The Biology Behind Purpose with Ben Greenfield

Foreign hey my friends, it's Brendon Burchard and welcome to a special episode of the Brendon Show. Listen, I'm super pumped about this episode. Many of you know I rarely do interviews that are not sort of more research centered interviews for my book. So as you see on the podcast here in the Brennan show, very rarely do I interview other people for the general public. It's usually just related to our work at High Performance Institute or my own work as a coach or our own research for my next books. Why? I always get asked why? I said, well, because, you know, I really feel like there's other great interview based shows and I wanted the Brennan show to really be a place to come for my best of trainings because I'm out there training all the time. We just have so much original content, original frameworks, original research that I really wanted to share with you through this podcast platform. But once in a while, man, I just got to do it. I got to interview somebody when I get the chance who I just really love and appreciate and I want to hear from. So very rarely do I do an interview and this one today with Ben Greenfield is awesome and it is going to get you fired up. I know many of you also listen to Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. If you don't, you're about to fall in love with Ben in a whole new way and you'll really appreciate what he does. Ben, to me is one of the most influential people in the health and fitness space. Not just because the numbers prove that with his podcast and his website and his best selling books, but because I really believe he's one of the most informed, one of the most experimental and one of the guys who can really break down the science because that's his actual background. Now he coaches and trains individuals literally all over the world for general health, but also his specificity in anti aging, weight loss, lean muscle gain, holistic wellness, you know, and his emphasis on body and brain performance is what really drew me to his work. His new book is called Boundless and I really recommend you get it. It is. Honestly, he deserves a lifetime achievement award for this book. It is an incredibly thick and comprehensive book. If you ever want to really optimize your health and fitness or your brain, Boundless is the book for you. I mean, I don't know if this thing's like 3 inches thick and it is absolutely life transforming and really a great summary of everything he teaches, I think on his other 13 books. But also I think it's really the best reference book of modern biohacking available today. So what's his big deal? He's got a bachelor's and master's degrees in sports, science and exercise physiology. He's a competitor in Ironman triathlon, something I never want to do. Just for the record, he's done 13 of them. You know, he's a multimillion Ironman Hawaii finisher as well. He's a member of the Pro Spartan team. I mean, he's just so. He really does the work. He has the background in science. He understands every element of. I really believe what happens in the biology when you do these different biohacking things. However, here's what's cool. The reason I want to do this interview is because you can go to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast, which I recommend you do. You can get Boundless, which I recommend you do. You can listen to Ben on dozens and dozens and dozens of other podcasts, which I recommend you do. However, I wanted to dig down deep into his personal development work into his purpose, his faith, his family. He's so used to talking about biohacking, and he's great at it, and he's so used to talking about physical fitness, and he's great at it. But I wanted to get to know the man. I wanted to get to know the dude who I listened to. I wanted to hear his personal perspective about finding purpose and staying motivated and confident and being disciplined. And I want to know more about him personally, like, what's he do with his family? Like, how does he think and listen? No one's ever going to agree with everybody on every topic. But I do believe you'll find a lot of motivation in this episode and a good reason to follow Ben. Good dude. I've got to become good friends with him, support him, and going out there, you know, he's going out and broadening his topic and his message from just biology or biohacking to a larger conversation in personal development. And as you know, I always support people when I see them making that leap and, like, providing great, excellent information out there. And you're going to find this guy's really motivating. So I hope you will enjoy this episode. Then go follow Ben Greenfield Fitness, download his podcast, Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast, and get his book Boundless. You'll hear me reference it here in the podcast episode. I love, love this book, and I'm still devouring it. So please enjoy this episode with Ben Greenf. All right, Ben, buddy, thank you for joining my show.

Dude. Happy to be here. If it sounds like I'm In a hurricane. I'm once again on a long walk outside my property in the sunshine out here in Washington. I have this little farmer's road that I walk up and down. It's kind of like my. It's kind of like the treadmill workstation. You know, we all know that moving while you're working during the day is important and can increase neuroplasticity and, and burn calories and keep you moving and awake. But I sometimes like to actually get off the treadmill and do this actual thing that we call walking on actual real roads. So that's what I'm doing right now. It's a little windy up here on the windswept plain of Spokane.

All right, well, I'm sure the audio quality will be fine because people are used to hearing me backstage or something like that. But also, I mean, I think it's a good lesson point anyway. I think so many people are trapped in offices, you know, all day not thinking about like, oh, there's plenty of times you're sitting at your desk and you're actually not doing anything. You're just thinking and contemplating and strategizing. And you don't have to do that at a whiteboard or in your conference room. You can go for a walk outside and let your creativity. You're spending the same amount of time. But moving outside and being more creative is going to help anyway, so. Which is great because I'm assuming you're going to be smarter during this presentation.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. It's the only way I can actually be smart actually is if I'm walking. Otherwise my IQ goes down significantly. And there are actually a lot of philosophers, a lot of psychs, a lot of great thinkers who would walk to unlock neuroplasticity and to kind of increase. We know that walking and just mild aerobic activity can increase your brain derived neurotrophic factor, which is kind of like miracle growth for the brain. I mean, Aristotle walked the row. He was actually, he was really well known for going very long walks. And yeah, it's a staple in my own routine. I always have a Sunday afternoon that I carve out for long walks and for the more passive phone calls, you know, calling mom, calling grandma, just connecting with people. But then I tend to try to batch a lot of conversations to about the 4:30 to 6:30pm slot in the afternoons. And I'll take all those little 10 minute conversations, gotta hop on the phone, talk about this. Hey, I want to pick your brain about that. I batch them all and then I just strap on my shoes in the afternoon, get out in the sunshine and go for my long walk and just catch up on all my calls then. And it's also important just because they've shown that somewhere in the range of about 10 to 15,000 steps is what's ideal for tapping into the fat burning, the metabolic benefits, a lot of the reduced all cause risk of mortality from movement. But it turns out, and this was based on a pretty massive Fitbit analysis and some other studies that they've done, that your range should be about 10,000 steps, no less, and preferably up to about 15,000.

I love that. I love that. Denise and I, especially in this last quarantine bit here, the last two months, it is, you know, we are doing two miles in the morning, two miles at night, right around sunset each day. And that has kept us from feeling like cabin fever or kind of going crazy. That's on top of any of our workouts we're doing just to move, just to get out, just to talk, just to. I think one of the best things you can do in your relationships is go for a walk and talk. But what I want to focus with you on in this episode, I think, is something very different than what you usually get to talk about. And that is, I mean, so many people know you for that just obsessive level of biohacking genius that you have developed and well earned and built. Just a true, authentic, incredible and powerful brand on which is, well, well, that.

That and coffee enemas, right?

And, you know, and cold baths and saunas, you know, you know, it's like, hey, take your aminos, get your cold bath, make sure you got your sauna going on. Lift heavy things, get outside, you know, it's good. But, you know, one of the things I, my audience, I want to pull that into the personal development aspect. Because when I look at your list of competitions, your list of education, your list of daily activities, like who you are, the first thing that triggers in my mind, my audience always asks, is, like, how is this dude so motivated? What keeps you motivated? And what do you think about motivation? What you like to share with our audience about motivation, Because a lot of people are really actually struggling to tap back into that and reignite that motivation as they're moving and, you know, and moving through this turbulent time. So tell us about Ben Greenfield's, like, philosophy and way of staying motivated.

It's very simple. Motivation comes down to purpose. It comes down to, you know, what the Japanese call ikigai, or in Italy would be called the plan de vita. Like something that rips you out of bed in the morning because you are so excited to maximize your impact with whatever span of life that you've been blessed with on this planet that you cannot keep yourself from leaping out of bed with a huge smile on your face, clicking your heels together and jumping up in the air. Maybe you don't do that, but that's what's getting me out of bed every morning, is a single succinct purpose statement that when the emails are flying out from the inbox of my computer like bullets out from the matrix, and you feel like you're getting chased by a lion sometimes at different points during the day, and you want to feel exhausted in the afternoon from brain fog, but you keep coming back over and over again to what is my purpose in life? My purpose in life is to empower people to live a more adventurous, joyful and fulfilling life. To empower people to live a more adventurous, joyful and fulfilling life. I know that if I view things through that lens and I wake up in the morning, if I'm feeling sluggish, and I know that there are thousands of people waiting for me to teach them how to get the most out of life and how to make their own maximum impact, that's what gets me out of bed in the morning. But I think that a lot of people know, a lot of people, I think know they got to have a purpose in life. But I think it's also the lens through which you view that purpose in life. Because if the end goal of that purpose is to make money or to get a bigger house, or to upgrade your car, or to potentially even use that freedom of time to get a six pack abs or do a triathlon or whatever, that's ultimately at the end of the day, a pretty damn unfulfilling end goal of your purpose. And so this is exactly what I tell my twin 12 year old boys is, yes, you identify your purpose in life and you hone that down into a single succinct statement. But then with that purpose you do two things. You love God and you love others. You love God and you love others. And really those are the, the Bible is my handbook in life. And those are the two greatest commandments you find in the Bible. Live your life to the glory of God, loving him as much as you can, and then the golden rule, love your neighbor as yourself. So you find your purpose statement and then you love God. And that means you just do your purpose statement. The way you think about it is this, when you get out of bed in the morning, whatever God puts on your plate, you do the very best, most excellent job that you can with whatever that is. And that in and of itself is going to be glorifying God. Anything you do, whether it's swinging a kettlebell or making a superfood smoothie or talking to a thousand people on stage or sending an email, you do it all to the very best of your ability. And that's the part about loving God. Then the part about loving others is you don't do it in the end for yourself. You do it for other people. You do it to love other people. You take that unique skill set that you've been blessed with, hone it into a purpose, and then go out and figure out how you can love others with that purpose. And that takes the purpose statement that can in the end be kind of a selfish and fulfilling end goal if you don't approach it with this mentality and you instead say, okay, this is my purpose statement. And furthermore, I'm going to love God by doing everything with excellence. I'm going to love other people by living out this purpose statement as unselfishly as possible. And that's what gets me out of bed in the morning.

Beautiful, man. Whoo. I'm fired up about that. That's beautiful. That's really beautiful. What do you say to the folks I know you work with them who. They just get stuck, man. They're like. They wake up and they're not spring out of bed because they feel a detachment from that purpose or lack of clarity to it, or, you know, the mundane life's obligations happens. Like, how. How do you. How do you find it if you don't sense it? And what I mean by that is, you know, for some, if they don't have a connection to God, or for some who, you know, it's difficult with their immediate circle right now to think about serving them because they're surrounded by haters. You know, what. What is it that that helps people find that when it's not there?

Yep. So. So there's. There's kind of two things to think about here. A, what's the strength of that purpose statement? And how have you actually refined that purpose statement? And then B, are you biologically equipped to live it out? Because part of this can be the statement itself or the purpose itself, but then part of it can be what's going on with you physiologically or biologically that might be holding you back from an energetic standpoint.

So for feel capable and okay. To be able to perform your purpose.

Right, right. And for the former, you know, for that purpose statement, sometimes you're really not doing what. What comes easy to you or that. What puts you in the flow. And I think some people still have almost like this Protestant work ethic built up to where they feel as though work kind of sucks, right? It's going to be sweaty and gritty, and your hands are going to bleed, and you're going to be looking at the clock all day, waiting to clock out so that you can go and live your actual life, the one you're actually passionate about, the one you actually enjoy, when, in fact, we were all born with a unique skill set, Right? And sometimes we can get guilty about how easy that comes to us. Like, sometimes I take for complete granted the fact that I can sit down in front of a blank page and just churn out content. I can write. It's just something I've always love to do. I've always loved to read, but then I've loved to turn around and take what I've read, what I've learned, and put that onto the page in written form. It's just always flowed from me. And often when I'm writing, to me, it seems trite. It doesn't seem meaningful. You know, I think, gosh, couldn't I be, you know, making an amazing piece of art? Or couldn't I be steeped in a lab finding the cure for cancer or something else that would be a lot harder for me to learn and to work at. But if you find that thing that you're naturally blessed with that puts you in the flow, then that's really a sign that's something that you could and should be doing. My wife is dyslexic. I'm not kidding. She grew up crying and spelling and reading and absolutely hated school. But you put a blank canvas in front of her and give her a paintbrush and some oil or some watercolor, and she creates amazing, transformative works of art that I would literally be like, I would rather go and eat a McDonald's hamburger than be stuck in front of a canvas with a paintbrush trying to figure out what to paint. It's what puts you in the flow. And really, I think the best way to learn how to do that is to think about what you really love to do when you were a kid, what naturally attracted you when you were, like, 8, 9, 10 years old. What put you in the flow then. And what you love to do then is how you're hardwired it is what's going to put you into the flow. Now, another perfect example that I can give to you is. Is music. Music makes me happy. I am so connected to music. Like, when music comes on, it tweaks my emotions. And sometimes, and I'm not just saying this to make myself sound special, I think that I have this emotional connection to music. And music just vibrates me in a way that might even be over and above what it might do to the average person. I'm a very musical person. And some people, I mean, let's face it, some people are tone deaf. Some people don't like music. Some people don't get turned on by music.

When I was Roger Love, the famous vocal teacher, he literally said to me the first time he was, like, tuning with my voice. He literally goes, you weren't that kid who sat next to the radio singing along, were you?

Yeah.

And I go, I was. And he goes, yeah, I could tell. And I said, maybe I was tone deaf. He goes, no, no. About tone up. You're just practice. Like, you. Like you just don't know yet.

Right.

It was not my unique thing. But you're saying it's your unique thing, and that's the thing you're diving into. What makes you feel alive, what makes you feel engaged, or what makes you feel energized and hard when you tap into it.

Yeah. Perfect example. And so what I mean by this is with music, right? Like, and I'm still deciphering this myself and asking myself this question, because I haven't cracked the code on this one yet, but how do I work music more into my career? How do I work music more into Ben Greenfield Fitness? Right. Is it about doing more content based around music that motivates you? Is it about me? You know, potentially cutting an album that motivates people with certain takeaways that I've gotten from philosophical books or from the Bible or elsewhere, you know, I don't know. I can tell you right now I'm working in the background on a little, you know, little country music hymn album, kind of in the style of Alan Jackson and Brad Paisley and some of these great country singers. But I know that for me to neglect that thing that put me into the flow when I was a kid is ultimately going to be one of those. Not to get too dark, but one of those deathbed things where I don't want to be on my deathbed thinking, gosh, this thing really put me into the flow and made me happy. And I didn't tap into that and bless other people with it as part of my life. So for this purpose statement, whatever your purpose is, you need to make sure that you're thinking back to the things that you really loved to do when you were a kid that I guarantee are going to put you into that flow state now. And that's one way to ensure that your purpose statement actually aligns with what puts you into the flow. You know, it's like kind of like Mark Manson says. I think he says this in his book Subtle Art of Not Giving an F. You got to do things that make you forget to eat and make you forget to poop. So if your purpose statement involves activities that make you forget to eat, make you forget to poop, like, for me, say, writing or music, then you're probably on the right track. But then, of course, no matter how strong your purpose statement is, no matter how dialed you are into that flow, if you're not biologically equipped, if you have neurotransmitter imbalances or you have, let's say, leaky gut issues or bacterial overgrowth in the digestive tract, or thrown off sleep and circadian rhythm cycles, or mitochondrial deficits, which are huge these days, you're going to be fighting an uphill battle. I don't care what you say, no matter how strong your purpose statement is, if you from a biological level aren't equipped to fully live that out, then at some point, if you haven't already yet, you're gonna hit a wall. So you can only get through so much by mentally being in the flow state or being, say, spiritually driven to achieve your purpose. But you cannot do it without a body and a brain that are sound and ready to achieve that.

You and I become such good friends, man. Because I second that a thousand percent. And I want everyone listening to really hear something that Ben said and he's actually doing. And that is, you know, here's a guy who's already a high performer, who's already extremely successful, and he's still asking today. He's still asking. Even though he's super successful, he's still asking today, how can I incorporate my passions and my purpose even more into my career? How can I incorporate what I love even more into my day? And I can't encourage people that. Because what happens? You get 35, 40, 50, 60 years old, and you think you got your stuff figured out. But the real question is, how can I bring and imbue more joy, more passion, more fulfilling, purposeful activities into my day? Because it's winning, like that each day, that is the real success.

Exactly. And also, don't beat yourself up over it if it comes easy. I think this is one mistake people make. They get guilty if work feels easy and if work feels like play. Right. So let's say for example, that you can read a book a day. Like since you were a kid, you could just speed read and you love to go to the library and you could go through books like they were going out of style. Well, don't be afraid to go and digest books and start a book review website and start tweeting lines from books that you've read and start putting out your mini journals from books and start sharing with people all this vast knowledge that you've collected from books. And that might seem silly, you might think everybody can read books, everybody can digest this material just like me, but it's actually not the case. And if you find things like that that come super easy to you, like don't hold back, don't be guilty about doing the things that to you feel like play. Because there are so many people, you would be surprised who have no clue how to read a book and will take two months to get through one book that you might be able to crush in a couple of days. If that's your skill, frickin roll with it. That's it.

I love that you mentioned, and I want to talk about this, those who almost have a biological deficit of being able to almost feel passion or energy or motivation or drive to go after their purpose. Like when you think about someone who's got a task at hand, they've got a purpose at hand, they wake up, you know, imbued with a spirit to serve, but they're always wiped out. And I know you work with people specifically on this and this is obviously you've made great, great and well deserved acclaim on this. It's like you got an executive who actually believes in their business, or an entrepreneur who really does believe in their product and what they're doing in the world, but they're wiped out all the time. Maybe they overwork themselves. Or like when someone comes to you and says, hey Ben, I'm just wiped out, man. What are some of the first indicators or first questions you ask that person and how do you usually help in each of those cases?

Okay, so there's a lot of directions we can go with that, but let's give three examples and these are three common things that I see in people who are wiped out, who have that purpose perhaps, but don't have the actual biological Function to be able to make it happen. And that would be something going on from a neural level, like a brain biological level, something going on from a gut level because of the intimate connection between the gut and the brain, and something going on on a mitochondrial level because the mitochondria are responsible for for all our cellular ATP production, including that of neural tissue in the brain. So we're talking about three different things that even if you're, let's say, fit as a fiddle and you got whatever low body fat percentage and high muscle, and you crush your CrossFit workout every day, you're still going to be held back if you've got the brain biology issues, if you've got the gut brain issues, or if you've got the mitochondrial issues. One of the first things that I'll look at are sleep cycles, which can easily be tracked via any of these sleep monitoring devices, like an aura or a whoop or a bio strap, or any of these tools that you normally have to go to a sleep lab to use back in the day, you can now literally have on your wrist for a couple hundred bucks. So if there are sleep deficits, yes, part of it might be due to poor sleep hygiene practices, which we could spend hours talking about. But sometimes when I'm seeing sleep deficits, it's due to issues with either neurotransmitters or the blood brain barrier. Okay, I get into this in the book quite a bit. But when you look at neurotransmitters, there's three basic building blocks that are necessary in order for your neurotransmitters to be able to be balanced and to be able to work improperly. So we're talking about neurotransmitters like dopamine and acetylcholine, which would be more kind of excitatory neurotransmitters or inhibitory neurotransmitters like gaba. Just gamma aminobutyric acid or serotonin. A lot of people are familiar with that one. Well, it turns out that the essential building blocks for neurotransmitters are A, amino acids. You need enough bioavailable protein in your diet. A lot of times you're older, you need to be consuming digestive enzymes along with a meal to unlock those amino acids from the protein B. We know that the vitamin B complex, which a lot of people are deficient in, is also crucial for neurotransmitter function. And C, we know that the only way that neurotransmitters are going to hop from nerve to nerve is if these little things called the myelin sheaths are actually properly lubed up. And that requires two things. It requires dha, such as you would get from a Mediterranean diet rich in wild caught fish, for example. And it requires oleic acid, which you get again from a popular Mediterranean source, extra virgin olive oil, sometimes neurotransmitter balance. If I get somebody on a good vitamin B complex, get them on adequate protein and a lot of times digestive enzymes along with that adequate protein. And C, get them on some semblance of a Mediterranean diet or a large amount of fatty fish or a fish oil along with an extra virgin olive oil that tackles the neurotransmitter piece from the other part of the brain would be the blood brain barrier. A lot of people have what's called a leaky blood brain barrier, and typically this is induced by, for example, vegetable oils, ethanol, lack of sleep, et cetera. But you can actually heal your blood brain barrier and two things that are really, really good at doing that. One would be anything that activates your vagus nerve. Meditation, chanting, singing, humming, and as a matter of fact, I know you're going to like this, Brendan. One of the best ways to repair a leaky blood brain barrier and reduce inflammation in the brain is getting your head cold. Like cold thermogenesis, cold showers, cold water, face dunks, Anything like that is amazing for the blood brain barrier. Here's a story for you. I actually have outside of my office door a cold tub. So that thing's at 35 degrees. And anytime during the day where I feel like I need a synthetic stimulant, which in fact can exhaust your neurotransmitters long term. Like if I feel like, oh, I got to spray a nootropic up my nose or go drink a cup of coffee or swallow a handful of smart drug capsules or microdose or anything like that, I'll go get in the cold pool first for about 60 to 90 seconds, get out, towel off, and it's like a full body cup of coffee.

Nice.

And again, there's nothing damaging going on in your neurotransmitters. Wonderful for the blood brain barrier. And then the other one that really helps with the blood brain barrier is magnesium. A ton of people are magnesium deficient and we probably don't even have time to get into this. But the reason for that is these things on your cells called voltage gated calcium channels. Those things get ripped open by wifi, EMF, 5G, all this non native EMF we're exposed to during the day. One of the results is a magnesium deficiency. You pair that with the poor soil practices with monocropping of soy and corn and wheat, and you get people eating produce and eating food that's very, very low in magnesium. You get your magnesium in, get some cold showers, you get some vitamin B, some amino acids, some fish oil and some olive oil. That's how you tackle the brain piece. That's one huge part that holds people back. The other two that I mentioned where the gut, the gut brain axis and some of the issues that arise there if people have difficulties with their gut. The problem is that when everybody is listening, when you were a baby, you had two different parts of your nervous system that were connected in the embryonic scenario and still are connected, your enteric nervous system and your central nervous system. And that's basically your brain and your gut. So if your gut has low balance of good bacteria, inflammation, leaky gut syndrome, et cetera, all that goes straight back up to your brain and induces brain fog. And it works both ways. You ever get butterflies before you step up on stage? Brendan?

Yes.

Yeah. And so the reason for that is that nervousness production of beta brain waves in the brain, that little cortisol release that actually causes the gut to respond by becoming a little bit edgy, a little bit like it would get if you're running from a tiger. The body diverts all that blood away from the gut towards the working muscles in the brain. And the problem is, if you're in that constant state, you can develop some gut issues. So from a leaky gut standpoint or from a gut dysfunction standpoint, there are some very simple things you can do. For example, colostrum. Colostrum is. It's a supplement or a powder that you can take that can heal the lining of a leaky gut. Bone broth does a very, very good job of that as well. Like two to three cups of a good gut nourishing bone broth each day. Another one that I really like for this is glutamine. Glutamine is wonderfully nourishing and healing to the gut. And then finally, if you're not eating a wide variety of fermented foods or using something like a well formulated probiotic complex, then you're not going to have the bacterial balance that's necessary for a healthy gut. So you need to understand, obviously the gut's another thing we could talk about for hours. But what you need to understand from a big picture standpoint here is if you're not caring for your gut, you're not caring for your brain. And if you're not caring for your brain, you're not caring for your motivation and your purpose. Okay, so that's number two. And then the last one that I mentioned was your mitochondria. These little powerhouses of the cell. Now, mitochondrial dysfunction, or a low amount, or what we call low density of mitochondria, it's a huge issue these days, and I'll tell you exactly why that is. The reason is we're disconnected from our planet. We know that there are certain things that charge up the mitochondria because they act on what are called electrochemical gradients. You don't have to be a rocket scientist or a chemist to understand this. Basically, there's just, like, a negative charge inside the mitochondria and a positive charge outside. And if that charge gets thrown off repeatedly, then what happens is the mitochondria slow down their ATP production, and you have less energy at your beck and call whenever you want it during the day. So how do you charge that energy back up? How do you charge the body's battery? Well, it's very simple. Getting outside, getting in touch with the planet Earth, being barefoot. We know that.

That automatically because, like, we can. I can hear the birds in your background. So it just makes. It makes me feel so good because I'm in this little room recording with you, and I can hear nature going on. So you're literally living it right now. I just love this so much. And by the way, for those who just hear Ben going right now, this is why I'm so passionate about his podcast. It's so good. And it's also why I love his book Boundless, because you're just like, this guy is a fountain of knowledge in all these areas, but you also hear the nuances of how this works or why that. That's why I want to make sure you get Boundless. You listen to his podcast because, I mean, every time I listen to you, buddy, I'm like, oh, yeah. It gets me back on my own. A game in my own biology. Better. Because I really believe I had a brain injury in 2011, and that brain injury really threw me for two years, and I did everything possible to recover from that as fast as possible. That's where I first heard Ben's work. A dedicated focus on your brain and on your gut can really change your life.

Well, Brendan, I used to get brain fog all the time in the afternoons. I had really, really poor sleep architecture because I Thought that if you exercise and you eat healthy, you're good to go, you're going to be as healthy as you need to be to fulfill your purpose in life. Well, it turns out that exercise and diet, they aren't necessarily synonymous with good mitochondrial health. You have to throw in a few other things. Let's say you are moving, let's say you are eating a healthy diet. Well, like I was starting to say, for the mitochondria, you have to get in touch with the planet Earth, be outside barefoot or figure out a way to lay down on your back in the grass every day for 10, 20 minutes. Walking on the beach, jumping in the ocean is amazing for the same reasons. Every time lightning strikes the face of the planet, it just absolutely concentrates negative ions into the surface of the planet. When you go outside and you're not in big rubber built up soles, you actually absorb those same negative ions into your body and they're just like candy for your mitochondria. The other things that do this are photons of light, sunlight. There's a reason I'm walking outside in the sunlight right now is because these photons of light or the photons of light you get in, whatever. If you can't get outside during a day at the office, Infrared light panels, infrared sauna practice at the end of the day, anytime you can get exposed to photons of light, it's amazing for your mitochondria. And there are other relatively low cost or, or even free things that you can do to amp up your mitochondria. Good clean, pure water that has minerals added to it, like pinches of sea salt or trace liquid minerals. Minerals are all charged. That's how your body carries charges throughout the body. And then finally getting hot and getting cold. We know that a regular heat practice. They did this fascinating study in Finnish men where they showed that they all lived longer and had reduced all cause risk of mortality, meaning risk of dying from pretty much any disease just from a regular sauna practice, 20, 30 minutes, four to five times a week. And then the other one that pairs quite nicely with that that we already touched on. So you're going to kill two birds with one stone. Here is cold, cold water, being slightly cold, sleeping in a cold room. That's also fantastic for this movement of electrons through the body. So you look at this and step back and you say, okay, I'm not having that energy that I need to jump out of bed in the morning. I feel like I've got my purpose dialed in. Ben. I feel Like, I know what puts me in the flow, but biologically, I'm just not there. Well, consider a few of these things, right? Adequate protein, a good Mediterranean approach to your diet with olive oil and fish, a good amount of vitamin B in your diet, or the use of a multivitamin that contains vitamin B, the use of occasional bouts of cold, making sure your magnesium levels are topped off, caring for your gut. And then just getting out in nature, getting in touch with the planet, getting out in sunshine, being hot, being cold. You would be surprised that just with those few things that I just named off, you're going to feel like Superman. And then you pair that with knowing your purpose and being able to say your purpose, and all of a sudden you're biologically equipped to go crush that purpose.

I love it, man. I love it. You pair all that with, like you said, with sleep as well. It's like you're a new person. And listen, your 9 to 5 didn't change. Your, you know, your purpose didn't have to change. You didn't have to get rid of all the people in your life. You didn't have to, you know, bring down some syrupy, gross, you know, chemically stimulant. Instead, you just handled the basics. I think is so important. Again, I also wanted to ask you, too, because, I mean, when people get to know you, obviously with your podcast, Ben Greenfield Fitness, Right. They know so much that fitness side of things, you. And obviously exercise is critical to both your brain and what you do. I really would love to talk about not necessarily what kind of exercise, like, how do you stay disciplined to do it, because so many people, they do start eating well or they do start sleeping well, or they, they do something and they also start working out. But then the workout or the good nutrition fades. Like, tell us about discipline and how do you keep it?

Yep. So there's two things that I focus on, and that would be simplicity and planning. And what I mean by the former, and this is a huge issue for me, Brennan, is I get all these devices sent to my house, the metabolic rate measurement tools that you breathe in and out of to measure how many carbs you're burning and whether you're in a fat burning state. And the little watches that you wear on your wrist that'll measure how much power you're producing when you lift that dumbbell over your head. And then the eight different kinds of heart rate monitors and the self quantification device you put on your wrist and the one you, the one you hang from your ear and the one you wrap around your ankle and then the 18 different sleep devices. And you can literally spend all day in our current information age distracted by all these things that make working out complex. Let me tell you this, it does not need to be complex. I mean, for me, if I've got really. Well, there's three things that are just kind of indispensable tools. For me, I've got a heavy object that I can lift off the ground. And for me, that's a hex bar. It's just a form of a deadlifting bar that allows you to produce a ton of power in your legs, train your grip strength. Super safe for the low back. I use it with a lot of my older clients because they can deadlift a lot of weight without throwing out their back.

Kettlebell three feet away from us, right here. Oh, perfect. Perfect.

Yeah.

It's just fundamental to like get on that like twice a day, just lift that thing up just to shoot up some hormones, get my body going. It's just necessary.

Yep. And that and the kettlebell, which was again, incredibly versatile tool. And a pull up bar. Right. Installed in the door frame. With those three tools and my own body, it can be super simple. I don't have to get distracted by the 18 different pieces of cardio apparati at the gym and navigating traffic to get to the health club. And they got to put on this watch. And then I got to log this and take a photo of this and send it to my trainer. You can keep it simple. And again, you don't have to feel guilt if it's simple, if it comes easy, if it puts you in the flow. Yes.

I've been teaching this audience forever, guys. Wisdom loves simplicity. But I love what he's saying because discipline loves simplicity too.

Yes. And I'm not saying that the workout itself might not occasionally be hard like you gotta. Yeah, that's one of my complaints about this whole new biohacking fad is people think they can cheat or shortcut their way to success, or you can buy your exercise in a bottle supplement or stand on a vibration platform and become an Olympian. And none of that is true. But the simplicity of the hard work is where the beauty lies. And so that's one big thing for me is almost all my workouts, my fitness programming, everything. I'm not tired. A lot of people think I'm walking around with laser lights on my head and electrodes attached to my body. I'm very, very simple. I'm over all of that. I used to race for this team called Team Timex. When I raced as a triathlete for a couple of decades, Ironman triathlons all over the globe and we had all the fancy power meters and the speed devices and the GPS devices and 18 different computers. And I realized after years and years of doing that, that it just introduces so much confusion and complexity and decision making fatigue to workout. And sometimes the pros of that do not outweigh the cons. Yeah, data is interesting, but don't beat yourself up. If you just go and lift some heavy things off the ground, swing a kettlebell, do some push ups. And so part of it is simplicity. That's one of my keys. The other one, like I mentioned, is planning. I sit down every Sunday night because. And if I don't do this, I can give you an example. So this is going to sound really dumb and hypocritical because this just happened to me this morning. I had a really busy day last night. We had a big family dinner, we had people over and I didn't have that 20 minutes that I usually spend on Sunday evenings. To map out the workouts that I'm going to do Monday through Saturday of that week, I literally just like, right, okay, so Monday I'm going to do this. I got the 30 pushups and 20 squats and 10 lunges. I'm going to do that five times. I'm going to do that 5 o' clock in the afternoon because I can see right now on my calendar that's where the hole is. So I'm going to drag and drop it right there. Right? So Sunday, it only takes me 20 minutes max to do this, but I plan out the entire week so that when I wake up on say Monday morning, I don't have to sit there for 10 minutes figuring out what I want to do and maybe go to the gym and kind of walk around and kick the back of the treadmill and pick up a dumbbell and put it back down. That one's not calling my name. No, you know exactly what you're going to do.

Programming really matters, guys. It really matters. Especially for maintenance of long term discipline.

It's huge. And Mondays are a day where. Because typically for me the Sabbath day is a day of rest and just easy walking and maybe some yoga. Sometimes I'll get in the sauna. So that means that usually Mondays I'm prepped to crush it. And Mondays is my day to put some strength into my body. Well, I got up this morning, I didn't have a workout. I didn't have a program. I didn't have some written down. And you think, oh, Ben, you're a personal trainer. You know all the workouts, you know all the exercises. Dude, I went and got in the sauna and I did some yoga and breath work for a little while. So granted I did something, but I was supposed to be making myself harder to kill and stronger, which is what I usually do on a Monday. But because it wasn't written down and I have the time to at the same time responding to all these emails and text messages and just trying to tackle my busy Monday morning, it was just like decision making fatigue sets in. So I went and did the easy thing. Right? And so a big part of it for me is carving out that Sunday night to just map out what I'm going to do each day and where it's going to fit in. Then I write those on a little Evernote note so I can access it from my Kindle, from my phone, from my computer. And when the time arrives on that day for me to go and do my movement routine, it's all written down, I do it. I get the dopamine reward from checking it off because it's already written down. And those are really two of my main keys are simplicity and planning.

So good. So good. I want to switch gears with you a little bit because I think part of that simplicity and also the good life that you live has a lot to do with your family and your faith. And I think you also have really interesting family practices. You know, we were talking about the other day, we were talking about going through quarantine and being at stay at home orders and we're talking about how some shifts in our lives and some not your kids were already staying at home and got all these practices that you've spoken a lot about. Your podcast, I just love people to hear because so many of my listeners have families. I'm just curious about some unique things you found with your family that you feel like has really brought you all together. What people are really dying for right now, not just because of pandemic, but literally over the last decades in social media, which is really true connection.

Yeah. Yeah. So I would say there are probably three key things that we do in our family that are game changers for us. So key number one is every single night family dinner. And it's one of those absolute times of joy and connectedness and laughter and music and playing games like exploding kittens and unstable unicorns and hearts and anything else that the boys want to bring to the Table. We all gather together around 7:30, right? So we kind of break the rules about not eating late. And we actually have. Because by the time the boys are done with their jiu jitsu and tennis and school and mom and I are done with everything we're doing, and we finally have a chance to just take that breath at the end of the day and gather, it does mean that for us to be able to pull this off, these wonderful family dinners, nearly every night of the week, we eat a little bit later. But I'm cool with that. I think the pros outweigh the cons. And I still sleep like a baby, even though I, you know, I might have a belly full of ribeye steak or whatever. But the family dinners, yeah, it's always fun. There's always the games we pull out. Sometimes the boys choose a game. Sometimes mom and I choose a game and we gather, we play music. Sometimes we have a little dance party right before dinner.

Games. I just want to qualify, right? These are not video games.

No, no, no, no. We're talking about, like, old school card games. We're talking about like, Cranium Boggle Quiddler Scattergories. You should see our game Closet Dude. It's pretty epic. And in our house, whenever the boys want a book or a game that I consider to be even mildly productive, it's no questions asked, I buy it. And that's one of the things that they can just. If it's like Captain Underpants or something super silly that comes out of their own personal bank account. But we are huge into books and actual physical board games at our house. And it's kind of cool because when the kids grow up playing games, they're learning game theory, they're learning strategy, they're learning negotiation, they're learning rhetoric and argumentation and persuasion. I mean, there's a lot of benefits that go beyond just us having a good time as a family at night and being together. But ultimately, those family dinners are amazing. They always finish with all of us cleaning the kitchen together. And then it's pretty much straight into what I would consider to be the second very important thing in our house. And that is tradition and routine. And that's not just the family dinner, but kids thrive on routine. It makes them feel safe. It makes them feel like they're in a trusted haven. It makes them feel as though there's something they can rely upon. And it doesn't just have to be the Christmas tradition and how you cook the ham or the turkey on Thanksgiving or what color you paint the Easter eggs on Easter. So for us, one is, I always play the song or the kids two to three songs on the guitar or the ukulele when they're in bed at night. And it feels like something's just completely missing from the house if I'm not there playing them a bedtime song. We all go around as they're falling asleep, and everybody says one thing they're grateful for and then one thing they could have done better that day, right? So we're doing this process of self examination at the end of the day, what am I grateful for? What did I do well, and what could I have done better? And sometimes it's even what did I fail at? And that's the power of self examination, because you learn from the mistakes that you may have made earlier in the day. I say a prayer, we put off the lights, the kids read or listen to a little radio program like Adventures in Odyssey. And then they fall asleep and same thing in the morning. They have their exact routine of going out and getting the eggs from the chickens and feeding the goats and coming back in and making breakfast with Mom. But there's not a lot of haphazardness or chaos or entropy. Everything's based on habits and rituals and routines, which, of course, not just for kids, but also for adults, is an amazing component of productivity and returns right back to that planning that we were talking about earlier. But this idea of having traditions not only built around holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter, but also daily traditions and even weekly traditions, right? So every Saturday night, we take care of ourselves. On Saturday night, we go to bed a little bit earlier. We don't stay up late watching movies, because the next day is a really, really special day for us. It's our Sabbath day. And on the Sabbath day, we all gather as a family in the morning. And we play hymns and spiritual songs, and we sing to God. And we all meditate as a family for about 20 minutes on the living room floor. And then we have a lesson or a message from dad, and then we'll sing some more songs. And then that night, we usually have people over some kind of a big family dinner. And we always sing the Doxology before dinner. And nobody has any pressure to do school. Nobody has any pressure to do work. Dad's not off on phone calls. It's just this one. Every single time during the week, we have that carrot on the end of a stick, just like God. How he fashioned this entire universe and worked his butt off for six days. And then that Seventh day. It was just kind of, it's done. It's the same thing for us. We work our whole family, my kids too, with their work and their chores. We work really hard Monday through Saturday because we know Sunday is going to be that day where we can just soak it all in. And if we really apply ourselves the rest of the week, that Sunday is just an amazing day of rest. So we weave in traditions like that and we do the family dinners and then finally the last. The third thing I think that's a real game changer for us as a family is there aren't a lot of rules in our house and it's always been that way. We use a style of parenting that I think some call the love and logic approach, meaning that rather than setting up hard boundaries and rules for your children, you instead educate your children about the consequences of any decision that they might make. Then let them go forth and make the decision and deal with the consequences. So for example, there's no rule on screen time at our house. Kids can be on screens, video games, phones, as much as they want. But both of my boys know about the impact of a WI fi cradled in their little laps on their sperm cell production and their children later on in life. They know the impact of not having their little eye touches in airplane mode at night and what that does to the rapidly dividing neurons in their skull. They know that if they have their main bedroom lights on instead of little infrared lights next to their bed, that is going to disrupt their circadian rhythms. And then they get to make the decision about whether they're going to be sleepy the entire next day because they use the big light in the room, or whether they're going to feel kind of blah or radiated if they've got the WI fi and the 5G going at them all day long. But we never say no. You can only be on the phone an hour a day, can only play video games for a half hour between 5 and 5:30. All that does is sets up forbidden fruit. It makes them want to do that thing that you're telling them not to do.

Yeah. So good it makes them even more.

Likely to do it. And it doesn't turn them into a self actualized person who can make responsible decisions to a free thinking, independent, resilient thinker like gluten. A lot of people are like, oh, your kids, they probably can't go near gluten because gluten is Satan in your house. Right? So no, my kids can have all the gluten they want. Yeah. I educate them about the effects it might have on their gut, on their nervous system, on their mental performance the next day, especially when paired with glyphosate, which, speaking of the leaky gut issue, pokes little holes in the lining of your gut and causes those large gluten proteins to pass in your bloodstream and create autoimmune issues. But ultimately, at the end of the day, they're allowed to have as much gluten as they want. They can go to a party and crush as many cupcakes as they want, and they can deal with the consequences the next day. A key part of this on the.

Consequences, and I think this is so important, I can tell you three, literally now you're the fourth. Probably four of my most successful healthy, fit friends, but who also have really balanced and great, caring relationship with our kids, have all referenced love and logic. It's actually a book. It's called Love and Logic, and they literally swear to that.

It's kind of funny because I've never read the book. I don't even know much about the program, but it just. It makes sense to me to raise a child that way. And I learned later on that there's actually a program that. That's called that, and it's systematized into an approach. But I'll tell you what's important, and this is what a lot of parents is, where a lot of parents make the mistake and say, well, we're just gonna let our kids, you know, do what they want, make sure we educate them on the consequences of their decisions. The parents have to set the examples right. When there's downtime in our house, I'm strumming on the guitar or reading a book. I'm not nose down in my phone. When we go to a restaurant and the big bread basket comes out at the steakhouse, I'll have half a piece of the sourdough and also pull out my little gluten guardian enzyme and eat it to digest all that gluten for me. And then order a bed of vegetables on the side so that I've got something else to snack on instead of the bread as the appetizer. The kids see all that. They see, oh, Dad's not on his phone because there's downtime. He's reading a book. Dad's not playing video games at night. He's curled up on the couch with yet another biography. And when we're out at the restaurant, Dad's, oh, I see he's enjoying a little bit of bread. But then he's pushing himself back and using a little bit of smart biohacking to mitigate the damage and eating vegetables instead. So you set up that standard. So this whole idea of creating a free thinking, resilient, independent young child who's able to deal with the consequences of their own decisions and understands those consequences, that's a huge part of our parenting approach. And the last thing I should throw in here is, yeah, there are boundaries. If you got a two year old walking towards a hot stove, don't tell them, don't touch that or your hand's going to get burnt. I mean, you want to make sure that you stop a child from doing something that's going to cause serious bodily harm to them when they're too young to even understand. But aside from that, this idea of this so called love and logic approach is a key part. So for us, it's the family dinners and it's the traditions and it's that style of parenting that I think are three keys for us.

Well, you know what I wanted from this podcast, buddy, was just for people to hear more of this side of you and also just to get a vibe of that personal life that it's so important that everyone hears that here's a guy trying to figure out the best way and he's actively working on it. And that's so important for everybody because no matter whether you agree with anything you said in your parenting approach, the job is become a better parent. Deepen the connections. You know, whether you say, well, yeah, I totally get that health hack over there. No, the job is figure out what works for your health. You say, well, I know my purpose or I don't. The job is deepen that purpose and carry it into your career even more. And I think that's what's in your life. I think that's what's so important for me in sharing a message of personal development is always, hey, whatever approaches you here, cool, find yours. And this is a person who literally has spent an unbelievable amount of time and research to find his own paths and has educated literally millions and millions of people to do this, still working and honing his. And that's what inspires me about you, buddy, and why I'm so proud to call you a friend.

Dude, I truly appreciate that. And just to back that up, yeah, you can be biologically enhanced until the cows come home. You have six pack abs and rip quads and be able to go out and do an Ironman triathlon or crush a CrossFit workout. And you may have a Pristine brain and be able to memorize a deck of cards or 50 names at a cocktail party. But at the end of the day, you know, no matter, because I know this. Like, I'm not saying this to brag, but I've been one of the fittest guys on the face of the planet. I've had the body fat percentage. I've had what a lot of people would say is, like, the perfect body. I take care of my brain. I read a book a day. But none of that, none of that is fulfilling at the end of the day. None of that will actually make you happy at the end of the day unless you're caring for that one part that tends to be the most shriveled up and neglected part in all of us, and that is our soul, that is our spirit. And by incorporating these practices of purpose and family and love and relationships and a connection to God, and not only finding your purpose, but loving God and loving others with that purpose, all of a sudden, if you pair that with being in a very, very good place biologically, you will absolutely crush life. And. And perhaps even more importantly, you're going to be happy and fulfilled doing it.

Good man. Can't end any better than that. Ladies and gentlemen, go listen to Ben Greenfield podcast. Go get his book Boundless. I promise it will open up your mind and you'll learn so much, so much about this idea of getting your biology right, of improving your life in so many ways. It's like literally a reference to manual. It's so unbelievably good. Ben, thanks for your time today, buddy. Thank you for taking us on a nature walk with you. I appreciate inspiration, your faith, your leadership in the industry, buddy.

I'm gonna go turn off this CD soundtrack I have going with the nature sounds now. And I've been sitting in my La Z Boy, surfing on the TV channels with my nature soundtrack, but I'll go flip that off and get back to work.

You're the man, Ben Greenfield. Thank you for being on the Brennan Show.

All right, catch you later, bro.

You're the man. All right, my friend. I hope that you enjoyed that best of episode. Was that inspiring? Were you fired up? Did you love it? If you did, make sure you do me a favor. Go out on social media somewhere and share that episode. You know, just go out, post it somewhere, post yourself, listening to it. Make sure you hashtag the Brendan show, because when you do that, I can look you up and we can find you on Instagram, Instagram and posting that on social media. And sometimes we do all expense paid trips to people we find. We just randomly select people, we send them gifts, autograph books, swag, T shirts, all expense paid trips to some of my seminars. So make sure you let us know, share what you thought about this episode out there on the social media worlds and then we can find you and celebrate you. And also I would love to invite you to join us in our high performance monthly program. So just go to brendan.com monthly, that's brendan.com forward/monthly. That's where we do deeper dive trainings like you just heard. But we do that every single month and there's some live Q and A there and I do some giveaways and we give students in that monthly program tickets to my seminars and some extra special training on leadership. So make sure you check it out at brendan.com forward/monthly. I appreciate you being part of this community of so many people dedicated to finding that deeper drive of motivation and practicing high performance habits so that they can become extraordinary in their careers. In your personal life, in your health, you can live an extraordinary quality of life. And sometimes you just need a little bit more training and a little bit more nudge, a little more energy, a little bit more drive and consistency. And I'm hoping that being part of this community with the Brendon show, I'm providing that to you in some way. So thank you, my friend, for listening. I look forward to seeing you or listening with you on the next episode of the B R E N D O N show. Sam.