Daily Habits That Fix Erectile Dysfunction FAST

Hello there, modern man. In today's episode, I am honored to have Eric Edney. I was on his podcast. Enjoyed it immensely. So, Eric is a renowned health and wellness expert and founder of the transformative well Fit program. And the reason why I have him here is because he is an expert in teaching you how to rewire your habit and. And to get the result that you need to have in your life that you want and live the life that you want and create and engineer it. And so, Eric, welcome to the podcast.

Hey, thanks for having me. I'm glad that we get to have part two of our conversation.

I know, I know. And so let's just dive into it. And one of the challenges that I see commonly working with men with erectile dysfunction is that, hey, they know they have ed, but they want to have sexual performance. And then we will work with them and giving them the roadmap, the steps that they need to do. But it seems like a barrier to get to that outcome. So I wanted to ask you, what can men do to eliminate the barriers and then rewire that so they can get the outcome they want?

Yeah, it's a. It's kind of a complicated thing from a psychology perspective. Men, I mean, all people, but men in particular, are kind of reward are built for, like, immediate reward. So if you give a man a strategy, and that strategy might work in three or four weeks, the reward is so far out that it's hard for them to relate the reward to the behavior, which is why a little blue pill works right now very directly in focus. So we've really had to deal with that a lot in our programs, because, of course, what we've been working with is helping people change their relationship with food. And no different than what you're asking is we have all these people that say they want to lose some weight, they want to reverse their diabetes, they want to curb their autoimmune function, they want to get off their medication. Same problem is that, well, if you do this for, like, say, six or seven weeks, we can make some real progress. But six or seven weeks is, like, way out there. So I think that there are some things that we've done that really have worked. I mean, we have. I think about 85% of the people who start our programs actually stick with them for the full 90 days, which is really, really helpful. And so some of the key things that we do to help people with this one is perspective. It's really recognizing that humans have a really fascinating and powerful transformative capacity to time travel. And what I mean by that is that we have the ability to imagine a future that doesn't yet happen. And that that ability allows us to emotionally engage with potential outcomes. And if we really train ourselves to do that properly, it changes everything. So if you take a 16 year old and you really emotionally engage them with the idea of retirement and poverty versus retirement and wealth, they will start investing, but no other teenager does. Right. But if you really emotionally engage them in those two separate outcomes, the potential pain and the potential pleasure combined to create a, hey, I want to start investing right now. So to a degree, I think the same thing happens here. Something that came out of our interview when we talked, I really like it's important. What you were saying is like a guy dealing with, say, erectile dysfunction. I mean, once you get past the shame and it's a difficult thing to talk about and it's embarrassing and all that kind of stuff, there's another much bigger problem. And that is that it is, as we talked about, it's a canary in the coal mine. It's a warning. If you're struggling to get it up, you might be going down. And I think that one of the things that I'd be working with, with a client in that sense, if a client came to me and said, hey, I've got this problem and I have a medical solution, or I have a lifestyle solution, I'm like, okay, let's play that out. The medical solution might solve the problem tonight and maybe you'll have a good time. But then maybe dead right? Like maybe not tonight, but if you're having this circulatory problem, you have a major problem. So what I would like you to do right now is I'd like you to imagine sitting in the doctor's office where they've maybe an angiogram, where they've just looked at you, they've taken your blood and they're telling you that you are a ticking time bomb, that it could be any minute now, that your children are growing up without you, and get them to really understand the consequence of that, conversely, to go to the other side and say, look, I know the pills solve the problem for right now, but how would you like it two, three months from now where you never need those pills again, where you are operating at peak performance and it can happen that quickly. So it's, it's kind of this like, I think Tony Robbins calls it a Dickens pattern. You got to take show them Christmas past and you got to show them Christmas future. You got to give them those two perspectives In a really emotional way, not a logical way.

So that's what you mean when you say emotional engage, Because I was going to ask you that, what does that mean? Emotionally engaged. So you kind of tell them, have them imagine a future if they didn't do this and the future if they did do this, what does it look like for them?

Give you a really tangible example. Last year we released our book Post Diabetic and it's because so many of our clients ended up reversing their Pre and type 2 diabetes. It wasn't something we intended to do, but it happened. So we ended up writing a book about it. Now we've had tons of doctors coming to us and going, look, I now understand, or I always knew many of them didn't, but that it can be reversed. But I can't get the client, I can't get them to do the stuff. Same thing you're asking me, right? I, I mean, they want the medication, they don't want the lifestyle solution. Why? Well, because the medication allows the responsibility to place somewhere else and it's faster or whatever. And the lifestyle thing means some sacrifice and maybe I can't eat ice cream so often and it's painful. So compare two different conversations with the doctor. Here's one. Well, it turns out that you might be now pre diabetic. And so if you don't make certain lifestyle changes, we're going to have to start prescribing you with metformin. And that will keep your blood sugar under control. That's the conversation that they have with them. There's no emotional engagement. There's no, it's just facts. On the other hand, what if the doctor said, hey, listen, your last test came back and you're pre diabetic now and that means you're heading toward type 2 diabetes. And what you might not know about that is that you're likely going to lose your eyesight because of circulatory difficulties, sticky blood. There's a very good chance you're going to face amputations of fingers, toes, maybe even hands and feet. You're going to have circulatory problems that are going to cause nerve damage. You're going to start physically damaging your body. Your chances of having a heart attack are up through the roof this way. And by the way, this is the number one risk factor for the development of cancer. So I can give you some medicine that would hide all of that from you until you're dead. Or we could make a lifestyle change. Now, of course, I'm being A little emotive here, but that's kind of the point.

I love that. And also a diabetic have 40% chance of more ED than non diabetic. So another thing to talk to men about as well too. So you're creating an image of what's possible and then create an image of if yet they didn't do that and have them imagine that. And that is how you can shift their thinking. And is that how you eliminate the barrier to what they need to do?

Yeah, that's one of the barriers. And if you think about it, it kind of fits with a little bit. What Simon Sinek would say is start with why, like if the person doesn't have a big enough why, they're not going to take action. They're not going to take the hard route, they're going to take the easy route. So that's one shift in perspective. Then the next thing that's really key here is incremental changes. The big mistake that so many people make in this situation is they go, all right, you've got this problem, here's your 52 point plan on how to fix it starting today. Like, no, if you want to fix your ED function problem, here's what you got to do. You got to cut this food out, you got to add this food in, you got to go to the gym, you got to give some leg exercise, you got to go in fresh air, you got to make sure you're getting enough sunlight, make sure you, you're getting enough sleep. Like, sorry, no, if they weren't doing that on Monday and you suddenly tell them on Monday they have to start doing on Tuesday, they don't have the time budgeted for that, they're not going to do it. But what if you instead said, okay, look, we want to turn this situation around both for your own pleasure and enjoyment of life and also because, well, it's bloody dangerous. So we want to turn it around. And here's what I want to do over the next 21 days, I want you to make 21 changes. So tomorrow, tomorrow all you're going to do is you're going to take a 10 minute walk. That's it. You're going to take a 10 minute walk, eat what you would normally eat, do what you would normally do, but take a 10 minute walk, get the sun on your skin, get the fresh air and make sure that your walk has maybe some steps or hills just to get your legs pumping a little because your big quads and your glutes and those big leg Muscles are so key to your production of testosterone. So just a little walk, you might start to feel a little lift. Then on day two, on day two, what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to maybe curb back some of the processed food, right? And see what you're doing is you're giving them a manageable, bite sized, incremental possibility for change. And by doing that, you've kind of got the frog in the hot water. Like if you say, hey, I need you to lift 500 pounds today to solve your problem, I'm like, I haven't been training for £500, but if I get you to lift £5, then tomorrow you can live six and so on and then the next one. And that's so like, this is huge for transformation. One of the most fundamental components to behavior change is progress and the celebration of progress. So if you ever read Atomic Habits, James, fabulous book, a big fan, and, and it stimulated a lot of conversation about what creates a habit. And I will say I loved so much about what is in that book, but there was one thing that maybe I missed it or I didn't read it right, or it's just a different way of thinking. But when you start talking about the studies that say, is it 15 days, is it 21 days, is it 61 days, how many days does it take a habit? What I suggest at that point is that we're asking the wrong question. We're suggesting that a habit is purely a time created event. And what I want to suggest is that habits are not created by time, they're created by emotional intensity. So if I do the same thing every day for 61 days, but I have no emotional response to it, or even worse, a negative emotional response to it, on day 62, I'm not doing that thing, I'm done, my trial period is over. But if I do something one day, but I celebrate the hell out of it. I mean, I really have a fun. Like my, my silly example of this is imagine a rookie athlete who's playing in the championship game and scores the winning goal. And the, the, the team celebrates them and the city celebrates them and they celebrate them. What happens is their brain goes, I love this. How do I create this again? And then immediately brain goes, well, I know what I had for breakfast today, and that is now championship breakfast day. I didn't need 61 days of that breakfast for it to become a habit. I needed one day of tremendous emotional intensity. So what we recommend to clients at this point is that they Combine these two things, progress and celebration. You have to become the Sherlock Holmes of progress. So if you've got somebody who's dealing, say with Ed, maybe they're not going to see any real progress for say, three, four weeks, maybe five weeks. I don't know. You can tell me. Lifestyle wise, I. I don't know where it'll be, but let's say it's that long. But isn't there other progress before that that they could notice? Like, is it possible that they notice that they're sleeping a little better because they made some changes? Is it possible that they notice that they have a little spark that they didn't have a week ago? And you see if you can get them to start to notice. Hey, my cravings. My cravings seem more manageable after just three days without sugar. I'm just not even. That's really interesting. Those micro progressions should be celebrated because they will stimulate the motivation that will keep them on track to the 21st day when they're finally getting a serious result.

I love that. I absolutely love that. So combine progress, mini progress, bite side progress with celebration. And when you say celebration, is it them celebrating with their family member or in a group setting.

All of an end of it? Like, celebration is a beautiful human emotion and it's the ultimate reward. It's like, yes, I'm amazing. I did something great. We did something great. That's like the ultimate in self esteem is celebration of oneself, right? So I'll give you a silly example of this, but I used to run these leadership programs where I would take people up Kilimanjaro. And I did that because it was a great metaphor for life. Like, you're in a week of climbing that mountain. You're going to have just about every emotion that you would have in your normal life. So I've done the trip many, many times. But on about the fourth or fifth one, we're doing the mountain from the other side. We're coming up the Kenya side and we've never done that before. And from that side you can see the mountain the whole time. When you come up the other side, the mountain's hiding. You don't really see it this side, you see it. So now we've been walking in for like a day and a half and it's not getting any closer. It's like those people who go to Vegas and go, oh, yeah, I'll just walk there. No, you won't. That's way further than you think it is. So we're walking and I'm like, and the mountain's not coming any closer. It's not coming any closer. And guess what's happening to motivation.

It's decrease.

Yeah. So suddenly my guide, he sees that I'm kind of having this. I'm going, geez. And he comes up to me, he goes, hey, Eric. I go, what? He goes, turn around, look back. And so I turn around, look back, and holy. Like camp. Like we've come so far. And he goes, yeah. And we started celebrating. And you see the problem for many people is they have one outcome that they want and they weigh up everything they're doing against that one outcome. I want to lose £50. Well, until they've lost the 50th pound, they won't celebrate. Hell no. Celebrate every pound.

I love that. So celebrate just the minor achievement. And so you were asking, well, how long does it take for a man to restore a function if he does micro progress every day at four to six weeks, it's actually pretty quick.

That's what I figured. Right. Not a bad guess.

Yeah, I made that.

Guess is that's also how long it takes to reverse in most cases Pre and type 2 diabetes, which we know there are definite relationships. There are definite relationships, absolutely.

Because it's all about metabolic disease, right? Changes in your body, inflammation, endothelial inflammation, and it take that long for it to start reversing. And even with diabetes, yeah, it's still diet, exercise, sleep, and stress management, which is what we teach our men for restoration. But I love breaking up in little pieces. So guys, when you're listening to this is just break up things in little pieces. You can achieve it. And we have seen men just doing good progress that even just 1% progress a day in following a good morning wood smoothie and doing penis pump kegels and testicle massage. We have seen men that have ed for years waking up with morning wood with just those simple little steps. And of course, they're changing their eating habits as well. Men, if you want stronger erection naturally, try my good morning wood smoothie. Grab the recipe, the link below or go to good morningwoodsmoothie.com if you want to get firm erection within weeks, grab this now. So what do you suggest when they have a little bit of setback, let's say, okay, well, didn't do that. Life was busy. I went on vacation, family visited. I didn't do what I was supposed to do. What shift should they think about to get back on for progress again?

People are really funny about the way they think of time. So it's like, okay, everything's going to be different this week. I'm going to be really, really productive. And I show up for my work on Monday and then Monday comes along and then something interrupts my pattern and then I get involved in something over there and Monday's not really working. And you get to about like noon on Monday and you're like, it's not going to happen on Monday, but I'll start fresh on Tuesday. Right? I'll start fresh on Tuesday. And then you show up for work on Tuesday. But there was a bunch of stuff that happened and you had to take care of all this and that and oh, no, no, no, I'll start on Wednesday. And then if you get to Wednesday and it happens again, you're like, what? This week's a write off. I'll start again on Monday. And people tend to think like that. Like they, it's like they forget that humans invented the idea of these seven days of the week. And it's like, somehow we have to start on a Monday. Now what I want to suggest is this. The faster and more regular your course corrections are, the more quicker you're going to get the results you want and the easier it's going to be to make that change. So using a simple phrase, failing fast is the answer to that. And so what you recognize is that instead of going, I'll start again on Tuesday morning, maybe I'll start again this afternoon, or maybe I'll start again at the top of the hour, or maybe I'll start again at the next half hour, right? Like the shorter those increments are. And there's a neat way of thinking about this. When I was a kid, I went to this boarding school and we did these really extensive canoe trips through northern Canada, across lakes that are the size of small European countries, like major canoe trips. And we had to do this is there's no Google Earth and stuff. Back then you, we were using maps and doing all the compasses and all this stuff, right? And what would happen is routinely we'd sit there and go, okay, we're going to go from here to here. And then at some point we're like, we're off course. And then we get to the next place and go, we're off course. And then the next, we're off course. Yeah. But we still got there because the recognition we were off course wasn't a failure, it was an adjustment. And it was like, oh, we're off course. Well, we have to get back on course. And we don't go, oh, we're off course. Well, we'll get back on course on Tuesday.

No, no, no, no, no.

We'll get back on course right now. The minute we've noticed that there's a problem. And so those quicker course corrections really change everything. So if there's one skill that I'd love to give to everybody, and I work on it myself all the time, but it's like the skill of, hey, I'm off course and I want to make a decision right now when I'm getting back on course. And with some stuff, it isn't right away. Like I noticed in WildFit, we talk about metabolic seasons. And so I might be in a carb season. I might go, no, I've been in a carb season a little longer than might be ideal. And it's time for me to go back into what we in WildFit call spring, which would be to go to sort of a clean keto model for a little while. I might recognize today. I might go, oh, but I might look at my fridge and go, I recognize right now. I'm set up for that season. All right, I'm going to make that course correction on Monday. There is a time for that, but there's also a time for saying, I'm going to make this course correction immediately. I'm going to do it right here and right now. And so, for example, if you've told your client, hey, it's time to haul out the pump and do your exercises, and they're like, oh, I'll start that on Monday. No, that's not. No. When to do it is the minute it popped into your head. Take action now and course correct now. Become a professional course corrector.

Become professional course corrector. I love that. So how do you get to overcome negative thinking? Is like, I can't do it. I'm not that person. It's too hard. My whole life and I've never really achieved anything. I'm just going to live with it because I hear that a lot. It was like, I guess I just have to live with it with the ED because I've tried many things that fail before. What? How did they shift that?

There are a few different approaches you could look at, and some are things that you might be able to do as they're professional. And then there are some things that maybe they need to work on. One thing, frankly, is to entertain their failure. So they say to you all the stuff you just said, so you're my client and you go, look, I've never been the kind of person to stick to the habits and I've never been able to stay on a diet and I just don't go to the gym and just like, just give me the pills. Right? And so at that point you're like, okay, we can do that. We can totally do that. I get it if you're, if you're not that kind of person, but I just, I want you to know what that means so we can get you the pills and you can enjoy a relatively active sex life. But I do want you to know that doing that is. It's only fixing this one symptom, which is, I know the symptom you're most concerned about at the moment, but I want to remind you that this symptom is a sign that your circulation isn't working. So this means you have a heart problem. So I know you think of it as a penis problem, but it's actually a heart problem. So I can give you this pill, but what that means is it's kind of like just going to help you this weekend, but then you might be dead next week. And maybe that sounds alarmist to you, but the fact is that if you can't create enough pressure, if you can't create enough circulation to get that thing to happen, then your brain isn't working properly either. And so you really want to think through where you're at now. Let me ask you something. If you next week have a really massive heart attack and you're sitting in the hospital afterward and they're telling you, look, you've done some permanent damage, look, you're going to have to make these lifestyle changes. Are you going to really wish that you and I went the lifestyle way this week instead of the pill way? So it's kind of a little bit like what we started with. It's like you have to speak to them in a storytelling kind of a way that has them emotionally associate with the giving up that they're doing. I've done some sports coaching over the years and I was coaching the Lebanese national basketball team for the world. Fascinating exercise. And I remember at one point speaking to somebody going, well, I just, I am this way, I just am this way. I can't do this thing to do. And I go, okay, no problem. Then you won't be a champion. Then what? And I go, well, I know that your skills are there, I know that you're one of the best, but the trouble is is that the champion level is about consistency. So if you're saying we can't do this thing, then that's great. You can settle for being good. And good is great. I mean, it's fine. If you're not ready for outstanding, then. And of course what happens is as I start arguing for their mediocrity, they're like, no, no, no, hold on. And so in a sense, sometimes aligning with their giving up is what wakes them up to not wanting to give up.

I love that, I love that. Because all of us want to do better than we are, right? And if we say, okay, you can do that, but you're just gonna be good, mediocre, and we're like, oh, no, I'm not mediocre. I love that because I hear that a lot because I hear from the guys, oh, I don't cook, I don't like to. I always like to eat meat. I can't give that up. And I can't go low carb. It tastes horrible. I don't like the gym. I look at the gym and I just make. Gives me a headache. And like you said, okay, you can shift it and say, well, you can continue doing that, you just not gonna be able to perform in the bedroom, right?

And the next way, the next side is like, we're going down that failure path. But then the other version of is to say, look, I get this is a whole lot of work, I understand that. But here's a couple things that I know. You can take little blue pills and you get to stand up and feel like a man, and everything's great. But we both know that it doesn't feel the same that way. And we both know there's an emptiness in it when it's artificial like that, we both know. So I want to tell you about a client of mine. A client of mine who felt very much the way you felt, but decided to give it a try. Started going to the gym. It was hard, didn't want to do it, but then started kind of liking it. Kind of started enjoying going to the gym. And then with going to the gym, the eating got a little better. And some just over six weeks, just tiny changes. Nothing major. Nothing major. And then one day he woke up in the morning and it was a good situation for the first time in like 20 years, like a good situation. And I'll tell you what, he was smiling when he saw what was going on. But who was really smiling? His wife. And I got to tell you that nothing has been the same for them ever since. And what he doesn't have to do pre planned lovemaking with some stupid Little blue pill. Because his body responds. I don't know if you want that.

But if you do, I love that I'm gonna have to borrow that narrative and say it in that sentence. That actually the story you told actually happened in one of the patients I worked with where he had ed for 10 years and their marriage on the brink of a breakdown, literally, they were gonna get divorced if he wasn't going to be able to function.

I got this, I got the story from you because you shared it on my podcast. So I was just, I was just giving it back, but I was showing like, yeah, if you do it, but remember, it can't be. Well, I had this one guy and he had the problem, but then he fixed it and then he got wood and everything. No, it's gotta be like storytelling. It's gotta be. You gotta like get the client to like emotionally experience these two futures. Because you know how it is when somebody, say somebody who smokes or vapes and they sort of tangentially think about the fact that they might get cancer one day, there's no association. But I'll tell you what, the minute they're in an office looking at a scan on the thing and they see there's a mass in there, and now we're talking about chemotherapy, suddenly they wish 20 years ago that they were able to come to this moment. Well, I'm saying as a doctor, as a coach in my case, I can take them to that moment and have them experience it as if it's real and maybe shock the change in now.

I love that. And on that aspect, why is it so hard? Let's focus on men. Maybe men's a little bit different than women. I don't know. Why is it so hard for us to change our habit? And it's easy. It's almost like easy for us to make an excuse. I didn't do that because of multiple things or whatever. Why is it so hard? And why is men maybe different than women?

I think that this is actually an area where men and women are fairly similar. That really we, we all kind of struggle to course. Correct. We can all drift. We can all drift off and then have a hard time. And then we think on January 1st we're going to set some resolutions and fix the whole thing. And we don't. Right. So let's figure out why that is. I think that there are two major factors at play and there's many others. And we could probably do a six part video training series on all of the influences. But the two big Ones the one is has exactly to do with this. The level of emotional engagement with consequence. Humans are not very good at time delayed consequences. If you think about it as a hunter gatherer, you do something and then it has a consequence. And you learn very quickly. You learn really quickly. Like a good example, I spent hours making all my arrows and I went hunting and then I saw a bush pig disappear into those bushes and I fired one of my arrows in there and I missed. And now I can't get the arrow because it's too thorny in there. And I spent so long making it and I suddenly go, oh shit. Don't fire arrows into that kind of shrubbery. I've learned quickly, I'm not going to make that mistake again. Right. So there's an immediacy to the hunter gatherer lifestyle that isn't in our present day. The minute we started doing agriculture, we started doing things for the future. And we're not as good at that. Our brains aren't as good at that. So that's kind of one challenge that we have. And that has to do with, as I said, it's like our brains aren't really centered around that. And then the other component, which is kind of just makes it even worse, is that, well, it's almost like if we remember that life was really unpredictable. Like we take living into our 70, if you get to 25 years old, you're going to get to 80. Like we take it for granted these days, life is safe, right? But I think go back to our grandparents and their grandparents, life was not safe. Like 200 years ago, there's no anesthetic 200 years ago, there's no antibiotics. Like even 200 years ago, life was a lot scarier. Never mind hunter gatherer league. So what that meant was if you were alive on Tuesday, whatever you did on Monday must have been good. So and if you were live on Wednesday, whatever you did on Tuesday must have been good. And if you did it on Tuesday and Wednesday, it definitely must be good. So the challenge is, is that today you can do a whole lot of disastrous shit on Monday and still be alive on Tuesday. And your brain goes, well, that was pretty good. I, I did six hours on Netflix and I'm still alive. If you did six hours on Netflix as a hunter gatherer, you may well be dead. We got to bring consciousness to it. We got to bring consciousness to it and say, hey, I recognize that I've got this Paleolithic system. I realize that the compass is not wired very well for civilization. And so I need to bring my consciousness to the conversation.

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Yeah. And like I said, we're looking at the wrong goal. Somebody takes Ozempic and they lose 30 pounds and they go, oh, that was good. Oh, really? There's a faster way to lose £30. Get a chainsaw and cut your leg off. Then you've lost 30 pounds real fast. And the point is that when somebody does it. And listen, I'm not saying that there isn't a role for pharmacology here, but what I'm saying is that the goal wasn't to lose 30 pounds. The goal was to get healthy. And if losing 30 pounds meant losing 15 pounds of muscle, then you didn't really achieve the goal at all. But in our very short time frame, in our very demanding results now kind of a world, we all want the shortcuts.

How do we circumvent that now that we're kind of wiring our brain for that shortcut? How do we kind of rewire our brain for the long, longer reward in the wronger duration for the reward.

So I think the one way to think of this is that we definitely operate with two levels of consciousness, at least. And the one is, let's say higher consciousness, where you're actually in charge and then you've got your, say, subconscious behavior or unconscious behavior where it's just things that you do and you don't have to think about it. Some clear examples, like your heart beats completely unconsciously. You don't need to think about that. You can't even do anything about it. Like your heart's just going to beat. You can't slow it down. You can't speed it. You can slow it down or speed it up by three, thinking about stuff, but you can't just go, heart change. We're breathing. Breathing is something that is semi conscious. It happens unconsciously all the time anyway. But you can consciously override it. You can hold your breath, you can breathe harder, you can breathe faster, and you can do breathing exercises. So when we think of life in those terms, there are some things that are just going to happen automatically, and there are some things that we have influence over. So eating is a good example. We can eat completely subconsciously. You can sit down and eat an entire plate of food and have no memory of it. You can go to the movies, you can get your popcorn, you can eat the whole damn thing and not even notice that you ate it. Right? We know that we can do that. That is an old evolutionary throwback, because frankly, being super conscious of eating was dangerous. Because, you see, if you and I are out walking in nature and we stumble upon some berries, like, oh, my God, and these berries are amazing. I mean, like, these are the best berries ever. We're so focused on the berries that something eats us. So instead, we eat the berries like this. And you wonder why guys like to sit and eat and watch tv. It's just an old Paleolithic pattern. It's the way our. Our genes develop. We're good at that. Now. The problem is, is that our life is full of traps. It's full of pleasure traps. And if we don't bring our consciousness to those pleasure traps, then our unconscious mind will let us run these disastrous behaviors that will lead us nowhere or lead us terribly. And so what I'm really talking about to a degree is a little bit like what Victor Frankel wrote about in man's search for meaning when he talks about, like, between stimulus and response, there's this moment, and that moment is the ultimate human freedom. It's the injection of consciousness, is the way I think of it. So as an example, you come over to my house, you're wanting to be on a diet, and I serve Haagen Dazs ice cream and apple crumble. And so in that moment, you're like, oh, my God, Haagen Dazs and apple crumble. You're like, I have to eat that. So you see it, you want it, you eat it. And most people are like that. They might have a moment where it's like, yeah, but you're on a diet. Yeah, but it's apple crumble. And it's done. What we want to try and do is wake people up to have a slightly bigger glimpse of consciousness in that moment, a slightly bigger awareness in that moment so that they can take over, so they can switch off the autopilot and get conscious about it. We have this part of the brain, I think it's called the anterior singlet cortex. And that part of the brain controls executive function. That's, that's where, when you're in charge, that's the part of the brain that's lit up. And what's crazy is, I understand this is that if you resist yourself, that is to say, you resist what you're wanting, like you're wanting to eat the Haagen Daz an apple pie, but you resist that want. You send blood to the cortex, you send blood to that part of the brain and you grow it like a muscle. So that means every time you do what you should do and every time you don't do what you shouldn't do, you are building self esteem and building executive function. So when you're talking about a client who you want them to make a bunch of micro installment, micro course corrections, micro changes so that six weeks from now they can perform, then what you want to do is tie that performance to those tiny micro decisions that they're making. And so it's like, in a real sense, it's like, okay, are you going to go to the gym today? I don't know. I don't know where my gym clothes are. Okay, what I want you to do is I want you to imagine six weeks from now. You're standing in the bedroom and you're at full attention now, can you find your gym clothes? You want to create the pattern interrupt that makes them think about the reward they want out there. Because their paleolithic brain is only thinking about if you think about it, they're like, the gym. What are they thinking about? The immediate consequences, the loss of time, the shitty effort. I have to go find my gym, like gym clothes and then I got to go to the gym that I, it's, I don't like it there. And then I got to lift weight and that's uncomfortable and painful and difficult. So everything about this is not nice. Except six weeks from now that could be nice. We have to get them to move their consciousness out there.

Yeah, I love that. Move your consciousness to that outcome. Because what you're describing, even with me, I go to the gym like four or five times a week and every time, the first 15 minutes, my brain is telling me oh, my God, you're too tired. You got 10,000 things you got to do. Your neck is hurting. You shouldn't be extra. And here I am on the treadmill the first 15 minutes, and I just block those thoughts out of my brain. My brain is telling me, you're too tired. Let's go. Get out of here, get into your car and go home. You have 10,000 things to do. But I know that, and I do the conscience, like you said, no, you're not going to do it. You're not going to do it. Just take one step forward, one step forward. But even that's happening to me, even when just going to the gym four times a week, every day, consistently, and your brain is still trying to talk you out of it every time.

And here's what I would suggest is that you start off at phase one, where you can't even talk your body into doing it. Like, you just can't. So now you got to negotiate. And one of the ways you might negotiate, you say, look, I'll tell you what, you just have to go for 15 minutes. Just for 15 minutes. That's all you got to do. And the body's like, well, shit, then fine, we'll go for 15 minutes. All right? So now what's key is at the end of that 15 minutes, you should go into the car and you should put on your best celebration of music and you should dance it out. You should actually celebrate it like you hit a home run, like you scored the touchdown, like you got the try. Whatever sport is your metaphor. You should celebrate it like it was real. Your body goes, well, shit, now I like that celebration. And the next day your body goes, are you up for your 15 minutes now? You start extending your 15 minutes to 30, to an hour or whatever, but you're now in the next phase where your executive function is overpowering the resistance, right? It is overpowering resistance. What I want to suggest is that there's another level and the next level. And it comes largely from really paying attention to the progress and macro and micro celebration, like celebrating little things and celebrating the big things. I will tell you that the next level that you go through is you can't talk yourself out of it. And that's what happened to me. I hated going to the gym. I hated going for workouts. I didn't like it at all. And I talked myself into it. I forced myself into it. I got myself doing it, and then I celebrated like crazy. I took pictures all the time to see what was changing on my body. And I put on serious muscle and I loved the look of it and it felt great. And then one day I hurt my shoulder and I go see the doctor, he's like, dude, you got to the racket sports. You got to be a little careful. You hurt your shoulder. So what you got to do is no working out. What? Now the me of two months earlier would have been like, yes, I win. No working out. Right? The me of that stage was like, huh? I'm working out anyway, but I'm going to work out my legs and then I'm going to talk to my trainer and say, look, I've hurt my shoulder. My doctor doesn't want me to do any workouts. What can we do that won't hurt my shoulder? And I worked out every day while healing my shoulder. And I'll tell you something, it felt good. And I bet you my shoulder even healed faster.

Absolutely. So you adjusted instead of saying, oh, okay, I guess I'll just stay home and get eat or just not exercise.

Right? But it wasn't even ban. It wasn't even that I just said it was that the me had changed, that even the doctor couldn't talk me out of going for the workout. Like I had transcended to the next level where the workout had become non negotiable. Even with a harsh, even with a sore shoulder.

I'm still going, yeah, absolutely. And we can actually learn something for that too. For as in sexual restoration is that thing using that executive function men struggling to stay hard. Most of the time it comes down to poor blood flow. That's why I put together the Good Morning Wood smoothie, a nutrient packed blend designed to restore blood flow naturally. My patient often notice improvement in just a few weeks when they take this part of their daily routine. Click the link below to get the recipe and start boosting your blood flow and firmness today. Or go to good morningwoodsmoothie.com so wow. You have shared so many pearls. Really rewiring your brain and eliminating barriers. I learned several things that I'm actually kind of institute in our coaching program for men with Ed. So before we end, how do you define an attractive man? The provider. The vision that you see that a man should be like in 2025 at this time.

Wow, I have to be so careful. If I answer this wrong, I could get canceled and.

No, no, no, you answer.

I don't mean from you. I don't mean from you. I am a bit of a. A traditionalist. And what I mean by that is that I believe that it is a man's responsibility, and it's a tricky responsibility, but it's to walk what I consider to be a very fine line that is the boundary between chivalry and chauvinism. And the tricky thing about walking that fine line is that the line is changing all the time. And so what is defined as chivalry in one generation becomes chauvinism in the next one. And so this is why we often see, say, older men getting in trouble with the newer age thinking because they were walking a different line, and then society changed. And I'm going to use a shocking example. But Sean Connery, I want to be really clear. I don't agree with what he said, but you can find on YouTube an old interview with him where he's talking to Barbara Walters, and Barbara says, well, Sean, I seem to remember hearing you in an interview say that sometimes it's. It's acceptable or maybe even necessary to smack your wife. And he's like, well, it's never preferable, Barbara.

But.

But sometimes a woman just. She just doesn't know when to stop. And she just goes on to explain it, like. And you're like, holy crap. But what's fascinating is today we hear that, and it's fundamentally shocking. In the 80s, we heard. And it was, like, wrong. In the 60s, and we heard it and we went, yeah, it's not ideal. So it's changed the whole step. And if you watch his movies, the original Bond movies From, say, the 60s, look at the way he treated women. That was chivalry back then. Grab them by the arm, pull them in the room. What we have to do as men, I think today is walk that line and understand how it's shifting. And we have to also not surrender too much. We're in a place where we're being told that masculinity is toxic rather than. Maybe there are aspects of. Like. I'm always amazed when people talk about toxic masculinity. I'm like, well, can you please explain to me toxic masculinity, but describe it in a way that makes it specific to men, because it seems to me every behavior that you're describing is just as the same with toxic femininity. Like, what you're really talking about is toxic behavior, and you've decided to make it only about men. What I believe is that what a woman really wants from men, and this is not true of every woman and not true of every situation. And certainly there are cultural changes going all the time, but it strikes me that what a woman really wants is safety. She wants respect. She wants security. She wants certainty. And if we can present those things to her, if we can create those things for her, we're going to put her in a place where she can really experience her own definition of femininity for her. And so when people talk about, say, like a surrendered wife. I saw Charlie Kirk the other day. They said something. He said something about he got in trouble. Like, they were bringing up all the things he said, and he said, your wife should surrender to you. And of course, I understand that. What he meant by that is not that she should surrender to you and you should treat her like a prisoner. What he meant was, is that what some women really want is to actually be able to surrender their security, to be able to say, I trust that you've got our destiny. I trust that I can sleep at night because you're beside me. My wife, Kirsty, she's just as feminine as feminine gets, but she's powerful. She's not. When I say that she's surrendered to me, don't believe me. She will not surrender on something she doesn't want to surrender on. But she is also surrendered to me. She allows me to create the. The masculine sense of certainty and safety around our house. And I really respect her for. For doing that. I also respect her for standing up for herself when she feels like she needs to do that. One of the reasons she can do that, though, is because she knows that I create a safe environment for her to do that. And so I don't think I've answered this as clearly as I could.

No, I. I think you answered very clearly after. I love your definition. I like to ask our guests that definition, and I think the way you explain it is really not just 80s or 90s or. I mean, I think it's present and future and really being a provider, provide safety for women and. And to have them feel respected. I think that just said the same thing for men as well. Respect and communication. And I mean, for how women should treat men. Right. Exactly.

What men really want, I think, in my opinion, anyway, what men really want is respect, admiration, which I think should be mutual, and peace. The biggest thing is peace. And that's obviously an area that's really challenging sometimes for men and women because they have different communication styles. But I can tell you that for men, peace is a big one. And then I want to add one more thing about this, and as it relates to being a father is that especially a father to daughters. I have three of them, and I can tell you that my view of parenting and my view of being a father in terms of masculinity is that twofold. One is that it is my job to raise powerful, independent children that absolutely know that they were going to be completely okay when I die, but that they're going to miss me horribly when I do. It's, it's that balance between I want them to love me and I want them to appreciate me, but I also want them to know that they're going to be okay. And then another component to that, for me, it relates to my favorite parenting quote about this is like, it's not our job as parents to prepare the road for our children. It's our job to prepare our children for the road. And I see way too much of the former going on at the moment. We're trying to create equality of outcomes for all of our children. We're trying to protect them, bubble wrap them and so on. I believe that we need to challenge our kids and that that is a distinctly. I think mothers can do it, there's no question. But I do believe that it's a very masculine thing to do with your children. I was shocked to read this the other day and that children's outcomes are really fascinating. If a child grows up without a father, they're much more likely to end up in prison, they're much more likely to addicted to drugs, and they're much more likely to end up pregnant or getting somebody pregnant. If a child grows up without a mother, their odds of ending up in prison, pregnant, drug addicted and so forth are precisely the same as if they grew up with both parents. Now that's not any kind of statement against mothers. The truth is that I think that mothers are of primary importance in the first three years. If you have to choose between two of the parents, you need that mother those three years. But I believe at four, that father starts becoming absolutely imperative for the well being and the raising of their children. And the outcomes seem to do that. And I'll just finish with one last thing on that. Just because it's so passionate to me. I love my girls so much. One of my objectives as a dad is I want to make it damn near impossible for them to find husbands. And what I mean by that is I want to set a standard of masculinity and a standard of protection and a standard of care that they will only accept that same standard.

Well said. I truly believe that my daughter right now is dating someone that's very similar to her dad. And we're starting to See those similarities, Like, I wonder where that come from. Who else, your dad, who you grew up with, who the day you were born. So what you said really resonate with me as well. Having said that, Eric, thank you for being on the podcast. How can our listener find out more about you and your program?

Sure. I mean, I'm on Instagram under my own name at Eric Edmeads, if people are curious about changing the relationship with food. And I can tell you that everything we do there is super complementary to what you're offering. So the Wild Tip program is unbelievably effective. We have the Food Freedom Challenge, which is a two week food psychology program that will really help people create the habits that will allow them to make the change. And then one other thing that might be interesting is we have developed an assessment. It's called the Evolution Gap Assessment. And what it does is it assesses something called evolutionary mismatch, which is, hey, our biology evolved for one environment and now we're living in this other environment and it's causing stresses in our families, in our homes, in our work, in our money, in our health. And so this assessment helps you to look at your entire life against your evolutionary biology and then create a prescription for you for areas of improvement where you can close the gap and make things better. And that test, that evaluation is@gapfinder.com and it's currently available completely for free because it's in beta. I mean, if somebody's listening to this podcast in 2026, it's not free anymore, but right now it is. And that's@gapfinder.com okay, so we'll put that.

In the show description as well. So check out Eric website, find out more about his is it called WildFit? Yeah. Program and really dive deep into his teaching on rewiring your brain so that way you can achieve your goals. Because he's only covering 0.001% of what he teaches and his knowledge. And we're hearing, I'm learning several things that I will change myself as well. So thank you, Eric, for being on the show. And we're definitely going to make sure that we'll put all your assets on there. And I look forward to this becoming live actually, very soon. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Okay, modern man, you are not alone. And you don't have to suffer anymore. Ed can feel isolating, frustrating, and even defeating. The endless guessing, the quiet shame, the weight of not feeling like yourself. It's exhausting. But here's the truth. You are not broken. You are not alone. You don't have to figure this out alone anymore. The Get Wood Now Boost program is your step by step path to sexual confidence and restoration. No more suffering in silence. No more trial and error. Just real solution, real result and the confidence you deserve. It's time to take back your power on your term. Let's get this journey started together. Check out the course@getwoodnow.com I'll see you there.