Change Your Morning, Change Your Life – Hal Elrod | 1130 | Dave Asprey

And so I went home and I googled best holistic oncologist in the country. And I called a couple of them and they both said chemo is your best bet. This cancer that you have is so aggressive and fast acting, your organs are already failing. Your doctor was not actually lying to you that you're going to die in a week or two. Nothing we can do. So I'm like, well, if the best holistic oncologist in the country can't help me, damn it, what am I going to do?

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey.

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Today is an in person interview in the studio here in Austin, Texas, which is the home of barbecue made out of real meat. It's not the home of that fake garbage, industrial cricket, soy, whatever, pea protein nonsense. And if you're from Austin and you eat that nonsense, you should go back to California there. Did I say that? Oh, hold on. Are we rolling?

Oh, wait. Oh, yeah.

Oh, I guess we are. My. My guest today would probably agree with me, but that's not. We're going to talk about. I'm just getting what I read this thing on. On Instagram. It came up, it said, if you can be polarizing, you'll get more followers. I'm 20,000 followers away from a million followers on Instagram, so I'm polarizing my ass off right now, guys. So if you're. If you're not following, if you just. I'm almost there.

What other topics can we talk about today?

That.

You know, the gun debate, which we were.

Yeah, that's one.

It turns out I have tested this. It's really easy to hunt an impossible burger, right? You just. You put it up there and then you just take like marshmallows, vegan marshmallows, and you just like kind of throw. Throw em a little bit and. Dude, you're a hunter.

You're a hunter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Was that polarizing enough or do I need to be more judgy?

Yeah, I think that was weak.

No, I'm feeling triggered.

Yeah.

If you don't recognize his voice. This is Hal Elrod, author of the Miracle Morning, longtime friend, and he's here to announce that he's launching the Miracle Morning Coffee. Isn't that right?

That's right. I should be, man. I've left only. You know how much money I've left on the table by not launching Miracle Morning Coffee?

We could partner with Danger Coffee. I'm just saying, if you have a miracle morning, you might be dangerous because who knows what you might do. The you go, I'm just teasing. Because Hal is a devout. What, what do you call it if like, if like Christian and like, you know, religious people are one thing and then you have Satanists on the other side. You'd be like a Satanist for the coffee religion. So what would that be called?

I'm so confused by that question. I.

You're hard to trigger. This is pissing me off.

No.

So I would say he's a devout anti coffee guy because you don't need a coffee when you have a miracle morning. And I'm like, screw that.

I'm actually not. I drink coffee. I drink. When did you change your religion? My wife loves danger coffee, by the way.

Are you serious?

Yeah.

Oh my God. I was totally. But you always say you don't need coffee. Like I've read your book.

So I used. I go through period. So I'll go coffee. Then I was green tea for years and then I don't know, maybe six months ago, I decided to go coffee again. No way.

Yeah.

This is great news for the human species.

Yeah.

I'm really impressed. That's hilarious. I did not know that. Um, and I don't, by the way, guys, if you don't drink coffee, that's okay. It's. It's on you. Just the studies seem to say that for most people it's good for you. But it. There's also studies supporting green tea.

Right.

So pick one, pick one. Do something good. But the reason Hal's on is not anything to do with coffee. It's because he has a brand new Miracle Morning book and it's updated, expanded. And because we've been friends for a long time and I've. You came on for your first Miracle Morning, I think a couple times years ago.

Yeah.

We're both in Austin. We gotta sit down and go to some of the new content that you haven't shared with the world before. You up for that?

Yeah, absolutely.

All right.

Some listeners may not know of your stuff. Although, man, 2 million copies sold. And you were just like the number two of all books sold. Like you've really just gotten a huge wave of awareness over the last couple weeks.

Yeah.

And that was the goal with the new book is like to. Or one of the goals is to. It was a self published book for 11 years, so you couldn't buy it in stores. And I've met with, you know, probably 15 New York publishers since then and, and looking for like who's the right, you know, partner publisher to bring this to the. To the masses that buy their books at Target or Walmart or Barnes and Noble. And so, yeah, so that was part of doing an updated and expanded edition was let's make the book better. Even better. And. And let's. Let's reach, you know, the way I always say it is 2 million copies sold, which means there's 8 billion people that I have to spend my life trying to reach an impact with the message.

Do you ever wake up in the morning and just say, I've only reached 2 million out of 8 billion? I'm a failure?

Of course, that's human nature, right? You always look at the. I call that gap focus in the book. But, yeah, you're human nature to look at what you didn't get done.

I've written eight books. I've really only sold about a million copies, so I'm feeling really inferior right now.

Yeah, no, I mean, that's a little embarrassing.

Yeah. So, like, your author Flex game is stronger than mine.

There you go.

Well, you've filled way more coffee.

Fair point. Speaking of flexes, I interviewed Brian Johnson recently, the guy who's kind of running through the I spent $2 million to reverse my age playbook, one that I'm familiar with and that I appreciate. And so we kind of compared who could swallow the most pills at one time. And he looked at me, he's like, dude, that's a weird flex, but kind of respect. And I just laughed.

Wait, didn't you get my voice text about that?

You voice text me about that?

Dude, I sent you a voice text like three days ago. And I said, dave, what about when I see you? You and I have a contest to see who can swallow the most pills, because I think that I can give you a run for your money. I don't know if I can beat you, because that morning I swallowed 22 pills. No problem. One gulp. And I was like. And that's why I literally. Right when I did that, I thought of you.

Let's have a contest, dude. Here's the problem, though. See the number of unread messages from my inbox?

I only have 380, so you're crushing me by 1430.

Two unread messages in my inbox. And I will say for my friends who send me voice notes, you. You can't listen to a voice note when you're on a call or a video call.

So the voice notes text are actually better.

I should listen to that. And then five days later, I still haven't listened to it because, like, when am I going to do that?

Yeah.

The question is, who's lazier? The person sending the message that doesn't have the energy to type it or the person on the receiving and that doesn't have the energy to listen to a voice text. Right.

So you know what I used to do? I had a couple people who would abuse voice texts. It's one thing if you sense voice text because it's like, I want you to hear my voice because I really care about you, man. Another thing, when they're just like, blah.

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

So I would just go, you know, it wasn't really clear. Could you record that again? And I would send them a voice text and I would do it like five times and they get frustrated.

That's great.

Well, the thing is, when you say abused voice text, where my mind went was a one minute voice text. Got it. Three minutes, five minutes, Come on. You know, and then especially with details, right, they're like, oh, there's seven things I need to make sure that are really important that I get to. You're like, by the end of the voice text, you're like, I forgot what the last seven were.

And I might do that when I'm working with my team or something because I'm driving somewhere, but I also pay them to transcribe it and turn them into action items. And like, it's kind of expensive to listen and transcribe unless there's emotional content. So.

Yeah.

In the miracle morning perspective.

Yeah.

When should you start listening to voice texts?

After miracle morning.

Okay.

Incorporate them somehow.

Yeah. Play on your phone after you've done your miracle morning is ideal. Unless you're using the miracle morning app, to be fair. So it's funny. So we have a Miracle morning app that people love, but I don't use it because I don't like apps during my miracle morning. So it's this really weird conundrum to be like, hey, other people like it. I actually don't use it. I actually.

So we can have this like big social. Why hell Elrod doesn't use his own app. This is going to be great. You got that, Joey?

Terrible.

We'll have like an affiliate link to that. I don't even have an affiliate thing. I'm just teasing. But yeah, we'll totally blood, like the app that Hal Elrod won't use.

Jesus.

This is being recorded. This is my app. Developer head of app development is going to hate that I said that.

You know what, though? It's the same thing. I make a lot of tools for people that I don't need to use because I'm the one who made the tools. I already know all this stuff.

There you go.

So sometimes it's worth having it, because my job is to make it so anyone listening or following myself doesn't have to think. You just know what to do. And you don't have to know mitochondrial biology.

Right.

Because I spend all this time. You spend all this time honing your techniques. So if someone wake up, I turn on the app, I'd have to think about it, and I just did what it told me to do, and I got the results. Yeah, you winning, but you don't need it. You're the.

You're the pro, and that's it. I think that could be for anybody. Right. So if you're new to the Miracle Morning, right. The apps, like, oh, this makes it so much easier. It holds me accountable.

It.

It facilitates Miracle morning. But maybe 15 years later, like me and thousands of miracle mornings, you're like, oh, I don't. I don't need it anymore.

You know, do you feel weird with people being accountable to an app?

That's a good point.

Right?

Little AI, futuristic, dystopian question there. Right? Or consideration. Yeah, no, no, I. I will say, actually, that is the one thing that I do use apps for is actually. And that was the initial Miracle Morning app was tracking the savers, the six practices, just checking them off, and every day making sure you're accountable. That is actually one thing that I will use it for. And I use another app called. I can't think the name, but it's where I've got, like, any habit that I want to either quit or begin. And every day I've got, like six habits. And so I'll be like, okay, I checked that off. Like, not drinking alcohol right now. And that way I can track. Right. Cause it's really easy to go. I don't feel like I've been drinking that much. Right. But you don't really know. But now it's like there's a red mark or a green mark if I did or didn't do the thing.

Oh, I've seen that app. I tried it for Way of Life.

Yeah. Yeah.

I tried it for like a day, and I put it on there, like, use the app, and the next day I didn't.

Yeah.

So I actually like apps for accountability in that way.

Yeah.

Now, here's a hard question for you. This is totally not what I was trying to Talk to you about.

But where are we. Where are we going?

You're fun to chat with. Stuff about it. I like, see how you think about stuff. So do you know Manish Sethi from Pavlok?

No.

I know Pavlock. I've heard of Pavlok.

Okay, this must be like, maybe eight. Eight or so years ago, early days of the show. He reaches out. He's this crazy ADHD guy, and he got to be somewhat famous because he hired someone on Craigslist to come to his house and slap him in the face every time he used Facebook. So I don't know if it was a dominatrix or just some random woman who's like, this is better than bartending. And she'd, like, just sit in his office and smack. Because he found he was unconsciously going to reach for it. And he said, this is amazing. So he ended up starting this watch. And I did invest a very tiny amount of money. So, guys, I'm not trying to sell this. I haven't talked to Manisha in a while. But it's a watch that shocks you every time you don't go to the gym or every time you have a craving for tobacco or whatever. And he found, like, massive results from negative reinforcement, especially for addiction and for breaking habits. And it was one of those things that I wouldn't have thought had efficacy, but we all focus on positive motivations, like affirmations, like, all the good stuff. But what is the role, especially in an accountability partner? Isn't an accountability partner just really about shame?

Yeah, yeah, there you go.

I mean, like, oh, you said you didn't do it, Bad boy. Isn't that kind of.

I think it's both. I mean, like, you know, I know for me. And I think it was Tony Robbins that said. And I'm sure he didn't invent this.

Right?

But just the idea that we will do far more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure.

Right.

And so I utilize that a lot in my affirmations. Sometimes I'll be like, you know, not doing. Here's the consequence of not doing this and getting really present to that. You're like, I don't want that to come true. Like, the benefit is this. Like, okay, but if that benefit isn't so compelling, right. That you're like, well, if I don't do it, I'm still okay. Versus if I don't do it. Oh, here's how this will compound into negative consequences that are. Man, I'm not willing to accept that future. So I've Got to take action now.

Well, that seems like a fear based thing because, like, you're forecasting the future. What was interesting about this other approach is that it's real time pain. It's not like, oh, you know, I might lose my house five years from now if I don't show up to work on time today.

Because, like, it's literally shocking you in the moment.

Yeah.

And like, let's face it, increasing penalties for crimes has never worked in studies because no one thinks they'll get caught. So future pain, that isn't guaranteed versus the Pavlok. It's like it shocks you if you don't go to the gym. And it's like an immediate thing or if you do whatever.

Yeah.

So that had me thinking about the whole accountability thing, which works really well. So you need accountability to your miracle Morning. And you could, like, have someone you do it with, like a partner or you have the app you're accountable to. But what if we wired the app in so if you didn't do miracle morning, it shocked you, Shocked you. Would it work better?

Yeah, maybe we partner with Pavlok. And yeah, I think there's some opportunity there.

The, the other Pavlok story, which I'll get off them in a second because it just randomly came up. Manish got on Shark Tank.

Okay.

And actually got an offer from Mr. Wonderful. And he looks at him and goes, oh, I would take money from any shark except for you.

No way.

It's totally trash talk, Mr. Wonderful. And I don't know if this was because of ADHD or just because Tourette syndrome. Yeah. Or maybe he's just really good at marketing because that clip, because Mr. Wonderful's like F you get off the stage and like, really? So of course that got tens of millions of views.

No way.

So either it was like the most masterful PR move or just like a brain that was like. So, Manisha, if you're listening, what's interesting.

About it, if it was a masterful PR move, the beauty of it is he gave away no equity and sold more of his product like genius.

It was either genius or crazy.

So in other words, you need advice from him on how to be more polarizing because yours was a little bit softer in the beginning.

And yeah, he's got.

He can give you some tips.

So listeners, if you would, when you see this on Instagram or TikTok or wherever I put it, if you could tell me what to be more polarizing about, I would appreciate that because I've really worked on this and I'm mostly just so peaceful. I just like to play with vegans because I was one. I'm doing it as an act of service, but it's not mean. I don't want to be negatively polarizing. I just want to be playfully polarizing.

I used to be a vegan, too.

Me too, man.

For many years.

What happened after you were a vegan?

Honestly, I read an article. I forgot. I don't know if his buddy sent it to me or what, but about B12 and how it's almost impossible to get vitamin B12 in a vegan diet. It's like nutritional yeast. There's like, two things, right? And that was for me. I looked toward nature for the answers and I went, oh, how can this be the quote, unquote, proper, correct, ideal diet that nature or God intended if it's missing a vital nutrient? And then I'm like, where do you be 12? It's like, oh, animal meat. Okay. And then I went back.

Wow.

So you were just very rational about it. Yeah, yeah, I was devout, man. I had, like, juicers and sprouters and all that. And I. I was hungry all the time. I got cold all the time. I. My Hashimoto's got worse. A lot of other aches and pains from oxalate or oxalic acid building up in my tissues. And finally I started cracking teeth from mineral deficiencies. Literally, I had two of them shatter.

Wow.

And, like, maybe this isn't working.

Yeah.

But even then, I think I would have hung onto it, but I went to Tibet. I'm like, I'm not eating, like, raw yak meat in the middle of nowhere that's been hanging on a post. Blood blowing in the wind. Like, that's just not. I think I'll cook it first.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah, I felt better.

What's interesting is I'm actually organic vegan by day and Paleo by night. Like, that's the best way I could categorize it.

Interesting.

Meaning. So I start the day with a raw vegan smoothie, and it's got organic walnuts, organic Brazil nuts for selenium, you know, organic. What are the little tiny achia? Also hemp seeds. So chia seeds. Hemp seeds. So it's got a lot of, you know, protein and good fats. And then. And then some, you know, a few berries and such. And then. And then for lunch, I have an organic vegan salad. And then for dinner, I have whatever my wife makes, which last night was like, beef tips and, you know, potatoes and.

Interesting. Okay.

Yeah.

So to me, and to me I get, I have more energy throughout the day. So that raw vegan, you know, lots of enzymes, lots of, you know, getting the energy from the food. I still subscribe to that, that I learned at a Tony Robbins event in 2000.

Yeah, you guys are talking about Tony on the vegan diet.

I know he, I mean he's, he.

Went off, it made him really sick. So we started eating a lot of fish but.

And that made him sicker.

He didn't do the research and like swordfish is the most polluted. Yeah, I think he's back to eating normal foods now.

Yeah.

So for me I find I feel the best when I like the other day, what did I have for lunch? I ate because it was a, it was a holiday and so I had some solid food, some heavy cooked food for lunch and I was like food coma. So I find that when I eat raw vegan I have more energy but then I want the nutrients from the meat so that I save for the evening and then I kind of tire out for the cat on the couch.

Yeah, I tried eating some raw vegans recently but it turns out beef sashimi is not that nice. So I, I decided to cook my vegans.

That's, that's smart.

Yeah.

Okay. Except cows eat cow's milk.

Right.

But we, so here's a question. Is human milk vegan?

Oh yeah, that's a good point. I don't know. I will say cow's milk is something that I, that like I often that's where I could get polarizing which is, I'm like, that's for baby calves. That's the only animal that that milk was designed for, you know, and I always, who was it? There was a stand up comedian that goes, I bet the first guy that tried cow's milk did a lot of other weird shit before that.

It's funny because just on a pound for pound basis, it's like one of our most affordable sources of protein. It's just that we've done bad things to cows so that the protein is the wrong form for us. And if you go Back to the A2 raw grass fed stuff, I think there's an argument that if you're not allergic, it's probably good for you just because you need that kind of fat and you need that much protein. But it's such a problem for people because of allergies. So I, I do sheep's milk and I, I don't mind that. Cause I've having run a small farm, I had a 32 acre farm.

Oh, that's right. I forgot that.

And we raised cows and pigs and sheep and chickens.

Nice. Right?

And I will tell you, pigs are very happy for all the milk they can get.

Oh, yeah, yeah, they love it.

Anything that's fat. Chickens too. Oh, yeah, they will. They will literally like fight each other for any piece of meat or dairy. And you give them like the corn and all that and they're like, oh, girl's vegan. They just want the meat. They just can't get enough of it.

Oh, I remember that I saw a post from you or back when you were doing like Instagram or showing you doing. You're like, hey, I'm feeding the chickens a bunch of meat. This is what they're like.

Yeah.

So we have 25 chickens and we have two sheep for milk.

Love it.

But we're about to get them pregnant from one of Tucker's sheep, so they haven't produced milk yet. So for the last year or two, they're not old enough.

Right.

And so, but I think, I think this spring is when my wife's going to impregnate them and we're going to start having sheep's milk. So I'll bring you.

What flavor of sheep are they?

They're an African breed. One looks like a deer, one looks like a goat.

Wow.

And so we either, either I've joked, I'm like, either. We were just lied to and told, oh, yeah, no, they're sheep. They're. They're this African breed. You can't even find them online.

They're antelop.

Yeah. Yeah.

I'm pretty sure they're goats. But we, we were told they were sheep. We bought them as sheep, so.

Wow.

We had baby doll sheep. That was our favorite. Or Shropshire. And baby. Baby dolls. Think they're dogs. They're just so nice.

Oh, yeah.

Even the males only occasionally headbutt you, so they're just a little bit more manageable. But yeah, man, bring me some sheep's milk. I'm all over that.

Yeah.

Oh, I found sheep butter for the first time. Smells like feta, but it's butter and I'm kind of liking that.

Nice.

I haven't even had sheep's milk yet. I don't think. I don't know if I've ever had it. But we'll.

I've never had just the milk, just the yogurt and the cheeses. Okay. So it's. It's one of those things where I think in the US we're gonna see a Lot more people with sheep and goats. If you look back to like the 1930s when we had the, the Great Depression and the dust bowl and all that largely caused by Rockefeller's inter. Interference with our society. Screw Rockefeller. Anyway, when you look back at the history of that like wow, like one guy did a lot of evil.

Oh yeah.

When all that was happening in New York, there's pictures of every balcony has a little goat on it.

No way.

Because people are feeding all their scraps to the goat to get the milk from the goat.

Wow. Right.

Wild. This is one of those things where this is going to be, I think a lean year. We just had a massive freeze.

It's going to.

There'll be less food for the animals. And some kind people, either big food companies or maybe some other country's intelligence agency has gone through and blown up our dairy, meat and egg production across the country.

Dude, that's all a coincidence. You conspiracy theorists.

That's thousands and thousands of them that happened in order moving across the country. Almost like a small group was moving around doing it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's odd something I. I can't tell you. I know who's doing it. I can just tell you something's wrong. But that's why eggs are expensive. That's why meat's expensive. And they're trying to make meat like. Like it was a very focused PR campaign. And I'll just tell you what they haven't figured out is that big food company executives and politicians are made out of meat. And a sizable percentage of Americans will not eat crickets and soy. So if there's no cows to eat, they're going to go for the executives.

Just logic. Right.

You got to have some meat to live here. And so you know, I wouldn't personally do that. I'm not advocating for whatever it was you were thinking of there.

Oh yeah, yeah.

But that's pretty dark there.

Did you implanted that in my mind? That was for sure some subliminal Dave Asprey mind trickery.

I'm triggered right now.

Good.

All right, wait, what are we going to talk about? Miracle morning.

I'm here to get you in trouble. All right, so you're kind of a pro at overcoming big stuff. And I mean you and I both face some things, but you faced some near death things both with a car accident when you were younger and then more recently with a pretty serious bout with cancer. So walk me through that just for listeners who haven't really heard the howl story.

Yeah, so when I was 20 years old I was driving home from giving a speech at a conference and hit head on by a drunk driver at 80 miles an hour. My car spun off. The drunk driver and the car behind me, not tailbone me, T boned me at 70 miles an hour and the left side of my body was just crushed. I broke 11 bones instantaneously. My femur broke in two pieces, my pelvis broke in three places, my arm broke in half, my elbow shattered, my eye socket shattered and I was found dead at the scene. I was clinically dead for approximately six minutes. Airlifted to a hospital, they revived me on the helicopter. Brought back to life, flatlined twice more while I was in a coma for six days and then came out of the coma, was told I would never walk again and I had permanent brain damage. So that was my first bout with death, if you will. And then seven years ago, when I was 37 years old, I was diagnosed with a rare aggressive form of cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukemia. And this was way more difficult because the doctors I was given a 20 to 30% chance of surviving. But the difference was now I had kids. I had a seven year old daughter and a four year old son. And, and to be told that there was a, you know, a 20 to 30% chance of living means there's a 70 to 80% chance that you're going to die. And when I went into the hospital, I found out a cancer because my heart was failing, my lung was failing, and my kidneys were failing.

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We talked like a week or two before you got diagnosed.

Yeah.

I think we rode to an airport together.

Yeah.

And I just remember thinking, man, like, you were gray. I was like, something's wrong. I know. Like you just kind of feel like you were.

Yeah.

Just barely putting one foot in front of the other.

Thanks for not saying anything.

Well, no, I. I just thought you.

Could, you could have saved me.

I thought you were tired. I was like, man, this guy's like depleted.

I mean, it was a Joe Polish event. The odds are we didn't get a lot of sleep.

Yeah, you always, you always. When you're with Joe Polish, there's so much excitement. It's not that you're out drinking.

No.

It's just that you're out talking.

Right. Totally. Good people.

I've been a member for like 10 years. So I, I just, I. I remember the, the change in your energy because you're a real high energy guy. And I was kind of like, you know, must. Must be like life stress. But if you could go back now and kind of look at it with the wisdom. When was the first time that you knew something was wrong with the cancer?

I did not. Well, so I woke up one morning, like two in the morning, and just struggling to breathe. And, you know, my wife woke up hearing me wheeze, and she goes, what's wrong? I said, I can't breathe. And she sits me up, all these pillows behind my back. And the next day I went into the ER and urgent care and they misdiagnosed me. They saw the mass on my lung and they went, it looks like, I mean, literally the doctor's tone was, it looks like you have pneumonia, but if you don't get better in a few days, go get a second opinion. He was very unsure. And they gave me a Z pack of antibiotics, and every day I was breathing less and less and less. And I spent the next week and a half in the er. Every other day, my lung was drained of about a liter and a half of fluid and. And then would fill back up, drain it again, fill back up, drain it again. And no one knew it was wrong. So now they sent me to this other hospital in Austin, St. David's and they tested me and they said, you have, it looks like you have cancer, but we want you to get A second opinion. Go to MD Anderson Cancer Hospital. And so I went. And then that's when the doctor said, you've got a 20 to 30% survival rate if you don't start. No, sorry, you're going to die in the next week or two if you don't start chemo.

That is the best marketing ever, isn't it?

Yeah, well, that's the thing is I thought he was. So I was like, I don't, you know, I'm like, I don't trust what you're saying.

Good for you.

So I said, let me go do my own, because imagine this, Dave. So here's what he's telling me. You have two choices. Don't do chemo and you're going to die in a week or two. Do chemo and there's only a 20 to 30% chance that you're going to live. You know, it'd be like going to a financial advisor that's like, hey, give me all your money and trust me with your life savings. And I'm only going to lose it 80% of the time.

It's an industry.

Yeah.

And so I went home and I googled best holistic oncologist in the country and I called a couple of them and they both said, chemo is your best bet. This cancer that you have is so aggressive and fast acting, your organs are already failing. Your doctor was not actually lying to you that you're going to die in a week or two. Nothing we can do. So I'm like, well, if the best holistic oncologist in the country can't help me, damn it, what am I going to do?

We did the right thing. And that's something for listeners. Guys, there is no moral judgment on pharmaceutical chemo, radiation, cancer, or even highly processed food. The only thing that matters is where are you now? What's your goal and what are the tools and what are the risks and rewards? And there's a sizable number of cancers where, huh, for that kind of cancer, all the things we have say chemo really works, and maybe you should also stack it with acupuncture and affirmations.

And that's what I did. I did every holistic practice known to man can in conjunction. Coffee enemas three days a week. I took 70 supplements a day. Lymphatic massage, acupuncture, ozone, sauna, you name it. And I think that's the biggest message, by the way, for anybody listening. Do not trust a doctor with your life because you're a number. They have very little skin in the game, they lose patience. Big deal. No one's going to take responsibility for your life other than you. And that was. That's the mindset.

I don't know, man. The doctors I know, they. They feel it when they lose someone. It also depends if they're your regular doctor or you're just coming in for a specialist thing. Sure. But no doctor likes to lose people. But you're right. They don't have the same skin in the game, and they're trained to tolerate that.

And on my very. My second visit, when I went back to the doctor, I'm like, okay, I'll do chemo. I asked the oncologist, I said, hey, just. And this was my test for him. I said, what part does diet play in my recovery? And he said, it doesn't matter as long as you do the chemo. And I'm like, how can I trust stupid? Right? And so. And I was so angry. Not for me, but when I would go to the cafeteria and see his other patients dragging their IV chemo tower around, eating pizza and ice cream and cake and soda and just so angry with the system that we're about right. I'm like, I can't change it. But I'm like, man, you're telling that person doesn't know any better. And that's where I actually felt a sense of responsibility, that I owe it to the world to beat this cancer so that I can help other people on their healing journey that might not be blessed with the knowledge and the resources that I've been fortunate because I listen to Dave Asprey and read his books to come across.

There's very good evidence that most cancer is highly sensitive to insulin and glucose.

Yeah, right.

So if you know what kind of cancer you have, then maybe controlling sugar intake would be really useful.

Yeah, right.

And for a doctor to say, we don't know. There's this weird mindset. I once asked a doctor, I don't remember what medical procedures a while ago go, hey, like, I'm taking whatever vitamin C or zinc or something. Do you think there's any reason that I should, you know, pay attention to that? He goes, oh, no, don't take it. I go, why? He goes, well, there's no studies of that. And I looked at him, I said, there's no studies of lotion with that. And you're saying, I could use lotion. Right? And he just stops and looks at me and goes, that's a good point. He goes, I really don't see any reason you couldn't do that. Go. Thanks. That's the opinion I wanted. But to default to never giving an opinion without a study is handing your balls to Big Pharma.

Yep.

So I know that there's tens of thousands of functional and even non functional doctors, just western doctors who listen to the show. Sometimes they hate on me, but quite often just because I think differently, because I'm a computer hacker, right. And guys, you know, you're medical professionals. I'm not. So I have a lot of respect. Like if, if my bone's broken, I have no, I don't have any idea what. I don't know physiology or I know mitochondrial biology. So I look at that stuff and. And they're listening to this. Yes. You have to take into that stuff that you're probably not trained in. And if you do it, then you say, well, I'm unaware of any evidence, but given what we know mechanistically, here is what I think is the best bet. And what that leads to is, well, it's okay to move forward, make a decision and be wrong. And partly because of insurance and because of attorneys, it's like the status quo, which is shitty is the safest alternative for them, but the worst alternative for you and me. And I think in functional medicine, people think a little bit differently. And then it's always a struggle with insurance companies. But I gotta ask you something, since you've been through this whole process twice now. I was just reflecting with a friend. Recently, an absurd number of my friends have died and come back or been struck by lightning. Like an absurd number. So maybe you guys don't want to be my friend.

Yeah, yeah.

Although it usually happens before I know them. So when you died, do you think you woke up with superpowers or with a different awareness of things? Like did you get downloaded with alien malware or anything like that? I don't know.

Interesting. Well, I mean, I do feel, you know, I've done, whether it's through deep meditations or plant medicine sessions where really feeling connected to God, to source, and getting the message that you're on a very specific journey. And I've put you through these things while giving you every resource you needed to be able to overcome them so you can keep paying it forward and helping other people. So I've gotten that in every fiber of my being. And so if there's any superpower, I think we all have a superpower. For me, it's been being able to get through these adversities in a way where I extract as much value to then Share it with others.

So you're a highly resilient person. It's interesting. I interviewed Kimbal Musk in his kitchen cooking steaks and I made a joke about DMT sauce. DMT is the active ingredient in ayahuasca. It's a hallucinogen for the steaks. And he started laughing. We kind of talked about it and he said, oh yeah, I've done dmt. He said, but I didn't really need to because he also had a near death experience. He broke his neck and was unconscious for three days. Almost died when he was I think 36. And so he said, during that time I met God. So when he was on dmt he's like, been here, been here, done that. Did you have that kind of experience with either one of these?

Because of my, the brain damage I suffered from the head on collision, right? So my frontal orbital lobe was completely smashed in the front of my skull at 70 miles an hour, 80 miles an hour. So I have no memory of the time that I was dead, nor two weeks after. I have very little memory yesterday. I mean the brain damage I suffered from that. So yeah, so I have no recollection. For me it's just more of an internal knowing, which in some ways is more powerful than like, I saw a light versus like I have this to me, this inner just conviction that I'm supposed to help as many people as I can.

This is a question, man. I have all this cool stuff based on your book. We're going to get some of the stuff, but I got to ask you all the hard questions. So I've had a chance at 40 years in my neurofeedback company. It's in part like a digital mystery school. You could say like a recent person came out like, it's like the best plant medicine ceremony I ever had, but without the plants. Because you kind of trip on things like this. And when I'm working with these high level spiritual guru type of people, a lot of them say what you just said, they say, I want to help everyone. But most of them, when you get right down to it, and they're being vulnerable because when you do the ego work, you become vulnerable. They're exhausted because they'll walk into a room and like, okay, I have to help everyone. And they get caregiver fatigue. But on the scale of millions of people, and as I kind of work on it, I've certainly just, look, I'm going to help everyone who wants help. But there's a difference between helping everyone and everyone who wants help or checking in with your guidance or higher power or masters, whatever lineage you're with, and saying, am I supposed to help this person? Maybe that person chose suffering and they.

Haven'T got the message, got their own journey. Sure.

If I flip the switch for them, they're not going to get the message. So I've kind of modulated my thing. So even when Tony Robbins, like, I'm going to feed a billion people. What if the billion people don't want to eat or they don't want to eat what you're feeding them?

Yeah, right.

And it's like there's some sort of energetic difference between I'm going to do X for a billion people and I'm going to do X for the people who would benefit or the people who want it. Do you have a differentiation in your mind about that?

Yeah, I think that for me, you know, all I like, the way that I go about the miracle morning is I just do podcasts like this. I give speeches. I just am sharing it. And so to me, the people. Yeah, the people that are attracted to it are going to do it, and the people that write. So, yeah, so there's no one that I'm. It's not like I'm like. I'm like, I need to convince this person. No, yeah, you know, you need it. It's like, look, either you resonate with the message or not. And I'm very aware of, like, you know, so my message. Or like, I'll say that I have 8 billion people to share with the miracle morning. I'm not. I. I'm not delusional to think that I'm going to convince everybody to do the miracle morning. In fact, I probably won't even reach 8 billion people. Like, realistically, I don't know. But to me, it's just an intention of, like, how are you living your life? How are you showing up? And for me, I'm going to show up every day at my best. I'm at my relative best. I'm going to try to be at my best. Miracle morning is what helps me do that every morning.

Right.

Start the day in a peak state, and then I'm going to help as many people as I can that day. And I will tell you, this cancer was a mindset shift for me back then. I was much more like, I have to help everyone. And I valued quantity over quality at that time. And what happened is I realized, oh, I'm a workaholic. I say that family's my number one priority. I've got two kids and a wife at home. But gee, I sure do give up a lot of weekends if they're my highest priority because I got more people to help. And at that time, I really thought, I've got to help all these people. I'm doing this work, God's work.

Right.

And now it's like I realize I will never impact people at the level that I can help my daughter, my son, and my wife. And so I give up a lot of opportunity now to impact the masses, to spend time with my family.

You got to put it on the calendar and value it.

Yeah.

I'm reminded of a time years ago when I was on a panel at Google at their headquarters, and it was with a guy who made what the health. Like this kind of like dark energy propagandist guy. And someone in the back of the room stood up, says, I want to be a vegan, a vegan food activist. Like, do you guys have some advice for me? And I thought about it and I said, shut up and eat. And people started clapping. And he said, well, what do you mean? So here's the deal. You don't have a right to be an activist because that would just make you a bully. What you do have a right to do is to take action that you believe is right, demonstrate that it works so well that people ask you, people seek you out, then you've earned the right to. To be a leader. But you can't be an activist because then you're just a bully. And you sound like Greta Grundelberg.

Yeah.

You know, like, shame on you. I don't have any solutions, but I'm skipping school on Friday. But now I'm 20, so people can pick on me and not say, I'm a high school girl. Dude, Greta, build some shit that changes things. Stop whining. But that's the vegan activist mindset.

Got it.

By the way, in the Enneagram, the activist is like my kryptonite. So guys, fix it. Don't talk about it. And it. What it all comes down to, though, is this is about removing the judgment and the sense of morality about helping five people versus helping 50 million people. They're exactly the same thing.

Yeah.

As long as you're helping the people that you can help, who desire help, that's it. There's zero difference between the two. And any difference that you feel is just ego.

Yeah.

You agree with that?

Yeah.

Yes and no. No. Let me. Let me push back a little bit. And I might be pushing back. So I don't even know what I'm going to say. Here, let me try the so when I wrote the Miracle Morning, it was out of a sense of responsibility that this this morning routine changed my life in a profound way. And then I started teaching it to people like my coaching clients and people that I knew and they're like I'm not a morning person. And they'd come back a week later to our call and go my gosh, it helped. This works. So that's where I go, okay, wait, is this changed my life and their life and we weren't morning people like this could help anyone. So I have a responsibility to share this with other people. So I wrote and self published first book but when I did so I was, I didn't have an audience so I wasn't thinking. You know, I'm like, yes, this could change the world, but I'm not going to reach the world. Like I just want to help if I help one, that mentality, one person. But what happened is when the book came out and then I'm getting dozens and then hundreds and then thousands of emails and reviews like this saved my marriage. This got me off my meds. This, this fit right then I'm like, oh, I really got a mindset of like it is selfish of me. That's how I and I felt and I don't know if I still feel that way, but I think that I do. It's selfish of me to not do everything in my power to at least introduce this to as many people as possible because it can really help. So thoughts on that?

I I think as many people as possible is the is a nuance because yeah, as many as possible or as many as are available. And if as are available versus is equal to the same as possible, then you have.

I think it does. It's as many as I can get in front of and reach and talk to.

I know that when I started the blog that became Bulletproof, I already had a full time VP job at a big tech company in the computer security industry. I had two young kids. Starting a company is kind of dumb. And I wasn't starting a company. I just said Look, I've spent 20 years gathering this knowledge. I spent $2 million at the time, $1 million on reversing all this negative stuff that happened to me with my health and like I'm healthier, happier, more successful. Things are better than they ever have been. I'm just, I'm like a leader in longevity and nootropics and it's just My hobby. So I'm going to write this and five people are going to read the blog. That was my goal. And if they avoid the million dollars and just the suffering that I went through when I was a teenager and, and a young man and someone who's 19 reads it and it changes their life, I'm all in. Just for like five people was my goal. And it grew to a lot more than that, you know, and became a hundred million dollar a year company. But it wasn't the goal when I started. It was just five people. And along the way, like some things stood out. Maybe one of the most meaningful was this is maybe just two years after I started it, I came actually, I think it was here in Austin at an event. And this guy walks up and he goes, dave, you know, I just, we have a gift for you. And it was a bag. It had like a couple frozen rib eyes and a stick of butter and a card. And the card was signed by all of his family. And he said, you know, we found yourself 90 days ago. And you know, here's a picture of us then and here's a picture of us now. And you couldn't even recognize him. Like they'd all lost huge amounts of weight, but. But the one that stood out was a 16 year old girl and she was like really fat.

Right.

And I was pretty heavy in high school and certainly at the beginnings of college. So she's just heavy and you know, bad skin and all that stuff. And then the picture from nine days later is beautiful skin, healthy, healthy shape, just like vibrant. And I'm like, damn, I wish someone had done that for me.

Yeah, right.

And like I almost cried myself, man. Like, this is just so profound. And the act of helping a person to your nervous system and to your spirit, I think it's the same as helping a million people.

I think we're built to do that. That's what we're built to do. Humans are built to serve each other, help each other, support each other, connect with each other, love each other.

That's it.

How does that incorporate in your miracle morning practice?

So when I started the miracle morning, it was a, I'd say it was a selfish pursuit. And I don't put any negativity toward that word. Right. But meaning, it was 2008. The US economy had crashed. I crashed with it. I lost my house, foreclosed by the bank. I'm in physically terrible shape. Living on credit cards. Really low point.

Yeah.

And so I was just looking for a solution to get out of debt. And turn my life around. And the miracle morning. It wasn't called the miracle morning. It was my morning practice. And after two months, I doubled my income at the height of the Great Recession. And I remember the moment I ran to tell my wife I signed on a second coaching client for the day, said, sweetie, I signed on two more coaching clients today. She goes, congratulations. I go, no, no, no, you don't understand tipping. We just doubled our income in the last two months from this. It's all because this morning routine, it's the practice I'm doing in the morning. I go, it feels like a miracle. And without skipping a beat, she goes, it's your miracle morning. And I go, I like that miracle morning. But again, not a book idea. I just wrote down miracle morning every day. That was like. That was my thing, my miracle morning. I started teaching it to coaching clients, right? So the point is, it started out with me, like, I need to change my life, but now I do the miracle morning in service of others. So for me, the miracle morning helps me be the husband that my wife deserves and the dad that my kids deserve, because I focus on optimizing myself in the morning, and then I can show up my best. And of course, yes, selfishly, I want to be happy and I want to be healthy and I want to be financially secure and all of those things, that doesn't go away. But also, it's like anything, once your needs are taken care of, then you feel like, oh, I'm liberated. Who do I want to help today? Because like you said, that's where I actually feel the most lit up and fulfilled, is when I'm helping someone else. And so that, for me, is. It is how do I take care of myself first in the morning, now that I can go out and be the husband and the father and the leader that the people that I serve need?

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E so now you're talking about some kind of masculine and feminine roles even here. You know, like Shai was the husband, the father that I need to be. Most guys, including me, have been socialized and put put everyone else first. Like you don't take care of yourself first. You take care of your family first. And a big part of my belief is creating that state of high performance and resilience. It comes from taking care of your own needs because then you have 10 times more energy to take care of your community, your family and all those things. Yeah, and I've been doing a lot of work. It might end up being a book one of these days. A lot of work just with local, local.