the mental part of it.

So having not played,  I think athletically again, I was on par, like we do team shuttle runs and stuff like that. And I'd win those or be in the upper echelon of them. , you know, and just run ladders and suicide type stuff as they call them ladders for football. So athletically I was comparable.

, but these guys have been playing. So everything that was second nature to them. So like lining up on the line, you know, actually it was from the huddle. They tell you to play NFL play, not NFL, but just football books are crazy. Like  that level, just the number of plays there are. And then there's all these like modifiers that they add to them that take a play and completely change where you line up.

And so you're trying to internalize this playbook and learn what you're doing there. But then from there. From the huddle to go in and lining up. You got to know, are you on the line? Are you off the line? Is your defender up on you? Are they off? If they're on you, you need to move to get off the line. Um, you know, with them, if they're not, , just everything from route running, how you break down that route, , how you catch the ball is different when you're playing backyard football or intramural, like you're using your body, always 

with one hand.

I'm always catching it with one hand  

feel the feel I think any in any sport when you get to higher levels is like the part that you missed out on like growing up with it is that feel that you develop like you can learn a playbook or learn a  how to position yourself but to  Adjust in the game.

You have to have a little bit of feel has to be kind of You You know, out of your consciousness somewhat, right? You just kind of have to be able to get in the flow and in the moment. And that's such a hard thing to do. That's kind of cool that you were able to at least, at least get on there to contribute in that way and, you know, to upload it so quickly.

But another step on that kind of evolution that you're talking about and scratch that itch of, , maybe, , Proving that you could compete in a,  structured environment.

 You had that athletic ability within you to, to step into that. So that, you know, I'm sure, like I said, I'm sure different high school, you probably, you would have been able to as well, just had probably happened more the timing of everything. 

Yeah, so, so then it just continued from there. And, , it's embarrassing to say now, but I was 1 of those guys that like. Wasn't doing leg day.  I would do other activities that involve my lower body. I knew, you know, cardio, I would run, I would play ball, I would, you know, and I was quick and I could jump and so it was like, you know,  air steppers and stuff like that.

Okay, I'm getting Getting my lower body, but I wasn't squatting. I wasn't dead lifting. I wasn't doing that that heavier stuff that then football brought into it. And that's a funny story too. I remember squatting their 1st day in football weights in season weights and you just did like. It was kind of maintenance.

He did like three sets of five and I started 135 pounds with my squat  More than I've ever been in my life after  and  But that spring we did you do all your testing like your one rep maxes and stuff and they would do projected max Not an actual one, right?  So my max had gone up to 326 Which you know in in a short amount of time to go from five reps at 135 being hard to like  

solid growth  

Yeah, and so, and it was good.

It was essential for me to like start to learn that stuff. So yeah, continued to do that through college. And then, , actually going to college for, I was going to go into ministry and, , just in my experience at college, just, , it's difficult to make my faith, my school work. And so I experienced burnout on that.

And so I didn't really want to go right into ministry position feeling kind of burnout where I was. And so, , the next thing I was like, I'm gonna be a personal trainer because I got, I'm informally doing it anyhow, you know, I was a guy, I was a big guy, I was a strong guy, I was a guy that's like people on my floor, Hey, what should I do here?

Can I work out with you? And the different stuff like that. So, , so I got certified, , personal trainer and, , went through NASM for that and became personal trainer and ended up doing that for, ,  Years. Yeah. 

So I don't know what, , what gym you're at, but I remember you showing it to me and we talked about this off air before we started, but I've seen power plates again, kind of popping up.

And I remember you showing me these things. I thought that it was the most insane thing I've ever seen. I was like, what in the world is this thing? A vibrating plate that I'm going to touch? Now, like the principles of it, because again, just with time and more knowledge, I understand some of the, just the biomechanics that go into it.

And you probably, you probably knew some of it at the time, but as more of a novice, I looked at it and I was like, this is, this is ridiculous.  And then they caught the price of them too. I think they were like 10, 20, 000. I don't know what it was at the time, but it was incredible.  

Yeah, so it, , it has a very much a like 70s or whenever it was with those belts.

Yeah, thank you. It has a lot of that vibe to it where it feels very gimmicky.  Standing on this plate and it's vibrating you and it's going to give you these results, but it's a little different. , you know, those belts that were shaking you, like you didn't have to work. This is going to like take the fat off you.

PowerPlate never claims you're not going to have to do work on it. What it's saying, it's going to get a more efficient workout. You're going to get more muscle activation because of these vibrations that are occurring. , and so it's called whole body. Vibration technology, and it was developed by the Russian cosmonauts.

They were going into space and their muscles were atrophying because there was zero gravity, you know, and so they were losing muscle mass, bone density and everything like that. So they developed this vibrating plate that vibrates in three planes of motion. It does so at a rate of, like, 30 to 50 times per second.

It's very rapid. , and as it's doing that, vibrating in these It's three planes of motion, it's causing involuntary muscle contractions, and it's putting G forces on your body, which is going to help prevent that muscle atrophy. , so it, the claims are that it increases muscle activation, but also that it's increasing bone density as you put those G forces on the body.

, it's increasing circulation, lymphatic drainage. , it helps your muscles when you stretch on it to relax. , and so just, yeah, a lot of like kind of bold claims and. , I was working at a whole 

body Theragun.  

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And we're seeing more like the benefits of vibration, like personal massagers and stuff like that.

And, , and there's a lot of validity to that. So on the recovery standpoint, I think like people have an easier time accepting that, you know, it's. It's massaging you or it just feels good. 

Yeah, 

I think lymphatic drainage because that makes sense You know any sort of like running and jumping does that as well?

and so, you know this vibrating on there, but But you get down and you do a set of push ups on them and it's harder than just doing it on the floor So you can tell that it's accelerating the fatigue and you can get more done. , but yeah, I'd worked at this  More boutique style, , training facility that really, , catered towards a really high end clientele.

And it really made for a great marketing, , tool,  before these things were really mainstream.  They're mainstream now, but my lifetime fitness here in Indy, they have it. And, , you know, I know that a lot of the pro teams and stuff like that have used them. And, , but so  the guy that owned this boutique was a little bit more on the front end of it, but it gave us something that separated us from the other people.

And, you know, , we had these individual training suites. There's like eight trainers and each had their little private training room. And it was kind of centered around, there's a power plate in each one. And then there's a cable cross and dumbbells and a stretching table and a massage chair. And so you could, you'd give these people sort of a pampered boutique style workout where they, they, they're building strength, but they're leaving more muscles stretched out, relaxed, , getting a little bit more bang for their buck in that amount of time with the power plate.

And so, yeah, it was, 

It was, I felt like it was, you know, felt very cutting edge then it still sounds, you know, sounds like what if you'd walk into like a higher end place in Los Angeles or something, some, some version of that is still, still around. I think that's the good thing about working out is that a lot of the, the things around the edges evolve, but I mean, the human body is still the same as it was thousands of years ago.

So you can also look backwards a long ways and, you know,  just through study of history, find out things that, that worked really well and maybe just got lost. And I think that's maybe even some of the things that we'll talk about has started sort of reemerged in that space.  

Yeah. And that's always been an interest to me and maybe the power play contributed to it because that was my first experience.

And really that style of training was different. So I'd gone from, I worked at lifetime fitness for, , about 6 months before getting connected with this studio and then at the studio, they had a totally different approach. Like, you know, we're not going to just do these, , really traditional standard compound lifts and go from machine to machine and things like that.

Like, we're going to view the body in a way that we're thinking about.  You know, the sum of the parts equaling the whole and making sure that each individual part is doing what it's supposed to do. And so that shouldn't have been really a novel concept, but really, , for my exposure and the way, you know, you just go through a standard CPT in a certified personal certification and, um you know, lifting as an athlete and things like that, ,  but so it's really kind of an interesting way. And not only do we want to activate each muscle group, make sure it's doing what it's doing. But we want to avoid tension because tension is going to lead to other issues and overcomplications and injuries.

So we want to develop the muscle, but we want to elongate it, you know, at the same time. And so we want the muscle to be long and strong. And so all that was new, but it did kind of trigger just,  a love for this idea of,  , maybe there's something else out there. Not necessarily a silver bullet, but just.

different way to think about it to give you an edge or, , or, you know, maybe we've gotten away from something that 2000 years ago, like they, they knew. And, you know, so  I was really intrigued when the barefoot running like phase. Sure. And, , I was doing,  you know, ice baths before they were as commonplace and, you know, and I was doing that largely for just the mental training, but 

abuse yourself.  

And so, yeah, so just whatever it is, like, I'm always intrigued by. This different way of thinking and really the older I get and more I get into it the more i'm skeptical of whatever the mainstream view is on something and we're finding more and more that  without being a full blown conspiracy theorist that like there are people that have Invested in studies to skew the results so that they can make money.

I mean, of course  You know in  country and environment and yeah, you 

don't have to look too far. Cigarettes, uh, easy. 

Yeah, well, and like, you know, Oxy, oxy, opioids, 

uh, more recent, 

you know, it's coming full circle, like butter's good for you, right? You know, , these good fats are good for you. Meat, red, red meat, not processed stuff, but that  good for you.

And You know, but when they came out with the, Oh, the butter is bad for you. It's like same time they're promoting all these sugary foods and everything.  It's fat that's making you fat, not the sugar. And, , so there's just always somebody with ulterior motives and, you know, the higher up you go, the more money you hear oftentimes is.

And so I think it's just a good to question everything. You know, I don't think you need to live in this conspiracy theorists. Like.  necessarily, , where,  you know, every, I don't know where you're paranoid about everything, but just to like, , I'm fascinated about the knees over toes guy. You familiar? 

Yeah, of course.

I mean, as a trainer, I can't tell you the number of times I told people on a squat and a lunge, like you never want your knees to go out and yeah, right. 

Yeah. 

It is going to cause knee problems and injure yourself. Like you can't load them, you know, with that much pressure and weight and all that.

And you know, and I think his concept is just, like I said, it, it's so against the grain of what we were taught.  And yet. It makes sense, you know, and conceptually it makes a lot of sense and he's seeing a lot of success. And as long as you, , scale it, you know, at an appropriate rate and you don't just jump to doing, you know, heavy squats with right.

Yeah, instantly. Your knees are going in front of you. If you 

can only do 135 don't put 300 on there. Yeah.  

And by not going through and working strength through the full range of motion of all these joints, and you know, there's something called, , similar concept, but for your back, like, called a Jefferson curl, where, you know, you're always told you don't want to have weight and load your back and then round it, you know, you got to keep a flat straight back and, you know, and he's really challenging that idea and there's this shift to say, no, like your back rounds, you bend over and pick stuff up, like we need to strengthen it through that.

We don't want to baby stuff and limit the amount of, you know, Like range of motion, and especially if you start to run into back issues or knee issues, the common thing is like, Oh, well, we got to be careful. So now we got to do less and we got to baby it and we got to stop doing these things, get a 

brace 

in the last, as long as we can.

Yeah. Instead of staying. No, we can actually force circulation through those areas. We can bring in muscle, new strength. You can even potentially, , you know, increase cartilage and things like that. Where just the traditional mindset is like, once that's gone, it's gone. And, , you can build strength in a back that has, , issues with your discs and things like that.

And so, yeah, just a different way of looking at things. And I'm always interested and open to that. And so my view of fitness is, is constantly evolving and has evolved. And, , yeah, just bring it full circle. I wish I could go back to, Yeah, yeah, 

I, so I want to ask you this then says the, the branding that with the second prime, , you know, Kind of says that your first prime ended at some point.

So I'm, I'm curious then, like what, what was that demarcation for you? Because there's this, this moment where you're kind of on the, on the bleeding edge of things, where did, where did things, you know, evolve to or force you into kind of a, another one of those scenarios, like you talked about earlier, where you needed to evolve into the, into the things that you're, the approach that you have now. 

So, you know, looking back in hindsight, there were like signs along the way, like I'm crushing it physically. , you know, I think back to like my, my stats, you know, I was six to 200 pounds, 5 percent body fat, I ran a four, six, 45, 22 mile. I could at my peak, I'd bench press to 25, 25 times. I think I got 309 times.

, I could dunk a basketball, . I did 37 pull up, you know, and so like all these markets where it's like, you're good. 

Yeah. 

Yeah,  kind of fitness level, you know to a degree you're in that upper echelon and yet Because of how I was training like my body,  you know  I constantly was battling like muscle tension  aches.

, I had some knee issues. I had some back issues , I felt sort of beat up even though I could perform at a high level, but then some other things started happening. , you know, digestive, but digestion issues started creeping in. , you know, those led to me experimenting with like my diet a little bit more, , trying to gluten free diet, trying to reduce dairy, like just, a lot of different things. 

, but the big kind of off the cliff thing, or at least what started it was, , I actually went back to school when I turned 30 and I went from working a personal trainer job all day where I was up on my feet, moving around. And in between clients, I was working out and we had the power plate in there.

I'll stretch and I was doing things to offset this tension to going back to school. And sitting for six to nine hours in a classroom, like a day, , we had really long three hour classes, , that would a couple of them a day. And then you go back and you're doing homework. And I did have a part time training job, so I was still working out, but just the sheer value of the amount of time I was sitting.

And then as a student now, Like my food prep time went down,  types of food I was getting, I was on more of a budget, like all that started to shift, you know, then you still had these digestive issues. And so my body started to like, you know, move into what I would call like chronic inflammation, , pain, fatigue.

, started to disrupt my sleep, , you know, the digestive pain mixed with like muscle tension in my hips, my knees, and then just like my side where like my digestion, you know, was.  Would just like it hurts I get about three hours of sleep and then after that I'd wake up in pain and just start tossing and turning so These things are compound on one another, you know, you go from being really active to really sedentary You go from sleeping eight nine hours in a night to you know Getting maybe four or five hours of good sleep and a couple hours of like really restless sleep , but one of the other adjustments I made and again didn't really do this Think about this to looking back on it in hindsight, but because of the digestive discomfort that I was going through and I think what happened is like you have like psoas muscles and stuff like that, that you're sitting can like sort of lock up and they can start to pinch down on like, you know, your intestines and  gut there and they can cause pain there and pinch stuff off. So that's that digestive pain increased in that.

 I started to, like, react.

I didn't have, like, rashes, but it felt like it was, like, crawling. Like, it would start to, like, itch all around my midsection,   so I just started eating less because it's so uncomfortable to eat more. And so I went from probably, you know, in my prime, eating 3, 500, 4, 000 calories, eating  my body weight and protein, all that stuff you're supposed to do, , to probably 2, 200 calories. 

And so at my frame and my muscle mass and still trying to work out, I was like drastically under nourishing. Then made the muscle pains and tightness and stuff like that all the worse. 

Right. Yeah. 

Push through these workouts, breaking them down and they don't have what they need to repair. Yeah. And so it's just this like compounding circle.

Yeah. 

Yeah. And so that was sort of my reality. I would spend many nights, two hours a night. Before going to bed, rolling on a foam roller and a tennis ball and a racquetball and a massage or whatever I could to like offset that tension just to be able to sleep, you know, more than 3 or 4 hours. And, , and so that kind of  went on for a while and then  in  2018, I think it was. I got a traumatic brain injury. 

Whoa. 

And so, , it was kind of stupid of me, but, , we were living at a house in, , Indianapolis and Broad Ripple area, and, , it had an old detached garage, and it was, , you know, had a clicker and, you know, all that, and, but it was the old spring system. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it's like my garage. 

Yeah, it's like my garage right now. 

We've got two huge metal coil springs on each side. And, um, Apparently they're very dangerous. I didn't know that They look 

dangerous 

Yeah, we've been fixing up our house getting ready to sell and we had painted our garage door And we painted it with it down and it sort of like sealed even the creases To go up.

It's sort of like popped and it popped off the track. Oh,  I can fix this and  I get  Two of the, the bolts out and the third one is like bent, like sideways. Oh man. And I'm like, oh man, look at this. This is like,  you know,  . Yeah. Just thinking like,  oh, this needs be 

bolt. What could go wrong here? . 

Yeah. So it, it was actually bending under the, the tension of the. the spring. It wasn't bent when I started.

It's bending under. That's how much force was on it. And so I unscrew a little bit longer and it releases and it hit me square in the forehead. Wow! That Oplate did. And  um, I tried to explain the force that hit me with, you know, to a friend and was like, man, it felt like, well, I can equate it to, it's like putting Put my head on a golf tee and someone swung their driver as hard as they could.

That's 

probably accurate. Yeah. 

He goes, it was more force than that. Yeah. And he's like, you know, that goes through people's, if those snap, those springs snap, like, you know, they've killed people. They can go through people's walls, like into their house, through their car, like all sorts of stuff like that. Just by God's grace, you know, I wasn't really hurt, but, , when I got hit, , the only thing that went through my head was like the scenes in a movie where someone gets shot or stabbed or whatever, and they're with it for a few seconds, they realize like that they've just been shot and then they die, you know, and I'm like, That's what's going to happen.

Like, I thought my probably literally like my brain split open. And so I ripped my shirt off somehow. I didn't get knocked out, but I ripped my shirt off, tied it as tight around my head as I could, ran inside and was like, Brittany, you got to call the ambulance. So I went to the hospital and. Had a brain bleed and they kept me overnight and I was concussed and I had headaches, you know, for, uh, I couldn't look at screens for, like, a month and then activity for a couple months. And, um, so after that, though, um, brain fog kind of became an issue.

So that was kind of the next stage of my digression health wise. Um, and then. 

It's interesting. It's interesting to hear because everybody ends up, uh, dealing, you know, I'm, I'm connecting with a lot of these things myself, just like food as you get older and your sensitivity to it changes.

Like, Oh, I could crush like a whole pizza and a Mountain Dew and then go play basketball afterwards. Like that was kind of a normal thing. And like, The thought of that now makes me feel a little ill. So  just sitting and, you know, some of those things. And that's why I think it's been interesting even, uh, watching some of the things that you're talking about now and thinking about, like, how do you, how do you design, uh, you know, some,  or, or just a lifestyle changes that can keep you feeling well for, you know, an extended period of time.

Cause I think that giving into that, I'm sure you'll get into that. Is that, I mean, that's the worst thing you can do. Cause it, it doesn't, it, you know, it doesn't stop like just because you're like, Oh, I guess this is it. That it can get worse.  

Yeah. And mine did get worse.  And so, um, so I had the brain injury  and then, um, two years ago I was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

Um, so I was fortunate on that. Um, You know, there's different types of testicular cancer. Obviously,  um, I had this, the slower, less aggressive form of it, and it was still isolated at a very large tumor in the testicle.  But it hadn't spread anywhere else. And so, um, I was very fortunate. They were able to do a surgery and remove the testicle, but I didn't have to go through the chemo and radiation.

So, 

uh, 

I talked to 

hear, to hear that to someone that say you've got cancer.  

, yeah. And that's where like,  you know, it's, it's very easy, especially social media, like to compare. And you're like, well, I could have been worse. You know, I could have hit and I, and I do, I feel very fortunate, but like, there is something.

mentally that like shifts when you hear those words, you know, when you hear, yeah, it's cancer, you know, and we have to operate and then we have to scan you every six months for the next like 10 years to make sure that it didn't spread somewhere else. You know, you don't have any like, you know, very obviously your mind just automatically goes to kind of the worst case scenario and what this could mean.

And so, , it's very scary time. , I think it was  a growing time in terms of shifting my mindset a little bit.  And just kind of getting back to what's most important in life. And  for me, like the,  , my kids were just like a huge thing. Like,  I feel like my faith has gotten me to a place where like,  I'm not terrified to die myself  now that my life is so intricately like tied to these other people that depend on me, like my wife, my kids. 

Like, it's more terrifying to like think about them growing up without their dad and not being there for those milestones and the anguish that it would bring and the therapy that they, you know, just all 

and, , and that sort of triggered like a fear, I guess, that I didn't realize I had that was, ,  you know, a fear of me dying and not being there for my kids. And it was just a different fear. I'd never really been a  hypochondriac or fearful that I was going to die, you know, and worried about that. It's like, I know where I'm going and you know, it's good.

And  Apostle Paul said to die is gain. And you know, and I'd lived and tried to live my faith out in a way that internalize that. But, , but then, you know, having kids is just like a totally different game changer. I've done some different things to help with that. I, you know, I started a thing where just every year on their birthday, I write them a letter, you know, and I.

And it's written as if, like, you know,  so they know how much that, you know, especially at their young age, they're like two and four, it's like, would they even remember me and, you know, would, would they know how their dad felt about him and how much they meant to, you know, and stuff like that. And it's cool  just to, like, write that and just, you know, and I figure.

Somewhere to happen to me, they'd have these letters from me. And if not, like, , be cool when they go off to college or something to give them a binder, you know, full of these, these letters. And so, , but just needing to do that almost as like a therapeutic thing for myself, like just, you know, there's some things you can't control, but like, you know, this fear of like not being in their form, at least like maybe I could leave something behind.

And so definitely still wrestled with like, you know, the same as if it had been. Another type of cancer, you know, and a different diagnosis and, , just wrestling with what that meant. And, ,  yeah,  that's crazy, man.  Finite we are. And, but oddly enough, that was not the thing that triggered. How 

many pull ups could you do at the time? 

I'm still at 27 pull ups.  

It definitely triggered a. A shift a little bit., we were more cognizant as a family, like, you know, Britney was more, are you getting enough greens and healthy foods and stuff like that. But it wasn't the thing that like fully triggered the, like, I'm going to do whatever I need and can, whatever I can control to get my health back, I'm going to do it.

And that actually didn't happen until.  is about  15 months ago  we were in this rental house and from the moment we moved in, we just all started getting sick and it was like respiratory stuff.

So it was like, Is this allergies? Like, you know, what is it? But it just like, it never went away. Like my poor kids, like my son was just. Like so congested and like plugged up and couldn't breathe.  And, , and so just all this stuff, and it's sort of a Hail Mary to just say, I think we should see if you get up like an air test test  Cause it just felt like, you know, you kind of feel like your house should be this safe haven where you like go and you're protected and you're, you can recover and you can, you know, but there was just something inside me that felt like something's like, yeah, this like where we're living, our environment is making us sick.

It just was like an intuition thing almost.  And so, , I got a little paranoid about the water too, and I was just like, I feel like the bedrock of health is clean water and clean air. Like the most.  Basic things necessary to survive elemental, right? Yeah. And you need to have clean water. And so we had someone come out and test for mold.

And we've, since then, we've been connected with multiple other families that have small children and stuff. Same thing. They'll have black and gold and same thing. And, you know, in some cases worse and, you know, young children can have seizures and different effects from it.

And,, so we were fortunate our kids were a little bit older and that we just had the Yeah. wherewithal, I guess, to the luck to yeah. And so we got out of there. , and then, , my wife is a nutritionist, Brittany. And so, , she is kind of tied in and connected on social media to all these different like nutrition podcasts and different stuff.

And there's different sides of like, you know, different camps in terms of how you're looking at it. And, you know, are you the By the book, like, here's what all the studies say. Are you a little bit outside of that, where you're a little more open to some of the more, I guess, holistic and functional, like, medicine type ideas?

She was getting really interested in this,  concept called, , nutrigenomics. And I don't know if you know what that is, but it's kind of like, , looking at your, it's doing genetic testing, looking at your genetics, and then seeing basically how you should be eating, , supplementing, all these different things based off of your,  genetic.

You have all these different snips that they're learning what each individual one does. Makes sense. You can do this testing and it'll tell you, , whether this snip is, , this is a little bit over my head. So, ,  whether it has like a high impact, medium impact or low impact, on your health.

Right. 

Some people are like trying to do it now with like the, the glucose monitors, right? It's a version of that where you like wear one of those continuous blood monitors and you eat something and it's like, oh man, that spiked my insulin levels to like a crazy amount. We, you know, weird. So like, like a little, a little less sophisticated version of that, of that.

This sounds like even like in the next level up . 

Yeah, exactly. And, and it's, it's even somewhat tied to that 'cause, you know, you can look at your  glucose sensitivity and different things like that with this test. And so, , I don't know what it was about that. Maybe it was just going back to this idea of like, I'm always intrigued by Mm-Hmm.

next,  like, I like new ideas because there's possibility. Yeah. Right. It gives you almost like hope. And I think for so long, I'd been in this victim mentality, you know, with  my health and, you know, I'm trying to stretch because I'm tight and I'm trying to  eat less and figure out what food it is. Other than that, it's just sort of like, I'm just getting old, you know, and my health is declining and it's just, it is what it is.

And I'm not in the place that I was. I'm no longer that strong guy and that thick guy. Like. You know, over time, I never really stopped working out, but I started working out a little bit less and  working out with less intensity because my body just couldn't handle it. And so,  I think at my low point, I got down to 178 pounds. And I really,  had this thought, , I've already had cancer once,   if I don't change something,  I'm gonna die, , maybe not tomorrow maybe not next month. You know, but sometime  I'm going to get something worse than the cancer I have because my body is just constantly it's inflamed  it's sick. It's not functioning right. 

Well, I just think that's a, that's such a cool mindset to evolve to that. You know, later in life,  I think about just  how locked in that, that can be, , as you, as you age, because of course you have to evolve the, your approach to training.

 You can't just go out and train seven days a week and not be more mindful  What you're eating, but if you can learn to start to balance those things, and that's certainly one of my, one of my questions is how have you figured out? Cause it seems like that's something that you're, you're really trying to hone now, how to balance all these things.

Cause you've mentioned , this is part of your life, but you've got a full life outside, outside of this too. Now you've got a family, you've got a full time job on top of this. So finding out  the, the fun of learning about these things, but it's always seems like, to me, there's . another new thing. Where does this one go? And this one, and it's like putting together a puzzle. And sometimes I do feel me personally and probably maybe people listening to, , feel a little overwhelmed. Where do  I start? How do I  build a,  a pyramid, how do I build a foundation and then  start working up to,  some of the other,  things that could be exciting . What's the, what's the like foundation that you started to build then?  

Yeah, no, that's a great question. And, you know, I think that , it's easy to get overwhelmed and just think there's , I'm already overwhelmed. I don't have enough time in my day. And , that's where , this concept, I really want people to start to rethink their daily rhythms.

And I think that we've gotten it so backwards as a society and so turned upside down, that , we're living in a way that is so counter to human thriving, you know, to what we were intended to. And I think, well, You know, this modernization of culture with the technologies we have and things like that.

Like, it's not how humans live now. You make the argument. Oh, well, our life expectancy is longer than it was back then. And certainly technology is assisted, you know, in protecting us from natural disasters and people dying of cold and hypothermia. And , I mean, so in, in just being more sanitary as a culture,  indoor plumbing and different things like that.

Um, but ,  The way I view it is , we have daily rhythms. You have things that are commonplace, you know, almost going back to that football, like what's second nature for you,  you don't question. Cause it's just part of your life.

And part of that was instilled when you were a young kid, like, this is just, you know, what you need to do, you need to brush your teeth and you need to eat 3 meals and you need to shower every day and you need to wash your hands after and I feel like that's when a lot of the  formative years are in terms of our daily rhythms that we're going to carry into the rest of our life. And  I recently talked on my. , Instagram just about , we shouldn't be blaming our age for how we feel, we should be blaming our youth. because our youth was too forgiving.

And so during these years, you develop all these habits. And so you're marketed 

to you. We talked a little bit about that,  marketed to you. You're like, Oh, you drink this to eat this. And then, and then you do, and it's great. They taste, everything tastes great. Yeah. So, 

yeah, absolutely. And. Um, , it's gonna look different for everyone, but like, you know, when you're young, you can pull all nighters.

Right? Right. And you can, you know, get back and have a fairly functioning day the next day, or, you know, just go back to bed at your normal time. You can eat a whole pizza at midnight. And as you transition into a work life, where,  you're sitting in front of a desk,  for eight hours a day, and then you get home and you're mentally exhausted and so, you know, then you watch TV and you sit some more and eat some comfort food.

And, and so there's just a lot of different habits, but the point being is ,  we don't think that our normal daily rhythms are overwhelming because they're second nature to us.  What I want people to do is to rethink those and it's going to take a little bit of work in a transition time. But what if the things that help you thrive were just second nature in  the same way?

And so, , that's , just a big premise. And so I went from being a fitness guy to. , I want to be a fitness and wellness guy and wellness fits sort of under umbrella fitness wellness Like whole body health, right your whole being and that involves, you know your physical  health your muscles musculature all that sort of stuff but it also involves your nervous system and your digestive system and your lymphatic system and so there's a lot of wellness practices, I guess, that I've picked up.  I think that most of us are too sedentary. We spend,  98 percent of our time indoors as a whole. , we  shallow breathe. We're overstressed. I don't 

know if I know 

that one. What's shallow breathe? Think about how you breathe all day and if you're feeling tense and stressed.

Like, think about whether you're breathing deeply  or if you're just breathing really shallow. Maybe I'm 

right. I've been accused of breathing loudly before. So maybe, maybe, maybe I'm doing it right and I don't know it. 

You're doing it right. Yeah. Most people are just breathing shallow. They're not taking deep breaths throughout the day.

And so. You're only exchanging a little bit of that air. It's stale and infected. That sort of thing. Not really enough oxygen delivered throughout your body. That makes a lot of sense. Most people's sleep schedules are completely out of whack. And so their circadian rhythm is backwards. And they have trouble going to sleep at night.

But they're exhausted when they wake up. And they pump themselves full of coffee to get by. So like the list goes on. In terms of like what is fairly commonplace. But, , the number of people suffering from stress and anxiety and different things like that, , I think is really high. They're finding more and more gut health, , is tied to your brain and it's tied to, you know, so many different, , in your body.

And so. , so addressing a lot of those, but some of my core ones, you know, I was asked the other day,   that same question,  I feel overwhelmed. I don't have the money to spend on all this stuff you're talking about. Yeah, exactly. 

Give my sauna and cold bath and power plate,  

sell my 

house. 

And it's a, it's a spectrum and you know, and I got to the point where I was just like, Yes.  I'm spending thousands I can't afford on my health, but like, I can't afford not to, because it has an effect on everything.  I have no motivation from a career standpoint. I'm underachieving there. I have nothing to give when I get home to free up my wife to do more for her career.

I have nothing to give relationally to make sure that that doesn't fall apart and lead to like, catastrophic. And so, it's like, and I found that once I did start to invest in that, you know, Well, I just, you know, recent new levels of, of, , you know, sales goals. Yeah. Job, I'm making more commissions. I have more to help out at home.

So my wife's making more. And so like, it's actually, you know, so it's like the 

opposite. It's like the circle has revered, you know, you're steering the wheel in the other way. 

Resulting in more money, but you have to make that initial investment. And that's a leap of faith. But even if you can't do that, there's so many practices that are free.

The first one I start with is. , get outside. 

So, 

 Just conflicting messages about like the sun, you know, and being unhealthy for us. Yeah, yeah. I don't recommend going out without sunscreen. Don't put the 

baby oil on 

today But like I think people should go out without sunscreen, you know in the morning hours and in the later evening And get some vitamin d that actually gets through that's not blocked by it.

Yeah, you know 

all this bf blockage and everything like that , because most people are vitamin d deficient and even during covid they found that There was a direct correlation between how sick people were and their, , whether they were deficient in vitamin D. , so we were designed, you know, God had a plan, he knew what he was doing, you know, and so there's all these built into the environment.

So 

be outside, , you know, be outside taking deep breaths. The next is while you're outside, take your shoes off.  You know, this is one where I would have said that's hippie stuff. Like that's weird. Like, that's not my, I have to get 

dirt in between my toes. 

Yeah. And,  but like, this is one that's like a little bit more widespread supported, like there's not a lot of pushback saying, no, that's just hocus pocus, like, you know, stuff.

And, , your body has a certain like charge to it and the ground does as well. And when your skin touches the ground, it like,  unloads.  Certain energy to it. 

Yeah, 

not a science guy. , but the studies are showing that just like a huge reduction in inflammation. If someone's injured, there's an accelerated recovery time.

Yeah. 

 As a way of like, you know, grounding you physically and, , helps your body just sort of discharge a lot of the negative, , energy that's going on in there. And so a lot of benefit to that. And so we just, You think about it, like, how often, without being intentional about it, does your skin touch the earth? 

Not very often. Yeah. You go outside, you have shoes on. I haven't tried that one 

before. And so, 

yeah, just walk around. And  I love it. You know, and you get to, you're outside. So, so those two things. So first, get vitamin D. Second, grounding. You can do the next outside if you want or do it inside, but breathing.

Mm-Hmm. .  So I did a lot of different deep breathing methods. , I've taken to Wim Hof, I dunno if you've heard of Wim Hof? 

Yeah. Yeah. 

Method. , but I started doing that and I can tell a huge difference. So, , that has huge benefit for your nervous system. And so,  just sort of, , resetting that. And, , my busy season is October through December and just, you know.

60, 70 hour weeks, really late nights working on my computer till 11 PM and to just go to bed right after that when you're all amped up. So every single night I would do that before bed. It takes about 10 minutes, do 3 rounds of it and just the amount of relaxation that you have after you do that is huge.

And then, you know, there's other benefits to that deep breathing. It helps trigger the right,  digestive juices and things like that and get that going and then just oxygenating obviously your blood and your muscles and stuff by intentionally deep breathing and then breathing out the stale air and things like that.

So that's when I'm pretty, pretty fond of, ,  the being active, you know,  getting back to being outside. So, , Depending on where you live and how much space you have. Like sometimes I'll go for a walk barefoot, but other people may not want to do that. They'll step on broken glass or sharp rocks. You got 

a dog now.

You got to watch out for that too.  

We're just like, yeah, you do.  But we're good about picking that up, but,  or sometimes it is just kind of chasing the dog around the kids around in the yard. I'm being active. And so I just think being  

inactivity for something active, that's 

great. If your job at all allows you to like little five, 10 minute, like spurts, get up, move around.

So you're not sitting at your desk more than an hour, two at the longest without getting up and moving around. I think it's huge., but then, , the cold therapy. So you may not be able to pay to go to cryotherapy or your gym. My gym is awesome. It has a cold plunge at it. , so love it. , but if you don't have that, like just the end of your shower and Wim Hof will talk about this too.

So if you want to look him up, he'll, he's a really big believer in those two things. He thinks you can  boost your immune system, not get sick and thrive just doing. He's a wild man and the old plunges, but, , but he has one where it's just, you start with 30 seconds cold shower at the end of your shower.

So that hot, cold alteration is free to there. Yeah. And this is something that again, you're seeing a lot more mainstream with the cold plunges, like the science on it is pretty overwhelming. It's releasing dopamine for like three hours afterwards. You're burning more calories. So you're going to burn body fat.

You're going to have the feelings of relaxation. , it's going to take out inflammation in your body and then, , it strengthens your immune system. And so, , there's a lot of things in our life where our lives are hard, but they're not hard in the right way that our body benefit from it. Because we're pampered in a lot of physical ways, we don't experience a lot of extreme shifts in temperature and things like that.

And so there's certain things like exposure to cold, fasting, things like that, where you put your body in more of a survival mode, , in a good way. And where it has to make adaptations to try to survive and oftentimes that means, you know, getting rid of bad stuff in your body to do it and just being efficient as possible.

And so there's a lot of benefit to that. ,  So I'm probably forgetting some, but like, those are just good places to start and all those things, you know, are free and. , but just it's rethinking things like, let's get outside. Let's stop being sedentary. Let's make sure we're deep breathing. Like, let's limit our screen time.

Let's try to get 8 hours sleep and, you know, you can't get 8 hours sleep if your nervous system is a lot of whack and you can't calm down and you have elevated cortisol, like, there's all sorts of, and it's so it's hard to know where to jump in, but all those practice I just mentioned are going to assist you.

In multiple ways, but , they're going to help you relax and they're going to help System reset and they're going to help you sleep better. And so oh, I know one other one that I really like It's a rebounding you heard of rebound. I've heard of it Well podcasts and yeah, no right in right in our wheelhouse.

Yeah,  but , it's just jumping and so Specifically usually jumping on a mini trampoline. 

Okay. Yeah 

Trampoline, so I just jump. Yeah, just like jumping rope without a rope And, , that is great for kind of getting stuff moving digestion wise, also for lymphatic drainage. So, , so many people, because of our diet, because of the toxins we're, we're exposed to, , you're, you have a system in your body that's meant to detox it, right?

The top, get rid of it. And so if your lymphatic system and your liver and your kidney and your gallbladder and your, you know, all these things are working how they're supposed to,  then your body will eliminate that. But  your  modern culture has exposed us and inundated us to such an overwhelm, I think, of toxins, where there's toxins in our water, there's toxins in our air, there's toxins in the clothes we wear, there's toxins, you know, in our home, there's toxins in our water bottles, there's toxins in our cookware, in our Tupperware, in our, you know, and it's just, , it's just constant.

And so, you know, that combined with  These other things going on with our stress and our,.   Bad sleep and everything like that. Like your system gets overloaded and it's not detoxing properly. And so anything I can do to get my digestion moving a little better and drain that lymphatic system. Those are great.

Easy, easy 

ones. I love like easy, easy, free ways to start. Cause that's to get into anything you, I think you really need to start with something easy, free, see if you can do it because it is it. It is a change. And, and I think, you know, you do end up having to sacrifice something. I mean, all these things, although they don't take a ton of time, they do take time.

And, you know, if you can get in the right mindset, you're sloughing off things that were probably bad for you, but it doesn't mean you didn't enjoy them on some level. And so that's different. Or even there is , of course,  a bizarre enjoyment in, you know, the stasis and  just,  continuity in each of your days, you know, especially if you're not feeling good sometime,  shaking things up to something else that may.

Not improve things immediately, you might feel a little bit better, but you're not going to  wake up the next day and go run a marathon then, of course. So it's just, the change in that mindset, I think is a, is a real challenge. And I think that's so much, especially like you said, when the, when the world around you is not necessarily designed to reinforce that change.

It's often the opposite. , so, so that's, that's great though. I think that's part of the reason I've been enjoying it. And you hit on a few things that you might have to, we're getting long here. So I'll have to have you back on to talk about some of those things. I think one of the ones I heard you say was about clothing.

I don't think I, I don't know why, cause I, I've been interested in some of these topics, but I hadn't heard that one. I think you posted something about that. And I was like, yeah, I was like, well, I was like, wow, never. I had never thought about that before. I mean, make it again, like a lot of this stuff, , intrinsically makes sense.

I, I, I do love, of course, the, when the science confirms a lot of this, and I think that's an important aspect of it, but I've also, as I've gotten older,  grown to appreciate the fact that.  There is an intuitive aspect to all of us, right? Like I can look up Michael Jordan stats and reckon, look at those, the numbers and know he was really good.

Or I could just watch him play basketball. You know, I don't, I don't have to know what he scored to know that he's an incredible basketball player. I can just watch him and enjoy it and know, I know. Yeah. Right. 

Statistically. We don't have to get into the world and warp. 

Yeah. 

I watched LeBron James. He's good.

It's a different game. Yes. Typically, you know, he's great. Yeah. But the eye test, it doesn't matter. It doesn't. It's not the same. Right. 

Yeah. 

Oh, like it was just like unchallenged every time we walked to the floor. Yes. And he never wavered. He had a swagger too. But anyhow, that's off topic. 

Yes. No, that's on topic.

We're right. We're right back. 

But, but no, I think you're exactly right. I think there's an intuition where it's just like, that makes sense. And it's like, and. You don't want to be, you know, anti science. You also need to take with a grain of salt. Like I said, that like sometimes the people that are funding these studies don't have necessarily best interest in mind.

Right. , they want to make it okay for these things to get here. And so like, or they're on 

step one and then the next study is going to flip, you know, flip it in a different direction. Yeah. 

You know, it's like with the underwear, like the whole idea is like, Most of us have like polyester underwear, essentially.

Mm-Hmm. polyester, what is it? Oh, it's just a material. They made clothes out it, well, it's basically made out of plastic . Yeah. So microplastics like in, you know, in your underwear that you're wearing against your body, and then there's dyes that are coloring it, and those are against your body. And then those know, and so you're sweating, you're working hard, you're like all this stuff. And like we know that with like water bottles and with Tupperware, the heat makes the chemicals leach.  The same thing happened with underwear. Why 

would it be different?  

And so it's interesting. And so it's like, well, you can't directly say that  Calvin Klein underwear causes cancer or, or causes infertility or anything like that.

What you can say is that these chemicals in a lot of these major underwear brands cause infertility. Like there's science to back that up, but just when you put them in an underwear, feel how not, you know, that underwear is not causing that. Well, maybe not, but the chemicals that you're wearing on your body against your boys down there, you know, are proven to have these adverse effects.

And so. Yeah, it's just thinking a little bit more and it is overwhelming. You cannot detox your entire environment.  And so 

with 

that, again, if you're going to invest some money, what I recommend first, clean air, clean water. Right. And so.  What goes, what goes in, 

what goes into you, right? Is going to be, is going to be the most important thing.

Cause that's going to be a few of those. 

I'll ever not have one in my home and a good air purifier, at least one, probably one in each level, maybe a couple more,  making sure that we're breathing clean air. I want my home to be just a safe Haven, a recovery place, you know, that we don't have to worry about if it's making us sick, but that it's getting better.

I think starting there, but then, , Tupperware, switch to glass. , I think getting rid of that, stop drinking out of plastic bottles. , their leach and stuff. , and then chemicals you're putting on your skin. So if you're a big lotion user, , things like that, that's being absorbed, you know, by your skin.

Your skin's an organ, it has pores, it breathes, like all these sorts of things. 

This has been great, man. It's been great to just learn a little bit more about this. And I would encourage everybody to, to check out your Instagram because I really have found it valuable.

Thoughtfully distilling a lot of the things that I've been.  Getting just randomly through,  other social media platforms or podcasts that I've been listening to. I know I've talked about the, to other people about the Huberman podcast and had people listen to that. , but  you're doing a good job, I think, of summarizing a lot of those things.

And, and maybe again, like if you're new to this and you don't want to listen to a three hour podcast. Podcast that gets deep into the science, maybe looking at someone who's been on this journey. And that's why I appreciate you sharing kind of your, your journey,  the up and down of it and, and saying, okay, you know, this is, this is some of the stuff that's working and , there's no reason that that can't, , work for other, other people,  free things, like,, drinking water and, making it a part of. A lifestyle rather than just  something that you do when you're feeling,  down one day or have a rough day, like making it the consistency of it is the hardest part. And I think that's what you're speaking to.  

Yeah. And so, and just, just kind of summarize, like.  I do think that a lot of those practices I talked about are enjoyable.

Maybe not the cool ice bath or whatever, but no, it is like, you'll learn to love if you don't immediately love just taking off your shoes, walking in the grass, , in the sun again, don't do the hottest, strongest, probably not from like 11 to three, but like outside of that, , get some early morning sun.

It's great for your circadian rhythm. , walk out there, breathe deeply, like all these things are gonna bring this like Positive endorphin release, good, relaxed feeling, and they're not hard. So it's not like I'm telling you to go get in the gym and start doing boot camps.  Me, it was addressing a lot of these things. You got to get back to that point where the Mamba mentality can actually work for you instead of against you. You got to redirect that Mamba mentality towards these things, towards this recovery and then go from there.

So, um, yeah.  

Come back on, right?  Yeah. Yeah. And people should go follow you. The, the, the Instagram you're, are you planning to just build, are you planning to, , are you doing any training right now? Or are you trying to kind of gather some momentum on there to do , , you know, some consulting or what's your kind of, , goals in that space? 

And I think that ,  yeah, it's sort of  your mission overflows from your test most in a, in a way. And so, , so I've got this, this passion, you know, again, that it's sort of died out and training. It becomes sort of monotonous after all the years I've been doing it. And, , I need an outlet for it.

And then, you know, I want to share with people, , because I think there's a, an epidemic of, you know, exactly similar situations where you're in your thirties, forties, and you feel like crap. And. I don't know how to get out of it. You think maybe I'm just getting old and you're stuck with it and really just want to reinforce this idea that, like, if you're willing to change your, your lifestyle, your environment, that, , you can thrive and you can reach your 2nd prime and I'm not there yet, you know, but I'm fine, you know, I'm getting back there and I've got some goals and, , really want to, ,  Instead of just resigning to the fact that my best years are behind me, like, , just kind of push and thrive and see what the body is capable, but do with this new knowledge now, you know, it's kind of like come back with the wizards and do everything physically, but he outsmart everybody, you know, he had all that. 

So if 

only he hadn't been still smoking and gambling and drinking, 

we don't have to get, well, we can't get into,   you know, the, the idea like people always like LeBron would have dominated the eighties, right? Maybe, but if you drop LeBron in the eighties and nineties, you have to take away modern,  

all his training advantages  

and put him on level ground with everyone So he wouldn't have had the sports science to, you know, to, to equip him how he is.

So he wouldn't be 260 pounds and the same level athleticism. He'd still be elite, but you know, not the same level, same thing that you dropped Jordan into it. And,  you know, you give him all the sports science and a hyperbaric chamber to sleep in. And now would Jordan have listened, would Jordan have done it? 

I don't know.  But you could have made 

it into a competitive game. Definitely would have done it. I mean, you 

talked to Tim Grover, there was no one more like hardcore about  what he needed to do. And especially you take him in those years when he couldn't get past Detroit, he would have done whatever  necessary.

So he could spend 10 million on.  You know his body he would have done it. 

Yeah, 

he would have done it and you know And there's there's rumors about lebron potentially using some enhancing things too. So yeah, who knows but We won't start that 

But yeah, so anyhow to answer your question so my vision for it is , I would love to  get into programming and training. I want to , release like a 12 month midlife reset plan  so that I can just sell sort of to everybody and then offer additional levels of like engagement, , as well. But, , I'd like to lay out, just introduce people to all these wellness practices, talk about their benefits, how they fit into, you know, this overall fitness plan that we're going to be doing.

And just. Thank you. , kind of reset their lifestyle, help them reclaim their health, and then reach their second prime. That's great. I 

hope you, yeah, build, build community with it too, because I think that that's one of those things that's, that's harder as you get older too, is to have the, you know,  That connection with the other people that are doing, that are climbing that hill to, you know, together, because they're, you know, even the, the places that I am connected,  outside of work,  people aren't necessarily into, into, , working out or being, being healthy.

You know, we have other interests, you know, shared interests, but not always that.  

 All right, man.