5 Habits That Will Boost Your Confidence

What's up guys and gals? Let's talk about confidence. Normally when people talk about boosting confidence, they talk about two things. The first is getting comfortable outside your comfort zone, basically pushing yourself to do uncomfortable things until that feeling becomes normal to you. And the second is in a specific area that you want to be confident, just getting reps in that area, doing it over and over until you lose the nervousness. Both great, both true. Today I want to talk about something different and that is a hormone in your brain. And that leads to more energy, more decisiveness, more assertiveness, and as a bonus, more muscle, less fat and better sex drive. It's highly correlated with confidence. Some scientists say that it causes confidence. Some people say it's a secondary effect of the increased energy, decisiveness, assertiveness, muscle. Whatever it is, it seems like it's a hormone that is worth optimizing, especially if you're already doing these other things. From a charisma perspective, you might as well handle what's going on in your brain. That hormone is testosterone. And depending on your lifestyle decisions, you could be doing a lot to skyrocket it or make it plummet. And whether you're a man or a woman, I've seen increasing testosterone have a great impact on people's happiness and psyche. Now that said, I'm not a doctor, I don't play one on tv, I'm not a nutritionist, I have no degrees in this. What I've done is a lot of self experimentation. So I went and got my blood work tested and it was ugly. It turns out that I had at age 25, the testosterone of a 74 year old man. If you had taken 10 random 25 year olds from a sample, most likely eight of them would have higher testosterone than me and only one would be at my level or lower. So because I'm an optimizer, I started to study this a lot and I ended up doing these five things trying to boost my testosterone. I went back two months later, just two months later, and I was back to normal range to a healthy functional 25 year old, which is amazing. So we're going to go through two things that are going to help you take your testosterone up. Two common deficiencies that I was suffering from, and I think a lot of people suffer from, they don't realize that are really bringing your testosterone down. And then the most common testosterone killers that will wreak havoc on your hormones and your body in general. What is cool is not only will these lifestyle changes boost your testosterone, they're going to make you healthier, they're going to make you live longer, they're going to make you look better. There's a lot of positive benefits that are going to go on if you take these changes and you just put them into your life. The first thing that I did to start boosting my testosterone was experiment with intermittent fasting. What does that mean? Basically we eat too much and I don't just mean we eat too much quantity of food, but that we eat too often. We eat as soon as we wake up and we don't stop eating until we go to sleep. And research is starting to show that is not the best thing for our longevity or our hormones. Now it's early days on this, but I think that the early morning breakfast of cereal or bagels those simple carbs eat is going to fall to the wayside the same way that the old school food pyramid did. What does intermittent fasting actually look like? You basically skip breakfast. You try to put 14 to 16 hours between when you stop eating at night and when you start eating the next day. So basically you create an eight hour eating window of noon to 8pm and you just don't eat when it's not noon to 8pm it sounds hard at first, but it's actually really easy because your body creates the hunger chemicals based on your food schedule. So if you do this for two or three weeks, you'll just stop getting hungry in the morning. Now anecdotes are just anecdotes. The fact that I do this doesn't mean it will automatically work for you. The fact that Tim Ferriss, Hugh Jackman, Terry Crews and John Romanello also all do this and love it doesn't mean it will automatically work for you, but I think it is worth experimenting with. Try it for a couple of months, get your testosterone tested. Now start doing this, get it tested in four months and see if it makes a positive difference. If you want to learn more about intermittent fasting, I think it's a fascinating topic. Check out Dr. Rhonda Patrick. She's been on the Tim Ferriss show the Joe Rogan Experience. She has her own YouTube channel called foundmyfitness. She's fantastic for getting deep into the science of intermittent fasting. Also I will link to a video by the guy, John Romanello that started me in studying this and he will explain a little bit more about the basics of intermittent fasting. I could talk about this for hours, but I will keep it short. I will link to that video and I will move on to the second Thing that science has shown boosts testosterone, that is lifting weights the right way. And not everyone lifts the right way, especially for testosterone boosting. What you want to do basically is lift heavy, lift hard, use proper form and make yourself work. The more muscles that you can engage, the better. So what I recommend is heavy compound lifts in terms of the exact rep ranges and weights to use. I'm going to link to an Elliott Hulse video in the description. If you want more videos from me on fitness, let me know in the comments. I'm happy to make them, but I don't want to turn this into a workout video. So I will link to that Elliott Hulse video. It will teach you everything about rep ranges and how to lift for strength, power, looking good and endurance. A fun bonus of the fact that you are now doing heavy compound lifts and intermittent fasting is that you are going to burn fat off your body and replace it with muscle, which science shows creates more testosterone. So you now enter this virtuous cycle of positive effects to your psyche and to your body. The third thing that I experimented with that science shows boosts your testosterone is giving your body the nutrition that it needs. For a lot of people with low testosterone, it's caused by a deficiency in some vitamin or mineral that the body needs in order to function properly. Because our diet doesn't give us that vitamin or mineral, all of a sudden the things that produce testosterone can't function as well as they should. So if you can afford it, go get blood work. InsideTracker, it's a company that I've heard is really great about this. There's a lot of others I'm sure, figure out exactly what you are deficient in and then start to supplement in that. That said, what I do is I take athletic greens. I'm actually stoked that Athletic greens is the sponsor for this video. It's the first sponsor I've ever chased down proactively because I'm a huge fan of theirs. I've been taking them for about five years. I first heard about them in Tim Ferriss book, the Four Hour Body. Tim Ferriss is a guy I look up to and admire. He's actually who got me to quit my job and start this business. And he says if he could only take one supplement it would be Athletic Greens. So I take athletic greens every day. Another supplement that's super helpful is fish oil. Fish oil is great for your heart and it is great for testosterone. It's full of omega 3 fats that help counteract a lot of the omega 6 heavy diets that we have, especially in America in general, any good fats that you can get are going to generally be good for your testosterone. So that could be avocados, walnuts, olive oil, things like that. The third common deficiency that can really kill your testosterone is a vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D is actually not a vitamin, it's a hormone. And it comes from the sun. And a lot of us are trapped inside. We don't get the 20 to 30 minutes a day of sunlight that your body needs to produce vitamin D. Some people like a friend of mine, their body doesn't even produce vitamin D when they get sunlight. Just for whatever reason, he was dealt a bad hand. So supplementing with vitamin D, especially on the days where you are stuck inside, can have a huge impact on your mood and on your health and on your testosterone. I have actually seen people who are vitamin D deficient go on vitamin D and within two weeks it's like they're a totally different person. More energy, less fatigued, healthy, happier people. And I'm excited to say that Athletic Greens has agreed to bundle their athletic greens or their fish oil with vitamin D for free for charisma on command fans. So if you go to athleticgreens.com charisma youities you'll get that offer. That's actually better than the deal I get when I buy it. I just get the greens powder. The last supplement that I take is zma. It's zinc and magnesium and those are two minerals that we tend to be deficient in. It also just helps you sleep through the night instead of waking up to go to the bathroom or waking up when there's a noise. That brings me to the fourth thing that can kill your testosterone if you don't get enough of it, which is sleep. Now, sleep is hugely important. I know that it's tough to get the amount of sleep that you need sometimes. I was an investment banker. I've never slept less in my whole life. I was working 36 hour days. But that said, to the extent that you can try to get as much sleep as your body needs, even if that means not watching a sports game or not watching television, save that stuff for when you're in the office, watch it on your computer instead. I only half kid. And the other thing is, if you can't increase the amount of hours you sleep, you can increase at least the quality of your sleep with something like a ZMA or a sleep mask to block the light or a white noise machine that can block out cars honking or BIRDS CHIRPING Depending on where you live, it's really important to get as good a quality sleep as you possibly can, because when you're asleep is when your body produces testosterone. It's when your body recovers from the workouts and repairs the muscles. It's also so impactful on your cognitive function. If you're sleep deprived, your testosterone plummets, your body's going to start to get worse, your energy level gets worse and your ability to function mentally and problem solve is going to go down. So the fourth thing that I started experimenting with, even though I was in private equity at the time, was really prioritizing the amount of sleep I got and the quality of sleep I got. Now, the last thing that you can do that science shows really helps with your testosterone is, is to eliminate these four testosterone killers. I put this point last because truthfully, giving up something you love is a very hard thing for most people and I expect the first four things to be much easier for you. I put this last, but it is worth mentioning because this will really help you live longer, feel healthy, feel happy, boost your testosterone. So what are the four testosterone killers? Number one, sugar. Sugar causes cancer, it causes inflammation, it hurts your testosterone, it. It's going to make you live less long, it's going to make you look worse and feel worse today. So I implore you to please give up sugar as much as you can. The second thing is trans fats. Not the trans fats in animal meat, but the trans fats that are man made. They come in processed foods and baked goods like donuts or cookies. It's actually so bad that the FDA is banning man made trans fats starting in mid 2018. So look on the nutrition information of your food and if there's a lot of trans fat, skip it. The third thing, this is the one that I know is going to be the hardest for some people. Beer, all alcohol tends to be bad for your testosterone, but beer is the worst. And this is coming from a guy that used to drink way too much beer in college. An embarrassing amount, but to the extent possible, cut down on how much you drink to just one or two drinks a night and replace that beer with way red wine or hard alcohol. It's going to save you money, it's going to make you feel better the next day, it's going to make you look better. And when you're not killing your testosterone by chugging beer after beer after beer, it's going to do all the things we talked about in the beginning with your decisiveness your assertiveness, how you look, how you feel. So to the extent you can cut down on beer, I know it's going to be tough for some people. And the fourth thing, cut down on stress. Now there's a lot of ways to do this. Working out is a great one. Meditating is a great one. I could do an entire video cutting off how to cut down stress. So if you want that, let me know. Also for some of you, honestly, quit your job, get a job that you actually like, that you don't hate, or start a business. I'm happy to do a video on how to start a business. So if you want to know more about how we started Charisma on command, let me know in the comments. This one is tough. I could literally talk about it for 10 minutes. But figure out what stresses you out the most in life and try to remove it. Try to replace it with something fun because stress is going to kill you and it's killing your testosterone. Okay, so to recap really quickly, experiment with intermittent fasting. Lift heavy with compound movements that recruit a lot of muscles. Get your nutrition right. Make sure you don't have any deficiencies for vitamins or minerals that your body needs. Get high quality, high quantity sleep and kill the testosterone killers. Thank you so much for watching. If you want to check out the Athletic Greens special offer that I got for you guys, go to athleticgreens.com charisma and it'll be in the description. Like I said, this is the first sponsor, the only sponsor I've ever proactively hunted down because I really like their product. Bought my first bag five years ago. I have two bags in my fridge right now and I just think that it's fantastic. It's got multivitamin, multimineral prebiotic, probiotic, digestive enzymes. I agree with Tim Ferriss. I think it's the best supplement on the market and if you want to check that out, just go to the link in the description. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next video.