Anti-Aging, Homeschooling, Underwater Workouts, Pooping & More With Laird Hamilton & Gabby Reece

Welcome to a very special episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness show, recorded straight from Kauai, Hawaii, where I was able to spend a great deal of time with professional surfer Laird Hamilton and his wife, professional volleyball player Gabby Reese. We sat down at Laird and Gabby's home and recorded an epic episode for you in which we discuss everything from anti aging to homeschooling to underwater workouts to biohacks, pooping, and, oh, so much more. This one's gonna be a real treat for you. The audio may sound a little bit different because I'm traveling with my portable microphone setup, but nonetheless, I guarantee you will love this episode. In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

Of course, as you get older, I always say, my injuries have made me pay more attention. Everything's fine, and you're just going along. You aren't paying attention because you don't need. So I think age and injuries and time sort of bring certain things to your awareness.

When I wasn't getting food that had enough nutrition, I was eating a lot more. As I get food that's more nutritious. Right. And I have better quality food or getting the things I need, I'm getting the fats that are feeding my brain. I'm not just devouring stuff like I was, you know, 20 years ago.

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See that white water break in there?

Yeah, I see the white water break.

That's. That's. There's 10 guys in the water.

Amazing.

Yeah.

And you're. And you're looking at Ben Stiller's house straight above it. See that house right above it in the trees?

Amazing view. You know, I have. I've spent most of my time in Kona. Look. And we are. We are. We are recording, by the way. I'll look. Look through your Bushnell. You just. You can just sit up here with your binos and check stock. People surfing, that's a must for Laird.

Do you see the guys on the wave? Is anyone on one now down here, further on, they're catching them, and they're riding them. Right down low.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

See him?

Yep. Yeah. It's like hunting. Like hunting surfers. Little spot in stock. So why. Why do you guys live in Kauai? Why here? What's the story?

Well, I grew up here, so that's. That's our best excuse, I would think, is I. I was raised here, and so I felt a natural kind of comfort to be here, especially, you know, with my family and exposing the girls to the environment that I got to be in, and then just all the people that I got to be around, too. So it just seems to be. And I somehow convinced Gabby that she'd like it, too.

Had you been here before, Gabby?

We actually. We lived here in the mid-90s when we were only Isabella. Our oldest daughter was born, and we were newlyweds. Yeah. Because they say Kauai, you know, nearly dead or newlywed. But I think it was a little premature at that time for us to live here. I don't think we were ready or I wasn't ready. And I grew up in the Caribbean. I grew up on an island, but I just wasn't ready. And so we lived on Maui for many years, and we live on the mainland half the year. And I think after our other two daughters were born and just kind of, as you go through life, a little bit, also wanting the contrast for the girls, you know, the notion of what we say.

How many girls.

We have three daughters. One's at university and two are at home. And, you know, the idea of this, be grounded in your life, be really grounded, but then go in the world, and it's a big world, and you can dream to be anything. And so I think Kauai really provides a really grounding effect on all of us. And then it's the idea of, okay, then we take them into the world and say, okay, it's however you want to do it.

Right.

Kauai.

Seems different. Since I've been here, there's been a lot of people talking about psychotics like psilocybin and people doing lots of marijuana. Is that something that's pretty pervasive here, tapping into the power of nature via the use of plant medicine? Because it seems like a very sexy topic these days. And people talk about it a lot here.

Well, I think a lot of it has to do with. Look at the environment. So the nature here is so alive. Right. The tree that. I mean, it's the wettest spot on earth, and it's probably the most. I would say the most, like, you know, the soil and the plant I mean, things grow here. There's 10 species of trees that are. That. They're the biggest ones of the species here. The trees aren't from here. They brought trees here, and they grew to be the biggest of that species. So the connection in nature is a big part of it. But, you know, when we grew up here as kids, I mean, that, you know, weed. We call it weed, that was just like being in France and having grapes. It was like, right, that's. It was just. It was. It was part of the. It was just that common part of the world. Yeah, Everybody. Everybody was, you know, and. And when you look at it, you go, okay, well, alcohol is killing people. You tell people to smoke weed if they're going to be. If they have cancer so they can eat and sleep. I mean, I think our perspective about what certain things are. I mean, plants that do certain things for our body. Now, there's abuse in every aspect. And, you know, there's a time and place for everything. But, you know, the grand architect provided us every single cure that there is in nature. So it's like my hip has been killing me lately. And I just. Somebody made me this incredible comfrey, like, fresh comfrey, like, thing.

And I've been putting it almost like a poultice.

I've been rubbing it on, and it's. And it's had probably the most profound effect on my hip in the last few days. And I've had this whole season, like, I've been doing everything to it. The only thing I've done different is put this comfrey on. And all of a sudden, while I was like, wow, my legs feeling different. Like, it feels different. And so, you know, I think that that's a big part of it, you know? You know, I think as a kid growing up here, we were just. You were a farmer. I mean, we grew up at a taro patch, which is like a rice paddy, and we planted. Tara. We were in the mud. And any tree you planted or anything you grew would just win. It just exploded. And that created a relationship with nature, right? So then you started to look for, okay, hey, this. This tree, this food. I mean, we just, you know, I say, kawhi, you get muddy. Here we come. Here, you get muddy. The kids get muddy. And that gives you a better pers. Our existence, humans on Earth, like, and then you go. And you can go out and see the world, like Gabby said, and you can have the. The lights and the level of boredom sometimes.

Like a small town anywhere, you know.

People feeling of isolation here.

No I. I mean, you know, the problem is, is if you don't have enough productive outlets, then it's like, anywhere. It's gonna swing around like a boomerang, and people are going to get engaged in things to entertain themselves.

Well, idle hands are the devil's playground, too. I mean, when you get into. And we have a lot of hippies here.

Yeah, we have a lot of. Within 10 minutes of arriving here, I had a motorcycle. As I was looking at the view, a motorcycle pulled over on the highway, and a lady walked out and walked up to me and. And held out a paper bag of weed and said, would you like to. Would you like to buy this? Are you. Are you the guy I'm supposed to be meeting here to buy this? Which is probably what she does to half the people who pull out and look over that cliff. I just thought it was interesting. And at the same time, there's such an intense connection with nature while being here, and I'm curious how that's influenced you guys in terms of your diet. Do you follow a specific diet? Is there like a. There's everything out there right now, from the bulletproof diet to veganism to the Paleo diet. Are you guys into food being here, or do you follow a specific diet?

I think. Well, I don't think. You know, it's interesting. Laird is more disciplined than I am, and I think. I don't know if it's the nature of. He's male on female. And so I think women sometimes will use food more as an emotional comfort or what have you. And I don't think we're indoctrinated to one way of eating Paleo. If I said we were eating more one way, I would say it's a diet in a lot of healthy fats and probably more Paleo style.

I mean, we were eating Paleo before Paleo was a term.

Before Paleo was a thing.

Yeah, before Paleo was Paleo, we were eating. I mean, you know, I would describe my personal diet as plants and animals. Like, what do you eat plants and animals. Now, where those plants come from and what plants those are and where those animals come from, that really can be the difference. And, you know, we have farmers markets that we go to here, that we go to on the island that are incredible, that have, you know, farmers that are growing incredible stuff and homemade sauerkraut. Yeah. I mean, so we're. So we're.

We're. And.

And then we have guys that we know that. That farm lamb and that farm cows and that farm buffalo. And that, you know, I mean, they'll have friends that know how to fish, that go out and, you know, catch fish from, you know, 600ft down. And so, I mean, whenever we can get live stuff that's closer to nature, closer to its. Its origin, that's always the best. Like, if we. If we. If I had my way, we would just always be like, okay, go to the farmer that's got that food. Get that pap. The barn, get the avocado.

Have you paid more attention? I mean, you're both pro athletes or you've been pro athletes and now you're transitioning into older age. Has your diet shifted since then in terms of the type of things that you go out of your way to do to take care of your bodies?

Sure. I don't know if it's the age or if it's just the education. I think, you know, you're always looking for things to help minimize the amount of inflammation or inflammatory responses in your body. I think, let's say if Laird's in his season versus he's in his off season, maybe his food changes based on his needs, if he's foiling for six hours a day, or if he's training for four hours a day. So I think it varies. And for me as well, I go with seasonally. Even though we live in warm weather all the time, I can feel like certain parts of the year, if I'm working more or what have you, more or less food, less animal protein, you know, those sort of slight adjustments. Larry's really cut way back on a lot of red meat, you know, and if we do, I mean, did you get the gas station beef?

We heard about the world famous gas station beef and tried to get it.

And they delivered yesterday.

For my birthday.

So I think, yeah, sure. Of course, as you get older, I always say my injuries have made me pay more attention, because if everything's fine and you're just going along, you aren't paying attention because you don't need to, because everything's fine. And so I think age and injuries and time sort of bring certain things to your awareness. And even it's not even just like, oh, how I feel physically. When you get to the point where you eat a food and you feel bummed out, an hour later, you start to connect that and go, you know.

It just wasn't worth it. Yeah.

I think, I mean, on my side, I want to talk about the education aspect of it because. Because there's people like you and. And other, you know, you know, other People out there exposing information. We're getting a lot more knowledge now. We have the Internet. We have. We're getting a lot of, of information that's affecting the way we eat. And when, you know, I, when I wasn't getting food that had enough nutrition, I was eating a lot more. But as I get food that's more nutritious, right. And I have better quality food or getting the things I need, I'm getting the fats that are feeding my brain. I don't, I'm not just devouring stuff like I was, you know, 20 years ago, because I was really just. I didn't really know, even though I ate well, because I was always exposed to good food because we lived, you know, you live in the jungle, you're going to get good stuff. But the fact is you're eat. You were just consuming more out of, out of the fact that you weren't getting the nutrients. And so your body's just like, hey, you know, but we're not.

But I don't, I wouldn't say we're neurotic. And like I said, Larry is more disciplined than I am. And, and I don't have big no's in the house for the kids because I think that creates another issue later. I don't want anything to be off limits so that the conversation is, dinner is prepared a certain way, their lunches are a certain way. You expose them to, I always say, what's, what's fun and what's food, and it's getting them to understand that. And then slowly as they get older, like, our oldest daughter eats super clean.

Yeah, but she's making that choice too.

And I think you've educated her.

And it's close. Like, we're leading by example. Like, we're leading by. This is how we. Now, if you really want to have that, that pasta or that peanut butter and jelly sandwich or whatever, we'll have it.

We'll.

We'll provide it for you. Because you're just going to sneak down the street and if you go to your friend Joey's house, you're just going to be like, drinking sodas.

And we don't have. So, like, certain things I don't buy. Like, there's no, you know, there's not going to be Twinkies and soda in my house. But it's sort of that notion of believing that they will come to it on their own.

Yeah. And I was gonna ask you about homeschooling later, but this seems like a perfect time to ask you a little Bit about that because you homeschooled all three of your children.

The younger two.

Okay.

The younger two went to a really.

Good school in Maui, a Montessori.

Well, and then she went to, like, a. Basically a prep school. 99% of the kids go to college, and it was a school in Maui when 50% of the kids in public high school go to university or even graduate.

Yeah.

Why did you homeschool?

Well, Laird and I first met, I was still competing, and so I needed to be in California sort of April through October. And his big wave season that he's still doing and participating in is sort of October through April or late March. And so it just became an organic extension of our lives. And the other idea was I read this book called hold on to your Children as Long as yous Can. And the idea was that parents will be the only one who provide unconditional love for children. And so if you can have a greater influence and impact on them as long as you can, because they're coming age at 12 or 13, where their friends will begin to impact them and influence them more than you will, even if they're homeschooled, that they don't love them unconditionally. So there was this idea of, well, we, first of all, can maintain our lifestyle. We can live in these two places, which in the end, is maybe a better education than you're going to a mainstream school. And then the other side of that was trying to get them to find their own voice as best that they can. And, you know, call it, like, let the cement dry. So that when they do go in the world, they. They haven't been influenced as much by, like, oh, what are you wearing? And who are you hanging out with? And why did you have them at lunch? Because as adults, right, all we're trying to do is figure out, who are we? Who am I? What makes me happy? Who do I like? Where do you know? What do I want to do? And so our girls, it's a real opportunity for them to. You try to peel that out as much as you can.

How do you. How do you pull that off without, say, relearning calculus and having to teach that to your. To your child or spending an inordinate time sitting at the kitchen table.

Oh, no, I'm gonna admit it straight up. First of all, our kids are very stubborn, and they would not listen to us one second.

They don't. Anyway.

They have school teachers.

Yeah.

We have a teacher here and a teacher in the mainland.

We hire very intelligent women that Are actually. One of them has a doctrine in teaching, and we hire them, and they give.

They come to your home, or we.

Or in. In one case, we bring our kids to.

To.

To a class at the lady's house.

She runs a class with other children?

Yeah, with a couple kids. And then in the situation in Malibu, we have a classroom at our house and a couple kids will join our kids. But we have a teacher that comes there and that is far more intelligent than we are and that also our kids fear a little bit. So they have a certain respect for her, which allows her the ability to teach.

And so it's a nurturer I really admire.

You don't want the confusion between being the teacher and the nurturer for your children. Is that awkward?

I think I've seen people. I know, some people, women especially, that are the home school. They're the teacher, and they do it beautifully. I just don't think I'm hardwired that way. And quite frankly, and I could admit this freely, I think that I'm too selfish to be that person who could dedicate that much time to sitting at the table and like, okay, three, four hours a day, and then. Then the. All the activities after. So I. And I say that brutally honest, where while they're at school, either I'm working or taking care of training or doing something so that when they're out, I run them to their activities, to tennis, to this. I just. I don't have the wherewithal at the end.

You. You know, we would be beginning teachers.

We'd be terrible.

No, I'm saying we'd be beginners. I don't need a beginner teacher teaching my kids. Give me an expert, A novice.

And I was homeschooled K through 12, and I got lucky because I was. I was independently motivated. My parents would literally just shove a math book under the bedroom door, and I would. I would go to it, and I do. And it didn't necessarily work out quite as well for my siblings, but for me, being an independent learner, it worked out. We homeschooled our kids for two years before realizing we did. And then we realized the same thing that you and Laird seem to realize, and that is it's hard to be both the teacher and the parent. Well, it's almost impossible, especially when other people can do such a better job than you.

Well, and if you have disobedient children, too, like, you know, I have friends who. Their children, by nature, they came out just sort of more obedient and easygoing. Our children are wonderful. They're wonderful people. And I like, and I personally really enjoy them, but they are not naturally obedient and easygoing. They are going to question every. I mean, it's going to be so unproductive because they're just.

Well, because you're going to get into a debate with them.

Yeah.

About things to do with them, growing up and being a good person that have nothing to do with them. Learning how to read and write.

Exactly.

There's this.

What's it do with the boys?

Well, we found a very good private school for them. And there are still issues, I would say, with learning, in a way, depending on how you look at it, that you need to be a sheep, a factory worker. And that was the fear that there would be peer pressure to fit into the crowd. Are you familiar with Seth Godin?

Yeah.

So Seth Godin has this philosophy that if you can outsource your child's education to a good institution where they're learning valuable skills, that again, you don't want to relearn calculus or Spanish or teach that to your child because you might be a novice at that. Your job begins when they walk in the door from school. And that's what I do. That's when I take my kids out and I teach them how to shoot the bow and how to make fire and how to sell things on Craigslist. So it's a combination of unschooling, homeschooling, but then also teaching them how to play well with others. Because not. Not to belabor the place too much.

Your job as a parent is to teach life skills.

And I still, from being homeschooled and. And not having grown up in a group situation, I still suck at playing well with others. Right. Like, I have to be the leader and in a position of responsibility or else I'm. I'm just.

But you would have been that way.

Not in the place I want to be, maybe.

I think you would have been that way anyway. If you think about it, I think people are kind of. They take their place, what feels good and is natural to them. And now if you were shy and you couldn't communicate and couldn't speak to people, I'd say, okay, well, maybe you should have been pushed out more. But if what you're saying is, hey, I like it when I'm in charge and it's hard for me to take always the opinions of others or what have you, I think that's quite a few people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't think homeschooling would make. Would promote that any more than if you went to school.

Yeah. And it depends on how you do it, too. Right. Some people do a very good job with homeschooling, and some people live in the backwoods as prairie muffins, and, you know, the kids don't get exposed.

Right.

Well, you know, with that, we have the exact opposite problem, because our kids are exposed to so many adults and so many people that they. That's not an issue of ours. It's. They're introvert. You know, they're not going to be introverts. They're. They're. They're like, you know, they're. They're going to go and have a conversation with you in the corner, and it's going to be something that. That you.

But I want to be really clear that we recognize that to do it and to do it the way we do it is really a luxury.

It is difficult.

I mean, there's the. There's the affordability aspect of having a tutor.

So I don't want to be like, oh, yeah, just homeschool, and they get a teacher. I understand. Time and money on both sides, because, by the way, you know how long they're at school? Three hours, maybe four.

But. But also, too. I can say. But on the other side of that, you can also say that when you look at it, there are intelligent people out there that. That cost just a little bit more than a babysitter.

Yeah.

You know, they can run. That can run programs and do homeschooling. So it's easy to say, well, this is a luxury and we're homeschooling. No, we're not sending them to Yale. We're. Right now we're homeschooling, and we. And we get. We.

We.

You can find educated people that don't want to ask for, you know, a bunch of money. They don't want a huge fee.

Perfect example of that is. Is a guy named Ben Hewitt, who wrote a book called Unschooling. He's been on the podcast before, and his children literally grow up on a farm, and they live on a relatively paltry budget, and they homeschool their children, and they don't necessarily outsource it to tutors, but they have a good curriculum, and they make it affordable. And frankly, I've met his kids, and I'm impressed. So, yeah, there's many ways to do it. Now, Laird, you have a lot of toys. You have a lot of gadgets. You know, when we were in your garage the other day before we went paddleboarding. There was everything from some special cold thermogenesis pool that you figured out how to rig up to cold water to a sauna, to your hydrofoils. What would you say are some of your most valuable practices from like a workout or recovery or what some people might call a biohacking standpoint when it comes to the things you do to keep your body put together to, to play the game that you play?

Well, I think the most, the most simple is the heat and the heat and the ice. I mean that's this.

If you, what does that look like for you?

If you said I had one tool to use for recovery and even just longevity and mood. How about just put you in a good mood if you're not in a great mood? I would say the ice, the ice and the heat are the two. Those are the two, you know, simplest, most productive tools that I could. That, that I could get a hold of that and maybe a good, a good, you know, body smashing somebody to come in and put elbows and heels and right. Smash. Smash it.

But what does a heat ice routine look like for you? Like, like how do you do that? Because some people just take like a, a hot shower and then a cold shower or just go sit in a cold bath for 20 minutes after workout. Like what, what's your.

No, my, my idea of a heat and ice would be, you know, optimum two, you know, if you can get 210 degree room, maybe a one 125 steam, 120 to 125 steam and then an ice tub, something that's you know, below, you know, in the upper to mid-30s. If you could get it to be 32, that would be great. And then do rounds of, of heat and ice.

And, and how long do you do that?

Normally about three to five minutes minimum on the ice and then 15 minutes in the heat or just until you're really uncomfortable.

What is the, what is the contraption you have here in Kauai in your garage? That, that plastic.

Well, that's I Cool. That's an I cool product. There was a gift from Pat Riley so the coach Pat Riley.

And you keep that next to the sauna. This, this I cool device and it makes a cold bath without you having to drag ice that's out into your house.

That's right.

I mean in my, you know, in Malibu, my optimum setup is a stainless steel tub and a commercial grade ice machine. Which talk about a luxury. That's probably the, that's. Those are this Is a luxury, right? So, you know, a restaurant ice machine next to a stainless steel tub, unload the entire bin. Half water, half ice. That's the, that's the king. But I cool is, you know, puts it in the 40 degree, and I can add a couple bags of ice to get it down in the 30s.

Now are you working out? Like, are you doing heat, cold workout and mixing in those components to an actual exercise routine?

In the summertime, we implement the heat and the ice within. Within a routine. So we may, you know, sit in the ice for five minutes and then go in and do a circuit and then go lift and then, and then go back in the ice and then go back in the heat and then maybe do some kind of water drill or some other swim, swimming, breath holding, and then go. And then just kind of intermittently put ourselves in these different environments as we're, as we're training. So it's like, you know, and it's. I mean, I have a very short attention span and, and get bored very easily, so I'm always looking for variation.

So you're bouncing from heat to cold to exercise to hypoxia, all during one big workout?

Absolutely. And in the optimum scenario now, this time of year, you know, I'm getting the workout in the ocean, and so I'm using it more as a recovery tool. Okay. Or Sunday comes and we just do a recovery day, and you do five, six rounds of this heat and ice, and you are just, you're good. You can, you can lay down and feel like you did something, even though you didn't really move, but you flushed your system and you, you know, you, you know, expanded and contracted and, you know, you just feel clean when you're done. You feel like your body's been purged.

Have you published online or elsewhere examples of workouts that you do? Like, if people wanted to dig in and see what, what a sample session would look like?

Well, we're in the process of really doing a very more professional job. We've had, you know, bits of these things, and I do a column for Men's Journal that, you know, we, we expose some workouts and little pieces here and there, but nothing really comprehensively like we're doing right now with xpt. So we have this program called xpt, which will really be a more comprehensive look at. At what would be a, you know, what would be a. A complete workout. And, you know, again, you know, I mean, we always seem to isolate, working out into this, you know, into one compartment we go, okay, working Out. But it's lifestyle, right? It's how you eat, how you sleep. You can say, hey, I'm working out great and everything, but you're staying up till two in the morning every night, and then you're, and then you're eating like crap. I go, don't even talk to me about your workout because at that point it's, it's a mute point. You're only undermining your health. Really?

Yeah.

And, and so looking at everything more comprehensively, whether you're doing eye training stuff as well, like, I've been doing a lot of eye drills that really, I find really are performance enhancing because everything, all of the information that we, you know, 85% of the information we receive is through our eyes. And so your eye strength and your, you know, the relationship.

What's your app called? Glasses Off.

Yeah, glasses.

Called Glasses Off.

Glasses off people, for those of you.

Listening, by the way, if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Laird. Sorry, Gabby. BenGreenfieldFitness.com LA I R D. I'll put some notes for you there in the show. Notes for some of these things that we're talking about. That's really interesting on the eye method. It's called Glasses Off. Yeah.

Incredible.

They'll learn what a Gabor is.

Yeah.

So, Gabby, myself and my friend Dustin Mayer and my wife dropped into your class on Wednesday morning, and you finished up this jailhouse style circuit with 60 people in a warehouse sweating and bumping and grinding and lifting dumbbells with a special kind of breathwork. Can you tell me about what that was and why you utilize something like that and how you practice that breath work?

Well, I, you know, one of the many great things about being married to Laird is it's like being you're in a think tank all the time. And so our friend Rick Rubin introduced Laird maybe about two and a half, three years ago to a book called Becoming the Iceman by Wim Hof and Laird, who, you know, we're very different. Laird, I always say, is a much more of a creative type of athlete. And it's an artistry. And I have a linear sort of quality. I mean, even look at my workout that I created. Like, it's just on time. It's all these things. Right. Laird diligently started embracing this breathing, and I was like, you know, I have a friend who teaches yoga and she says you stretch because you think it'll make you more functional. I stretch because it makes me feel good. And so I'm always Like, what's the end game? And Laird was doing it. And then, of course, last summer, he says, oh, Wim Hof's coming over, staying with us for a couple days. I go, yeah, of course he is. So Wim came over and also taught everyone just how to do the breathing, this style of breathing, a little bit more. And then I started getting involved, and Laird taught me further how to do it. And so when you talked about things that we learn as we get older, I think that we've done a lot of right things, and I think I've done a lot of right things. But I think one of the many things, one of the areas that I sort of really neglected was stretching, which at the end of the day, stretching probably oxygenates your system. And so for me, the Wim Hof method, I could put my mind around it. There's a meditative quality to it, which is what I'm always suggesting to people, like, actively meditate, find the way to be still so, you know all these things. So at the end of the workout, all I'm trying to do is introduce the class to this idea so that if they want to expand on it, they can. And I don't have that much time with them. So it's this Wim Hof breathing, just to give them a taste. And then Laird came a few weeks ago, taught them for an hour. And then Wim Hof is actually gonna come, and what we're doing is we're gonna open it up to the community for them to spend an hour breathing with him actually next week. So for me, it's sort of, you know, I feel like as a responsibility, if I'm running the class, when I know a little bit of this and a little bit of that and I can share it with them, I just try to incorporate it. But I have only so much time.

This week, every morning since I've been in Kauai, because my friend who I'm staying with is his girlfriend, is a Kundalini yoga instructor. And we've been going through these chakras where we do this deep, rapid breathing right until you're light in the head for 90 seconds, then you stop and you hold, and your entire body feels warm and hyper oxygenated and even a little bit tingly and dizzy. Is this pretty similar to the type of breath work that you guys are doing, this Kundalini style?

Absolutely. I think Wim, what I like is that I think he learned a lot of different disciplines of it. Then he created something that was very appliable. Because sometimes when you, when you look at some of this breathing, it's a little bit like certain forms in disciplines within stretching where it's like this, a little bit, you know, ambiguous, where you kind of are like, you know, it's hard for you. It's forms of meditation where you're kind of like, are you there or you're not there? Or is this working? Am I doing it right? Am I not? And, and Wim's approach is a little bit like, I don't really care what hole you breathe through just this. The whole idea is to saturate the system with oxygen and then deplete the system anyway, you know, and it doesn't have to be pretty. And so I like that, you know, I like that approach and. But yeah, I think, I mean, there's, you know, we have a saying in lease, in innovation or in that world of ideas, which is, you know, there's nothing new, it's just a new application of an old idea. And so, you know, you're never going to come up with something that hasn't been either thought of or done in some form. It's just, you know, hybrids and maybe ways that somebody created a technique that was really appliable, you know, they would see, just implement it and it was.

Like, plus, he's a great messenger. He does all these incredible feats.

Yeah, Whims. Whim's been on the show a couple of times.

And you know what? There's some innocence to me about Whim and his genuine enthusiasm. And that's what I'm interested in too. Like I. Whatever things I'm involved with, we just want it to be sort of a very open, inclusive feeling. Not we. Anybody has the answers, not a magic trick. And it's, it is a puzzle. It takes all the pieces. It's not one. And so Whim also inspires me that way because I, I feel he has a real sincere.

When he lives it too. You know, he lives it. It's like, you know, Polcheck talks about, you know, when you're, when you go see a physician, you should have him. He should, he should work on you with the least amount of clothes as possible so you can see how his work's working on him.

Right?

Because at the end of the day, it's like if Wim lives his work right, so he does things with his work, you can see it. It's not like he's going, yeah, do this breathing. And then he's over there.

One of the issues in the health and fitness industry you know, overweight blog bloggers in their. In their mom's basement writing about diets and workouts.

Exactly.

Yeah. Now, related to this Wim Hof breathwork technique. Tell me about this, this idea behind working out underwater. Do you both do that, the pool training?

Yeah, we've been doing that for about eight years, pretty intensely. It started out that came separately, too.

That has nothing to do with the breathing.

And we never want to over. And it's really important to, to that we don't want to encourage, like, the breathing is sort of for the land.

So proceed at your own risk. If someone's listening right now.

Yeah, because it's something you, you know, you can encourage people to do. And the pool training is.

Well, we never do things where. In the pool where we're trying to see how long we can hold our breath. No, that's not what we do. That's not our.

That's not the goal.

And you're not combining exertion with hypoxia to, to the extreme?

No, not really. I mean, Laird does take, does do things that are a little bit more exaggerated, but Laird's also been certain things a lot longer. And some of the drills sort of take all the air that you have. But the intention going in is never, okay, I'm gonna go hold my breath. As long as you can. It's either reps or it's trying to get there as quickly and back as you can.

Now, what would that look like?

The workload. The workload.

There's so many. So in the deep end, you can do things, just to give you a small example, ballistic movements with no impact on your joints. So, for example, you can take one dumbbell, let's say layered. He holds a 45 pound dumbbell, tucks it into his stomach, squat jumps to the top, takes the free hand, pulls himself up, one breath in on the way down. As soon as you break the surface, start to let go of your air.

Pulls himself up by holding onto the ledge of the pool. You stroke up through the water.

So you're doing this ballistic move with resistance.

Like a weighted underwater squat jump.

Correct. And then you switch hands. You can do ones where you have super lightweight, you double, you squat jump, then take two really light dumbbells, open your arms in a windmill circle, pull down, one breath in, come down. So you can do deep water. There's a lot of things that have been created in deep water or there's things that we do in three feet of water.

I mean, ultimately, the original concept stemmed from Hawaiian rock Training, which was to grab a boulder and run along the bottom as far as you can. Now when we start, so you grab.

A bowl, you're at the beach, and you go out into the water holding a boulder. You find a boulder and you, you.

Just run underwater as far as you can. Then you get, you, you swim to the surface, Your buddy who's on the surface swims down, grabs the boulder, he runs as far as he can. Then meanwhile, you're swimming on the surface, he comes up, you run down you go. So that's where it started originally the concept, because that's. We grew up knowing about this training and did this stuff when we were kids, but I wanted to make something that wasn't so directly related to just how long could you hold your breath? Because when you do that style of breath, breath hold training, you're finished in 10 minutes. Because, you know, I have this, I have a theory, but I believe that there's only so much available oxygen in the system and I don't care how you breathe after. Once the reservoirs are completely diminished, you need, you might need the rest of the day to recover. And so you can either explode all of that reservoir in five minutes like you would powerlifting as much as you could. How many would you do versus doing lighter reps for a longer period of time? So now when you breathe and get a breath between reps, now you can sustain and stretch that workload over a longer period of time. And there's, I mean, this, we have 30 different exercises that we do that, that I can make basketball players jump higher, I can make swimmers swim faster, I can make tennis players hit hard. I mean, you can, because that environment, first of all, the pressurization on the body is like wearing compression wear, which your blood will flow through your lymphatic system like 20 times faster than it would in the air. So the turnover of the blood, if.

You'Re in the water below your neck for an hour, you can circulate the.

Blood through your lymphatic system, which normally takes 24 hours. So in one hour. That's why you have such a feeling when you get out of the water. Like people would always go swimming when they had hangovers. And like, you get this, you get this rejuvenation from the pressurization. So that's just one little side effect.

He does all these big stretching and lifting and right again, you can be explosive. If I'm a professional athlete, like a basketball player, and I'm playing on a hard surface and I'm jumping, jumping Banging, banging, banging. Here's an opportunity to either improve my performance without beating myself up because I already have to do that in my seat.

The last thing you need to do as a basketball player is go jump. Right on your time off. If anything, you shouldn't be jumping because you're going to jump more during the season than you probably should jump in your life. So go to an environment where you're protected, where you can hammer it. Jump as hard as you can and have zero because no gravity. So you have no Andrew and you're.

In an element, which then that begs to the conversation. We're talking about lifestyle. So I'm not going to say outside because some people might be in a pool inside, but you're in an element. You're in water.

Yeah.

And you, you will do this with other people. This is not training to do alone. So then there's the community aspect. The pull training is pretty amazing.

It's the most amazing thing that we've done. And I don't mean to block you, but I get excited about because of. It's the most passionate training that I have. But when I really look at it, if you said define it in couple of words, define pool training, I would define it ultimately as breathing rhythm rhythms.

Yeah.

That really. It's about breathing the pool is because you can't breathe when you're under and you can only breathe when you're up. And so if you're in these, you know, pendulum up and down movements, it's no breath breathe. No breath breathing. A lot of times we're exhaling underwater and inhaling at the surface. And so we get in these very nice rhythms that offer a meditative, an active meditative sensation.

It's, it's a concept called vagal nerve tone. When you, when you activate this mammalian dive reflex and do either of you use heart rate variability measurements at all?

Which we, you know what? We don't. And I.

Recovery.

And I, and I, you know, I've talked with Paul about it before. I mean, you, you know, you use it. I'd love to do it more.

I don't do a lot of quantification, but it's one of the few things that I do. And the idea is that by training your vagal nerve through, through singing, through gargling, through breath holding, through cold water immersion, you can see this score increase. You see your stress resilience increase every day.

I mean, explain exactly.

I know what it is.

It's that gap between the beats, right.

It's the delta, the difference in the period of time between heartbeats, which, if there's slight variations in that, it shows good interplay between your sympathetic and your parasympathetic nervous system and your fatigue level.

And it tells you all a bunch of cool stuff.

Yeah.

The first time I ever tried one of these workouts that. That you're talking about, I was. I was with Neil Strauss up at a 25 meter pool. Yeah. And he was. He was explaining to me, this workout, we were just putting dumbbells between our feet. Right. And going back and forth with the. With the. The feet elevated above the water. And it's. Yes, it's. It's the writer. Yeah, the. The author.

Yeah, Neil, the author.

Oh, you mean the one. Oh, well, he.

Yeah.

Okay. Now I get.

I'm like, yeah, Neil, the author.

Did Neil ever tell you, I don't want to get way later, but that he became a Frisbee player to go to North Korea? You know, the whole story.

Was this a recent development?

No, we can talk about it another time. All right.

But.

Okay. I want to say one other thing that's interesting.

He posed as a professional Frisbee player to infiltrate, you know, into a story.

He's.

He's one of the most amazing, immersive journalists.

Oh, I know. Kidding. You have to ask him about his going to North Korea.

Yeah, well, I've read it. I've read about his. His sexual escapades, and now he has the new one. Yeah.

But one of the other interesting things about the pool training is there's a couple things. So, for example, sometimes you'll come up for air, and you'll think, I would like more air, but the amount of air it's going to take me to keep myself above water is not worth the amount of air I'm actually going to get. So it's sort of true to life where there's sort of things that go on where you have to go. In a way, this discomfort I'm feeling is going to be. It's better, and it's better to live with it than what I would need to do to try to get a different. Worth it. And there's a really interesting thing, and the other thing it teaches you too is, is how to function in that discomfort. You'll be under the water, you're finishing a task, you genuinely feel like you're just about out of air. And then you come to a place where you kind of go, I'm gonna be okay, and I'll have enough air.

And it's interesting you talk about that but there's certain people that it. That the pool grabs.

Yeah.

Like, and if you have any kind of. If you're trying to subject things to aggressive aggression, like, if you're. If you're a trainer or a fighter, fighters, that's. Those guys usually have the most problem with the pool. Like, the eyes go big and they feel, like, this vulnerability, which I think is an incredible thing for people to overcome. Like, it's a. It's a transformation. I've seen the transformation.

Just like a cold shower. If your sympathetic nervous system is overactive.

Yeah. It's such a beautiful thing in life because for me, training, yes, I want to feel good and I want to look good, but if also I can learn other things that give me these tools to function in life and, you know, be married and deal with a stranger cutting me off in the road or my children. For me, that's what training is also about.

Right. Stress, resilience. Yeah. Laird, you have. You have an interesting morning routine. When we came in to visit you, you were making coffee. Can you share your coffee recipe?

Yeah. So, I mean, it changes depending on my, you know, if the ingredients are available or not. But. And the optimum scenario is usually raw butter and coconut oil, red palm oil, and a few other little.

Now, why red palm oil? That's something you don't hear people talk about a lot.

You know, I.

Somehow I came across it, and I really liked it, I crave it. And. And. And, you know, they talk about that it's supposed to have, you know, like a thousand times the beta carotene of a carrot, a bunch of other minerals in it. And so I really was attracted to the flavor of it. But then I started to learn that it had a lot of good stuff in it. And, you know, sometimes I don't. I think we underestimate our relationship with the flavor of things. And what the value is is that sometimes these cravings or things we really like, as long as it's not, you know, a chocolate cake or something.

Dr. Pepper.

There's a line there. There's a. There's a line right between your flavor really telling you and so. So telling. You know, it's a craving because it's got sugar in it, or it's actually something your body wants, right? This, this. This raw butter, coconut oil, and then, of course, a really high quality. A high quality bean because it starts with the coffee.

And you use an immersion blender and. And you do coconut oil, butter and red palm oil.

Red palm oil. And I have. I have a. I Have that exact formula like in. In a.

You put in the oil.

You can buy. You can buy that top fuel. The top fuel.

Because the powder.

Yeah.

Doesn't have.

What do you mean? A top fuel.

So Laird has a creamer business.

Really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Learning all sorts of interesting things to add to the show.

Notes. So the top fuel is the Laird Superfood.com layered. Superfood.com has. It has. You can buy the. Probably the highest quality beans that you can buy without going in.

So you can get each of these components.

The butter, the red palm acidic bean.

The three of them.

How does that work?

It ships to your house all in one.

Yeah. They're in like a mayonnaise little container. The oil, because they're a hot mess if you try to put them in.

Then you just dump that into like a blender with a cup of coffee.

Or you're immersion or even if you have to, you're desperate, you're on the right road. You can put it in some air, some junk, airplane coffee or whatever, but it could take a terrible cup of coffee and turn it into something that. That will give you energy and, and, and affect you in a way that.

And then he has a powder.

Yeah, that's.

I think the powder is dynamic in a different way because it's coconut oil and powder. But also what they added was Aquaman calcium. Because coffee ability to absorb calcium.

So it's a.

It's a cold.

Interesting.

So you add calcium in.

Yeah.

They also added mushrooms, cordyceps immune system. So in the powder formulation, they've put these in there in that consideration. So what Laird and the. And the company's trying to offer is this is something people do every day. And so can you do it a little bit healthier? And it tastes really good. And there is a performance element to it for sure. And if you want the hard hardcore.

You just get as top use top fuel. But the aquamine is. Actually has 72 minerals. Minerals in it too. It's a. It's. This aquamine is a. Is a. An algae, a calcified algae that sinks to the bottom of the ocean and they scrape it off in. In Iceland, they mine it off the bottom of the sea floor. So it's completely sustainable and doesn't do any environmental damage. But it's probably one of the best sources of calcium. The calcium that you get from it, you absorb like 75 or 80% of it, which most calciums you don't even. You absorb hardly any of it.

So. Yeah, that's fascinating. I Get. I get random boxes of supplements shipped to my house every week full of different flavors of beef jerky and random exogenous ketones. I'd never heard of this blend of calcium coffee, red palm, coconut, and butter.

But, you know, for me, you know, I look at it as, like, an opportunity. And this is authentic things that I want to be involved in, things that. That are authentic to me.

And this is that you use.

That I use. So it's authentic. I make it. I want to turn it on to my friends. I want to have everybody try it. And so the best way to do that is make a product that people can get to use, but it's also an opportunity to get people who aren't getting enough nutrients in their life to put some cool stuff in coffee. Because everybody drinks coffee, and all of a sudden, you know, it's like sneaking, you know, oh, I don't drink smoothies, but everybody has a cup of coffee. If you can put some stuff that's good for their brain and good for their body in their cup of coffee, then that's maybe one way, you know, because you have to. You have to. I think you have to approach people where they are. And so if you don't. If you. If I come out with some formula that only you and me eat, that doesn't do anybody any good, and there's a lot of those out there. There's a lot of these really specialized stuff that, you know, it takes a certain ability to eat, you know, raw butter and, you know, melt it in a cup and drink it.

I mean, what was that stuff you used to eat that. Oh, that smelled like formaldehyde, Butyric acid. No, he has, like, those mushrooms, like the shilajits.

It smells like it's.

Have you ever seen that?

Bandages?

No.

She legit.

She legit.

It's a. It's a lichen. It's a lichen from, like, you know, like.

Like a moss. Yeah, interesting.

No, but I'm good. See, I. Because I grew up in Hawaii.

You sound like me. I'll try anything.

I'll try anything once.

I actually.

Just do it, though. Actually do it. Like, do it as a habit. Like a shilling.

You know, speaking. Speaking of habits, we don't like to let a podcast go by without at least talking a little bit about bowel and poop.

Oh, yeah.

Larry, do you have a special trick that you use to. To induce a morning bowel movement? Tell me about this.

Well, listen, honestly, I never have had a problem with movement, and. And it's Never. But. And because I've done some pretty intense colon cleanses, like some serious, you know, 10 day eat soft food, use a Kalima board and all that stuff like that. No, but I'm just saying you do.

That just for general health.

Yeah.

These type of colonial cleanses.

Yeah, I've done it twice. I've done two, really two weeks of, of eating soft food every single day. Somewhere between 5 to 10 to 15 gallons of water as well.

I did those.

Yeah, exactly. But, but, but this latest kind of trend that I'm on is with baking soda. I just, I use a heaping teaspoon of baking soda in a glass of water in the morning on an empty stomach. And within, I'd say within 10 or 15 minutes, if, especially if you walk around, you will, you know, you might have, you might have already had a movement, you're going to have another.

Just blows you right up.

And it's good. And you know, I feel I have an addiction to it because believe me, drinking baking soda in water is not the most pleasant thing. Like when you drink it, you're just kind of like, why would I do this? But the reaction that my body has after I purge is it's my. I like it. I go.

Not to be done. Before you hop in the car to go to work. No, my wife actually gives me first thing.

But you do it on an empty stomach. So if you get up right away and do it, you're within that first half an hour. If you're not waking up and getting in your car within a half an hour, you got time.

Very alkalizing, too. Gabby, you're laughing. Do you do any of these? Because my wife gives me a hard time or like, for example. Yeah, just, just to stay on this topic, like, I like to get up in the morning and just get it all out at once.

Okay.

Yeah. So I'll go in the bathroom for 15, 20 minutes and she laughs at me because I'm just in there, you know, Facebooking, and then I'm done. I'm done for the day. Sometimes I'll use the baking soda trick, sometimes the lemon juice. But do you laugh at a lot of Laird's little habits or do you incorporate a lot of these yourself?

I do some of them. I haven't, I've done the baking powder, but I haven't committed to it the way Laird has. You know, I've been with Laird for 20 years, so I've seen a lot of stuff. I'm usually in awe. You know, for example, when we lived here in the 90s, Laird would keep Noni. Real noni. I don't know if you've ever seen real noni.

I picked noni when I was out on a hike the other day and I left it in my backpack and I realized basically I just about had to throw my bag.

Oh, no. And you keep it in a jar and you add water and then you.

Do hideously smelling fruit.

Well, it smells exactly like bile.

Dirty socks.

It's just bile.

So he would, when we first together, he'd take a shot every day and then refill it up with water. And it's really good. It's a blood purifier. I mean, the list is long, so I'm used to it, but also, I have to be honest, and your wife would probably admit the same thing. There's a part of me that secretly I'm so glad because I know it's being a positive influence on me, but I may not be taking the full direct hit like some of it. Sometimes I feel like maybe I'm getting some of this vicariously and I don't actually have to do it. But if nothing else, too, it's again within your four walls. To have somebody who's willing to try new things and do things and it's uncomfortable, but they still do it, is ultimately good for the other person.

Yeah. Now you are, you are friends with Don Wildman. I first learned about him in an Esquire magazine article a few years ago in which they wrote about the world's hardest workout. And There was this 70 some year old man doing this workout like three times a week. And then I learned the other day that he's a friend of yours, Laird, and I'm curious, looking at him, what you've learned from a guy like Don Wildman, what you've learned about yourself being an athlete and moving forward in age. What would you say are the most valuable things that one can do to stay young?

Well, you know, I mean, that's a magic question, right? It's the. What is the fountain of youth? And, you know, we think a lot about it. But when I look at any, anybody that I look up to in that arena and Wildman is the king, he's at the top of the, of the heap. And I mean, retain your youthful enthusiasm. I mean, I think to, to be enthusiastic about things. I mean. Okay, then there's the list after, which is, you know, the discipline and keep driving the car. You know, a car moving doesn't break. You know, when you park them, they break. It's like, so. But there's that enthusiasm that, that. That's the. I mean, and when I look at other guys that. That have a similar style that Don has, it's just in there, relentless. So it's enthusiastic and relentless. And it's like, if Don's got a broken leg, he's on a stationary bike with a cat, with a. With a crutch on the other pedal, and he's riding it with a crutch on one side and a good leg on the other side.

He's not just watching tv, waiting for things to heal. He's going full bore.

And.

And he.

And he. I mean, double knee replacements, and, you know, three months later, he's in the senior games. I mean, the guy doesn't like.

Well, and also, Don does what Don likes. And this is important, too, because Don has figured out what works for him.

Yeah.

And that's what he's doing.

Yeah, exactly. No, exactly.

He's open to new things. It's not that, but it's kind of like, no, this is my thing. Like, you know, Laird is different than him. Like, Laird is. Is really believes in stretching and all this stuff. And Don will rather ride his bike and burn calories.

And also, Don has found an arena, the bike, where he has equality. So Don, at 83, can.

Like a road bicycle or mountain bike, whatever, one really.

And whatever, wherever, whatever. What? And you can take somebody who's a young stud and don't go out and he'll hammer him. And. And so at that point, there's true equality. Right. Because it's 80, 30. You know, it does it 30 and 80, and all of a sudden the 80s gone. You're like, well, who's. And the most technical, single track, loose ground, just road bike, you know. You know, in a tuck. I mean, he just. It's so he's found a spot where he has equality. And I think that's something that's important, too. And I think there's a thousand ways to do that, but as you get older, for you to feel like you're not losing ground is important. And, you know, again, the psychology of all this is, you know. You know, I could probably do all this stuff that I think is so great for my health and still just croak from, you know, it wouldn't matter. Right. And I can have somebody. I could live another way and do whatever I wanted and live.

The guy who's smoking cigarettes and not doing baking soda might live to be 100.

Well, Jack O' Lane's brother supposedly was nine years older, and he lived 10 years longer than he did or whatever and never did anything right. So it's like. Or the guy told me the story about the, the martial artist who could, who could go down and put his elbows on his feet. And they were so impressed by that. And then his brother showed up, the martial artist brothers showed up who smoked cigarettes and drank every day. And they said, yeah, we're so amazed by your brother. He can put his elbows, his feet. So that guy came and put his elbow in his feet. So it's, you know, it's like there's so a lot of. It's the psychology of what it brings you, I think, how. Because again, you're left with your own thoughts always. And so how does it make you feel? Do you feel like you're equal? Does it make you feel fulfilled when you, you know, Don goes out and rides 40 miles. When he comes back, he feels good. And for him, a lot of it's calorie earning. He just wants to earn his calories because he's worried about not burning enough to, because he loves to eat. So his whole thing, it's eating related, it's burn calories. Hey, listen, I could go right now. I can have ice cream. I, I can eat whatever I want because I burned. And he has. And he's counting them all.

He's got counterparts very different that way.

He's counting every calorie, counting the heart.

I have to admit, I think about that, I don't quantify, but I think about that sometimes. How many calories have I burned today? Can I have the extra thousand calories?

That's what he does. And the other thing I think that he does is he doesn't hang around people that are like, oh, I'm tired and all this hurts. And does he hang around people that. It's like, hey, you want to go do this? You want to go do that? And I think that's very helpful because.

Well, you are the company you keep. So if you're, you're hanging out with a bunch of guys, you just don't want to do anything. It's like, you know, he's around younger people all the time, and it's always about guys that are. And people that come to him, when they come to him, they know it's a bike, it's a workout, it's something we're going snowboarding in a helicopter. I mean, we're going to be doing. So you don't even go see him if you're, if you're not feeling like you're up for it. You gotta.

You go with relentless pursuit. I see that. I see that in you, Laird. You know, you in your garage with all these toys, and. And, you know, you invented the paddle board, and now you've got this hydrofoil, and there's. There's all these contraptions. Is that part of what's. What's keeping you young? Like a relentless pursuit of creating things?

For sure. I mean, that's part of it. That's the never ending. You know, there's a saying, right. The anonymous stuntmen don't. You never let your memories be bigger than your dreams. You know, it's like. And I think that if you're dreaming, then you have hopes, right? So if you. And so, in a way, whatever you have to do to keep that rolling, I mean, that's, you know, you want to talk about again. You know, retaining your youthful enthusiasm is part of that system. Right? It's part of the system of you're enthusiastic, you're trying new stuff, and it's like being creative. And that's really for male. You know, I say, because, you know, we can't make babies, so we need to make stuff. Like us. Like, we have to build buildings, or we got to make stuff, or we got to do stuff to make up for the fact that we're not. We don't get to produce life.

We can help. We can help.

No, we start.

We get the fire.

We start the fire, but we don't get to sit back and go, wow, look what came out of me.

Yeah. And so we're.

Moms. Don't do that. I just want you.

I know, but if we don't sit.

Back, sometimes you go, whoa, that came out. Yeah, but we don't sit back and go, no, but you.

But there. But I'm just saying, as a male position, we have a certain, you know, the hunt, the pursuit, the feeling of accomplishment, all of that stuff is tied into. You know, you have to figure out what way you get that. Like, how do I. How do I. What brings me that feeling of accomplishment?

And Don stays connected.

Yeah.

He's social.

You're both doing a lot in terms of creating, in terms of business, and. Gabby, I know. You know, we were talking before we started recording about a new TV show that you're helping to. You. You are the. The voice of or the face of. Yeah. This show on NBC called Strong. And I'm curious, when you look at your children, are you trying to build some kind of a business that your children will Run. Are you just kind of like having fun and taking opportunities as they come at you and letting what come comes and just basically having fun with life? Is there a plan with what you're doing or are you guys just living life and letting adventures come your way?

I think it's a combination. I think it would be foolhardy to be or dishonest to say, oh, we're just totally winging it, you know, because I think first of all, you know, my hope is, and I have thought about this, oh, maybe we can create things that the girls can then take over. But then part of me goes, well, I don't want that because that's not their vision, their voice and their path. So there's a part of you that actually doesn't want that because you want each child to sort of forge their own new path that represents them, not, oh, I work at my parents business, so there's that part of it.

We'll find their special purpose now if their thing happens to be that they're into being involved in what, what's going on. But, but that's, I don't know, I think that's a dangerous setup. When you, you know, for me I, I feel like these things are more of, these are a reflection of your achievements. So when you look at this, if, if you can create, you know, successful businesses and, and, and, and these other pieces, these, this is just a reflection of how well of a job you've done it doing. The other parts like you look back and you go, well, you did that, which allowed you to do this and, and how well you did that will dictate how well, you know, these other things do.

I would think the hope is to, is for everything to be as genuine. You know, like if Laird has his apparel that he wears, the shorts. If I make a supplement company, I take the supplement supplements. If I do strong, I genuinely admire the concept. So really, and to be honest, and I'm sure you can relate to this, that can be a lot harder.

It's a lot harder to spend time in the trenches figuring out what works and what doesn't.

Yeah, and we've done, we've done part of that work because we are older, as you stated earlier. I'm just kidding.

Just trying to figure out the most political way to phrase that.

We've been around little where you just start going, but there are days and I struggle with it more than Larry because I'm more detail and sort of dealing with things on a, on a one other level. Like I see every Email. And I see every sort of. Some of these other details, but that the hope is, is that you can create a real business based on something authentically that you've done. And so that is our hope. So that part is not the accident, but it's kind of like Laird surfing or me playing volleyball or doing other things. It was never the intention. You did it because you loved it. And then you arrived at a place that then you were making choices.

Yeah.

And you have to. And listen, it takes a certain amount of faith, too, because you have to. You have to also, you know, you got to believe, too. You got to believe that. That you can.

Yeah.

I mean, you can say, hey, I have this plan and I'm gonna. And this is what I want to do. But you also have to believe that you can. And you also have. And it's harder to walk the line, too, like, free. I can say that I. I've turned down a lot of opportunities throughout my career because they weren't authentic. Like, I just don't eat that.

Right.

I don't drink that. I don't wear that. I don't do. I did.

No matter how much money is being.

No matter what it's think.

You know, Laird always says this to me because I worry more than Laird. Laird does have. Sort of is better at that. But he'll say, you know, Gabby, it's all going to be fine. And then he always says, and it is fine. And I think sometimes, like, if someone is listening to this and they're starting a new business or they sort of have a job they don't like and they really want to try something, I think it's also doing things intelligently. Right. It's even like Laird surfing or whenever you just. You don't hook yourself into anything. Right. So it's doing it, but it's understanding your reasons why. Can you stand by those reasons? Do you believe in that? Are you willing to work your ass off when there's no return because you believe in it? And I think if people feel that way, then that is where faith comes in and believe that it is kind of a formula that works. Now, having said that, we've had businesses that we joke, you know, you start four, and if you're really lucky, one bangs it hard, one kind of shovels along, and two will probably disappear. So I think it's. It's, you know, it's calibrating all those parts of the formula. But I believe that you. To be a dreamer is important. But I also think you always go with Your eyes open.

Yeah.

During it.

Yeah. Well, and Gabby's, you know, it's like, Gabby's great to bring, you know, to be realistic. It's like, you know, we tell our kids, hey, you're not going to be gymnasts. You know, he's going to be six foot.

You're not going to be six foot five gymnast.

Yeah, you're not going to be a six foot five gymnast. It's not going to happen. So you also have to be realistic about what you, where you're going. It's like, you know, I mean, there's exceptions to every rule, but at a certain point, you know, you can't go and embark off on a, on a, on a, on a, you know, on a road that you just have no experience and no skill at and no potential skill at. Like, that would be, that would be an unrealistic approach to any project. So you kind of have to go, hey, I'm good at, kind of good at these things. So let's, you know. And first you have to figure out what you're good at. That's why, you know, I think for the kids, my number one thing for them is, and I always quote the movie the Jerk, but it's like, find your special purpose. Like, find the thing that you love that you're good at. And because at the end, you will find a way to make a living from that somehow. I said, even if you, I told him, if you can balance a chair on your head, believe me, if you're good enough at it, there's a place that'll pay you and you can go do it every day and you can make money from it.

So that's what I tell my kids is, is there's three things that I encourage them to have in their life for happiness and longevity. Love, relationships, family. Passion doesn't mean that you have to necessarily follow your passion in terms of designing a lifestyle around, say, whatever, surfing or volleyball or whatever the case may be. But you must have a passion for the work that you're involved with. And then you must believe in some kind of a greater story for your life. You know, we're not just all pieces of flesh and meat hurtling through the universe.

Yeah, well, I think it's the idea too, right. Like when you give the idea to kids that you can contribute just a little bit, I think that that's a really powerful thing for a person to feel like I can make a difference, even if it means within my home, within my block, within my neighborhood, my community. That idea we Try to let the girls get the idea too, that work in service, live together, that there is an idea of service and things.

We have a responsibility because that makes you feel good.

And even if you selfishly do it to make yourself feel good.

Yeah. The selfish act of giving, I think.

It'S, it's really important. It's an important thing because you, you can get everything for yourself. Attention, money, everything. But if you don't have the other and the things that you're discussing.

Oh, you'll be unhappy.

It's, it's a never ending.

Yeah. Never ending trend. No, but you know, and that gets back to, but that gets back to one, you know that, back to that. If you, if, if we can build these businesses and build these brands and make, and get into the position to really make a difference. So first of all, you can, when you leave the planet, how big a footprint can you leave? Can you leave just a big, you.

Know, can you leave a big old.

You know, a big impression on the earth? And you leave and it still goes. But also while you're here, can you really get yourself in a, in a position to make a difference? Right. And so first it starts in your yard and then it starts in the neighborhood, and then it starts in the town and then eventually grows from there. But can you, what, what do you, what, you know, and, and unfortunately we live in a, in a monetary world. So if you get in a position that you have the ability to make a difference, you can give and help and do things when you, when you have a successful company better than you can almost do anything else.

Yeah. Well, you guys are certainly making a difference. And if you're listening in right now and you want to learn more about what Laird and Gabby are doing, you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Laird BenGreenfieldFitness.com LA I R D and I will link to everything from, I suppose, arm and Hammer baking soda to the no glasses app to Laird's website and Gabby's TV show and everything that Laird and Gabby are involved with. And you can just go to BenGreenWitness.com Laird to check that out. Laird, Gabby, thanks for coming on the show.

Yeah, well, if you were in our.

Neighborhood, it's been our pleasure.

Beautiful neighborhood.

We've enjoyed meeting you and spending time.

Thanks.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

Sam.