Shaun T of Insanity The Superpower of Selfishness

Bulletproof Radio a state of high performance. Today's episode is really interesting. I'm talking to a guy you've probably seen kind of yelling at you to get fit. But we spend most of the episode talking about what really makes him tick and. And being an entrepreneur and about to be a new dad and just getting behind one of the top guys in the field of exercise and fitness who's literally changed the lives of millions of people. This is fascinating stuff. You will not believe where we're going to go in this episode. So listen to the whole thing. You are going to get a lot of value from this. And it's a lot of fun, too. You're listening to Bulletproof Radio with Dave Asprey. Today's cool fact of the day is that if you have a fear of spiders and snakes, it's actually deeply embedded in your nervous system. And we've always argued about whether the aversion we have to these things is innate or something you learn because your parents or your peers are responding to this because you saw it. But now scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and Uppsala University in Sweden, they've discovered that this is hereditary. In other words, we're born with it. Because even babies get stressed when they see a spider or a snake. They would show a picture of a snake or a spider to babies instead of a flower or a fish, and they would get significantly bigger pupils, which is kind of cool. That means that fear is evolutionary and it's an inherited reaction that then teaches us to learn that the animals are dangerous. What's cool about this is that if you had, say, your webcam looking at your eyes, looking at where they look, and looking more specifically at what makes them dilate and not dilate, you probably find that whenever you are watching the news, your eyes dilated in fear, which is why you shouldn't watch the news. Okay, maybe not. On that note, before we get into today's show, do you know we have bulletproof coffee pods? If you're traveling a lot like I do, and you go to those hotel rooms that have coorig machines, our pods are K cup compatible. And this is the bulletproof coffee that's lab tested for 27 toxins. So you can actually brew the coffee in your room or in your office and get the good stuff that doesn't give you the jitter and crankiness that you might get from your coffee that's not tested and is completely unregulated in the US which is a bit of a Problem. All right, today's episode is going to be a ton of fun because today's guest is a really well known guy. His name is Shaun T. He's the force of nature behind the insanely successful Insanity Workouts, Hip hop ABS, Focus T25 size and Sean Week workouts. What you might not know is that he's got a BS in Sports science and a minor in theater and dance. And he actually got started as a choreographer and it's just really helped a lot of people get a level of physical, just. I don't want to call it perfection, but just physical performance and a look that and a way of moving that's really remarkable. So the idea to be able to motivate and teach millions of people is something that's really interesting to me. And Shaun T. Has really cracked the code on that. He's also about to be a father of twins. So we're launching a new partnership together and I wanted you guys to get a chance to meet Sean and understand who he is and what he's all about. Because if all you see is what he's doing on YouTube or something, you probably don't know what a cool guy he is. So, Sean, welcome to the show.

Thanks. Thanks for the introduction. Everything you said, I am excited about. And I was excited about, like when I was doing and creating insanity, as hard as it was. And some people might say, why were you excited about that? Because it's so hard. But I was. I'm excited about becoming a new father. I'm excited about life and I'm excited about Bulletproof. And I know that might sound really crazy, but it's super exciting for me to be talking to you today because you are the man I've always wanted to connect with. When I fell in love with, when I first started my butter in the coffee time of my life, which, which I don't even know if you know, but it started out as a friend basically challenging me to try this butter and coffee because I was like, what are you talking about? This is great. I have so much energy naturally. Why do I need to put butter in my coffee? And it just became this whole thing and I literally fell in love with it. So I'm really excited to be here today and talk to you and talk to everyone out there.

Awesome. I found that Bulletproof took off even in, like the CrossFit community, people doing Ironman, like, people who are pushing themselves either cognitively, like people on TV where it's 14 hour days under lights where you have to look good and have your brain working just like people at the very limits of whatever their profession is, that they just naturally tried it, like, oh, yeah, that's it. But if you're running most of your days, maybe without needing to push as hard as you do with your workouts, maybe you don't notice it as much at first. But a lot of people who are like me, where I wasn't pushing hard that way, I was pushing hard in my career and just a huge amount of career stress and emotional stress and all that. But anytime there's a lot coming in, you got to have a lot more energy. So I could see why it would work just because, you know, you, your insanity workouts are insane, very insane.

But just to kind of piggyback off of what you were saying. Now in my career, it's more of being an entrepreneur, being I'm speaking a lot, meeting new people and, you know, you get that. I remember I used to get that afternoon lull is what I would call it. I would wake up, I would get the afternoon lull. And so when I was introduced to bulletproof, when I started making it the right way, I should say, it really eliminated that. And so my brain function and my brain power increased amazingly. And I. And I think positive, I'm a positive thinker anyway. And even if I'm tired, I still push through. I still move forward in whatever's happening in my day. But it definitely enhanced my ability to function, focus and refocus when I needed to. So I'm with you.

It makes me feel good when you say that. We did about 100 million cups of bulletproof coffee so far. The real stuff with brain octane and the ripeness and all, and just launched the new ready to drink stuff. At a certain point there's always these science trolls. I find something on PubMed and then they say you're a bad man. And personal insults paired with some irrelevant research at this point, just the force of, well, it works because I tried it for two days and it worked. But anytime I see someone who's operating at a top, top level because you're pushing yourself entrepreneurially and physically, I mean, if people are watching on YouTube, you can go to bulletproof.com YouTube to get a link to the channel for this if you want to watch it. But you're in fine shape. You've got the dancer's body, you practice what you preach. You've got to be doing a lot of stuff, right? But that's energy intensive. And then to have running a business is not A small thing either.

Yeah, it definitely, I mean, listen, I, you know, there's exercise and then there's, you know, work. And so I always tell people that my biggest obstacle is communication. Not me communication, communicating because I'm a, I communicate really well. But when you have to deal with a lot of people and a lot of personalities and a lot of that comes into play, you have to be at a level at which you can really focus and not let any outside sources get in your way. And so, you know, I always like to say there's the high level athlete, which, you know, a lot of people who work out heavily or who are an athlete or whatever. There's a high level athlete and then there's the high level mental athlete, which is people who are listening right now. People like you and me. People. And I'm, I'm the kind of person who, I don't, I don't like to sit at a desk and work. I'm a very, very like internal worker. Like my, my actual computer is my brain. And so whether I'm on a tennis court playing tennis or if I'm just sitting there, which and it may look like I'm meditating, I'm actually planning with the same, the same way someone would actually do at their desk. And so which is important for people to know that people work in different ways. But the power that I get from obviously just keeping my body healthy on an exercise standpoint and then what I put in my body, it, it just, you know, and the power is great when you actually combine the two. And so, you know, I'm about to turn 40, which is a whole nother thing that, you know, I never, you know, number, it's just a number. Right. But at the same time it's a big number. And it's, it's, it's when you, when you combine a number with the level of success and experiences you had, it can weigh heavily on you. And so all of these things, these things that I'm saying, exercise, eating healthy, you know, we're talking about bulletproof. I mean, it really aids in the success of who you are as a well rounded human being.

Well, so I'm going to go somewhere I've got some questions about T is for transformation and developing superpowers, which is in your book. But what did you see between 30 and 40? And this is something like we got a lot of people listening to this who haven't quite turned 30. And we got a bunch of people who are like actually throughout the age range, but there's a lot of people, surprisingly, even at the Bulletproof conference who are 50 plus and like, I got my brain back. I love this. But no one told me when I was 30 what to expect between 30 and 40. Just biologically, cognitively, like, what's your experience the last 10 years been as you come up on your 40th?

Hey, I'll tell you this, the intro to my 30s was bizarre because I had just coming off. I had just come off of finishing the Insanity workout and filming it. And I was, I mean, when I tell you, peak physical condition. And then I went and created something called Asylum, right? Go figure. Saturday, the Insanity Asylum. And it's a, you know, a high level sports training workout. And I was like, in it. But immediately when I finished shooting Asylum, that's when my body started to break down and I didn't understand. I was like, what are you talking about? Why is my knee. I can't sit on an airplane for more than 45 minutes without having to straighten out my knee. Because I felt like the burn or, you know, the standing up. I remember living in New York and I had a low platform bed where in my 20s I could jump out of bed. And now I was like, oh, you know, I was like, I felt like the Tin man from the wizard of Oz, you know. So then I had to really start making these small. Because I believe that you can't change overnight. I had to start making these small changes. Yoga and stretching. And while I always knew stretching was important because I was a dancer, a different kind of stretching, a different kind of breathing. And so physically, had I not been aware, I could have gone really downhill in my 30s. But physically I've just become more smarter. And I'm not just talking about kinetically or, you know, physiologically in the sense of like my, my VO2 max, because I know how to do that. The science behind it, behind moving and getting healthier and fitter is, is proven. But no one really tells you how the mental focus and the breathing can actually really help heal your body every single day. And so that was the one thing that I, that was the first thing that I figured I started to see a change in, in my early 30s. The next thing that was really profound is my ability to become emotionally strong because. And this might be a little bit deep, but I'm going to go here anyway. In your 20s, you still are somewhat in a playground. You know, you're still in the playground. You can. I was, yeah, I know, please. I was like living. And so, I mean, I'm living now, but I was living in a different way. And so you're in this playground and you feel like you can make mistakes. And mistakes are fine in your 20s because you're like, I'm only 27 or whatever. But then when 30 something hits and there's a. I don't know what it is because I'm not a scientist in this way. But there is something that happens in your brain where you start to think with a little bit more focus in terms of, like, you're building your wisdom. And I believe that wisdom is fuel. And if you don't actually, you know, attach to eat it and digest the. The experiences that you have that you are having now and that you've had and go back and look at them, you're really missing out on a great opportunity to find success within yourself. And so what I had to do is literally say, okay, I'm not in. I'm not in a playground anymore. I'm actually in a carnival. And so one of the things that I said, and I don't know if you remember the Fuj, there was a scene, you know, Wyclef Jean and Pras and Lauryn Hill, you know, there was a song where they say, when you roll into the carnival, anything can happen. And that's what my 30s was like. It was like, okay, like, I was doing hip hop abs and I was doing insanity and I did Asylum. And so now what's next? You know, because we can create amazing things. But what you start to think about is you start to think about what's next, and you start to think about how you can internalize and breathe through what's happening in your life at that moment. And so I just started and I say all that to say is I had to actually accept where I was and accept that change was happening and literally ride the wave of that. And even in currently, you know, I mentor guys who are between the age of 28 and 32. It is the most amazing and rewarding thing, experience I've had so far in terms of. In terms of mentoring people, because they're right at that age where there's a fear that they're not going to be successful. But there's this drive in this passion and that energetic young youthness that comes out where they still believe that they can do it, and they still believe that they're either on that soccer field or whatever sport they played or whatever they were, you know, competitive in. And so that was the next thing. It's just like, I had to be Willing. A willing participant in the carnival that was happening in my life and really connect to all the things that was, you know, keep some of my 20s energy, but really start to refocus and use the wisdom that was actually generating in my body to become more successful.

So what was driving you entrepreneurially back then? I mean, were you like, I've got to hit a financial metric, I've got to prove something, or I don't want to fail? Like, what was your core? When did you wake up every morning just wanting to do this?

Well, in my early 30s, I made a huge mistake. I made a very, very big mistake. And one of the biggest mistakes I made entrepreneurially was saying that I wanted to make $20 million in five years. That was my goal. I was like, I want to make $20 million million dollars in five years. And it was the biggest mistake of my life. Because what I know now, what I'll say and I'll explain, is that you should never chase a number. You should chase a feeling. You should chase a feeling. And so. And when I'm creeping into that, you know, mid-30s and I'm making really, really good money, I'm really stressed about the fact that I am not close enough to the 20 million. Right. And that's in that. And so what I realized, and it just completely changed the course of my life and my delivery. When I'm able to speak to people about this wisdom that I've learned, is that you should never chase a number. You should chase a feeling. And so when I realized that you should chase a feeling and not a number, it was brilliant. Because on the, on the other side of. Of this, I want to make $20 million. You know, I. My. The foundation of who I was was I'm never going to work for money. I'm always going to work for things that I love. But for some reason in that early 30s, it was like, oh, to be successful, to be able to invest this amount of money, I have to make this money, and I can live off the interest. And it was this whole. This whole mess is what I call it. But then when I refocused and I came back to, no, you should never chase a number. You should chase a feeling. And I'm able to tell people that when it comes to weight loss as well.

Yeah, it. It's kind of funny. When I was 16, I got really focused on the number, and I was like, I'm going to be a millionaire by the time I'm 23. And it was like, all I focused on I had it written on my mirror and all the think and grow rich stuff. And I didn't hit it. When I was 26, I made 6 million bucks, which is not bad, right? The problem was I literally told a friend, I'm like, you know, I'll be happy when I have 10 million. That'll be enough. So I kept making bad decisions, and I lost the $6 million by the time I was 28. And I was like, oh, lessons learned, right? And it comes down to, you got to take care of your bases. But like, you're saying, if you're. If you're focused on the number, the number isn't going to do anything when you hit it, it's like, I really want to buy a new toy. And as soon as you get the new toy, you're like, that didn't make me happy, because it's that feeling of loving what you do that really matters. And that said, I think you got to put bread on your table. Well, in this case, put some fat on your table, because I don't eat bread. But you got to put something worth eating on your table. Put it that way. Because the problem is, if you focus only on a feeling and you actually, you can't get there because you don't have transportation and you don't have a cell phone. All right, maybe you're doing that wrong, but there's gotta be a balance in there, right? But you're going after the number, and it didn't lead to happiness for you.

Yeah, numbers. Numbers in terms of money and numbers in terms of weight, it's not tangible. Like, you literally, you can't. I mean, yes, you can actually touch a dollar, but it doesn't feel like anything but paper. And so I would tell you to go to your office and grab a piece of paper out of a printer, it's going to feel the same thing. And when it comes to weight loss, at the end of the day, you can't feel it. And it's about, how do you sustain your weight loss? And when it comes to money is how do you sustain the money? And that's. You sustain money by, like, continuing to go after the feeling and doing something that is true to who you are, because that's where the passion is going to continue to thrive.

My stress level has gone down just enormously. When I got to the point where I'm like, all right, I. I think I could take care of my family now. I could do that. Before I started bulletproof, you know, I had a successful career in cloud Computing and all that stuff in Silicon Valley. But I wasn't, you know, I was comfortable. But not, like, excessively comfortable. Right. But I knew, like, I've got this, like, we're not going to starve. But when I focused on, you know, that. That feeling of making a difference, that was when, like, things really, really took off. But more importantly, the amount of internal struggle, it went almost to zero. Plus, I've done all this neurofeedback and stuff, too. The voice in my head is mostly turned off at this point.

Have you read the Untethered Soul? No. Good book. Good book. It talks about that voice in your head. Well, yours is turned off, so don't read it yet. But if for some reason a volume turns back up, I'll ship it to you. Just let me know.

Oh, you're the man. All right. So I will read it just because it'll be helpful for people who are listening to the show and who listen to other shows. I'm working on the personal development side of helping people understand the whole stack of biohacking. You get your movement, your exercise, your food and all that down. There's still other things going on that get in the way of superpowers. Well, let's talk actually about superpowers, because your new book, T is for Transformation, is really about superpowers. And you talk about how there's seven superpowers you can unleash. Walk me through a couple superpowers. Like, how do you write about that?

So, first of all, let me explain what your superpowers are, because some people may say, is this a comic book? No, it's not. But we all have developed superpowers over the course of our lives that we haven't even tapped into. We don't even know they exist. Because most of the time, what happens is once we reach, when we go through a struggle, when we get to the end of the struggle, we feel so relieved that it's like, I want to put that behind me, but. But we forget the most important thing, which is what is the takeaway? What did you do that is actually making you gain so much strength? So if something like this happens again, you have a tool you can pull out. And so I have this thing called a secret backpack. I'm wearing it right now. It might sound weird, it might sound crazy, it might sound like I'm the little kid with the imaginary friend, but we all have a secret backpack. And for me, what I used to do when I was a young adult, I would not. I would react to things so quickly I would react, react, react, react, react. And I wouldn't respond to it because they're two different things. A reaction is like, if someone goes to punch you, you tighten your core, right? A response is, okay, yeah, I got to tighten my core. But, like, what am I going to do to make sure I don't, like, this doesn't happen again? And how am I going to process this in a way that I cannot. Not only am I going to come out on top, but how am I going to process that a way so I diffuse the situation, but I can actually gain from the situation. And so, you know, I don't want to get super dark here, but, you know, I was molested as a kid. I moved out of the house when I was 14. I had to come out as gay when I was 21. Like, there are all these things that are happening in my life as I'm moving through my life. And because I get out of that situation or I've gotten out of that situation, what I would do is say, thank goodness. Let me let it go. Okay, now, like, that's great. That's gone. But it wasn't until I actually started to go to therapy that I realized I'm like, wait a minute. These are actually. They're horrible things that may have happened to you or things or struggles that you've had, but they are so. There's so many amazing things that have come out of this, and that is fortunately, but unfortunately, but fortunately, I was able to learn how to breathe in a different way. I was able to learn how to get to not let a, you know, a negotiation in business and lawyership bother me. You know, I would be like, I'm like, I've been through worse. Like, this is fine. How can I communicate my way through this? And so if someone's listening out there, no matter what you've been through in your life, if you actually go back and my book helps you take these things and say, what is it? What is it that I actually learned from this situation? And you literally will find that you have so many superpowers that you'll be able to communicate internally your way through so many things and come out on top. But I'm only. So Dave, I'm only going to share one superpower, though, today, and it's my favorite one is superpower. And it might sound crazy. So this superpower always gets a negative connotation. Like, if I called you this, if I. If we got off this, we got off this, you know, talk, and we were both at a bulletproof location. And you were ordering your coffee, right? And I'm standing behind you, and I was like, you know what? That guy Dave is so selfish. You would be like, I can't believe Sean said that about me. I invited him on my show. Like, I think he's great, you know, but superpower, the superpower of selfishness is the thing that is the most amazing superpower you'll ever have. And let me tell you why. Because it gets a bad connotation. Because the problem is we wake up every day and the first thing we do is we think about, what can we do for everybody else. Yeah, we have a family, we have a job, we have a car, we have friends. And it is. It's great. I'm so happy we have these things. And I'm so happy they motivate us to move forward so that can make them feel good. But the majority of human and humanity forgets to give themselves time. No one wakes up in the morning and looks in the mirror and says, you know, I look damn good. Or, you know what? Not only did I lose weight, but I actually feel good about myself and look in the mirror and be like, come through, Shaun T. Like, yes. You know, or when someone says, if I say, you know, Dave, like, you're a really handsome guy, most people would say, ah, nah. Me, if someone tells me I look, I'm like, I know, thanks. And I know. And I. And you know, you say, no, I'm kidding, but thank you, I really appreciate it. But I tried to eliminate the negative self talk. And so, yeah, the superpower of finding your moment in the day, I call it positive selfishness, is the most amazing, one of the most amazing things you'll have because you will find the ability to actually believe in yourself. That's why I have it on my arms. Trust and believe. Because if you don't believe you, no one else is going to believe you. And if they do and you have false and the belief that you have is false, eventually when, when the belief becomes deep enough and people start to ask you questions about the belief in yourself, you're going to become stuck because you don't actually believe. And so I want you to wake up every day and believe that you matter, that be selfish in the morning, have your cup of coffee, have whatever, you know, I mean, I mean, I didn't say that because I'm talking to you. I mean, I'm serious. Like, check my Instagram story today. You know, when I'm drinking my coffee, I have like, something I Think about every day about me and I share it with everyone and you are the nucleus of your existence. You are the sun of your solar system. Imagine you being, being giving yourself major self doubt everything every single day. Or if you're, if you didn't pay give your wife attention or your spouse attention, what would happen? They would just, you know, things would start to go awry. And so what? The same thing happens if you don't give yourself attention. So have that selfish moment every single day. It is a superpower. Believe in positive self talk. And I promise you, I promise you, if you start your day like that, even if you have a rough day coming up at the office or whatever it is like you will go out there knowing that you can slay the game.

It's so cool that you brought that up. There's a group I'm a member of called the Transformational Leadership Council and it was started by Jack Canfield. And it's got most of the leaders in personal development in it. And what they do is they get together a couple times a year at a resort and it's only those people. And the whole point is we got to take care of ourselves. We got to be a little bit selfish because people who are working to change lives for hundreds of thousands or millions of people, oftentimes you put everyone else first. And at the end of the day I got nothing left for me. But the way to do it is you got to put the oxygen mask on first, the way they tell you in the airplane. Because if you don't have that energy, you're not going to be able to bring that energy for the work you do. I find this over and over in people who aren't working at the level that you are, where they're just never addressing their core requirements. So they don't take care of themselves or they don't have self love even though they're teaching others to have it. I was really amazed when I was invited to be a member of that group to sit down with Jack and all these amazing people and they're all doing this work as well to make sure that they're doing the self care thing that you just talked about. So thank you for bringing that up. And for people listening, that is profoundly good advice. Like whether you want to call it being selfish or something else. But if you don't put self care first, I don't think you can bring it the way you're capable of it is to the point I want to ask how you do this, but I actually with My assistant. I work with someone who helps me organize my day, partly because I really don't like calendaring. It just sucks my energy dry.

It.

I just don't like college.

Are you free?

I don't know.

Are you free?

I don't know. For some reason, that's just kryptonite for me. So I'm like, all right, every day I want X amount of time for me. I call it my self upgrade time. And then every day it's like, hey, I want some family time that's blocked out and planned. And then I've got some work time and all that. But the order of priority and it's written down is health and wellness first, family second, and work is closed third. And I work with my team on the same way because if you're unhappy at home or you're not taking care of yourself, you're not going to be effective at the work you do. How do you prioritize those things and how are you going to change it now that you're about to be a dad?

Well, I have what's called non negotiables. Okay, so here's what, here's what doesn't happen, here's what won't happen. And one of my superpowers, another superpower I have, is actually like flexible. Being flexible. But in the turn, in terms of what we're talking about, my workout in the morning, never ever, this is non negotiable. Whether it's me out on the tennis court or me doing one of my own workouts, which, yes, I actually do my own workouts, is non negotiable. So that's. And, and my husband Scott knows that, like there's like, you do not, you do not schedule anything during my workout. Even if I have a live event where it's an event where I'm actually teaching a large group of people. I work out before I even go on stage. And the reason why is because in order for me to be able to give you everything, my cup needs to be full because you can't run on empty. And so one of the things I tell group exercise instructors, and I believe that this can work for leaders in business or whatever you do as well, is when I'm teaching, it's not about me. When you're teaching, you have to find a moment that separates you from the people who want to learn from you. And so that's why I start to my workout. It's non negotiable. And it's actually because I'm actually in the process of developing something, because when our twins get here, I'm thinking that it's going to be a little bit crazy. So I'm trying to develop a workout that I can keep my workout. And then it's obviously same as you. Second is family. It is. And when I say family, it's my relationship, my interpersonal relationships, it's my immediate family, it's my friends, it's, you know, maybe people that I work with just showing. Because my religion is the golden rule. Do unto others as you have others do unto you. And I talk about in my book, the moment that I realized that the golden rule was, like, I thought it was the most amazing thing, because I used to say I was 6 years old and I'm sitting in my first grade classroom, and we had the scroll above the chalkboard and it said the golden rule. And I was like, wait, you mean for the rest of my life, if I'm nice to people, this is like, I can actually be nice to people. And that's almost like putting money in the bank and investing goodness into people. I thought it was the best thing ever. But anyway, I say all that to say second is family, friends, interpersonal relationships. Because, and you've heard this before, you are the average of the five closest people to you, like who. Who are surrounding you and what kind of relationships do you have with them. And not everything is going to be great all the time, but what if you surround yourself with good interpersonal relationships that communicate well that if anyone is off balance, you have people to pick you up? And then after that, I can walk out on stage and I can feel really full and really fulfilled. And when I go to work with other people, I can feel full and really fulfilled so that I'm able to deliver in the best way possible.

Now, I'm going to warn you, as a father of two young kids, now there's this thing called sleep deprivation.

That.

Might go against a hard workout every morning. My first child, I learned this. My second child, I did this, the research for the bulletproof diet. I slept five hours or less every night, and I ate like, a stupid amount of calories to try and show I'm eating enough calories to gain £20amonth by only gaining £2amonth. And it turns out I lost weight even though I was doing this. Not getting enough sleep makes you gain weight. And I did all this, But I timed that to start the day after my second child was born, because I was only going to sleep five hours a night anyway, because kids have a radar if you wake up early, they sense it with their kid radar. And then they'll wake up early because they want to be up when you're up. And she's like, I'll wake up late. And they're like, okay, I'll wake up late, too. It's like they follow you around to interrupt your workout or your meditation. My whole morning with one child. I could do it with two. It was like the whole morning. Anytime you set aside time, they find a way in. So I'm wondering if, you know, three years now, you'd be like, t is for twins. And that'll be your. Your next book. Well, I already have.

Twinsanity is what we're calling it. Instead of insanity, we're calling it twinsanity. I mean, you look, you know, obviously you have to monitor and adjust, right? Because you can say one thing and you just never know. But the goal is to stay on the track. Stay on track and stay on path. But I might just have to call you, and I feel a little crazy. I'll be like, dave, what do I do in this situation?

Now you actually can call me. I'd be honored to help. I mean, I like to think I'm a good dad, but I think every dad likes to think that. But if there's hints, I would say talk to people who have kids who've been through it. Because I've benefited so much from people who sat me down and like, okay, Dave, here's the crap you don't need to buy. Here's the stuff you need to buy. Here's what is going to save you a huge amount of time. Here's. Here's how to not change a lot of diapers. It turns out there's one hack for that that literally will change your life, because we'll talk after the show, but it's like, there's a lot of cool stuff. But one thing that I did run into is I ran into this overtraining situation. And you might have hit that with the end of your asylum stuff because you're pushing yourself really hard, but then your recovery goes down because some of the energy that would have gone into recovery is now going into support, supporting young ones. What do you do with your intense workouts, especially as you're hitting 40? How do you balance recovery with the stress of training? What's your strategy for that?

When I was younger, in my 20s, and I love how we're still kind of in this. What happens in your 30s? So when I was younger, in my 20s, it was. I'm going out, I'm buying the dopest outfit, the fly shoes, I got to look good at the club. And now you want to know what I spend my money on? Recovery therapy. Whether it's massage, you know, getting a one on one yoga session, ice, compression therapy. I mean for me your workout generally for the Average person is 30 to 30 minutes to an hour. And for me, I spend about two and a half hours times that recovering my body. And it's not always like I go somewhere, but if I'm sitting at night and I'm watching tv, I'm icing. If I'm. When I'm not doing something else, I'm saying, okay, this is my time to get a massage. I literally have a massage room in my house so that when the therapist comes here, it's. If it flows into the day.

I almost, I almost want to turn my camera because right over there is my massage table that's set up. So. I'm with you man.

But sorry, I was just gonna say it's again, it's these non negotiable things and look, I know not everybody has the means to get a massage often, right? But you do have ice, you do watch tv. If you do, you do know how to stretch. You do have YouTube. So when you're scrolling, stop. There are plenty of five minute yoga stretches on YouTube that you can do while you watch TV or something, something like that to really get the flow and counteract what you do in your intense workouts.

I was watching a show last night and I had read an infrared light therapy on me the whole time and I'm breathing hydrogen gas and it's like, hey, I was going to watch the show anyway. I just got an upgrade during the time. Do you think people under 30 maybe could recover faster if they were to adopt some of these things as well? Or is this something that you just sort of naturally do as your body starts to hurt? Or would your body not start to hurt if you did this earlier?

So I believe that you can't start too early. So every day when I'm here, I wake up and I go to, I'm a part of a tennis club, tennis camp kind of, I would call it a. Just kind of like it's like a high level young kids tennis community. And these kids are amazing and they're. And I love hitting with them because they're youthful and they run and everything. But when I ask them to do stretch, when I ask them to stretch or when I ask them to and I'm not their coach. I'm there hitting with them or if I ask them to do a push up or hold the plank, they can't hold a plank for more than 13 seconds without shaking. They can't touch their toes. And so the answer to that is I believe that we should start from a young age teaching, just recovery therapy because. And it doesn't have to be extensive, it just has to be getting their mind ready and able to move. And one of the other things that I really love is a lot of my fans post video of their kids working out with them to the point where I'm nice, I'm at my events and I pull kids on stage with me and they, I'm like, this is incredible. You know, So I say that to say I really believe we should start young. But once you hit your 20s, man. So I got, obviously I have a bachelor's in science in health and exercise science. And one of the things that, one of my, the most amazing things that I did was become a group exercise instructor. Because through a lot of the training, you have to know when to stretch, you know, before, after the workout, how to stretch and the recovery. But you don't see people doing that in the weight room or up in the gym. It's. They work out, they lift, they go do abs, they leave, you know, and they're missing out on a very important, important, extremely important, you know, process, which is the stretch in the recovery. And I want to say again, what you, you touched on it earlier, which is you do not understand. I know you do, Dave, but I'm saying to people, if they don't know this, you do not understand how much sleep is important in the, in the, aid in weight loss and health. Sleep is the most important thing you can do. Rest is just tremendously important Now.

Now, if you've only slept three hours and you cross four time zones and all that, do you still wake up? You still wake up and kick your ass with the workout?

Yeah. So I actually just flew to London.

Okay. Okay.

And so I flew to London and because of the time that we land, usually when I land on a long haul flight, I get out and I work out right away. I don't even care. Like, I stretch, I drink tons of water and work out. But because I had like some stomach issue when I went, I waited a day, but yes, I woke up. And when I tell you I killed the insanity, one of my workouts. And it was the most amazing thing. But here's the thing, it was because I was able to sleep I think longer than I wanted to, or longer than I wanted to, longer than I. I normally would. Um, but even if there was a time when I had a really crazy schedule and I would still. I would still work out because I was like, if I have to get up at 4am to get on a flight, to sit on a flight for another, you know, it could be six, sometimes nine hours. The best thing I could do is work out beforehand. And I felt so much better even on the plane. It was crazy because you got the blood flow.

I used to sort of practice. I'd fly to London from the west coast in California, and I did it every month for 18 months. So, like one week a month, super disruptive. But I got to test because I had this standard thing. And yeah, if you work out in the morning of the time when you land, it raises your body temperature and raises your cortisol, and it can totally make a difference. But I also found that if I was really sleep deprived, that for me, stretching might be a good move. And going for a walk in the park barefoot and getting some light in my eyes, but not pushing myself really hard because I would tend to get sick if I did a heavy workout after a lack of sleep and a hard flight. I know that you've got your workouts dialed in to just really push you all the way, and I'm wondering how you balance it. It's just like, occasionally if you're super tired or something's not right, you'll skip a night and then you'll go back to it. But generally you're going to do it no matter what.

Yeah. I mean, the thing is, for me, like, some people are like, oh, this. Is this a rest day? Or what are your rest days? And I say, my body tells me my rest day.

But you allow yourself to take it.

I allow myself to take it.

Like, there you go.

When I was. Because I had a stomach thing, normally I would get off the plane and work out, but this time I said, I definitely need to take it easy. My body's telling me to shut it down, bring it down, get some rest. And I just really listen to my body. And if it tells. It's my boss, really, if it tells me to do something, I do it. And, you know, and here's one of the biggest things that frustrate me a little bit when I talk to people, especially fitness professionals or people who are so focused on losing a certain amount of pounds that they're like, no, I'm working, I'm doing something every single day. And that, that is the, you know, I, I like to explain it to people who might not have a high level of health and exercise education. Not, I'm not saying that people don't know, but because you can google anything but your muscles and your body is like a scar like that you would cut yourself or something. And so, you know, when you were younger and your mom would say, don't pick at your scab or leave the band aid on. It's because why that scab, the only way for it to heal and not leave a mark is if you actually leave it alone and give that part of your body rest. And the same thing happens to your muscles. So people who want to lift biceps, you know, two, two days in a row, or it's like, no, like, give it time. They will. The more rest you give them after you, you know, you, you beef them up, if you will, the better the result. And that's something that I can promise.

People and I love it. You just nailed the self care thing we talked about earlier. And that was something I did wrong. In my 20s, I'd had a couple knee surgeries. I weighed 300 pounds and I'm like, all right, this is unacceptable. Like, I'm going to get strong. I'm gonna lose this weight if it kills me. Like, it's the most important thing. So I made a commitment. I'm going to work out every day except Sunday. Just I figure I'll pick one day to not work out and it's non negotiable. And the problem was I'd be like, okay, I have like a horrible sinus infection. I can barely walk and wheezing. I'm going to go to the gym, damn it. And I did. And I do an hour and a half each time. Like 45 minutes of weights, 45 minutes of cardio, incline, treadmill, backpack. And at the end of this, I could max almost every machine at the gym. And I was still £300 and I was still fat and I still had size 46 waist and I was a double XL shirt. And I was like, I'm so discouraged. And when I look back at that, if someone had just told me, dude, resting when you need to rest makes you lose weight and makes you recover from exercise, I just didn't know it right. And I wish I would have. And it's one of the things that motivates me when I write the stuff on Bulletproof is like, there's all this stuff that wasn't in the manual. We're not born with the manual. Something I didn't know coming at this from really back then as an uneducated person, just saying, well, I heard I should work out, so, all right, I'm going to go all in. And I was eating the wrong stuff, even though I thought I was eating the right stuff. So given that you push people really hard with your workouts, I think it's awesome that you're talking about if your body tells you to skip a day, it's okay to skip a day. Especially if it's because you're like, I just don't have it today. So I'm impressed.

Yeah. One of the things that I think ruined the rest, like for people to grasp the fact that rest actually works, is the whole calories and calories out. When people start working out and they tell me it's like calories in, calories out. But you're forgetting one very important thing, which is the rest. And just because you work out really hard on a treadmill or an elliptical machine or take a class, that's, that's not making you lose the weight. Obviously, you know, there's a nutrition thing, but I remember a couple of years ago I shot a TV show called My Diet is Better Than Yours. And the hardest thing for me was to just be the host of the show and not one of the trainers, because I'm sitting there. No, the trainers were great, but I'm. For me, there were some people, you know, in the way they were losing weight and I couldn't give my feedback to like, you know, because I couldn't be biased to one trainer or another. But I wanted to say sleep people. I want everyone to sleep today instead of showing up on set. How about you all sleep? You're gonna wake up. It's so crazy. I'm like, just tell them to sleep. Don't worry about it. But, you know, that's not what some of the shows are about.

Yeah, I remember there was another one of the Biggest Loser. And you see these really heavy people, like I used to be, you know, chasing potato chips on a string or whatever, and it's like, ah, like, like.

You can just see it.

You're like, you know, don't, don't do that. You're not going to like how you feel at the end of this.

So, Yeah, I can't even.

So it's cool that you, that you just shared that with people and. Yeah, rest and recovery is the other side of the coin. If you only get one side of the coin by over exercising or under recovering or over Recovering and under exercising, you're going to get poor results either way. Right? That's cool. All right, let me ask you about obstacles because in T is for Transformation, you talk about these superpowers, but you also talk about obstacles. And what do you think the biggest obstacle? Like people listening, like the number one obstacle they have to just being as good as they could be.

What do you think it is the one thing that gets in your way.

Yeah.

The most. Yourself.

Nice. And unpack that for me.

Yeah, I am. The reason why I say that is the only reason why. Here, here I'm going to paint a picture. Because I love painting pictures. Not literally, figuratively, of course. We have, you know, in my relationship and I brought this into, in my other relationships, we have what I call magic wand situations. So I'm going to start by asking the people who are listening, if you had a magic wand, write down what your day would actually look like. And so a magic wand, it's like a fairy tale situation. It's like I would wake up, I would play tennis, I would wake up, I would have my coffee, I would play tennis. I would, you know, either answer some emails or have the meetings that I needed. I would, you know, maybe have a date night with my spouse. And so your magic wand situation is full of things that you love, full of things that you want, full of things that have no barriers in a way. Your magic wand situation didn't include, you know, having to go to the emergency room for something. Your magic wand situation didn't include your boss or, you know, a co worker saying, I need your help and, you know, finishing a project and you can't go out to your date night. Right. Like your book. These things didn't happen in your magic wand situation. And so the reason why I say you are your biggest barrier is because you don't create your magic wand situation and you don't find a way to be able to make that flexible. And what happens is you start to get in your own way. And the reason why I went through the magic wand situation and, and I led right into get in your own way is because the reason why we don't have magic wand situations is because we don't allow ourselves to, you know, we don't allow ourselves to have that moment. We don't allow ourselves to have the recovery and rest that we talked about a little bit ago. We are in control of everything we want to do. If someone had a magic wand situation, every single day, they would wake up, they probably would work out, they probably would lose that quote, unquote, 20, 30 pounds, they would do it. But the only reason why they're not doing it is because they're letting everyone else lead the charge. And when you start to let everyone else lead the charge, then you start getting in your own way because you don't learn how to take up for yourself. And so you have to take up for yourself. You have to be your own, your biggest cheerleader, and you have to give.