Harvard Doctor: Your Mindset is KILLING You! Here’s How to STOP It & Live Longer | Peter Diamandis

Science doesn't stand still. We forget that it's moving at this exponential speed. For every year that you're alive, science is extending your life for about a quarter to a third of a year. But there's going to be a point that for every year that you're alive, science is extending your life for more than a year. I can't explain how exciting it is to have this capacity and capability coming our way.

It's serial entrepreneur and X Prize founder. He's trying to transform what it is.

To live in this world and in the future.

Peter Diamandis.

We're being just inundated by negative news. Their business model is to deliver your eyeballs to their advertisers. We pay 10 times more attention to negative news than positive news. And so you have to actively shape what you allow into your mind in the same way that you shape what you let into your body, what you eat. Mindset is one of the most powerful forces in you living a healthy, long life. One thing I want everyone to take away from this conversation today is Here are a number of things you can do effectively for free. There's one other part which is the part I'm most excited about.

Tell me. Okay. Hey everyone, Lewis Howes here and thanks for being here on this special interview with Peter Diamandis. We're talking about longevity and there's one thing that he shares in here that really blew my mind. You hear things about sleep and exercise and diet and all these different things on how to maximize your health and living longer. But there's one thing that Peter dives into around the middle of this interview that no one else is talking about. None of these scientists are really talking about. And it's about your belief in your ability to live longer. We break this down throughout this entire interview. Leave a comment below and click the like button if you're enjoying this episode. And make sure to subscribe on YouTube as well because we have some incredible guests coming in the near weeks. And I don't want you to miss any of this content. Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Peter Diamandis in the house. Good to see you, my friend. Good to see you, brother. Very excited. You've written a new book called the Longevity Guidebook: How to Slow, Stop, and Reverse Aging and Not Die from Something Stupid. And that part at the end is one of the most important things as I continue my journey of trying to compete in sports at a high level. The biggest thing is preventing injury.

Yes.

Because in order to play the game at a high level, you need to be healthy. And I think that's related to life as well. In order to play the game of life at a high level, we need to stay healthy. There's a few things in your book that have really stood out to me that I got to dive into, and I'm sure we'll talk about many other things. But I think a lot of people, as they age, their bodies shut down. So it's like when they're in their 70s, 80s, and 90s, they don't have the energy or the capacity to live a rich and full life. And what do you think are the main factors today that are causing people to live longer but not have the vitality to enjoy their length of their life?

My goal for anybody watching us here is that they walk away with immediately useful things they can do to maintain that vitality and energy and that they are motivated more than ever before to take care of themselves because something amazing is coming down the pike in terms of science right now. And so I wanted to lay that out bare. My mission in writing this book is to get the knowledge out there. Tony Robbins and I wrote a book, 700 Pages that was an extraordinary book. It was number one in the New York Times for I think like six weeks, but it's hard for people to consume a 700 page book. And I've made this longevity guidebook as something that is consumable and it's a manual. It's a how to. It's like, okay, I gotta remind myself on sleep or diet or exercise or mindset. And I've laid it out in that way where it's something you pick up and utilize. It's, you know, what's different today, right? So. I think that we're living in a time where AI is going to make a massive difference. And a whole slew of biotechnology capabilities like single cell sequencing, CRISPR, gene therapies, all these exotic things you hear about are technologies that are going to become available to us in the decade ahead. One of my mentors and dear friends, Ray Kurzweil, who wrote the Singularity is Near, Singularity is Near, He proposed a concept years ago called longevity escape velocity.

What's that?

And so longevity escape velocity is the idea that today, for every year that you're alive, science is extending your life for about a quarter to a third of a year. But there's going to be a point that for every year that you're alive, science is extending your life for more than a year.

Mm.

And You know, question is when is that going to happen? And so Ray's prediction, and if you Google Ray's predictions, it's like he's got an 86% accuracy rate, which is pretty extraordinary. On all of his predictions. On all of his predictions. It is. Like when we're going to have AI, when we're going to have, you know, these robots, we're going to have nanotechnology. His prediction on longevity escape velocity is by the end of the year 2030. That's when we're supposed to reach this, that if you're in reasonably good shape, and you have reasonable affluence, not like rich, reasonable abilities that you'll reach this longevity escape velocity. So I speak to all the scientists I know about this, and folks like George Church and David Sinclair at Harvard Medical School, when I query them about this, their answer is by the mid-2030s. But here's the point, right? It's not 50 years from now or 30 years from now. It's a decade. It's the next 15 years. our job between now and then is to keep ourselves in reasonably good health, and we'll talk about that and not die from something stupid.

Yes. I mean, what are the main factors that are causing us to die younger? It seems like I saw a stat or a study that the current life expectancy in the US in 2024 is 79.25 years.

Yeah.

And that's a 0.18 increase from 2023 from macro trends.

And we had dipped during COVID We dipped obviously, and now we're coming back up.

But it's not that much still.

It isn't, it isn't. And it's measuring everybody versus people who are focused on taking care of themselves, right? One of the biggest issues is we're killing ourselves by what we eat. I mean, we can dive into diet. It's, you know, the number one thing is people's overconsumption of sugar.

Yes.

The human body never evolved to eat as much sugar as we do. It was not something that was plentiful. You have to remember our biology evolved 100,000, 200,000 years ago in the savannas of Africa. And we haven't changed our biology over the last 200,000 years. And so you have to remember what was life like back then? Well, we were hunters and foragers. We fasted because we didn't have access to food. We didn't have sugar. We had some fruit in our diet. but today we're eating like 100 kilograms of sugar a year. And 100 years ago was like two kilograms a year. And before that it was even less than that refined sugar. And it is a cardiovascular inflammatory. It's a neurocognitive inflammatory, and it is dangerous for our health. Now, I'm not saying don't eat any sugar, but It's like just starting with donuts. I had this argument with Elon all the time. It's like he jokes, I eat donuts every morning. I said, Don't eat donuts. When you're 60, you're gonna regret that.

If someone eliminated sugar from their diet, or 95% of it, let's say. How much longer do you think they could live without doing something stupid? Do you think it can extend your life if you eliminate sugar?

I think it can extend your health. so let's begin by talking about two things, lifespan and health span. All right. Now, there's a challenge here because while we're living longer, we're living, let's round up to 80. Right. Most people are living the last 20 years of their life in some level of physical pain, cognitive loss, cardiovascular loss, inflammation, all these things. So their health span They're healthy up until, you know, 60, and then it's a decrease from there. And you have to realize that you're trading these things all the time. And so if you want to have, I mean, my goal for myself and for those I love is to live a life where I've got the vitality, the energy, the cognition, looking good, feeling good, moving well, you know, from now through a hundred. and then during these next, I'm 63 today, over these next 37 years, we're gonna have so many breakthroughs coming. Science doesn't stand still. We forget that it's moving at this exponential speed. And my job is to keep myself in the best health I can to intercept the breakthroughs that are coming that will give you the next decade, the next decade.

How much do you lean into on the spiritual side of your health and life? Because there's so much science and AI and tech and biohacking and doing everything perfectly in terms of the right foods, the right sleep, the right supplements. Where does spirituality and the divinity of life come in the future of your health and your lifespan?

So, you know, most people know me as a technologist in AI or biotech or space rockets, where I spent my first years. But the last decade, I have been truly focused on longevity as one of the largest markets. I have a $600 million venture fund in that area and written a few books. Started a number of companies. We'll talk about perhaps a fountain life. A few years ago, I was on stage at the Vatican to bring it back to spirituality. And so it sounds like a joke, but I'm on stage in the Vatican with a elderman, a rabbi, A cardinal, myself. And we're having the title of the panel was the Morality of Immortality. Interesting, right?

Very.

And I flipped it to the Immorality of Mortality. And so that was our conversation. And the rabbi there gave this amazing historical overview of human lifespan. And he said, Yes, we had with Heth, with Uzal and all of these people living to 700, 800, 900 years. And then something happened where humans sinned irreparably with God, and God said, you, shall have no more than 120 years. And this is in the Bible.

Really?

And what's amazing is up until now, the longest lived human is 122 years old.

Wow.

And we have people Typically these super centenarians who are making it from 110 to 120. And so it's interesting that the Bible actually called out 120 years. I find that pretty extraordinary.

Why do you think that is?

Maybe that was their experience back then. Maybe- no one has lived that long. They're pathetic, who knows? I don't know. But I remember saying, okay, listen, if we're promised by the Bible 120 years, I'm fine taking that 120.

Give me that 120, yeah.

And then we'll renegotiate after that.

So.

Spirituality, I'm going to take it slightly different and talk about mindset, right? Because you love mindset, I love mindset, I love the work that you do. And when I listen to your show, it's around mindsets. And as it turns out, mindset, which is connected to spirituality, yes, is one of the most powerful forces in you living a healthy long life. It truly is. And here's the numbers. There was a study done and reported, actually, I've got it here, report the National Academy of Sciences, right? The Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, like one of the most prestigious journals. And it said, in a study of 69,744 women and 1,429 men, It's one of the only studies that had more women than men published in the National Academy of Sciences. It was found that optimistic people lived as much as 15% longer than pessimists.

Isn't that interesting?

I find that fascinating. And I do think that is true. I think that is about our mindset, our belief of mind over matter. And so, you know, people tell me you're optimistic. Yeah, I got a double benefit from being optimistic.

Sure.

I love life. I love every minute of it.

I'm trying to remember the researcher, I think it was Dr. Ellen Langer, I think, who did a study. Hopefully I'm not making this up on the person, but I think she did a study where she had people go back into the nostalgia of their life, like back into the '60s or the '50s, and they lived in a home with music from the '50s.

Yes, yes, yes.

The music from the '60s. The artwork from that time, like the food, all of it was like the clothes. They wore the clothes from that. decade of their teen years. And they started to see themselves get healthier, start to heal certain things, have more energy, and almost reverse time by living back in time. So into a more positive, optimistic, youthful.

Let me, one of the things I opened the book with that I want people to realize is a couple of things if I could lay these down as cornerstones. the first is you're born with 3.2 billion letters from your mom and 3.2 billion letters from your dad. And that's your software you're running. You're running it at age zero, at age 20, at age 50, 80, hopefully at 100. And so if you're running the same software, why do you look different? Right? Why don't you have a six pack at 100 that you had when you were 18? And it turns out it's not the genes you have. All right, we have some 20, to 22,000 genes inside of that genome. It's which genes are on, what genes are off. That is your epigenome. It's epi from the Greek word for above, and it's controlling which genes are on and off as you age. And the control, those genes do two things. It says, okay, we're gonna turn these genes on in your skin cell, these genes on in your neuron, these genes on in your hepatocyte, your liver cell. And so, cell type is controlled. But also, as we grow older, these genes, some get turned on, that shouldn't be on, some get turned off, that shouldn't be off, and that is aging. And what's been proven in the last, I say this is work done over the last five years, is that we can reverse your epigenetic age.

Your biological age?

Well, it's, yeah, you can call it your biological age. Very specifically, I'm saying the epigenome, like your genes are the keys on a piano, right? All those genes are there. And when you're playing a song, you're playing certain genes. And as you get older, the song starts to blur and the wrong keys are being hit. and such, and that's your epigenome. And can you reverse it back where the song being played is correct? And a number of things impact our epigenome. It is your mindset, definitively mind over body. It is your environment. It is very much exercise. It's sugar. It's what you eat. It's sleep. And so, When people talk about reversing their age, right, and this is something I've been focused on doing for myself, there are a number of things that can reverse your age to a younger epigenetic age. And that's, those are the things I talk about in the book. It is exercise, sleep, diet, the supplements and meds you take, your mindset, your habits. You know, people know, but it sounds really expensive to take care of yourself. It's not economically expensive. There are some things that are expensive for sure, but one thing I want everyone to take away from this conversation today is here are a number of things you can do effectively for free that can make a big difference, but you're not going to do them unless you're motivated. It's all about that motivation. And the motivation here should be, if I can keep myself in reasonably good health the next decade, there's this a massive benefit that's going to be paid out. And so I don't want to be the last person to die before you reach longevity escape velocity. Right.

I mean, you had a lot of great people review this book. Dr. Mark Hyman was just on the show recently, and I think he said, I can't remember the stats, but I believe it's over 50%, at least of Americans, are more obese than less obesity, right? There's more obesity than not. than ever before. And I'm curious, you talk about mindset, environment, exercise, sugar, what you eat and sleep are kind of the key tenets within this book. But if someone doesn't have the mindset that they want to get out of suffering or pain, or they want to get out of obesity, or they want to get out of the chronic illness that they have, because it's just too hard for them to think otherwise or it's too much inertia. They don't have the role models.

Whatever, they're in the wrong environment.

Everything. It seems like so many different things that you need to pay attention to and stop doing when a lot of people just feel sick, tired, a lack of energy, exhausted from work, in relationships that aren't really serving them, and they just don't have all these put together. How do you get to the mindset first to say, I've tried these things before. It didn't work. I tried to eat better, it didn't work. I tried to sleep better, it didn't work. I tried to medicine, and it's just getting bigger.

I'm getting more chronic disease.

How do I switch?

There has to be a why. How does someone find that why? So when I talk about this with my abundance community, my Fountain Life members, I'm saying, okay, listen, in your mind, there is a number. Each of us have a number. of how long I'm going to live. Like it or not, you've got a number, right? And that number comes from someplace. It comes from, you know, your parents, your grandparents, the Bible, society, what you heard on CNN or whatever. And you're tracking towards that number. I remember when I taught my nieces how to ride a bike, we were on a tennis court that didn't have a net. and there were two polls in the court, right? And they kept on hitting the polls. And I'm like, what's going on here? It's like, you, have to tie a tennis court.

You go around it. Yeah, yeah.

It's because that's where they were looking. That's where they were focusing. And so if you got a number that says, my dad made it to 80, 85, I hope I can make it there, or the oldest person in my family was 75, so I hope I can make it there. You're gonna hit that number. And so you need to let go of that and getting you number.

This is interesting because I haven't heard it this way. And the way you're saying it right now, and I think this is really something that people need to fully pay attention to what you're saying because you're reframing, creating a number in your mind so that you can see how I'm gonna extend it. Because if our father or grandfather died at a certain age, like you're saying, We're automatically or unconsciously saying, well, maybe I last a few years longer because I'm doing things a little differently. Maybe.

Medicine's maybe better.

Right, exactly. But you're saying we need to think of a new number.

You do. So we have to look at, what.

If it seems unrealistic? Tell my grandfather, my dad was 80-something or 85. You know what?

Let me provide context here. The average human lifespan for most of human existence for homo sapiens is 30.

Wow. Right?

So you and I'd be dead a while ago.

Right.

So to frame this, and again, I talk about this, I'm trying to provide the construct, mental construct, to change people's belief about what's possible for them, which is the number one thing to do, because if you believe it's different, you're then going to take these next steps, which make these things different for you. So, number one, 100,000, 200,000 years ago before birth control, right? You were pregnant at age 12 or 13.

Wow.

It just was the case. And we actually, puberty has moved later over these last few hundred thousand years. Number two, by the time you were 26, 27, 28, you were a grandparent.

Wow.

Amazing. and before food was abundant, before we had McDonald's and Whole Foods, it was scarce. And the worst thing you could do if you wanted to perpetuate your species was stay alive and steal food from your grandchildren's mouths. So you would die.

Wow. Right?

So this evolutionary context is important here. And if you look at the human body, we peak in functional biological age at around 27, and it's a slow decrease. What does that mean? It means our immune system begins to decrease in its power. We become immuno exhausted. Our muscle mass comes down. We have sarcopenia, right? So last year I went heads down to add 10 pounds of muscle mass, all right? And working out every day. making it now my job is I got what I wanted. Now it's to maintain it. And I think about that a lot.

Wow.

All right. And I measure it and we can talk about that. And you're doing amazing. I mean, how often do you work out?

It was four or five days a week. Yeah. But I'm also doing, you know, sauna for 20, 30 minutes, three, four times a week. I'm doing, you know, all the different things that I can do.

And you look amazing. And these are creating habits in your life. Okay, so. First context here evolutionarily is it's downhill after COVID-30. Your hormones, your testosterone, everything is dropping because there was never any reason to maintain it. You were dead. Second thing, so understanding that is important that you've got to say, I refuse to let that be the case and I'm going to do everything I can to change it. But you need some motivational hooks going forward. What's that? First of all, should realize that there are species of whales on Earth, the bowhead whale, that can live for 200 years.

That's crazy.

That's amazing, right? What do they track that?

I mean, I don't even know that they're 200 years old.

They have found, they've, how do they.

Know they're 200 years old?

I mean, it's- They have found whales with harpoons in them and been able to carbon date, come on.

Yes, that is fast.

Isn't that amazing? Yeah. And then Greenland sharks can live to 500 years old and have babies at 200 years old. That's not, yeah, it is crazy.

But we're humans, we're not whales.

We're not whales, we're not sharks. But the point I'm saying is that these large mammals, in case there are any, can live that long. There's a proof case. The second thing to realize is there are people who lived routinely in good neurocognitive and cardiovascular health and metabolic health till over 100. They're sharp, they're at work, they're capable, they're motivated.

You pull up still, all that stuff.

And why can they and why can't others? There's a reason. It's not random, right? And so we're beginning to discover that. We're beginning to discover what's the underlying metabolic, genetic, all of those things. and we now have the tools to edit those things and change them. I think that's the important, if we understand why something exists and then how to transform what you've been given to match that, we can begin to see an extension of healthspan.

What was your mindset like when you were in your 40s or mid 40s? When most people hit a midlife crisis, where were you mentally, emotionally around life and death.

I never thought about, I said, listen, I went to medical school. I was at MIT as an undergrad studying molecular biology. And then I went to Harvard for medical school to make my parents happy. I had promised them I would do this. But then my fourth year of medical school, I had two companies that I was running, a rocket company and a space university.

And.

I thought about longevity to some degree, but it was not my driver. And I was focused on space, and I was focused on opening the space frontier, and then I was focused on, through the X Prize and Singularity University, focused on solving grand challenges. And it was really the last decade that I'm like, oh my God, the biggest grand challenge is can we extend the healthy human lifespan, right? The new, you know, the greatest wealth is your health. I love the saying, the man or woman who has their health has a thousand dreams. The man or woman who does not has but one.

Yes.

And it's so true. And so I started saying, oh my God, I love impact. I love, you know, how can I change lives? How can I support and uplift? And helping people see this future and see what is possible for them, for me, is my goal. And in this book, did you ever fear death, though? Like, around- so I lost my fear of death doing DMT, dimethyltryptamine, right? Which is the active ingredients in ayahuasca. And I don't want to go down that journey too much.

How old were you?

This was seven, eight years ago.

Okay.

But it was a, it was, you know, it's a dissolution of the ego and a connection with the, with the universe of love and God at its most epic proportion. And it was extremely powerful for me. And I lost that fear of death. One of my motivations in longevity is my why. All right, and so coming back to this, it's like to get people to put in the work to live a longer, healthier life, you've got to have a reason for it. And when I work with my abundance 360 community, my fountain community, I'm like, okay, let's discuss this. If you had 10 healthy years, what would you do with it? If you had 20 healthy additional years, what would you do with it? When I ask people if you had 50 additional years, their mind breaks. He's like, you can make up stuff for 10 or 20 years, but 50 years, like, it becomes really hard for people to think that far out. I find that fascinating. But if you've got a why, and one of my whys was, I've been a space cadet since I was born in '61. Apollo lands on the moon in '69. Star Trek comes out in '67. All those things influenced my life. And it's like, we're on the verge of humanity becoming a multi-planetary species. We're just talking about the SpaceX launch, going to the moon on a recurring basis, we're going to go to Mars. It's amazing. It's like the KitKat candy store here is like, I want to see as much of that as I can. It's one of my whys is to be here alive, to see humanity become a multi-planetary species, to be part of that. I want to set up the first town on the moon. I want to mine asteroids. I mean, crazy, right? But at the end of the day, this is the future we have potential for. You can dream big if you've got those extra decades.

If you don't think that you had a positive mindset, you were pessimistic, and you didn't have a why for a greater future, how old do you think you'd be able to get to?

I don't know. I think I would sort of be tracking into my eighties.

Really?

Yeah.

Do you think you can extend 40 years based on positive mindset, a greater vision of the future? Oh, yeah.

And then doing the work.

Of course, of course. But without the mind, I feel like the mindset and the vision for why is actually everything first.

It is.

And it makes it easier to do the work because if you did all work and you were negative, it's gonna counteract itself.

You have to believe this is possible. One of the reasons I wrote this longevity guidebook was to give people an understanding that what's possible. And then you need to have the mindset of like, so for me, opening the space frontier, I have two 13-year-old boys. I had my kids when I was 50. And that's one of the, I think one of the great longevity therapeutics is having young kids. And I want to see them, you know, I want to meet their kids and their grandkids. And there's lots of other whys that I've created for myself. But it has to do with, I think this is the most extraordinary time ever to be alive. And I want to see as much of that as I can and live in that future. So, that why is important. You know, when it's 6 or 7 a.m. in the morning and it's comfy in bed and you're, you know, you're a little bit groggy and you would set yourself up to go to the gym. Do you work out in the morning? Yeah.

You know, it's hard to do it at night.

Yeah, it is. But, you know, the why of getting out of bed to go and work out. needs to be there.

Yes, right.

I mean, if you're 25 and you're dating, you know, your why might be procreation or landing a partner.

But it's fun, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Landing that partner. But then when you're at night, you're at a restaurant, you've got this basket of bread in front of you.

It's hard.

And this glass of wine brought out before any of your food lands. and you start chomping down on that and spiking your blood sugar, or at the end of dinner when this dessert comes and lays in front of you and it's sitting there staring at you saying, no, you need a why. You need a why and you need habits that are gonna serve you. And you know this, it's like, that is part of this.

I think this is interesting. This is, I think I've had a lot of these, a lot of the people in the back of your book, all the doctors, researchers, scientists on biohacking and health and longevity. I've had a lot of individuals on the show and heard a lot of information, but I think what a lot of them are missing that you talk about so brilliantly is kind of a basic thing, which is mindset around, like, a positive future. Yeah. Because most people just think, okay, what's the supplements? I know I need to sleep eight hours a night. And if I don't, you know, there's no coming back from sleep dead. You can't overcome it. And you're creating chronic illness and disease when you sleep. less than six hours a night consistently. If you're eating sugar, you're gonna be obese and it's inflammation, all these different things. And so I hear all that, right? I hear all that, how do you create the sleep sanctuary, you know, exercise, resistance training, no sugar environment, all these different things, you hear it all, which you have all this backed by science as well in the book. But I think what you talk about differently than most people is just a positive belief and Most people don't believe in themselves. They live in self-doubt on accomplishing anything in their life. How do I get this job? How do I earn more money? How do I get out of a toxic relationship? How do I find a partner who's good for me? They lack the self-worth that it's possible to accomplish a lot of things, let alone a belief that they can live to 100 or 120. It just seems so hard to comprehend mentally and emotionally. And what I think you're talking about that's different than everyone else is first you need the belief that it's possible. You need to see other case studies or scenarios of people living a certain way. And you need to have a why that's attached to beliefs. And I think the third thing is we need to believe that we are worthy of living that long. Because most people don't believe they're worthy of existing now. Wow. That's what I think is different about this. 'Cause a lot of people lack self-worth. And if we lack the self-worth, we do things to cause harm. The more harm compounds, the less life we live. Emotionally, spiritually, but also physically. And I think that's where a lot of this comes from. Of course, you've got half a billion dollar funds every two years to move humanity forward. So you're just so expansive in your thinking 'cause you've got to deploy this money to build a greater future and you've got to live into it in 60 years. Most people don't think that positively that they're worthy and deserving of existing now. They're depressed, anxious, overwhelmed, stressed, living in chaos, let alone how can I think beyond next week 'cause I can't survive today.

So one of the things I talk about in the mindset chapter here Right. And there's a chapter on mindset and the hormones of happiness is that our brains, we're all hearing about large language models and neural nets and AI all the time. Our brains are neural nets, right? We have 100 billion neurons, 100 trillion synaptic connections that shapes everything you do, CEP, here, all of that is upstairs in your in your, you know, three pound brain mass of, of, of jelly. And our minds and our mindset is being crafted and shaped every day. The way that, that Google and open AI and anthropic and xai, how these companies shape their large language models is by showing them data, data, data, and they're collecting. So if you want to train a neural net, how to recognize a cat, you show it photo of a cat after a cat after a cat, and it finally learns furry, pointy ears, whiskers, tail. But at the end of the day, if you show it a dog, it's never seen a dog before, it's gonna say it's a cat. So the question is, how are we training our neural nets? And we train our neural nets our mindset about what we believe is possible for us in the world, in our happiness, in our longevity, by virtue of who you hang out with, what you listen to, congratulations on listening to this podcast, what you read, what's on your walls. All of these things shape how you think. And so if you're watching, you know, the crisis news network, what I call CNN, every night where you're getting every murderer, every crooked politician, you know, into your living room hour after hour after hour and living color, because their, their business model is to deliver your eyeballs to their advertisers. We pay 10 times more attention to negative news than positive news.

Wow.

Right. It's just So we're being just inundated by negative news. And if you're old and you're hanging out with people who are dying and reading the obituaries, you're just compounding this. And you're like, I must not have much time left. My friends are dying.

We also create an immune system, your nervous system, be heightened levels of anxiety.

So you're fully sympathetic instead of parasympathetic.

Yes.

So these things are critically important and things that we can change. I mean, you know, I, I talk about a few of these things like in, in the, in the chapter on diet, right? A few simple things that I want to share that people can Implement right now. When you sit down at dinner tonight, take a few deep breaths just in and out. That puts you instantly into what's called a parasympathetic. It's a rest and digest nervous system. Before you eat, before you eat, it allows you to consume your nutrients a lot better. If you're eating in front of the television, watching evening news, you're screwed. You're in a fight or flight. you don't absorb the nutrients, they're empty calories. Next thing, even the order in which you eat your foods matters. So if you have a plate of food, eat your veggies first. Those veggies slow down your digestive tract. They are absorbing the best nutrients first. Eat your protein next. And then if you have room, At the end, you can eat your carbs. So that order is critically important.

Is that the sequence secret?

Yeah, the sequence secret.

And I think this is the interesting part that, you know, I want people to know this because there's kind of five parts of this. Please, go ahead. And this is, you talk about how to build your GLP-1 naturally. And you also say that this secret could actually boost postmeal GLP-1 levels by 38%. And that's kind of the Ozempic drug is known for having GLP-1 levels.

So, simple drugs are like, I mean, they're every place. They're the, the get rich quick scheme or the get skinny quick scheme. And people need to know it's not that simple, right? GLP-1 drugs, you lose, you do lose weight. You, you basically cut out your hunger, but a significant amount of the weight that you lose is muscle. And if there's one thing that correlates with longevity, it's your muscle mass.

Yes.

All right, so there's a very large study that the more muscle mass you have, the longer you're likely to live, and for a number of reasons that occur there. And so what happens is if you're on a GLP-1 drug, you're losing weight, you're losing fat and muscle. And then if you stop the drug, you'll put on 70% of the weight you lost. and most of that that you put on is fat and not muscle.

Oh man, so you're kind of a victim to the drug forever.

You're effectively addicted.

Wow.

And so if you're going to take the drug, the single most important thing that you should be thinking about is how do I use this to create better habits? I mean, there's some people who are morbidly obese.

They can't move well.

And yes, it's fantastic to help them. But the important thing is while you're in this situation, learn how to eat healthy. I think about everything I put into my mouth in the same way that I'm so careful about what I watch on the, I don't watch the news, first of all. I don't read the papers. I don't watch the news. I have Google searches that, and an AI that I set up for me and that bring in the stuff that's relevant to me. I don't need some editor working up my sympathetic system and telling me, I mean, pick up the newspaper tomorrow morning and count the number of negative stories and positive stories. I guarantee you it's 10 to 1 at least. And the same thing on the TV news. I mean, it's all negative news. And you have to ask yourself the question, is this all that's going on in the world? Or is that what they're reporting to me? and there's so much amazing things going on. You just don't hear about them. Good news networks do not succeed. And so you have to actively shape what you allow into your mind in the same way that you shape what you let into your body, what you eat.

And so there's a way to increase this GLP-1 naturally after you eat. And the first thing you talk about is a sequence secret, which is how you eat. fiber, protein, then carbs. That sequence first. And I think it's interesting you say that. I think we've lost the ability to sit down without the TV on. Most people have lost this ability to sit down without phone or TV consumption and actually take a deep breath. Growing up, my dad used to do a prayer before- Yes, exactly. We'd sit there and hold hands.

Yes, exactly.

And we'd actually connect with each other.

And do gratitude.

And do gratitude. And then, Now we eat. So even if you're rushing around, we sit and we take 30 seconds.

Calm your nervous system down.

Then we not just stuff it in really quick, which I've been, you know, tend to do a lot. So my fiance, Martha, is always, we put the food down and she will energetically pray over the food and say thank you so much and put good energy into the food through her hands, hovering over it. And it's just a moment, it may feel unnatural because you're like, I'm hungry, I want to eat this now. Yeah. That little habit change will add to the sequence secret of helping you boost that metabolism faster. Increase that GLP-1 faster with these little tweaks.

Chewing your food.

Yes.

You know, I mean, listen, I'm guilty as everybody when I'm like in the middle of, it's like, it's like, I gotta get this into my body as quickly as possible. But the answer is no. It's like when you do that, you're short changing the nutrients you're absorbing and you're doing yourself a massive disservice. Yeah. And so if you're gonna take the time to eat, and believe me, this is a, you have to get into a mantra mode where it's like, I'm gonna eat now. One other thing, you know, pause. I'm gonna pause. I'm gonna take some deep breaths. I'm gonna drink a full glass of water, you know, first. We all know this, right? Just to calm down my hunger pangs and I'm gonna enjoy every bite. and I'm gonna chew it, you know, a dozen times, 20 times, I'm gonna savor the food. And all of these things are basically activating your natural equivalent of ozempic in your body.

Yes. You talk about Yerba Mate magic. How powerful is Yerba Mate over like a coffee or some other... Well, I.

Think I've got a chart there, which...

It's page 37 for you.

Yeah.

Yeah. This is 200 milligrams of, I don't know how you say this, urumine.

Yes.

Tested against a placebo. So this is with urimare versus a placebo.

The elements here are, each of them make sense, right? The last one here, move your body, so regular exercise. We know this after One of the healthiest things you can do, especially as a family with your loved ones, with your kids, with your spouse, is after an evening meal, go take a walk. All of these things make a fundamental difference. You can actually see yourself lose kilograms just by the order which you eat your foods.

Really?

Yeah.

So you eat the same amount of calories. Yeah.

Because you're slowing down your eating. and because you're eating your fiber first and your protein next and not your carbs. So the challenge is when you eat empty carbs, white rice, right? For example, it's converted to glucose. It spikes or bread at the beginning of your meal. You know, you got this basket of bread, you're just munching and drinking wine. All of this turns into raising your blood glucose levels that then spikes your insulin. which then makes you hungry again to eat more. So if you think that the restaurant is like just doing you this favor of bringing you out to eat- Free bread.

Yeah, yeah, and bread.

No, they're manipulating you.

Wow.

They're just making you hungry to order more food. You know, it's, I hate to say that, but that's what's going on.

I mean, it's a smart business move, I guess, if you're a restaurant. I don't get more sales.

Give you a little, little heroin dose at the beginning to get you addicted.

Exactly. What is this lemon power? What does that mean?

So there is a, an extract called Aramin, and you have these, what's called L-cells in your, in your gut that are producing the GLP-1. And it is, it's basically stimulating your L-cells to, to produce the same drug normally. And instead of, instead of giving yourself a, an injection of the stuff. So, I mean, listen, these are all, at the end of the day, these are all small actions you can take. But it's, how do you make these things into habits?

That's what you need. Because if you have to think about it all the time, it's going to be exhausting.

If you're thinking about all the time, and I have a whole, I added a chapter in this book, the last chapter I wrote is on routines. and routines are basically a mechanism that gets rid of your ability to negotiate with yourself. I mean, I think of that.

How do you do that, though?

Small steps. Yeah, small steps. Don't try and do everything at once. I lay out in the book all the routines I built. I lay out in the book routines from other individuals as well. And you can Google a lot of amazing health experts and look at their routines, but. Give yourself the gift of deciding what you consider healthy for yourself and take it in small incremental steps. And if you do that, after a while, when I get out of bed, I set my alarm as a backup. I typically, this morning I woke up at 5:15, I'm up between 5:15 and 5:30. Because I go to sleep by 9:30 the night before. It's like, for me, everything begins by me, you know, turning down the lights at 9, going into a getting ready for sleep, putting on my blue light blocking glasses, slowing things down. I listen to a audible book on tape as sort of like, I say, being read a bedtime story as an adult.

It kind of puts you to sleep.

Well, yeah, it's like, I set a 15-minute timer.