63. Overcome Anxiety, Stress, Loneliness and Become Unshakeable with Kieran Hedley

I'm actually in a technical fasted state, which is why we use the term unfed state. So everyone goes into unfit state when they're sleeping. And if people sleep more than this quote, unquote, average six hours and they don't eat during that time, then they will enter the fastest state. And during that time, that's when the body can undergo this autography, cellular renewal, cellular regeneration. So when you fast for long periods of time, you get more of that good stuff. Right? So that's the idea behind it.

Welcome back to another episode of the Benneberg show with your favorite MBA and high school dropout talking everything, crypto, business and personal growth. And today, I couldn't have thought of a better person to bring on a friend of mine, a fellow. Well, I was gonna say fellow, but we're cousins. He's a kiwi. A kiwi in Tasmania. I think we're cousins.

Close enough. He's an anxiety and performance coach, meditation teacher, and host of the podcast Pocket Coach, where he really hones in on men's specific things around mental health and ties in things with, like, neuroscience and spirituality. He's recently released a new school called the Unshake Unshakable. Unshake.

Unshakability. Yeah, yeah, it's.

Letters right there. Yeah.

Unshakability School focused on helping men essentially, with the symptoms of anxiety. He posted a heap of amazing content on. On Instagram, which I follow. He's got that podcast, as I mentioned. And as someone who, you know, deals with anxiety and stress, you know, I love tuning into his content. And we actually met in Minneapolis in the US at VCon, and we're all v, friends, holders, so I thought it'd be an amazing little conversation to come on. Kieran, thanks very much for joining us, man.

Yeah, thank you for having me, mate. This is an absolute pleasure. Like, real cool how we met. And now we're, you know, sitting here just across the ditch, you know, having a good yarn about anxiety, mental health, mindfulness, all the good stuff, you know, self development, which I know is a big part of what you guys do, so personal development, rather. So, yeah, real pump for this man.

Yeah, amazing, man. Thanks so much for coming on. And yeah, as a lot of our listeners know, Burgs and I are massive fans of personal growth and development and improving, and mental health is a big part of that. And today we're really going to be diving into different strategies around, whether it be, you know, mindfulness meditation, journaling the science behind it. What I love about your insights, Kieran, is you really, like, give not just the. The benefits, but you also sort of talk around the. The reasons why your body might be doing what it's doing. And most of the time I don't really understand the words you're using.

But.

We'Ll break it down, we'll break it down. Yeah. That is an important part, though, because if I just get an understanding of, oh, this is a benefit of doing X, there's no link as to why that's working. And when there's no link, I can't understand the mechanism. Without understanding the mechanism, I can't use it the way that I need it. So that's why I think it's important. For example, like a breathing technique that might be very calming. If someone just understands, oh, this is calming, they might just use it when they maybe get riled up with anxiety, but then they might try to use it when they're actually undergoing panic, which is an extreme level of anxiety. And trying to use a calming breathing technique or when someone's undergoing panic is actually counterproductive. And we can get into that stuff at a later point. But.

I don't know if you've ever seen someone have a panic attack or ever had a panic attack yourself, but if that's ever happened and you've tried to calm your breathing, it's a very counterproductive process. You kind of have to go with it, which is completely opposite to actually using the calming breathing technique. So if you understand at least the mechanism, you can understand, I can use it in these situations, but not these situations. Right. So it's mainly that point, which is what I want to get across.

So panic attacks are actually more common than you think. And even when I talk around with my mates that are in really high management positions, they've got a lot going on and they have a panic attack, come on. And they're like, what the fuck is this? Because they've never experienced it before. And the mechanism is hilarious to me, where you kind of break breathing normally, right? You start to panic, you know, your heart rate goes up and then you start to shallow breathe and then your body's just like, oh, that's fine, I'll just breathe more and I'll be like, yeah, and you're taking in, like, way too much and you're not. You're not holding your breath enough. You're not kind of. It's just. It's a quite a shocking thing when it happens to you and it comes out of nowhere and you have to deal with it. And, mate, I'D love to know, like, if a panic attack comes on, what do you recommend? Like, how do people react to it? How should they deal with that?

Go with it. I'll speak about that in a moment, but I'll just share firstly. This is something that I've experienced a lot in my life is panic attacks. I really suffered anxiety for a big portion of my life. And actually that started with a big period of time where I was depressed. So from depression I went to anxiety with depression. And then of course that triggered me into doing this kind of stuff, right, which has helped me a lot. And then I get to work with other men doing the same. But the panic attacks would randomly just be on set in random situations. I might be walking through them all and I'll just suddenly feel panic. Why am I feeling panic? I feel fine, or I was fine a minute ago, or I might be in a conversation at the time with my partner, or I might have been literally at home where there's nothing around me and all of a sudden just panic attack. It was the most insane, confusing moment of my life. And after some time now that I've done a lot of more of what you would call, I guess, the work, right, I've come to understand in terms of where that was coming from in the first place back then. But it does seem like it comes out of nowhere. But when it does come on, trying to understand it is actually probably most again, a counterproductive thing. Because it's very hard to figure that out when the brain goes into a state of threats, detection and fight or flight. And in doing so, my vision, not just in terms of my ocular vision, so with my eyes, but in terms of my perception as well, in terms of how I'm thinking, becomes very tunnel vision focused. Like I can only see one thing, I can only try find the threat. But how can I find a threat that isn't even around me when I'm at home alone? I can't. It's within me, but I can't process that when I'm in a state of panic. So actually the best thing to do is to help myself to regulate my system first. So one of the best methods to do that, from my experience with undergoing my own panic attacks in the past, and then also with how I've coached people through this as well, is to actually enhance your breath, not calm it. Because the physiological response of hyperventilation, right, is from a demand of oxygen. And because I'm not able to get the oxygen in because I've had a Collapse of certain. I hate using names too much, but there's these alveoli, which sounds like aioli.

That's what I remember it.

Which are in your lungs is you've literally got. I think it's like millions. I can't remember the exact count, but if you were to spread them out all along the ground, they'd fill out the size of a tennis court. That's how many of these alveoli in your lungs you have. So many. And what these are responsible for is when you breathe in, it's converting the oxygen into. Sorry, it's taking the oxygen from your lungs and pulling it into your bloodstream. And then when that oxygen is converted into CO2, is pulling the CO2 out from your bloodstream into your lungs so that when you exhale, you're exhaling the CO2. Right. So that's what these are responsible for. Now, when you undergo stress, they collapse. Right. And when they collapse, it makes it very hard because the body's trying to retain CO2, which is why it collapses, but makes it hard to take in the oxygen that your body's demanding. So it thinks it doesn't have any oxygen. So it's like right now, the best way to counter that is actually to enhance my breathing, like I said, not calming it, because I'm trying to give it more of that oxygen and I'm trying to reinflate these, what we call these, or re. Instigate these alveoli and reinitiate them. And to enhance my breathing, or to do a double inhale.

Which is called a physiological sigh, can stimulate the opening of these alveoli. Aioli. Yeah. So you can basically. So I'll just stay, say, just to summarize it, if you do undergo panic.

Deep breathe with a strong inhalation through the mouth is usually better because you've got bigger mouth than you do or nose.

And just do that a few times over, sit up straight because it gives you a feeling of empowerment. And then revert once you've done a few inhales. Once you feel like you're getting control to a double inhale through the nose or the mouth is okay.

And just do that a few times and then you can start calming your breath. But if you go through that process and if you just remember to deeply inhale, if, like, there's anything that you remember, just deeply inhale. From the moment you start to undergo panic, you'll find that you'll start to regain control of your breathing, which will make you to feel like you're more in control and therefore help you to feel safe and therefore reduce the amount of turmoil your nervous system's undergoing.

Yeah, mate, what a great tip. I actually went to a talk on this as well, and what you said is great. And I'll add one thing. So if this happens to you for the first time, you're going to be overwhelmed, right. And it's a very unnerving experience. And if you're very, very unsure, do the tips you just heard. But one other thing I can give you for safety is. And if you're really not sure, literally sit with your back against a wall because you can pass out from this, right? Like, it can be quite overwhelming. So you don't want to be sitting up or standing up. So do that and do the breathing techniques and get yourself back on track.

Yeah, no, that's beautifully, mate. Exactly, exactly. Yeah.

And. And mate, before the show, you just. Mate, you're an absolute animal. So you're currently fasting, right?

Yeah, but not too far in at the moment, but yes, yes.

Yeah, not too far. And, mate, can you maybe take us through why you decided to do this, how you're doing it and what the benefits are of fasting?

Oh, mate, there's a list of benefits, but there's also a list of risks as well, right? And we can't talk about benefits without risks. I think it's important, like, to your point, around the breathing, right? There's a risk of, like, to your point, of passing out. So very important to. To your point, sit down, support yourself. So fasting, because yesterday morning I woke up with this buildup of what's called lymphatic fluid. So your lymphatic system doesn't have a pump like your heart does to your vascular system, which means it requires movement and also other things to actually help push this fluid, which is like a bacteria, inflammation and things through the body. So you can eliminate this stuff right now. I got sick about three or four days ago. I stupidly got into a sauna with a friend of mine who I knew was also sick. Well, I wasn't sick at the time, but now I am. I know why. And.

So as of yesterday morning, I started to feel this, like, pressure build up underneath my. The. My right ribs. And I still did my. Running my ice bath, everything I'd normally do, which was helpful because I was able to get through my day just as I normally would, even though I was more fatigued and I was technically sick, which would have previously, in my old days, been a day where it's been in bed. So what's awesome about that is it just goes to show the potential of the human body when you give it the right things, right? But that aside, what happened is the fluid moved down to my lower abdomen, lower part of my stomach on my right side still, and it was quite tender. I'm like, oh, man, I really obviously need to get rid of this. So I needed to look into ways to flush it. And one way that I knew to flush lymphatic fluid is to fast because it decreases inflammation, which reduces often a enlargement lymph node that might be maybe causing congestion of lymphatic fluid. So fasting can reduce the inflammation. I took some turmeric with black pepper this morning and also apparently I didn't know this until this morning because I love looking at this stuff, right? Medium chain triglycerides, so things like coconut oil and all that sort of stuff can as well help to drain your lymphatic system. I'm doing a lymphatic massage this afternoon, doing a sauna, all the good stuff. But fasting for that and then benefits for fasting, that's one of them. Another is, of course, autography. Autography is like cellular regeneration and renewal. So ultimately, when you fast, or in a fasted state, or what is more technical is called an unfit state. So state when you're not during a fed state, because when you feed, go eat a meal, right, it takes a while, not just for that food to go down into your stomach, but then also to digest and then empty it from your stomach into your gastric system into your sorry digestive tract and. And things like that. But ultimately, if I'm eating a meal, it's not until usually they say six hours, give or take, depending on the meal, how much I eat, that I'm actually in a technical fasted state, which is why we use the term unfed state. So everyone goes into an unfit state when they're sleeping. And if people sleep more than this quote, unquote average six hours and they don't eat during that time, then they went to fastest state. And during that time, that's when the body can undergo this autography, cellular renewal, cellular regeneration. So when you fast for long periods of time, you get more of that good stuff, right? So that's the idea behind it. But there's also other things like it can increase something in your brain called. Oh, God, I cannot enter the name, sorry, mate, but kynurenine acid. It's basically an acid that I don't know enough about to Be honest. But what I do know of is that a certain amount of it can create certain beneficial things for the brain's chemistry. But too much of it can be negative, which is why I find if I'm in a fasted state too long, I start to get really clouded in my brain. That can be partly due to a lack of sodium, which is why I'm putting salt in my water during my fast. But also as well, it can be the fact that as well, too much of this kyreneuronic acid in my brain as well can lead to that. So it's just, yeah, a play of things. But I reckon it's important to be safe with it in the ways where if you start to feel dizzy or faint, stop your fast, break it. If you start to, again, get that lack of mental clarity and you just can't think properly or see properly, which can happen, for one thing. Definitely start putting a little bit of sea salt or Himalayan salt or something into your water just to make sure that you're getting some sodium. In other words, you're just flushing out all your nutrients. Because when you're fasted, of course, you're not getting in any of these sodium, any sodium for food or anything like that, which is essential for your nervous system to operate efficiently. And I know it's a long spiel, but ultimately, just to tie that up. Yeah, it's important to bear witness to your symptoms in terms of when you start to not feel good and to break your fast if that's the case. And you can build up your tolerance for fasting as well over time. So these are all important things to consider.

Mate, I love the process you've gone through where you're like, okay, I've got fluid retention. How did this happen? Right? I was in a sauna. Old mate was sick. Bastard got me sick. Okay, what can I do for this? You see a lymphatic system, something to do with your lymph nodes. Right? I need to move this around. So what can I do? I can fast. I can have natural anti inflammatories and, you know, it's. It's just so good. It's like troubleshooting the own challenge, your own challenges.

That's the idea. Yeah. Like I've been through when I was younger, when I was 21 years old, I abused testosterone, for example. That messed up my hormonal system in terms of my testosterone dropped because I ended up getting some fake stuff during a cycle, which then boosted my estrogen, which then also boosted my thyroid. So I Was hyperthyroid and also.

A rate. An array of other things as well went wrong with my body, which just caused like constant napping need through the day. It caused like brain fog ongoing. It just caused so many issues that also triggered depression or re. Triggered depression for me for a while. And to fix that, I had to learn so much about my own body, of course, as you can imagine, to try move away from that, I worked with an endocrinologist as well, who helped me to get my testosterone back on track. And then about three or four years later, I got hit with actually a bout of chronic fatigue. That wasn't because I abused testosterone, because as you can imagine, I never touch that stuff again after 21. Screw that. But just actually I should highlight there are doctors that will get you onto testosterone replacement therapy. I think that's a great thing if it's needed. So if you do know that your testosterone is low, that is an option. But yeah, I'm not a doctor, by the way. Just should point that out now. When I went through that chronic fatigue phase, I furthered my knowledge. And then of course, I got my concussion from a car crash about 10, 11 weeks ago. So that's another. This is my fourth concussion now. So this is another, like, recovery phase I'm going through. And every time I'm going through a new recovery phase, which seems to keep happening to me, I of course, want to further my knowledge and understand a little bit more in terms of what's going on so I can fix it as soon as possible and then hopefully be able to help others as well if I can.

You know, I really like this because you've. It's almost like a forcing function where these things have happened to you pretty much, and you go to like. Well, it's similar story to me where you go to like general medicine and you're like, they'll try and fix a minute problem. It can create more problems. You want to learn more about it because you want to get back on track. And they happen more and more throughout your life. And we honestly just need this knowledge as preventative. Right. Like as Ben's taking selfies, he can't help himself.

See me that later.

Yeah.

We need this knowledge as just like to be preventative before these things actually happen. I'm just wondering, like, you've created this entire business and gone down this path. Was this spurred on by the events and challenges that you had in your life previously?

That's a great question, man. A couple of things spurred me on. One is that exactly so you nailed one of the nails right there. The other nail is the fact that my friend who suffered anxiety took his own life back in. When was this? 2017. And I didn't know it was going to happen. It was unexpected from my point of view and I was even meant to catch up with them. Like we'd actually been messaging like a few days earlier. But because I'd only moved back to New Zealand at the time from Melbourne, I was trying to get my personal training business at the time up and running because I was a personal trainer then. And yeah, I was just overwhelmed with all this new stuff happening in my life. So I was like, not really putting that as an urgent matter in terms of catching up with my friend Caleb. And in short, you know, got them, got a call from some mutual friends a few days later and taken his life. Of course, you know, really sad moment for me. But it also as well was an inspiring moment for me in terms of the gift that he gave me, which is inspiration to not just be more open about mental health conversations, which at the time was pretty much non existent. I just started speaking about my like the fact that I suffered depression because at the time anxiety hadn't really triggered properly for me then, even though I'd had a couple of panic attacks. But it wasn't upfront for me. I didn't know that was the case at the moment, at the time. And I just started being blatant about what I was struggling with and people were really put off by it. Like I'd just share it very openly and you know, like, oh man, it's been a rough day when they asked me how I was, you know, I've been a bit depressed today and they'd be quite almost taken back because it just used to be me saying, yeah, I'm all good.

So they know how to like, I guess, approach that. And I wasn't expecting empathy, but I just wanted to be real and honest. Because Caleb was unfortunately not real and honest, you know, enough it seems, you know, that to the point where.

Actually, no, I take that back. He was real and honest enough to actually share when he was struggling. But I guess my problem was the fact that.

I didn't. There was like a disconnect. So it was open, but I never got to an opportunity to go and sit down with him when those moments came up, unfortunately. So ultimately I thought by being more open about my issues and my challenges, that hopefully it would inspire others to do the same and that these conversations will become more normal rather than off putting so that was another big reason why I went down that path. And of course, as you can imagine, the more I went down that path, the more inspired I became about helping people that also suffered from anxiety because I became one of them very soon after.

I love it, man. And I think like everyone in some way, shape or form probably suffers with something or struggles with something. And especially men, I think we're not great at talking about our feelings and emotions and you know, we try and hide it or try and get on with it and try and fix it ourselves. You know, I want to. You're very knowledgeable in a bunch of different areas. I know, you know, you're meditating, you do, you do ice baths, you know, you're doing breathing, you know, you know all the science behind it. Like you, you're obviously like super switched on across all of these different areas. Let's like look at the, the layman's person, right? Let's look at me for example. So I am trying to optimize for happiness overall, like energy.

De stressing, you know, moving through anxiety and sort of social settings. A bit of an introverted heart. You know, the things I've worked on recently primarily is like eating healthier and, and going to the gym.

Right.

There's sort of two and sleep.

Right.

We know that's sort of core importance. Where would you point someone to start with in like all these other things that you've got going on, whether it be as I said, you know, the, the ice pass meditation. I meditate as well, I journal. Like, I feel as though like I'm doing a range of things. But what, what do you think is like the biggest thing or biggest few things that you know, you've seen make the biggest impact for someone? That's like, I want to make a difference in my life, I want to get better. Where do I start?

Let's keep it simple. To your point, I think this is a great question, a needed question, especially after like the beautiful things we've been talking about so far. But can it like to your point, be overwhelming? So keeping it simple, the main four things is sleep, food, nature, exercise. I say nature because people don't realize how tied your genes are actually to the cycles of the sun, for example, light exposure, when light's not available, in terms of your body temperature itself, in terms of the way it fluctuates with the 24 hour clock, of the way that the world spins as well. So 80% of your genes are actually called, what are titled, what are called clock genesis, meaning they operate and are influenced by your circadian rhythm. So they turn on and off based on that. And your circadian rhythm is your 24 hour body clock. Essentially, circa means day. So circadian rhythm as the sort of the day rhythm of your body. And when you are aligned with sort of like when the sun's coming up, you're sort of waking up around that time, you're getting good light exposure through your eyes. That'll send the right signals to parts of your brain that will say, hey, it's time to. Time to wake up, Kez, you know, like I call myself Kiss. Just for ease and let's get going. Let's secrete some nice cortisol and adrenaline and dopamine into the brain and into the body so we can get you moving forward. And then when you see the colors of sort of that sunset color where it's like orangey red, yellow, blue, that contrast of colors actually sends signals to the brain. If this is the evening time, that is because it sends a different signal if you're looking at this kind of light in the morning. The two, hey, it's time to start winding down. Let's secrete some melatonin, let's secrete some more adenosine, which is sleep hunger. And it will help me to start to feel tired and ready for bed. Right. So these kinds of things are very important actually that also tie into overall well being. So to start with sleep, if you can optimize your sleep, which actually ties into optimizing your contact with nature, which just means grounding more often. So touching nature in some way where it's barefoot on the grass or I don't like, you know, see the tree hug is out there. You don't need to go do this shit like that. At the very least, getting in contact with the planet in some way, whether it's in sea water or whether it's touching grass, is actually a physiological response where information comes down. There's an interesting thing which I don't understand enough about, to be honest, but there's an exchange of electrodes that occurs between the body and the planet. When you get in physical touch with the planet, which helps the body to reduce inflammation, that's sort of what triggers it.

But that's funny, kids. Just quickly, like, that's super funny because, like, you know, you're a kiwi. I'm from Tasmania. Like we grew up, you know, the cheesy sounds on grass. Yeah, that's all. Like in Launceston, you literally are not allowed to build a building Higher than three stories. Like there was one guy that tried and everyone like the, the council like shut it down. Like there's just not. It's not allowed to be like commercial in Tasmania. It's all grass and like there's something about going to the beach or going to the park or just going like in nature that just like. Or camping. Right. There's something about that when you're just out in nature that's just like relaxing and you feel de stressed and you sort of forget about all the worries of the world. It's funny that there's genuinely like a sort of science behind that.

There really is also as well the, the way that your. The oxygen ions charge differently. They negatively charge in such a way where when you breathe in these oxygen ions, which are. Which happens when water sort of clashes to waves from the water or water falls itself. If you've ever breathed around a waterfall, it feels fresher. It's the reason why is because these ions, oxygen ions are negatively charged or even they. I've read some science articles that said super negatively charged, which is very unscience. Anyway. It's based on the, the friction that's occurring during the sort of flow of water. And when you breathe in these, these oxygen ions, just by inhaling around that type of water when it's moving a river or anything like this, you'll feel very fueled in terms of oxygen and some doctors have even titled it as a natural antidepressant. When you spend time around waterfalls or rivers or like flowing rivers or waves or things like that, just because of the way that when you breathe in these negatively charged oxygen ions. God, that's a mouthful.

It can help. I don't know the connection enough because this is while I read this article, but I know that there's a connection to serotonin, which depression partly by definition is a lack of or insufficient amount of serotonin or capability to utilize enough serotonin. And this is one way that you can enhance that. But just to that point that's only a portion of it, right? Is just get yourself in touch with nature once a day. If you can do some deep breathing once a day, if you can exercise three or four times a week, if you can eat the best you can and sleep the best you can. That's literally like the basics. The stuff that if everyone's doing to the best of their ability with what they have, I think everyone in general would be better off anyway. And that should be the basics that people should focus on and they shouldn't Even look at all this crazy fasting stuff and all this other stuff until they just get the basics sorted. That's my opinion anyway.

I love that as you're talking, I was getting this imagery and thinking through what I do in nature. And the things for me are. Is cold water from just in general, but mainly nature or breathing in forests. So probably a month ago, I was going really hard at work, it was about 8pm And I'd absolutely crack the shits. I'm like this, everyone. You're all pieces of.

Bank you get. So I went to the beach, right? 8pm, went to the beach. And there's just something about breathing in the air, putting my feet in the cold water, hearing the waves crash, that in five minutes I was already calm and it was unbelievable. Or even when I go outside every morning, water the plants, I'll be wearing thongs and I'll just put water on my feet. And then when I walk over the grass, I'll take the thongs off and I'll walk across. Or I live quite close to the hills, so I'll go for a walk up there. And just after, like 20 minutes of just breathing in, listening to the sounds, or going for a walk without my phone, or not listening to a podcast just resets everything for me and it lasts for days. It's absolutely incredible.

That's incredible. And I totally relate, mate, I really do. I used to, when I was really suffering at the peak of my depression anxiety period, which lasted a few years, I would go to waterfalls nearly every single week. Not sort of knowing any of this stuff, by the way, just based on the fact that I'd always felt better after spending some time at a waterfall doing some weird warrior where I just like yell under a waterfall. Because it just felt so good. But it's actually what I didn't realize is a form of somatic therapy, which is another form of therapy. And then I'd meditate for about 40 to 50 to 60 minutes. And then I'd just feel amazing in that, to your point, like, would just reset me for like an entire week and I'd just. And I'd feel off if I didn't do that every week at that point in my life anyway, like now it's not required. But yeah, it's just such a beautiful.

Thing to bring into one's routine, you know. And like, just finding the ways that work for you, I think is so important.

And you have a cracking photo on your website as well of you, like, near a waterfall, just looking Zen af, mate. Just meditating. You look at fit, it looks amazing. I'm like, I need more of that in my life.

Yeah, it's a vibe, mate. Switzerland, mate. That's where all the good stuff is. Or south island of New Zealand has some good stuff as well. I've seen from what I've seen, yeah, I almost waterfall hunting, mate. Whenever I go to a new place, Bali is another great one. But whenever I get a new place, I'm like searching frantically for like the closest waterfalls just because I enjoy being around them.

Yeah, because I want to dive into, like the science behind meditating. You know, I've been burgs, I've been in meditation. I've been meditating for five, six years now. It's a core part of my day. Every morning I've done a Vedic meditation course. Apps I've done on my own. Bunch different stuff. I find now it's just a bit of peace and quiet in the morning where I can sort of think and reflect and sort of let everything air out. What's going on in your brain when you're sitting down, whether it be deep breathing or meditating, like for, you know, for a period of time, what is it doing to your brain and what are the benefits of it?

So it depends what way you're meditating. So, for example, if you're doing some form of focus meditation, it will certainly trigger stimulation in your prefrontal cortex. So the big meaty part of your brain at the front that's essential for planning and acting on plans, or also as well, processing a massive amount of information as well. So as you stimulate this, because of the fact that you may be focusing on your breathing or you're focusing on a body scan or whatnot, this will stimulate strong activity there. Now what starts to happen as well during meditation is most meditations, unless you're trying to process some form of trauma, will downregulate, which basically means to decrease activity of activity in what's called your amygdala. So you guys might have heard of this, but I don't know if everyone on this who's listening might have. But amygdala comes after the word almond in Latin, just because it's the size and shape of an almond in your brain. So what this does is it's actually titled your threat detection center. So when you're out in the woods and you see a tiger, not saying anyone here has, but it will trigger right when you're going through a breakup, it'll trigger when you're thinking about having a difficult Conversation, it will trigger when you, when you suddenly get like panic ongoing and it's just on set randomly, it'll trigger. Right. So the amygdala is designed to detect threats and to then trigger secretion of adrenaline from your brain stem into your brain and body and to then send you into a fight or flight state. So you can react accordingly based on whatever you're conditioned to do in that moment. So for example, back in the day when I was struggling with anxiety, my reaction to scary situations was to react with anxiety and to react with panic. But then you can recondition that over time. Right, but what meditation does is if I'm sitting there for a good amount of time, my brain starts to recognize it's safe. Even something as simple as just following the breath or even reconsider. Oh man, my brain's not working 100 right now. Reconsolid. Can you say that? Re. Reconsolate. Ah, it's not coming, man, it's not coming. I'm just gonna ditch that word. But yeah, yeah, reconsolid. Oh God, no, it's not saying. I know the word in my mind, it's just not connecting. It's my fast mate. I get it. But anyway, that word aside, it's allowing me to, in whatever sense I'm doing that meditation, other than the trauma focused meditation, it'll reduce activity in this amygdala, the threat detection center, and therefore allow me to decrease the amount of adrenaline and cortisol, your stress hormone, in the body, which will give me a calmer state. So if I take this state, which ideally meditation is done in the morning, it doesn't have to be, but it will set me up as well to manage then and to take on more stressful situations more easily because I now have a greater capacity purely because of the fact that I've got a decreased activity amygdala, which then puts me in a situation where I'm less reactive because I'm less in a stress state to go about my day. Which is why meditation in the morning can be very, very helpful. So this is just some of the basics behind meditation. Of course, there's so many other ways to approach it. I mean.

Like I mentioned earlier, the whole trauma focused meditation, which would do something completely different, which would really trigger your amygdala. But the purpose is to actually give yourself an opportunity to process it, which is just a whole nother conversation. But yeah, hopefully. That is insightful.

That's epic, man. It's so much, it makes so much sense. I mean, like for me, like if I'm not meditating in the morning and I just bow into the day, I'm cloudy. I'm not really being able to manage, you know, things that pop up and challenges and stresses of every day. So like it makes total sense. One thing I'm trying to implement is like a end, like afternoon sort of reset because I find by the end of the afternoon there's been so much stimulation throughout the day. Day you sort of get that brain fog and then I can't really concentrate in the afternoon where I found if I take even a five, ten minute sort of just quick reset, it just allows the brain to sort of like, like flush out all the, all the crap and sort of start again. Yeah, it's a, it's an amazing way to enhance performance.

Yeah, I know. Absolutely. Absolutely. And also the word I was looking for was reconcile. And I can't like in the point reconsolidate like something like that. Anyway, you get my point. That was the word I was looking at. Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, may not want to take a bit of a different direction because you and I were sort of on a similar path when we met up in, in Minneapolis. You then moved to. And I forget where it was. In Italy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you were on this, you know, sort of self discovery journey. Still on that. I feel as though like we're all going through that in different ways or form. So I really loved watching your content around. Like you were just in the middle of Italy.

So when we caught up as well.

I remember that it was, yeah, not giving a fuck, like just doing your thing on your own. I was like. And I've been doing that now for like the last, you know, six or so months. I want to like dig into what it's like for you traveling alone. What are the things that you've, your challenges you face when. When spending time on your own in another country. What are the benefits of that? And just like I know you're back in New Zealand the moment.

What's next for you?

Like what, what do you love about just being on your own, man, and doing your own thing?

There's a lot there, man. So I'll answer the aloneness part first because that actually is the reason why I continue to.

Be open to, you know, moving to different places. I, when depressed, really suffered loneliness regardless of whether I was on my own or whether I was with other people. And loneliness by definition is the emotion or the feeling that one has rather than actually the situation because that's more aloneness. So I can be alone or with people and feel loneliness. And I would experience this constantly just based on the fact that I didn't feel a sense of connection. I didn't feel heard, I didn't feel seen, not just by others and those around me, but I reacted to that in a way where I couldn't then see and hear myself. Now, this sounds very. Almost like woo woo, like in the way I say that. But the point is, what ended up actually shifting this for me, because loneliness is actually a strong symptom that is experienced by those that are depressed as well. Like, there's a strong connection. So if those that are listening to this and I'm like, I suffer loneliness constantly, that could be a symptom for sure. Like, it's something to look into for sure. But.

I started spending more time alone to overcome this. Because I realized, all right, the thing that I'm afraid of, I need to expose myself to that thing in order to be okay with that thing. So that therefore, I no longer get anxiety. But about what if I get this thing right? So I realized a lot of my anxiety in relationships, for example, was coming from my fear of loneliness because I hated feeling that way, obviously, as most people do, right? But then over time, I learned to experience loneliness and aloneness. So being alone, feeling lonely, and learning to be okay by meditating on it, funnily enough, right? And by spending more time in meditation, spending that time there with loneliness. I was practicing what's called exposure therapy, same way as the way I overcame my fear of heights by climbing a tree, then climbing a mountain and bungee jumping and skydiving, doing all the crazy things, but practicing exposing myself to those things in a sort of incremental way, which is in a way aligned with a beautiful practice called sud, for short, or subjective units of distress. So it's undergoing what is your sort of max level distress of whatever that is. So mine was like loneliness or being alone always, no one liking me, blah, blah, blah, right? It's 100. And then zero would be like, everyone loves me. I'm respected as hell. You know, I'm always with people, blah, blah, right? And then what is like a 10, then what is a 20? What is a 30? And working my way up to that 100 with the heights, it was like climbing a tree was like, you know, 10 or 20 or something. And then like, you know, bungee jumping was way up at like 60 or 70, and skydiving for me was like 100. It was my worst fear ever. Right? So the point is I worked my way up through those subjective units of distress, allowing me to slowly expose exposure therapy to myself, to those things. So when I'd spend more time alone, firstly just by doing self trips, like solo trips just away in New Zealand, like I'd already spent some time in Australia when I was studying and so forth. So it's been some time alone there. But it was a little less conscious in terms of the way I did it. But this was more conscious. And then over time that developed into me, you know, going overseas. Initially I went overseas trying to run away from my problems, but in running away from my problems, I was head on with them again. When I was in Quebec at the time, in Canada, and then I made my move to Bali just because I'd heard so many good things about it. It looks like a cool self development place, right? And a lot of digital nomads were there, so I thought, oh, I'd feel less lonely here, right. I made my way there and that's when like I started to really delve deeper into my meditation and more into like the spirituality kind of thing that I was really resistant to because the word chakra freaked the out of me. Right the other way. But you know, I opened myself up to it and learned a lot about like breath, work and all these other things and spent a lot more time alone and then eventually went into extreme aloneness and a practice called vipassana, which is 10 days of silence, 100 hours of meditation. In those 10 days, we're not talking to anyone, you're not looking at anyone in the eye. You don't have a book you're not allowed to read, you're not writing nothing, just purely meditating for those, you know, 10 days essentially over the course of 100 hours within those 10 days. And I'm doing my second one soon. So in terms of next steps. But these are like ways that I like to face that sort of feeling fear of loneliness, to then not suffer that fear. In relationships when someone is perceptively, from my perception, they're probably not even intending it. In fact, it's very unlikely they are. But they might be like say doing something like I'm in a relationship with a girl and they're talking to a guy. In the past I got really jealous because it's like, oh, they might leave me for this guy because he might be better than me. But that was based on the fear of if they leave me, I'll feel lonely. And when I overcame, or still overcoming, I should say, but overcame the majority of that Fear. Right. By spending more time in that, it made me less anxious about the what if this happens? And that leads me to that feeling which ties me into this last point, which is we're not really afraid of the thing. It's the feeling that we're afraid of. When you get on a skateboard, you're not afraid of the skateboard. You're afraid of falling off the skateboard and it damn well hurting. Right. So if you were to then cater to the pain point of falling off the skateboard, which is if I wear like a juggernaut suit, which is like that marshmallow suit. Right. And you fall off and it doesn't hurt. It's like, oh, I'm no longer afraid of skateboarding. Why not? Because a skateboard became friends with you. Right. It's because all of a sudden you were content with the idea that falling off wouldn't hurt. So all of a sudden, if I'm no longer afraid of the end point of the pain, which is if I'm no longer afraid of loneliness because I faced it, I've become okay and content with the idea of it, which doesn't take away from my desire to create relationships, by the way, but it allows me then to not ruminate as much on, oh, if they leave me, then I will feel this loneliness, and then I get anxious, and then I become possessive, which is what happened in the past for me. Right. And allows me to alleviate those symptoms and then also reduce how intense that anxiousness around that is. But I know that sort of veered off a bit, but. Yeah, hopefully.

No, that's amazing. I love the exposure therapy. And was it subjective units of distress? That's. That's like, I'm going to use that because that. That is amazing. And, you know, incrementally exposing yourself to something and just the way you were talking about being alone, and it's the worst thing, and it's so true that things are, for me, at least almost 100 of the time, worse in my head than they are in reality. And when you start to worry about that, you end up, like, suffering twice, which is like the dumbest thing. And Ben always seems, say, it's like things are never as good or as bad as you think.

Yeah.

And I'm really just wondering, man, like, you've. So aloneness was. Or feeling lonely is a really difficult thing. And it was the most challenging thing that you had, and you kind of went up that ladder and you started to go through and expose yourself to it and I guess become more comfortable with it and notice your reaction to it. And then you go on kind of to the extreme with, like, Vipassana. And Yeah, you know, 10 days silent meditation, which I could imagine is just incredibly difficult but rewarding. And I'm wondering, like, all this nomading, like, that would be a very fearful thing for you in the past. Have you actually come to enjoy it and seek it out now?

I have, yeah. There's an. It's interesting because I've found so much, as you pointed out, comfort because it's. Firstly, it's got to be safe, which will give me comfort. So that's the interesting thing about exposure. It allows me to start to learn how to see that, oh, this is safe, which then brings a feeling of comfort. But the cost to that is that because I became more comfortable in aloneness, I started to veer away from relationships a little bit more and even, especially deep relationships because it's like, oh, wow, there can be so much turmoil here. Why would I get into, like, a deep relationship? Right. So that's what started to happen. And then now I've just found a balance with that. But, yeah, to your point. Absolutely. Sorry, what was the exact question with that?

Yeah, so loneliness was something that you were kind of.

You know, avoiding and you didn't want to feel it. But then you did exposure therapy and then you went, like, right to the extreme, like traveling and nomading.

That's right.

And I'm just wondering, like, he's nomading after you've gone through all that exposure actually something that you like and enjoy, or is it more of just a kind of, you know, practice to keep yourself, you know, mentally fit? Yeah, the loneliness challenges that you have.

Yeah, it's both, mate. Yeah. So, like, as I mentioned, I'm definitely. I feel comfortable there now. It's finding that balance. But at the same time, yeah, I do find myself enjoying the aloneness. Like, I'm excited for Vipassana, even though my last vipassana was literally even though all these other physical things have happened, you know, like in terms of death or biological issues, you know, like health issues. That Vipassana was in 2021, at the very start of the year, was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Just because of the fact that after all these, like, years of meditating and, like, sort of working through stuff, I'd never been able to actually have true time to sit with these things long enough to unpack the deeper things or the deeper reasons why these were there in the first place. Like There was like a deeper thing that was there and I was able to finally actually sit with that. And it became so difficult because I experienced it on day three. I'm like, holy shit, I've got another seven freaking days of being exposed to this with no distractions, right? No music, no anime. I love my anime. No people, right? Nothing. Not even like some delicious food. Like the food was decent, but it's not amazing, you know, So I couldn't distract myself. And it was a very scary thing and it was very overwhelming. There were many moments when my mind was, you know, talking to me, saying, come on, Kieran, just get out of here. You know, it's okay. You've done enough like these kinds of things, Ryan, you just. I just overcame those thoughts. But I'm as you mentioned, it was the most rewarding thing I've ever done as well because of the fact that it was the most challenging. So that's why I'm excited for this partner as well. For sure.

It's fascinating where we don't allow ourselves time to just sit and do nothing and allow those thoughts to surface. It's always, I have to be here, I have to work, I have to do this thing or be with my friends. It's always distraction. Have to be on my phone.

And that's.

I can imagine it's an incredibly challenging thing to do. And my sister in law went on one of these. She actually went away to a place to do it. Is that what you do?

That's right, yeah. So there's actually.

Can you talk us through the days, like the setup and how it actually works? What happened? Yeah, what happened?

Yeah, so you can go on to. It's literally the easiest thing to access once you know about it. If you go to. I think it's dharma.org so it'S-H-A-R m a.org I think if I remember correctly.

I'll find. Yeah, no, so it's not that exactly, but I believe it's. I can send you the link and then you can go. Yeah, we'll put in the show notes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway it's. If you literally just searched Vipassana anyway, which is V I P A N. God, my brain's not working. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, then you'll be able to find it. Anyway, the. There are thousands from my understanding or at least a thousand. Anyway from. For passing the centers all through the world. There's one just north of Auckland where we are. I think there's like four or five in Australia. But they're everywhere. And these centers are actually free to go to. What if you can get a slot that is, which is completely free by the way, to do so as well. And how it works is. And the reason why I'll talk about the history briefly and then I'll talk about the actual practice. But the history is that the Buddha, Gautama Siddharthra, which is his actual name, then got called the Buddha, even though there's been thousands of other Buddhas before him and after him, which essentially just means Buddha. Buddha is mind and Da is above. So meaning he's transcended his mind. And then Buddha is anyone that's sort of living as a slave of their mind. Right. So essentially when someone becomes a Buddha or gets called a Buddha, it's because they've transcended their mind or become liberated. And Dharma, which is the word I used earlier, is sort of the gift of liberation. And he wants to give Dharma to as many people as possible. And this is 2,600 years ago when he lived. You can sort of research his history. It's real interesting. And he uncovered this practice that he called Vipassana. And so he started taking people in for 10 days at a time into the center. And he would teach them meditation and a certain style of meditation, the Vipass meditation. And it's very simple, it's actually very straightforward. But it's just the fact that you're exposed to meditativeness or insight for such a prolonged period of time with the focus of building an ability to focus and then also an ability to unpack. And through those two simple abilities that you're building, you're learning how to then also become non reactive. So in the ability to be non reactive to my sensations, which is essentially the goal of the whole practice, then I now become capable of being, quote, unquote, liberated from my mind. Because when my mind tells me something, I'm like, ah, that's okay, you can do your thing. I don't need to be phased by you. Right. That's the sort of response that I get to develop through this practice we call Vipassana. And that's the, that's the sort of idea behind the practice. But how it works is you sort of go along, you do these 10 days if you complete it and you got something out of it. So you can donate money and that's how they keep the, the centers going and things like that. So some people donate a lot, some people donate.

Are you like sitting in a room?

Yep.

Are you like sitting? Is this like dark, pitch black for a week. Like, are you sitting on the floor?

Talk us through step by step. You walk up, you just drop. What happens?

Yep. And then they introduce you to people and things like that. So you're still talking then. And then I think it's around like 5pm or 6pm after you've eaten some food, they go, okay, cool. No talking starts now. Now it's like, you know, 10 days of no talking and you're not looking at anyone in the eye. The only person you can look in the eye is the teacher or the assistant teacher and that's it. And the men are divided into like one like area and then the woman are divided into another. So there's no distractions. Right, that's the idea.

Is it just like one room where you have your own sleeping areas or.

So the eating rooms are separate with the men and women. You've got your own, what they call a cell, which is your own sleeping room. And the reason why they call it a cell is quite literally that's what it was turned back then because it would just be like the small room, which it is, is literally like in terms of the size, how long was it? I think it's only like 5 meters long, like 3 meters wide. This tiny little room. It's got like a single bed on it, it's got a few shelves. It's only five meters long, maybe like three or four meters long. And it's this tiny little room and you're sleeping on a single bed. You meditate there a lot because there's times when you're meditating on your own if you want to, or you can optionally use the meditation hall. Now the meditation hall is somewhere where everyone gathers, even the woman, men and women together, and we get guided through the practice. So every time they're sort of going through a group meditation, which happens about three or four times a day, you'd go to the hall and you do a one hour meditation. And each meditation is usually about one hour and then you get like a five minute break and then it's one hour, then a five minute break kind of thing. And then you'll get lunch and then you'll have like dinner or whatever. But because I'm going a second time, I'm technically called an old student, so I don't get given dinner, so I'll only get breakfast and I'll get lunch and then I get tea at dinner time and that'll be it. But as a new student, if you go the first time you get fruit in the evening as well. But that's sort of the process. So the reason why you're doing all this, Nina, you're right. I'll just quickly finish this.

Ben's blown away.

Look at, look at his head. Yeah. So the reason why you doing this is because the idea behind Vipassana is how can we make this as difficult for people as possible so they are forced to face all the temptations or the desires of their mind as possible. So they can learn how to be non reactive and non responsive to those. So they can learn how to find their own support within themselves without needing those things that they're clinging to this.

I like this because also it's like that will be a lot harder than anything you'll go through in your daily life in general. And you can lean on that. It's like David Goggins talks about going back into the cookie jar, just getting those memories. Right?

Yeah.

And my sister in law told me like it was quite the same experience for her and she said people were like breaking down and crying and people left. Do you see all that kind of stuff as well?

Definitely, definitely people leave. Yeah, yeah. I was actually quite surprised because normally I can't remember the percentage, but normally about 30 I think leave by the end, which is actually a smaller number than I expected, to be honest. But there are a lot of people that naively goes and the ways where I met people that hadn't meditated at all and went through the whole thing, I was so impressed. But what I noticed is when I'd have conversations with them compared to the conversations I'd have with experienced meditators who did it was they didn't get much out of it. So it's because they'd expose themselves to a practice that they weren't yet familiar with. They didn't know how to actually focus on the practice and they hadn't had experience in meditation. So even though they were able to just be there and do the practice, they were sort of going through the motions and it didn't really get as hard as it would if someone unpacked their trauma truly because they're able to go so deep enough into their meditation, which requires I think some practice at least in meditation before you do it. So I think that's why the dropout rate wasn't as much as I expected. But yeah, when I was there I think only like 10% left or something like that, which is actually quite a small number. So yeah.

Wow.

And you like, like I'm just, I'm trying to pitch this in my head. This sounds insane. Are you going outside for walks during the day? You working out in the morning? Or is it just purely like. It sounds like, what's it called.

In.

Like jail when you get thrown into like the consolidated.

That's the idea, man. That's the idea. You're being put in like a prison. Which is why they call it a cell, essentially. But yeah, it's again, it's just how can we make these people like face their suffering in a head on way? That's essentially it.

Did you go outside?

Yeah. So there's an outside area. So your cell, your cell, your room is. So there's men's dormitories and then the woman's dementia is like on the other side of the eating hall. So you can't like really get in contact with each other unless you're in the group meditation room. And that's the only time you see them. But you never look at them because you look at you in the eye. Yeah. But anyway, the idea is you're in these sort of rooms and you can go out anytime, even when you're meant to be meditating. Some people, and I did this too, like you just get up and you just go outside to get some fresh air and like walk around a bit. And it's basically put on this like piece of land in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. It's not far from civilization. But some like. I know there's some in Thailand that you can go, for example, that are like they're very far out and it's like just cool, like real like cool spiritual experience for a lot of people. But the idea is that you're not allowed to leave the land during those 10 days and you stay on it. So there's a little walk path that is literally, I think the entire walkway is like 80 meters, just sort of into the forest area that's sort of part of their land. And other than that, you're just doing the same walk like every break you get because there's nothing else to do.

When you get like this like 1 1/2 or 2 hour break for lunch, I think it is during the middle of the day. You eat your lunch, then you go outside and you just walk up and down for like an hour. The same little like patch of field or like sometimes you just do the little walkway or.

Yeah, you get yard time mate in prison. Yeah.

Literally, that's what it is. Yeah.

They're literally creating the conditions so those deeper things surface. Which is amazing.

Correct. That's the idea behind it. Yeah, but that's what, that's what a lot of people don't see is they see like old prison. Like, that's like, you know, why would I do that? Which is understandable. You know, that's their perception. But yeah, like, my experience has been. And to your perception as well, has been more of like a liberating experience based on the fact that I can go so deep within myself in such a way where I can learn and uncover and unpack ways to support myself without the need for a phone device, without the need of like a Tinder rap or like, like a sex or like, you know, or like drinking or smoking or anything, any of these things. And I can use that support going forward in my life. That's a fantastic thing. But just remembering that as well, this is a one off 10 days. I've lost some of what I've actually, actually built during those 10 days based on the fact that I was. I lost some consistency with how much I meditated and how deeply I meditated over those last two years. Since then, like I did my own self for passing for three days, booked out a place and like spent 72 hours there. But it's just not the same, mate. Like I'm. That's why I'm doing another one. Yeah, yeah.

I imagine all these other people will spare you on as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, before we, before we move on to Crypto, which I'm very excited about, I've got a question around any kind of book or material recommendations for anyone that's listening to this pod. So specifically around like meditation and spirituality. And some of the ones that come to mind for me, like the kind of easygoing ones are Siddhartha or the Monk who Sold His Ferrari. And I'm just wondering if, yeah, if you have any recommendations on books or materials that the podcast listeners can go away and grab that will potentially expose them to this or benefit their lives?

Yeah, totally. So one that I haven't yet read because I still need to buy it, but I really want to read it. Is the Science and Meditation. How to Change your Brain, Mind and Body is a book by Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson. There's two scientists that have done a lot of research around meditation. So it's something that I personally want to read because that will be a great way to understand meditation in terms of like the sciencey stuff, if that's their interest. But in terms of more like easy reading type sort of books, I honestly don't know much Honestly, like, I've read a couple of Sadhguru's books. Sadhguru is a spiritual leader from India and he, I believe is like in the top 50 most influential men from India and you know, India's country of like 2 billion or something. So saying something. Right. But essentially like, you know, his teachings have. Which are also quite controversial to many, but have really helped a lot of people to get into their meditations and like, like learn a lot about their own self in that sort of insightful way. And he certainly helped me as well, like just from some of his teachings that I did like anyway and would go deeper into them. So I read a couple of his books. So. S A D H G U R U But other than that, mate, like, most of my stuff has come from experience or from my own personal interactions with monks when I was in Thailand, which is really beautiful. Or going to this monk retreat when I was in Bali or the Vipassana itself. But also as well, listening to sometimes podcasts by Sadhguru or Mooji Baba is a good one. M O O J I He like, logically helps one to sort of grasp this experience of separateness between like, the awareness and the mind and body. It's like quite beautiful in terms of the way he teaches people. So I quite like that. And then some people enjoy people like, he's a Vietnamese Buddhist monk called Thai Nhat Hanh. T I C H right? T H I C H space N A H T space H A N H I'm surprised I got that because my mind's not working properly right now. But he's real beautiful in the way he speaks. And it sort of breaks down, down things in quite a digestible way as well, in terms of understanding meditativeness. Yeah. So there's different people out there that some people, different people vibe with.

That's amazing, man. I'll chuck those in the show notes. I'll look those up. That's. That's on my list as well, man. I'm going to get into that.

Yeah.

Kids. So crypto. We met at a crypto conference, Gary Vee's crypto conference. A little bit different times back then, mate. The market was maybe a little bit more frothy than they're back there. This was, was. It must have been a year ago, you know, A year or so ago.

Minneapolis, May 2022. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Where. Where are you currently at, mate? Are you still, you know, spending a bit of time in crypto? I know you were collecting some NFTs back then. What's your sort of current, current strategy? Are you out? Are you throwing the tower?

Yeah, not gonna lie, man, I definitely stepped out quite a lot. Like I'm holding on to my V frame no matter what.

I've actually just been selling a bunch of the ones that I had at a loss, to be honest. Mainly just because I'm looking at more of the ROI potential of my business at the moment in terms of pouring money that I could take it as a loss from that investment and putting it into marketing and then elevating the ROI potential of my business there, which I believe would bring me back more of a return in a shorter space of time personally. So these are just personal experiences, but then there's some that I see as really like optimal. So like for example, I'm holding onto my Ethereum, my bitcoin, things like that and then like my V friend or like these things. But other than that, a lot of them I've actually, you know, some of them will never come back that I've got. And then some of them are just starting out as a loss just based on the fact that I don't see much potential in them compared to like a vee friend, for example. So therefore I'm like, okay, might as well sell it as a loss, not take the risk and then reinvest that into my business where it's like going to be much less risky in terms of the potential ROI I could get from it. So that's just like what I've been doing.

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree, man. And I sort of, you know, a big chunk of my crypto probably 3 years ago do a similar thing to invest in my business. Like, you know, one of the like the good and the bad things about like investing in an asset is that you have no control put your money in bitcoin, but you literally can do absolutely nothing about the price. Right. You know, you just sort of see then you. And you know, long term it's going to be, you know, you know, probably growth, but it's like you've got no idea how long, when or, you know, and no control over that. But in your business, you know, it's sweat equity, right? Like you can, you can make an impact straight away. So totally understand.

So true.

We're all V friends, holders and I think that's one of the most beautiful things.

Berg's a big fan, but you do end up getting a vfriends series one.

Yeah, I've got one, two and book games.

Nice, man. Nice, nice, nice.

So for Those listeners at home that may be not big in the NFT space like NFTs have this amazing ability to get access into communities and memberships and events. And this is what Gary Vee has done so well. And for the three of us, obviously big fans of Gary Vee and the, the utility and value he's adding there through depending on what vfriend you have and what that gives you access to, is an amazing way to get, you know, a piece or additional engagement to your, your favorite content creators or influencers or, you know, you know, memberships, whatever it might be. I think that's one of the best things about, about Be Friends. And he holds an annual event that Kieran and I went to last year. I'm not sure if you're going this year, mate. I'm not. But yeah, no, it was, it was a wicked event. It was at very cool Minneapolis NFL Stadium had like, it was like a theme park with amazing speakers. Snoop Dogg was there and you could only get access if you had an nft. So it's one of the, the cool utility pieces.

Yeah, such a cool time.

That is so good. And you touched on a really good thing there about rebalancing your portfolio and loss harvesting. So that's a very tax efficient way to do things. And people don't want to go through their portfolios and be like, hey, this wasn't a good decision. And you turn that from a paper loss into a real loss where you sell those assets. But you have to think, what is the opportunity cost of that money? And I love how you're like, right, there's something I can control is my business. I'm going to put it into marketing because it's something I can grow and I can carry forward that loss. These are the big boy decisions that people out there need to make and it's very uncomfortable to do. So congratulations for doing that.

Thank you, I appreciate that. Yeah, like some of those terms I like had to think for a moment to actually understand them. But yeah, because that's not my world as much. But yeah, man, like fully, that was it. You know, it did take a little while to actually think on that stuff. Like I was sort of clinging to the hope of all, maybe it will come back up. Like these like sort of NFTs that didn't have as much support anymore sort of, you know, weren't operating in the way that they should in terms of like a business, you know, like I would have hoped in terms of the way that others have been operating. So yeah, that was definitely the thought that I had. Anyway, around it.

Fantastic. And Ben Scott, a couple of cracking questions here that I can't let you go without asking them. This one is amazing. Can you please discuss the importance of self compassion and ways to practice it in our daily lives? Because I struggle with this and as much as I try to do and be lenient to myself, I'm the harshest self critic. So how can us, you know, just average Joe's out there, practice self compassion in our daily lives?

Yeah, that's a really great question, man. Compassion is something that for me previously came from fear of not being liked. So it's false compassion and therefore I wasn't able to be compassionate to myself because I wasn't projecting proper compassion. And it's actually like a muscle, it's trained. I've experienced anyway from my experience. Some people might say differently, but there are some amazing data out there around what's like a practice called loving kindness meditation and what they would or even loving kindness practices and what they'd actually get people to do. And like I remember those. I can actually send you guys through the references if you want them for the description. But there was a, there was one where they would get people to go around and in their mind project the idea that everyone sucked, right? They judged them the hell out of everyone, every single person that they saw. And then there was people that were just told to keep things mutual. So like just sort of see, oh that person's wearing a blue top. Oh that. But you know, and just like sort of simple things, neutral things. And then they got a group need to go around and spread loving kindness and they would think like positive things about these people and what they notice about the subjective, their subjective well being. Because you know, they were just internalizing them. It's not like they were saying them to these people, but just by thinking them consciously. The subjective well being was equated to what you can imagine, which is the people that were judging others started to feel crappy about themselves. People that were neutral, nothing much changed. And the people that were spreading loving kindness within their own minds about others naturally experienced enhanced well being. So it was a very cool study, but I need to go back and find it. I'll send it over. But the idea behind loving kindness is that it sort of ties into this wiring or circuitry around the way we might judge someone or judge ourselves. So one of the ways to work on self judgment is to practice not judging others. It's a very interesting kind of concept. But I myself have been a frantic and abusive judger. Like, there's been a lot of judgment that I've projected into the world onto other people over my lifespan. And I still catch myself doing it here and there, even though I've worked on it a hell of a lot. There's a natural thing to do as a human because we want to be accepted. And one of the quickest ways to be accepted by other people is to bring other people down so that we feel better about ourselves, right? So that's only a natural thing to do. Like, it's easier to throw a bomb into a city and blow up everyone's else. Everyone else's building than to build your own, right? Even though that's pretty destructive. Like, that's technically what we're doing in our minds. So the idea is, okay, if I can practice shifting and reframing, it's a practice of what's called cognitive behavior therapy, if any of you have heard of that out there, okay? Now, cognitive behavior therapy is just basically a re experiencing or reprogramming of the way I might think or process something and therefore or experience it differently as well. And when I reframe a thought that I might have about, oh, that person's fat, right? And I catch myself thinking that, and I go, you know what? And that's okay. And I see that they're at the gym. That's amazing. That is freaking cool, right? And I'll catch myself, like, thinking these things because I was uncomfortable in my body at the time, right? That's why I got on testosterone back then, right? Because I wanted to be big. And like, you know, then I'd see other guys and they'd be like. And I'll be like, oh, they're definitely on more steroids than I am. But, like, I catch myself doing that, and I didn't realize that that was causing so much of that self judgment at the time and triggering a lot of it. It's not all of it, but that's definitely a big portion to it, right? So as I practice just reframing these judgments, I also started to reframe organically the judgments with myself. So all of a sudden when I started to, instead of think, oh, I'm a bit puffy here, or like, oh, I'm a bit small now, or oh, my nose is weird or whatever, I'll just start to think a little bit more compassionately about it. Just because I practice being more compassionate in my thought process with others. When I'd catch those judgments that I project within my own Mind. So that's definitely a fantastic method to use. And I still use it today because I still catch myself judging. It's very human. It's nothing to judge the judgment. Right. Because that's just adding and compounding the sabotaging effect that we have. That's a big one. And then also practicing something like loving kindness. So it's a Buddhist practice actually as well, that's tied into vipassana that we actually learn to do this. I can't remember the exact term or the name of it, but at the very end of your vipassana, you learn this practice, which is you're just giving and sharing happiness and peace with all beings. So it's like you're just basically saying to yourself at the end of your meditation, may all beings be happy, may all beings be peaceful, may all beings share in my happiness, may all beings share in my peace. And it's just you're constantly projecting and you're setting a genuine intention around genuinely wanting others to be happy and genuinely wanting others to be. Be peaceful. And if you can learn to do that and it's just consistency at the start won't feel like genuine or at all. You'll be like really forcing it. But over time, that is a way. Over time you can find other loving kindness meditations on meditation apps as well. But you can train yourself to be more compassionate to others, which will then teach you how to be more compassionate to yourself. But that's different, by the way, to being a doormat. Right. Being a doormat is not compassionate. I want to say that, by the way, very quickly, because I used to be a doormat. That's not compassionate. Right. Being a doormat is actually not compassionate at all to the other person. Because I'm putting myself in a hole of a situation where I no longer can support the other person. No, you need to build yourself up first, in my opinion, so that you can support the other. That's my opinion. But yeah, that's things. Oh, and gratitude, because it's something that can also help compassion. So gratitude practices.

Yeah, that. That is amazing. And it's. You're so right where it's like you're in a plane and you got your kids and you put the oxygen mask on yourself first. Yeah. And it's so counterintuitive to think cognitive, reframe yourself using CBT and think about other people and how you judge them, your thoughts about them. But then you thinking in that way actually helps yourself.

Yeah, exactly.

How wild.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Because the instinctive thing to do is to judge the person to make myself feel better. But even though in the moment I might feel a bit better about myself moments later, when all of a sudden I'm forced to look at the thing I was judging about the other, but at myself now I feel triggered because that same energy or same perception is viewed but now within me. So a more long term sustainable practice is to be more okay with the fact that, okay, I won't rip people's buildings down. Okay, I won't try like, you know, make myself feel better by putting others. People's down people down in my, in my mind or by gossiping about others. Right. And it's just reframing that and did to your point. Yeah. Over time I can teach myself it's destructive as well.

And oh, mate, I have, I have to just sneak in another question here. And you seem like the kind of guy that would know something about this. And this is just around immunity and boosting it and immune function. And I think a lot of people, me especially in the past where we kind of have a family, we have kids, we go to an office every single day, we don't move around a lot. We sit there, you know, our kids will come back with a cold, we'll cop that, we'll get sick, we'll force ourselves to work at home and in the office. And we're not paying too much attention to our health and particularly immune function and boosting that so we can survive those situations. Have you looked into this or do you do any specific things you mentioned like anti inflammatories, turmeric sleep, exercise?

What's your view on this? And, and what do you actually practice yourself?

Yeah, I mean, if you think about your immune system as something that has a finite amount of energy at any given time, where is the energy being directed? Is it being directed at the fact that I've just eaten some very highly inflammatory food and therefore my digestive tract is very inflamed and therefore that's where a lot of the immune system's focus is going to. And therefore it's now diverted from the actual sickness or whatever it is that it needs to fight. Right. Or therefore it's diverted from something else that will support my nervous system. Ultimately it needs to direct its energy somewhere and it will take away from other places. Which is why when I get sick, I get tired, not because the sickness is causing fatigue, but because my immune system is now focusing on fighting that illness or whatever it is. And therefore it's taking away from my mitochondrial My mitochondria's capability to function efficiently, which is basically the membrane in the cell that allows me to take raw fuel that I'm eating, consuming from the outside world and turning it into actual energy.

Calorically, metabolically, that I can use. So.

That was a lot of words. But ultimately, with the immune system support, one way for sure is to be kinder to my body, for sure. And when I say kind, I don't mean decreasing or stressful avenues, because stress is important. I need to actually undergo physical stress when I do exercise and when I do ice baths, when I do breath work, these things are important. And then also I need to balance it with a lack of stress, like meditation. Right. Yoga and sleep. Right. So I need to balance that. So I do need injections of stress, but I need times where stress is low because that allows for what's called heart rate variability, which helps. By the way, I'm not exactly sure too much about the connection. I don't know enough about heart rate variability in that sense, but I know there is a connection between high heart rate variability, which is seen in much fitter people, and their ability to fight off illnesses and to feel energetic and to recover quicker and things like that. The main things that have helped me in terms of supporting my immune system are.

Actually injecting healthy levels of stress. So exercise, of course, Ice baths in the morning, breath work in the morning. In fact, I remember there was some studies done on Wim Hof. Right, the iceman. Right, the breath work. They did a study. I think there was around about a thousand participants. And they all got injected with E. Coli, which is when you get Bali Belly or you get sick in another country. That's quite a common one. And it's the sort of bacteria that makes you very sick from your stomach. And he did nothing but breath work. And there was a whole group of participants that took antibiotics. And interestingly enough, even though the ones that the group that didn't take antibiotics, Right, and didn't breathe, obviously they experienced the worst symptoms. The ones that took antibiotics obviously recovered. But Wim Hof recovered much quicker than all of them. He didn't even get the symptoms of sickness. And yeah, this all happened in a much shorter frame of time compared to. Compared to the people that took antibiotics, which is really interesting. But that just goes to show that the injection of stress allows for the immune system to work at its best. So that's the idea behind the injections of stress. But other things which are important as well. To mention is like D3 and K2. So K2 allows for the utilization of what's called D3. D3 you get from the sun. But also as well being creatures we're inside right now, we're not getting D3 compared to ancestors, like anywhere near the amount which is required to support our nervous system, which therefore supports our immune system. And because we're not getting enough of that D3 to support our nervous and immune systems, then supplementing it is very important, which is why I personally supplement 5000 international units IU. It's very cheap, by the way, you can find in a lot of places very cheaply. But 5,000 international units of D3 and I think it's like 80 milligrams of K2 which supports the utilization of D3. So, yeah, these are like all fantastic things to help.

That's awesome. And what's the rate? Are you taking more than the recommended dose of D3? Cause I've seen that a lot like, compared to the. Is the pack like a thousand or something like that?

No. So I got a 5001. I think I got it from iheart or something like that. Yeah, yeah. But I think in New Zealand it's very hard to get that. Normally they're 1000, but yeah, like I'm taking 5000 purely based on a recommendation that I heard from a. What he calls himself a human biologist, Gary Breaker. Um, I did also like to do my own research when I hear people talk about this stuff. But yeah, I was very encouraged to take D3 based on those two things at that amount, personally. Yeah. So now that I'm sick at the moment as well, I'm taking 10,000. So actually taking quite a lot and a lot of about 5,000 milligrams of vitamin C. Most people only take like a thousand when they get sick, right? But yeah, it's like really macro dosing these vitamins to support the immune system as much as possible during the time it's fighting something.

That's amazing. I've got to up my D3 because I was taking it and especially during winter, it really helps help me with my mood.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Because again, the mood's another thing that's tied to the immune and nervous systems. Right. So when my immune system is fighting something that compromises the nervous system and when my nervous system is compromised, I'm now not going to be as energized and therefore I'm not. I'm going to have insufficient levels of like dopamine and serotonin, all these feel good compounds because there's a compromised ability to secrete these things based on the fact that a lot of my energy, quote unquote, is being directed towards fighting this thing. But when I support the immune system's ability to do that. Right. It then also as well supports my mood. So as an indirect way.

Yeah, well, that's been, it's been insane, Jaz. I don't know how you're so knowledge across these different areas, but I can see that you find something, you just want to go deep and know everything about it.

Yeah, but it's the same with you with crypto, mate. You know, like how you deep dive into stuff. You know, there's so many avenues and, and it's the same, right. When I delve deep into the wellness side of things, the anxiety side of things. There's so many avenues and so much depth. And I'm only a student with this stuff, man. Like I'm still. That's why I'm gonna start down the path of, well, some other avenues of qualifications that I'll go down. But that's, you know, that's something that I won't share because I haven't started that yet. But yeah, that's, yeah, the cool part about the human body and the human mind, there's so much there.

Man.

Thank you so much for sharing everything. And if you're interested listeners on what Kez is doing, he's launched his new program, Unshakability School. You can have it to healingwithkez.com Kez, is there anywhere else that you want people to follow you? I know you're big on Instagram. Maybe you can share your handle.

Yeah, so Instagram is coachkezza. Thanks, man. I appreciate that, Coach Kezza. So just Coach K E Z Z A. Excuse the New Zealand accent there. It's not Kizza.

And then of course the Unshakability School, like you said. If you just go to my website, healing with kids, healingwithkez.com, you'll find the program there. If you're interested, I've just launched it. Actually, I haven't even launched it yet. It starts first of July. Be my only intake this year probably most likely. And the first 10 men get the early bird opportunity there. But yeah, that's another place you can find me and read more about me as well. And my podcast, the Pocket Coach, which is on every podcast, podcast platform. And it's just about this kind of stuff. And I interviewed cool people. In fact, we're re releasing some old content recently. One with Dr. Nicole Pera. The holistic psychologist. She's wildly famous psychologist now at the moment, but I managed to have an interview with her five years ago when she was still small time one. Right. Like these cool things, like, you know, it's. That's what I love about podcasting is like you can like, you know, get really involved and have proper conversations with some incredible people like yourselves, you know, and like really have that as sort of like long term content that you can keep and keep reusing and I love that stuff. So, yeah, those are the places.

Yeah. Thank you so much, man. It's been super insightful.

I feel as if you had probably 27 more questions.

Thanks everyone for listening. If, if you have a friend or a family member that you think would find this really helpful, whether it be mindfulness meditation, ice bars, you know, nutrition, everything like this, we'd love for you to share it with a friend until we grow the podcast. So, yeah, Bergs, thank you so much, Kieran. Thank you. We'll most likely get you on again, mate. We've got a few more questions we'll be thinking into, but yeah, thanks for your time and thank you for having me.

It's been a pleasure.

Thank you.

It's been amazing.

Awesome, guys.

Thanks so much.

Thanks guys.

Ciao, ciao.