192 Jason Prall: The Human Longevity Project (How To Live To 100)

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's all in the film. Most of this is actually covered in the first two episodes because we need to set the stage. And, and you have to understand this, in my opinion, to understand how exercise affects health and longevity. You have to understand this in order, in order to understand how diet, you know, is, is linked. So, but here's, here's the big, I'm gonna give away the whole over here, the big takeaway. We can't be healthy unless our outer environment is healthy. In other words, let's get out of this egocentric viewpoint of longevity and health and take care of the inner ecosystem and outer ecosystem.

That's Jason Prall and this is episode 192 of Wellness Force Radio. What's up, my friend? It's your host, Josh Trent. And welcome back to another episode for your weekly access to global experts in all things wellness. As we discover the physical and emotional intelligence we need to live life well. In this episode we're bringing you a deep dive into the secrets that connect blue zones across the world. These are the places where there's more people that live over 100 more centenarians than anywhere else on the planet. My wellness brother from our collective mother, Jason Parol, joins me live sitting Indian style at my Chinese table at my house live in Encinitas for this compelling conversation. Truly a jam packed in info and inspiring dialogue between Jason and I about his upcoming nine hour documentary film series, the Human Longevity project. Filmed over two years in 50 plus locations, nine countries, three continents, this film, which we're talking about robustly in this conversation, uncovers the key lifestyle and environmental and physiological components to avoid chronic disease across the world, increase health span and put the brakes on our aging in this modern world. I'm reminded how easy it is as a building block for health for all of us to breathe. We've had so many emails coming in about, about the rythmia journey, specifically episode 187 with Christian Minson. Bookmark that podcast 187 if you haven't downloaded it yet. Right after this conversation with Jason, go back. Listen to the Power of Breathing with Christian Minson. Because we can't do anything without our breath. That's why. This is your breath break. This is your moment. Maybe it's the first moment all day that you've been reminded to take a belly breath. Let's do a box breath right now. 5, 5, 5, 5. Inhale, pause, exhale, pause. You know it's always there for you, just like your decision making capabilities when it comes to getting in your superfoods on the go. This is why Wellness Force partnered with Organifi and why my double dose every day of the Organifi red juice happens especially in my late afternoons when the second cup of coffee is the muse that's enticing me. But we know it's not really serving us at our deepest energy and our deepest core. So today do the best thing for you. Head over to organifyshop.com wellnessforce. Make it easy on yourself to take in your Reishi mushroom, your cordyceps and nine other superfoods in one organic vegan slow dried powder today. Don't wait any longer. Practice self care and self love and save some money in the process because you're part of this WellnessForce family, our community. You get 20% off your entire order, not just one but your entire cart by entering code WellnessForce over@organifishop.com WellnessForce and get 20% off today. And today we're all being attacked. Let's be honest, this world, especially America, it's not set up for our physical and emotional wellness. Which is why we're learning from Jason Prall today about our physical and emotional intelligence in his journeys for one of the most powerful documentaries I've ever had the pleasure of supporting. You can access the entire documentary series for human longevity for free by going to wellnessforce.com longevity. Make sure you sign up for the delivery to your inbox and you can get delivered these episodes one by one. Jason is. He's one of my most connected and trusting friends. Really love this man. He's an influencer in our health and wellness world, but he's also one of those guys that has no room for bullshit in his approach to longevity, love and wellness. He talks about this in depth in the show today where he uncovers the real truth behind the connected threads of diet, nutrition, exercise, movement, DNA and epigenetics and essentially how purpose can affect our cells circadian biology, health effects of connection and community and our microbiota, why our ancestors had fantastically diverse gut bacteria and how our lifestyle is actually affecting dysbiosis in our gut. My friend, this is one big episode. Get ready, strap in. Carve out some time for one of my favorite conversations for 2018. Who with a man I believe will be a legendary health and wellness filmmaker in the years to come. The one and only Mr. Jason Prall. Dude, as long as I've known you, I've always been fascinated about how you stay so incredibly curious. Like Brene Brown talks about curiosity as being like a lifeblood for us. If we stop being curious, then we actually die. Like a part of us dies. And I've always felt that from you.

I think that's what got. Got me out of my old job. Right.

What was the old job?

The engineering.

That's right.

Boring. I know, I know. No, I could not, I could not experience curiosity the way I wanted to. Right. Because not only from the 9 to 5 aspect of things, because I couldn't vacation, I couldn't travel, right. I had, I got two weeks off, right. And all these things. So that whole. It was so limiting. So it really did not resonate with me at all. And so I think part of the reason that I had to leave the sort of 9 to 5 standard desktop desk jockey job was to be able to tap into that more, you know.

I'm so happy you're here, man. I've been looking forward to recording a podcast with you. We've been talking about this for like eight months. You and I have had two hour long conversations, whether it's at like Healthy Creations Cafe or like at Whole Foods or something. And they've always been so radically truthful that I'm like, why can't we record this? So that's why you and I are sitting here today.

Yeah, it's cool. I mean, and especially with all the things that you've done recently, opening, opening yourself up and exploring in I think, the most brave ways. I mean, this is. People aren't sure what to make of plant medicines and, and these type of spiritual kind of weird experiences. Right?

It's a good way to say it. Weird.

They're weird. They're weird as hell. Right? I mean, just take a plant and like all these things happen. They are pretty weird, you know, but. But people aren't sure what to make of them. And I think there's a lot of reason, right? I mean, there, there is some danger, right? I'll say that there's probably some physical danger that's documented. There's. There's mental and emotional danger, right. Which I think is even more scary. And I think you probably would agree with that.

It feels more hardcore than physical.

Yeah. Like this, the physical becomes easy when you're facing the emotional danger like that. It's, it's. It can be scary, right? So, so I think to me, that's the, that's the ultimate bravery is, is, is facing that, that inner demon, that, that ego in, in the most profound of ways and have, have literally no control. I mean, that's like the kind of the definition of facing that ego is to let go of that control.

Yeah.

And that's scary stuff, man.

So I'm. I'm gonna stay with my curiosity pulse here. Like, what actually pulled you from this desk job? Like, I look at you now and I see what you and Mike and Joe are creating with this longevity film.

John. Don't forget about John.

And John who. I think I met him in your.

Car that morning, Right.

I see you now. I feel you now. People that, That I respect and love. You're showcasing their work with the Human Longevity Project. But like, it was not always the case for you, man. This is a. This is almost a ripple effect of the growth that you've experienced, of the awareness that you've come to within yourself. But that awareness started way back when, when you were in an environment that probably stressed you the hell out.

Oh, yeah. I mean, this is. I think this is the case with anything, right? We get these little messages, right? And they start off as whispers and you know, call them intuition. You can call them. God, you can call them gut feelings, the heart, whatever. You get these little whispers and you're not sure what to make of them. Maybe you ignore them, maybe you don't know how to read them, whatever. But they grow louder, right? And then they start talking to you and then they start yelling at you and they start slapping you across the face, right? And this is what happens. And it can show up in the way of depression. It can show up in the way of anxiety, of anger, of bad relationships, of physical abuse. I mean, this can show up in so many ways, right? Because you're not aware of what's, what's really happening, right? And so for me, that's kind of what it was, is just a boiling up effect that I needed to get out of there. I think I needed to get out of the geography, the location. I needed a location change. I needed just a chain of scenery, a change of dynamic and a completely new direction. And so, you know, it's. The irony is that it becomes really easy when the. It's. It's that loud of a knock, right?

Yeah.

So when it's. When it's. Punching you in the face, it's. It's pretty easy to change, even though I had no clue where I was going. So there's no direction defined once I was leaving. So, yeah, I'll probably just do something in this line. I don't know how I'm going to execute it. I don't know what I'm going to exactly do, but it'll be something. Right. And so. But again, that became easy when the knock was that loud.

Sometimes it's a tickle of a feather. Gay Hendricks gave this analogy in the film about finding Joe. And. And he's like, yeah, sometimes the universe will tickle you. Sometimes it's a sledgehammer.

Yeah.

So you got more of a tickle over time.

I think so, yeah. And it built up pretty. Pretty good. And then it became undeniable. But again, this was. You know, the weird part was that I wasn't solely aware of it. Like, I wasn't really. Had it happened now, if it was happening now, I would be more aware. My awareness is a little bit better, and I would have understood what was happening. But back then, it just manifested as it did. Right.

This reminds me of what I saw on your Facebook page. When we understand us, our consciousness, we also understand the universe, and the separation disappears. This was the beginning of the journey for you. Like, everything that you experienced, from getting that tickle to leaving the corporate environment, this is what led to human longevity.

Yeah. I mean, I think this is. This is the conscious aware component. I think you're right. And I look back before that, and it's funny. All the things that you once thought of were bad or didn't go your way, it's funny how you see those playing a role.

They happen for a reason, like clarity. Looking back, it's so obvious.

And it's funny. Right. I mean, and I think the reason that's important to build awareness around that is because the shit that's going sideways now, you can look at and say, okay, I know what this is. This is just the way it's supposed to be. Right. And so it allows you to sort of ride the wave a little bit easier, even though it's still a little tumultuous and you're still uncertain.

Yeah. But you've never been one of those guys that's been overweight. A lot of people that listen to Wellness Force, they're either like, going through a journey themselves, they're letting go of old weight. And we'll talk about this so much this afternoon is like, weight is emotional and weight is physical.

But I've had. I actually had that. So I had surgeries and on my knee and shoulders and these type of things. And I got up. I mean, I'm a small. I have a small frame. My bones are.

He's pretty muscular, though.

Like, you're very muscular, but I'm tiny. I'm actually small wrists and these type of things, right? So I was 5, 5, 5, 10, £195, which is pretty significant for me. And, but, but I, I dispersed my weight. And this was like, I don't know, eight years ago, nine years ago. I dispersed my weight pretty well. So I kind of hide it, if you will. And I. But I felt it and my knees were feeling it and I was like, this is ridiculous. You know, I need to, I need to lose some, some weight here. And I, and I told my friends, I'm like, I'm gonna drop 40. And they looked at me like I was crazy, right? I mean, you don't have 40 to lose. And then that's basically what I did. Got down to like 1:55. Just completely lean.

Why did you want to do that?

Like, what was that? Well, I felt like crap, right? I mean, that was part of it. But then I. The other part of it was like, you know, I wonder how, how far I can take this. I wonder what I can do, right? So I'm sort of always like that.

You're like the ultimate n equals 1.

Well, I love the challenge. You can. I love seeing what my limits are, right? So I haven't done this yet, but I. And I hate running. I mean, this was drilled into me from basically football and baseball growing up. Running was our punishment, right? So it became the thing that I hated the most. So I still don't really enjoy running, even though I've done some. Some sort of longer distance things. But I said that, you know, when I run my first marathon, my goal is to qualify for Boston. And that's. That's a difficult thing. I mean, it's getting harder and harder each year. The times are improving. I mean, it's pretty tough, right? And so it's that type of thing where it's like, I'm not just going to run a marathon just to complete. Like, I. My goal going in will be to qualify for Boston whenever that is, right? I mean, it could be. Who knows? But. But that's the type of thing I like. I like doing. I like to see where I'm at. Because if you're just doing kind of coasting through things, I don't think you really. You don't reveal enough about yourself. Your fears, your talents, your creative sort of outlets, these type of things, right? So I think you kind of have to rub up against the edges a little bit. And this is where I think you and I kind of experience that with some of these plant medicines and these type of things where it's like that's an edge.

Yeah, it's more than just an edge actually. I feel like this consciousness exploration, this understanding that you talk about between the universe and ourselves, like once that gift gap shortens or even blends in so there is no gap. That's when there's true peace. Everyone that's involved in health and wellness and fitness and just personal development in general. Don't you think, Jason? Like they're all leading people to shorten this gap. It's all about the blending of the two.

I would hope so. And I think. And the teachers are also on that journey. Right. So that's, that's the irony is that you don't have to get there first and then teach, you know, and then coach, then, then, you know, lead. You can be on that journey too. And yeah, I think that's when I really experienced that was through a Vipassana meditation retreat. So same type of thing, right? Like I'm not going to just meditate.

When did you do your vipassana?

Oh, this was a year and a half ago maybe something like that.

Two years ago. I think I did mine right after yours.

Yeah. And so it's one of those things, right? Like yeah, you could just meditate for an hour a day and that's pretty good. Right? Like if. But like why not just go to these Vipassana things and meditate for 12 hours a day and like, you know, no food afternoon and, and no writing and no talking. Right. I mean that's sort of like, you know, really putting yourself into that process. And I think those are the type of things I love to experience because it's like that's the. How far can I take this and see what's, see what's on the other side?

This immersion in like life and all of its challenges and difficulties. This is the part that I think the egoic mind pushes away from. It's like the ego wants to have control, safety and security, just wants to make sure that you're going to be okay. But this film and everything that you guys are creating, this is probably rubbed up against your ego so much. Like in this process of creating and driving and putting out content, this high level content that has to have rubbed against your ego in this creation process. It's been over two and a half years, almost three years, this film.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's the two year process pretty much. And yeah, I mean the, it's the. There's a lot of questions, a lot of unknowns, a lot of work that goes in. But what was funny is. Is for a mo, for a lot of the process, especially when we were filming and traveling, there was so much good energy behind this thing. So even when things appeared to be going sideways, they actually were working in our favor. We missed a flight by, like, two minutes, which ended up costing us, like, 1400 bucks. We literally lost the ticket. I mean, the tickets were gone. I mean, we couldn't recoup the cost, right. And so we had to reschedule some things and all this stuff. And then basically, I did the math, and because we missed that. That leg, that flight, we ended up saving, like fifteen hundred dollars because of the things we were actually going to be doing anyway. And so it's these type of things, right? So it appears very frustrating. And then you. You go, oh, yeah, okay. That's what that is. We actually saved money, right. So there's all these things that happened. And so for me, it was like trying to continue to be aware of these things and just see what was really there. And it's been good. So even now, we're actually rubbing up against some pretty funny challenges right now with some of the web stuff. And this can, in theory, could make or break things, right? I mean, we've created this thing. It's there, but in theory, this. This could all go by the wayside because we don't execute this thing properly. But it's going to work out. Like, that's just the way it is. Right? So. So it's just, it's. It's allowing yourself to sort of sit in this process and see the fear, right? See the sort of unknown and just like, oh, okay. That's just all that is.

What's been one of the biggest challenges with this film? It actually releases when, like, what's the date that it comes out?

May 7th.

May 7th. So by the time you hear this, it'll be like, just a little bit of time before you can go to the site. What was one of the biggest challenges? Man, there's probably so many, but is there one that really allowed you to grow, like, in making this film? I'm sure in a way, this two and a half years was like a personal development edge for you.

Yeah, I think there wasn't a huge one for me. There was a bunch of little ones. Right. But it was actually, I think for whatever reason, I had some awareness going in. So it was more of like, I can't explain this other than to say that I felt like a third party watching the struggle. I'm like, oh, yeah, look at that, look at that little struggle there, right? So yeah, it wasn't like I was immersed in it, right. I mean, and I'll give you a good example to that point, which is that, you know, when, when we went to Japan, we're looking for 100 year old people in Japan. How would you go about doing that?

Right?

I mean, you don't just, there's not a database and you just, you can't.

Just knock on doors, right?

Yes. And so, but not only do you knock on doors, you have to like get somebody to translate and then you have to say what the film is and what you're doing and hopefully they agree and then you got to communicate, right? So there's a lot of moving pieces to this. And it's not like we had a big film crew and a bunch of translators and massive budget. We can just. And tons of time, right? So we literally had to show up on the fly and hopefully find people that can help us translate and find these people that know the island and can do this.

How did you trust that that would all work out?

Because see, this is the thing. It was one thing that would happen and then it would work out and then we'd have something else that was in question that shouldn't work out and it worked out and then another thing. So it was just these, these type of things along the way that we kept getting lucky, right? So that, that lucky factor just kept happening. And so again, those are the things that when you sit in it and you don't overreact and you don't, you just watch it, then you can start to see. Okay, yeah, the energy's good here. You know, this is the same, it's.

The same mind muscle that's, that's connected through meditation and also vipassana or even like a seal fit or just some kind of big physical event. There is something to be said about training the human brain to be in alignment with our soul.

And you just look at how silly we are, right? I mean, this is what's funny. We're fearing the future that hasn't happened yet. And we don't know what the outcome is going to be. And yet we project this image of what's going to be on the other side and we don't know. And literally what you do and think and feel today is what's going to create that. So the more you sit into that fear and anxiety and worry and stress, then the more that's likely to manifest because you are being that. Right? So again, it's it's. And it's. I don't say this from some moral high ground. I mean, I do this constantly. I make this mistake constantly. But just becoming aware of that allows you to sort of let some of that stuff go, right? And then, and then part of it is just reflecting back on sort of looking at how silly you are. You know, I mean, and this is, and this is important, right? This is. I think this kind of ties into one of the, one of the guys that we have in our film is JP Sears, right? And I'm sure most of these, most of your listeners, I was wondering, like.

He didn't seem like he was a fit, but he really is.

Oh, he's fantastic. He's fantastic. I mean, he's an emotional healing coach, right? And this is why he got into humor. I mean, he's naturally funny, right? There's just some people that are naturally funny. Our filmmaker, John Dahlgren, the same way, he's just kind of this like, naturally funny gift. And, you know, JP uses his humor to break down some of these emotional walls and these barriers and to show people how silly it is and to have fun, right? And so, you know, he talks about aging being sort of a lack of playfulness, right? That's what aging is, is to him, a lack of playfulness. And then actually marries to another quote that we have from another guy, Dr. Matthew Accurso, who basically gives the analogy that look like all we're trying to do is become a child again. And if you think about it, he's right. That's really our goal the entire time of being an adult is to let go, to have fun, to be ourselves, to like ourselves, to not care what anybody thinks and just enjoy, right. Basically what a five year old does. And so it's kind of. It's ironic that, you know, all we have to do is think about becoming a child, to get old and to be in a healthy way.

One of the things that happened at Rhythmia in Costa Rica is the founder was like, how can you see your experience, not just with plant medicine, but also in life from the eyes and the heart of a child? Can you approach things with the responsibility of an adult and with the steadfastness and strength of an adult? But can you also energetically feel and see your experiences through the heart and eyes of a child? Yeah, and for me, that hits hard, especially with Matt. You know, Matt was on the show, he lost his father. Like, I'm thinking about everything he had gone through, Dr. Matt Accurso, to then now show up so powerfully and serve all these people he's doing. He had to have somehow tapped in to that childlike joy to that seeing the world through the eyes of a child. How do you see the world through the eyes of a child?

Well, I don't think I do it well enough.

I'm not saying you do it 24 7.

You know, I'm trying to. Honestly, the biggest thing that I'm trying to do right now for me, is to be present at all times. Right. So just be locked into what I'm doing.

Yeah.

And not worry about all the other things that are going on. And that's sort of, for me, that's been a long journey because I was sort of this type A, you know, engineer. Control everything. Right. And so when you're locked into that mindset, you're literally trying to control everything. Things that haven't happened yet, things that are happening yesterday, like you're trying to control the past.

That whole world is based on knowing. Based on the knowing.

Yeah. And so. And so for me, it's just been a constant revealing of that. Just letting go of all the stuff that is not in the moment right now for me. So, you know, that's just. That's a. It's a constant practice.

And the fascinating part about this, the most interesting part about clearing our energetic emotional lens is that that's how our physical body feels. If our emotions are dirty, if the lens that we're actually trying to live our life through is dirty, there's old latent energy from even generations. You know, you look at many lives, many masters, and like generational healing. You look at even our dynamics of the first 25 years of life. I actually was watching one of the interviews you did before and you were like, you know, the ages between conception and 25 years old is where all of our health and wellness stage is set. Like that first 25 years of our life. So what do we do then? Thinking about human longevity, I look at my first 20 years of life. There was so much stress, so much chaos, so much emotional pain that like I am committed to doing work on for the rest of my life. And I don't say that in like some crazy way like I'm committed to taking care of my childhood. It's like, no, I just get to do that. Like it's part of my life to be an open human being. Right, but what have you done in that regard? And then how has that played a part in the film?

Well, so. So you actually hit on something pretty Cool, right? Which is that. And Kelly Brogan touches on this in the film, and she points out that these childhood traumas that we experience, you know, this crap that we deal with from mostly from childhood and happens through, you know, into young adulthood as well, literally is creating the person you are today. So all the work you're doing on helping people recognize things and improve their health and improve their awareness and grow in many, many ways, probably came from your traumas. So this is the cool part, right? Kelly Brogan was talking about how the activists are created this way, you know, health activists and environmental activists. And it's like. So it's not to. It's not. We shouldn't look at these things as bad, right? And this is. I think some of the philosophical aspects that we need to maybe shed a little bit about longevity is that it's not about being healthy when you're young and everything being perfect and then health and wellness throughout your entire life. To me, that sounds like a life that doesn't have challenge and doesn't provide growth opportunities, right? And when you look at the people that we. That we talk to in some of these areas around the world, their challenges were a little different. You know, they didn't have it from our experience and talking to a lot of them, they didn't have a lot of the emotional challenges that. That we would experience. But they did go through world wars, you know, World War Twos that they were. I mean, One guy was 40 pounds when he was 14 years old. I mean, they. They. They had struggle. They had real struggle, right? Like life struggle.

Holy shit.

Yeah. And so. And they had. So. And then they. They worked hard. I mean, they're. They're to get a day's pay. You know, they weren't podcasting and making movies like we are. They're, you know, walking 30 kilometers, doing a day's work in the field and then walking 30 kilometers back. Or. Or, you know, one guy was telling us about. Giulio is. Is 104 in. In Italy. This guy's probably 4 foot 2. I mean, that's no joke. I mean, I'm 5 10. I look like a weird, awkward, massive human species next to me.

Who's this giant walking around?

Yeah, it was weird, right? So this guy's 4 foot 2, probably. And he was telling us about how he loaded £60,000 of goods up in a truck like, every day. Him and, like, three guys. This is what they did every day. So they worked hard. They had different challenges, right? They had survival challenges. That. And so that was Their growth opportunity. I think we are now in a different era. So I think you. We can't get out of this game without being given some challenges to overcome. And so that's, that's how I view these, these emotional traumas and their benefits. They're, they're teachers, they're educators, they're mothers, and they can birth you into a new world if you let it. Right? But if you're trying to deny it and suppress it and avoid it, I think that's when the knock's gonna get louder. So we have to allow these things to teach us. And this is what can kind of create the growth and the beautiful aspects that we enjoy.

I'm feeling chills in my left arm hearing you speak about this, because I actually had the quote from Dr. Brogan up here. I've come to the conclusion that childhood trauma is at the core of all the patterns that keep us stuck and, and sometimes all the patterns that actually define us in adaptive ways. Yeah, you were there doing that interview with her. Adaptive ways. Talk to us about the adaptive ways.

I mean, I think you're always adapting, right? So this is, this is what's interesting. I mean, we have, we have a mental, emotional adaptation, right? So something happens to @, at 4 years old, you know, we, we, we. We don't get the love. We accomplish something, we do something, something small, and we don't get the love. You know, that's going to show up in a different way. It's going to create a personality type, perhaps, if it's powerful enough in our emotions, right. If we're not shown unconditional love at home, then we might have to go succeed at school to get the love and admiration from our peers and teachers and these type of things. So this is the adaptation. That's all that is. We're seeking love. We want the thing that should be there. And as children, we don't have the capacity to fully understand that. So in order to get those things, we have to act out in negative ways to get the attention. We have to act out in positive ways. I mean, any, anybody that's uber successful and like type A, I mean, guarantee they had traumas. Yeah, it helped create that personality. And it's not a bad thing. Clearly it manifested in the, In a, in, in part of. In a good way, in, in some regard, right? So. So we're always adapting, right? And, and you can take this to the physical level as well. The body's always adapting. Our genes are always adapting, right? The microbial genes that we have which make up more than human.

Genes. I want to talk to you in depth about that. I have many notes to ask you.

About. Mitochondrial genes adapt, so life adapts. Right. This is I think, a fundamental characteristic of life. I think there's two things, and I'm going to steal one from Terence McKenna, which is complexity. Life seems to trend toward complexity, more complexity. It doesn't go the other way. So this is a very curious aspect of life that science doesn't really tackle all that well. Why do, why do things get more complex as time goes and not less complex? Right. So there seems to be this, this creative force that just keeps creating complexity. And then the other aspect is, you know, in novelty is kind of what, how Terrence McKenna defined it. So complexity and adaptation. Right. Those are the two things that I see consistently. There's never a time when adaptation doesn't occur. So this is what life does. It adapts and it.

Complexifies. I love how you self check there. I saw the engineering. You come, come to life for a moment. I'm thinking about this adaptation. For me, even at 37, about to be 38, like, you know, I am still in the adaptation process of understanding my environment. How do I set my, my basically life up to win from an environmental standpoint, you traveled to five specific places actually more. But Sardinia, Italy, Okinawa, Japan, Ikaria, Greece, Loma Linda, California, which I'm like, what? How is there a place in Loma Linda that's one of the blue zones. And Nicoya, Costa Rica. Emotionally, let's talk about this man. Like their emotions, how they treated one another in these environments, how they were adapting emotionally, how is that the undercurrent of everything that involves them living to a hundred or.

More? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, what I, what I really learned through this process was that probably more than individual decision making and your individual perspective on things, when it comes to health, it's more of a collective thing. So in other words, you're more of a product of your environment than creating your own environment. Right. So it's so easy to be healthy in these populations because that's the way of life here. You're going against the grain. If you're, I mean, 10 years ago, if you're eating organic food, I mean, that's hard, right? You got to find it, you can go grow it. I mean, you're literally going against grain just to eat regular, normal food, which we've been eating for billions of years. So every little thing is more difficult in a society that's screwed up. Right. It's maladapted. So we, we have to look at their situation and understand that the culture and the societal norms facilitate health. And it's easier to do when it's a small community. Right. So it's a village. I mean, everybody has responsibility, everybody is reliant on one another. There's roles, Right. So it's almost more like a large family unit, right. Or a football team or you know, a church. I mean these are sort of small group, village type things, dynamics. And so those dynamics tend to foster creativity, they tend to foster teamwork, they tend to foster compassion and empathy and understanding and responsibility. Where I think we've gone astray is that we've lost the community, right? So we, because of technology, because of our societal values, we've lost the small group community. I mean, and I'll give you a perfect example. You live in a sort of apartment complex here, big condo complex. You have, I don't know, a couple hundred people here probably. How many do you know.

Really? Well, I think I know like three of.

Them.

Right?

Yeah. So, and this is, this is, this is not a fault of yours. This is the way it is. And so this is my point. So even if you really made a really strong effort to go meet everybody and have community, you would run up against resistance because it's not the norm. And so this is what was weird to us, right? So this is what I really took home. If we were trying to go find 100 year old people in the US right? So we have this mission and we're going to try to talk to these hundred year olds and 95 year olds. How would you go about it in the US that would be hard. You would knock on some doors and they'd look at you like, what do you want? Yeah, what are you selling? Not.

Interested. There's almost like there's a general wall up with, I think most humans here in the United States. There's just an emotional wall that's up all the time. And people that are empathic get really affected by.

This. Well, they don't have time. You're selling them something. I mean this is the, this is the society we've created. So it's not that they're not bad people and you're not bad person for not knowing people. This is just the way it is. And so it's very hard for you for anybody to merge that, to bridge that. But when you go there, we would knock on doors like, oh yeah, come on in. We just start talking to.

Them. They would just welcome you in.

Of course, because why not? And they see that you're curious about their life and they're happy to talk about it. And then afterwards, they will not only invite you to have a meal, they will insist. And if you say, no, sorry, we've got to go, we're busy, they will continue to insist. So, you know, it's a totally different environment, and we saw this over and over again, that people are more willing to help. They're more willing to just sit and talk. They're. I mean, it's so easy. But again, their society is different. They're not better people. They're just. They're brought up in a different way that allows them to express sort of these more innate components of.

Humanity. Michael Brown talks about memory imprinting in the presence process, where from, you know, a certain young age, you have these learned behaviors, and they will just spill out into adulthood. Especially when we're in this conf. I really consider the United States in a way to be a confinement, especially going to Costa Rica and spending a week there and just seeing how these people interact with one another. So much love, so much openness, but yet still so much responsibility and strength. We can have both. And I think the fear right now, and this is the unique question I want to ask you, the fear in America is if I'm a man or if I'm a woman who's considered to be vulnerable or emotionally sound and crying and showing my emotions, somehow I'm weak. If I reach out to my community, somehow I'm not as strong of a human. But we see all these different countries that are doing such a great job of being open and being strong. What did you notice about people who are emotionally open but also strong in their responsibilities in these blue.

Zones? Well, I think they just. They had a greater sense of self. So there was no, you know, they weren't worried about how they came across or what they were perceived as or protecting or showing up in a certain way. They were just themselves. So I think, and I think, again, the culture and the society allows that. So what we've created, I think, is a place where we are constantly judging one another. We're constantly criticizing one another. We're, you know, we are comparing one another. I mean, you look at Instagram and Facebook and all these things, who feels confident in themselves anymore? No, not many people. Right. Because you're constantly being compared to everybody else, and you're constantly being criticized, mostly through. Through social media and the Internet. So I think we've just lost a lot of confidence in who we are. And we don't know how to find out who we are because we've lost meaning in a lot of our society and our culture here. I think we're looking for meaning in the wrong.

Places. This is why I'm excited about this film. Well, it's One of the 15 reasons why I'm excited about your film. The first one is that I've gotten to know you, and I know you as an emotionally sound person who's not afraid to show his emotions, but you'll go up on a stage and lead a discussion about something that's empowering. So, like, you have both of those aspects, and in this film, how are you integrating that? The vulnerability, the emotional openness, and the power and strength for people here in America to learn? This is the big take home. It's like, how do we get all these gems you got from all these countries and give them to men and women here in the United.

States? Yeah, I think. And honestly, it comes to the elders that we talked to and interviewed, you know, and you see it through them. So it all comes through them. And some of the experts that we have, you know, I think the emotional. Emotional intelligence of the experts that we have is extremely high. You know, it's not just mental stuff. I mean, it's emotional intelligence, and you can see it and feel it. And then you combine that with the interviews that we did with the elders around the world, and you just. It makes sense. Right. So it all sort of feels natural and normal. It just feels like you're connecting with them because they're open. They don't censor themselves. They will tell you how it is. And so I think you. You can just feel the authenticity. And I think that's really a key to all this. It's just trying to be authentic in any way possible. And I think that's what sort of allows this vulnerable and strength aspect to sort of shine through. But it only comes from trying to be authentic. Right. And so I think if we can be authentic as we can, then I think that's. That may come through, but. And you may be more vulnerable type of person or maybe more of a sort of a strength type of person. Yeah, I think whoever you really are, I think that's when that's going to shine the brightest.

Right. This is what the soul is actually putting out there. And, you know, before we actually turned on the record button, I was like, let's really have a conversation today about how human longevity is really just a ripple of us getting out of the way of us getting out of the way of the body, what it naturally does, this homeostatic mechanism, this big synergistic continuum of all these checks and balances that when we start sticking supplements in, when we start sticking in poor lifestyle, and we start robbing the body of all these natural things that it naturally does, that's when everything goes south. We'll get into that. I want to ask you a little bit more of these locations. Like almost three years of filming, 50 locations, nine countries, three continents. Like, how did you and the team actually figure out, okay, we're going to go here. How did you decipher what locations on the planet you'd go to beyond just the well known five blue.

Zones? Yeah, I mean, that was a start, right? I mean, at the end of the day, we're not studying regions. So this was a different. This, this was the difference, I think with what we're doing and some of the other work on longevity in the past. We don't care about the region. The region to me is not important. Regions don't create longevity, right? This, places on the planet don't create longevity. It's what people are doing and it's the qualities that we need to learn that. That's the thing. Because these, these places that are known for their longevity are not going to be known for their longevity in 20 years, in my opinion. They're going downhill fast. And there's a reason and it's not because the region's special. The area is special, the island special. There's nothing special about these places other than the humans that make them up and the decisions they make to live their life. So this is what we wanted to do. So you can go anywhere. I mean, there's people in the jungle, there's people in the Himalayas. I mean, they're all over the world. So we just tried to find some places that we were confident that had a lot of people into their 90s and hundreds. And we spoke to Michelle Poulain, who was the demographer who really looked at a lot of these.

Places. What's a.

Demographer? Demographer is somebody who studies.

Demographics. So I bet you like 9 out of 10 people did not know what that.

Was. Yeah. So somebody that's looking at age and sex and, you know, old people, young people and just the demography of a location. And so he's the one that did a lot of the work in terms of verifying who these people were and what is their actual age. Because a lot of these birth certificates don't exist. So he's sort of credited with a lot of the work there scientifically. And, and so, you know, we sort of piggybacked on the work that, that, that's been done before just to, to find these people because I wanted to speak with them. And, and the reason is because. The reason we chose the locations is because they're different enough and they have different diets. So I think different diets and different genetics, these are the two leverage points that people like to look at when it comes to.

Longevity.

Yeah. Oh, it's, it's some specific diet. Right. A paleo diet, a vegetarian diet, a blah, blah, blah diet. Doesn't matter. Always trying to look at a diet that's going to give them longevity. So that's, that's one component that I thought was important to look at. The other one is genetics. So these are the two levers that people like to use. And the reality is, is that all of the places that we looked at had different diets, very different diets. And all the places, of course, have very different genetics. Right. You know, sort of Japanese and Asian, sort of Pacific Islander genetics and Greek and, you know, Italy and Costa Rica. I mean, very, very different genetics. So, so when you do that, then you wipe those off the table to say that there's not one diet and there's not one set of genes. So forget those. That's not it. Right. And I think that allows us to have a real discussion about what is contributing to.

Longevity.

Yeah. So I think that was, that was a big part of it that we wanted to look at the differences, but the similarities. And I think these locations really allowed us to do.

That. This is what I'm stoked is to explore these common threads of like, no matter if it was Costa Rica or Greece or Italy or even Loma Linda, which. Let's talk about that little bit. These common threads. What did you see in Loma Linda that you also saw in Costa.

Rica? Yeah, I mean, Loma Linda is an interesting one. It's. I think it's sort of. I'd say it's sort of a quasi longevity.

Area.

Okay. Personally, in my opinion, because really it's the Seventh Day Adventists that, that we're looking at that have better health than some of the other. And that's just an area where a lot of Seventh Day Adventists.

Live. This is the ones where the purple.

Shirts. I don't know. I don't know what that.

Is. They weren't wearing purple when you.

Were. No, no, Verbal. But it's it's the there. But it's again, it's not the religion necessarily. It's the practice that, that the religion and the people that that practice are following. Right. So it's communal. It's. It's a sort of a plant based organic diet. You know, they don't smoke, they don't drink. So there's just, there's just a lot of kind of common things that you know, there's community that help foster longevity. And so I think that's probably why that was chosen. But. But again, I mean you can look at Amish and you can look at, you know, there's lots of groups. So that's kind of a weird one. But you know, it's also in a sort of the armpit of California.

Too. So San Bernardino does the removal and people living in these environments that pull them away from major metropolis, does that also contribute to.

Longevity? 100. I mean and it's, it's. Yeah. I mean there's no question, especially modern metropolis cities because there's too many toxins. Your nervous system is just completely out of whack. I mean I know people that love New York City. Right. But at the end of the day you're in hyper mode all time. It's almost impossible to relax, truly relax. I mean on a nervous system level to get into parasympathetic rest, digest, repair, etc. It's very difficult to do that in a place like New York. Especially if you're not being conscious of the influence of the environment on you. But again it's more so I would say the toxins and, and the inability to connect with nature. It's a concrete jungle. So there's just a lot of these things that I think cities don't provide us when it comes to longevity in a, in a, in a basic way, in a, in a fundamental way. Now we have technology now. Right. So this is the other sort of wrinkle in.

This. And it's not going.

Anywhere. No. And so we can use that. Right. So I think this is where I think we're going to see longevity go is through that. And, but that's not to say that using nature can be pretty powerful. And that's where I think these small villages really thrive in fostering longevity. But more than longevity, health, health into our old age. Right. Sort of health.

Span. And it's the use of nature. Nature has these laws that cannot be defeated. At the end of the day any law made by man will always be defeated by the laws of nature. Look at any Tree look at anything. That's an organism that has a beginning, middle and an end span for life. That is the cycle of life. I mean, Paul Check talks about the closed organic cycle, right? This is real. Yet we see these a financial system and a capitalistic system that's always dependent on year over year over year over year growth. It is not sustainable. It's why we're raping and pillaging the planet here. This is a real aspect of human longevity. And it's actually one of the forms that I think really gives people the most stress, the most existential stress. It's what shifts people into just feeling. I remember I was talking to Sean Stevenson once and he was like, I just feel like there's this low level of tension with most people in public. There's a low level of tension. And that tension, I believe, has an undercurrent of financial strain. And then below that, at the bedrock of all the tension is the way that we're living as a.

Society. Yeah, it's out of.

Alignment. That's truly the.

Issue. This is what we're feeling. We're feeling out of alignment, right? And it's no question. And you see, you're seeing it now in these things like digital detox retreats, right? And people are trying to find ways to go get back into a normal state. I mean, we've gone so far off track. And I think technology in its extreme advancement in the last 15 years has really propelled us in that direction.

Right. Squeezed us very.

Tight. It's very bizarre, right? I mean, I remember being in Italy, I think it was in Rome a couple years ago, and I was there by myself. I was just traveling around and I went to this really nice restaurant, Italian restaurant, of course. And I was having a glass of wine and sitting there with my red wine, and I'm like, this is awesome. I'm in Italy at a really good restaurant, drinking good Italian wine, about to have an amazing, probably gnocchi or something, some Italian food, right? And I'm going, this is awesome. You know, I grew up in a small town. It wasn't wealthy. You know, this isn't what the normal person did where I'm from, right? And so I was like, wow, I'm really lucky. This is cool. And so I'm sort of counting my blessings and sort of getting emotional with myself, right? And. And I look across and there's. There's four younger girls and probably American, Canadian, hard to tell. But they were from a western country and they're probably there studying abroad. I'm guessing they look to be about 20, 21. And they're sitting down and they're all on their phones. Now this is common when you travel because there's WI fi, right? So you can tap into WI fi. And so, yes, when people go into coffee shop, right? So, but they're all on their phones and they're all sitting there, and I'm like, wow, this is crazy. And I'm watching them. I'm just sort of studying, right? And they're all on their phones, and the waiter comes up, takes their order. They kind of put their phones down and they place their order, and then they go back to their phones and the food comes and they put their phones down and they eat and they're not talking. I think there's probably a couple food pictures and wine pictures, but, like, there was no discussion. And there definitely wasn't this sense of, oh, I'm here and I'm enjoying this. This is amazing. You know, so it's those type of things, right? So we're in. Another great example that somebody pointed out to me and I thought was such a beautiful illustration of this is things like Uber. Uber Eats. You can now run a podcast from your home. You can live in a complex with hundreds of people you can call Uber Eats. They will deliver your food, and then you eat it while you're working. And you don't have to go anywhere, talk to anybody, cook anything. You don't have to get real food. You don't have to do nothing. So what was once a big part of our lives, and this is what we saw in the places we. We traveled to most of their day, was either taking care of food, harvesting food, you know, planting food, something that was based around food, because that's the sort of sustenance of.

Life. And that took up the majority of the.

Day. Yeah, absolutely. And. And this was also why they didn't overeat. Because if you. If you ate more than you needed, that means you just had to plant more and you got to go find more, you got to do more. That's stupid. Why would I create more work for myself or my family if I don't need to eat more? So they. They had this sort of natural buffering of food intake, right? So you start to see the rhythms, you start to see how off base. But now we have technology, and we have to recognize sort of our addiction and the negative qualities that it's brought and also the potential that it can bring. So what if you had a technology that was able to connect local, organic Farmers. Maybe you had, maybe you were growing squashes out here. Right. And let's say you had a technology that was able to sort of connect, oh, there's a guy down the road, he's selling squashes and I can go buy one directly from him because I know he's got an organic garden. What if there was an app that was, that was able to do that? Or what if there was a technology where, you know, everybody brought their own food together in this sort of courtyard and everybody got together. So there's no restaurant there, but we're sort of creating a quasi restaurant because everybody's sort of coming together and.

Mingling.

Yeah. So these are possibilities, but if we don't understand where we want to go, then we're just going to be. Continue to lead more towards convenience. Right. And this is what Uber Eats is, fantastic, convenient technology. I use it frequently when I'm in a rush. But it's also the exact opposite of what it means to be in a parasympathetic state. Pre cephalic phase of digestion, creating saliva flow, digestive enzymes and stomach acid and secretions, and all these things happening while you're cooking and growing food and being in touch with it, with the microbiota of the food and then consuming the whole food and all these things. So we're losing touch with all of that because of convenience. So I think we really have to be aware of this stuff. And it's, again, it's not, to me, it's not about longevity, it's not about living to 120. And that's the goal here. It speaks more to what we were talking about, which is there's this low level anxiety, this feeling of imbalance, this feeling that things aren't right and you can't put your finger on it. And we're searching and we're searching and we're searching. And sometimes all it's going to take is just to go out and go to the beach for a minute, go hang out with some.

Friends. Yeah.

Right. It's basic stuff and these are the things that we're.

Lacking. It doesn't feel so basic in those.

Moments.

Right. And I think that's the struggle that people feel. And it brings me back to when you were talking about, you know, the reason for the decline in human health, Love, interaction and just longevity in general. What were the factors coming into these environments? You talked about the phones in Italy, like, to me, the pendulum. It's almost like as a human race, we, we are a child that was given a Ferrari. And we've crashed it. Like we have crashed this Ferrari. And now we're like, okay, how do I take an assessment, an honest, deep breath assessment of like the abuse, the addictions, all the craziness that technology has created and also, how do we let go as a society of our kind of melancholy stronghold on what life was like before technology? I think both of those forces get to be addressed. But when you were there in these five spaces and more, did you see how they were dealing with this? And what's your fear about technology coming.

In? Yeah, it's, it's, there's a lot there I got to unpack here. So, yeah, the technology is definitely coming into these places and it's very weird. So we Talked to a 36 year old tour guide in Costa Rica and he said that he was more in touch with the ways of the past than his younger brother, which was like five or six years younger. So his younger brother is only five years apart. And his younger brother was, he said he was really well equipped to deal with technology. So he was actually really good with the computer. I mean, it was funny listening to Javier. He was like, I'm not very good. He's really good with computer man. He's really good. And so like five years and he was like looking at his brother like it was a totally different thing that, you know, he was, this is, this is what my grandma and I was like, right. She's like, oh, you can do the vcr, right? That was her. But this is a five year gap we're talking about. He was viewing the same thing. Like, I don't know how to work this stuff. He does though. And so you're starting to see the younger generations use technology more and more and at the same time they're losing the connection to the past, which is what Javier had. He had that little bit of connection. And what's funny is because he actually recognized how much he didn't know, which to me suggested he was very aware. So he wanted to learn, he wanted to still kind of hold on to some of that because he understood the importance of it. And I think we're getting to that point now where a lot of these younger kids don't, they don't understand the connection, they don't want it, they don't need it, they don't feel like there's anything to hold on.

To. I see this in my 14 year old nephew. He is, he was born literally in an age where technology was just part of the lifeblood. Yeah, it was just it's the environment that he, that he was born into. So this mindfulness practice for these young kids growing up, you know, the people that are 10 to 20 years old right now, this super fresh generation, what were they like in those blue zones? How did you see them being? What can we learn from them.

Man? Well, I mean, you know, they, they just don't have as as much convenient things in these places. The convenience is not there like it is here. So Costa Rica, for example, the. When first of all, when we got there and we had a job to do, we have 10 days, we had to go find all these people and talk to them and we don't know how we're doing it. And yet it felt like time stopped because the environment was different. Right. So you're not in a rush to go anywhere you did. Their time is not money there. So you know, again, we weren't on vacation, we were there to work. And yet it felt like things just slowed down. So that was a product of the sort of the environment and in this walking culture and sort of just a little more relaxed culture. And so you felt it and it showed up in your life. And so that was the first aspect. But you saw kids playing, they're just, it's a different, it's a different world. And that's today. Imagine what it was like 50 years ago when a lot of these 80 and 90 year olds were in their, you know, mid-40s or whatever. They didn't have electricity. So I mean, this is a different world. So we have to, we have to also look at the historical context of this stuff. But, but you know, I mean, I think there is a big shift happening and in, in Japan where we were, they actually, they called it hamburger syndrome, which is to say that McDonald's and Starbucks and all these sort of American Westernized things are coming.

In.

Yeah. And it's causing problems and it's the societal problems. And the older people see it. I think the older people in the places we were at view it. They see it, they see it very clearly now. They were very, they were also very clear that their life was tough growing up. They had, they had to work a lot. They had, you know, you were working to survive. So it's not like it was, it was peaches. But at the same time they also recognize the beauty of the simple life that they, that they lived. And they see the downsides coming of these younger generations that don't understand the value of simplicity. And again, I think it's more, it comes back to these Things that. The imbalance. So if you feel like crap, if you're in the US and you're like, I just don't feel right. I mean, this is what I think we need to analyze. Some people are fine. Some people, you know, really enjoy the technology, and that's what they do. And this is their life. And that's cool. So there's no judgment. I don't think everybody has to go back. But if you feel off and you don't feel and you don't understand what it is, I think these are the things that we have to look at, is going back to some of these basics. Because I think that's where it's. A lot of it's coming.

From. Yeah. And we're almost experiencing this pain body from the ripple of technology, kind of juxtaposing natural human behavior with this human behavior that we're learning about now as a society here. And I'm not saying that we all need to, like, go live in the mountains or we need to go. We have to go live in these blue zones. No, I think really a big question for me and, like, what I've been so curious about to see within this film is what are the nuts and bolts of just an everyday schedule? Did you notice, like, in a day, that there were certain behaviors, certain ways of being, especially, like, Sardinia? That's close to my heritage. I love the Italy area. What did you see in Sardinia from just, like, a daily behavior standpoint with these people? I remember Mike was telling me there was one guy that came in on a bike, and he, like, got his tire, and he was 100 years old, and he hopped off his bike, and so he was still exercising. But what are the other ways of.

Being. Yeah, I mean, I think I'll sum it up in one. One sentence, which is what an older person did for me in Sardinia. He said that, you know, when I was younger, the body was active and the mind was still. What I see now is that the mind is active and the body is still. And so I think that that's really the basis of it. They were so. They had to move. They had to move, they had to walk, they had to ride their bike, they had to lift things, they had to move things, they had to plant things, they had to grow things they were doing. They were moving constantly. And I think if the closest I can relate to this is working on my house. When I was remodeling my house and I was redoing my backyard and I was completely redoing everything I missed That I missed that period of my life because it allowed me to step out of the computer, out of the connection of emails and all these things. And I was focused on a task. Building a garden bed, taking out this. Digging out a tree stump. Right. I mean, whatever it was, for me, it was like there was something to be done. I was. It was. My physical nature was totally engaged and my mind was shut down. I was just doing the things. Right. Even mowing my lawn with a little push reel mower, Right. I mean, these are the things that I think, for me, really showed me the power of just doing something very simple and physical. And it's not an exercise. It's not a workout routine. There's nobody yelling at me to push harder. It's just I'm doing the work that is serving multiple benefits. I'm outside in the natural light, in a natural environment. I'm moving my body in a natural, functional, and a way that's making a difference. This is, I think, where exercise is off. Even the mobility stuff, which I love. Can you pick somebody up and put them on your shoulder? Can you lift this log and put this over here? These are functional aspects of fitness. And so I think this is all it was. And my mind was able to just relax. So it's sort of this weird moving meditation, right? And then when you're tired, you just kind of stand up and you just. You just kind of sit. Right? So I missed that. And I think, if anything, right now, for me, that's what I'm like, really craving is just getting out of this mental framework that is the Internet and back into the real world and doing physical labor. There was something beautiful. And that's all they did. So for them, the nervous system, the brain, the mind was centered and the body was doing the.

Work. This goes back to what we talked about in the very beginning. How do we get out of the way of what the body loves to do, how it naturally functions? The body needs eustress. Like, we have much distress all the time. The two sides of the nervous system. So we talked about parasympathetic and sympathetic a ton on the show. People that lived in these blue zones. It seems like what I'm getting from you is that many of them used love, connection, and physical movement as a pillar. Like, that was just the cohesion that allowed them to be in their parasympathetic side of their nervous system. And they were just naturally there, not because they knew the science, but just because it was fun. And that's how they designed their Life. I think for me, what you said is have and get. That was something that I was hearing from you. It's like we don't have to move anymore. We get to move now. That's a conscious choice. You and Darrel Edwards have a friendship. What do you think about his program and his approach? I love how he makes fitness fun. Like he enjoys fitness. That's what it's all about, is enjoying it. We get.

To. Yeah, and we interviewed him for the film and had some fun with him. Got the cameras out and got some B roll and did some fun things with.

Daryl. And he lifts you over his.

Head. Of course that's what he does. But, you know, he was showing us his balancing skills. I mean, guys, freaking unbelievable with this, his balancing skills. So I think his approach is fantastic. I think it's exactly correct. I think we don't have fun. And this is actually something I noticed in my personal travels. Just going around to various places around the world. Adults in other places, when they go to the beach, they have fun. They're kind of silly. They're goofing around, they're playing, they're playing. We don't play here in the US you're weird if you play. You get made fun of if you play. You're supposed to be an adult, you're supposed to be responsible, you're supposed to be cool, you're supposed to be slick, right? You're supposed to be beautiful. We don't play. We are so focused on the BS that we don't play anymore. And so I think when it comes to physical movement, yeah, we don't have to do this physical movement anymore, but we get to. And we should be doing it in a playful way. And we're not, we're not playing, you know, go play tennis. Go play. I mean, in, in, in, in Okinawa, they were playing gate ball, right? And this is something that 80 and 90, 100 year olds do is what's the gate ball? Gate ball is sort of like croquet, right? So it's, you know, it's the little gates and then they knock the ball through the gates and you keep.

Going.

Okay. So it's just, it's very simple, but it's outside and it's with some friends and you've moving around and these. It doesn't have to be complex, right? So I think this is what we're lacking and I think Daryl is bringing a massive awareness to it. And I think he actually just came out with a book. So if anybody's curious about that Definitely just a quick plug for Darrel's.

Animal Moves, I believe is the name of.

It. So I'm a huge fan of the way he approaches this because in one of my favorite things, he calls them movement snacks, right? So he's got this idea where just move. When you get out of bed, just do something weird. Jump. Jump out of bed, right? Go somersault over here. You're walking to the other side of the room. Jump over that little futon there or whatever. Do these little things. Not because you. You need to, because you feel like you want to get in these movements, right? And one of the, one of the. One of the obvious ones is when you're an airport, watch people in airports, it is mind blowing. You're going. You know, the idea of going to an airport is that you're flying and you're going to be sitting in an airplane for two, three, five hours, right? And yet the entire time on your way to that chair in an airplane in the sky, you just can't be bothered to move, right? I need to take this escalator because I can't be bothered to walk up these.

Stairs. It's.

Crazy. I'm gonna get on this people mover in the terminal because I can't be bothered to take a step. I need to stand. And then when you get to somewhere else, I can't be bothered to stand. I just need to.

Sit. It's like the most fascinating thing about the airport is I see these people just standing there. I'm like, what are you.

Doing? Yeah. And so I think these are the things we need to laugh at ourselves for, right? Like, we are so accustomed to convenience that we just can't be bothered. You know, I mean, it's just funny. And. And I think this is the biggest discrepancy that I see with the people that we spoke with was they didn't have that luxury, and they understood that there was value in not having that luxury. They understood that moving is critical. So. So this is what I think people need to do when you're in an airport. Go take the stairs. Yeah. You got a bag? Okay. Pick it up. It's awkward. It's going to be heavy. And walk up the.

Stairs. You're going to use your core, you're going to practice.

Posture. You're just moving, right? And we've been doing this forever. I mean, so forget the convenience of things and just start moving. When you go to the grocery store, park in the back. It's quicker. Nobody's there. You know, you just walk I mean, crying out loud. Find ways to work movement into your life and make a game out of it, you know, I don't care, whatever. But like, and then, and that's just in your daily life. And then other times, have fun, just have.

Fun. And this seems like it was a common thread too, you know, just one of the topics you covered in the film. Also though, fascinating here, love this. How purpose affects cells. So interesting. Circadian biology and sleep health effects of community water chemistry and physics. Now let's talk about this one though. Microbiota. Our ancestors must have had fantastically diverse gut bacteria. How did that relate to how we show up now? What is this gut microbiota and why did you choose to put this in the film? What's that all.

About? Yeah, so I'm going to, I'm going to have to kind of backtrack a little bit to provide some context here. So in the longevity space, in the aging space, in the anti aging space, we talk a lot about mitochondria, right? Mitochondria, the quote unquote powerhouses in our cells. These are, are they truly the.

Powerhouse? Is that real still for.

You? Yeah, I mean they are, I mean they provide ATP. They're in, in my, I view them a little differently. I view them as sort of a, an electrical conductor really. They really a capacitor. They, they, they create electricity, but neither here nor there. They create ATP and allow us, our cells to function. And if our mitochondria go, we start to go. Honestly, this is what cancer is, in my opinion. And, and it's a poor energetic function at the mitochondrial level. Mitochondria do way more than that. They produce all kinds of signaling molecules, reactive oxygen species which are oxidative stress, which are very beneficial for us. They actually responsible for signaling. So they talk to the DNA. So there's generally a crosstalk between mitochondria and DNA. This is in our cell nucleus, right? This is a sort of critical component. They talk to each other and they communicate to guide function. But the question is what guides mitochondrial function? And what you find is the research is starting to bear this out, that it's microbiota and these are viruses and bacteria and yeasts and all these microorganisms that live in and on us. And I would ask you, who do you think you are? Because you're way more microbiota cells than you are human cells. You're way more microbiota genes than you are human genes. Most of your function is controlled by microbiota. So who do you Think you are right. So we have to ask ourselves, maybe we're not this. There's no grand. I like, we like to think maybe it's more of we're this big organism that's working together to carry out life and.

Express. Now we're talking my language because this is what I've seen so clear over the past month. And it was this separation. We talked about how that separation is closing between universal consciousness. We are literally a mirror, a ripple of whatever higher intelligence is. I truly believe that in my deepest core now. But then the signaling between the mitochondria and the DNA and also rna, like, what is that.

Triad? Yeah. What is that all about? So you have mitochondria and DNA that talk to each other. They talk back and forth, okay? And then you've got microbiota, which are, let's just call them bacteria for now. But your bacteria in your bacteria.

In the skin, in the gut.

Everywhere. In your eyes, mouth, vaginal canal, brain, everywhere, kidneys, they're everywhere. These things are everywhere. They are talking to mitochondria. So there's a communication between bacteria and human cells. So now we know that bacteria and humans talk to each other. Right. So this is interspecies communication. It's very, very bizarre. But we do know microbiota talk to mitochondria, microbiota talk to our DNA. They produce all kinds of signals. Hydrogen sulfide, nitric oxide, short chain fatty acids, reactive oxygen species. These are just signaling molecules. And they're talking. Here's what's coming in the environment. You know, here's what this person, here's what the environment looks like via food. Okay, do this. In that case, okay, we're going to do this. Oh, here's how much food we got. We're creating lots of reactive oxygen species here. Microbiota sense it and alter how much you're going to metabolize in the food. So they're talking to each other for all kinds of reasons. So this communication is always happening between genomes, the microbiota genome, the human genome and the mitochondrial genome, because mitochondria have their own genes as well. So now you've got three genetic components. Then you eat food, another genetic component. So you eat cherries, and they have microrna on these cherries, and they have microbiota on these cherries. Now, through this digestive process, you're getting these signals from the food, right? And it's going to tell the body what to do. So there's this constant communication between the genomes that are in and on us as well as the genomes that are around us in the environment, that this is what guides function. This is what creates the adaptive quality to guide your function in your.

Environment. How much of this is in the film? Because this sounds like Hours of a Deep.

Dive. Yeah, I mean, it's all in the film. Most of this is actually covered in the first two episodes because we need to set the stage. And you have to understand this, in my opinion, to understand how exercise affects health and longevity, you have to understand this in order to understand how diet is linked. But here's the big. I'm gonna give away the whole movie here. The big takeaway. We can't be healthy unless our outer environment is healthy. Would you.

Agree?

100%. So, in other words, everything we do to the environment, we are doing to ourselves. It doesn't mirror. There's no other way around.

It. Which stems what we talked about with the laws of.

Nature.

Yes. And that contrast we're.

Experiencing. So in other words, if we want to think of ourselves as the human of the eye, we have to take care of the outer environment in order for the eye to be healthy. But then we have to look at the other side of it, which is we have microbiota and mitochondria and we're more other species than we are human species in terms of cells and genes. So maybe we got to take care of our inner ecosystem as well. So this is what I'm proposing, is that we take care of our inner ecosystem and we take care of our outer ecosystem and forget about the eye. The eye will take care of itself. But in other words, let's get out of this egocentric viewpoint of longevity and health and take care of the inner ecosystem and outer ecosystem. And the outer ecosystem also involves social groups and people and animals and everything. So if we take care of that and we take care of the inner stuff, then we get longevity and health and happiness and these type of things. If we're focusing on the eye and we neglect the inner ecosystem and we neglect the outer ecosystem, which is exactly what we're doing, then of course you're going to get disease. Of course you're going to feel imbalanced. Of course you're going to get sick. You're going to mirror exactly what you're doing to your inner and outer ecosystems. So we have to understand these things in order to get what we want. You know, whatever this we or I is. Sure. And so I think that's really. It's a perspective change. And this factors into diet as well. If you starting to think about your inner ecosystem and how you can facilitate good microbiota function in your gut, you start to think about food differently. You know, there is this ketogenic and vegetarian and vegan and all these sort of paradigms of fodmap and my God, there's just like a million.

Now. It's absolutely overwhelming. It's probably the number one reason why people don't stick to any program is because they get pulled in their attention span to.

Another. But what if you just started thinking about your inner ecosystem and what would that force you to do? Force you to eat organic because pesticides and herbicides and all these things, fungicides, destroy your inner ecosystem. So now you're eating 100% organic. You would probably eat local because now you have a microbiota on the foods that you're consuming that would then talk to your inner ecosystem and say, okay, here's what's happening out here, this is how we're going to respond. So now you have a better communication of your local environment. You're going to eat whole foods and not destroy things. You're going to eat mostly plants, not exclusively, but mostly because this is what the microbiota really feed off of. Right. And you're not going to start to throw away whole categories of foods. White rice becomes very, very beneficial because it's producing lots of short chain fatty acids which improve the health of the colonocyte and build up your gut. Short chain fatty acids are extremely beneficial. Now plantain, same thing. You don't look at it as this carbohydrate, insulin driven food. You look at it as a fuel for your microbiota to facilitate function. So all of a sudden, you know, cherries and apples and watermelon and all the foods that we've demonized, even grains, they are used to feed microbiota. So again, we have to look at them differently. You know, Karan Krishnan is an insanely smart microbiologist, is in the film. I mean he crushes this whole microbiota stuff. And he was talking about a kiwi fiber on the peel of the kiwi. And this feeds a certain bacteria that lives in the gut. And it actually makes up 7% of our gut microbiota, which is actually tremendously high amount. That's a big number. It's a pretty dominating force. And when that population is low, we tend to see things like colitis and Crohn's and these inflammatory bowel conditions. But when that's elevated, we actually see much less. So it's hard to say the causal relationship, but there's definitely an associative.

Condition. So then how does someone know? I mean, I know someone's listening and they're like, well, Jason, how do I know what my bicycle amount of state is? How do I know what my state.

Is? Well, so let me finish that real quick. The outer part of the kiwi, kiwi fruit, it feeds that microbiota. So even when you eat a kiwi, you're missing the part that.

Matters. So it's the part that people peel off.

Yes. So you eat an apple, you throw away the core and the seeds. Right. I mean, we're doing the wrong things. So to your question, it's very hard, the way I would suggest that. That we can analyze that without running tests and all these things. Cause the tests aren't there either, by the way. We don't have. We don't know crap about. There's no good gut tests out there. I promise you. They're. They're getting better and they can tell you some stuff, but we don't know what. We don't know. You know, And I'll get. I'll give you a good example of that. We don't know. So when you drink red wine or eat a blueberry, the microbiota within you processes that. The colors and the various fibers and the sugars in that fruit or whatever, right? The polyphenols, then they produce a metabolite that communicates to our mitochondria in our DNA. You don't get polyphenols in your blood. You don't see that. You don't see green tea catechins in your blood. You see them being metabolized by the microbiota. And we don't know what the metabolites they produce. So we have no clue what metabolites are being produced by which bacteria and what they do. So we have no clue about this stuff yet. So we need to be humble a little bit with the science. The gut tests are not there. None of them. Not even the recent ones that are coming out. They're not accurate. They can't tell you.

What'S. But they might show trending. I mean, you look at Michael Ruscio's work like there's trends that he's seen with patients in clinical settings. So we might not be able to know everything, which is maybe our egoic mind wanting to know exactly what the fuck's going.

On. It can't tell you what to eat and what not to eat is my point. Yes, it can show you dysfunctions. Right? Are you absorbing your fats? Are you breaking these down? Are you producing metabolites over here? Yes, there's very useful aspects to that, but what I'm saying is that it's not going to tell you. Josh Trent, are you supposed to eat bananas? Josh Trent, are you okay eating organic barley? We don't know these things yet. And here's where I will go with that. Turmeric, right? Widely respected as a very healthy food. Now, what's your.

Heritage? You said Italian.

English. Italian English, Yeah. How much turmeric root grows in Italy, in.

England? I'm not.

Sure. Probably not a lot. So what I'm suggesting is that perhaps your genome doesn't understand the metabolites that are produced from bacteria when they process turmeric. So in other words, you pro. You, you, you digest turmeric. And let's assume you have the microbiota to do so, because if you don't have the microbiota that can metabolize turmeric, you don't metabolize turmeric. Sorry, you don't get the benefits. So first of all, you have to have the microbiota that can metabolize it effectively. And we don't know what those are. And then that's going to produce some metabolite which we don't know. We don't know what metabolites it produces. And then it has to be understood by the mitochondria and, or the DNA. And there's no reason to suggest that your heritage would understand whatever metabolites produced by turmeric, because for most of your heritage, assuming it's Italian and English has never experienced that, assuming that it's a different metabolite, but we don't know what. So the point is, is that can we make the leap that somebody from India who's seen a lot of turmeric in their heritage, are they more equipped to process the metabolites and use something like turmeric for their benefits? And somebody like you, maybe potatoes, maybe white potatoes are more effective. Maybe those are very good for you because your genome and your mitochondria understand the metabolites that are produced from those foods. This is hypothesis, what I'm suggesting, but it makes a lot of sense because, again, we're adaptive organisms. So if your genome is adapted and your mitochondria is adapted to various foods over generations, which, again, we look at culinary traditions now, now culinary traditions start to matter, right? The Asian culinary traditions we've seen over and over and over again. Now Perhaps they've extracted and they've created an adaptive quality to their microbiota, to their mitochondria, to their DNA, to use those foods more effectively than somebody else in a different part of the world who's never seen those.

Foods. So then where does 23andMe plug in? I mean, because we could go down that rabbit hole for a while.

Right? It doesn't plug in anywhere in my.

Opinion. It doesn't plug in anywhere. What do you think about even like an inside tracker, like blood panel work, Wellness fx, things like.

This? I mean, I think they're all somewhat useful. Okay. But I think we don't know enough yet because again, if we understand the communicative mechanisms between food and our genetic expression, then we understand that it first has to go through microbiota. We don't know what's there and we don't know what microbiota.

Produces. Do we know how to support that microbiota.

Individually? We're getting there. You know, what does that look like? Yes and no. So real quick, let me finish that because it's going to speak to the genome thing. We don't know what microbiota are metabolizing various foods yet. We haven't dwell on the science yet. So therefore we don't know the metabolites that are being produced and we don't know how those foods are affecting your genetic expression. So whatever genes you have. Okay, now what? We don't know how they're expressed because we don't know the microbiota that are talking to them. We don't know what your mitochondria are because your mitochondria come from mom. We just don't know. So we don't know enough yet. But what we do know is the communicative mechanisms. So what I would suggest is, is that we do know that organic whole plant foods tend to be a good starting point. So start there and if you're, if you're trying to do other things, then you've got a place you can make headway, right. Feel what, what's, what agrees with your body. You know, check your stool. And this is. We're going to talk poop now. I was, I actually ate a gluten free pizza the other day. I was, I was in Seattle and this is not a typical food that I eat. I don't eat a lot of pizza, even though I love it. I tend to eat, try to eat more healthy than that because it's, it's so heavily processed. But it's a good pizza company. In Seattle called Pagliacchi's. And, and there's a gluten free pizza and it's fantastic. And so I had pizza and I checked my stool and it's like perfect, right? If you look at the Bristol stool chart and it's like perfect. And I'm like, huh, that's interesting. Right? So that's one way you can check your stool. And if your stool is good, just use the Bristol stool chart.

Okay. We'll link this Bristol stool chart in the show notes here. This sounds.

Fascinating. Well, I mean, this is a good way to understand your health. Yeah. I mean, people do this with their dogs, right? You go walk your dog and they take a crap and you see it's all runny. Okay. Something must be going on. Right? We assess it in our dogs, but we don't assess it in ourselves. We assess it in our children, but we don't want to look at our own. It's very weird. So that's one very simple way to figure out, are you digesting food in a healthy and effective way? If your stool's floating and it's all runny, then you're probably eating too much fat. You can't metabolize fat, right. At this point in your, at this point in state in your.

Life.

Yeah. Maybe you have some liver and gallbladder issues. You know, maybe you don't. You have digestive enzymes that are not working to metabolize these things. Maybe you've got glyphosate disrupting that liver bile acid pathway. So there's lots of things. So. But that tells you you can't digest fat. I don't care how good you think fat is for you, you're not digesting it.

Then. Yeah, this is really the danger right now of people that fall into a camp of if I just know what works for other people, then it'll work for me. And I think, I think this is why keto is so.

Popular. Well, and what's working in the research? The research is irrelevant to what's going to work for you. It's completely.

Irrelevant. How so? How.

So? Because research, first of all, is flawed by nature. Okay? Because, you know, humans exist in a. I don't know how many variables. Millions of variables. Right? There's millions of variables. Right. And when we look at studies, they're completely controlled. And so you're starting off in a really weird perspective of a very controlled environment. Oftentimes the conclusions are false. Oftentimes we're mistaking correlation with causation. Oftentimes we're actually looking at reverse causation. So we're looking at one. We say that this causes this, and in fact, it was actually the other thing that's causing the other thing. So there's lots of errors in that. There's lots of statistical magic that we can play. There's lots of research that actually gets dismissed so that you never see it. So if you have 10 studies that say this is good, and you only find one that says it's bad, well, you would logically conclude that almost all the studies are showing that it's good, so therefore it's a good thing. What about the 94 studies that got thrown away, that never got published, that said it's bad? So we don't know. Research is very, very flawed. I think we have to recognize that. And so it's not to say it's not useful. We just have to have a critical eye. And at the end of the day, it's all about experience. So if I eat. For me, if I eat potatoes, I feel really good. I don't gain weight. I don't feel groggy. I don't feel my stool is good. All these things are good. And so I don't care what research is telling me about potatoes. My heritage suggests that I would probably do well with potatoes. I enjoy potatoes. They seem to do well for.

Me. They make you feel good. You have these barometers based on your stool, how you're feeling, your weight.

Gain, how do you feel? That's the first. First thing you should. You should ask.

Yourself. It's really a flip, Jason. It's like I'm asking you a question for people listening. Like, how do they decipher? How do they know? How do they trust what style of eating is best for them? Well, the answer is it depends, and that kind of sucks. It's not exactly a sexy answer. It depends on these clues that our body's giving us all the.

Time. And I do really well with a balanced diet. So it's so funny because everybody talks shit about balance, right? Like, balanced diet's the worst thing. I'm like, no, for me, it's actually fantastic. A little bit of meat, good amount of carbohydrates, and some vegetables, and that's perfect. If I eat a massive salad, I actually don't digest the salad very well. I mean, which is not too surprising because most cultures around the world don't eat salads. I don't. In fact, I don't. I can't think of one that does. We're the Only one. This is a modern thing. Nobody eats leaves. Like, we.

Leave. I'm not a really huge leaf eater. I do like the cruciferous, but, like, I've always been kind of annoyed with really.

Bizarre. They've been a garnish. They've been a little crunch. But, like, okay, in Italy, they don't have leafy salads. They've got, like, cucumbers mixed with tomatoes. And, you know, I mean, this is cheese, maybe. This is like, we're so weird. So. So again, the point is not to say, okay, all salads are good, therefore people should be eating more salads. Yes, we do understand that there's some benefits to leafy greens in generally speaking. But for you, if it's more of like, you know, sweet potatoes and corn and beans, like those three starchy complex carbohydrate sources are working for you, then eat those. Yeah, as long as they're organic, whole processed, and made in a way that our body can understand. I think that is the step one that we're not talking about. And it kind of bugs me the fact that we're skipping so many steps here. We're trying to figure out which macronutrient is best and which food is harming us, but nobody's talking about where does the food come from? How is it grown, how is it processed? Why are we not talking about that? Why are we not talking about the fact that it's first must be organic for it to be optimally healthy? Then ideally it would be grown near you in season. And then the next step is that it's not going to be, you know, washed in some weird way or processed in some weird way, and you're going to actually harvest it out of the ground, and then you're going to process or cook it and make it in a way that's.

Optimal. Well, then, devil's advocate. How the hell do we do that for people when not everybody can live in those type of.

Environments? Well, so I don't like to step into victimhood like that. So I think anybody can do whatever they want. So first step is, if. If you want health and that's what you want, then go do it. You know, I think that's the first thing we have to recognize is that. Quit.

Complaining. That's an interesting.

Reframe. Well, yeah, I didn't like my job, but I mean, I'm gonna complain about it, right? So I think we have to recognize that we all have choices. You don't like the nation that you're living in? Move to A different country. You don't like the city or the town or the job or the wife or the husband or whatever, then change it. So we need to stop complaining. We need to own and take responsibility for who we are and what we're doing, then we can have the conversation. But if we're looking at our life and saying, oh, I can't do it because Amazon doesn't deliver this organic food to me, I mean, give me a.

Break. This is really the Trojan horse of your film. And I've said this to you before, longevity is this combination of taking radical personal responsibility along with understanding our environment, our outer, our inner, separate from the I as you had described. And then also this fire of curiosity that, like, it's what leads me in my life. It's the only thing that keeps me alive, man, is my curiosity. It's why I'm enjoying you. It's like the only thing that keeps us human beings with this frontal cortex and all these intricate biological processes going on all the time. Like, what's breathing you? We don't know what's breathing.

You.

Us. There's some kind of higher intelligence breathing.

Us. What's a.

Thought? What's a thought? What am I? What is this.

Table?

So. So not to get too far in the crazy hemisphere, it's like, that's real. And so is this. There's this law of duality that's always around us. Evil or good, taking responsibility or being a victim. Because I live in New York and I can't get organic food. They're always there. Do you explore this duality in the.

Film? We. Yeah, it's actually brought up a little bit, particularly by the Asian elders that we spoke.

With. The elders are so.

Wise. They're amazing, honestly. Like, they're smarter than I thought. And. And they're wise. I mean, for sure, I knew they would be wise, but they're actually smarter than I thought. One gal in Costa Rica was actually talking about how. How you shouldn't be eating something that's bad for your organisms. And at first I'm like, is she actually talking about, like, microbiota? But she was like, she understood that we have an inner ecosystem. She's like 70 and lives in Costa Rica and doesn't, like, read research. This is not a. This is like a.

Farmer. It's just an inner.

Knowing. Yeah. And so it was like, whoa, dude. Like, they actually are smart. But, yeah, I think, look, here's the deal. People can do whatever they want, right? I do not preach on anything. All I'm Suggesting is that if you want something, then don't complain that it's not being handed to you. Go make it happen. Right. So if you want health and if you accept what I'm proposing, that we should be eating organic, local, mostly local foods, and then maybe you should work to do that. I eat plenty of foods that are not local and organic. I don't complain about it. So whatever the ramifications of that, for me, they are what they are. Did I enjoy the pizza that I was having? Absolutely. So I enjoyed it. So it's this constant sort of balancing act, I think, that you don't have to be perfect and there's no such thing as perfect, I guess, anyway. But what do you want? And just understand the choices that you're making. I mean, I had a Coke the other day. Right. Like one of the worst things you could have. But I wanted it and I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Right. So that's what they were designed for, by the way. They're a treat for a.

Reason. I mean, you know. But should. Should I be drinking it? No. I know it damages microbiota in a major way. I mean, I know the ramifications of it.

Right.

Yeah. But I didn't. I don't let the fear guide me. I was like, I just kind of wanted to cope, so I just had to.

Coke. Oh, man. Let's talk about resilience then. Because emotional resilience, you know, taking this personal responsibility, I know that's a huge ethos for the film. We also know that physical resilience, like our body, we can beat the shit out of it, man, and it'll come back. But at some point, though, it can't come back. Right. Like there are, you know, molecular mimicry and then there's also, like, you look at someone like Jimmy Moore who's putting, you know, his heart out there, but yet he just can't get the results that he truly desires because of maybe abuse for decades from eating a certain way. Do you explore this in the film? What people have done, you know, those first 25 years of their life being so important. How do people get through that as adults that are 25 plus in a resilience.

Factor? Yeah, I mean, we don't get into that in a tremendous way only because there's only so much we can.

Cover. It's a nine hour documentary as it is. Multiple modules and.

Lessons. Yeah. So, but, you know, I think. I think it. Think that does sort of come through. We don't speak to it directly, but the power of the body to recover. We do absolutely get into. So we do get into sort of this idea that that health is innate, it's built within you. Your body is meant to be healthy. And we just have to start to facilitate that function. We have to allow that to occur and get out of the way a little bit. I think part of it though too is that we have to recognize that we got to get out of this mindset that it's all results, that we're going to be happy. When I can't be happy unless I'm optimally healthy, or I can't be happy unless I get the function of my knees back or the flexibility of my back returns, I mean, or this pain goes away. So if we are constantly focused on the end product and the results in order to fulfill us and to bring happiness, I think you run into.

Trouble. How do we be happy now, which is actually the vibration that'll fuel us to get to what we think we.

Want? Yeah, it's a.

Flex. It's a total.

Paradox. Yeah, yeah. So I think you have to, in my experience, you just have to accept that reality. So first it's acceptance. Acceptance that you decide your happiness. So it's literally your decision. If you're not happy right now, that's your choice. So just accepting that. Right. So it's not. Not saying anything about.

It. There's work along with.

That. There's no.

Blame. Not always that.

Easy. But yes, there's not, there's no blame. There's true, it's not as simple as that. But that's the first step, in my opinion, just to recognize that your state is decided by you, not by anybody else. So if we can accept that, then we can start to understand what's causing the sort of emotional reactions. Right. And this sort of gets into some, some of the Buddhist stuff, right. That, that is shown within Vipassana, which is that your body has a reaction before your emotional state, Right. When somebody cuts you off in traffic and you yell at them, you actually have a physical response first, which is that your hormones go crazy, your cortisol is driven up, your, you know, your fight or flight system is just all out of whack, Right? So that happens first and then you react, Right. Then you have the thought and the action. But first it's a physical thing, Right. And so I think, I think we just have to learn how to control our bodies. And that in turn will then facilitate the control. I don't like the word control, but the awareness of our.

Mind. Yeah. And I Think a big part of that, I think there's. This is the scientific explanation for it is everyone must slow the fuck down. That's actually the real ethos behind this. How do we do that.

Though? Yeah, I mean, it's simple. I mean, honestly, it's simple. It's meditation, just being mindful. Right. So I think it's just unwinding the stuff that we've been taught. And so you can be mindful washing your dishes. You can be mindful in typing an email. You can be mindful at any time. Just become aware. I think it's the first step. Just start to become aware and use things like meditation. Use things like art, music, anything that's going to sort of draw you in and get you into that flow state. It's different for everybody. But I think that's such a simple way to slow down and re center yourself because I think that's. We just need to get back to that. Right. And again, meditation is, I think, yes, it's starting to become trendy, which is cool. It's also still feared by a lot of people. I can't meditate. I don't know how to meditate. It's so boring. Right. All these things. But I think it's also just such an easy tool that you just need to start doing. And it's so weird why people.

Don'T. Honestly, I think it's because the truth hides in plain sight. Most of the time it's too easy. Maybe like eating healthy foods. I've been really trying to challenge you. Like, okay, Jason, we know what you're saying is true, but how do we actually do that in these environments where it's complicated and then we're bringing up meditation and it's like, well, meditation is literally going to be the thing that prunes the synapses in your brain that keep you.

Stuck.

Yeah. I think it just doesn't always seem so.

Simple. It's. The answer is it is very simple. All of it's simple. We make it complex and that's sort of the illusion. But it's also challenging because you've got things that you're working against, typically from childhood, that are creating the decisions and the behaviors and the thought patterns and the emotional patterns within us that prevent us from finding success or being healthy or loving ourselves or doing these things. So, yeah, it can be difficult to unwind. I'm not going to say it's easy, but the answers are easy. Right. So the process can be difficult depending on how you allow that to happen. But it's all simple. And so I think if we just let our guard down and get out of our own way a little bit and start trying to complicate this thing with this diet or that diet or this method or that method, or working out or feeling good or looking good and all these things, and we just come back to ourselves a little bit. I think it starts to unwind in unique ways for all of.

Us. Do you feel like a possibility of why a certain eating paradigm or even like some kind of logical, heady lifestyle program is so successful in our current health and wellness environment is because it actually allows people to hide and not do the deeper, harder, scarier work about the childhood, about their true identity, how they see themselves. Do you feel like that's.

Possible? Yeah, I think. I think that's very probable for some people, perhaps many people. I think we've been trained to look for the quick fix. And I think that takes a lot of different forms. Right. Whether it be a pill or whether it be this exercise routine or that eight minute AB thing over.

There. I mean, it's actually six minute.

ABs. Oh, sorry. Okay. You know, it's. It's constant, Right. We're always looking for the quick promise, the quick fix. And the irony of about all of life's lessons is that none of them are quick and none of them are easy. You know, they all require work. That's the big. That's the fun stuff, right? I mean, you know, people that study yoga and, you know, meditate in, you know, insane ways, like all they do is meditate. I mean, that's work, right? Taking plant medicines like ayahuasca, I mean, that may seem like a simple quick fix. That is not a quick fix. If anybody's done it, like, you'll understand what I'm talking.

About. No, they've already heard the episodes at this point. Like, they know it's.

Worth. So it's 100% work. It's a different kind of work. It may feel like it's from the outside perspective. So I think all the good things come from these challenges, this thing that we call work, because that's what kind of helps us grow. So I think anytime we shortcut something, we're missing any opportunity. So I don't care if you lost weight or you. I mean, that's great, but then what, right? So it's like winning the lotto. Sounds wonderful. But most of the people end up broke again and all of them, none of them end up any happier. Right. So I think these examples play out in so Many ways that we're looking for things in the wrong places and we need to stop searching for the answer and just be a little bit. Just need to.

Allow. Let's wind this down, man, because I'm feeling like from the time we started till now, there's so many things that I know we're going to talk about. We're actually going to do a Facebook live for Q and A on this at some point, because so many people are gonna have questions from this because I have a ton of them myself. And I'm thinking about this community aspect. A lot of what's baked into the film is strategic ways, like real pragmatism. This is not just a exploration of linguistics and consciousness and spirituality, although that's in there for people like you and I that enjoy that. And also, if you're listening, I know you enjoy that too, but I'm thinking about the practical steps that are baked in for forming the community. Have you guys thought about community with this film? And how important is the community? I mean, it almost goes without saying. I don't have to ask you the question, but how is that structured into the film community? And then. And then what's that look like for people after they've watched the.

Film? Yeah, I mean, this is the weird part right now is that we can. We can form new. We can form community in new ways. Right? So social media and the Internet, the thing that's destroying community can actually be the thing that brings the great part about the. So, yeah, so, I mean, we've got a few ideas after the film of some things and retreats that we want to do to sort of form, you know, that sort of community. Anybody that's. That's part of what we're doing, you know, is sort of welcomed into a community, and we're trying to foster that as a group. Portion of our. Of the proceeds, you know, when we. Our film is for sale after, you know, it'll be shown for free, but people can purchase it if they feel like they want to own it. And a part of the proceeds are going to save children around the world that are dying at birth and mothers that are dying at birth. So to me, we're just trying to impact as many people as we can and all feel like we're in this together. Right? We're just the ones that filmed the message and put it together. But at the end of the day, again, I told you that my health is a product of my community and of my environment. So part of this is a selfish way to Sort of impact my community and my environment for my own betterment. So in other words, if I can make everybody else better around me and they can make me better, then we all win. Right. So we have to start fixing the environment and fixing the community and fixing the people. And when we start to do that, then I think we all get what we want, which is happiness and a more centered feel and a relaxed nature. Right. All the things that we sort of fantasize about start to come true. But it all comes from individuals doing their part as part of a.

Community. You know, just hit me the strongest too is that there is an ever, never ending source of fuel and motivation. When it comes from a place of community and love, it will always be there. It will never run dry. But yet we look at, especially for me in my early 20s, like what drove me to be healthy was the fact that I had to look a certain way. And you talked about this with like the inner, the outer environments or the eye. Guys, if we're doing the I, we know that there's going to be a limited source of fuel because it's not coming from love. Like serving just the eye is not coming from love. And I think that's what I'm most stoked about, to partner with you on this film. It's like I'm doing the best that I possibly can to get this message out, not just to Wellness Force, but to all the people that I know. I'm thinking about how many people across the world could actually benefit from this because what's happening in America is just a mirror of other metropolis and kind of heavily populated areas across the.

Planet.

Yeah. Three fast questions for you before we say goodbye. Physical intelligence. We talk about physical and emotional on the show. You actually maybe brought this up earlier when you were talking about your, your physical practice and like what you're doing. What is that for you now though? Like, what's your physical intelligence practice now? What are you leaning into right.

Now? I'm actually slowing down my physical component. I'm trying to take it easy a little bit. I enjoy a lot more walking now. I feel like, I feel like an old man. But the research has shown that walking is the only thing that facilitates longevity. Not high intensity interval training, not any other yoga. None of it has been shown except for walking. So walking for me has become a walking meditation. So I'm trying to slow down and incorporate movement in different ways. Not trying to create a forceful action that's structured in a specific way. So it's just play and.

Walking. It seems so simple and it can be if we choose it to be so. Right. So the same thing exists for emotional intelligence. Yet with emotional intelligence, there's a lot of things that have happened in our past, either through us or for us or to us, like, however we want to see it. But how do you approach emotional intelligence? Now? I'm sure in the making of this film there had to have been lessons that you uncovered that you didn't even know you didn't know were.

There. Oh, yeah. Still, I mean, it happens every day, right? So part of it is using tools, you know, Dr. Bradley Nelson and his, his book the Emotion Code and the Body Code. I've. I've been fortunate enough to sort of work with him on that and he did some cool Facebook Live stuff with me and, and released some trapped emotions that came from generations past and some stuff that, from my childhood. So, you know, it's always exploring various things like that. Like, I'm so in love with finding new things that work and new things that exist that can blow my mind. You know, medical qigong and, I mean, there's some crazy insane practitioners and healers out there that do some wild stuff. And so I love doing that type of thing. Right. So I love engaging that. So, so I, you know, worked with him on that for a little bit to show my audience, show our audience that, that this is real. And, you know, vipassana meditation and other forms of meditation for me are some of the best ways to sort of stay, understand and come to grips with my emotional intelligence. And plant medicines. Plant medicines, I think are critical. Whether it's microdosing with psilocybin or doing actual ceremonial things. To me that's a way to unlock things that you don't know are.

There. The analogy that I've told people since I got back is we go in this world and this world is a very toxic place. There's a lot of dirt flying around, emotional dirt and physical dirt and pesticides and all these things. And so when we're born as kids, we have this beautifully pristine, clear lens that we see and do everything from. And what plant medicine does, it goes in there and it pressure washes the lens. It pulls away all the dirt and all the crap from the lens. Now, you don't need to pressure wash every day. You might not even need to pressure wash every week or every month. But at some point I am almost 100% in the awareness of if plant medicine were to be legalized and it's going that way with maps and everything. That's going along there. It's just a matter of time. What's going to happen with our collective consciousness and with our growth and this pain body that we're all still experiencing, Going back to the laws of nature, it all stems from this beautiful description that you brought up, which is, are we doing it for the inner and outer environments, or are we doing it for the eye? And plant medicine will give you that answer pretty.

Fast. But here's the thing, though, right? This is the hard part, too, is that, yeah, okay, you had the awareness, right? But you're not permanently in that state necessarily. Yes. You may have had some restructuring of the brain and the neural pathways and these type of things, and I'm sure there's physical ramifications, but at the end of the day, you still have to live. You know, coming out of a plant medicine experience, you're like, it all makes sense, right? You're like, oh, my God, I love everybody, and I love this, and I feel so loved. And it's all connection, and we're all one, and I'll do, Right. So obvious, right? When you come out of it. And then, like, two weeks later, three weeks later, four months later, two years later, you're wrapped up in this world again. And you have to sort of try to remember, like, oh, yeah, and because it's not a thought, right? This is. If people have never done plant medicine, there's not a thought that you get. This is a feeling. It's a knowing. It's an emotion. It's a. It's a being. You literally step into it. You know it, right? So. But now it's hard to know when you step out of that, right? It's not quite as prescient, right. It's not there. You can't grab it as hard. And so you still have to do the work, right? Like, it's maybe. I wouldn't even say call it a shortcut. I think it's a different route. And then when you come back out of it, you still got to do the work, right? It's the old phrase, right? Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water, do the dishes, you know, call your.

Friends.

Fascinating. I just walk over to the store, like, you're still doing the same.

Thing. I was at the pool yesterday reading the page in Ram Dass's book, Be Here now, and it had the picture of them chopping wood, carrying water, like, Yesterday, about. About 12 hours ago. This has been so fun with you, man. I've been looking forward to this Whole.

Time. Me.

Too. And I know at some point we'll do this again. We are going to do a Q and A because we still scratch the surface of a 9 hour plus documentary with tons of bonuses. You guys go to wellnessforce.com longevity. Check this film out immediately. Like the pre launch is coming up here. You're going to be involved. You're going to have so many takeaways that are going to allow you to continue this curious and this really community based approach to having a life of wellness. This longevity aspect, it's the Trojan horse, man. I've said this since day one when I learned about your film. It's really a collective consciousness movement. That's what your film.

Is. That's the goal. The goal is to just bring awareness. Right. I think, think, I think people talk about up leveling consciousness or raising consciousness. I think consciousness just is, I don't think it can be up leveled or downgraded or anything. It's just, it's always.

There.

Yeah. I think what we're lacking is awareness of it. I think that's what we're trying to do is sort of bring more awareness to, to this collective consciousness that's, that's already there. And so I, I honestly, I appreciate, I'm so glad we're able to do this. It's so weird. For those who don't know, like Josh and I are 15 minutes apart. So the fact that we, we couldn't make this happen sooner is kind of funny. But I'm super grateful for you to have me on and my. If we got a little deep here in this discussion, which we kind of figured was going to be the case but in the film it's very practical, it's very knowledge driven. So it gives you an understanding of why you should be, why these people, why what they did worked. Right. So we're trying to understand what led to longevity and health for them. We're trying to explain that but it's very applicable. So the goal was always to create an empowered message and a very take home message and hopefully a breaking down of paradigms. Carbs aren't bad, fruits aren't bad, meats not bad. Grains aren't bad. You know, exercise isn't bad. Like there's a place for all of that. We just have to understand why in the.

Context. And also too this is more of a guided experience between knowing and doing. Like you guys are going to present a lot of knowing but there also is gonna be some tactical things that people can do every day in those moments. Where they're feeling triggered. How do they get through that? Well, they get through that by the power of connection and community and also just knowing the trusted things that are working across the world in these blue zones, the tried and true ways of being that have been working for millennia. If we would just choose to get out of the way. So last question, man, we'll say goodbye wellness. It's a question, it's like the signature question that everyone has a different answer. But how do you see wellness after traveling the world, going through what you did, coming from the corporate space, transcending that, now launching this nine hour plus documentary series. How do you see wellness? Like, what is wellness to.

You? Honestly, it's a state of mind, period. There's no such thing as physical wellness, mental wellness. It's all your perception. So if you feel well, then I think you will embody. Well, that's it. I think it's a total perception. There's no perfection in anything. Or you could say everything is perfection. So to me it's what do you perceive to be wellness? And if you perceive your state right now to be in a state of wellness, then that's exactly what you'll exude. It's exactly what you'll move towards. But if you're seeking something that you don't have some idea of wellness that you're trying to achieve, then good luck because I don't think you're going to get it. I think it's recognition and a perception and that's.

It. Jason Proul thanks brother. Thank you. Hey my friend, thank you for hanging out and growing with me on today's show. Remember to hit subscribe Share this podcast with somebody you care about that you think gets to hear this message. Support the show by leaving a five star review for the podcast right now simply by tapping on your show artwork. On your iPhone, click that purple link that says review this podcast. It helps the show reach more conscious and smart people like you. And your voice will attract more world class guests that want to come on the show. So let them hear your voice. For all the downloads, videos, links and free resources mentioned on the episode, go to wellnessforce.com radio. And while you're at my house on the web, join us in the Wellness Force Community newsletter on that page and I'll send you four free guides around staying healthy with your eating, moving and sleeping while you travel. But don't let this conversation stop here. Join a group of people like you over the Wellness Force Community Facebook page. This is where we talk about the things that really matter. We share our wins, inspirations, struggles, and a lot more. So join us. Tap on the show artwork on your phone and hit that purple link that says join the Facebook group and I will welcome you at the door. Okay. Now you get to go out into your world and create impact for the people that you care about. So until I see you again real soon, I'm wishing you love and.

Wellness.