Why Your Workouts Aren’t Giving You a Summer Body — with Nick Bare : 1294

So much better to be consistently good and just push a little bit more as opposed to emptying the tank over and over again.

There's something that entrepreneurs do and just high performance people do. There can be something around, like a fear of mediocrity.

This fear of being inferior to your potential self is actually like one of the strongest drives that you can utilize.

And have a college startup success story. One decade ago, our next guest turned his passion for fitness and nutrition into.

A business, and today is worth $40 million.

Joining us right now is Army Veter, founder of Bayer Performance Nutrition, Nick Baer.

I think what happens and why people fail is that they, instead of going into the day and into life, into a season, being proactively prepared, it's all reactive.

How do you match willpower to physiological limits? Or do you just assume you're going to handle it? You're listening to the Human upgrade with Dave Asprey. There's something that entrepreneurs do and just high performance people do. And I've studied high performance as much as I can. You know, 1300 episodes in, I've talked to some people in different fields, like, wow, I can't believe that there can be something around like a fear of mediocrity. Is that a trap?

I don't think it's a trap. I think it's a necessity. I think that is like the drive. There's this book that I absolutely love and I'm drawing the blank of the name right now. The Courage to be Disliked. That's what it's called, the Courage to Be Disliked. And it talks about the difference between feelings of being inferior and an inferiority complex, where the feelings of being inferior are actually a strength and required to succeed, but there's negative consequences of an inferiority complex. So I think this fear of being mediocre, this fear of being inferior to your potential self is actually like one of the strongest drives that you can utilize and have. I mean, I. That's what drives me. Like, I. I visualize where I could be, where I want to go, but I have to make the choices to get there. I'm not going to just get there on autopilot. So there is this constant fear of not being able to reach what I could have. And especially once you gain some momentum.

Right.

You know, I've been building now for over a decade, and once you start gaining some momentum, you start getting some wins. You don't want to lose that momentum. You don't want to go backwards. You don't want to maintain. So it's like foot pressed against the floor, gas pedal down. How do I keep improving? How do I keep getting better? Right. And that's what going more is all about. It's an outcome. It's not just doing more to do more. How do I actually progress? Maybe it's doing different to achieve all the things that I want to.

I really like that nuance where it's not necessarily doing one more of what you just did, but it's like one more unit in the direction you're headed. And that's how I'm approaching my longevity stuff. I read a major longevity book, plan to live to at least 180, and it's. Is there one more thing I can do that's going to move the needle in the right direction? And just constant application of technique and force versus just a constant application force. So that becomes more elegant over time as you get more wisdom and, you know, it works better. And I'm getting that vibe from your book for sure.

How do you. So there's a. Like, in terms of longevity, there's all these things you can be doing.

Yep.

How do you measure what is considered successful? And then what do you leverage? Because you can't spend all your time doing a million different things. How do you decide what's incremental?

This is the most fun thing. And it's funny. I'm friends with Brian Johnson, who's been in the media lately. You've probably come across this stuff. And I did this campaign a while ago. I'm like, I spent $2 million to reverse my age by 20 years, et cetera, et cetera. But I spent that over 20 years. So you measure it with lab tests, and you measure it with. Oh, there's about 50 different ways you can measure the functionality of your body and your mind. So EEG grip strength is one way to do it. Lots of lab tests. Think of it like this. What do you drive? What kind of vehicle?

It's a Ford F150 Raptor.

Nice. I'm actually thinking about buying one of those right now. I had a F150 I tricked out when I lived on my farm. It's exactly the Raptor I'm looking at buying, actually. You want to sell me yours? I'm kidding. But if you were to take it into a mechanic and say, I want to do preventative maintenance on it, there's a maintenance schedule. Right. And you got to change the transmission fluid at a certain time. You got to change the windshield wipers at a different time. Right. Rotate the tires like all this stuff that you probably don't do, no one rotates tires anymore, but you're supposed to. So if you were to say, I want you to keep this truck new as close new as possible, and I don't care if you have to change the oil every 1,000 miles versus every 5,000, right. And I want you to preventatively stop anything catastrophic. So we're going to put gaskets in the engine. We're going to change out the. That's actually a turbocharged V6, right? Twin turbos.

It is, yeah.

Yeah. Same one ahead. So with that. All right, what's the turbo maintenance cycle that the manufacturer recommends? And what's the optimal one so that when you hit 100,000 miles, you're like, well, it probably needs paint, but everything else is fine. Right. And to be able to 200,000, 300,000. Our bodies have the same thing. So there's about seven different systems that are the things that cause you to. To, you know, to age. And there's four things that are going to kill you. So prioritize, just like you're saying, you know, going more. Well, let's not die of the stupid stuff that we know is going to get you, like diabetes, right? So you put that at the top. Don't get diabetes, which is a precursor to cancer and a precursor to heart disease and a precursor to Alzheimer's. So number one, don't die of stupid shit. Stop the four killers. And then everything else is maintenance. But if you're time limited on your truck, the windshield washer system not mission critical, you might maintain that one less. So I set aside X amount of time every day for my longevity practice. And you look at some of the people in the longevity movement in the last couple years, they'll spend eight hours a day on their longevity. You're only awake for 16 hours a day. So you spent 50% of your waking life investing in longevity. That means you gotta live 30% longer just to break even. And I'm hour a day, sometimes more if I want to. And it's fun. And so for me, it's allocating time and then allocating effort within the time. So it's like, I'm gonna go one more, but I'm gonna cram it all into that, into that one hour as best I can.

Yeah.

And everything else, habits, what we talked about. My house is built so my environment helps me stay longer. My bed is optimized, my bedroom's optimized. My. I'm not spending time on it.

I just set it up. Right.

And there's some element I think as an entrepreneur, as a dad. Right. You know, I'm sure because you're ex military, you've got a go bag at home. Right. You also have a diaper go bag and it's all set up. Right. Imagine how much time that buys you. Right. So it's time to go, let's grab them versus oh man, let's take an hour to get out, out the door. Right. So like organization and making your environment functional I think is, is underrepresented as it's so important for health and for longevity and for parenting. I think you can squeeze two hours a day for doing stuff that matters by consciously planning things or getting rid of things that don't matter because you're doing it wrong. Do you spend a lot of time optimizing like that? Like more Tim Ferriss style?

Yeah, but it's more so that forward thinking, backwards planning approach where I'm constantly optimizing but optimizing for efficiency, whether that's in my workouts or diet and meal prep and just having things accessible. Like if, if I look in the freezer and we have less than two weeks worth of meat in there, I am ordering meat so we don't run out. You know, I'm at a point where like I don't want to not have the things that I need. I want in excess and optimize to set me up for success. That comment kind of makes me think of something around going more. I'm curious your thoughts around it in terms of like this maintaining this new car approach. I'm a big advocate and fan of in certain times and places really pushing whether that's an endurance effort, an ultra like really digging in deep which is not optimal. But I believe that it unlocks these new perspectives and thoughts that are absolutely critical and beneficial mentally and can be physically and emotionally as well. When I've done these ultras before, they are by no means healthy. But I've come out on the other side with this new perspective that I've been able to apply and, and grow from. With that being said, you know, that is part of going more. And then with your approach to longevity of trying to maintain the car as new as possible for as long as possible. How do you think of that? And then certain times and places really pushing.

This is a fun conversation. So there's, there's the, the crucible, these points where you think you're at rock bottom and you're not and you discover a new capability, a new layer right and that's some of the most powerful spiritual growth you can do. Yeah, I agree. Right. And there's also near death experiences which usually precede a shamanic awakening. And I've had a couple near death experiences. And the idea here is you don't want to go that far where you actually die or actually, it was here, a guy who's, you know, explored glaciers and all and he's missing a finger because of frostbite. Like he went too far.

Far.

Right. What I think we can all learn from is Mark Sisson was just here a couple, couple weeks ago talking about his, his cool new shoe company. And he's like, you know, I wish I'd have done less endurance work when I was younger because I'm feeling it now. And he's, you know, an epic, epic runner and endurance thing. So he changed his training to, to push much less in the training, but to have more efficiency. He just did it later in life. And I think there's a big lesson for that because, man, when you're, you're 25, you have this abundant chi. You could cause this, this energy and you can, you can spend it on running long distances and say, ah, my knee hurts a little bit. It'll be fine. It's actually not going to be fine. Like when, when you're 50, if you don't maintain that system, it's like, yeah, that bearing made a little noise. Well, that whole front end is going to need a replacement if you don't.

Yeah.

If you don't fix that. So there's this, this desire to push versus maintain. And I think all men especially, and some women too, but it may be more of a male thing, like we're just wired to do that, you know, get it done. And mother Nature wires us that way because it's like, well, you know, make sure that you, you know, protect the castle, you know, kill the deer, whatever your job is. And as long as you had a couple babies and, you know, it's all right. You get disabled, you either become an elder or they'll push you off the cliff. Right. And that's kind of the way of things. And if we want to change the way of things, it means that we talk with our younger men, like, all right, here's the maintenance cycles, here's the necessary maintenance cycles, and here's the optimal maintenance cycles and you get to choose. And we apply our willpower to that. And for me, that was a big shift because like I said, you know, multiple surgeries before I'm 25, just from pushing myself, you know, well, yeah, I pushed myself till I couldn't walk. That wasn't a good move. So we know that ultra endurance events. The benefit of those is Bill Andrews, TA65 proponent, talks about lengthening telomeres. So there's something about ultra endurance that does that. And we know from Marxist. And then, you know, look at any old endurance athlete. They show the miles. Right? Right. So your job is, okay, you want to do it because it brings you joy. Right. And I respect that. And it brings you spiritual growth and I respect that even more than joy. So what do you do before, during and after so that you recover faster than humans are supposed to? And this has been my, my whole thing. How do I push myself and still have the powers? That's what upgrade labs is for. Like I'll walk you on a tour of the place here in here in Austin. And we use all this crazy gear that most people don't even know exists to cause recovery faster than mother nature. But you know what most people do when they finish a marathon? They celebrate with pizza and beer. Like, yeah, I can go eat some. Dude, don't you celebrate with ribeye and some collagen, right? And extra sleep. And if I was you, and there's no rules against it in whatever competing body, like I'd hit the growth hormone for a week, I'd make sure my testosterone levels are artificially elevated just for a brief period afterwards. And you're on the perfect amino amino acids and you're doing crazy amounts of electrolytes and like you're stacking it so your body's like, yes, like I got everything. I took a hit, but I didn't take a damaging hit. And you know that limit that you feel like I really don't have any more to push, it's actually cortisol and adrenaline production limit. So you might as well take some of the tyrosine precursors that let you make more of those. And you might want to extend their in their life in your body with adaptogens. So when you start one of these things out, like I got actually more stress hormones. I would treat yourself after a hundred mile race or something like you just had surgery, like literally resting that much. I'd be taking low dose bioidentical cortisol because your body can't make enough. Right. And if you do that, you're like, wow, I did it. I pushed the limit and then I recovered. And my issue has always been I don't want to recover as soon as I'm 20% recovered. I'm gonna go push again. Right. And it shows in my entrepreneurial success and all the stuff I do. And there's. I'm sure it'll it my. When I'm 180 years old, I'll be like, I shouldn't have done that because I probably had another, you know, another 50 years I could have squeezed out. That's not gonna happen though, because we got other tech coming. But I would just say, oh, and hyperbaric, man, you know? You have a hyperbaric chamber.

I don't have one now, so get.

Yourself an oxy health chamber. Right?

Does it make that big of a difference?

Yeah, I got one downstairs. I'll show it to you. Right. I have a whole lab downstairs. That's my recovery place. It's mostly, mostly what's at Upgrade labs. And there's a place called ATX Hyperbaric. So you can go. I don't know how far that is from you, but bee caves, I think is where it is. But that makes a huge difference. So if you were to do, you know, five or 10 of those after a run, like, like, wow, my body stayed young, right? And that's pretty incredible.

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Do you get your lab work done regularly?

I do, yeah.

Good deal. So you keep monitoring your testosterone. If your free Testosterone drops below 20, do something about it. It means you're over training, you're not eating enough fat and protein. Or maybe you need to supplement the testosterone. Cuz man, that's the first thing like right now, I can tell. I mean you've got the muscles, your testosterone levels are fine. But if your testosterone drops, your dopamine drops. And dopamine is what makes everything in. Go one more go. Right. Dopamine motivates you to move towards a goal. But if you get the goal, you don't get, you know, you're not happy. Yeah, right. It's just about motivation. So T drops, dopamine drops and you're screwed. Guess what reliably drops? Testosterone.

Lack of sleep, diet, overtraining, stress.

Those are all true and, and well known. Here's the one no one knows about having babies drops testosterone.

Really?

The smell of babies drops testosterone? Yeah. As soon as you have a baby in the house, especially the first couple years, your testosterone levels are lower.

Does it come back as they get older?

It, it does if you're maintaining your health. Right. So if you're sleeping and you're exercising, eating the right stuff. Right. And it'll come back because why does mother nature do that? So you don't kill your kids. For real. Because the link between this is only in men, not women. The link between sexual desire and aggression or violence. There's same part of the brain.

Does that have anything to do with. Is it directly related to the lack of sleep from having newborns in the house or is it indirectly isn't.

I'm sure lack of sleep from newborns always, always affects it. This is the smell of babies. The pheromones and the chemical signals that come off babies.

It's very interesting.

Yeah, it's super interesting. Like we respond to all these invisible signals, the environment and that's why I'm so keen on the definition of biohacking. It's like, change the environment around you and inside of you so you have full control of your biology. Right. You can do longevity, you do physical performance, mental performance, but knowing that the smell of the people around you, whether it's, you know, the smell of a fertile woman or the smell of a baby in the house, your body will respond and then you'll feel something. Right? And you're like, wow, maybe I'm less motivated because my testosterone. That's kind of weird, right? And it's not a huge drop from just the babies. But if you look at people's blood levels before and after they have kids, it's gonna be down. And all the contributing factors. I don't know what all. I don't think anybody does, but they can find this in mice.

That's super interesting.

Right? And so, like, we want to maintain our vibe as guys and as dads and as entrepreneurs and as people doing things in the world. So then the next question is, you're doing ultra endurance because it shows you something, right? Is there another way that takes less hits on your system that shows you the same thing?

Not that I have been able to find it. Yeah.

I wonder.

And for me, I think if a lot of people look at my. Like, if the. If you go on my YouTube channel, for example, where we have documentaries, we've showcased a lot of these preps and races.

Yeah.

I think a lot of people assume that I'm out there running 20 to 30 miles a day. Sometimes when I come across people, they think I trained four to five hours a day.

That. That's crazy.

Which is the furthest thing from the truth?

How much time do you train?

One to two hours.

Okay.

Like, this morning, I ran, and just based on my schedule today, that'll be my only workout. But there are days where I run in the morning, then I lift in the afternoon, but really, it's not over two hours a day right now. And there are definitely. There's times where my training increases and I'm. I'm getting closer to a prep, but I build into that. It's very structured. So it's. It's seasons. And the training is specific to the goal that I'm trying to accomplish. And if I have a very specific goal that requires very specific structured training, but that is like the. The exception, that is the outlier. It is not that daily. If I did that daily for an extended period of time, I be dragging really hard.

It would ruin you Right.

But there, there are seasons, and I think this is why it's really important to look at life in certain goals the way that athletes look at their, their goals. You have in season and you have off season, off season. You are building in redundancies and working on weaknesses and resting a little bit more. Recovery is a priority.

Right.

When you're in season, you're getting beat down, but you need that off season to reset, prepare, and then go into the next season as ready as possible.

How long is the season for you? Can you have a season for one week? Like a week of pushing a week of recovery or a day of pushing a day of recovery?

No, it's, it's like extended weeks.

Okay.

It's like right now I am in a season of a, a sprint, right? Of a lot of things in terms of business, family, very ambitious goals. So when I'm in a really busy season where I'm trying to accomplish a lot of large goals, I get very strict and rigid with my boundaries. I set very certain boundaries in terms of like, who am I speaking to, what am I consuming, where am I traveling to teach that to everyone so I can just focus. I found so much power in the AB ability to, to focus. As a young entrepreneur growing up, every opportunity was the right opportunity. If there was an opportunity presenting itself in front of me, I said yes to everything. I got really good at saying no to a lot of things over time, and that allowed me to hyper focus and go all in on very few things. So for the thousand things I say no to, when I say yes, it's a really strong yes. And I can dedicate a lot of time to that. I've had to learn that the hardest way ever, but it's been powerful.

It, it is, it's one of the most important things. And I still say yes a lot, but only to the good stuff. And if there's an abundance of good stuff, I, I, I'm always working on making sure that my team is in place to support that. I focus on sprints and I focus on recovery, and I use tech to recover whenever I possibly can. So if I have an hour, I'm going to recover. It's like, how many different things can I layer in? Right? I just got a new Morphis, which is one of the companies at the conference. It's this big whole body vibration chair. Like you sit in the thing and put on goggles and just go on a journey. I got lasers on my head, I got compression sleeves on my legs, and like, what else Can I stick on my body for recovery if I'm going to spend 40 minutes right now?

What have you noticed from, from using that?

It's kind of like, like an exceptionally deep meditation. And the physical vibration affects your mitochondria. It really shifts you out of Paris or out of sympathetic into parasympathetic. So it drops you into a deeper relaxation more quickly. And the ultimate goal, even when you're doing these endurance things, is to be able to go and do sustained sympathetic drive and then to be able to quickly and effort effortlessly switch into deep parasympathetic recovery. So the harder and longer you go hard, the, the, the faster and deeper and longer you want to go in recovery. So for me, it's like, how do I control the switch to move between the two? And it's, it's interesting because the endurance stuff is one thing, right? It's one form of stress. But so is entrepreneurial stress, so is parenting stress, right? So you've built yourself be an incredibly resilient person and also with wisdom, because you're saying, well, all right, how do I not take the hits for the things I love, man? Have you ever, ever been dropped off in a cave in darkness for a while or done a vipassana or, or done some sort of. I mean, there's a bunch of things like a bullet ant ceremony, something that's going to push you to your limits over a one to three day period that isn't physical endurance, to be honest.

I don't, I don't think so.

See that, that might be an interesting way to, to look at this. All right, so what are my limits for tolerating pain, right? Like how can I stay calm and peaceful and surrendered? Not harm, not damage, just pain. And it's funny, there's a practice in, in my new book and it's called bicep. It's brief, intentional conscious exposure to pain. And I'm guessing you do cold plunges some of the time.

Yep. Yeah.

Right. So that's the biohacker equivalent of that. But monks used to whip themselves on their back and yogis, you know, lay on beds and nails. And there's other practices where people will, like, they'll get piercings like the Native American, the sun dancers, you know, they'll do some crazy stuff. It looks crazy to us, but they're entering altered states by pushing the limits of their pain receptors. What that does, even getting a lot of ink, you've got some ink, you know, it hurts, but afterwards you're in a different state, right?

But a sauna, like a really hot.

Sauna, it characterizes it if it's hot, like a sweat lodge hot, where it's really uncomfortable, it probably works.

I mean, I stay in my sauna until. Yeah, I can't take it any longer. Yeah. And I have to get out.

Yeah, I get in there for a long time in mine, too. What that's doing, though, it's changing dopamine receptor sensitivity. And that's why this is a practice that's interesting. It means it takes less dopamine to motivate you. So because you're in your sauna until it really hurts, and because you're doing a cold plunge, it doesn't feel good. That's changing your motivation. And I think some of the ultra endurance, you're entering an altered state for sure. But you're also experiencing a level of pain that's changing your motivation for long periods of time. And understanding the neuroscience behind that for me is fascinating. I don't think I'm ever likely to be doing endurance events just because I've had enough, enough surgeries on my joints that that's not a good plan for me. But experiencing altered states because you're pushing yourself harder than you think you can. I think it's part of continuing to evolve. It's when you're 50 or 60, how are you going to do it? Right. And it may be, you see, like Laird Hamilton and Mark Sisson are talking about, you know, they're surfing, but they're doing a lot of breath work. You do a lot of breath work?

No, none.

Okay, so there's, there's an edge for you. Like if you were to go do a really deep holotropic breathing session. This is like taking lsd. The guy who invented it actually used LSD therapeutically with patients legally was on the show years ago and something like that, like, wow, okay. I thought I was pushing myself hard. And then you're, you're now facing an inner demon like that. So I, I'm, I'm getting a vibe and I'm interviewing here. I'm learning from you too, that you're seeking a state from these ultra endurance runs.

I am, yeah. That's the, the only reason I do it.

Okay, so then in your business, you're looking to sell something, so you do testing of different platforms to see what your roas is. Right. Your return on ad spend. All right, if I run an ad here, I get someone to come to these epic races you're putting together. Right. And if you run it over Here it doesn't pay off. Right. Or it pays off, but you only, you know, only pays half as much. And so if we reframe, what you're doing is you're seeking a state. What's the state you're seeking and what's the way to get there? Right. And how do you stay fit and hard and motivated and focused. Right. And have less. Either less wear and tear on the system. Right. Or less maintenance cycles required to get the same or better results. Right. And I, it's not the same as a run, but high altitude mountaineering, I, I did a lot of this. I went to remote parts in Nepal and Tibet. You're at 18, 000ft elevation and, you know, 10 degrees below zero and just miserably cold. And like you gotta make it to the next place or you'll actually freeze. And I did a lot of that before I had kids. And there's some, something spiritual and special about that. I just don't do that anymore. But I do a lot of altered states work. So we're trading books anyway, so I'm going to get to dig in on Go One more and I'll give you heavily meditated. I talk about some of those texts.

I'm very curious.

Maybe come on over sometime and we'll do some breath work and see. Oh, wait, that state is like 80% of what I'm getting over there. And let's come up with your recipe book for that. And I think for, for new dads, this is pretty powerful because there's going to be times when you're like, I gotta, you know, either I drop the kids off at school, which I don't love doing, but it's your job because you're their dad. They got to see you doing that. And if you're going to do that this morning, you may not go on the run you wanted to go on. Like you got to make a trade, but how are you going to get there anyway? Right. So I think there's some tools that could be kind of cool to. We'll swap some notes here. Yeah, right. Yeah.

Running and endurance training has always been my form of meditation.

Yeah.

And the amount of just transformation and clarity and ideas that I've. I've gained from those early morning runs. I mean, I've. If there's a problem in my life, I know it's a problem that I need to solve because it will keep popping up in my mind naturally. Run after run after run, and until I solve it or address will occupy my mind the entire Time when this.

Morning runs to your thinking time, are you listening to music or.

Just occasionally I will listen to a podcast or an audiobook, but never music. When I'm running, it's always like, I can. If I'm listening to an audiobook or a podcast while running, I can consume, digest and assimilate that information much more efficiently than if I'm driving or if I'm reading at night. I will soak it in. And then as soon as I get back from that run, I have my next clear action steps of how do I apply what I just learned to today?

There's studies of that, that moving and exercising helps you remember stuff. I believe it put kids in school and sit in your little plastic chair and just try to learn, like, and that's just beating them down. So, all right, so you're absorbing information and you're mostly just contemplating. Interesting. All right, that, that's good to know. So you're building time in to solve problems, which is, which is cool. So you're doubling down. It's one of these Tim Ferriss is really good at. Yeah.

Is, you know, stacking habits.

How do you do it? Yeah, how do you stack habits? And I, I like that too. And, and it's like, all right, what are all things you can do? Like, when I'm in the sauna, I could meditate. Sometimes I'll do like breath training. But lately, like, that's become my thinking time. So you're sweaty and kind of suffering. But I'm like, you know, I'm going to ask the really hard questions. And I've been working with AI lately and I've had some of the most profound breakthroughs on understanding stuff that would have taken me months to do just by sitting there and being curious and asking a bunch of questions. So that's becoming my thinking time or my meditation time, but my. Most of my meditations in the ice water.

So I think curiosity is a trait and a characteristic of the most highly successful people. You know, we are curious and then we take action. We act on and we have the courage to act on those curiosities. And you would never have started a business. You would have never have engaged a conversation. You have never built something unless you acted on that curiosity. I don't think people give enough value to curiosity.

Yeah, they always say, you know, curiosity killed the cat. What they don't say is that curiosity is the most reliable way to extinguish fear. That's why it killed the cat. But, you know, if some, if you feel like Something's trying to kill you and you get curious. I wonder what that is. Then you can think about the thing that's trying to kill you instead of just being in a state of fear.

Yeah, right.

And that's, that's a huge thing. And curiosity about pain, like, oh wow, I'm freaking out. Like actually what is that? And you realize it's not what you thought it was. And I feel like curiosity resolves suffering. Like suffering is how you handle pain. Right. And if you become curious about the pain, you stop suffering and you're just experiencing it. And you know, Elon has said that being an entrepreneur is like staring into the abyss and eating glass. You see that quote?

Yeah.

Yeah. And others have said the biggest thing that determines whether you're a good entrepreneur is your capacity for suffering.

I agree with that.

I do too.

Right.

And being an ultra endurance athlete, you know how to handle suffering. Right. I think it gives you unique skills.

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I mean, for me, the goal is suffering with a reason. Like, there has to be meaning behind the suffering. And it is like, what am I trying to unlock? And I think about life. There's all these doors in rooms that we can unlock, but you have to do something to earn the key to unlock that door. So of every big effort I've ever done, there's been an unlock during that effort where I come out of it. You know, the goal for me isn't always to, in some races or, or efforts there are. It's not a certain time or it's a certain place, but it's knowing that when I go into it, when I finally start to suffer, there's going to be an unlock or an outcome that is applicable to all parts of my life moving forward. So, like these big endurance efforts, these preps, these structured workouts, the training, I love the training because of what it produces through the process. And on the back end, there's reason, there's meaning, there's purpose.

I wonder, you ever done a vision quest?

No.

So, I mean, ranger school is just a really intense version of that. I, I would imagine not having gone through it, but being dropped off in, you know, in the desert or in a forest somewhere. And like you, here's a circle of 30ft. You're going to stay in that for four days. You got no food and you got some water every day. And you know, maybe not Enough sleeping bag and you just sit there. Nothing to do, just contemplate, just think. And.

Have you done something like this before?

Done something similar? I had a shaman drop me off in a. In a cave in Sedona with just water for four days and no people, no company, no tech, no nothing. Just, you know, fire and water and maybe salt. And I wrote one of my books about it and a few friends who've done it as well. And it's like a different kind of pain. Like, you get all the discomfort, you get the hunger, you get the sun or cold or whatever. And loneliness is also a form of pain, right? Like, oh, I'm by myself. And yeah, that. That was. That was a meaningful transition for me too. And.

And was there an unlock coming out of that? Any perspective?

There was a bunch of them, yeah. One was I knew that I knew I'd eat, and I'd already lost, you know, all the weight, but I knew that I'd eat if I was lonely. And I still had some part of me that's like, if I don't eat, you know, multiple meals a day, I'm going to get hypoglybitschy. So, like, I'll be mean, right? And so I'm like, I got no people, I got no food. There's nothing to lose. So I came out of that thinking I'd be just weak and, you know, depleted. I climbed the wrong mountain to get picked up afterwards. And I had more energy than I had in a long time. I felt amazing. And it walked down, you know, found. Found the truck eventually, and I was just on fire. And it's like, wow, look at the capacity that I didn't know I had in there. And that was one of the things that led me into the intermittent fasting world. And writing my first big book was the. The first big book about intermittent fasting as a bulletproof diet.

And did you have something to keep time when you were in there, or are you unaware?

I was mostly unaware. I had a mobile phone. And you'd turn it on when the sun came up every morning just to. To text I'm not dead to the shaman. And she was like, you really don't have to text me. I'm watching you anyway. With remote shaman powers. And. But that was like a safety check in. And then it was turned off after that, so there was no. No timing. And it was kind of weird because the first night I was in a cave, and I didn't want to be in that cave for whatever reason. And the next morning I turn on my phone and there's a text message. She said, last night you were thinking you wanted to go to the other cave, so I'm picking you up in an hour to take you there. And I'm like, she read my mind because I did not tell her and I did not talk to her. But she knew I was like, okay, there's some, some, you know, spiritual stuff going on here. And yeah, it was actually a big breakthrough. And there's other ones too where I had a young baby at the time, my daughter was almost one. And it was weird stuff. You know, my mother, mother from my wife at the time was, was like, as I'm there, she kind of want you to go and if you go, there's going to be consequences. And I'm like, if I don't go, there's going to be consequences. And it was really weird. Like there was, there was stuff happening because that's not how she talks. That's, that's not who she is. But it was, it was like you pushed some old buttons for both of us. So there was, yeah, there was a, there's an up leveling that happened from that for sure. And so it's, it's one of the practices, right? And you know, I've done sweat lodges, I've done, you know, a week of shamanic training where you know, you're just doing the craziest stuff and every time there's an up leveling, you could do it with psychedelics, you do with breath work. And for me I'll do those things. And it sounds like you're using ultra endurance to have similar like up level progressions and neither way is the right way at all. I just, I want to know the whole menu of options because I'm probably not the 100 mile running guy because I would have to have another knee surgery if I did that. Right.

It's very interesting because I've never considered other options to experience the outcome that I get from some of these endurance efforts.

Yeah, that's. Let's hang out. I, I think there's multiple paths and check out heavily meditated. And the goal of that book is you read it like that one. Like you'll see intuitive. Like that one sounds really interesting. Like let's, let's, let's look at that. Right? And that way you can still do your ultra endurance, right? Like that's, that's. You love it. It's what you do and you end up being able to mix the ingredients of your altered states work. Because I Think you're. You're doing ultra marathons for altered states work.

If you have a menu of options, do you have one for yourself? Personally though, that is like tried and true. It is one that you get the most return from with incremental benefit.

Yeah, I do. When I hook a computer up to my head to do advanced, like, forgiveness work where instead of just meditating, I got a computer telling me that I'm not meditating perfectly. It'd be kind of like if you were on a run and you had something in your shoes and anytime your gait wasn't perfect in every way, it would. It would tell you so eventually your gate would become more and more perfect. I do that for meditation, so that's what my, my 40 years in company in Seattle does. So for me, if I can go and spend a few days hooked up doing this really deep states, that's magical. And we have ketamine as an option there. And ketamine is the other way for me. That's very powerful. I don't take it like regularly. People get addicted. The whole recreational thing is not a good move. But doing it for like spiritual progression work, I've had really powerful breakthroughs from that. And for me, I go to Burning man, stay up all night dancing for a week. That's ultra endurance.

Yeah.

And altered states, for sure.

I'm curious, you know, your privacy talking about the, like turning off between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. And that's something that I found after these big endurance races, like these 100 mile races.

How do you do that?

Well, you would think that, you know, you finish 100 miles. Remember, my first 100 mile race ever was the Lendo 100 out in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

High altitude, Dawson.

High altitude. It starts at 10,000ft. You reach like 13,5 at its peak. And it was brutal. I mean, it was extremely humbling. And you're exhausted afterwards. I finished, I believe, just under 28 hours.

Wow.

And you would think that as soon as you got back to your bed that day, you'd fall asleep. But I couldn't sleep for three days afterwards. My body could not rest and recover and get into that appropriate state. So, like, taking what I experienced from that and that being one type of stressor and then making it more applicable to other people's lives in general. How do you switch from sympathetic to Paris sympathetic and back to deregulate and come to a rested state after this heightened sense of awareness, whether that be trauma or stress in a business or physical activity?

This Is such a cool conversation. I'm loving this. For me, the way I first learned I didn't know this, as a young entrepreneur, I was always in fight or flight in business and actually my personal life too. All sympathetic. You can get a device called the. The heartmath feedback sensor clips on your ear. And the guy who does the more research side of that business is speaking at the biohacking conference this year. Roland McCready has been on the show. Maybe check out those episodes. Yeah, but you can you get your morning readiness score from your Garmin or from whatever you got that's based on heart rate variability. That's how. How is my heart rate spaced out through the night? And that says how recovered or parasympathetic or how stressed and sympathetic you are. Well, if you have real time feedback on that, you can learn how to. When you take one breath to change your state consciously. And it took about six weeks for me to learn how to do this. I'm like, wait. All day long my body's just going sympathetic without my permission. And then I was like, God damn it. And you like play whack a mole with it and then put it back in parasympathetic. And I still have that ability to this day. Like, before I go on stage, I just put myself in parasympathetic. So I'm chill. I've walked out on Tony Robbins stage, the microphone screws up and I have zero stress zero.

How do you do that?

I learned using the heart math. Right. And I've. I do some other. You know, I've done a lot of esoteric lineage work, but between neurofeedback and just that ability to do it, when you're. When you're doing this little thing, you put the clip on your ear, you look at your phone, it says, breathe in, breathe out. We can all do that, but you gotta make the light turn green. When you breathe in and breathe out and make the light turn green, it's really hard to figure it out. But there's a little switch inside your body that is unlabeled and invisible. And you start, well, that time it turned green and that time it turned red. And this time it's going to stay green for two breaths. And you suddenly realize there's something going on in there that would. It's meant to be invisible, but it becomes visible. And once you have it, you have it. So what I do is I would learn how to do that before the race so that you have the switch, and afterwards you do the switch. And then you're also just stuck in sympathetic. So you need to take the things like adaptogens, like ashwagandha, rhodiola, probably tyrosine is going to help your body regulate. And a ton of gaba might try some kava. And then I would actually get on one of those, definitely do some cold bath, some cold ice baths, because that'll help. But then I look at that whole body vibration stuff, like get on one of those. Those sound lounger, lounger things that will drop you into parasympathetic. Right. Put on the light sound goggles that are blinking, right. You can do vagus nerve stimulation. There's a new company called Zenbud that does an ultrasound. Likes a little headset you put in your ear, and it turns on your vagus nerve, which is where sympathetic and parasympathetic reside. Right. So, like, all these things are available, but who talks about them in the context of athletics? But they're so powerful for recovery. And if you were to come in to upgrade labs afterwards, I'll throw you on this. This. It's not just a light bed. It does a lot more than just. Just red and infrared light. And we. About half the tech there is Recovery tech. Actually, 70% of it's recovery tech. People come in, we stimulate them real quickly, and then we make them recover faster so that they lose weight faster, put on muscle faster. So I do a whole cycle through there. And, like, it's. It's so much easier to recover than you think. It's just, you got to have the right framework for food, the substrates, minerals, protein. Like, I had surgery about a couple months ago. They took about, like, a passport cover from each side of my face because I used to be able to grab a handful of skin just because I was obese. I'm 5,6% body fat now. And I decided, you know, I don't recognize myself because I just don't like having, you know, a lot of extra skin. And I recovered crazy fast, three pounds of ribeye a day during the recovery because the body needs the protein. So you probably got to eat more than you want. And you already know you got to have enough calories when you do it, but it's like, how much protein? How are you going to absorb that much protein? You take in enzymes. So there's. I think there's a path there.

Yeah.

You know about baking soda? You take that when you run?

No, but I know of, like, the pro. The properties of, like, bicarbonate and.

Yeah.

Extremely popular in the endurance space. Right now.

Do you microdose when you run?

No.

Have you ever talked to someone who does?

No.

So an, an old ultra endurance friend, he said David's an open secret. He said a lot of people are taking LSD microdoses for 100 mile runs. And a microdose, you don't feel it, you're not high at all. It just does something to, to make the run different. And James Fadiman is the guy who invented that in Austin. They'll say it's a microdose, but it's just like a party dose if you can feel it. So this is about neuroplasticity and like really invisible things. That's another thing that I think if I was going to do an ultra endurance, aside from having get a new knee, I would probably be doing.

Yeah. I'm curious the, the problems that constantly being in a sympathetic fight or flight state calls for so many people and not being able to transition into that parasympathetic. And I think from my perspective a lot of it outside of just like the actual physical, it's a lack of having vision into where you're heading, knowing how to make decisions that are actually going to help you get to where you want to be based off that vision. And it's being overwhelmed by decision fatigue and options and opportunities and their stress that comes with that. Not being able to set and create boundaries.

Correct.

And just maintaining that sympathetic state wears and tears on you.

You know what, what will do it reliably is feeling helpless. That's makes, even in mice, it makes you feel sympathetic, activated. And if there's one thing you learn with go one more is that you're not helpless. Like there's always something you can do and, and that's going to make a huge difference. Like that I've got this energy.

You're, you're one decision away from changing the course and trajectory of your life. I truly do believe that. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's what a lot of the book is about. It's like that one day where I founded Go One more on that training run in Austin, Texas, that was one decision. The decision to turn around, go back to the trail. That one decision changed, transformed my entire life. And that's what I want to share with so many people is your life is one decision away from going in a different direction. It's actually achieving and succeeding. But you have to have the responsibility to actually make that decision. That's where that curiosity comes from. That's a, that's the Courage. That's the consistency. That's a commitment.

Okay.

There's power there.

There is power there. And, Nick, this has been a fascinating conversation, and I love getting to learn from you and. And look at your mindset on. On recovery and on pushing yourself and. Yeah, I've. I've enjoyed the hell out of this.

I appreciate that.

Yeah. After the conference, come on over and we'll. We'll do some breath work and see if, like, see if there's a. A parallel to some of the stuff you're doing. Not at all encouraging you to stop doing what you're doing. Saying, what are all the paths to get to where you want to go the fastest? Because that could be a lot of fun.

Yeah. Because it's an outcome that I'm trying to.

Yeah.

Achieve.

Right.

I'm sure I'll be humbled by many of the other practices that you incorporate and you've tried and tested, and some.

Of them are really scary. Right. And, yeah. Facing. Facing your demons. I know you know how to do that because you made it through Ranger school and all that. And a lot of people never have a chance to do that. They've gotten a fight in high school. They just never push themselves. And you're teaching a whole generation of people to push in a. In a way that's. That's incredibly valuable, especially just for being a man. Like, you got to know that you have it.

Right.

And you know that you have it. You're teaching people to know that they have it.

Yeah.

And that's. That's epic. So thank you.

I appreciate that. Thanks for having me.

You got it, guys. The book is Go One More and check it out. See you next time on the Human Upbringing Upgrade Podcast.

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