Ayahuasca, Smart Drugs, Anti-Aging & More With Brian Rose of London Real.

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield.

Fitness show, write an email while you're squatting. Hang from the bar for four minutes. Your day should be comprised of movement as opposed to you separating movement to say, one hour of your day. I went to the gym and I looked around and I said, what are these people doing? And what am I doing? It just made me really question as humans how we move and why we move. And it actually combines with what even Elliott Hulse told me. Whereas as humans we used to communicate with movement and express our emotions with movement, I wasn't really thinking about the ramifications for looking after your body for 10 years. And it definitely hurt me.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

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Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield here and my guest today is a fellow I've had a chance to spend time with in London and a guy who you may already be familiar with. His name is Brian Rose and Brian is a London based US born ex city trader. He hosts the wildly popular podcast and video channel called London Real. If you check out London Real and I will put a link to that in the show notes. If you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com London reel, you'll see that Brian has filmed over 200 episodes. He's got over 250,000 subscribers. It's been watched over 40 million times. And Brian has kind of established a reputation in the whole podcasting online TV industry for producing really frank in depth discussions on often controversial topics. Things like banking and cryptocurrencies, personal development, spiritual growth and even a lot of the kind of things that we talk about here on the Ben Greenfield Fitness show like anti aging and biohacking and nutrition. And he's had folks like four hour chef, author who you probably know, Tim Ferriss. He's had six time Mr. Olympia, Dorian Yates. He's also had politicians like George Galloway. He's had a Pulitzer Prize winning author, Jared diamond, whistleblower Annie McConnell, Bruce Perry from the BBC documentary series A bunch of folks. He's even had yours truly on the show. And I'll put a link to that as well if you care to watch that video. But in interviewing all these amazing folks, Brian has not only learned quite a few things which we're about to delve into on today's show, but even before he began producing London Real, Brian has a pretty crazy story leading up to the whole thing. So first of all, Brian, welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

Ben, thanks so much for having me. I checked and it was almost exactly a year ago when you were here and we did our show. So that's how I keep in track with who I've seen recently. It's with the date they've been on the show. So it was great having you. We got a little emotional. It was two hours and it was solid. So thanks for coming on.

Yeah, no problem. And now it's revenge time because you're on the other side of the interview and I get to pick your brain. And by the way, folks, just so that you know, Brian has this amazingly like, complex, expensive, pristine audio and video production studio. But today he's coming to you straight from his imac. So don't judge the quality of his audio on this particular episode with the quality of the audio on London Real, because you should definitely tune into London Real to kind of see what he has going on over there. He kind of puts my own production to shame with what he does there. So check that out. And again, you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com LondonReal or you can go to LondonReal TV to check out Brian's show and some of his past episodes. But Brian, you actually interview a lot of health nuts among other folks on your show. So I know you're kind of keenly interested in health, but was it always that way before you started London Real?

You know, it really wasn't. I know a little bit about your story, how you were kind of a bit of a geek in school and kind of got into fitness, you know, totally round the way. Right. It was kind of through a crush and a tennis lesson, I think.

And you've got a good memory.

Yeah, for me, I hadn't really consistently broken a sweat until I moved to London in 2002. I was 31 years old and I had had probably the worst 2001 of anyone. I was in New York City. 911 happened. Long term relationship failed, my best friend from MIT sacked me from my dot com startup and I was just kind of a mess. And I got to London and I was kind of transforming myself by location and a buddy of mine had Just started training Brazilian Jiu jitsu. And he said, why don't you try this? And I just started training and everything started unfolding. I started learning a lot and I started lifting. I started just, I guess, getting a lot of knowledge. But up until then, I was probably one of the most unfit people you would have met.

Why'd you move to London?

You know, I had been over here from 97 to 99 for finance and I just needed to get the heck out of New York City and I just needed to change, like my environment, my peer group. I had left London to go into kind of the dot com tech boom and I needed to come back to my basics here. And to be honest, London has always been good to me as a city. I've always been successful here, whereas the Big Apple always found a way to crush me, or more likely, I found a way to crush myself. And so I came back to London, didn't know anyone landed here, January 2002. And yeah, I'm just, I'm probably never going to leave at this point.

Did you grow up in New York City? In Big Apple?

No, San Diego, California. So right near the beach, you know, 18 years before I went to school in Boston.

Okay, gotcha. So you grew up in San Diego, you moved to New York and worked in finance there, and then eventually you wound up in London to get into the tech boom.

Well, I came to London for banking, went back to New York for tech, and then came back in London for kind of the big financial boom, which was 2002 to 2011. And so I worked 10 years at Pretty much the same company here in finance before I started London Real.

Okay, gotcha. So when did London real kind of come onto the scene? And why?

You know, it's our four year anniversary as of last month. And it started as, I think, an expression, an artistic expression of myself. I think it was part therapy session, part communicating with the outside world, part communicating with other people, like having them in my studio to tell their stories and maybe even a creative outlet. I had left my job in finance. I was unemployed for nine months. I didn't know what I wanted to do next. I just knew I didn't want to get on the phone and yell at people all day and close deals. And so I literally just set up webcams in my studio here in Shoreditch, which you've been to. It was very low tech, but it was video from the very beginning because I knew that was an essential component when I thought, when it came to connecting. And I just Rolled tape. It started out with me and my Brazilian jiu jitsu instructor, and it just started getting a little bit better one week at a time. I started off with cool friends we knew, and then I would invite an author, a politician, and then Pretty soon Neil DeGrasse Tyson showing up and Dorian Yates and Jared diamond, and it's getting out of control. So that's how it started.

Yeah. You've interviewed a lot of folks who are kind of in this whole fitness, health, nutrition sector. And one of the things that I know that has come up a few times, we want to just cut straight to the chase that I know you've kind of gotten into a little bit and that we actually haven't talked about very much on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show. We've had one podcast on this, and that is Ayahuasca. I've heard you talk about ayahuasca a lot. Is that something that you've personally done much with? And if so, I'm curious, kind of how you got into that and what you found with the use of ayahuasca.

Yeah, it's a great question about episode eight or nine, and anyone who wants to can go back and look at all of our episodes on our website or on YouTube. My co host at the time just threw it out there and was like, brian, we've got to go try ayahuasca. And I had always been inspired by the Joe Rogan experience. And as I said on my TED Talk, he basically inspired me to start broadcasting because I was watching him and the CEO of onit, Aubrey Marcus, talked about ayahuasca on one of his shows. And so it planted a seed in my head that took me 18 months to kind of research, get comfortable with. And because of London Real and kind of the challenge from my co host, we decided to go ahead and book a ceremony here in London and do a before and after show and publish it on YouTube. And I was basically kissing any chance of a future career in banking goodbye when I did it. And so I was a little bit tentative, but we had to kind of go for it because I figured the bank of England would never have me back, you know, as a licensed, you know, financial. So openly public about what is still a banned substance here in the UK and I think in the US too.

So you. You guys actually did this whole thing as part of a broadcast?

Well, we did it before and after. So we called it Ayahuasca Ready to Die in Ayahuasca. Back from the Dead. And so we did it before and Talked about all of our trepidations. I was really concerned about it. I had had one previous psychedelic experience, the usual I took a bunch of mushrooms in Amsterdam story, which never goes very well. And I just didn't like it. I didn't like my ego being crushed. I didn't understand it at the time. And so I was really not looking forward to doing it. And yet at the same time, I think something inside me knew I had to kind of go to this uncomfortable place. And so, like I said, we did a before and after show and it really opened a lot of people's eyes and it really kind of put us on the scene as far as a show that was willing to be open, honest, real, if you will. So that was our first time we talked about ayahuasca and we've talked about it a few times since.

So what happened? How did the ceremony go?

Well, we found a shaman. We were very careful because, you know, it's. It's a situation where, you know, you're not really in control of your faculties for a few hours. We found someone we had been recommended and trusted. We did it in London, which is pretty rare at the time, four years ago. Most people were going to Peru at the time. And, you know, we, we did the ceremony at night. We drank the ayahuasca, which is a brew that's I think, been used in the Amazon for thousands of years. And our shaman, she had had it prepared. And, you know, it's a full on psychedelic experience where you're going to be going to places and confronting issues within yourself that you probably don't want to necessarily confront. It's like putting a mirror up to your soul. You get to look inside and it's not always the best news. You usually find out how you've been treating other people in your life and you're usually not talking about your future IPO or the next car you want to buy. Those aren't the topics that usually comes up in these experiences. So very introspective and it was powerful. And it was one of three ceremonies I've been a part of.

So since you've done three ceremonies, does it change from ceremony to ceremony?

Yeah.

In terms of just like the discoveries that you make about yourself especially.

Yeah. After that first one, I knew I needed to go a bit deeper and just do some more work on myself and maybe just kind of get some peace with accepting kind of who I was with myself. And my second ceremony, I kind of went in pretty big. I wrote a big blog about it afterwards. And shed a lot of tears during and really kind of finally opened my heart up. I ended up moving in with my girlfriend and my stepdaughter now. So it made some real changes in my life. But for me, three ceremonies has been enough. We had another show about dmt, which is a slightly different way of having an experience, but it was kind of a time in my life where it was necessary. And again, some people go on and do 50 ceremonies. I did three and now I do a lot of meditation and training and other things and I haven't found the need to go back to ayahuasca in a couple of years.

So you think you'll ever use it again?

I do. I think it's important. You know, I talked to Elliot Hulse, was here a few months ago, and, you know, I think we all have demons we have to kind of confront every now and then. And I think it's an amazing tool that should be visited, you know, perhaps even annually. We had the author Graham Hancock here, who's a British author, and he goes every year and he plans to do it the rest of his life. Because I think we all kind of have to deal with certain things about ourselves and that's a very good way to really face yourself in a situation where you know it's going to happen within a few hours. So I think it's a very important tool as humans we have, and we need to have it to use occasionally.

And do you, do you. Or did you. During the three ceremonies that you did, did you get a lot of the things that people talk about when they do ayahuasca, like vomiting and sickness and very unpleasant symptoms as well?

Most definitely. You know, we've had shows on London Real, about kind of the spectrum of psychedelics, and we've had Professor David Nutt here, who does a lot of groundbreaking work on how psychedelics work in the brain and how psilocybin can be used for post traumatic stress disorder and soldiers. And so we talked a lot about these issues. And so I've talked about Ayahuasca, DMT and psilocybin mushrooms. But with Ayahuasca, you know, it's. It's not the funnest of experiences. You are throwing up, you're feeling sick. So, yeah, I purge every ceremony. It's a long night. It's not usually pleasant, it's usually very uncomfortable physically and psychologically. But you're left with a lot of answers and, you know, it's, it's a net positive, you know, for sure.

Well, what Would you say just so people could kind of understand this a little bit more completely, was one of the more interesting or memorable revelations that you had during an Ayahuasca episode?

Yeah, my second experience, you know, like I said, I wrote a whole blog about it and I think it's on our Londonrealacademy.com piece. And I went really deep. And When I was 7, my parents divorced. And I think as a young man, a lot of young boys and young men, when they see kind of your parental structure, you know, get changed up, you react with a lot of anger and with a lot of, you know, I'm gonna go it alone type attitude. And so I've always been the kind of that guy to, you know, travel across the country for school, travel to London to be the Rambo, you know, to always be self reliant. And I think I went overboard a little bit with that. And so I think the Ayahuasca ceremony really showed me that I was building up all these defenses around me to keep other people away from me and keep them from hurting me. And by doing that I just wasn't living a very full life. And it was really showing in my relationships or lack of relationships and in so many elements of my life. So that second ceremony showed me that I, I needed to, you know, allow these, these two very wonderful females now in my life and kind of open up myself a lot. And so it was, yeah, a big development for me.

Interesting. Well, I will definitely link to your guys Ayahuasca episode in the, in the show notes. If anybody listening in want go check that out. But I know you've talked about a lot of other kind of compounds on the show before, like for example, like smart drugs or nootropics, things along those lines. I know that you do a lot of bulletproof coffee, so you definitely tweak your brain a bit with the MCT oil and some of the terpenes that you get from the coffee. But do you use other supplements specifically, like things for cognitive performance or enhancement?

You know, when I first heard the word nootropic was, you know, when we first started and you know, Alpha Brain was like a sponsor that we had. And then I met Dave Asprey and you know, Bulletproof's been one of our sponsors. So I've kind of bumped into certain things. We had Tim Ferriss on and you know, he would talk about a bunch of the compounds he uses. So I would try all these things and I tried nootropics for a bit. I'm a Big fan of bulletproof coffee and how that's happened. I actually stopped eating gluten to prepare for the ayahuasca ceremony because there's a whole diet involved for that, which cuts out sugar and gluten and caffeine and alcohol. Yeah. And you do. You do that for 10 days. And it's a physical thing because you're actually drinking the ayahuasca. But I also believe it's a mental preparation, as in every time you go to eat something for 10 days before your ceremony, you're thinking about the ceremony, and so you really have to alter your diet radically. And I kept a lot of those habits along the way. So, yeah, gluten's pretty much gone from my diet. Sugars. When I do consume caffeine, it's kind of in an intelligent way, as in I do it with fats in the morning. You know, as far as the supplements, you know, when I used to train a lot, I was having the protein supplements and that. I kind of have phased that out and have gone with, you know, more, you know, Earth grown nutrients and that kind of piece. And lately I've been playing around with a bit of pu erh tea and that kind of piece. But I've done less intensive stuff with the. With the compounds and the smart drugs. And for me, it's been more mental work with myself and just trying to get in the right space through meditation, through training, through just mindset. And I think that's where the show helps me a lot.

What does a meditation session look like for you?

So the funny thing is that I had been curious about meditation for a long time, and I'd finally taken a transcendental meditation course that turned out to be four months before I quit my job in finance in the City. And as I look back, I think they're related. So. And I think I had to pay for a transcendental course, which is in the past, wasn't cheap, but it was a way that I invested in it and then I took it seriously. And that was, you know, 20 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes in the evening, the usual kind of TM piece. But since I paid for the knowledge, I stuck with it. And I've pretty much had that practice since I. In the morning now, I wake up, I brush my teeth, I get back into bed, put on a big set of industrial, like, jackhammer headphones, and then I go ahead and meditate while I'm sitting in bed. So that's kind of how I start my day for like, 20 or 30 minutes. And I find that when I stop that process, bad things happen to me. And when I continue it, habits stay good, practices stay good, mentality positive, energy stays good. So that's been one of the positives there.

Yeah. I've personally taken a transcendental meditation course or a TM course. And for those of you who don't know what it involves, it's essentially a mantra that you learn. A special mantra that's given to you that you kind of recite over and over again in your head as you meditate. Now you use headphones, Brian. Are you, are you playing something like music or binaural beats or something like that through the headphones?

You know, I bought them because in TM they always say you should be able to meditate anywhere, like on a bus or. But I, I get distracted with sound. So I bought. They're literally like in, like industrial, like builder, like noise blockers, like if you're on a jackhammer. So they just cut the noise out, to be honest. And so I don't play any tunes or binaurals. I've heard good things, but I just, I prefer the silence.

Okay, got it. So you do that and then you do it again in the evening as well.

I try to do it in the evening. I always get my morning session in, but I try to go for 10, 15 minutes in the evening. When I first started, I did it and I think it got me, I think, a little bit more invested and a little calmer. It used to be hard for me to meditate, but now I find that it actually wakes me up in the morning, which is kind of strange. But now I find that 20 minutes in the morning does enough to where I feel. It kind of keeps me there. But I'll do a supplemental evening session if I have the time or I just need to calm down a little bit after being in media all day long.

Yeah. And I initially was told by my TM instructor that those two 20 minute sessions a day were the gold standard for TM. And frankly I do about 10 minutes once a day. And I told my instructor this and I felt a little bit guilty about it. And he simply said that if that's what works for me, as long as I'm getting it done every day, that it's not quite as good as two 20 minute sessions, but you still get a decent effect. So when you did or started doing tm, Brian, did you have a specific goal that you were pursuing, like sleep or relaxation or something like that?

For me it was. I love, I Love finding new things. And then I just kind of beat them. Beat them to death. So whether it's, you know, jiu jitsu or weight training or lately with, like, gymnastics rings. And so for me, meditation, I was just like, let's go in 110% and see what it'll do, because I had always heard things about it. So I just kind of went in, not knowing what to expect. To be honest, Ben, I thought in a very competitive, alpha environment in the city, that it would actually make me lose money and lose deals and not stand up to people. I was a little worried about that, but I actually found it was kind of the opposite, and I was actually clearer and I was kind of calling people out on more things and in a more intelligent way, but it definitely changed my mindset. And then, funny enough, five months later, I actually literally walked away from the job and everything, because I just didn't. I wasn't feeling it anymore. And I was. And there was definitely. There's definitely a correlation there with the meditation.

Interesting. So kind of like ayahuasca, it just basically helped you to get more in touch with your true self, I think.

So. You know, there's the. Where the head is and where the heart is. And I think they have a natural tendency to go on their own paths, but when they're not connected, you have midlife crises, you have weight issues, you have tension, hypertension arguments. And a lot of people I know that have ayahuasca supplement that with meditation. And so I find it's a way that I just get grounded, get quiet, find a way to listen to what's important. So, yeah, I think it's all related.

Okay, got it. Now, you've also had, in addition to folks talking about meditation and ayahuasca on your London Real show, a lot of fitness people you've had, like Elliot Holsey, you mentioned. I talked about bodybuilder Dorian Yates. You've had Dave Asprey on your show. You've had Tim Ferriss on your show. So you obviously get to just like, sit there and pick the brains of these guys for, like, two or three hours. As far as what you've adopted in your own life, like, big fitness takeaways, specifically regarding. I know you do jiu jitsu, for example, but your workouts, the way that you train, the way that you live your life from like a. A get lean, get fit type of standpoint, what are some of the things that you have adopted based on advice from people that you've interviewed, that you think Kind of fly under the radar or that aren't quite as popular in the whole fitness world that people might not know about.

Yeah, I'm super lucky. So I get to interview these amazing people. They actually come over to my place and they tell me all their knowledge for two hours, and I get to record it. And since it's being recorded, I get to ask him the most personal questions ever. So I'm so fortunate. And I get to learn by osmosis and maybe even subconsciously a lot of times from these people. And, yeah, if you look at our history, I do have a tendency to go for these kind of, you know, athletes, whether it's Dorian Yates, you said Elliot Hulse, we've had Kelly Starrett, we had the boxer Chris Eubank here, a lot of mma fighters, Joe DeSena, Steve Maxwell, Mike Dolce. So they all bring a lot of different things to the table. Recently there's been a guy on named Edo Portal. Are you familiar with him at all? He's. He's a.

He's like a natural movement guy, right?

He's a movement guy. He's from Israel. He actually just spent time with one of the UFC fighters, Conor McGregor, in Ireland, working with him. And he came on my show for the second time a few months ago, and I spent a weekend with him at one of his movement experiences. And it was almost like a physical ayahuasca, as in, I went in and on Monday morning, I went to the gym and I looked around and I said, what are these people doing and what am I doing? Because it just made me really question as humans, how we move and why we move. And it actually combines with what even Elliot Hulse told me. Whereas as humans, we used to communicate with movement and express our emotions with movement. And in London, of all places, where emotion isn't. It's not high on the list. You know, it's a stiff upper lip. I think sometimes you lose touch with expressing yourself with your movement, whether emotionally or just being creative. And I took a lot away with Ido. And so lately I've been doing a lot of lizard walks, and I've been doing a lot of gymnastics ring work. I've been doing just like, backhand walkovers and parallel bar stuff and just having fun again with my movement, as opposed to lifting weights or running to a certain speed or doing a certain number of kettlebell sessions. Probably takes me more back to the kind of freedom of expression that a fighting art like jiu jitsu gives you as well. That's creative, but that's kind of lately where I'm going with some of the fitness people that have been on what is a lizard walk, by the way. I think you'd love ido, by the way. So I'll have to introduce you guys. Yeah. You know, part of this seminar we did some really crazy things, but part of it was kind of animal movements. So we were doing these like bipedal walks. We were walking like, you know, like four legged animals. And there's kind of a lizard walk where you kind of crouch very low to the ground with your chest towards the ground and you kind of walk as if a lizard where you're. You're kind of twisting your hips and staying really low. And it's just kind of a different way of moving and it triggers different reactions in different parts of your brain. And for me, I just find it a lot of fun, really energizing and fulfilling on a different level than my workouts were.

Yeah. The last time or not the last time that I went to London. Last time I went to London, I mostly did a lot of running in Hyde park and then did the interview with you. And the time before that though, I went there. Part of the reason I went there was to take a natural movement course. It wasn't with the IDO portal, it was with a guy named Darrell Edwards over there. And I remember we went to a park at one point for about five hours and we were doing like bear crawls through the park and jumps over the fence and leaping up and hanging from the basketball hoop and jumping around the kids playground. And Darryl told me this after the fact because I noticed that a couple of policemen were there at the park kind of watching us from the cor. The park. And apparently he'll just get chased out of one park and then set up shop in another park and just kind of go from park to park teaching these clinics until the cops force him out of one location. But I do remember just being incredibly sore the next day, like using all these muscles that I'd never used before. Just because even without weights, just moving naturally like that presents your body with a whole new set of moves you've never done before. So I like it. I like that whole idea of natural movement.

I'm loving it too. Is. I mean, I'm 44 now and I just like, for me, my personal best lifts are not going up and so for me to focus, but my body's still working pretty well and it's. If I can continue keeping it mobile and exploring all these different things that require you know, body weight and strength. It's a great way to go for me as opposed to trying to hit that one rep max, which isn't as interesting to me as it was, say 10 years ago.

Yeah. And I'll link to your episode. You interviewed Ito Portal, right?

Yeah, I've had two interviews with him so far.

For those of you listening in, I'll link to that episode if you want to look into this whole natural movement thing. Now, how about diet? You've had a lot of guys on your show talking about diet as well. What's one or two of the kind of, the less well known things that you've picked up from a dietary standpoint, either new foods that you've introduced or changes that you've made?

Yeah, it's funny because I sit with these people, so sometimes they have effects on me that aren't even by choice, but if they have, they make a really good point. I think sometimes it sits really deep in me. And I still remember Mike Dolce yelling, no pills, no powders, no potions. And talking about Earth grown nutrients and this kind of piece and that kind of. With the ayahuasca diets and then talking with a lot of these people, the diet will come up, whether it's Edo, you know, whether it's Steve Maxwell or, you know, even Dorian Yates, who obviously used to be, from 1992-97, you know, the greatest bodybuilder in the world, but now he's slimmed down and to find out what he eats. And I've also had a few vegans on. Timothy Schiff is a pretty famous parkour runner. But for me, I just stay away from it. Used to be the protein powder guy when I would lift and train jiu jitsu, and now I really look for really good earth grown nutrients, really good fresh vegetables. I tend to stay away from any meat source that just doesn't look, you know, fresh and clean. And I, like I said, I just stay away from gluten. I always tell people if you stay away from sugar and gluten, it pretty much makes you not able to eat 95% of what they sell here on the street in London, which is probably a good sign, but it can be done. Even in London, which used to have a reputation for bad food, you can now find amazing things. And so, you know, that's probably what I've learned from most of these people. And then just also just the moderation things, you know, these people aren't having 10 or 15 cups of coffee a day, you know, they're not, you know, they're sleeping really well. You know, they're paying attention to all aspects of their game. If they're sitting in my chair, you know, they're really not lacking when it comes to their, you know, physicality. And that's across all spectrums, really.

When you say earth grown nutrients, what do you mean by that?

I guess it's a term that Dolce always coined, and I guess it means something that is really non, say, supplemental or not. Not created. Like, did it come out of the ground a few days ago? Can you go to the farm and point out where it used to live? Those are the kind of things that I like to eat and see. And in the uk we have those options. There's a lot of local farms for produce and for meat and all that stuff. And so there's really not an excuse for me not to seek out that food.

Gotcha. Now, when you were living in New York and also in London, prior to starting London Real, you mentioned that you hadn't done a lot of exercise, but were you. Would you consider yourself to be, like, generally pretty unhealthy leading up to that point?

I'd say so. You know, for me, when I moved to New York after college at 22, 23, I just had one objective, and that was to be Gordon Gekko. And so I wasn't really thinking about the. The ramifications for not looking after your body. And, you know, as Elliot said, the body is the mind. And I didn't get that, Ben, for 10 years. And it definitely hurt me. And I wish I had kind of made that realization sooner. And so, you know, when you're in your 20s, you can probably burn it at both ends to a certain extent. But I was never one to think that there might be a repercussion for the body and how it would take the mind or the spirit. So, yeah, I was that guy out in Manhattan taking clients out to the restaurants, out to all hours of the night, early in on the trading floor, eating Mexican food on the trading floor. That was me. So, so.

So why is it that you started asking health people to come on your show?

It's a really good question. You know, I used to joke, you know, Joe Rogan inspired this show. And so when we first started, we used to talk about him. And about a year later, he invited me on his show and I went out to LA and I was on his show and we talked for three hours. And afterwards I remember thinking, oh, it's called the Joe Rogan Experience, because It's Joe Rogan's experience because he talks about what he wants to talk about. And so if you look at London, real people always ask me, how do you choose the guests? Quite frankly, I choose people that I want to talk to, and that's really it. I don't really have to stick to a niche or that kind of thing. And I'm obviously attracted to these people that seem to really shine or be unique in their fields. And, you know, like, some of the people I've listed, whether it's, you know, Yates or like the British boxer Chris Eubank. And I think it's something about them kind of conquering and owning and be able to achieve something when it comes to discipline over their own body, because they all seem to do that very well in a very specific way. And I don't know, maybe I respect that now as I'm. As I'm older or now that I've spent 10 years or 15 years taking care of my body, but I'm definitely drawn to those people. It's probably 20% of our guests are kind of fitness related.

Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of 10 to 15 years taking care of your own body, I know that you're. You're over 40. I wouldn't mention your age if I didn't know that. You mentioned that yourself on your shows. And you've had some folks on your show who delve into anti aging strategies and longevity, guys like Aubrey De Gray. And I'm curious, based on those type of guests, if you have adopted any specific anti aging strategies or if there's some real gems that you've come across when it comes to longevity.

You know, I love talking with Aubrey De Gray, but he's also the only guy that ever brought his own beer with him during the show.

Really?

I don't know how long Aubrey's gonna live, but if he lives long, it's probably because of his research.

Like. Like, you mean he brought his own beer because he wanted his own special brand or he just showed up with beer?

Well, I offered him a glass of water, and he says, I never. I don't drink water. I only drink beer. And then he pulled out a beer.

Are you kidding me? Wow.

And. And that's. Maybe it's because we're in Britain, but still. But, you know, Aubrey obviously believes that aging is. Is a disease. He really looks at it that way, which is a fascinating way to view a quote unquote problem that we all accept as natural. And so whether you agree with them or not, it is a Fascinating perspective, if you look at it that way. And, you know, from babies, we're all taught that old people get old and then they can't work very well. And so I think a lot of it is a. A conscious framing that you. You might even tell your own self that you can't do certain things as you get older. But I've learned from a few of my people. I mean, we had Dan Pena on who's the $50 billion man? The American who lives in a castle in Scotland. And, you know, he's 70 this year, and, you know, he does a lot of things that you do. Ben, you know, he really tracks his health and tracks his blood work and as he's big into his supplements, big into his sleep training, still at 70 years old, still, you know, tells people he'll knock them out, that. That kind of thing. So I see people like that, you know, people like Steve Maxwell, who are, you know, 63, 64, and, you know, training with the bar stars, guys in New York and, you know, still putting in really heavy workouts, you know, and just watching what they do. What I really see more than anything is that they just. They incorporate movement into their daily life experience. And this is something that, you know, Portal talks about as well. He's like, you know, write an email while you're squatting. You know, hang from the bar for four minutes. You know, your day should be comprised of movement as opposed to you separating movement to, say, one hour of your day. And so I'm trying to learn more of that way of just staying in motion, staying active, and then the other things of taking my sleep very seriously, you know, making sure I do the meditative habits. But one thing, I do need to step up my game, and you can help me with that. And that's really probably looking at more of my blood work and that kind of piece, because I haven't done that. And I feel like I'm getting to the age where I should.

Yeah, yeah. Self quantification is interesting. And, you know, as you know, you have a. You have a podcast. You should just get someone who's an expert in blood work. Like, get somebody from. From Wellness FX or. I think there's. I think the one over in London is Curo 7. They do a lot of blood work over there. Just sit them down for like three hours and hand them all your blood work results and make it into a London real episode, and you can find out as much as you want for free. That's funny, though, that you say that about kind of Exercise not being that thing that you do at the end of the day, because I get a hard time for my wife with my office is cluttered with pull up bars and a boxing bag. And I'm sitting here or standing here talking to you on a balanced mat next to a treadmill. And I've just got these little things that I do all day long because I'm surrounded by those kind of things. Do you have gadgets or pieces of fitness gear littering your office or your home that you kind of use on a regular basis when you're trying to hack your environment in that way?

I'm saying I'm going that way and I need to go further. When Ido first came here a year ago, he just looked at the roof and we have like a loft building here. And he's like, you need to put a bar up there and start hanging more. And just as an offhanded statement and you know, now, you know, even further from that, I mean, some stuff that Elliot said to me, I do this active meditation piece now where it's. It consists of, you know, rhythmic breathing really fast. It can. It consists of a catharsis where you're yelling at the top of your lungs. It consists of like a grounding exercise where you're kind of jumping up and down and landing into the ground and then followed by like a tranquilization where you fall on the ground and then like by ending up in like a slow dance move. And so I'm ending, I'm doing this quote unquote, active meditation practice now. Once, maybe twice per week. And it's slightly like training, but it's also kind of an emotional physical release. And so I'm trying to incorporate those things into my daily practice as opposed to kind of that one hour gym session. I still have a ways to go. And in an urban environment like London, it's. It's taking me longer to get there than I would like.

How do you kind of maintain a lot of these practices? The earth grown nutrients and the movement principles, meditation, things along those lines when you're traveling, Because I know you do travel a little bit.

Yeah, I travel somewhat, you know, not as much because most people come here. We shoot everything in studio. So that's how I'm able to have kind of these deep conversations and, you know, film it from, from all the angles. But, you know, as far as my practices in London, I'm really fortunate to have a wonderful cook at home. And so she prepares all the meals and sends me packing with like food to Work kind of like, you know, like an executive from the 50s. I'm super spoiled. And then I encourage and incorporate training. And all the staff here at London Real are encouraged, slash, you know, penalized if they don't put training as part of their kind of daily practice here as it calms everyone down.

You penalize them? Like how?

I'm just, I'm like, we, we pay for gym memberships as long as they're used. So. And I always tell guys like we work a lot here but like when people aren't training, I get worried because I think it just inhibits everything, the creative process as well and just interacting with other people. So we really pushed that part. A lot of my Instagram videos and, you know, blogs are me hanging off rings and doing muscle ups and doing active meditation in the park or doing backhand walkovers. I just posted something a couple days ago, so they really go hand in hand for us here. So I just really try to incorporate them and. But yeah, no traveling. I haven't done much. The last part of traveling I did was when you led our warrior workouts in Napa Valley and in April. And that was a wonderful start to the day. Seeing you shirtless lead us through amazing stuff, breathing there as well, some power yoga moves.

It was good. That's right. And for those of you listening in, basically this was at a conference. I do this sometimes at conferences. I'll lead workouts that are generally just what I'd be doing anyways in my hotel room. I'd go and do them with a bunch of people. But yeah, I start off with some breathing. We do some body weight moves, we do some yoga moves, then usually finish with some more breathing, more powerful, invigorating breathing and some power poses. And it's just kind of a cool way to start your day. And I know that a lot of the folks that you've interviewed on your show, Brian, they all have these routines, these rituals that they seem to follow.

Yeah, very much so. I mean, Steve Maxwell is big into his breathing. Like I said, Elliot Hulse has really gotten me into this kind of really active meditation, which is really emotional actually. And it's funny, you talk about the guy you train with in London getting thrown out of parks. I mean, I take my 11 year old daughter and we go and I'm literally screaming at the top of my lungs for two minutes. But releasing a lot of that emotion and releasing a lot of that physical expression just puts me on such a great calm level. And I just find to be a More expressive person, you know, more like in a Mediterranean climate. I feel like I'm in Rio de Janeiro when I'm done, just because I feel more open and more expressive, you know, kind of in myself. So, yeah, that's. That's some of the things I've learned from. From a lot of my guests, and many of my guests, including Dan Hardy, the UFC fighter and now the commentator, he talked to us a lot about breathing his own ayahuasca experiences. So a lot of this, you know, is. It's something I hear over and over again from people kind of at the top niches of their. Of their physical game.

Yeah. And when you're talking with a lot of these folks who are doing things that go above and beyond, just like fitness and health and nutrition, like, I know you've had folks talking about banking and cryptocurrencies and like, surveillance and whistleblowing. I'm just curious, like, as you're there, are you furiously scribbling notes and thinking of things that you want to implement in your own life, like get a Bitcoin account or. Or install some kind of IP masking software on your computer? Do you just kind of sit there and absorb the knowledge or what is your process when you are listening to an expert talk and you're interviewing them? When it comes to your own personal life and how you implement some of these things, it's a great question.

I mean, you know what the art of interviewing is. You've done quite a few of them yourself, and it's not easy because you kind of have one take. You don't know the kind of mood the person's in, and yet you need to present to your audience, you know, almost, you know, almost a film. It almost needs to be like a three act and, you know, bring them in, let them identify, take them on a journey. So, to be honest, I've prepared up into that point where hopefully I can kind of orchestrate something beautiful, where it shows the best in them, it challenges them, they overcome those challenges, and they show us something that's very real and something that's very much like ourselves. That's what I try to get like someone like Dorian Yates. People look up to him as something they'll never attain, and yet he really struggled. After he tore his bicep and he couldn't be Mr. Olympia anymore, he crashed and crashed really hard. And so when I can get him to relate that experience to me or the audience, like, that's what I'm really trying to do. Get. Get like a full Emotional journey. And we did that with you, too. And it's great because then people can say, okay, this person's like me, now let me listen to them, and we'll kind of learn from them. So I can't take notes. I'm trying to stay present, to be honest, and trying not to overthink my interview and trying to listen, because sometimes I need to listen and then react along the way and not just move on to my next question.

Yeah, yeah. So when you finish up, do you tend to then go back and listen and implement some of these things?

Yeah, very much so. And then sometimes I just do it subconsciously. So sometimes I'll just find myself asking more questions about something that I hadn't thought of. Or, you know, if it's someone like James Altucher who says talks about gratitude, and everyone talks about gratitude, but James will be like, you know, every morning you write down three things you should be grateful for. But he said, don't just do the same ones. You can't just be grateful for your family and your health. You have to get really specific, like be grateful for the bus driver that left you behind because now you have a cardio workout. Or, you know, I find that there's so many nuggets I get from people, whether it's, like you said, a cryptocurrency or a Jared diamond or someone that says something, I've got it all laid out there. And then we'll produce the episode and release clips so I'll see it again. And then I always have that show to kind of go back to. And a lot of times I really will then go on and read more stuff and watch more stuff. So it's usually when the learning process begins is when I actually meet someone.

Okay, got it. Interesting. So as far as folks who you would still like to talk to areas that you haven't explored, especially when it comes to some of these things we've been focusing on, like fitness and health and diet. What are a few of the people or who are the few of the people that you'd like to have on? Or what are a few of the topics that you'd like to visit that you haven't visited yet?

That's a great question. You know, we have a list of probably a thousand people that are on our kind of to. To. To get list or we're in contact with. And, you know, we're not in a rush. Sometimes we've waited 18 months, you know, to talk to someone. And our criteria are as you have to be here in London. And I have to be able to look. Look at you and see the whites of your eyes, you know, and spend two hours, really, and get an entire reaction. And so I want the big personalities because I think they're fascinating. So, you know, I want the UFC champion, and I want to talk to Dana White, and I want to talk to Michael Fassbender, or, you know, I want to talk to the top actor, or I want to talk to, you know, Donald Trump. Of course, I would want to talk to them, but I want to do it in a London real way, as in, let's talk about what. What you've gleaned. Let's talk about the challenges, but let's also talk about your failures, how you came back from. And then, yeah, your daily practices of how you stay on your game. What it's all about are the sacrifices worth it, you know, for the success that you've had, which gets you an invite on my show. And that's. Those are the themes that we continually hit over and over again. And I think that's what people tune in for every week, and that's why I can get surprised. Sometimes it's a guest with very little media profile that'll really hit a chord with some people. And sometimes I'll interview someone really famous and it's just a dude because they'll say everything in a very protected manner, and it's just a PR release. And so I'm really looking at those. Really curious, fascinating, to be honest, Ben. Somewhat troubled or conflicted people. That's what I like. I like people that are struggling to get a message out, and yet they're struggling with how to do it. You know, they want to get it out, but they don't want to sell out. They don't want to compromise their own integrity, and yet they want to get the message out on scale. Like, those are the people I like to talk to. And, you know, I've always talked about, want to get the rapper Ice T on. And he always has a line. He always says, it's not about the come up. It's about the comeback. And, you know, in my life, I had a big comeback. And so I do believe that when you see someone come back, that's when you get to see true grit, you get to see human character. And I think that's inspiring. And so, you know, when someone like Dorian Yates, when you see a guy come back who's now evolving as a man in his 50s and becoming in tune with himself spiritually after he went from the Highest of highs on the stage of Mr. Olympia to the lowest of lows. No one cared anymore about him. Like, that's a story I. Like that's a story I think needs to be told, you know, in three dimensions in video. And I think it'll be one little people will watch for the next hundred years. So that's what I'm after.

Nice. You've mentioned quite a few episodes during our chat, and I've been kind of taking a few notes myself. Yes, I've been focusing on what you say. I'm not getting distracted, but I've also taken some notes. So, folks, if you're listening in, you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com LondonReal to check out some of those notes and also to watch. Well, you've got my episode, Edo Portal's episode, the Ayahuasca episode, and Brian's got a TED Talk called why I Left Millions in Banking to Inspire Millions Online. So I think you'll really enjoy his show. You may even want to tune into some of the things that you thought you might not be interested in, like cryptocurrencies or surveillance or personal development. So I highly recommend that you check it out. In the meantime, Brian, anything exciting coming up that you plan on changing with the show? Any. Any new developments that you want to unveil here on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast?

Yeah, you know, we're constantly evolving here, and I'm always constantly trying to figure out where I want to go with the show. You mentioned the TED talk that I gave in January. It's funny how 16 minutes can. Can, like, really make a powerful message and kind of move people. And I had people contact me from banking and from technology that I hadn't spoken to in 10 years that were like, oh, wow, Brian. And I was like, I put out hundreds of hours of video, and yet this short TED Talk got people to notice and understand my story. So that was really big. And then in April, we finally created the London Real Academy. I used to get stopped in the street all the time, and people would be like, brian, I saw this episode. I saw that. And we'd start talking about fitness or cryptocurrencies or ayahuasca or whatever. And yet there was never anything after my shows. And so we finally created the Academy, which is a place where the hardcore London Realers, you know, get together and really push ourselves offline and online. And we have meetups here at the studio every two weeks, and we'll be at a thousand paid members now by the end of the year. And we've got 35,000 people signed up with social media. So we're trying to take it to the next level because I don't want to be entertainment. I just. I don't want to inspire people with a great show and then they turn off YouTube and they go back to watching TV. So we're really trying to kind of.

Go to another level, make people act on the actual content.

Yeah. And so I think everybody should go give a TED Talk. I think everyone should just go ahead and implement these things in our life. And we've been learning. We're up and running seven months now, and it's just been. It's been incredible. And it's been the coolest thing I've done because for the longest time, I just broadcast out and I never got to talk to the people that were watching. And now I get to meet them and I see what they do with their lives. And one talk I have with someone in the studio two years ago will inspire someone to change their life. And so now we really have a community for the first time ever. So super excited about that.

Yeah, the community is a huge piece. My wife and I do something similar. We have something called an inner circle, where the people who actually do want to act on the advice, they get in there and they join up with our forum and I do my podcast. But then my wife and I have interactive, like, Q and A shows on there where people can actually attend live. And yeah, it's a lot different when it. When you're doing, I like the way you phrase it, entertainment versus a community. So that's. That's pretty cool that you've adopted something like that and that. And that's a. Can people check that out at LondonReal TV or is that a different URL?

So we pretty much pushed everything over to LondonRealAcademy.com even the TV goes there. And that's got all of our content and full episodes for free. And then after that, if you want to have meetup, we have meetups in cities around the world, including the studios here, every two weeks, and premium content and the social network and all the good stuff that all happens over the Academy. And I think that's really the future of what we're doing here. I'll continue putting out shows every week, but in the future, I see this tight inner circle network of people, and I think that's really my ultimate journey.

Nice. London Real Academy. All right, well, I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. So you can check out all this stuff over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com LondonReal and Brian, I look forward to seeing you again at some point soon. Maybe beating up with another shirtless workout.

Yeah, that would be awesome. When are you coming back to London?

I have no clue. I'm not quite sure yet. And I actually hadn't talked to you too much about this, but I've been in touch with several boots on the ground over there about kind of expanding Greenfield Fitness Systems to London and starting to put some more of our products in a warehouse over there so that folks can get their hands on some of the things that we do a little bit more affordably versus ordering from the US So probably based off the fact that I'm kind of piecing all that together sooner rather than later, but I don't have a specific date yet. No plane tickets purchased.

Awesome. Well, please come back on the show. I love your work, Ben. I love. One thing I love about you is your work ethic and we talked about that on the show a bit. I mean, you've been publishing content for so long. If you look at your site, you don't play around, you publish regularly and lots of it, audio content, video content, blogs. And so I think we covered that a bit on the show and it's just great to see and I think London would, would love the mentality that you bring as well. And I think our market, I think in London right now, people really crave really intelligent fitness biohacking advice and we don't have enough of it. You know, like I don't know where to get my blood work and I'm London real I shouldn't that here. So I think we can use your help.

Email me separately about that after the interview. I'll hook you up with Tamsin Lewis. She's, she's the, the champion of the Ironman UK and she's a physician over there and she has a blood testing clinic. So I'll send you her contact information. She's been on my show as well and she's a pretty good wealth of knowledge on that stuff. So stay tuned and I'll send you her information. But in the meantime, for everyone listening in, check out Brian's website, londonrealacademy.com, check out the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com LondonReal and Brian, thanks so much for coming on the show, man.

My pleasure, man.

You're very good.

You're very good at what you do.

All right, folks, well, this is Ben Greenfield along with Brian Rose signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have a healthy week.

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

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