43 - EP 43 w/ The Golden One: Self Improvement in Interesting Times, The Triumph of Broscience and Biohacking For Success

So dude, uh, welcome to the show again. Thanks for joining me. This is round 2 for us. I really appreciate your time. Uh, and how are you doing?

Yeah, no, it's my pleasure to be on. We had a really good conversation last time, so it's only reasonable to, uh, to follow up.

So yeah, I'm good.

I have a little loaded up, uh, last time I said I had sun maxed my balls, uh, didn't quite, didn't quite have the opportunity, but I have loaded up with, uh, with a forest walk and I've fruit maxed a bit. So in a smoothie, some blueberries, uh, some bananas, etc. So yeah, I'm, I'm ready to rock.

Awesome. Uh, do you have a particular morning routine?

Uh, usually I have my morning coffee So during the summer, I had a black coffee and of course some water, going out on the balcony, getting some morning sun, and yes, of course, sun maxing my balls. Yeah. It's— the balcony is built in such a way that from the street no one can see, so no one knows what I'm doing.

It's such a hack having a property that has like the perfect setup of walls or fences that no one actually can see in if you're nude. Like, it's such a game changer.

Yeah, it is, it is. Uh, and, uh, you know, yeah, I know you talked about this, uh, a lot of times. I mentioned it as well, but it's, uh, for anyone who might be new here, it might sound like a bit of a joke when you say like, oh, sun max your balls, but, uh, it is quite nice actually. It is nice. So, uh, yeah, it's more than nice.

It's like, um, let's break it down because I don't know if I've talked about it actually on the podcast, uh, in depth. But, um, what do you feel? Because I've posted about it. I've got a recent amount of, uh, a few new followers on Instagram, so I posted on that again, um, because that's a big audience that wouldn't have heard the kind of Sonja Ball spiel, you know. So, um, I wrote a little post about it, and I think, you know, it's really making its way into the public consciousness. Like, it's a well-known meme across most internet subcultures now, I would say.

Yeah, yeah, it is. And I think, yeah, it is good, it is good. It's, um, it's almost like the, the bro science is triumphing over science because especially now, so trash at the moment. Yeah, it is. So I mean, a few years ago, it was in 2015, I think I made a video saying the crusade against bro science where I wanted to be, you know, only evidence-based, uh, knowledge would be, would be on channel. But now, since so much of the science is so compromised by— yeah, I mean, I, I won't go into the whole COVID thing, but everyone knows that the, the science is very corrupt, uh, which then leaves us to explore a lot of these things that maybe they, maybe they don't have 100 scientific studies behind them, but if we have some some great men back in the day. I think you even mentioned Benjamin Franklin sunbathing naked. Yeah. And you have some study from Germany from 100 years ago or something. It's worth exploring because we don't know— there are so many health hacks, biohacks that we can do which do not have a whole wealth of scientific research. So it's really fun. It's exciting times to live. And to explore and to come up with this biohacks?

Yes, biohacking is probably like— you can call it a hobby because you research into it, you test out the things yourself. Like, it's such a rewarding thing to pursue, you know, and just slowly increase your knowledge of, you know, if I get an anxiety attack, um, or just feel anxious rather, because I don't think, you know, majority of people feel anxious perhaps, maybe don't have anxiety attacks, but If you're feeling anxious, you can go right to the breath. Just slow your breathing down and deepen your breath and do 10 mindful breaths. Like, less of a biohack and more of just like a, I guess, a principle that, you know, cultures have passed down. But that's such an easy— like, you don't need anti-anxiety medication, you just need to chill out and breathe and use the power of the breath and your awareness to kind of settle. Um, you know, that's a biohack you learn about. So you, you're putting together all these things and all this knowledge, which is interesting. Like, once you get the bug, you— and because I think it, it, uh, furthers the progress of your body and you have more energy or you just feel better, uh, so you kind of add it to your schedule regime. And that, as a hobby, something you can be spending time doing and learning new things, as we know, is the, the fountain of youth for your brain. So biohacking I love, and, and sunning your balls is one of those ones like It sounds a bit strange, but, you know, it's as simple as we know the sun is good for us to produce vitamin D, um, and it's locally produced in the cells that receive the sunlight, right? So if your balls have never been outside like they would in the natural world, you know, lions got their balls out in the sun all the time, you know. Yeah, you're getting that sunlight on cells that need it to operate their best and most efficiently on your balls, which are the centers of your kind of hormone production in the body. So it really is like, if you want to maximize your muscular potential, your energy, all of that, just give your balls the vitamin D they need to operate correctly. And it's simple as that. Doesn't have to be this esoteric thing, even though it's, you know, it has a very primal, um, energy that kind of flows through you when it happens. You know, it's those gut feeling things that feel good to do and make you feel a million bucks. That is bro science, but that is the most pure science because you're experimenting yourself and you have the study where it's your body. So, you know, it's going to be most relevant. Like if you take a study that did X things to some people, if they're not the same kind of bodily makeup as you or not as strong as you, then you can get a result that doesn't quite accurately portray reality of what you would experience if you had this, did the same thing. So the bro science, which is just colloquially showing, sharing these ideas and then the individual going in and being like, hey, I'm going to try this out, and getting deeper and deeper into that.

Yeah, definitely. And something to be said about sun maxing and sunscreen. I mean, if you think about it logically speaking, and this is something that struck me a while back as well, that, OK, skin cancer is rampant. But why didn't we have skin cancer 300 years ago? I mean, it's not natural to, evolutionarily speaking, cover yourself in— in some oil just to be out in the sun. And then, of course, when we look deeper into it, and then, yeah, big enough scandal during this summer when a lot of sunscreens got taken out from the market because they provoke skin cancer. I mean, many of these things, they are quite understandable if you just look at it from an evolutionary perspective or just a reasonable perspective. Same thing with— during the '80s, the war on fat, which was heavily funded by the sugar industry.

Yeah.

I mean, if we've eaten something for millennia in all cultures all over the world— you have Mongols eating in a certain way during the Middle Ages. There is some— I think— I don't quite recall the name of the book, but there is a book, and there's a passage where the author compares the Chinese versus the Mongols during the invasion of— Genghis Khan, and says that the Mongols, yeah, ate a lot of dairy, meat, whereas the Chinese ate gruel and porridge and stuff like that.

Not good.

And of course, if we look at— yeah, exactly, not good at all.

Not for warriors.

Yeah, exactly. The Mongols were powerhouses, big muscular strong bones. The Chinese were prone to disease. And of course, this goes well into— every other grandmother knowledge there is. I remember when I was small that my grandmother, when she prepared something for us, she always used a lot of butter and it almost shocked me because it was so much. But for her, in her wisdom, that wasn't— her wisdom wasn't corrupted by a lot of studies saying that fat is bad. So I think many of these things, as you post about as well, going back, being a bit more primal, it's and it makes us feel good. And if it makes us feel good, perhaps we don't need 100 studies saying why it's good.

Yeah, exactly. It's, it's intuition. And when you kind of can access your intuition and develop that connection with yourself, and whatever label you want to put on it, that connection between yourself and, you know, Source, God, um, the soul, where you get these intuitive thoughts that just come into your brain and you can learn to listen to them more rather than rejecting them and following whatever path, you know, acting on your gut. You know, what does your gut say? Boom, do that. Or why do you get a thought that's like, hey, you should say something to that person as you walk past them, right? That's this intuitive kind of magical, uh, sense of life that I've found to be true in my life. When you, you know, when, when you finally fix your health if you've been unhealthy or living in an unhealthy way, or even just the healthier you get, um, you develop this feeling when your body's fine, it's working good, um, you know, you're not blocked up, you're not tired, angry, or hurt or anything, you know, you seem to just develop an awareness of this connection more. And when you're more spiritually kind of pure and are able to meditate and things like that, you can develop this sense where, you know, you'll get random thoughts, but if you pursue them, uh, then that's where the magic happens, you know, the synchronicities and all that kind of things. Have you felt that in your life?

Uh, yeah, definitely. And this is also one of these things that, um, have appeared as of recent years, you know, the gut. Yeah, listening to your gut is, is such a massive thing. It's like having a second brain. Uh, yeah, you know, growing up, for all of us in the West today, uh, atheist societies and stuff like that. Only the brain matters and the gut is okay. You feel something bad in your gut, then the mainstream society would say like, oh, just repress this feeling because it's based on prejudice or whatever it might be. But then when you realize that gut is extremely intelligent and has developed, I mean, the gut feeling, it's developed to keep us safe over millennia. And once you start paying attention to the gut feeling, you will feel a lot better and you will avoid a lot of things. So if your gut tells you that something is off, if you go into social situation and you can feel in the air something is up, yeah, then it might be a good idea to take that warning sign seriously. And the same thing, of course, if you spend time with positive people who project a positive aura, yeah, it's good for you to spend time with those individuals. So the gut feeling is, yeah, absolutely massive. I trust my instincts very much now. Also brings us into one of these things that even I, up until a few years ago, I thought was bro science or pseudoscience. It's physionomy. And of course you can look on someone and say, okay, this individual, because of the way he lives, he looks very, very unhealthy and bad. And you know, just as if we're talking about self-improvement, one little victory, it yields another little victory, and then you go on an upwards positive spiral. Same thing, there is a downwards spiral. And a lot of these individuals who might look unwell, they are in that position because they are surrounded by negativity, negative thoughts, and when you view yourself in that light, in a negative light, you view the world in that sense as well, which then leads them to have, to be less good individuals. So yeah, you can actually be judgmental upon the appearance of other people. And this is especially important to point out if we're grown up in, you know, in Sweden's case, a socialist country with a strong emphasis on the equality of everyone, and then Hollywood culture where the the athletic jock is always the bad guy and the skinny nerd is the good guy. But in reality, it's the opposite because of how you view yourself. And usually that skinny nerd— I'm also a nerd, but I'm not a negative skinny nerd. But you have that sense of ressentiment, resentment, that views others as having, okay, this athletic jocks, they are so popular and successful because they have they have taken from me and I am in this bad position because not of my own making, because others have taken from me. And it is common to see that sort of also crab in a bucket mentality among those who haven't gotten that taste of self-improvement, for example, biohacking, where you understand that ultimately your own life is dependent upon your own choices.

Yep, exactly. And you know, it really comes down to— you want to look at it as a model, right? And the model can seem silly, but for everyone that's tried it, and whichever way that it works, your perspective on the world is what kind of world that you receive back. And you know, the ancient Hermetic principle, as within, so without, is talking about the mind. And if you, you know, if you think everything goes well for me, um, you know, everything's gonna work out, I love that person, I love other people, I'm happy for myself, but, you know, grateful for things, uh, happy for other people when they succeed, that breeds a kind of— whether it's like you want to think, oh, dopamine is better in your brain or whatever, having positive thoughts increases the positive things that happen in your life. And it's as simple as that. You know, the, the levels of electromagnetic frequencies that you're literally emitting, uh, in terms of your vibrational state within, other people can sense that. You know, like, what's the vibe of this guy? Everyone intuitively feels that through the kind of electromagnetic fields that we can't, you know, see with our eyes, but we sense with our heart. It's the, the electromagnetic frequency kind of epicenter of the body is the heart. So the kind of the gut feeling is, is more of a primal thing if you're in a dangerous situation, but listening to your heart is that intuitive kind of spiritual connection. Um, and when you open that up and kind of just try and do better by other people, that's how you improve your life. And you can never improve it blaming other people for anything ever, because it just gives away your power. Whether or not that, okay, maybe it was valid that this person did something bad to you and that's truly why you're in the position that you are. Even if that's happened, by giving it that label and making that the part of the story of your life that you tell yourself means you can never improve this situation because you're externalizing that which is, you know, you're literally imprisoning yourself in this fake reality because of your belief about a situation that happened. And that's incredible to me, that like people keep themselves in their own mental prisons until they realize what like forgiving and all those kinds of things do for your mind.

Yeah, definitely. And, uh, or two really good examples of this. First and foremost, we have the, the truly blackpilling sort of incel online culture where people discuss, uh, on certain forums and in certain groups about women And they convince each other about the fact that unless you are a wealthy, uh, Chad, you can never attain any, any success with women. And of course, if they tell themselves that, it will project out whenever they meet women. Yeah, because women are usually very good at picking up this type of signals, so they can spot from a mile away if a guy is confident or if he's insecure. And of course, if you are continuously living in that, as you say, prison, the prison that says that, okay, I need to be all of these unbelievable things to even have a chance with women, they will pick up on that. And the second example is about the state of Western civilization. And I know that if you look on Telegram groups or even videos, I've made this experiment myself, that if I have a video saying a brutal black pill it will reach maybe 50,000 views. But if I have a video saying a good white pill, it will reach 8,000 or something. And, uh, yeah, it's, uh, I made the experiment in, in 2019, then I made another video, a brutal black pill. So it was sort of like a clickbait video because I talked about porn. Uh, but it's quite interesting to see what people are drawn to. And of course, if you If you have a young guy continuously getting told that everything is hopeless, our civilization is doomed, and you will never find a good woman, and you will never attain any success because the odds are stacked against you, yeah, that becomes his reality, and it will impact how he views the world. And he views the world in a very sulky manner, and then people will see a loser, basically. Yeah. And the same thing, of course, again with women. They can either see a normal, happy, healthy guy with a sense of humor who views life in a life-affirming way, or they can see someone who is a bit downtrodden. And of course, they don't like it because it's not— evolutionarily speaking, it's not a good idea to be attracted to someone who has a defeatist attitude. So that's why I'm— yeah, I'm always warning people to not spend too much time in those type of environments. Of course, it is good to read up on what is going on. So we're not naive and living with our heads in the clouds.

Be aware, but don't let it, you know, color your worldview for the negative because there's no point.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, that's the aim of this media, right? A lot of the time, you know, some of the stories literally aren't real. They're written by AI bots. You know, I saw this last week and they can just use headlines. You know, AI is good enough now that it can kind of create a fake article that might support one position or the other, right? And then a headline is generated from that. It's sent to social media, and it'll be one of these things that we see on Twitter where you're like, oh, fuck that, that's so horrible, and, you know, retweet it. And, you know, it annoys you because, you know, it's a horrible thing, let's say, or something you would prefer, like a, like you said, a black pill kind of bit of info. Um, and it might not even be real, you know, and And like, that's the trouble with the AI kind of algorithms that are training us to be on Twitter. Like you said, more hits for the negative video of you means that negative stories that go against your beliefs or whatever is going to keep people— it's going to get more engagement and keep them on their phone more. So there's a real financial incentive for these companies, uh, that, you know, are tech companies, they can create headlines and feed them out in, in such a way that's going to keep you scrolling and scrolling and looking at more ads and everything. And it's a, it's a real, real issue to the point where you can't— you have to just shut off a lot of it, make the best decisions you can to help yourself, which is ultimately how we help the society. Like, this is what I mean. Being aware and upset about these things. Okay, if that's— if it's real, you look it up, it's real, and it's a genuine issue in your community. Are you doing something about it? Are you going to someone and your local representative maybe, or trying to help out the situation? No, you're just getting upset about it, uh, from a news headline. So there really is no point to do that. And if you're one of the rare people that is seeing these things and continuously acting to try and help whatever cause it is, then great. But that's not many of us, I would say. And all the power to those people that do, you know, the activists that really kind of truly are working against this stuff in the field. But that's not most people. So the doom scrolling and even letting any of the negative kind of news media in your head is them winning in a way.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And there's something I thought a lot about over the last years. And I don't know exactly when it was, in 2017 or '18 or something, I came to the conclusion that in making political content on YouTube, you can attract two types of people. One is the doomscrollers. They're only ever interested in when something bad happens, and they only want to get their confirmation bias saying that, "Oh, the world is so messed up. We can't do anything. Everything is lost." And then they have that rageaholic addiction that they only want— latest horrible news. And of course, they outnumber the productive people by, I don't know how many percent, maybe 9 to 1 or something, 10 to 1. And then you have the productive people who will be interested in actual solutions, who will work to create something. And of course, in this particular scenario, when we are in a culture war, yeah, it takes time and effort to create a counterculture. So it's not as easy to just say, yeah, everything is hopeless, let's not do anything. But if you portray, if you put out a positive message, those individuals will be drawn to you. And if you want to create something, that is the type of message you need to put out. Because if we want to enact any type of change, yeah, we can't do it while attracting these resentful losers, basically. So yeah, it can be a fine line between being honest about what's going on and the type of aesthetics you're promoting. And then, of course, for your own well-being, I scaled down on Twitter, for example. A few years ago, or maybe even one year ago, it was mostly only political content, but now I kept it to maybe 10% being political content and the latest news. And then it's, yeah, some self-improvement, some historical knowledge, some esoteric knowledge, whatever it might be. Because in my case, I mean, I, I know what's going on. Uh, I don't need to be reminded of the, yeah, the latest horrible news in Sweden or whatever.

Yeah.

So then it's more useful to, yeah, partake in content that lets me be more happy and productive because then I can portray a more attractive message in turn.

Yes, it's, it's interesting you say that because I think with, with content, you get the audience that the media is aimed at, right? So if you're always producing political content, you're going to get a political audience. Um, if you are always putting out nice self-improvement stuff, just, you know, there's enough doom bullshit on the internet, you know. And as we're both creators, we know that like if we can put out a little bit of information that helps people and, you know, helps them figure out something in their life, that's infinitely more rewarding than, um, you know, attracting maybe more viral views, but being political in this, you know, we don't want to be political. The only way we're kind of getting out of this is building a counterculture, like you said. And I think we're seeing that very much so, at least on social media with the kind of group that we have going of guys that are just like, want to improve themselves, want to help others, want to promote the message of living a healthier life. And not, not just guys either, as well. Like there's girls and just this online community that isn't the vapid, um, just kind of dopamine-frying bullshit that is a lot of social media. And I think that people are, as you said, uh, you know, the, the culture is growing and it's very cool to see because that ultimately is, uh, if we get more people living healthier, making better choices for themselves and not living in this negative world fueled of, uh, you know, AI and all of that, then that is gonna— that's the way out.

Yeah, definitely. And, uh, to, to turn back to our, um, uh, about, uh, science and, and the big pharma and stuff, uh, we don't have that much of a problem with it in Sweden because Sweden has always been quite a healthy population. But if we look on Maybe good old America or something where you have, you know, one of the great enemies of the people is just unhealth. And by living healthier, there are so many different things that will be combated just by doing that. Same thing with porn. I mean, it's a hard enemy to combat, but the only way to do it is not A lot of things can be done politically, but when it comes to the supply and demand, they will always meet, almost always meet each other. So the only thing you can really do to combat it is to remove the demand for it. And that is where the culture comes in, to say that, you know what, porn is bad for you, instead of just banning it from above. Because if it doesn't come from within someone, it will be really bad to get rid of. Same thing, of course, we're talking about on health and various sicknesses and diseases. If it can be combated from within by living better, yeah, that's a big target that's removed even before we have gotten into political power. So there's a lot of things to be done. And then, of course, if we're talking about the the various regimes. They want the population to be docile, submissive slaves addicted to all manner of things, addicted to dopamine, fast food, addicted to medication because they live so unhealthily, so they get—

Alcohol.

Alcohol as well, various drugs. So there is actually— it is a political action to a certain extent to promote self-improvement because If everyone gets into it, if all young guys and many young girls, they embrace that sort of lifestyle at an early age, there are so many problems that we won't have to deal with later on. And then of course, a happy and healthy, productive population who are concerned with their lives, with their well-being, they will be much harder to push around. Yeah. But if you have a population that is overweight, addicted to various big pharma things. Yeah, um, yeah, it will be easy to control. So the two, they go hand in hand to a large extent, I'd say.

100%. And I think what has been good about this whole situation is it's finally put into the global consciousness, the mainstream narrative, that Big Pharma is really just out to profit. And yeah, the kind of— these treatments that are going out, um, they don't work, they can make you sicker, they're made by companies that have had unscrupulous pasts. And really understanding how much money they're fucking making You know, it's billions and billions of dollars. And this has been happening for decades. Big Pharma, you know, killing doctors that said, hey, this cancer treatment doesn't work. You know, with cancer treatments, pharmaceutical companies want to fund treatments that make them money. It's an investment. So why would they actually try and find a cure for cancer? Because they cure someone of cancer, they can't make any money off them. And oh yeah, everyone's cured of cancer. Cool. No, they want treatments that are profitable, that claim to do something. But rather than looking at the root cause of, okay, why did this person develop a cancerous cell, usually from living in an unhealthy way, you know, cut off from nature, like animals in the wild don't get cancer. And we're seeing it rise more and more and more because people are just living unhealthy lives. And all of the things that we're told are bad are actually good. And what's healthy is, uh, really, really bad for you. And, you know, the global health is not increasing. It hasn't been increasing for a long time, and some countries are worse than others. But what it shows you is that the modern life is actually the wrong way to do it. You know, you need to be outside in the sun. Skin cancer rates are increasing, but people are spending less time outside and using more sunscreen. That's all you need to know. You know, it's, it's the blue light radiation from being indoors all day. It's not getting vitamin D from the sun and and not developing healthy skin from that, uh, which is causing the melanomas, not the sun itself, you know, unless you really burn yourself multiple, multiple times, and no one's doing that.

Yeah, definitely. Um, then also something to sort of like, uh, a thing you can't make— Big Pharma can't make money out of promoting fasting, but fasting, as anyone, uh, will say, it's, it's great for the health. But again, uh, if if they were serious about promoting health and combating disease and all of these different things, they would put in the school curriculum, yeah, do a 40-hour fast every month and your health will be better. But again, there isn't any money to be made out of it. Whereas a booster vaccine every year or antidepressant types.

The recurring income.

Yes, exactly. Subscription. Your health is dependent on a subscription from, from Big Pharma. And same thing with antidepressants. Instead of looking at, okay, you are depressed, here you go, here are some pills to take. Instead of just looking at, aha, okay, how much do you train? How much do you sleep? How much do you get out in the sun? How do you eat? All of these different factors. How much time do you spend with friends and family? And then someone might say, oh, you know, I work in a cubicle and then I go to work at 6 o'clock in the morning. I don't see the sun ever because I'm stuck in a box inside at some office for a company that doesn't care who I am. Then lockdowns, I can't see my family. Yeah, of course someone is going to be unhappy. It's not a mystery. And then so baffling to see that instead these doctors, instead of looking at lifestyle factors, they are just printing out a recipe for an antidepressant. Completely insane. And I mean, this is something we have in Sweden as well, that Um, many, many people are on antidepressants, and it could be— it could have been avoided, but, but alas, right?

It's— you say baffling, and it's, it's counterintuitive, but it's fairly understandable why it's happening because of the money being made. You know, the doctors are sponsored by these companies to say, hey, for every 20 people that you give these painkillers to, you'll get $10,000. Like, that's the reality of it. So yeah. The doctor profession, third leading cause of death in the United States, by the way, is mistakes by doctors. So do you really want to go see one? No. But, you know, it's really been corrupted. And whatever the, the profession started as, the Hippocratic Oath, do no harm, that doesn't exist anymore. And unless, you know, there's— I think there's also a resurgence because people know of trying to take your own health into your own hands because doctors a lot of the time don't have the answers. Or even very well-meaning general physicians that you go to and ask, hey man, I'm feeling like shit, you know, they spend 2 days of their entire curriculum about sleep, you know, in the general kind of medicine curriculum. That's not enough. And sleep, as we know, is one of the most important things for health to really dial in before anything else. So if someone's not sleeping right, there's no amount of anything external that you can do that's going to make you feel better. Uh, but you can sell a pill, uh, to fuck people's heads up more.

Yeah, definitely. Um, I would say also that, uh, something, something to keep in mind, uh, is that taking care of your health just to avoid the, um, the, uh, the health system— even in, uh, you know, up until recently Sweden was, uh, a good country in, in a lot of ways, but today Whatever you do, try to avoid getting any sort of contact with the Swedish healthcare system because it is so extremely bad. And when you get to that stage, I haven't been there myself in a long time, but you realize that the old saying, your health is your wealth, it really is because there isn't that much they can do for you ultimately. And they are often very incompetent. So you would be better off by just looking over the lifestyle factors so that you don't end up there later on. Yeah, some insights there. But to go back to the sleep, it's absolutely true. Some people might use caffeine to compensate for a bad sleep, but I can tell everyone, I mean, it doesn't work. You won't feel as good as you would I mean, you can of course be a bit more alert. And of course, if you have, if you need to stay awake for something, but something that doesn't require full attention, yeah, then it might be something. But okay, so this is a bit of a tangent, but I wanted to get into it anyway.

No, go ahead.

It's about, yeah, it's about when you train in the afternoon or in the evening and pre-workout products and coffee. Now, of course, if you want to optimize everything about your life, sleep is the number one priority, uh, to try to get 8 hours of sleep each night, um, more if you can of course, and try to get to bed in a reasonable hour so your circadian rhythm isn't all messed up. Now if you train late at night and you use a pre-workout, say if you train after work at 6 or 7 in the evening and you take a pre-workout, sure, it might benefit your training that session. But if it makes you sleep less, it will reduce your ability to build the actual muscle, and then you will feel sluggish the day after, and then you will depend on even more caffeine, uh, the day after. And even without drinking any caffeine, if you train late in the evening— I did this last year, I trained Brazilian jiu-jitsu quite late in the evening because that was the only time they had they had the session. So I had to do it that autumn. Now I haven't done it in a while, primarily because of how it affected my sleep because I had a hard time falling asleep before 12 in the night. Then of course I had to say to myself, okay, which is more important for me to be productive so I can run my companies, write my book, stuff like that, or is it more important for me to get my training in? So I said, okay, no, I will train in gym earlier in the day. Yeah. Um, so yeah, um, I just wanted to have that said.

Yeah, yeah. Well, people— I've gotten a few messages about this recently, um, with people that can't sleep at night, and a lot of the time it's because they're training in the evening. And whether or not you have caffeine, um, as well, just the fact that it's amping you up and getting your heart rate— and if you're training martial arts, you know, it's a very aroused state. And you, you want to be relaxed and calmed down the later your evening goes in order to promote the best quality sleep, because you might be spending 8 hours in bed, but if it's not quality, it's not helping. And like you said, if you're— if you've been training, then even if you fall asleep, it's not optimal because your cortisol spikes, your heart rate might be, uh, higher as well. Uh, so The other thing is the window of sleep that you're getting has got to be at a reasonable hour. The same amount of sleep that starts at 12 or, you know, even 10 or 11, uh, that same amount of sleep but shifted forward so you're going to bed at about 9 is a better quality sleep. Same amount of time you're sleeping. So, you know, people say, I don't have time to sleep. That's such bullshit. But yeah, you know, just either make the priority and cut some other bullshit out. Don't watch an hour TV show or whatever, but just make it a priority to get to bed on a regular basis at the same time. And you won't need caffeine, um, you won't need a pre-workout in the afternoon because you're just on. You just have the energy there, uh, and yes, it will dip off later on the day, but there's not this like aching tiredness that I remember from the times where I used to let sleep kind of be a lower priority for me if I was going out or studying too, too late at night or whatever it was. You think you get away with it, but that feeling of like been hit by a truck as you get up after like 4 hours sleep, for instance, you know, that all goes away. And I think as you get older, you mature, and maybe you're taking on more responsibilities like work or with a business, you're gonna— you can't perform without getting good sleep. And it's probably one of the biggest problems in the world today, for at least the Western audience.

Yeah, definitely. And I would say that— I don't know if the meme is still going around, but you perhaps, perhaps many, many of you have seen the like, oh, Tim, no sleep, and I'll sleep when I'm dead.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wake up. Yeah, hustle, hustle, grind. Wake up after 4 hours of sleep. I don't have the time. I mean, that's not true in the list. For me, this is my— Yeah, it is cope. This is my perspective. I need to have my mind as sharp as possible to be as productive as possible. So I'd rather have 1, 2, 3 hours of super productivity when I've optimized every single thing, including my sleep, of course, than to have a grind day for 10 hours where I work at at 80% of my brain's capacity. So it's a bit similar to having a heavy deadlift session. You do it in, I don't know, maybe 20 minutes, you have all your sets done, but the 24 hours before those sets, it's all about preparing. You need to eat well, you need to sleep well, you need to hit that, you know, you need to be amped up before the gym, you come in, you need to warm up properly, you need to find the correct energy. Yeah, so I mean, yeah, the, the actual work is 20 minutes lifting, but the preparation is all that matters. Same thing if we're talking about being productive. I'm currently rewriting Dauntless now, and if I have slept suboptimally, which can happen every once in a while, perhaps it's full moon or perhaps something else happens, uh, yeah, then, then I can't write because then it's not up to the quality I know I can have if I've optimized everything. So for me to produce the best possible content in everything I do, to make the best decisions in everything I do. If I haven't slept enough, I'm just postponing it to another day. Yeah. So for me, sleep, it determines basically everything I do. And as I said, yes, of course you can compensate to a certain extent with caffeine, but you won't have the same level of focus as you would have from a good night's sleep.

Yeah. And, and going back to what we were saying before about, you what we can do almost politically or for our community. If you need the motivation to start sleeping properly, think about this: every time you sleep badly, you are reducing the total potential of your life and of your success. And ultimately, the more successful that we as individuals can be in promoting our health or acting in our community or producing content or, yes, making money as well, um, all of that is better when your sleep's optimized. So if you want to have a responsibility to improve the life of yourself so that you can improve the life of your community around you and the country at whole, then that needs to be a responsibility, that needs to be your motivation. And it, you know, that's the little bit that you can do in the— in this situation where these political movements are happening against us and reducing our freedom. So Maybe we're not, you know, we can't go to war physically with these people, but we can promote a lifestyle in ourselves that puts us in the best position to help others around you and be strong and be influential and powerful. Because you can't do shit if you have no money. You can't support causes that are going to end up being your kind of ticket out of this situation if you are unsuccessful of yourself. And that all starts from getting a good night's sleep so that you're prepared for the day, so you can react, so that you can, you know, be aware of what's going on around you rather than this like walking zombie. Going back to why we are weak as a nation is because people aren't getting sleep and people aren't, you know, they're watching blue light before bed. So even if you're getting to bed at a reasonable time and even if you're sleeping for enough hours, because if you've been staring at your phone, computer, or TV right before bed, that's going to influence, you know, the level of your quality of your sleep as well. So it's, it's all connected. And that's what's so— that's what's so beautiful about it all is because it all flows into each other. And yes, it seems like this big system, but ultimately everything is still under your control. It's just about the choices that you make. Each day.

Yeah, definitely. And I thought to elaborate on something you said there as well. There is a, um, in certain, certain communities, I suppose, uh, of dissidents, there is that sort of negative crab in a bucket mentality that views making money as something bad or immoral. But yeah, there is absolutely nothing you can do without money. Uh, an individual without money is a weak individual because he will always be dependent upon someone else. And as the old saying goes, money isn't everything, but if you don't have it, it is. And it's very true. Same thing, our enemies, they have a lot of money, to say the least, which means that they can do a lot of things. Just taking such an example as Big Pharma, yeah, they can literally get doctors to do their will by paying them a lot And of course, if you have— it's almost like having muscles and strength in a fight. It's not everything, but it's a huge— it makes a huge difference. And if we're up against a— if we want to save our civilization from going under, yeah, we need to come in ready to fight in the best possible way. And that is being done by being the best versions of ourselves and having a lot of money. Yeah, simply put. So whenever I see this type of anti-money takes from various, probably insincere people. I view it either as someone who is only bitter and resentful and doesn't aspire to do any good, to save our nations or whatever, or it's an enemy who wants us to be weak. It's like me saying, if I want to fight someone and I say, you know what, you shouldn't train because it's bad. Of course I would say that. And of course our enemies would say that it's good. For us to be, to be weak and, um, and poor and, uh, alone. So yeah, yeah.

And that's what a lot of the demoralizing AI headlines is aimed to do. It is literally people's jobs to sit on the internet and for whoever and advance the ideas and interests of whoever is employing them. So that can be companies where they'll try and organically make social media comments like, oh, I guess this is the best company for this, blah blah blah. Avatar, but it looks like some random avatar, just a person, or commenting on things that are detrimental to their interests and being like, oh, this is bullshit, or conspiracy theory, or, you know, these kinds of things. To the point where, like, there's the organic grassroots, uh, community that I think the media tries to suppress how many people actually think that way. Through these, you know, bot armies in a way, because of the vast majority of internet users are just passive viewers. Now, if you can flood that piece of content into the situation where it makes more people— it makes it look like more people think that than is actually the case in reality. So again, you have your perspective colored by the, these fake things which are intended to demoralize you, like you said, make you weaker. Uh, and you know, that's, that's part of the other thing about just the importance of unplugging, uh, to a large degree. And a side note with your— the people that are negatively doomscrolling are going to be spending more time on the computer because the positive people that want to change their lives, they're going to be off the computer more, right? Because they're, you know, training in the gym or doing other positive things. The people that are on YouTube all day, that's already self-selecting from a very negative group of people. So if you allow that to color your worldview and influence your behavior, that is, that is the warfare that's going on now between countries is, you know, whether it's organizing a political rally between two people or two opposing factions and on the same day you know, we saw that happen politically in the US, or it's simply literal FBI agents or a similar agency of a country being, you know, waging intellectual online warfare.

Yeah, yeah, I, I saw there was a story in, um, uh, in, in the United States about the The FBI also, they had some sort of really radical group they had set up with, you know, and the point of it was to get disgruntled youth, which I mean, I understand many are angry what's going on, but the powers to be, and this is a heads up, I give this heads up as many times as possible because I know a lot of young guys, they need to hear it. If you get approached by someone who is promoting a really violent rhetoric, be on guard because they usually might be feds trying to get you to say something that will incriminate you. And also to keep in mind is that the powers that be, they aren't afraid in the least of some youth going on a violent spree. They will only ever use that as an opportunity to silence dissidents. What they are afraid of, however, is a mass political movement of, say, say in America, if all truckers in the entire country during the election had said like, okay, we don't believe this election was being done in a fair manner. Now no trucks will go for 72 hours. Yeah, that is something the powers that be are deathly afraid of. So if someone says, oh, you know, the solution is we need to do something violent, they are probably feds who want to rile you up into getting you to incriminate yourself. They are afraid of a lot of things, and that is again such a thing as all truckers deciding to go on a strike because they believe their votes got tampered with. So that's something to keep in mind for the younger audience. Be cautious when someone is promoting that type of really radical rhetoric.

For sure. And ultimately, it's a battle of ideas that's going to get us out of it. So things like that, You know, I, I want to also just make a note that when I'm saying like the only political solution is improving yourself, that's not necessarily true because I encourage people to get locally involved more so. You know, there is a real difference you can make there, uh, and you know, the people that are making the decisions, they had to run, right? So if no one from our side is running, then of course it's just going to end up with idiots in charge. It's, it's as simple as that. And like, yes, the political system is busted, but I, I think there is still a space for that. And I don't really know in what capacity, but I don't want to discourage people from making moves at a local level or whatever capacity you want to make, because ultimately you do have to take back the political leader power if you want to have a productive society and make the best decisions for community, as we are not seeing right now.

Yeah, definitely. I agree completely. This is something I see. There is a popular meme saying that the solution isn't political, but it is political to a very large extent. And politics, it's so much broader than what some might think. It's not only about an election every 4 years. It's about, as you say, getting into a local level because a lot of decisions are being taken at a local level. Sure, it might not be as glamorous as following the American presidential election or the election in France or whatever it might be, but a lot of power lies within those local institutions. So now, for example, in Sweden, we have an election to church, a church election, and I encourage all Swedes to go and vote for Alternative for Sweden. Will it make a world of a difference? No, but it will make a small difference. And we need to be ready to come into fight, every type of fight, whether it be in church politics or in electoral politics or in spreading a message of the importance of sleep and fasting, or it might be against porn, or it might be whatever it is. We need to be able to take the fight on as many levels as possible, including something that's might not seem as important as a church election, but it counts. Everything counts. And I would also encourage everyone to— yeah, we need to take back every institution. We need to take the fight in the school system because now we have, especially in Sweden, many teachers are left-wing radicals. So I would hope many guys who are a bit more reasonable can come into the school system, become teachers so they can teach the coming generations better values, simply There's really nothing more impactful in a lot of people's lives than a good teacher.

And yeah, you know, you have memories of yourself. Like when I was at high school, there's the teacher that just really engaged with you and really treated you like a human— or sorry, like an adult— and would inspire you to learn things. That is one of the most amazing skills. And if you can do that and promote healthy values along with it and hard work and all the rest of of it that so many people are going to the public schools. And it's probably why we're in the mess that we're in now, is the educational system that most kids go through is fundamentally broken and taken over by Marxists and, uh, just isn't— especially college, but most public schools as well. Critical race theory and, and all that nonsense that's just intended to dumb down the population and get them to think something that's you know, objectively not the best thing, uh, for people to believe in a well-functioning society. Like, that is really— if the more people that are educated properly, the more educated people can be in making their decisions. And the decisions they make, being what business they want to support, food, um, how they treat other people, that all stems from the programming that you get as a kid. And if the majority of kids are going through schools and their parents are disinterested and, and just want to give them off to a kind of childcare in a way, then you're just going to end up with a population that doesn't know what's happening to them, uh, believes things that aren't necessarily true, and hate their own country as well.

Yeah, definitely. And, uh, also this critical race theory, the, the powers that be, uh, If we're talking about, yeah, again, Big Pharma or the banking, the central banking system, or whatever quote-unquote elites we're talking about, they have a great interest in focusing everything on race and the specter of racism. Because if all people, if all the population, they focus on, okay, now a Black man got detained by the police in the United States that's the big news. Okay, that lets a lot of other things fly under the radar, such as scandals in the big pharma or the Epstein story, uh, blackmailing honeypots. I mean, those type of scandals can fly under the radar if everyone is so concerned with, uh, racism in America. And there was a case in Sweden as well that first we had the corona hysteria, then George Floyd died, and there was massive demonstration in Sweden, of all places, to say, oh, white supremacy is so bad. And of course, the Wall Street individuals, when they a few years ago, they got demonstrated by Occupy Wall Street, they are only all too happy to support any narrative that can distract from what they might be doing. Same thing with all other corrupt institutions and whatnot. So yeah, focusing on race, it's a good way for them to hide their own misdoings. And of course, same thing with a lot of big companies. They virtue signal about, okay, maybe a sports company, they support a transgender athlete. They do it so they can score good points, so they can hide what they're actually doing with slave labor, et cetera. So the more someone virtue signals about progressive and woke agenda, the more skeletons they might have to hide.

True, that's, that's a good way to look at it. It's, uh, it kind of shifted, right? But people don't realize what the kind of the background of it was, was the Occupy Wall Street movement, um, tax the rich, you know, 1% kind of messaging. When enough people, you know, that was the media narrative for a while but they realized that they actually had whipped people up into a frenzy to be angry at the biggest businesses, which is them, which is who owns the media companies. So they're like, fuck, yeah, let's— that didn't work out, uh, let's switch to racism. Boom. And you can actually go look at the analytics on Google of search terms or news terms, uh, at a particular point in time. And as Occupy Wall Street kind of fell in its enthusiasm, which was fired up by the media, racism articles started coming out. And, you know, racist this, racist that. You can see the uptick in news articles that have been written. And the more that happens, the more media focuses on it. You know, all these protests and things, that becomes the spotlight to kind of focus on, like you said. So all these other issues go under the rug. But what it also does is it It's the races against each other. And what's better to the ruling class than people arguing amongst themselves, angry at each other, not realizing that the governmental issues and decisions or the big companies are the ones actually, you know, creating the negative circumstances you might find yourself in? So when you can make people argue amongst themselves— it used to be class, now it's race— then you have a distracted population, and that can be again profited off of much better than an aware one.

Yeah, definitely, definitely.

So let's, let's change tact a little bit here. Um, someone asked me to ask you about romance and how to develop it. You've obviously got your lovely wife, uh, Julia. If any female listeners, uh, on Instagram, @juliaswellnesstips. Great profile, uh, if you wanted to kind of the feminine kind of view of everything. But what are your views on romance and how would you develop it someone like a young guy who hasn't necessarily had a long-term relationship or been romantic?

Uh, yeah, first and foremost, thank you for the, the mention there. Yeah, she puts out good content, uh, primarily for females, but yeah, of course it's general health advice, so guys can, can partake as well. Um, first, what I would say to guys is connected to what we talked about earlier about your view of yourself. That is what you need to start always in, in basically everything you do. You need to look yourself in the mirror and become comfortable with who you are because All women, they are very good at picking up. Although there is a thing to be said about contraceptive pills, that they might mess up the ability.

Yes, stop taking the pill.

Yeah, exactly. It needs to be— that actually needs to be banned outright, I would say. And for a woman, it will impact the way your natural attraction works. But for a guy anyway, the first thing you need to do is to be comfortable with yourself. And then someone might say, oh, but you know, it's easy for you to say perhaps, because you are this and that, but it's all in your head. The way you view the world, the world will view you. So look yourself in the mirror, become comfortable. If you aren't comfortable, then sort out what you need to do to be comfortable. So when you have a level of confidence that you can carry around with you, then is the time to look for females. If you do it before you're totally comfortable with yourself, you might get burned. You might say, oh, I have I have tried to talk to 5 different girls in 5 months' time and no one has been eager to— they haven't reciprocated my attention. They don't want to talk to me, they don't want to give me my number or whatever. Then you might say to yourself, "Aha, these women, they are hopeless and nothing— I will never go anywhere with these women." Now, if you wait a bit until you are perfectly comfortable with yourself, when you go out with life, with a good posture, you radiate good vibes, you will notice that women will pick up on that. And that will reinforce your sense of value. So you have one good encounter with a female. It doesn't need to be anything overly complicated. It can just be a short conversation, maybe a bit of flirting or whatever, but something quite innocent. Your mind will take that as a victory. And the next time you will meet a female, you will be even more confident, charismatic, likable. You will portray good vibes. She will pick up on that. And then the third time you meet someone, you will be even more confident. And that's all of those small victories. They will add up. And then you might stumble upon a girl and she will instantly be attracted to you because you have, you have such a good view of yourself already. So, so that is the absolute the first step, I would say, to build yourself up before. So it's almost similar to, as I mentioned about the deadlift, you know, you prepare for 24 hours, you get in a lot of food, you get in a lot of sleep, then you can do it. Same thing with women. So if you are a young guy who you might be new to self-improvement and the spiritual aspect of things, Don't be so hasty with putting girls first. Put yourself first, and then when you have gotten to the stage where you are ready, when you have loaded up with your own development, then it might be the time to start small, talk a bit with some girl here, talk some more with some other one, and then the universe will deliver someone onto you. Hopefully that's the case. And then of course something you talk a lot about, semen retention. It's something that you need to do it, you need to do it definitely, because if you continuously watch porn and you bust your balls, it will drain your male vitality. And that's also something that people will pick up on. You don't have the same glow, you don't have the same— you don't radiate power the same way if you're constantly— yeah, yeah. So, um, yeah, that was, uh, yeah, thick.

So that's, uh, getting a girl. How about keeping a girl or being romantic in a relationship? And maybe I'll speak about the, the semen retention thing because a lot of people— so porn, no porn, obviously we're past that. We don't need to say porn's bad, everyone gets that now. Um, that's the worst case scenario, is you're watching porn and also masturbating and busting your load all the time. That's a bad situation to be in. But if you're within a relationship, even if you're having sex with a girl and busting every single time, and let's say you, you live with your girlfriend, so that's 5, 6 nights a week, that's a lot, you know. If, if you're ejaculating each time you really are throwing away a lot of your central sexual energy that can be utilized for other things. You know, sexual energy is creative energy. So if you are constantly depleting yourself, even if it's with your girlfriend and you both have a great time doing it, it is still quote-unquote negative. You know, I don't want to say that's a negative, but your capacity to be the most powerful version of yourself, be the most creative version of yourself, be on top of business, have the energy as Well, you need less sleep when you're properly retaining your semen for long periods, longer periods of time. It doesn't have to be ridiculous amount, um, although I do find the longer you do it, the kind of more power and the more benefits you get. But once a week, you know, that, that's a good aim for people that are regularly, uh, having sex, is once a week, um, I'm gonna come, or whatever. The rest of the time you're saving that particular concentration of energy for yourself and your creative endeavors. But then what you'll find is your love for your partner grows exponentially as well. And it's not just a sexual love, it's a— this, this real appreciation, uh, and connection on a deeper level. And it also makes your sex better as well, for the same kind of reasons. You feel a lot closer to your partner, more desire for your partner, and you just are able to connect to that energy, uh, a, a larger amount. And that is what makes a relationship and romance so beautiful and more accessible, I find.

Yeah, definitely, very good point. Uh, that's also something I might point out, that having, having sex maybe every day, it can turn it into a predictable thing. And predictability, especially for women, can be, you know, it loses the excitement of it. So even if you are in a long-term relationship, you might even be married, I would, anyway, I would suggest having sex less, but whenever you do it, it becomes a more intense experience because of course if you are abstaining a bit, the pleasure of it will be much higher. And I mean, it's the same thing as eating. If you're hungry, it will taste better if you're hungry. And if you haven't, if you aren't doing it every day, If you're doing it every day, it almost becomes like a physiological need instead of something, a real high point, a real ecstasy. So I view it at least in this way that the sex is a really good experience, a true pleasure of life. Make the most out of it. And by making the most out of it, it's not to have it on a routine basis every day, but it's about having it every once in a while, um, and making it into something really special. Uh, and then of course also some advice for all guys that sex is a gift to your woman. It's not the other way around. It's something you give to her, and if she can long for it a bit, her pleasure will be, uh, bigger as well. But if she— if it comes to that, that she feels that she has to have sex with you. Yeah, it's not good in the list. So view it in the sense that have it every once in a while, uh, and view it as your gift to her and not the other way around.

Yeah, and I think even with having sex a lot, as long as you're not busting every time, then the routineness almost doesn't matter because you're ascending to higher levels of energy and pleasure and connectedness each time because it's it's, you know, theoretically still retaining, you're going longer without that, uh, physical ejaculation. Um, so it becomes more of a magical thing each and every time. So that's really fun as a couple to kind of go into with each other and explore. So yeah, all good stuff on that. Um, I think that'll do us, man. We've been going a while.

All right, yeah, time flies. It's well over an hour, but yeah, good energy, good vibes.

Good vibes, always good vibes, my man. Thank you so much. The Golden One, did you want to just speak about what you're doing, what's coming up for you in the coming weeks?

Yeah, sure. First and foremost, I'd like to offer my heartfelt thank you to you, my dear Sol Brah, for giving me a shout out on Instagram. I was banned earlier in the year. At 32K. Now I'm back up to 10K, so that feels good. It's— We'll be back. Yeah, it's good to be back. And the amount of support I got, really heartfelt, put me in a really good mood. It was sort of like a momentum that got triggered, so I feel really good ever since then. So yeah, but otherwise, the main priority now is I'm rewriting Dauntless. When I released it in 2019, it was just after my daughter was born and I had a lot of things to do, all good things, all good and productive things, but I didn't quite have the time to do justice to the book. So now I have over the summer, I have restructured it. I'm adding quite a bit of text, clarifying stuff, improving the grammar, the layout of it. So it will be a new book. So that is what I'm fully focusing on now. So I'm sleep maxing, I'm health maxing, I'm productivity maxing and vibes maxing to optimize everything for the book. So yeah, that's what I'm doing now.

Cool, man. Is it going to be Dauntless 2 or just Dauntless revised? What are you calling it?

No, just Dauntless. And it might have a different cover or something like that, but otherwise it's just Dauntless.

Amazing. Well, I'm looking forward to reading it. I have the first one, of course, and I'll keep a lookout for that.

Yeah, sure. I'll send you down a signed copy. It would be my pleasure.

Amazing. Looking forward to it. All right, brother, thank you so much for joining me on the Solcast, and I'm sure I'll speak to you again.

All right. Thanks for having me. Good to talk to you, as always.

See ya.

See ya.