How A 9 Year Old Created A 20 Year Plan To Play In The NFL, How To Move So People Can't Take Their Eyes Off You, Parenting Tips For Raising Impactful Children & More With Bo Eason.

On this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

I just remember when my dad would say that to us. I would like look behind me like, is he telling me I am? Because I don't feel like it. If you're unapologetic, everybody in Starbucks feels the safety that you provide inside that environment. If you can bridge trust between human beings, rebuild that trust that's been eroded over time, you just became the leader. Musicians who have to have stage gravitas. Guess what all of his training is based on?

It's based on help, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show. All right, you guys, this is it. My guest on today's show is a guy I hung out with for a few days with in LA while speaking at his event. And he's a pretty cool dude. You may have heard of him before because he was a guy who started his career in the NFL's top pick for the Houston Oilers. And then he played for the San Francisco 49ers and played with some of the greatest players in his generation as a defensive back and safety. And he's also a speaker. He's a performer, he's an author. His name is Bo Eason. In 2001, coming out of the NFL, he wrote and performed a one man play called Runt of the Litter. One man play, one of the most powerful plays in the last decade, the New York Times called it. So Bo toured with that and over 50 cities. And that's now being adopted as a major motion picture, that one man play. And he's trained with some of the world's best and most brilliant performance and movement and voice coaches. And now what he does is he helps people tap into their own personal story and become really good communicators and really good movers and really good athletes and really good stage speakers. He's got a book called there's no Plan B for your A Game. He teaches this stuff to people all over the world, both online and in in person courses. And so I'll link all of that and everything we talk about if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Beauson that's BenGreenfulFitness.com B O E A S O N well, Bo, I have to say that this is probably one of the stranger beverages that I've drunk drank yet during a podcast. But I have to say this harebrained idea of mine that I sprouted yesterday isn't half bad.

You know what? It actually gives the coffee some Weight and some. Almost like a latte. Feel some pluckiness. Pluckiness.

We took vanilla stevia, which I always have around because it makes all my sparkling water taste like vanilla cream soda. But then I was at. Here at Bo's event, and it was a fabulous event that I'll explain to you momentarily. But one of the guys there at the event handed everybody this yellow packet of this stuff called Pluck. And it's like salt made out of organ meats. It's like liver and kidney and spleen and heart and pancreas. But it's a seasoning with some smoked paprika, lemon peel, black pepper, mustard seed, parsley, green onion, and thyme, which basically makes it sound like it tastes like ass. But it's. It's actually pretty good. It's like this savory, salty called plunke Shout out to them. So, yeah, it's in my coffee. So my coffee is one big brown liquid multivitamin. It's pretty good. Bo, this. This is a cool event that you, that you put on. You know, I came down and talked some people about health. But you. You call it best.

The best.

The best. What's best stand for the best?

It doesn't stand for anything.

Oh, I thought it stood for like Bo Eason something something.

No, no. Somebody said that. Oh, during the event.

That's me.

That. That's the first time I've ever heard that. It's just the way my dad woke me up. He woke all of us up. I'm the youngest of six kids, so my dad woke us up every morning at 5:00am because he's, you know, he's a farmer, a rancher, and so, you know, they get up early.

So like, like from how. How old were you when you started.

Getting 5am right from the get go.

Oh, wow.

So that's how he woke us up. I could hear. So I'm the youngest. So I have a. I have sisters that are 11, 10, nine years older than me. Yeah. And then me and my brother are the two youngest. I could hear him coming down the hall every morning. I knew he started in the older sister's rooms and then eventually get to me.

You could hear his footsteps coming down the hall.

Yeah. And you could hear him whispering, too. So he'd pull back the covers, he'd rub our back. Like rough.

Yeah.

You know, not like gentle waking up.

Yeah. Not like let's snuggle.

Yeah. And he would whisper in our ears and he would drop cuss words along the way because that's how I don't know why all the men of that generation, like, ended every sentence with a cuss word, but he was one of them. And he would rub our backs, and he'd whisper in our ears and tell us we were the best. And so years.

That's nice. So it's a, you know, it was a rough back rubbing, but you're starting with the positive affirmation.

That's right. Yeah, that's right. And so that, I mean, for the first 18 years of my life, that's how I got woke up until I went off to college and moved out. But then when I came back, like when I was married and come back with kids, when we'd go visit my mom and dad, he would do the same thing. Yeah, he would say the same thing. He'd rub our backs the same way all those years later. So when I started waking my kids up, I just automatically started waking him up like that. Yeah, same way. Because when we were kids, it was a source of embarrassment. Like me and my brother, you know, growing up, he would tell. He would say it in front of other parents. He would say it in front of our friends.

He would tell you you were the best in front of other parents and other kids.

Yeah. But he also told them they were the best, too. So it wasn't like he was trying to keep.

So he was just like every. He's like everybod, Everybody, be your own best. Yeah. That type of thing.

Yeah.

Not like, my kids are better than all the other kids.

No, it wasn't like that. He said it to.

That.

He said it to my sister's friends, our friends. But we were always embarrassed. Like at Little League, when he'd go, you know, he'd scream it, like, through the backstop like, you're the best. And I'd be striking out going, I'm actually not, because I just struck out.

Yeah. And you.

You.

You train people at these events. I guess the best way I would. I would describe it is to be the best version of themselves. And you. You have people following all these positive affirmations and. And these. You call them declarations as they each. You know, the guy here with the. With the liver seasoning, he's growing that business another gal was in. You know, I sat in on a few of the sessions. You know, she's trying to be the best cyber security expert in the world. And another gal, you know, a life coach who reaches a billion people. But. But for you, starting off with that mentality of. Of the best that your dad would. Would Whisper in your ear when he wake you up with that rough back rub in the morning. Did you actually grow up really, truly convinced that you were the best? Because I know, you know, you played in the NFL, and we can get a little bit here into how that progressed for you from childhood. But did you actually grow up thinking that you were going to be the best at whatever you tried at first?

No. Even though I was being, you know, I was. He continued, he was really consistent all the way through. I remember, like, when me and my brother were, you know, we both had this dream of playing in the NFL, and we came from a high school that never had a pro athlete. A very small little high school.

Where'd you get that dream from? Was your dad in the football?

My dad played football. He was in the military.

Okay.

I fought in Korea. He was, you know, mostly just around animals his whole life. Animal husbandry. But at first, I mean, we were, you know, we were. I didn't really believe it at first. I thought he was talking to my brother because my brother was and I were together because we were only a year apart. So we played sports together. We had this dream together. But in my eyes, my brother was much bigger, much better than me, and just still to this day, one of the greatest athletes I've ever seen. And growing up with that, I was small. I was much smaller, you know, and my job was just to try to keep up with him.

Right.

I knew I'd be okay if I did that. So I just remember when my dad would say that to us, I would, like, look behind me like, who's he talking? Is he really talking to me? Is he telling me I am? Because I don't feel like it physically. Yeah.

Yeah.

But then it was time for us to go to college. Right. So for our dream to come true, to play in the NFL, obviously, you got to play college football. My brother and I both didn't get scholarships, and not only did we not get scholarships.

Were you good, though, in high school? Did you think you were going to get a scholarship based on how you were performing in high school?

I didn't know, but because it was much different back then, like, they had to actually send a coach or a scout out to see you. And we were way out in the sticks, and we had a really good team. In fact, I always tell this story, but it's a statistical anomaly. It just can't happen. And it happened at my high school. So the high school I went to has never had a pro athlete of any kind before I got there and never won since I left. Oh, wow. So it's like 100 years of the high school's existence. But here's the cool thing. So me and my brother both had these dreams, and the statistics for high school football are there's 1.2 million high school football players in the country, and that's how many there were in 1978. 79 when we were in high school. So the statistics of those 1.2 million is 0.03% of those 1.2 million, 0.03% will play NFL football.

Wow.

Right. So that's the statistics. So off my little high school team that's never had a pro athlete, we had 27 farm boys on that team, and we were good. Yeah, we. I mean, we thought we were good, and we were. We were undefeated. Four guys out of those 27 played in the NFL for a total of 25 years. Two Super Bowls. There's no statistics for it. That's.

There's something in the drinking water.

That's what everyone.

Milk or whatever you guys were feeding on back then.

That's what everybody. Everybody always says, like, what was. What was going on there? What was. What was happening? What. Why?

Interesting.

It's almost like one of those hotbeds of talent that Daniel Coyle talks about.

Yeah.

Where you get, like, most Olympic medals in swimming have come out of one pool in Northern Maryland, you know.

Yeah.

In Baltimore. And then the. The greatest number one tennis players all come out of a little. Women's tennis players come out of a little crummy tennis court in Russia.

Yeah. You know, so I think, like. Like, I personally, you know, as much as I embrace, to a certain extent, like, the woo and like, the energy vortices that you find in Big Sur or Kauai or. Or Sedona and areas where there's, like, less geopathic stress and all that jazz, I don't think it's that as much as you are the equivalent of who you hang out with. And if. If you come from an area where even just during a brief period of time, you had four fantastic football players, that school, I'll bet you guys all push each other to be a little bit more next level than you would have pushed if you had been on your own.

Of course, I think it's because we had these dre, and they were public. Like, we told people about it and remember, like, laugh or. We don't have athletes from this part of the world. You know, it just doesn't happen here because we stayed loyal to our dreams. I think other kids saw the possibilities, right? You go, wow, if Bo's gonna do this, I certainly can do it. Cause look at him. And the crazy part is, Ben, out of those 27 boys, four of us played in the NFL for all those years. There were four or five other guys on that team that were better than us.

No kidding.

If you can imagine that. Four or five guys better, bigger, faster.

Subjectively to you or statistically they were better.

Well, it was hard to keep the statistics because it was different positions, but in my eyes, in all of our eyes, we're like, damn, those guys can play.

But you made it from high school to college, you weren't quite sure you were going to though, to get into college football?

Yeah. I mean, because no one recruited neither. My brother.

What'd you do? Like, how'd you wind up getting into college football?

I went to a school called UC Davis, which is a Division 2 football at that time with no scholarship. So basically you just walk on and you can play there.

Yeah.

And so I went there and that was fairly close to where I grew up. Went there and then kept a dream alive there.

But your brother didn't?

My brother went to a junior college, just like obviously no scholarships, at a junior college in Sacramento. After two years there, he then got a scholarship to the University of Illinois, which like within a season he had broken every record and, you know, was a Heisman trophy candidate. The number one pick in the New England Patriots. He's the first, he's the first quarterback to take New England to a Super Bowl.

And what was his name?

Tony Eason.

Tony Eason.

And then I, he was first round pick. I was a second round pick to the Houston Oilers in 1984.

Did you play the same position, high school, through college into the NFL?

Yeah, I played, I was a defensive back. I was a free safety in the NFL in high school. I played both ways because we didn't have enough guys, right. So I played offense and defense. So the one thing that I tell people, and I go look the whole 13 years toward chasing that dream, every day it seemed like it wasn't going to happen every day. And then every day it would. A little glimmer would show you, like, maybe it is going to happen. And the rest of the day would be like, there's no way this is happening.

What size were you like physically? Height and weight?

Pretty small. So when I went to, when I went to high school, So I was 13 or 14. I remember the weigh ins, I was like 100 pounds and 5ft tall. But I grew because now I'm 6:2. So I was a big free safety in the NFL in the 80s. I was 6:2, about 216, about the same way you were in college. Now I'm like 180, 185.

So the same way I was when I was eating 6,000 calories a day and living in the gym, Right? Yeah.

And that's what they did with me, you know, once I got to the college level. So I was pretty small, but I could run. I was pretty fast. And I got faster as I got older, as I matured. I got really fast until I could really run.

You think that was one of your keys to success, was your speed?

Heck, yeah.

Yeah. Why do you think you were so fast?

Well, I worked on it a lot.

Yeah? How did you work on it?

Well, I ran a lot. I ran a lot of track. My form wasn't perfect, but I don't know how this miracle happened. One day my dad shows up. So my dad. You gotta imagine this. So he's like a cowboy kind of guy, but he played football in college at Cal. Polo.

Who can't walk softly at 5am We've.

Already said that's right. And has rough, dirty hands. And he brings home. And this is in the 70s, so this was before speed coaches were around. He brings this guy who's a speed coach to our little grass area where we would work out at the elementary school where we grew up. I grew up in a town with 725 people, so we had a little elementary school with a little patch of grass. And that's where me and my brother trained for the pros. Right there. And we were about 14 and 15 right around there. So this was mid-70s. And my dad shows up with a speed coach. I don't know how the heck he even found him.

You have, like, a bag full of ladders and cones, but he didn't have that stuff yet.

But he was. He was helping the. So the Russians were always beating the Americans in the sprints in the Olympics back in the 70s, he went over to Russia and was studying what they did. And that's a spy. Yeah, he was like a spy. He brought those things back to America. And me and my brother were just lucky enough. And I don't know how it all transpired. I just remember him showing up at this little grass with us with my dad and teaching us plyometrics, which we'd never heard of.

Right.

Form running like A skips, B skips all the bounding all that stuff in.

The 70s, that would have been, you know, I mean, even for me, you know, because I've been reading the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research since I was in college, and that was in the late 90s. Like, plyometrics and bounding and skipping and hopping were still. Still, like, pretty cool and novel. Like, even in the. In, like, 2000. And that would have been, like, 2004, 2005. So, yeah, in the 70s, that was definitely before its time.

Yeah. And that was. I. I don't know that that's what's so crazy. I wasn't. Before my dad died, I wasn't able to, like, go, how did. Where'd you get this dude? Yeah, because I remember we'd be out there doing, like, you imagine this in the 70s. You're. You're on this grass and you're doing A skips, and you're doing bounding, you're doing B skips. And the neighborhood kids would, like, come out and they would be cracking up because it looks so foreign and so funny. Like a dance move that we were trying to coordinate ourselves to do. But I'm telling you, Ben, right when that happened, whoa, me and my brother took off, like, to another level of athleticism because we could outrun everybody on the court or on the field. And once you have that advantage, then you start to put things together. You're like, okay, if I walk on any field, any field for the rest of my life, and I can outrun everybody on it, that's good for me. That's a big advantage. And that's kind of how I made my bones.

I mean, obviously, playing professional sport, I'm sure do an entire podcast on your career in the NFL, but you're obviously not only using your speed to your advantage, but your movement and your body awareness in general. I would imagine, especially with a career as a pro athlete, not only is naturally high, but then develops and becomes even greater in that scenario. One thing that I've noticed about you when you're on stage and when you're speaking, is you move in a very unique fashion. Like, almost like it's hard for people to take their eyes off you with the way that you move your body. Is that something that you developed in the NFL, or is that something that kind of became part of your speaking career afterwards? Just this whole movement. While we're on the topic of know what it is that got you success in the NFL?

Yeah, partly. I mean, partly due to, you know, the prowess that you have to have on an NFL field just to survive. Right. So you get a sense of your own animal instincts. You get a real sense, and it's. And it's actually acknowledged instead of being frowned upon. You get a sense of your predatory nature out there. Especially if you're a defender, like I was, who have to defend the fastest men in the world and stop them. Like, that's your job, right? So you have to be very unapologetic physically, because if they smell, you know, these guys, they're predator animals basically out there, you know, especially back in the 80s. So if they sense weakness, you're going down. Right. So I learned part of it there, just purely a survival.

Moving. Moving with confidence.

Yes, but.

But you also like moving. I mean, did you. Did you have an actual animal that you would visualize and channel? Or for you, was it just kind of like being a predator?

Not in the NFL. I didn't know to have an animal. Right. But I Literally, when some of the guys I played against, like, you know, guys like Barry Sanders or Bo Jackson, Herschel Walker, Walter Payton, I give them animals, like, when I go up to tackle them, I'm like, damn, how am I gonna. Right, get my arms around? How am I gonna get this dude to the ground? Because when you grab a dude like that, it's different than grabbing a regular man.

You know what I mean?

You put your arms around somebody like that and try to get them to the ground, it's a different animal. And I always thought, man, like, we had this one guy named Earl Campbell who was one of the great running backs of all time. We played together, and then we traded him. I had to play against him, and he just would destroy defenders, and it would take seven, eight guys to get him on the ground. So basically, if you're the first guy in there, you're just hanging on to a shoelace if you can, and wait for your teammates to get there. And it felt like. Not like a man. Like, when you're grabbing somebody's leg or somebody's calf or somebody's haunches, it doesn't feel like a man.

It was much more, like, springy. Coy.

Yes.

Like that. Yeah.

And expansive. Like, it expands once you grab it.

Yeah.

So I remember. Super interesting, that. Wild.

Yeah. Well. Well, I mean, like, there. There is, you know, this idea that despite them being a similar size as humans, some primates, like chimpanzees, for example, are disproportionately strong based on their body size. But it's because, you know, both the humans and the. And the chimpanzees have this like a Golgi tendon organ in the muscle belly that contracts at a certain point to keep the muscle from tearing itself. It's kind of like the governor of the muscle. And when you see a mother lift a burning car off of her baby that's trapped underneath, you see basically what would be an example of a complete disinhibition of that Golgi tendon reflex. And it turns out that some people actually have basically a higher governor point at which that Golgi tendon organ kicks in and says, oh, we gotta. We gotta hold this muscle back now because it's contracting too hard, it's gonna rip the tendon off the bone, you know, or something of that nature. And so I would imagine there might be a little bit of a component where like, their springiness is so enhanced not only due to plyometrics and speed training and, you know, maybe a higher fast twitch muscle fiber capacity or whatever, but also due to the fact that their brain just aren't shutting down those muscles quite as readily quite as quickly.

Yeah. So it's. It's like it's something you don't. I never experienced in high school, I never experienced in college. But once you got to the best of the best running backs especially there's built that way low to the ground, thick and just glutes power. And when you put. I never forget this experience. Normally when you get your arms around another man, your arms are locked in and you got him and you just get him to the ground. Well, I just remember this experience grabbing these kind of players like Earl Campbell around like that and then their body expanding right when I grabbed him and then my hands came apart. Right. Like so my crazy. Isn't that crazy?

Yeah.

And I go, that's actually. I've never felt that before. It's like an animal.

Yeah.

How that. How. Remember how Popeye would eat the spinach and then he would expand.

Yeah.

Like the cartoon. Yeah. Well, that's what these.

I wonder how much it was just like diaphragmatic rib cage, like expansion, you know, from them. Just, you know. Right, right. As you, as you hit them, or whether they actually, you know, if you watch a bodybuilder on stage, for example, like when they contract, the muscle just keeps contracting and contracting and it just balloons in size.

Yeah.

But maybe something like that. But done just over a split second, just boom.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's crazy.

Yeah. So I. I had that sense, but I wasn't really trained at it. It was mostly a survival mechanism. Then After I got done playing and I got into writing, you know, I wrote a play and it, you know, became a hit and it went to New York for. And all over the country for several years. That's where I learned to move on stage. Because the guy who directed my play, run to the Litter. When we went to New York, he said to me, and he didn't know anything about football or athletics. He was a great acting teacher and a great performance coach. Right, right. And he said, okay, Bo, here's what we're going to do before we go to New York. We are going to hire a movement coach. And I'm like, are you kidding me? I'm an elite athlete, dude. I don't need a movement coach. I never even heard of a movement coach. Sure enough, brings in the guy named Jean Louis Rodrigue. That's his name.

Jean Louis Rodrigue.

Jean Louis Rodrigue. He is a professor at ucla. He is the master of movement and all of his movement. So he. Not only does he coach me and the people that I work with who need stage presence, he works with Leonardo DiCaprio. He works with Toby Maguire. He works with Margot Robbie, like the best actors on the planet. He works with musicians who have to have stage gravitas and weight. Wow. Guess what all of his training is based on. It's based on predator animals.

Wow.

Crazy, right?

What are the chances? And you, you were already kind of pre programmed for that in the NFL.

That's exactly right. They explained to me that, look, moving on stage is a little bit different than moving on the field. Right. Because you're gonna have to do this performance over and over and over again. In which I did do the performance 1300 times over.

The Broadway performance that you wrote after getting out of the NFL, right?

Yeah, yeah. So he came on board, we started picking animals like you asked me earlier. And so we picked for that performance particularly was a cheetah, because.

And so you had to pick from a predatory animal.

Yes.

What would be another example of a predatory animal or some of the others? Like. Like a panther or a panther.

A lion, A great white orca.

Be hard to move like an orca.

Right. But it's not. It. Here's the cool part, Ben. It's not that you have to move like an orca, but you take on their sensibilities on stage. The audience doesn't. Here's something. The great part. Audience does not know what you're doing. All they know is they're not looking away. That's the.

They can't keep their Eyes off you. They don't know why, but they can't keep their eyes off you.

That's the promise of this kind of work. I would dare anybody to be in a live audience or even virtually with a predator that can eat you and you look away. We as an as human beings, we're locked in on this them. Like if I put a lion on a stage in front of you live, you're not walking around. You're not casual. You're not looking at your phone. You're not throwing peanuts at the lion to mess with it. You're locked in for survival purposes on a predator that is brought danger to the room and a sense of nobility and trustworthiness. That's how I was taught to be on stage, because these two guys that I trained with, Jean Louis being one, Larry Moss being the other, the one thing I noticed about all the performers that they worked with is they won Academy Awards or they won musical awards or you something about them, you couldn't look away from them. So here's what happens. I'm performing like this predator on stage.

And as it turns out, moving like a. You said. You said a cat. A cheetah.

A cheetah, yeah. So very sleek, very fast, but a real sense of vulnerability.

Tell me you didn't have the leotards on, though.

No leotards, no cheetah print leotards. And no. It's funny because no one knows because they can't see that you're being a predator cat. They just don't understand why they're not leaving or standing up and walking out or going to the bathroom or calling their spouse during a performance. So that's why we did it. So as it turns out, Ben and I think your audience would be really interested to know this. It's so cool about Jean Louis. So Jean Louise is just regular dude who trains people how to be unapologetic about their predatory nature, which gives them a sense of gravitas and power. What happens is the FBI comes calling. So the FBI one day calls Jean Louis and they're like, this is the FBI. And Jean Louis is like, oh, what did I do? Was I on the wrong website? You know, he's like, yeah, just panicking, like you and I would do, right, if they called us. What was happening at the FBI? And Jean Louis can't tell me everything, but he can tell me some things. What was happening at the FBI was over in the Middle east are FBI agents who are infiltrating those cells, who were Middle Eastern descent guys Themselves, but they were Americans infiltrating the cells. What was happening? They were being killed at these high rates because their bodies were betraying them. They would spend years training these guys, years trying to get them on the inside of the cell, close to the leader. Once they got close to the leader, the leader would embrace them.

Right.

And then step away and kill them. And it wasn't anything they were doing, it wasn't anything they were saying that was wrong. They were playing the part. Right. Their heart was pounding.

Oh, that's when he hugged them. He could feel the heart.

Could feel it. And, you know, obviously, if you're infiltrating a cell, those cell leaders are, you know, they're predatory animals, just like the NFL, just like what I've been taught to be on stage. So they started training with Jean Louis, the top 15 agents. Imagine this in Hollywood in a little theater. They rent a Little Theater, got 15 of the top agents. He can't say what they look like. He can't say anything about them. He's training them to not allow their body to betray them. So now think about that.

Or even their physiology.

Right.

He's trying to even control their heart.

Yeah. So think about that. Now, say you're a speaker. Say you're a writer, and you have to do speeches or anybody who presents, which is all of us. Right. And you have this in your pocket. The same training the FBI agents have, because they got to be a lot better performers than you and me. But Jean Louis doesn't see it.

Might not have access to beta blockers to lower their heart rate. Right, Right.

I mean, they've. He. He said they're the best performers I've ever seen. Because they have to be. Because if you're off there, you're dead.

Right.

But isn't that true for you and me, too? If you think about it, like, if.

You and me look at it from Maslow's hierarchy of needs standpoint. Yeah. I mean, to a certain extent. I mean, but subconsciously, I really don't think that our lizard brain is able to recognize a giant audience that we are super fearful of, that we associate with a negative outcome should things go wrong and an actual whatever army attacking us or a lion about to eat us. I think that sometimes we can spin our subconscious into the same state.

Yeah.

So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, there is a certain, I suppose, you know, fear of death when you're on stage.

Yeah. I mean, people.

That is literal.

Well, it is. I've often felt like that. Like, oh, shoot, if I fail Right now with the New York critics in the. In the house, right. I. This. I'm done.

Right.

They're gonna send me home.

Right.

And it's so. It felt like death. So. So then after the success that the FBI started to have working with Jean Louis, the CIA came along and wanted the same training. So the bottom line is I always take comfort in that. I've worked with the guy who the agents of our country to keep us safe are using also. And that's why, you know, at all my events and when I bring up physicality as a part of my training, people like, what do you mean, physicality? I don't have to be physical. I just have to move my mouth. I just have to talk. You know, you find out that talk, you know, doesn't move the dial. Yeah, right. The mouth doesn't really move the dial. Your body does. Your physicality.

Anybody who has watched someone give a speech from behind a lectern with a bunch of slides that he's pointing a laser pointer at knows the difference between that and that person, you know, who's, you know, I guess you could, you could use an analogy in the realm of. Of like, you know, like Christian pastors that you see. Right. There's like kind of the stereotypical guy with the neat suit and tie standing behind the oak lectern, you know, giving a mess, you know, with the. Again with a PowerPoint behind him. And then there's a guy like Joel Osteen just like all over the stage and, you know, and moving and waving the hands and, you know, in a manner that definitely dictates that he's much harder to ignore.

Yep. And, you know, in the times that we live in now where the trust level is so low, you know, because Gallup's done a poll ever since 1974 every year on the trust level in America, and it's never been lower. Right. It's at its all time low. So to restore that trust, that's going to be leaders. Right? That's going to. That's kind of the. The position that I'm. I know that I'm trying to play, and I'm sure you are, too. To get that trust, you have to show people your body. They have to be able to see your body because people believe even, even your hands, too. Right.

That's what I've heard, is that you must show your hands if you want to be true. Trusted.

Yep. 100.

Yeah. People don't want to think that they might be, you know, subconsciously think that they might be Hiding a weapon or hiding something away from them. Showing the hands is a sign of trust.

That's right.

And you can trust me.

Yeah. So the people believe about 50% of what comes out of your mouth. And that's just across the board. Right. You might be telling the truth the whole way. And 50% of it's not being believed, not being trusted. But your body trusted is trusted 100% of the time, because that body can't lie. A few years ago, like, ESPN started putting poker. You ever seen this? Like, they put poker on. Yeah.

Texas hold'.

Em.

Yeah.

Like on sports. And I'm like, why is this?

Well, ESPN too, but. Yeah, it's on espn.

But I always thought, like, cause I'm not a card player. But I'm like, why? And it's all because of the body. Everyone's watching for a tell, watching for a reveal, watching. Am I trusting this guy or not? Same thing we do with politicians, which is why they stand behind podiums. Because just imagine what's happening behind that podium. Their body is betraying them. So if those politicians were trying to infiltrate a cell, they would not make it not very long. But that's why they stand behind those lecterns that you just mentioned. My mouth is trying to tell you the truth, you know, of what I want you to believe. But behind this lectern, you don't know what's going on. And if I can't look at somebody's legs or the way their feet are sitting or their hands, like you said, I don't trust them.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, comma, all my notes are on the lectern, too. But yet I've even. I've noticed that the guys who do a good job move around stage sometimes for. For a massive 40 minute, you know, sermon or something like that. There's a lectern up there.

Yeah.

Every once in a while, they pass by it. Yeah. Glance at the notes.

Yeah. That's what I do. If there's a lectern up there, I just use it as a prop.

Yeah, you're right, though. The body lie. It's one of our favorite games right now to play as a family. Like I think I was telling you in the car the other day, you know, it's the best 25 bucks I spend every month is to go buy a family game.

Yeah.

Because it just provides our family, you know, hours upon hours of new entertainment each month and bonding and laughing and relationship building. And the kids are learning game theory and logic and how to compete. And how to compete. Yeah. And the fact that in most games there's one winner, not everybody gets a medal, which is typically the person who gets to whatever, pick desserts or not have to clean the kitchen or winner. It pays to win. So, anyways, there's this game called Chameleon that we play, and Chameleon. I won't describe the entire game, but suffice it to say a great deal of it involves trying to hide from someone that you are the chameleon. And everyone else on the table is trying to identify who the chameleon is. Almost like that old game mafia, but. But, you know, in a kind of a cooler, more fun way with. With these special cards. And it is crazy how quickly my kids began to pick up on things like, you know, when I'm the chameleon, I just subconsciously put my hand on top of my card as I'm talking to people, almost as though I don't want people to know that I have the chameleon card. Whereas they notice the people who aren't the chameleon, they really don't even care where their cards at. It's just like. Like sitting there, whatever.

You don't have to protect it.

The card's nothing to me. I don't have to protect it. Yeah. Or things like the amount of eye contact that people make with their card. So now when the cards get dealt, they're all watching everybody's eyes just to see are they looking at the card and putting it down quickly, which sometimes indicates they're the chameleon. So, yeah, it's relevant too, I think, for people, Beau, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, who are listening in to us, talk and thinking, well, I'm not a speaker. I don't have to be on stage. I'm not giving presentation presentations, I'm not giving a sermon, whatever. But in any situation in life, the way that you enter into a room and the way that you move about a room is pretty important, isn't it?

Very 100% critical. Even when you just walk into Starbucks and there's a long line at Starbucks and you walk in, all of a sudden, if you're unapologetic, if you're actually your own predatory nature, everybody in Starbucks feels the safety that you provide inside that environment. Environment. So think about every environment you enter, whether it's, you know, a church, whether it's at school, whether it's at a stage, whether it's at your business. When you're unapologetic, people feel safe. It's counterintuitive Right. Because you think you'd be afraid of predator, predatory nature, but you're not. You actually feel safe around it. No different than a mama grizzly bear. You know, you step in between her and her cub. Right. That's, that's a problem for you. You're pretty much done. And when you're in the presence of a bear, like my wife's like that. Right. My mom was like this as far as protecting her kids dreams and her kids health. We as human beings love that feeling of being protected. I work with a lot of elite military, whether it's Navy seals or green berets. And when I'm around them, I never have felt safer. They're the most dangerous people. Right?

Right.

Same with NFL players. The most dangerous NFL players that ever played with. Right. Like vicious on the field dangerous. You feel so good in their presence because you know you're taken care of.

Yeah, that's, that's the funny thing is, is that if you think about it, let's. Let's say you're on a subway train with someone who actually is moving like a predator, you know, obviously can, you know, carries with them a great deal of confidence and pride and you know, almost like a don't mess with me type of mentality. And you can't keep your eyes off of them. You kind of subconsciously know that, that should somebody like who's actually dangerous or a threat to you walk on that that person might be your protector. Right. That everything's going to be okay or that you're not going to have to fight because there's somebody else on this, on this freaking train who's probably going to fight before you do.

That's right.

Yeah, that's right.

So that I think our world is. We're so ashamed of that part of ourselves, our human nature. We're so ashamed of it that you and me are walking around trying to hide that, that great aspect of this protective nature. But I tell the people that I work as far as stage work, as far as being the boss as far you're the leader everywhere you go, and that goes for everybody. Your responsibility is to lead every environment you enter. So you can't enter that room like half baked. You can't enter that room like a prey animal.

Right.

You can't. Otherwise everyone feels it and everyone goes, you know, I don't feel good in this. I don't feel safe. And that's how our world feels right now. So we need more of these leaders. So you have to be unapologetic about your true nature.

And for you, it comes down to everything from planting your toe before your heel as you're taking a step, or I've noticed you'll, like, lace your hand over the back of a chair as you're walking through a room and be kind of like feeling out the room. You're kind of like standing, you know, 2 inches taller and, you know, making. Making very good. But de. Eye contact. Are these things that you teach in your book or these things that are primarily taught like in your courses?

Yeah, this. There's. We touch upon it in the book. The book is more about being the best. We talk about storytelling a little bit in there, but it's mostly in. In the speaking training that I do.

Yeah.

Personal story.

And you train people how to use their voice. I know a big part of it's storytelling for you, how to tell their story.

Yep.

Is that something that you kind of learned along the way, the importance of story?

Yeah, yeah. You know, if you go again, I always go back to Mother Nature. Right. So if we can align ourselves with mother Nature, we're pretty much gonna be undefeated. You know, every time I go up against her, I usually lose. Every time I have an argument with her.

Right.

I lose. When I fly with her, I usually win. Right. So that's how the training goes. Right. So most people in this modern society that we live in, they do presentations, like you said earlier. They're trying to manipulate the audience and not be human. Human. Not make mistakes, be polished, be perfect, use slides. Well, there's nothing. There's no connective tissue there. There's no human connective tissue on a slideshow. There's no connective tissue when you're staying distant from your audience and trying to manipulate them, whether with your voice or your body. It's not that we don't train that way. We train to be human. And the human is the one that connects with other humans. That vulnerability you have and when you share your story, everyone starts to connect to you because they go, oh, I didn't really know how to connect to Ben. And then he told me his story. He told me this quick story about what his grandfather may have told him sitting in front of the fireplace.

Right. It doesn't have to be like your life story to be a story.

It's a tiny little two minute story. And right when that happens, the audience drops their guard. Every audience right now, whether it's virtual, whether it's in person, whether it's at Starbucks Bucks, everybody's got their armor up.

Right.

We're protecting ourselves.

The. The audience. Slash someone who might be on a date with you. Slash someone who you might be networking with a cocktail party. Like, you know, even if it's not from stage, once you start telling a story about yourself.

Yep.

That turns you into an authentic, potentially more trustworthy human.

That's right. That's the only way people know how to connect to you. They don't know how to connect to you if you're distant, if you're not going to share.

And especially if you've nailed the pred moves. Like, people are probably going to kind of keep their distance until that predator actually starts telling stories. And people realize that the predator is human.

Yep. And the predator is me. Like, that's the connected connection they get. Here's the beauty of storytelling it. Because people. Sometimes I'll. I'll be training people and they'll go, well, Bo, I don't want to tell my personal story because it's not about me. It's about my clients or it's about my audience. And I'm like, yeah, but the only way to get the trust from your audience or your client or would be client. The only way to get the trust is to share who you are, your perspective of how you grew up. Like, when you could say a sentence like this, like, this was. Is one of my stories. When I was nine years old, I had this dream. So I drew up this 20 year plan. So if I say that, that's one.

When you're nine years old, you drew up a 20 year plan to be in the NFL. Yeah.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

I can show it to you.

You still have it?

Yeah, yeah, I have it. Right.

And you followed the plan.

Where is it? It's in my backpack.

It's just like hanging around your house.

Wow. So. But I just said a sentence and you said you stopped everything we were doing. You stopped the podcast. Not stop it. You know, you. You just stopped where we were and you went. You asked me a question about it. Because now that's storytelling. So that's one sentence of storytelling that was personal to me. Me. And now it's personal to you. So now you and me. Here's the magic of storytelling. Now you and me have a connection that we didn't have before. Like you're. You're thinking back. Shoot. Because he just said he was nine and he said 20. Or what was I dreaming of at nine?

Right.

And did I make up a plan? And I could have. I didn't think that's.

Yeah.

So now, you and me are real dudes, not trying to fake connection. Actually just sharing a dream, a thought, a pain point, and you get connection. And that is the key to the kingdom when it comes to storytelling. And most people, they're so afraid to share themselves. They're so afraid to share the pain that they've been through. Like, whether they got dumped at the prison prom or they got cut from the choir team or they got cut from some athletic team. It's all this rejection part. People don't want to share because they'll go, well, no one will want to work with me if I'm rejected. Actually, the opposite is true. Everybody will work with you, because guess what? They've been rejected, too. Everybody knows the pain you're talking about. So if I said my dream was to be the best pop singer in the world, and my mom. I was singing in the back of the car one day, my mom turns around when she was driving. She said, you know what, Bo? You're the worst singer I've ever heard in my life. That is a great story. That's a great story because everyone connects to that.

Yeah.

That dream that somebody destroyed right there.

Yeah.

And then what did you become? And that's. That's why we use story. Because in a world that will not connect, we will. Now you're the leader. If you can bridge trust between human beings, rebuild that trust that's been eroded over time, especially now, you just became the leader.

And people, I think, have story almost woven into their DNA.

Yeah.

I talked about this in my last book, Fit Soul, about how when you see a lot of the very successful Disney movies like Frozen and the Lion King and Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and Beyond, they all follow the classic hero's journey story, as does Star wars, as does the Matrix, as does nearly every successful Halloween Hollywood flick that exists in many of the most successful novels. Right. Including even just like, the story of Jesus Christ, like, the whole gospel tale of how the world was saved, like, all of it returns to someone in an ordinary world, crossing a threshold, having mentors and allies along the way, finding the enemy, fighting the enemy, sometimes nearly dying, returning home with the elixir. And I think that humans crave not only stories, but they crave that story to a certain extent. How much do you emphasize having as part of your story, being that hero's journey, including elements of it?

All great stories are the hero's journey. It's funny how it falls all those archetypical things that you just talked about, like the mentor and the Elixir and all that. That falls into almost every story.

Well, it does, and even sounds silly because, like, last night I was telling you about my wife and I made the bicycling trip to Italy.

Yeah, right.

We left our ordinary world of poor college students in Washington, cross the threshold across the sea, you know, battled the hills to, you know, find the gelato and the. And the. And the bread and the pastrami, and eventually, you know, return with the elixir and got to Florence and, you know, and then the road home, you know, like the end of Bilbo Baggins, you know, the train back to Rome and fly home. But, yeah, if I tell a story like that, even subconsciously, I'm telling the hero's journey story without even realizing.

And. And here's the science behind it. People can't. That's intoxicating, right? That. That means you're bonded forever with those people. Not just for the moment, forever. Hero's journey is the hero's journey.

The hero's journey. People also relate with it and feel comfortable around it because it is a tale of non morally relativistic, absolute truth. Because in a hero's journey, there's always got to be good and evil, right? There's always got to be the light side and dark side. There's always got to be the winner and the loser, the bad guy and the good guy. And I think people like the fact that there's like some truth, you know, like some shreds of absolute truth in that tale as well.

100%. There is, you know, the. The play that I wrote, it's called Run to the Litter, that was this big hit, right? So it got all these movie companies started to come to me and my wife and say, hey, we want this for a movie. This one guy approaches me and he comes up and he goes, I want this to be my next movie. And I go, okay, but who are you? And he goes, my name's Frank Darabont. And for those of you who don't know, Frank Darabont is the writer and director of the Shawshank Redemption of the Green Mile. He wrote Collateral. He wrote Saving Private Ryan. He created the series the Walking Dead. So he's the. You know, at this time, he's the top Hollywood writer.

That's crazy. I'm not big into Hollywood, but I've actually seen all four of those movies and competed in reality TV shows filmed down at the Walking Dead location.

Is that right?

So I've also been there. Anyways, though, we digress.

So He. He's the one. So Castle Rock Pictures bought the screenplay rights for him, right. To direct. And I wrote the screenplay. So now I'm writing a screenplay of which I've never written a screenplay before. So I don't know the format. I don't know how it's supposed to go. All I've written is a play, one play, a one man play. So it's just me. So now I got him now mentoring me. So now he's the top screenwriter in the world. Now he's, like, looking over my shoulder going, move this. You're misspelling that. So that was my first touch of screenplay writing. So I got trained on exactly the stuff you're talking about, which is, you know, this hero's journey, Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. Because if you're one minute off on certain things in a movie, like if that turning point comes at minute 29 or minute 31, you have problems with your audience. Your audience is now looking at their watch. Your audience now is, like, thinking about if they should go get some popcorn in the theater. And now you've lost. If that turning point doesn't come on page 30, which is 30 minutes into the movie. And then this. There's a second one, and then there's the end. It's like a map. It's like science, storytelling as far as screenplays are concerned, for sure.

There's even a book. Christopher Vogel wrote the book the Writer's Journey, which is actually a great one for. For story.

It's the best writing. That's the one. Frank Darabon. I can't believe you just brought that book up. He goes, beau, you're going to write the screenplay for me. And I'm like, okay. I'm like, so nervous because he just got, like, nominated for 12 Academy Awards, and he handed me that book.

Oh, really?

He goes, this is your bible. It was Big green book.

It was one of the first books I had my kids read when they started writing. I'm like, you guys read that? They were like seven and they read the Writer's Journey. Just because I wanted at that early an age for them to begin to see story through that. Through that lens.

So smart. No wonder you have such a connection to Frank Darabont. I mean, you didn't know it, right? But you do.

Consciously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I keep using the word subconsciously on this podcast. Subconsciously. Well, you know, gosh, there's so many other things that I could get into with you, but sometimes I do follow my gut and My heart when I'm recording with someone. And I think the one other thing I think would be interesting for your audience to hear. I don't know if you have or have not talked about this on podcasts before, but you obviously are a family man. You love your family. You got wonderful children, and I see how you're raising them and how much you pour yourself into them. You know, I noticed that they both seem to have some pretty definite goals in life. How is it that you have either seen your children respond to the type of lessons that you have learned? What have you implemented with them that you think has allowed them to? I mean, because your son, he's what, 14 and already knows he wants to compete in the NFL. And your daughter's got like a cooking show or a video series she's producing.

She's 16. She wants to be a great chef.

What's the special stuff? Sauce for. For your kids?

You know, what I did from the word go is I kind of did what my dad did. Kind of followed the same because he. He was more. He was quieter than me, my dad, but he saw greatness in people. Like, he. He saw it and then he spoke to it, and then he gave you all kinds of space to kind of figure it out for yourself all the time. He did that. So I did that with him. And initially. And the one daughter you haven't met, So I have two daughters and. And Axel's in the middle. So they all immediately showed them, you know, when they were Fairly young, the 20 year plan. And my 20 year plan is like very.

You showed them your 20 year plan that you made when you were nine?

Yes. Yeah. And it looks like at this point, it's 50 years old. So it looks like the Declaration of Independence.

It's like parchment paper. Yeah, it's like that brown quill pen.

Yeah, that. And it's very, like regular. It's. It's me, you know, in a football uniform. Like, as a nine year old, might draw that with cleats that are about 14ft long. I mean, it's just crazy. And me and my brother, that's kind of how we started our dreams. We just drew them and we kept drawing them and drawing. So I showed that to my kids and then they created. Created theirs. They go, oh, I want to create mine, my dream. And some of their dreams have kind of shifted around, but shifted from, you know, thing to thing like, I want to be a pop star. Oh. And then I want to be a chef. Oh, my gosh. And then I want to Be a Broadway star and. But Axles have stayed really consistent since he was seven. Since he was seven. He drew it up and we can go back there in the gym and I can show you his that he drew up when he was seven. But here's what's cool. He's 14 now, so he's been following this dream for seven years already, like training for the dream and rehearsing his future self. And the dream, it's never been done. Right. So it's to play in the NFL and the NBA. So that's never been done.

Oh, I didn't know he wants to play in the NBA too.

Yeah, he wants to play both because no one's ever done it. There have been two people in.

That's why you showed me a video before we started recording of your 14 year old son throwing down with about two feet to clear over the rim.

Right?

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So he's. And adults like our age will come to him all the time. They do for the last seven years and they go, Axel, which sport you like better? Which one are you going to choose? He will not say. He goes, I'm doing them both. I'm doing both. And that's. If you look at the dream, if you look at his plan, that's exactly what it is. He drew it up, little stick figures of him playing both of those sports and he will not, not back off.

Wow.

So dawn and I, you know, when our kids, you know, declare their dreams, we take it seriously. Right. So we go, okay, let's get the whole family involved in this dream. Let's, let's go public with it. Let's make sure people know about it so we can get their energy to help us. And that's what we've done, you know, and we build boards of vision boards. We, we. Because there's certain.

That is so cool. Yeah, that is inspiring.

It's really cool. And you and a lot of their friends come over, you know, and they're teenagers now, right. So some of them laugh at their stuff. Then others go, you know what? I think you're gonna do it. Yeah, I think you got this.

I love that. So, so you instilled in your kids at an early age an appreciation for having a long term vision, long term plan for their lives. And then you support that with vision boards, with goal setting and with, with them not just having a dream, but creating a roadmap for that dream to happen.

Yeah. And we take, we take little segments of time. Like sometimes we take a 66 day segment, sometimes we'll take like Axel just went with Jeff Spencer. He went through like this four month.

Just on my podcast before.

Yeah. Oh, yes. Okay, great.

Champions mindset.

Champions mindset. Yeah. So that's what he's been working with Axel on because Axel's gonna go into high school in the fall. I just thought Jeff was the perfect guy to prepare him for that big step.

Yeah. Of, and you, you surround your children with amazing people too. Because I notice you, you, you know, you talk to another former podcast guest of mine, Terry Cochran, someone else who's, who's worked with your, your family. And I, you know, I love that, that you bring in the outside experts too. And you know, I, I know that, that you think, oh whatever silver spoon mentality, you can afford to bring in the experts. But I tell you what, like I personally learned just about everything that I've learned. Not from mentors, not from experts, not from spending, you know, $50,000 on online courses, which I know are often a good investment and come, come back to paying dividends. But for me, like, I have built most of my knowledge on like five to ten dollar books off Amazon downloaded to my, like the experts exist out there, even if it's the stuff the experts wrote. So, and I think that introduc into a child's life early on. You know, my kids, every day since they were 8 years old, dad gives them a book. By the end of the week, they return a one page book report on that book. The next week I choose a book. And so every time I read a good book, I'm setting those books aside for my kids. And again, like it would cost me literally tens of thousands of dollars to have the expert who wrote that book move into my house and live with my kids for a week and teach them everything they know. But I mean, if you're listening in, don't think that it's expensive to do this type of thing with your kid. But it's such great advice, Bowen, in wrapping up. I know if people wanted to reach out to you and kind of learn how to move and how to present, how to speak and how to get this predatory type of confidence that you've alluded to, or maybe take one of your online courses in which I know you do some of the same things. What's the best way for people to look you up?

Yeah, if they go to boecin.com, that's b o e a s o n dot com. All my, all my events that I do, personal story power. That's the one where we really get physical and we find everybody's signature piece, their story cool, and then physicalize it, attach it to some solar plexus so that people trust. And we've had huge success in that, and it's been really, really, really amazing. So if you go to boweason.com that's usually the best place. All the stuff we, you know, is.

On there and other podcasts, other books that Bo and I talked about, everything that we discuss I'll also link to if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Boeason B O E A S O N. Let's go to BenGreenfulFitness.com Boeason Bo, I'm pretty stoked my audience gets to meet you and know who you are. You're a special guy and I love what you're doing. So keep it up, man. You're changing the world.

I will. Thanks, brother. Appreciate it.

All right, folks, I'm Ben Greenfield. Beau Easton signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have an amazing week. Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the show notes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful Ben Recommends page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormones, sleep digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please also know that all the links, all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode help to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So when you listen in, be sure to use the links in the show notes. Use the promo codes that I generate because. Because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.