From Struggles to Success: Dylan Gemelli's Story - Episode 319

So in a growth mindset, it's the thing, the way I think about it is are you married to your answers or are you married to your questions? Because all growth comes from questions. And as soon as we get married to answers, we put ourselves in a corner. Now we feel like we gotta defend it. Now we feel like we gotta fight back or whatever it is, we turn into binary thinkers. And so even if we believe something, even if it's religious or political or social or whatever it is, it is still the questions we ask that will drive all the continued growth in that area. If I was going to focus on just one thing, what would it be? And for me, it's. It's focusing on the nervous system.

I agree.

Think what I feel, what I believe to be true, the stories I tell myself, what I'm curious about, how I feel about others, you know, how I construct the world and also how I move through space. You know, what's my balance, what's my strength, like my cardio? All of it comes down to the nervous system. Because we think that we're training muscles, but we're not. We're actually training the nervous system because, you know, when you start lifting a weight, the first thing that strengthens is actually the nerves firing. And if you go in and cut the nerve, the arm's just going to hang there, right? It's not going to do anything. So it's actually the nervous system that.

You'Re welcome to the Gladden longevity podcast with Dr. Jeffrey Gladden where our passion is helping you to become an a checker. On this show. We want to help you optimize your life energy, longevity, health and human performance with impactful and actionable information by answering four questions. How good can we be? How do we make 100 the new 30? How do we live well beyond 120? And how do we live young for a lifetime? Now here's today's episode of the Gladden Longevity Podcast.

Welcome everybody to this edition of the Gladden Longevity Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Jeffrey Gladden and we're here answering life's biggest questions. How good can we be? How do we make 100 to new 30? How do we live well beyond 120? How do we live young for a lifetime? And how do we develop a 300-year-old mind? And today I had a conversation with Dylan Gemelli who is a well respected podcaster in the health and wellness space. And he came on the show to chat about things that he's really interested in these days. It's a really far ranging conversation and gets into his background, gets into his time in prison, gets into his time out of the way. He's transformed his life. It's a really interesting conversation that leads us into some really nice conversations about things related to life energy and longevity as well as other health elements. So I think you're going to find this a really fascinating conversation. Welcome everybody to this edition of the Gladden Longevity Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Jeffrey Gladden and I'm here with Dylan Gemelli. And Dylan, welcome to the show.

Great to be here, man. I appreciate you having me. I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, you've got some real presence in this space. I don't know that. I don't know. Maybe my audience knows all about your background and things, but obviously you've been on a journey to get here. I'm curious what that, what that journey has looked like. I know you had some hurdles to get over and some other things. I mean, I think, you know, all of us in this space probably had hurdles to overcome that pushed us into this, you know, finding different answers, if you will. So tell, tell us a little bit about your own story.

I want to make one thing clear before I jump into that is that it is a comeback story. It's a hurdle, obstacle story. But I created the problems. So I don't want to make, I don't want to ever come across like oh, I had to overcome this traumas and these things that happened to me. Yes, I did have to overcome a lot, but I also created these problems and I want to make that very clear. There's no excuse for that. I'm 100% accountable. So you know, I had everything growing up and I was given a lot. My parents weren't rich by any means, but they gave me everything that they could. And when you get older, you understand when they're, how they're spending money, what they're doing and what they're sacrificing that you don't when you're a kid.

Yeah.

And you understand the concept of maxing out credit cards, spending money they don't have, not getting to take trips and vacations so that I can get every coached sport and have the best of this and that. And anyway, so you know, I had that going on. Only child, raised very well and I was a four sport athlete in high school and then played college basketball and I got hurt and that's when my life took the shift to modeling and acting.

Okay.

And I at the Time I didn't want to do it. I felt it was too kind of feminine for me. And my mom was kind of pushing me towards it to do something different. Well, I did have a love for fashion at the same time. And then I started looking at it like women, you know, fame, possible, a lot of money, a lot of this. And I said, all right, let's do it. So I ended up getting. Going through these auditions and getting put with this school, so to speak, of modeling. And they took me to this big convention in New York. Now There was about 50, 60,000 people in there. And you walk in and go, what the hell am I doing in here? You know, and.

Sure, right. Like, what's, what's. What's going to happen here? What could possibly happen here?

Right, yeah. You know, the expectation went from. To like. Well, long story short, I ended up getting fourth place out of like 12, 13,000 guys in my demographic, age group, everything, and immediately signed a contract shot to Milan. Wow. So, yeah, that's like coming straight out of high school, the NBA like you, there's no experience. There's no, you know, what were you modeling?

Was this pajamas or what was the deal here?

This was more high fashion stuff. So think Versace. Calvin Klein at the time was a very big thing for over in Milan. Dolce and Gabbana was big then. So I get over there and start to work 250 of the best male models in the world. So, you know, you're walking into something where you're. You think you're hot when you get invited to it, then you realize you're not. Once you get there, it's like, it's.

Like going to a. It's like going to a university. Right. It's like you were good in your high school and now it's like, no, you're just average, man. So.

Right, exactly. A good comparison. Exactly. So anyway, I won't get into all of the details there. What I will say is this. You start to become that life. And so a schedule. For example, wake up, get ready for the day, get on the subway to get to your agency. You get over there, you get a casting sheet, you make your way to auditions all day. You go work out and then you party. That's the schedule. The weekends is the same. You just get to sleep later because you're so wasted or, you know, from the night before and you don't have to go to your agency. Well, anyway, I couldn't keep up with this lifestyle. I was spending triple what I was making. And I Wanted to be the man everywhere I went, because I was traveling, coming back to the United States, started to do acting, I started to sell drugs because it was the only means that I had to try to keep up and live how I felt was that life, you know, the one that I thought I wanted. And there was no longer.

What was the driver there? What, what was the actual allure of that life? What, what, what was it giving you as you think about it now?

Nothing. Emptiness, A hole. It was making me feel like I was something when in reality I was something the whole time when I didn't have that right, but that kind of.

Chasing external validation in a way. Right.

It's being in religious sense because I'm very religious. It was being idolatry to things and the earth and the world and being like a slave to that and a slave to sin and everything else that I was doing that was backwards from how I am now and how I was raised. And so I started to become that. And you're not going to have longevity in cocaine sales. I'm sorry, it's just not there. And so I had a 15 year prison sentence at 28 years old. I'm. Yeah, I'm 43 now. I did two years of that, 15 and was released. And I was there and there was a lot of good time factored in and things that I was doing within the system and then the laws in Iowa, whereas that are far different in terms of your time off and how they cut it down because this was not a federal case. And so I was sent to Maui where my parents lived. I'd had a five years parole, did one, they released me. So my behavior was as good as you could get. But during this process I began to study intricately hormones. I learned about peptides when nobody knew about them or had heard of them. SARMs, selective androgen receptor modulators. And I started working with professional athletes and coaching them on their steroid cycles, supplements, diet, nutrition. I became certified 10 different ways in NASM. And you know, I had to do this. I had two felonies, so I had all of these credentials, master's degree in business and finance, and had thrown it away. So I was starting from scratch, ground zero. And at the time it wasn't very acceptable to have those kind of, you know, marks on your personal record. Regardless of serving the time, regardless of what I gave back, you were viewed differently. And so it was an uphill battle.

Yeah, it's an interesting thing, isn't it, that in, in some senses it's True. That people will show you who they are. And there's comments about, you know, people don't really change. And yet, on the other hand, there really are transformational experiences that we go through and we actually do become a different person because of them. Right. And so I think sometimes it's hard for society to keep up with which side of the coin the person's on. Whether they're just the same person in disguise now or whether they've actually had a transformative experience, which it sounds like you did. And it's, you know, I don't know that people are malicious about it, but certainly they default to, you know, one side of the coin versus the other. Right. In terms of not really giving people the opportunity to demonstrate their transformation. But it is an uphill battle. I mean, we've all gone through stuff. Right. I've got my own life as doesn't have what you have, but it has, you know, it has its own challenges. Right. So. And we all learn and grow from them. And I think it's. It's difficult when you've learned and grown to, for other people sometimes to even accept that because they knew who you were before or they, they just think you're always that way or, I don't know, whatever it is. Right. You get kind of get labeled and it's hard to break out of it.

Well, life is about change. And I will tell you what I was or is not. Who I am, who I am now is who I should have been and who I was meant to be.

Yeah.

I mean, go back into the Bible and look, Jesus picked the sinners, some of the worst people. I mean, Paul turned into. Paul was killing Christians and everybody and murdering them. And he ended up being one of the greatest, most well known. So I don't, you know, that's how I live my life.

Yeah. I think to your point, I think there's also the fact that we need to go through what we need to go through to become who it is we're meant to be. There's really kind of a beauty in it. It's not like, well, I could have gotten here otherwise. No, Every single piece of this story has had an impact in shaping who I am today. And I think once you are able to go back and heal the traumas and actually transcend them and become grateful for them. Right. Grateful for the things that we went through then. At that point it's like, okay, now I'm unencumbered by what actually I went through, but I'm so much wiser and have so much more empathy and respect and love and generosity than I would have had if I hadn't gone through those things. Right.

So you. 100%, brother. I will always argue that a lot of the best teachers have made the most mistakes. They just don't make them twice.

Yeah, there's It. Yeah. What's an. Who's an expert? An expert's a guy that made some mistakes that you haven't made yet. 1. Right.

There's no success without failure. You know what I mean? There's you. You don't learn or understand how to be continuously successful and overcome if you never have to.

That's right. And actually, there is no failure. There's only learning.

That's right. You know what, man? Those experiences, like you just said, have shaped what I've become. And that if you. If people would look at things that way and use it as fuel and as an actual blessing, because that was something that taught you, then you. You kind of are on a endless path to success. It's kind of a lot of mental, you know.

Oh, it's 100. Yeah. Yeah.

And I have used that, and I've used that as fuel as opposed to feeling sorry for myself or letting it bother me or looking back on it in any way other than what it did for me. Now, I don't recommend using prison as your fuel, but, you know, it was my journey and my path and. And I don't. As much as I regret who I was, I don't regret that because I wouldn't be sitting here with you right now. I wouldn't even have met my wife. I don't know what I'd be doing.

Exactly. No, exactly. So I think this is another side of it. People do end up with a lot of guilt, regret, shame, whatever it is, around things that they may have gone through. Either either they were, you know, the primary actor, or they were being acted upon, one or the other. They can have the guilt, shame, and. And regret and things. But the point is that all of that is just fuel to grow. And when you can go in and heal that and then again, transcend that, you get to this point where you become unencumbered by the things that you've gone through so that you can really bring all your gifts forward in a way that's much bigger and broader than you could have without that stuff. Right. I mean, that's.

Yeah.

Why was. Why was Paul so successful as a. As a missionary? Right. Why are you so successful in what you do? Because you burn with a passion that's fueled by what you went through to get here, is how I would think of it.

Damn right, man. That's the journey. And that's, that's. It's a continuous journey. There's going to be errors and judgment and things, and it's just strictly fuel for me, man. And that's what I've done and then continue to do. And I, And I try to teach that ability within what I teach with health and fitness, which is very important. And now more on the neuroscience and neurological side. Bringing that together is I like to be either an inspiration or a beacon of hope or light to people. And the realest guy that's going to be around that will never give you anything other than what you're getting right here. You're going to get the same, Dylan, in all of my videos, all of my podcasts, if we were talking outside, there's no difference. And it's either, you know, you love it or you hate it. But the realness and the accountability is a lot of things that I try to operate on because that's lost now. Accountability especially. And I think that one of the reasons I'm able to resonate with people is because of that, because of the honesty, the integrity and the accountability.

And I think there's one other piece, and that's your vulnerability. Right?

Yeah.

People. People can't relate to you if you're not vulnerable. But when you, when you show, hey, look, I'm human too, look, yeah, things happen to me too. I've done things, you know, blah, blah, blah. It's in our vulnerability that, that we become relatable, quite honest. That's it.

Yeah, I agree. You know, one of the mistake that I used to make is that when I would do videos and when my early years, I would always act like I knew everything and I acted like I could do no wrong, never make a mistake. And that is the worst way to come across. And it is not the way to help people. It's not. It actually takes away from what you're doing and from the message being spread. And I've learned a lot over the years of doing that and really, you know, worked on. If I don't have the answer, I know somebody that does. And that's what makes me an expert, is because I hang out with them, you know.

No, that's. So that's exactly right. No, it's good, Good, good perspective. Yeah, totally.

So through these years, I started to get millions of subscribers on YouTube because I was talking about stuff nobody would talk about, man. And I got shut down twice. So once you see the pattern here, had to start from scratch again multiple times. I kind of shifted to Instagram around Covid time. I got shut down again in that time. I wasn't even talking about COVID but people that were pushing the envelope on anything at that time were kind of just, you know, they were looking for it. So what happened was, as I grew my Instagram massively and I got invited to speak at the Mr. Olympia a couple years ago with, you know, a bunch of people with a lot of letters after their last name, and then me, who's an online guy. But I really, really went in there and held my own and really made great relationships and did extremely well. Well, within that, I was asked to host a podcast with the former Ms. Olympia, along with speaking there. So she was being sponsored by someone in the biohacking industry, STEM Regen, one of the most well known companies in biohacking. They took a liking to me and they are the ones that I started to study and look at now. When I got home, I got Covid and I was really. And I always would get upset down and why is this happening? And I thought, man, I got all these contacts, all this stuff going. I go home and get Covid right when I'm going to go home and start kicking this off. And I said, you know what? For once, I'm just going to trust in whatever God's plan is here. And you know what happened? I sat there in bed miserable and started to scroll through my phone. I said, you know what? I'm just going to look at this STEM regen company and look into it. And before you know it, five, six hours later, throughout my day, I had called my wife and I said, I'm going to tell you what I told my parents when I got out of prison. You're just going to have to trust me because I know what I'm doing. And she said, okay. And I started to just dig in and I started approaching everybody in the biohacking space, and I got a lot of followers, but none in that space who know who, who I am. And I started my show and I started with Misha Tate, who was a massive name. And I did. I built that from scratch. And I approached everybody myself and just went and did all the hard work myself. No agents, no. None of that crap. I'm gonna. You're gonna go to me, directly to me, and I'll make it happen. And here we are. Today I hit number one and health and fitness and alternative health A few, like, what, five, six days ago. And we're just going as strong as we can. And I, like, I say, man, I'm operating now on God's plan and what I'm being led to do, not Dylan's. This is not a Dylan thing anymore, and that's why it's working.

No, that's. That's awesome. Yeah, it's really, it's inspiring to hear you say that. And yeah, there's a couple things that come to mind around that, which is, you know, when you were allowing things to happen. I think we can effort too much, right? We spend a lot of time trying to effort. And one of the things that I talk to my clients about is you can actually flip the script entirely if you move from efforting into receiving. So when you go into reception mode, all of a sudden it's. It puts you in that theta state of sort of almost like going through your day in a meditative state. It's like, I'm just here to receive. It's like, wow, what a beautiful day this is. What an incredible opportunity to have a conversation, right? Instead of there's no agenda, there's. There's a receiving of kind of what is. And when you take that sort of efforting out of it, where we feel like we're trying to drive the car and you're instead, you're kind of here bringing your gifts, but allowing the car to kind of drive itself, there's a certain beauty in that, quite honestly. It's very tranquil and it's very life giving. And interestingly enough, when people go into that parasympathetic state, they actually heal much better. Their stem cells that they have actually work much better. There are studies now that have shown that when you are in a deep meditative state or in that parasympathetic state, that whether you're getting exogenous stem cells or releasing your own or whatever you're doing, peptides, exosomes, whatever, that combination, everything works better. You actually get a better result than if you're going into it in a very stressed way. So there's many, many things about this, but really one of the keys to life is actually optimizing parasympathetic nervous system tone to where you can actually go through life in a very meditative state. You heal faster, you fight infections better, you kill cancer cells better, you age slower. Everything that you want to have comes through that, through that lens, right? So there are other things. Of course, you have to eat, right, and do get your exercise and build your VO2 and all that stuff. But even there, instead of efforting, you can actually receive the exercise. It's like I get to go do this right? It's very cool.

So the reason that I'm smiling so large, I'm gonna get into it with you right now because of what you're saying. So most people that know me know I take on and I, I'm not trying to hawk a product here. I just hear me out. Yeah, I take on very, very, very few partners. I only work with long term people. I don't do affiliate work. I don't have 800 codes and post 900 different items. I just enrolled at Arizona State for neuroscience and I'm getting another degree. And that is because as you, what I have on here is called an Apollo Neuro is what I'm wearing.

Yeah.

And I work, I'm a actual long term now signed board member with Apollo Neuro and Dr. Dave Rabin. Simply stated, because of what you're talking about, when I started to piece together the mind body connection and then understood about the overactive sympathetic nervous system being a lot of the problems within people. Then I met Dave and we start, we talked and talked and I learned so much and before you know it, we came to this. Wow, this is where it is. The mind body connection like you and I were talking about briefly. And I had been so focused on the fitness side, the health side and working with mitochondria, cellular function and health, but not piecing together the mind side. Now what, what this just blew me away on. It's sending vibrations throughout the day and different times of day to correlate with what's going on. So for instance, right now I'm in focus mode because I need to be, you know, with you. But I understand now and have learned how much control the vagus nerve has on our bodies. And I never knew I had left the neuro side completely out. But that's the, that's the key component in the missing piece. And when you were talking about that, I'm grinning ear to ear because I'm like, man, this is everything I'm into now and that I'm actually, I literally am going back to school. That's how important it is to me and how serious I take a partnership with somebody that when I grasp and understand what I was put here to do is convey this message because we, I can tell you and you know this, I can fix your diet all day, hormonally optimize, you get your training all the time. But if you're not right here we can do all that. You're never in alignment. You're always going to be off. Always.

100. No, 100%. Yeah. In our world, you know, in the longevity space that we work in and we do really comprehensive work here, sort of getting at the root cause of the root cause of the root cause on things. Right. So. But there are five circles that are important. One, the first one is life energy, which is a psycho spiritual space.

Yes.

The second one is longevity itself, which is actually looking at the whole hallmarks of aging, which are the actual drivers in the river of current, the current of aging, if you will. So shortening telomeres, mitochondrial dysfunction, stem cell exhaustion, senescent cell burden, inflammation, oxidative stress, you know these things, right? Yes. Right. And they all play together, right? They all play together so they spool up off each other. And then there's health, every organ system. Right. And then there's performance. You know, when I'm 100, I want to be fast, agile, strong, quick balance, great cardiovascular capacity, reserve, flexibility. So if I'm going to do that at 100, I have to do that today. And I was born in 1954 and I can do that today. So I can do anything I want. I can mountain bike, surf, snowboard, run, I can do anything I want. And that, and that's also critical. But that's also, it's not about training the muscles, it's actually also about training the nervous system. It's not really about the muscles, it's about the nervous system. How do you know where your proprioception, where you are in space, your balance, your flexibility, even power, all of it is about training the nervous system. And then the fifth circle is environments architecting. Each of the environments we reside in, we all live in four. Predominantly home, work, business, travel, vacation, and architecting each of those to support the mission. So if you imagine those five circles, there's one circle that surrounds them all. That's life energy. Inside are the four circles that overlap in a Venn diagram. And in the center of that is the goal. So for us in longevity, when we're a, when we're 100, we want a 30 year old body and a 300 year old mind. Right. That's what we're going for, developing a really a 3,000 year old mind. Right. So we want to have the opportunity to live a life that nobody's ever had before, which is to have a youthful body and all the wisdom, tranquility, transcendence, so that actually we can contribute to the planet in ways that nobody's ever been able to contribute before. So that's really. That's why we get excited about longevity every single day. Here's.

Yeah, I love it. And you brought up so many keys that I focus on to longevity. A lot of people don't know about the telomeres and the shortening and what that actually is and the effect that has on aging. I've discussed that quite a bit more so recently as I've learned about it. But, you know, cellular health. You brought up senescent cells. I do a lot of discussion and talk and focus on mitochondrial health, but people don't realize the importance of actually taking care of the cellular membrane. Everybody looks at one aspect and not the other components of the cell. Right. I've been studying quite intricately NAD levels. And then people with the misunderstanding that taking straight NAD does nothing for you and you need the precursor to get within the cell. You know this, that the cell can absorb NMN, for example, and it cannot regular NAD.

That's right.

So these IVs and these injections and all of this stuff that goes on, it does nothing. In fact, it can cause harm, right?

That's correct. Yeah. We're not big fans of. I've never been big fans of nad. There are a few occasions where it's actually required and actually exceptionally good. Let's say you're going through acute alcohol withdrawal or acute opioid withdrawal or something like that. IV NAD can actually be very, very helpful.

Right.

But for people that are, you know, normal people, it's. It's really kind of useless. And what you really want to do is build up your NAD levels in the cells that you're pointing about. But even beyond that, you want to change the NAD to NADH ratio. You want to have. There you go, NAD than nadh. And we can do that with an ozone sauna. We can oxidize the nadh back to NAD, and then you can play out of block CD38, which gobbles up all your NAD as you age. So the whole recycling pathway has to be optimized to make it work. But anyway, NAD is critical, right? For sirtuin activation, for mitochondrial energy production, etc, so, you know, it's a big deal. But people go about it in the wrong. They think if they get a shot or a patch or an IV, that somehow that's going to do something for them. But we're not. We're not big fans, except in, you know, some very special cases.

So true. Totally. I've interviewed Some like real, real experts that aren't necessarily just trying to sell stuff, that have really educated me on all of that. And it's very eye opening. And see, what I try to do is really get with the most brilliant people, not necessarily the people with the biggest followers. Now don't get me wrong, I like those interviews too, but I try to find the real experts, the ones that don't have a certain motive or that know more than just passing conversation. And see what I do, and this is what I feel like has made me successful in what I do is every single guest I have, I, I speak with them beforehand just so I can learn about what drives them and what their passions are. And then I go study them to no end so that when I get on those conversations and we're talking, man, I know exactly what I'm talking about. And I'm not dancing around like a politician and not really knowing where to go. And I want this, I wanna, I wanna really hit home. And I'm a curious, curious person by nature. I wanna know everything totally. You know, when I say prayers, you know what one of the things I ask for every day is? Wisdom, knowledge and understanding. So that I can grasp exactly what I need to know to be a successful human. And a lot of people would never ask for these basic things that are the most important virtues that one could possess. And I think when you start to understand what you really need to be a good person, a successful person, a wise person, you start to look at these intricacies and these virtues like I'm talking about, of what, what contributes to that. Most people never even think about stuff like that or consider it. I never did. And I think that taking that time and there's a lot of basic things you can do every single day that cost you $0. All they require is time and your mind to be present, not distracted, which I struggle with, you know, but, you know, this getting up and going and taking a walk outside every morning, for me it's like, I need the prayer time. I don't care, I'll be late to whatever. If I don't get that in first, it's just gonna have to wait. But getting outside, walking every day, appreciating your surroundings, having actual gratitude. Some people go, oh, that's actually, no, it's not. It's very significant in creating quality of life and peace. And if you don't have that peace in your head, then you know this better than anybody. That's where the inflammation starts. That's where all the stress Leads to all these other problems and there's no cure for that. Medical. You can take all the under the sun, but if you got to do it the right way, that's right.

Now I think that's where, you know, the concept of receiving. What I find is it puts me into a state of gratitude naturally. Yeah, it's like I'm no longer efforting. I'm just like if you're going on your walk. And to me there's a couple different kinds of prayer. Prayer can be sort of petitionary, where you're asking for things. And the other form of prayer is a little more meditative. It's just where you're kind of in the presence of. Right. Is this like feeling just the sheer presence of the beauty of what it is to walk on the planet, to breathe this air? You know, there's a gratitude that comes with that sort of receiving presence that I think is incredibly nurturing quite only not only to our souls, but actually to our physiques and bodies, quite honestly. A decreasing inflammation, making things work better, etc. And giving you perspective on life.

Absolutely. Super cool. Yeah. The clearer minded you are and the more direction that you have inside and you find your meaning or your purpose or what you were put here to do and also realize the gifts that you have and know that you're using them in the right way. Because I, you know, I, I misused a lot of the gifts I had and I realized it and I, I had, I was one of those people convincing myself I was doing good, but I was doing like half goods, you know what I mean? Like there was, it was there, but then it's kind of like when you don't tell the lie but you don't say what, you know what I mean? Like you don't give. So I was doing that with thinking I was helping more so than I actually was. And once I started giving my all and putting it all out there in the varieties of ways because there's a lot to this man like we're talking about then the nutrition side and you get into that and you see all of these things that get passed around and the bad players and motives and the misguidance and the lies, the blatant lies that they know harm you, like really no hurt you to do. Demonizing fats, for example, That's a small one. Telling people that certain things are healthy, knowing they're not putting stuff in foods that you know are addicting. Dude, this is like really bad actual stuff that happens. This is not a conspiracy no, it's.

No, it's not conspiracy theory at all. It's really interesting. I saw something really interesting about when the cigarettes companies got shut down on their advertising back in the 60s. And I was born in 1954, so I remember this. You know, there were cigarettes ads on all the TV shows back then. And then, and then they shut it down. A lot of the food companies went out, or a lot of the cigarette companies went out and bought food companies and they had their scientists work on how to make food addictive. And that was one of the niduses for, you know, this whole change in the dietary stuff, how it's so much different than it was in the 50s and 60s, how it got really off the rails in the 70s and 80s. Because now you're, you're creating foods that are addicting, right? And you're also making foods that appear to be healthy, but you're cheaping in them. Even, you know, not every fat is a good fat, right? So you're putting in all these seed oils and vegetable oils and things like that that, you know, like I remember when we had these margarine substitutes, right, that, you know, we're all trans fat, right. Like this is the new thing. So anyway, it's really interesting how food has really gotten off the rails. And I do think that one of the biggest challenges any of us have is actually getting truly nutrient dense, high quality food. It's just difficult to find it, quite honestly. So maybe Thrive Market is a good one. I don't have any relationship to them, but I know they try to do a pretty good job there. So. Yeah, so that's interesting too. Yeah.

You know, one of the struggles I've always documented as just having a struggle with eating and the way I viewed myself, obviously you go back to the modeling, but even before that, that's why I started to study food when I was 11 and food labels. But, you know, the, the information passed upon at that time was so backwards and wrong. That was the low fat time and then into the low carb craze, where at that time the low carb craze was like, we're going to reduce carbohydrates but fill it with every other additive we can. And. But it's low carb, you know, that's right. And so I've, I've, I've lived through it all and I've struggled with it all. In fact, until as a nutritionist for 15 years, I still, even though I taught about the goodness of foods, I personally was under the Just being hypnotized into the low fat side of things and just having this eating disorder. And about a year ago, when I made those changes and shifted to higher fats, animal fats, animal proteins, and eliminating a lot of the stuff that I thought was good, that wasn't. Everything's opened up for me, man. Like, it. It's been a whole, total transformation, especially in mood and blood panels and all of that. I mean, it's so, so drastic.

Yeah, no, it's. It's huge. And we do a lot here. We do a lot related to food. I think one of the problems with diets is that for most people, they all begin with the foods, right? It's like, well, this is a healthy food. That's not a healthy food. Well, in actual fact, maybe that's true, but maybe it's not true for you. Maybe you've got an oxalate sensitivity where kale isn't the best thing for you, right? And so what we find is that to actually figure out the diet, you've got to start with the individual. You've got to look at their genetics. You got to look at how they're built. You got to look at their gut, you got to look at their food sensitivities, their stomach acidity, what's going on in the small intestine, the large intestine, what's happening with the pancreas. You know, once you actually figure all that out, then you can actually put together the right foods for that person, all right? With the right, you know, pre PO post and probiotics and the right things that they need to make it all work. If they need some enzyme help or whatever acidic help. So once you deconstruct it, right, and then put it back together, this is one of the things that we really stress in our. In our world is that so many people have solutions they want to throw at you, but really what's required is a deep, deep understanding of the individual. Like, who are you? What cards are you holding? Where are you in the game? What's actually happening? And then once you deconstruct thoroughly, then it's like, oh, well, here's the solutions that work for you. Yeah, I mean, that may be great for them, but that's not really what you need. You actually need this over here, Right? So that's the precision that we bring to it. So, yeah, it's cool.

I can always tell when I'm talking to somebody of high intellect or intelligence because they do what you just said and they realize that it's person to person specific and they don't ever try to throw. I, I see these arguments and people like get hateful if you're not in the keto or carnivore camp or if you're in, if you believe that you should be eating more carbs or if you don't believe in this, you don't believe in that. And it's like, listen, it's, it's almost turned into politics where it's like you're either on one side or you're, you're crazy and this and that. And they start when you start calling people names and yelling at people over simply, you know, having a disbelief or something works better than somebody else. I will never take you serious.

I mean, here's one of the things on the life energy circle you'll relate to this is that one of the key features of the life energy circle is having a growth mindset. So in a growth mindset it's the thing, the way I think about it is are you married to your answers or are you married to your questions? Because all growth comes from questions. And as soon as we get married to answers, we put ourselves in a corner. Now we feel like we got to defend it. Now we feel like we got to fight back or whatever it is, we turn into binary thinkers. And so even if we believe something, even if it's religious or political or social or whatever it is, it is still the questions we ask that will drive all the continued growth in that area, right? And so we think that it's our purpose in life to go through and find our answers. When I think in actual fact the real purpose is to go through and find the questions. What are the questions that are going to continue to drive growth and progress and development for us, right? And so that's really a key piece. And then the other thing that you brought up about people, you know, saying hateful things back and forth between the plant based people and the carnivore people is it's binary thinking, right? It's, it's kind of like, you know, you see this geopolitically played out around the globe, right? Well, we've been fighting for 3,000 years, we may as well keep fighting because we're right and you're wrong and blah, blah, blah, right? So it's binary thinking, right? And I really think in this 3,000 year old mind, the way we elevate humanity is to start to think more like a quantum computer where there's a field of all possibilities between 0 and 1. And now it's a question of finding the right POS, the right solution at this time for these people, for everyone involved. How do we actually make those kinds of decisions?

Right.

How do we move beyond binary thinking? I think this is really important for humanity. And whenever we see binary thinking, we can always just take a step back and say, well, this is an example of binary thinking. Let's see what we can do to bring quantum perspective to this. Right. It's kind of how I think about it. So total.

The only way that you continuously make progress is like, you brought up asking questions. So one of the things I had the biggest problem with is this demonization of asking questions when there were narratives being pushed. When you look back in time at every brilliant inventor or philosopher or whatever, I don't care, what did they do? They questioned everything. They questioned science. They questioned every single thing that was supposed to be, and that's how they figured things out. How do you figure anything out without asking questions?

That's right. It's a whole Socratic method, right? Yeah.

So, I mean, I. I think that there is nothing better than asking questions. And when people ask me, I actually go, good. That means that you actually care. And you want to know, not getting offended and angry because somebody dared to question you. I mean, you know, I don't know, man. It's. It's. It's. It's gotten pretty wild the. The older that I've gotten, because it didn't used to be like that, you know, And I'm not old by any means, but I. I'm more of an old soul. And how I operate and look and kind of go through things in my life, and, I don't know, I operate on a totally different mentality.

Well, what's. What's happening is you've actually. You're demonstrating a lot of growth in your life, right? From moving from external validation to internal validation to realizing that being aligned with the answers is not really the answer. It's really being aligned with. With the growth mindset and growing and continuing to learn. That's why you continue to apply for more certifications and more. You're curious, right? You already said that in the broadcast. And I think, yeah, being eternally curious is. Is what we are here. It's like we're just eternally curious. And I think a lot of people lose that curiosity as they go through life, and it's a shame. And I think, you know, if you're listening to this, it's, you know, ask yourself how much. How curious am I? How curious Am I to actually ask a question about something that I hold to be true? Right. Can I, can I look at it from different perspectives? Can I modify the way I think about it or. It doesn't mean it's false. But is there ways that I can look at it where it becomes more of a growth asset for me and the people around me than, you know, kind of a barrier to entry?

So, yeah, yeah, man. It literally, you grow and grow and grow like mentally until the day you die, if you're doing it right. Because you're constantly asking and processing and learning and you can learn forever. I understand that you learn the most when you're a baby and you have that ability. I've gone through all of that and understood it. However, you can learn forever. You, you absolutely can. You don't have to be. Yeah, you don't have to be cognitive. Cognitively just ended, you know, because you're getting older. That's nonsense. It's not true. It's how you take care of yourself and prevent this from happening early on with early onset things. And, you know, you, we could get into that for a year on the things to avoid. But the point is, is actually taking everything serious and not accepting that, oh, this is inevitably going to happen and I only live once. No, I don't, I don't operate that way. It doesn't have to be inevitable. Yes, certain things are going to happen. It's like what I teach a lot of people. You don't lift heavier. You lift smarter as you get older. Right. You, you have to preserve, but it doesn't mean you can't do it. Michael Jordan couldn't continually drive and dunk. He had to start shooting jump shots. He had to start making changes to his game. And that's why he actually got better as he got older, you know, and that's what it's all about, man. It's accommodation and adaptation and learning around, you know, everything around you. And I think that if people understood that they would live longer and healthier lives.

Yeah, I think one of the other. I agree with you 100%. Really, I totally do. Adaptation is key. And always asking the question, what am I learning here? And realizing that there is no fear. Failure. When you're curious and trying things, there is no failure. You're just learning. Right? You're just right. More data. You understand what either works or doesn't work. It's like Edison with a light bulb. Right? He had 999 ways that he learned. Didn't work. So, you know, okay, they're not failures, they're just. It's more information.

Yeah, well, I'm going to turn it around on you. I'm going to ask you a question. This is one of the things that I always kind of go through with athletes and people that I train. And this has taken the mental side out of it. We're just going to focus on the health side because I always like to know people's thoughts that are very wise and I think that you are. And I'd like to know how you think of my breakdown. So when I have these guys, especially the bodybuilders, they're always focused on the steroids or the supplements to do all the work and do all this. And if you're looking at it, to me, then this is an explanation of how important diet is, because I'm big on diet being very, very, very, very top tier on how we live. So I always tell them, look, man, diet's the hardest thing to stay consistent on. It's the hardest thing to nail down because it changes as we get older. But in terms of success rate and health, I always argue diet's about 70 to 75%. Your training is a good 20 to 25. And supplements, performance enhancers, whatever is that last, 2 to 5% on actual growth, longevity, progress, overall health, looking at blood panels. And I like to ask that to people that really grasp and understand to see what they think. That's always been my kind of, my kind of belief system and it's worked well for me with everybody I've ever worked with that I've, you know, thousands of clients. When we really, it's like diet first, diet first. What's your thoughts? I'm curious.

Yeah, I think it depends on the frame of reference. So if we're taking, you know, what I would call a shorter term frame of reference difference, like we're going to look at the next six months or the next year or the next five years or the next three years. I would agree with you that getting the diet right. I also would think that, you know, sleep's absolutely critical. You know, learning to meditate, optimizing parasympathetic nervous system tone, you know, and when you talk about longevity, there's studies now that show that having a high VO2. Oh yeah. Trumps muscle mass. You know, hands down, having good muscle strength is a 2x improvement in longevity, but having a high VO2 is effects improvement. So there's no substitute for VO2. So many times bodybuilders in particular are not focused on VO2, they're focused on the mirror, right. Which is a form of external validation. Right. Ultimately. Right. So I think, you know, getting the, the exercise right, and one of the things that I've learned is that if I was going to go through life and focus on only one thing, right? If I was going to focus on just one thing, what would it be? And for me, it's. It's focusing on the nervous system.

I agree.

Think what I feel, what I believe to be true, the stories I tell myself, what I'm curious about, how I feel about others, you know, how I construct the world, and also how I move through space. You know, what's my balance, what's my strength, like my cardio? All of it comes down to the nervous system. Because we think that we're training muscles, but we're not. We're actually training the nervous system because, you know, when you start lifting a weight, the first thing that strengthens is actually the nerves firing. And if you go in and cut the nerve, the arm's just going to hang there, right? It's not going to do anything. So it's actually the nervous system that you're building. And when you're building a nervous system, it's like, okay, well, how coordinated can I be? How fluid can I be in my motion? Can I still run down the stairs? Can I dance the way I want to? Can I still shoot the jump shot? You know, it's really the nervous system that enables us to enjoy life, right? And that's all from the meditative state. But not only that, but just the physicality of can I snowboard or mountain bike or play a sport that I want to play or go dancing with my partner or whatever it is, right? So I, I think it's really, for me, it all boils down to the nervous system. And then from that, of course, it's about what decisions do you make about what to eat and when to go to bed and what. What to consume and not to consume and what to pursue and not to pursue.

Right?

But really it boils down for me to the one thing would be the nervous system.

So I love it. That's. That's where I'm at now. That was always my, my thinking when I was totally, you know, fitness and diet related. But I'm totally with you. Same, same, same. I, I think it starts there, and that's why I'm going the direction I'm going now. And I'm thankful that I've been, you know, I'm thankful to have learned so intricately about hormones and, and diet, nutrition and training especially because I've just been an avidly ridiculous, you know, like athlete and trainer. But yeah, man, everything's opening up now on a different level, really. Working on the brain side, the breathing side, and you know, especially for me on the spiritual side, because I, I personally think that to me, is the key. I know everybody's not going to agree with that, and that's totally fine. I get it. But I. I feel very confident that that's the highest key to all of it. But, you know. Yeah, that that's for everybody to decide on their own. And once you experience it, I think it's easy to experience it.

I think to your point, once you experience it, and you know, we've talked about certain traumas that we've all experienced right. In our lives. And if you're listening to this, you've experienced traumas as well. And we talked a little bit about going in and healing those things, understanding them, forgiving everyone involved, including yourself, and then transcending them. But I really think that there's a role also for having other experiences to overwrite the software. So in other words, we can still be living in reaction to things even though we've healed it, even though we feel like we've transcended it, we can still have some residual echo of it in our nervous system where we're living in reaction to it. And if you can rewrite that with a different experience, either a different relationship or going through a meditative state and having a different transcendent experience. Experience, or even using, you know, some planet plant medicines or things like that for certain people can be super helpful to help erase PTSD and help with anxiety and depression. That's intractable and things like that. And then when you layer in understanding someone's genetic proclivities and, and how they're prone to certain things and you get that straightened out, all of a sudden you can. I mean, you can have a different life than you ever thought was possible. Right. And it's really super exciting. So I would just encourage you that this psycho spiritual space is really, it's intertwined and we tend to want to compartmentalize medicine. Like we're talking about the cell and now we're talking about the muscle, and now we're talking about this, but it's not. It's one. One unit, right. And so one thing that runs through everything is the nervous system. I will tell you this. Interesting. You know, when I was in medical school as a freshman, anatomy was the first Semester class. And I realized as I was studying for the exam that if I actually understood where the nerves ran in the body, I would know the entire body. Every muscle, every fiber, every tendon, every bone. So that's how I studied, you know. And I, I think I had the third highest score in the class. And it's, it's like. And, and that stuck with me at that point. And then I let go of that for a long time and now it's come back to me again and put piecing together life itself. No, it's all down to the nervous system. Right. So, yeah, it's cool stuff.

You know, I just did a really long piece with Dr. Eric Berg the other day and we got into VO2 max and the importance and he started getting into all the studies that you're talking about. So I do want to make another point to everybody listening in case that flew over your head that I. This, this is confirmed by multiple high level experts that that is completely well known now as being one of the most important key metrics or aspects to look at when you're looking at overall health. So that is a absolute prov. And I, I hope that more people start to convey that message. I'm going to make an effort to do that on my platforms and, and beautiful. Really? Yeah. Help people to see that because I want people to see the real facts and things change. I mean we find things as time goes on to be more important and you know, it's never, I'm never ashamed to go, you know what? Five years ago, this is what I learned and what I was told. But what we found now is here, there's no. That, that's a. That's a wise person and an accountable person, an incredible person that's able to do that. So we should always be working together amongst each other doing that. And I think if people would get that team mindset with like people in all industries and experts or influencers or even in businesses that they share that there's plenty to go around for everybody. You know what I mean? And I try to operate this as a family or a team, you know, with everybody. Even if it's somebody I may not personally care for that much. I. You put that aside when it's for the good of everybody else.

That's right. No, it's good stuff. Well, Dylan, it's been such a pleasure chatting with you here for the last hour or so. Really?

Yeah, man.

Enjoyed the opportunity to get to know you a bit better. So super fun. Congratulations on all the stuff that you're doing, you're changing lives and you know, I think that's what it's all about. So good stuff.

I appreciate it. Dude, I'll tell you man, I the way that we have so many similar things we're looking at and you clearly are a high level expert on some of these things, I really enjoyed this more than I expected, man. I mean, I knew a little bit, but this was like, I smiled a lot this episode and I like that. That means I'm having a damn good time. So I appreciate it.

Beautiful. Likewise. Good stuff. All right, thank you.

Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Gladden Longevity Podcast. If you would like more information on what we've discussed or other topics, please reference the show notes or go to gladdenlongevitypodcast.com youm can also find us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter by searching gladdenlongevity. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to get future episodes delivered to you and share our podcast or this episode with someone in your life that you may find benefit. Thank you for listening. We'll be back next week with another exception. Exciting episode the Gliden Longevity Podcast is provided for informational purposes only. It does not constitute medical advice. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of a physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding your medical condition. The use of any information and materials linked to this podcast is at the listener's own risk.