The Longevity City Of The Future, The Ultimate Biohacking Wellness Club Experience & The Next-Level Merging Of Ancient Wisdom & Modern Science, With Tim Gurner

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Boundless Life Podcast.

Then you come to our ancient bathhouse, and the bathhouse is our most beautiful piece, right? So that's the thing that cost us millions of dollars to set up. And within the bathhouse, you walk in and you feel like you've walked into another world. So how do we get you in your everyday to feel like you've walked into Shiva Somme or Bad Ragaz in Switzerland? And within there, we've got this beautiful lounge area, 38-degree magnesium pool, and we've got a huge sauna and steam room as well.

This is incredible.

Welcome to The Boundless Life with me, your host, Ben Greenfield. I'm a personal trainer, exercise physiologist, and nutritionist, and I'm passionate about helping you discover unparalleled levels of health, fitness, longevity, and beyond.

Well, my guest today is actually a friend of mine, a guy who I've talked with a lot over the past year and a half or so as I've witnessed him building out something pretty cool in Australia and soon the rest of the world. And, I'll let him tell you a little bit more about what that is, but his name is Tim Gurner. Tim is one of Australia's most influential entrepreneurs. He's all over different magazines and websites. And, I can't seem to turn around without seeing some new press release about Tim and what he's up to. Because he has built one of the most iconic property empires in Australia, a developmental pipeline that I think exceeds about $14 billion. So, he's got buildings that are spotted all over the Australian skylines. And perhaps more importantly and more relevant to me and you if you're listening in, Tim has a real heart for wellness and is creating something incredible that I've been able to kind of peek into and see behind the scenes in Australia. And again, soon throughout the rest of the world when it comes to a wellness experience that goes above and beyond anything I've seen. I'm actually about to hop on a plane in a couple of weeks, possibly I will have done that by the time this podcast comes out to see Tim, to visit him, and to see what he's building in Australia. So, Tim, I'm pretty excited to get into your backstory and how you got into what you're doing and how you're planning to transform the wellness industry all by your lonesome.

Thanks, Ben. Yeah, and great to chat, mate. Thanks for all the support over the years. And I think like all the listeners, we got to thank you for everything you've done over the last 10 to 15 years, mate. You've been a big part of our inspiration and vision and what we want to create. And I think what you've done bringing ancient wisdoms, spirituality and modern science together is something that we're very, very focused on. And thank you for everything you're doing for the industry.

Yeah, that's the key. And I know that's what you're focusing on with some of these clubs that you're building is not just biohacking and oxygen and red light and PMF and all the jazz, but also this return to kind of a wholesome connection to planet Earth. So not to use too many catchphrases there, but tell me about how you got into into the industry in the first place?

It's a good question. So, it's been a journey. So, I'm 43. So, I had my first business when I was 19, which was a gym in Elwood called My Wellbeing. I was actually living with this hippie at the time, Ben, you would've loved it. And I was going home complaining like you do as a 20-year-old kid, 19-year-old kid saying, my boss is a prick and I'm not enjoying my work and I'm working too hard, not getting paid enough. And she said, oh, it's simple. What do you love? I said, oh, I'm obsessed with the gym. I love the gym. That's what I want to do. And I don't want to have a boss. And she said, well, why don't you start a gym? Be your own boss. I was like, oh, that's a genius idea. So within 4 weeks, I started my own gym. It was actually interesting.

Well, by the way, it's be your own boss slash be the employee of a whole bunch of, you know, like, you know, 50-year-old women who want to look good like they did when they were 18 years old and became—

Yeah, that's exactly right. That was definitely our clientele. And so we, I started that within 4 weeks and then I had a bit of a life-changing moment at that point. My dad passed away 4 weeks into starting my own business, and then I lost 3 grandparents straight after that. So in a period of 4 months, we literally lost— most of my family passed away. And it was a really interesting test for a 19-year-old. You know, I was, you know, I had $150 grand debt with a bank here. I had no money whatsoever, and I'd started this business. And, you know, it was a huge challenge. And I sort of looked at it— I remember the day where I was sitting there thinking, you know, feeling very sorry for myself that my life had sort of fallen apart, had this huge debt in the business. I literally just started, so there was no income in the business. It started 4 weeks before. And I thought, you know, do I let it go and, you know, go bankrupt on my first ever business? So I get back in there and have a really big crack. And I've got to say that I think, you know, I was always an entrepreneur at heart, but I think that period definitely set me up for the hard grind and determination that you need to be successful in this challenging world.

Yeah. Kind of a paradoxical title to your first gym. You said it was called My Wellbeing.

Correct.

That sounds like your wellbeing kind of suffered a little bit.

Yeah, my wellbeing was not good. And, you know, it was interesting. Like I lived that. From 20 to 30, I lived that very hard-paced entrepreneurial life where I really just smashed myself. And you know, this is the era when, you know, all the bankers were the guys having red wine and steak at lunch, and the entrepreneurs were proud of themselves sleeping 2 to 4 hours a night and biohacking and microdosing. And you know, I absolutely smashed myself through that period. So I sort of had that gym, and then we built it up to a good scale, sold it 2 years later, and got back into real estate. So I got into real estate in about 2005, perfect timing, just before the GFC. Got my feet sort of under a desk with a guy here in Melbourne, and then GFC hit and the whole world blew up in real estate debt world, as you can imagine. And you know, that was an insanely tough period. It was mentally challenging and obviously needed a lot of grit and determination to get through that. So from 2005 to 2012, I worked with this amazing guy who was an incredible mentor for me, a guy called Maurice Schwartz, who's a guy, Australian entrepreneur. A year. And then we developed a lot of buildings together through that period. And then in about 2013, I decided that I wanted to try and do it myself. I wanted to do it a bit differently. I thought there was an opportunity to create a real brand and a brand that people would follow and trust and really buy into in the real estate game. So I started Gurnah, which is Gurnah Group, in 2013. And the whole vision was to create something really different where we could change people's lives by creating incredible communities, incredible spaces. And from 2013 to 2017, it was an amazing ride, right? We sort of sold between $500 million and $1 billion worth of apartments a year. Great success. The brand really grew. And then my pivotal moment really came in 2017. Actually, this building behind us here called the Flatiron in Brisbane. I went up to Brisbane and developed 3 30-story towers in Brisbane, 1,000 apartments. And Got to the last hour and we had a cost blowout of about 60%. And that meant that the project was completely unprofitable. We knew we're going to lose tens of millions of dollars. And I had to make a hard decision to push forward with the project, knowing we were going to lose. Anyway, we went through it, had 2 years of absolute hell. And to be honest, Ben, if I hadn't had that time and the time I had with my dad, I don't think I would've gone as hard into the wellness area because I was, I was a mess, you know, I was mentally, physically, spiritually a mess. I was working 24 hours a day, thought I was going to lose everything, lost all my priorities, all my motivations sort of disappeared. And, you know, it was a really, really challenging time. I had a couple of young kids at the time. I've now got 3 kids, but I had 2 young girls at that time. We've just had another beautiful young one who's only 13 months old, who you'll meet in a couple of weeks. So it was a really challenging time. I got to the end of that period and sort of thought, you know, I either need to scale back the business or I need to structure the business properly for success. And that was in 2017. I obviously decided to take the business to a bigger scale and we started to bring in a proper executive team, proper capital behind the structures and, and build what is Gurnah Group today. And I think, you know, that was a very important time because I could have easily slowed down and gone backwards there. It was tough. My body was smashed. My brain was smashed. And I really needed to focus on my wellness and get back to what I, what I believed in.

Yeah. So, was it 2018 when you really buckled down on your own personal wellness or even got interested in something beyond just what you may have known about fitness at the gym in the first place? Yeah.

So, wellness to me at that time was trying to have big muscles and smash myself and I'd be able to run. So, it was, yeah, well, what I thought was wellness was not wellness, right? It was old school hardcore gym and I met this amazing guy called Nam Baldwin, who you'll meet when you're out in Australia, who's a performance coach. And he was working with some elite athletes at the time. And I went to him and said, look, I've got my version of the Olympics coming up, right? So I need to get through this really hard period. We're coming to the end of the project. I needed to be able to have incredible energy. I needed to be calm. I needed to not get sick. I was getting sick a lot. My immunity was really, really bad. And Nam put me through a whole raft of testing, hormonal testing, supplementation, breathwork. And a very rigorous sort of supplementation, food, and training regime, but a lot more focus on breathwork and recovery than what I'd done in the past. And then that really set me up for success. I got through that period with him and it was absolutely life-changing how it worked through that very difficult time.

Yeah, I want to talk a little bit more about your personal protocol and what it looks like now because now I'm doing some work with you and we bounce stuff off each other all the time, but Before I get into that, this whole St. Haven concept is how we met. So, what was the evolution from Gurner Group in 2018 to this idea for St. Haven? What exactly is St. Haven?

Yeah. Look, it started really back in when I was 20. So, my Wellbeing was this concept that I wanted to do more than just a gym. I wanted to have more around it. And, to be honest, it was too early in the sector. No one ever knew what Wellbeing was back in 2000s. So the concept was over 20 years, I've been very fortunate. My wife and I traveled to the best hotels, best wellness retreats, whether it's Chita Som or Bad Ragaz in Switzerland. We've gone to all these incredible places that when you left, you felt incredible, right? And whether it's also then the community elements of Soho House or what Equinox did well for a period there, or the Arts Club in London. And I started to think, how do we create this place where I can get away from the world, get away from work, get away from family, and surrender into this serene environment where I'm literally closed off from the world. And I've got the best access to the best food, best drinks, best recovery, best practitioners. I can train, I can eat, I can work. And I started to patch together, how do we bring the best of what Soho House Arts Club is, what the best Equinox does, what Remedy Place or Next Health, and then the best yoga, meditation, wellness retreats— how do I bring it into one place? For busy individuals who don't have time to do yoga, breathwork, sauna, ice bath, clear physio all over the country. So that was the vision. And to be honest, Ben, it was a very selfish endeavor, right? This was a thing for me. It was a side project alongside real estate that I thought would be amazing for me, and I thought people would buy into. So we opened the first club. We did our first press release on the front cover of Forbes, actually. I did a cover about my protocols and my journey. Back in December 2022, and the response was absolutely outrageous. We had over 30,000 inquiries just from that one media outlet, and we sold out the first club in about 4 weeks, which was Collingwood. And it was an amazing thing, you know, it was like, yeah, this was my baby that I'd dreamt about for 20 years and finally brought it all together. And I remember sitting at the bar with my wife on the first night saying, wow, it's kind of everything that I always imagined it'd be. And she looked at me like I was stupid and said, yeah, well, Of course, right? That's the whole point. And, you know, within 6 months, we were seeing massive change for our members. And I think the biggest thing for us is, you know, we, as you know, because I'm speaking to you about it daily, is we want to get real efficacy. We want to get real change. This isn't just a beautiful club where you come and, you know, talk to other people. We want to change their lives. And within 6 months, we were seeing people who'd had very bad mental health issues, or they were recovering from surgery, or they had massive weight loss issues. That were seeing huge changes in a very short period of time. We'd also had a waitlist of 25,000 people, which gave us the confidence to grow the business beyond that.

Yeah. How many of them are there? Is it just the one? And you said Collinswood?

Collinswood.

Collinswood.

So Collinswood's in the sort of like the meatpackers of New York's the best way to think about it. That's been open now for 2.5 years and at full capacity. We then opened South Yarra, which sold out in 2 weeks. We then opened Toorak, that sold out in 2 weeks. We then opened the second brand Saint in St. Kilda and South Melbourne. So we've now got 5 clubs fully operational and we've got over 30,000 people on the waitlist in Victoria. And then we've got 5 sites under construction or secured in Sydney, one in the Gold Coast, one in New York, one in Dubai. And now the big focus for us is global expansion.

Yeah, I was going to say, when are you going to build one in Moscow, Idaho?

Yeah, soon, soon. We're not in the middle of winter though.

Soon to the sticks of North Idaho. Lifestyle Magazine describes St. Haven as Tim Gerner's cult-like health spa that offers a biohacking regime for the elite to put the brakes on aging. Accurate description or overhyped?

Look, I don't think it's cult-like. There is a very strong sense of community. Let's put it that way, Ben. I think You know, I think after COVID and, you know, we've all gone through 20 years of everyone worked really hard and forgot about their health, right? We all slept badly, we didn't get enough sunlight, we didn't touch the ground, we forgot about what our real purpose was. And I think through COVID, people really wanted to bring that connection back. And what the clubs have been able to do is create this unbelievable sense of community. And it's really interesting when we talk to people in the US and Dubai and we show them these beautiful pictures of the club and Everyone falls in love because I mean, the big benefit for us, Ben, if someone was gonna go and start this, these clubs cost $15 to $20 million to start up from a capital perspective. You gotta be able to design it, you gotta be able to build it, you gotta be able to operate them, which is a very, very difficult thing. So for us, we're fortunate. We've got a full in-house design team, full construction team, and then we have a team of over 600 people in hospitality. So if you think about each of our clubs has got 90 full-time staff, so you're really running a boutique hotel. With very, very demanding clients. So it's a very difficult business to run. But it's interesting, you explain it to people in the US and they say, oh, it looks incredible. I love the model. But what you'll see when you're out and you cannot explain the feel, the intangible feel that you walk into the space. And it's quite incredible, the warmth and community that our team have brought, have really built on vulnerability, right? If you walk into one of our clubs, you're coming in to let your guard down, you're dropping the ego at the door, you're coming in to surrender and with like-minded people who are trying to live their ultimate life. So how do we get you as a member to walk in and feel like you can drop all that baggage and all the crap from day-to-day life and then leave feeling just enlightened when you walk out?

Yeah, like-minded people rolls off the tongue a little better than cult-like. If you're listening in right now, you want to see the photos and the videos of what one of these clubs actually looks like on the outside and the inside. I'll put some images if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/TimGurner, which is where the shownotes are, G-U-R-N-E-R. Tim, kind of walk me through verbally what it looks like. What are the special things built into it? Because I've heard you talking about the clubs before where you've got the ability for people that get their HRV analyzed when they come in and know whether they're supposed to go to an active space or a recovery space and there's customization and personalization worked in. And, it sounds like retinal scanning out of Mission: Impossible or something like that, but walk me through what it's like when somebody actually walks in. What have you guys actually built into this?

Yeah. I'll talk about the more personal stuff after a bit. So, all the clubs are set up with the same DNA. So, you arrive into this beautiful sensory cube. So, the first thing you do, swipe at the door, it's all private access. You can't get in unless you're a member. So, all very private, very exclusive for our members, which has been a really important part. You'll come into the main lobby. There's actually a secret wall to then get into the club.

I'm gonna interrupt. What do you mean when you say secret wall?

You'll see when you arrive. You'll walk into the sensory cube and you actually won't know how to get out. And if you swipe your hand over the top of the sculpture, it'll actually let you in the front doors, which only the members know.

Oh, sick. Alright. Okay, cool.

Keep going. Yeah. So then you walk into the club and that, and that's the most important part. So one of the big things we want is extremely personalized service. So when you walk in, Ben, the beautiful staff, all of our staff are just such incredible people that, you know, the wellness future, we're very lucky. They're all such warm, loving people. You walk in, they'll know your coffee order. So you'd walk in, Ben, they'd say, okay, great. I know you're heading over to HIIT. Do you want your methylene blue with your creatine with our hydration elixir? So it's all very, very personalized within that lobby. You've then got a cafe for takeaway food, smoothies, et cetera. Beyond that, you've then got our formal restaurant. So we've actually got a formal restaurant that does breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So that's a seated restaurant with the most incredible organic food, no bad oils, no sugars. It's about as good as it gets in the world. You'll absolutely love it when you're out here. Then connected to that is the business club. So these aren't you know, we call them wellness clubs, but they're really private clubs that have got a huge focus on wellness. So this is a space you'll spend 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 hours in throughout the day. When you leave the business club, you come back through a concierge and you'll walk down what we call our path of life. So in our path of life, one end starts at the yellow, the calm, the yoga meditation cave, and then all the way through orange, and then red is the high-octane training at the other end. Within that, um, Path of Life is our fountain of youth. So we've got incredible filtered water, reverse osmosis water. One big thing for us was actually interesting. I was in the sauna with a lady yesterday at St. Haven Toorak, and I said to her, what's your number one thing you love about the club? And she said, I just love the bathroom. She says, I'll come here to have a shower over being at home because you've got all my colognes, my amenities, my perfumes. So we do beautiful bathrooms like a 6-star hotel. They're fully serviced the whole time. So if you need a shirt iron, shoes polished, whatever you need, anytime it's there. Scented towels when you want them.

It's beautiful.

So then we walk through, keep going down the path of life. We come to a very special space, which is our meditation cave. So we created this space that feels like it's been carved out of the side of a mountain. So you actually walk into this beautiful space, soft lighting, got this little beautiful skylight that follows circadian lighting. In there we do meditation, we do breathwork, we do sound healing. Next door we've got a beautiful yoga studio. This is the same for all the clubs. Yoga studio, we do a mix of things, hot Pilates, yoga. Actually, our number one class, Ben, is a thing called sound healing. And it's interesting, I'm sure you've seen sound bowls around the world. Ours is a little bit different. So we have got 4 musicians who sing, play between 8 to 15 instruments in one session. You're laying down on a beautiful, comfortable rug. We've got a pillow under you, eye mask on, and it's unbelievable spiritual experience by proper musicians. It's way beyond just a few sound bowls in the corner. Then you walk down to the full gym floor. So we've got a huge gym floor in all of the clubs, the latest techno gym gear. It's all, it's all beautifully set up as you'll see. Pilates is still our number one movement class by quite a long way. Pilates is still extremely popular. Then we've got a big HIIT studio. So one of the big things we say, Ben, I know you believe more than anyone is We want to take the male or female who's been doing yoga their whole lives. They've been in yoga and breathwork and meditation. And after a year, we want them to be doing yoga, meditation, breathwork, hardcore squats, hardcore deadlifts, you know, bit of Pilates, bit of HIIT training, and eating beautifully. We want to take the weightlifter and get him or her doing 1 to 2 yoga sessions a week. So trying to get that holistic movement as opposed to just a very scripted bodybuilding or yoga routine. Then we get to the exciting stuff. So that's sort of the community building elements. Then we've got what we call Haven, which is our biohacking. So like you, our number one belief for our members is sleep, sunlight, grounding. Nothing can beat that, right? That's what we're focused on. But our members are bloody busy, so we try to bring in the greatest techies out there. So red light therapy, still by far our number one. We sit at 94% occupancy. It is crazy. Like, we cannot—

we keep on buying more and more beds and we can't can't keep up with the demand.

We've got cryotherapy, we've got hyperbaric, we've got 1.35 kPa up to 2.4. So we've got medical-grade hyperbaric as well. We've got lymphatic drainage, we've got red light therapy, we've got IV therapy. And then a big thing for us that is very hard for others to replicate is we've actually got within Haven a full suite of practitioners. So if you want to see a doctor, a nurse, a physio, an osteo, a psychologist, a nutritionist, a naturopath. All of it is within the club. Then you come to our ancient bathhouse, and the bathhouse is our most beautiful piece, right? So that's the thing that costs us millions of dollars to set up. And within the bathhouse, you walk in and you feel like you've walked into another world. So how do we get you in your everyday to feel like you've walked into Shiva Somme or Bad Ragaz in Switzerland? And within there, we've got this beautiful lounge area, 6-degree ice bath, 10-degree ice bath. 38-degree magnesium pool, and we've got a huge sauna and steam room as well.

This is incredible. Is anybody else doing something like this?

Look, I think there's some really, there's some really good specialty areas. You know, I think what Remedy's doing in the US is really good. I think Next Health on the medical testing, there's some good day spas out there. I don't think anyone's bought the whole thing holistically together yet. It's a big, you know, it's an expensive endeavor, right? These are big clubs. These are, 20,000 square foot clubs to 30,000 square foot clubs. So, you know, they're a very big endeavor. And the thing that's best about the clubs, though, is we've got this what we call hardware. So that's our hardware. But the thing that actually sets us apart is what we call about is our software, which is our people. And we've got— each club's got 90 people. So typically when you're there as a member, they'll actually be more team members than there will be members in the space. So when you walk in, They're gonna know your food, where you're going, whether you're struggling or not. We can see your, um, Oura sleep data if you want us to see your Oura sleep data. And the amazing thing, Ben, is you can come in as someone who's quite overweight and say, okay, in 12 months' time, I wanna run the New York Marathon. We can— you can pick up your food in the morning for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We can do all your supplementation in club. We can do your physio. We can do your strength training. We can do your flexibility. We can do your cardio training. We can do your VO2 max. So we can literally customize your perfect program to whatever it is. And, you know, we have a few people in that belt, but we typically then have entrepreneurs and CEOs that are exhausted, right? People are really tired. They're sick of life being so hard. They're looking for a way to find balance. And the good thing is, as you know better than anyone, I'm the perfect customer, right? So I still stress too much. I'm still not, you know, although I have a very, very serious protocol in what, how I do things. You know, I'm surrounded by people who need this. So we know exactly what our customer needs.

Yeah. Well, no, this personalization customization piece, I'm intrigued by this. You mentioned Oura. Could, could you do that with any wearable? Are you guys wearable agnostic? Is it just Oura? Like, if I walk in and I've got my wearable data, my sleep data, my HRV, maybe advising on what kind of training I should do that day. Your staff can see it and they can point me in the right direction. But does it go beyond just Oura Ring? I mean, are you pulling in other metrics?

Yeah. So we've done a partnership with Oura for Saint Haven at this stage. And then for Saint, which I didn't talk about. So Saint is our second brand, by the way, which is our younger, more high-octane brand. So that actually has alcohol Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights. So Saint Haven, our demographic, 39.6 is the average age, 58% females, whereas Saint is 32 average age and about 60% female. So that's the younger, you know, if you're a single person in Melbourne, that's definitely the place you'll go and meet someone like-minded. And that's very much what that club is all about. High octane energy as opposed to surrendering to St. Haven. With the, so Ben Greenfield, our biggest thing, you know, and I think, you know, there's a lot of marketing concepts out there in wellness. You and I talk about a lot. This is definitely not what we are, right? We are here to really change people's lives and help them live their ultimate life. And one of the big investments we've made is into our app. So we've spent millions of dollars already on our app, which takes Oura data, takes Apple data, takes Whoop data, and feeds it into your day. So if you, you know, overnight you've woken up, typically your HRV sitting at 85 and it's dropped down to 75 or 70 because you've eaten too late or you've drunk alcohol at night, our app will actually automatically take you out of your HIIT class and move you into a breathwork or fire and ice in our ancient bathhouse. So that's already happening. But what the next step is, is what we're about to launch in about a week. When it does that, it's actually gonna, gonna give you supplementation advice, food advice, and holistic throughout the day. So we want our app to be the source of truth from all the different providers. So that we can literally tell you day by day exactly what you need.

Yeah, about every month to 2 months, you know, for you, Tim, for example, I'm looking at things like hormone data, blood data, genetic data, you know, mold mycotoxin results, just a host of different biomarkers. Are you guys looking at that with your members too? Like, could somebody come in and let's say have a genetic report and begin to have their program or call it like their journey? At Saint customized to them?

Yeah, 100%. So our, the one big brand that we haven't announced yet publicly is called Limitless. And Limitless is our ultimate human protocol and testing regime. So, you know, the reason we haven't announced it is because we, a few members heard about it and it's just spread like wildfire within the club. And we were actually at capacity for it at the moment. And that's a testing protocol from 7,000, 15,000 to 24,000. And it goes to full extremes. So Ben, we've just partnered with— we're very fortunate that the great thing about the brand is we've got all the best wellness guys coming to us now. So we've obviously just did a partnership with Prenuvo, who's the first full body MRI. So it's the first location in Melbourne, which we literally opened last week. So we've got, as part of Limitless, every quarter you'll do— sorry, MRIs every 6 months. Every quarter you'll do a DEXA scan, you'll do a VO2 max, 297 biomarkers in bloods, and we do urine testing, literally the whole works. Obviously the MoleTools thing that I just did with you as well. And we get together this incredible, um, amount of information, which then our team tailor exactly to you. So down to the point where we can tailor your sleeping, your supplementation, your IV routine, your training routine. So it was really about me taking all of the best that I've seen around the world and then putting them together into one package.

Ben Greenfield: Okay. So, this is almost like the paradise for biohacking and longevity. At the same time, as I know you've experienced, you could spend 5 or 6 hours a day just with self-care and kind of paradoxically spend all of the hours or the days or the years you're looking at for longevity putting in the effort to live a long time. For you personally, What's it look like? What have you found that actually sticks as far as when you walk into the club or when you wake up in the morning, what your non-negotiables are?

Yeah. As you know, I've tried everything. Literally, there's not a single thing in the club that I haven't tried to make sure it actually has efficacy. And obviously, the partnership with you, Ben, is really important to make sure what we're bringing into the clubs is real and actually has real effect. So, my routine is the same every day. So, sleep's a critical thing for me. 9:30, I'm asleep. Every single night and I wake at 5:30. I still use a chili pad. I'm a big believer in cooling body at night, so I sleep at about 18.5 degrees. Wake up in the morning, 5:30, I'm straight down to my practice that you know well about, which is I do a 20-minute, sort of 10-minute breathwork followed by 20-minute meditation. And within that, I do a bit of a thing called a somatic meditation, which is actually, it's an HRV trainer where you actually think about stressful situations and feel it throughout your body and then calm yourself and do that about 4 to 5 times. I then use a gratitude journal every single day. I've been doing that for about 8 years and I find it really, really important. Probably not so much on the days you're feeling good, but more on the days I'm not feeling great. I've got a good, a good mate, Ben Greenfield, who actually gave me the best insights I've ever had, which is my family routine at 7 AM. So after I've done my meditation, my gratitude, I do 20 minutes of stretching. And then one day you said to me, I think I was trying to get you on a call and you said, no, I can't. I've got my family circle at 7:00 PM or 7:00 AM. And I said, hang on, what's that? And so every morning we've got this beautiful little angel who's just joined us, our baby girl India, who we, at 7:00 AM, we all go together, my two other girls and my wife. And we sit around the baby and wake her in the morning and play gratitude around the circle and just for 10 minutes, just chat and talk about the day and what's happening. And that's 100% from you. And is it been an absolute game changer for our family where it's very, very busy just to take that time to connect? 7:00 to 7:45 is, um, chaos family time. As you know, that's, that's the busy time trying to get the girls out to school. And then 7:45, I'm training. So Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, I do weights. Tuesday, I do 45 minutes zone 2 cardio. Thursday, I do zone 4, zone 5. And then Sundays, what I call Surrender Sunday is a really important thing for me, which is all of my biohacking, which involves anything from ice baths, sauna, red light, PEMF, grounding, nature walks. Everything happens on a Sunday. But every single day after I have trained, I've actually just bought in, thanks to you as well, is the EWOD. So the exercising with oxygen has been really interesting add-on that we've just added on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But every single day after that, I'll do a breathwork and meditation again on a PEMF mat with a red light therapy that comes over the top of me. So that's sort of the morning ritual. 10:30, I eat. I'm very specific on calories. So 2,700 calories a day, 40% protein, 30% carbs, 30% fat. I'm religious on that. My supplementation is done, a combination of you and Marika from Sanhaven. So I have very strict supplementation, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Lunch is the same every day. I try to take 20 minutes to eat that. One thing that I've been focused on trying to make a reality is what you and I've been talking about, which is this sort of deep non-sleep deep rest around 2:30, 3 o'clock.

To interrupt you real quick about the non-sleep deep rest, I know that you and I have talked about this. I just got back from some pretty hefty travel and documentary filming. That is probably the number one thing I do for restoring a frayed nervous system when it comes to sleep deprivation, travel, or inflammation. You and I are talking at about 6:00 p.m. Pacific time. And sometimes, I pull out the sledgehammer. So, from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. today, I did a 90-minute Yoga Nidra in the hyperbaric went from just wrecked from all the travel to on top of the world when I climbed out of there at 3:30. So, for anybody who hasn't or who has the ability to combine those two, some kind of oxygen with the Yoga Nidra or non-sleep deep rest, there's something about being in the hyperbaric that shifts you even deeper into that sleep-like state. It's incredible. It is probably my top recovery protocol right now.

Yeah. So, I think one of the things people can't believe on my Oura results is I sleep on average 7 hours and 51 minutes have for the last 5 years. And I had 210 naps last year out of 365 days. So that afternoon nap is really, really important to me if I can get it in. It doesn't always work perfectly, but as you said, it makes a big difference when I can. I get home for dinner, 6:30 with the kids always, and then 8 o'clock it's blue light goggles or glasses are on. It's trying to start to slow down for the night. And by 9:30, I'm asleep. So, it's a pretty regimented protocol and you know, I'm not a big drinker. There's another big reason why I started St. Haven, by the way, is I'm not sure if it's a bigger thing in the US, but Australians love alcohol, right? We've got a big alcohol culture here and men in particular, men have seemed to find this way where we can only socialize over a beer or over pool table or something. We always seem to involve alcohol. So, Now to be able to say to a mate, hey, forget about it. We're not going to the bar on Friday night. Let's meet at 4 o'clock. Let's do a training session. Let's do a sauna, ice bath, and grab some incredible food after and wake up the next day feeling incredible. So that was another big motivator for me because I actually had in Australia, and you'll see when you come out, there was no community social aspect without alcohol involved. And it was something that's just such a missing thing here.

Yeah. By the way, real quick, I had an interview week, I had a debate with an Australian on alcohol. And, it was actually interesting. His take is no amount of alcohol is good, period. My take is small microdoses of what is a hormetic stressor can induce cellular resilience. So, I'm traditionally a very small glass of wine or bitters-forward cocktail with dinner each night. That being said, my wife and I both branched out. For example, right now, we are kind of doing a little experiment with Amanita muscaria, which is like the Mario mushroom that in high doses is psychedelic. But, in low doses, microdose, it causes a very similar GABAergic effect as alcohol but also induces lucid dreaming, great sleep, great sex, no toxicity or upregulation of liver enzymes. It's a very interesting compound. It's actually really catching on in the States as an alcohol alternative and also something people are using as an alternative to both antidepressants and opioids called Amanita. So, still kind of plays on the borders of legality but very interesting content.

Yeah. Mushrooms in Australia are becoming a bigger thing. So, as you know, I microdose psilocybin quite a lot every 3 or 4 days, very small amount, but I just feel it does give me that sense of calm and creativity at a different level. And, As you know, I just had a couple of operations on my hips about 8 weeks ago and I came out when I had that medication and I reckon the 3 best business ideas I've ever had when I was coming out of that lucid, you know, that period of lucidness. And yeah, I think that, you know, there's a really interesting place for psychedelics and, you know, in Australia it is very much, it's becoming part legal. They say it's legal psilocybin for depression use, but it's really not. There's only been about 2 or 3 people actually approved to do it, but I'm hoping that becomes a big thing. It's something we'd love to be able to offer in St. Haven into the future, which just gives people an option for something different. But alcohol-wise, I mean, I still drink tequila. Tequila is the only thing I drink. Um, because I find it as the cleanest and, and I don't like anything that's really downregulating, um, from a nervous system perspective. But for me, you know, if I had one, one or two tequilas a week, that'd be the max I'd be drinking. But yeah, I think it's, yeah, I think it's exciting to have something that is an option to connect men and women together. I think women are probably better at it in Australia. I think men in particular don't have that place to connect and create community that is just so important for men. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, your day sounds absolutely incredible too. And it still sounds like you're getting like 7, 8 hours of work in each day and still family time that with especially that morning family huddle. You're right. Like that is clutch. It's one of the most most fulfilling parts of my day not only because we're a family but we are doing prayer and meditation and devotion and talking about our days. And then, at 6:00 p.m. right now, 1 hour from now, 7:00 p.m., second favorite part of the day. Same thing in the evening. We're all standing around the table singing, praying, chatting. I'm taking my sons through a book chapter and then we're sitting down at dinner. Those bookends are so important too. But, it sounds like you have pretty good balance. Are you pretty happy with the work-family-health balance you have going right now?

I think it's a constant effort, isn't it? Right. It's not, I definitely don't have perfect days. There's days that I'm out, like I'm traveling tonight and traveling tomorrow. That'll, that'll throw it out a bit. But, and you know, Ben, you know, like it's, you know, my health isn't always perfect in terms of my, well, my health is good, but my wellness isn't always perfect. And, you know, our business is big. It's complex. It's highly stressful. It's big numbers. So it's high octane. And interestingly, for the last 18 months, as you know, I've really, really struggled since I had COVID twice. So I got COVID twice October before last, and my HRV, which has always been very high for my age, has steadily declined ever since that. And I've been doing a lot of work with you and others to try to fix that. I mean, we did— we went and did that, you know, Ben introduced me to an incredible blood filter over in Mexico, and that definitely helped sort of stop it dropping and elevate it a little bit. But I think I'm still definitely suffering long COVID without any doubt.

Yeah. And, I find repeatedly with clients, it's one of those moles that keeps popping its head out of different holes and I hit it with one hammer and knock a little bit of it out and then it pops up again and got to hit it with another hammer. Yeah, Long COVID, I mean, it is literally a bitch. The spike proteins are just so hard and the vascular damage to long-term fix in the body. And, as you know, you and I talk about this every single week about different protocols and antioxidants and mitochondrial enhancement and blood filtration. And yeah, it is, it is an uphill battle.

Yeah, I think it's been really interesting, you know, the work we've been doing. And for anyone out there that's looked at the hormone balance stuff, I mean, the— I'm 43, so my testosterone's still mid-level, it's still good, and I'm not, um, doing any supplementation there. But interestingly, I went on DHEA for a period of time because my DHEA was really low, and because of my stress and my cortisol, it actually flipped everything not to testosterone, but to actually estrogen. And estrogen went through the roof. And actually, my fat on my latest DEXA, as you saw, it's actually increased a lot because my estrogen just went out of control. So it's, you know, it's always about finding that balance. We get one thing in it, it might be good for one thing, but it's actually pushing something else up in another area as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Especially from an endocrine standpoint, it's kind of, it makes sense. If you try to optimize hormones and you're dumping in the upstream precursors, if you dump them into the body in an anabolic state, low stress, good sleep, good sex, good relationships, lifting weights, avoiding chronic cardio, sunshine, connection to earth, et cetera, you get this very nice anabolic response. And then, if you put those precursors in, in a stressed-out state, the body kind of flips a 180 and converts it into byproducts you don't necessarily need. In your case, estrogens, for example, it aromatizes. So yeah, it's something a lot of people don't realize. It's almost like hormone replacement therapy or some version of it can paradoxically backfire if you're doing it in a stressed-out state.

Yeah. Another really interesting one for you that we just brought into the clubs is we, we're getting a lot of requests for NAD IVs. So we did a protocol last year with NAD with injections every week, and now we've brought the IVs in as well. What people weren't realizing is a lot of them actually have excess NAD. So we actually test people now prior to doing any IVs or injections for NAD levels, which isn't really done anywhere. And what we found is typically people under 40 actually had very high NAD levels, and then they were oversupplementing and actually causing more exhaustion and more stress on their body.

Yeah, you get basically exhaustion of methylation groups, which you can skirt to a certain extent if you're supplementing with trimethylglycine or SAMe or something like that. But the bigger picture is, you're right, young, healthy individuals, especially people under 40, they don't necessarily need hefty NAD protocols, maybe little bits of niacinamide here and there unless they're super stressed, highly inflamed, pro athlete or something like that in terms of a ton of extra support. But yeah, these are the subtle nuances though that I'm glad you pointed out the fact that if you're not quantifying and you're doing a lot of these protocols, you can be wasting your time or money or doing damage.

Yeah. It's interesting. I was talking to the team yesterday about We've got a guy who's 50 who had gone through a couple of operations, was weighed 130 kilos, body fat of 42%, visceral fat of 180 centimeters, right? Significantly unwell. And over a 7-month period, back pain completely gone. Visceral fat down by about 60%, body fat down into the 20s. Literally is a completely different human being. And someone was saying to me, what extreme measures did you do? And I asked the team, what was the secret? And the secret was actually just very calm, traditional things focused on sleep, getting cortisol down, obviously diet and restriction, getting that into a better place, proper routines of training that actually worked. What we found with him, he was actually overexerting and therefore actually could never get into a fat-burning state. So I think although we have all the gadgets and we have all the tools, we are very focused on making sure those ancient principles really make sense as well.

Yeah, it was described to me by a guy who does this new mitochondrial enhancement or mitochondrial function test called the ME Screen. Fascinating test. They're testing for mitochondrial efficiency and health. He calls it overhacking. He tests a lot of these biohackers and finds that paradoxically, they have almost exhausted mitochondria or inefficient mitochondria because they are doing too much, red light, PMF, oxygen, almost creating excess ROS through this idea of overhacking versus, as you just described, more balanced approach, connection to earth. You're back to the ancestral wisdom thing we opened with, right? Water, sunshine, earth, family, exercise but not too much, et cetera.

It's interesting. We just bought out a guy you've met actually once before, Kalim, which is that HRV guy on Instagram. And he came out to Australia and did 6 weeks with our members and actually out of everything we've done, his course, which is all focused on purpose and self-identity and all the spiritual things you and I talk about a lot, we actually saw more results in HRV through that programming and gratitude and simplifying life and getting connected to spirit. We actually saw better results in HRV outcomes there than we've seen in anything else in the club.

Yeah, that's why, that's why top, top biohack for the HRV, go camping. Tiff, we've mentioned a few times, but I would love to open the kimono here and talk a little bit to people about you and me or St. Haven and me in terms of what the plan for the future is. I'm jumping in, helping you guys out a little bit advising, but what can people expect as far as the work between Gerner Group and Ben Greenfield and our alliance?

Yeah.

And, I think, Ben, you probably don't know how much work we did on you and everyone else out in the world before we actually chose you and gave you a call that day. So one thing we're very particular about is, you know, I get very nervous in the wellness industry. There's a lot of fads, there's a lot of latest tech with no science behind it. You know, obviously NAD is the big thing at the moment. Cold therapy is the big thing at the moment. Doesn't suit everyone, as you know. So we were very careful looking at all the best sort of— I don't want to call you an influencer because I think you're so much more than that. But, you know, the brain power behind how we actually make sure this thing's got efficacy. And you looked at the likes of you and Hugh McIlhenny and all these guys, and what we actually loved about you was this incredible balance of family spirit. I remember listening to you one day and I think the interviewer said, how long do you want to live, Ben? You're trying to live to 120. He said, forget about that. I'm just trying to live my ultimate health today for my family to live the best day. If that means I can live for longer, that's fantastic. And I think that's what really resonated with you is you've got this real reality that we're not just going to say we need to do 6 hours of biohacking a day and bring out all this latest tech. It's about spirit connection to ground and using all the best tech we can when we need it for the right appropriate things. So, it was about a 2-year process before we actually gave you that call. You don't realize that, but we'd spoken to a lot of others that we didn't connect with and we're super excited about the partnership with you. And really the most important thing for us is this isn't a marketing fad that we're creating in Sunhaven. This is a community of people who want to live their ultimate lives and We want to bring the best tech, the best science, the best food, the best training. Even the work with you, Ben, personally, I mean, I feel like I have a pretty good idea on what's out there in terms of training and different ideas and how much I should train. And you flip that on its head for me so that what we've done for the last 6 months, I'm actually training less and probably getting more results. And it's about bringing that real— someone with the amazing obsession, passion, and science that you have into the brand. So it's not just a brand that isn't evolving. We want to constantly evolve and get better and better. And, you know, we don't have a small ambition with this business. It's not about trying to be the biggest and the best, but we want to definitely have as much effect around the world as we can. And I think, you know, by doing that, I do think it will probably be the biggest wellness club offering because these are very, very difficult businesses to run. So if we can have the best ideas, concepts, science from you, feeding in the latest technology, our team are evolving, we're learning what's working every single day, then we can continue to really affect people's lives. So the big focus right now is Dubai, the Middle East, and the United States. So, you know, a lot of people said when we came to the States, don't go to New York first, it's the toughest place to do business. We sort of wanted to take that challenge, to be honest. So We're very close to signing at least 2 locations in New York, which is why I was over there in February this year. So New York is definitely the first focus. Then we have a really good look in San Francisco, LA, subject to how employment laws are a little bit difficult there, as you know. Miami, I was there in February as well. So the US is a really big focus for us now. And then Dubai, as you know, I mean, UAE is going through an insane wellness growth right now. So yeah, that's a big part of our future there too. They're doing some stuff over there. You know, there's obviously a lot, the laws are a little bit more lax over there. So they'll see stem cells, they're pushing very hard. There's all sorts of experimental things that we're sort of watching over there quite carefully, but when they're proven up, we'll bring them into the clubs as well. So that's the club part of it. But Ben, as you know, what's been really interesting for us is the integration of real estate creation and wellness, right? So what the world will soon see is the first wellness longevity precinct that we've done in partnership with you, Ben Greenfield, in the Docklands in Melbourne, which is a 20,000 square meter site on the heart of the CBD of Melbourne where we've got over 1,500 apartments and we're bringing in the first ever biohacking longevity and wellness precinct where every single element of it will be focused in consultation with you on having the best air, the best water, circadian lighting, the best wellness offering in every single touchpoint throughout all the spaces. So that's a really exciting— it's called Elysian Fields, which is a project that we'll be launching in a couple of months. That's one element. The next thing that you and I are having a session on when you come out on is one of our ultra-luxury projects here in South Yarra. We're going to be doing the first ever Saint Haven branded residences. And what that will be, everything you enjoy in the club and all the personalized service will actually be coming into a building of about 200 luxury apartments where you'll wake up in the morning, you'll pick up your iPad, your aura or your health results will be going through the iPad, your blinds will open at the specific time that fits your circadian lighting, the lights will dim, fit your timing based on your biofeedback. Obviously incredible air filtration, water filtration, full club. So, we've got a very big vision for it. So, it's well beyond the clubs. Yeah, yeah.

The idea of the city residences, I mean, it's incredible. It's almost like the future of human living. But again, and I don't want to shove anybody under the bus or anything, but you do get kind of like the the Bryan Johnson-esque approach. And, I love Bryan. I think he's a pioneer doing great things for wellness and biohacking and longevity, but I think sometimes I get a sense that there's also a need for more of an emphasis on family, on sunshine, on the outdoors, on community. And, I could be, of course, interpreting his overall lifestyle incorrectly as he and I haven't hung out a whole lot even though we need to at some point. But this idea of going beyond just like the lonely biohacker huddled up inside of a hyperbaric chamber and delving into residences, communities, cities, and well, I guess as Lifestyle Magazine said, Tim, cults. Exactly. I think it's a very holistic approach. Yeah.

And I think, look, we all know from whether it's the Blue Zones or any scientific study that's been done, community is actually the number one longevity thing. And when you look at Melburnians and, you know, people all the way around the world, we've really lost that sense of community. And I think that's why run clubs are becoming such a big thing. But you can imagine being part of this club where you're walking every single day, the team behind the desk, you know, you know, they know your coffee order, they know your smoothie, they know your best friends, they know your friends in the HIIT studio waiting for you. Even my wife, you know, we're not overly social people and she's now got this amazing group of girls where Every Monday, 9:30, they go in the Pilates, they have their smoothie after, then they catch up, do a bit of Haven Recovery. She's created this amazing sense of community. And for someone like myself, I don't get time to really socialize much. I was in the club this morning and I bumped into a mate. We have a quick coffee and then I'm in a, in a class with another friend. Then I have a smoothie after, bump into another mate. I've seen 3 people that I wouldn't see in 3 or 4 months, and it's able to create this amazing social connection that's just so important. And The next big thing, Ben, also that, you know, you know, we're having a stand to have a good look at is hotels. And, you know, for me, you know, I'll be staying in Sydney tonight and I'll stay in a bed that's uncomfortable. I'll be too hot. The air will be terrible. The light will come in too early in the morning. The water, you can't drink the water because it's shocking. There'll be Wi-Fi everywhere. And how do we create, you know, spaces where when you travel, you actually wake up in the morning feeling great as opposed to, We all just accept that when we stay at a hotel, the next morning when we go to our business meeting, we're going to feel worse, right? Why can't we create a space where it actually feels better to be sitting within a hotel? So, yeah, we think there's huge evolution of the brand, and it's really about making sure we're staying at the forefront of what science is proving.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, this podcast will likely have come out just before I'm over there in Australia with you, Tim. We have some really fantastic events lined up. So, if you're hearing this in June 2025, check out the show notes or any of the social channels from me or Gerner Group because we're going to be doing some talks at the clubs and I'll be over there in Melbourne very soon. So, the show notes are BenGreenfieldLife.com/TimGerner if you want to be a part of that. And, if you're listening to this after June 2025, obviously, plenty that you can get involved in even if you're not in Australia. Obviously, if you're an early adopter, this thing's going to be in the U.S. soon, in Dubai like Tim said, and beyond. So, this is something I'm super excited about. Obviously, any of you who are into biohacking or wellness or a long-time listener to this podcast, you're probably drooling as Tim will walk through what happens when you actually walk into the club and take the secret entrance. So, Tim, I'm super excited. I can't wait to see you in literally what, I think about 2 weeks. I'm stoked to announce the launch of this thing, the launch of our alliance, and really, really cool things coming down the pipeline.

Yeah, same, Ben. We're so excited to have you out, mate. You know, I can tell you there's thousands of people waiting to get you out here. You've been a big brand over here for a long time. And I think, as you know, most of the wellness podcasts, Australia is a very, very big market because we are, although we love a bit of alcohol, we probably try and balance it a bit with the wellness element too. So, Just pumped to get you out here and get to spend lots of quality time and show the world what we can do together.

We'll make it happen, brother. And again, those of you listening in, BenGreenfieldLife.com/TimGurner. Check out the videos and the photos I have there. Check out the links to the Australia tour and everything else. There'll be juicy show notes. Tim, thanks so much, man, and best of luck with your unhealthy Sydney travels, which hopefully will be a thing of the past soon.

They will, baby.

Thanks, Ben. All right, cool. Thanks for listening, everybody.

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