George Bryant: Exploring The Shadow Self For Healing | Wellness Force

Welcome to Wellness Force Radio. This is Josh Trant. I am so jazzed, so excited, so stoked to be chilling with George Bryant, civilized caveman. George, thank you so much. Thanks for having me, having me here. This is Temecula. It's hot as crap here. But what's interesting though, is that right from the time I met you, man, nothing really mattered. Besides the people that are in front of you, the conversations that you and I have had, you are so present. How do you, how do you do this? How do you stay so present with people?

I really appreciate that compliment because that's something I've been working on my whole life. Some of the background, like trauma, PTSD from the military, in my childhood presence is something that does not come naturally to me. Disconnection comes naturally to me. You know, me being secluded and only up to my own vices is like kind of my comfort zone. Because when I only control myself in my space, nothing bad can happen. There's no chaos, there's no out of control ness. Right. And so I, I'd say the presence really, really started. Like I've always been working on it, right. As I work through my trauma and do a lot of self discovery and work, I've gotten consistent feedback from my friends, my family, my wife, that people feel like I'm disconnected. Like they feel like I don't understand or I don't listen, that I have no empathy or compassion for things. And I will say that the moment that that shifted for me was when my son was born. So my son Branson is 18 months.

I got to eat strawberries with one of my.

Which you did.

So fun.

He actually fed you a strawberry, which he's so cool.

And the other.

Yeah, he's fed both of you guys. He's, he just loves sharing. I, I credit his mother for all of his amazing habits because I think she naturally is just a better person than me. I work on it, but we're good. And so it was when my son was born, I, I, I tried to explain this to somebody in conversation and they're like, you know what, what changed? And I was like, well, here's what's nuts is I spent my life when my wife was pregnant and in my relationship with my team playing connected. I was playing connected. Like, I was checking the boxes. I, I knew what inputs were required to be a connected husband, a connected father, a connected friend. And I hit those wickets, right, because it was mission accomplishment. And I would say that I was probably 95% connected, right? So I was enough that People could feel me. I was emotional, radically authentic with my story, with my life. And then it was when my son was born, and I held something that I created that did not have the ability to speak and only had the ability to feel when I realized that I was completely disconnected. And the only way that I could have a relationship with my son from day one is if I went that extra 5%. And it was the lessons that I learned in the first five days of his life where I had to be so attentive to his whimpers, his cries, his facial expressions, his body language to understand how he feels, that it was like a sledgehammer to my face of, like, how disconnected I was and how I had successfully operated like that and how it had to have made people feel to be around me.

Oh, my gosh, man. It's almost like you were ticking the boxes from an egoic standpoint, thousand percent, but an actual presence and energy, you weren't really there. So this thousand, this young man that came into your life, this. This beautiful gift, I mean, I saw my brother's life transformation when he has three kids now. And I think about the way that you've transformed so many times, man, from the military to all these different health struggles that you've had and everything else. Like, give people a little bit of insight into George Bryant, man, and let's go, like, not as Joe Rogan goes deep, but, like, let's leave a little bit of room for us to swerve in there.

Yeah, we can swerve for sure. And yeah, it's been really interesting because when you said from an egoic standpoint, you're 1000% correct, and I've done a lot of self work to understand this. But. But my paradigm and my childhood story is that I'm not good enough and people leave me. So there's only one way to combat that paradigm, and that's to be the best at everything and to check all the boxes. Because if I don't give you any ammunition, you have no evidence to support that I'm not those things. And you can't leave. So I can control your experience or my family's or my wife's or my kids or my friends or my employees, because if I hit the wickets and I show up in, like, the best possible, then there's no evidence to suggest otherwise, and you have to stay with me. So then my paradigm gets to be wrong. That also leaves people feeling uninspired, unempowered, like they don't matter, that I always have to be Right. Which, you know, that's a whole different ball game. So when we start looking at like kind of the story, I'd say 9 and 13 is when it started. 15 is when I became aware of it. So I started struggling with bulimia when I was 15 years old. Okay. So had a very broken home. My brother's actually sitting right there, which has been amazing to have the family business. And he's heard me talk about this a crap ton lately. So we had a pretty broken home. Our parents were just straight up a holes. Can I swear in your pocket?

Absolutely.

My parents were assholes, but not due to any fault of their own. Due to their upbringing and their drug use. Like they just were so disconnected and so self absorbed, hiding from their pain that we were the by, like we had to experience that byproduct tools that.

Were not given to them from their parents.

Never, never. And so like it was volatile. Like we're talking physical abuse, mental abuse. My parents, like, I remember my mother would like throw a hot pot of coffee at my dad and then my dad would threaten to burn her alive in her recliner that he gave her for a birthday present because he held it over her head. Like that was normal for us, like on the regular. And so I wouldn't say it was the most supportive, conducive environment to create an amazing human being. And so I very much fended for myself Now I'm five years older than my brother, so I basically started working at 13. I avoided my parents like the plague. We would fight lots of physical violence. I put my head through bathroom doors, punched walls, things like that. And you know, my bulimia started because I was overweight. I was picked on my whole life. By the time I was in fifth grade, my front teeth had been knocked out three times already by bullies. I was the only white kid in my class in third and fourth grade in Hartford, Connecticut. You know, I had my nose broken twice from bullies, things like that. Like my life was hell. Not to mention I had unsupportive family. They gave me a bowl cut, which made it totally worse. And I mean that like authentically. No human being should have ever bowl cut for a haircut. It's like a sin. I had a massive overbite, had to wear headgear. Like I would smell like cigarette smoke every single day. My parents wouldn't very rarely do laundry. Like they did not care if I was embarrassed. Like there it was just like this cesspool of so add weight issues on top of that, right? Where I obviously was an emotional leader. I told people this all the time. And like I say this in front of my brother. I can't ever remember having a sit down family dinner with my family, like in my, like, life, like even holidays, like very rarely, very rarely. So it was always like me finding fast food or eating Cheerios out of the cabinet or waffles or not eating or having to figure out, or my friend's parents buying me dinner and all.

You're always in a hurry. Did you always have to eat food in a hurry?

I always had to eat food in a hurry because, like, it was unsafe at our house. Like, none of us, we never wanted to be there. Like, we always tried to go somewhere else or be somewhere else. And so it was just this constant, like, go, go, go, go, go. And so that's when it all started. And the bulimia was like a. A ton of different situations piled on top of each other. So I was sexually abused when I was 9, not for my family, and sexually abused when I was 13, not from my family. So that started adding all the pieces to it then the weight issues, the family issues, social services being involved, divorce. Around 15 is when I lost it and I started purging. And that was like the start of my very, very, very unhealthy relationship with myself. And so I tried to emancipate myself. Wouldn't happen. I barely went to high school because I was working full time, but my teachers knowing my situation. We had two welfare checks a day at our house from the local police. I'd been in on the psych ward because my friend's mom was the charge nurse. So it was the only safe place I knew that nobody could get to me. And I would go check myself in at will. She'd let me stay, keep me updated, tell me when I could come out. That was like my childhood. And so, you know, when it comes down to like senior year, I don't really have much hope for anything in my life. And I'm like, I hate these people. I hate my school. People are so ruthless and mean. Like, I don't matter, matter as a human being. I want to get as far away here as possible. So I tried to join the Marine Corps.

But you forged their signature to get in.

I did, but they didn't let me in in the beginning. I was overweight, so they wouldn't even let me sign up because I had like 42 pounds to lose before I could even sign up to go to boot camp. So I had this recruiter who very unhealthily helped me lose weight. Now, not knowing I was already struggling with bulimia and body image issues, this guy basically treated me like a wrestler. So you want to talk about exacerbating or adding a trash bag? Yeah, adding an incelerant to, like a fire. So I joined the Marine Corps, made it to boot camp, and Napoleon complex took over. Right. So the kid that was never good enough, that was always overweight, that had no friends. I had a lot of fuel from the wrong place, like, from a lot of scarcity mindset, revenge mindset. So I went to boot camp. I was the honor graduate of my entire.

What is honor graduate.

So I graduated first out of 1200 recruits. So I was the best at everything.

Why did you do that? What do you think that was?

Because I had to prove that I'm good enough. Yeah, right. That's my entire life story. Right. It's. It's the pattern that's basically shown itself over and over and over again in my life. And so I went to boot camp and I'm like, look, I'll show my parents, I'll show my teachers, I'll show everybody that I'm not like you. Like, I can have whatever the hell that I want, regardless of the, the lesson I was provided, regardless of the example that I saw, drug abuse and, you know, all these things every day, like, I can still have whatever the hell I want. And so I did. And, you know, I went to boot camp only being able to do like four pull ups. I was still overweight. I could run a mile and a half in like 16 minutes. And I came out of boot camp doing 26 pull ups unbroken and running three miles in like 18 minutes. And I was like, yep, here we go. And then from boot camp, I went to Marine combat training. Graduated first out of like 400 recruits there. And so in 2004, I left for Djibouti. Djibouti is the governed portion of Somalia. And I ended up being deployed there for 13 months. And that's when I was still bulimic, except this time I looked like Skeletor because I was like £160. Because I was just doing cardio and cardio and cardio and cardio. Yeah. And I got there and I was stationed with the Guam National Guard and they all lifted weights and they were into all this stuff. Like, I'm going to get as big as possible.

This is when you found CrossFit. This is.

No, no, no. This was 10 years, eight years before CrossFit. This 2004. So this is when I was like, I'm going to become a personal trainer. So I, you know, started doing all the things to be certified for that. And I started doing traditional weightl. I was eating 6 to 7,000 calories a day. And very quickly, like in seven months time, I went from like 160 to 220. And I was massive, like just monstrous. I'm only 5 7. Like I should not be that weight. And I was as wide as I was tall. And that didn't support my body at all. We were still doing missions wearing 100 pounds of gear. It's 130 degrees outside. And in 2004, like right around my 21st birthday, I actually developed exercise induced compartment syndrome.

What exactly is that? This is when your legs kind of explode.

Basic. Basically, yeah. So my legs didn't explode because somebody noticed it. Like a doc knew what was it.

From doing these long rucks where you.

So it's two things. So exercise induced compartment. If you're eating right now, don't Google the surgery or anything. I'm just warning everybody. Yeah. And so I had a doc recognized mine very quickly and very quickly stuck a needle in there because I was in a lot of pain in this environment, in the situation I was in. And it was bad. They ended up, you know, pressure testing me and figuring out that exactly what I have, they told me I'd be fine. So they left me in country for six more months and I operated business as usual, which it hurt every day.

It was your entire story. Everything I've heard from you, there's been these massive kind of like windows mirrors saying like, george, treat me with more kindness, treat me with more care, treat me with more love.

Are you my therapist?

I mean this is like a natural thing that I'm feeling like.

Does your wife like pay you to say this?

No, I mean, I'm just sensing this.

I think my psychologist might like you too.

Possibly we might be in the same thread.

But yeah. So basically this, this happened and I stayed in country for like six more months and now I'm in the middle of Somalia, still bulimic, still eating 6,000 calories a day and purging and working out and injured. And then I came home, they did my post deployment physical. Within an hour I was scheduled for surgery. I had blood clots on my legs. And so that's when things got really real. And I ended up having five surgeries over the course of six months. I basically my job was to go to physical therapy because if I didn't get better. By X date, I was getting medically separated. And so that's what I did. Started wearing Vibram Five Fingers, you know, back when those things were cool. In 2005.

And you were on dates as well.

I made that mistake. That's why I was single until I met my wife, probably. But I ended up doing a lot of amazing therapy work. They helped me basically recover to the point of performing better than before. I was injured, except I just don't have any feeling in my lower legs, so it was kind of nuts. But I ended up doing a triathlon, did a sprint triathlon one, ended up doing the Nike 30K. Signed up for the Honolulu Marathon. Got really into, like, triathlons. And that was basically pivotal to my recovery because we hit drop dead date of like, you have to run a pft, a physical fitness test next week, and if you can't run it, you're out. Because I'd used all my limited duty time, like, I was done. And I ended up running an almost perfect score pft, which I did better than before. I was injured because it was just so much committed work to that. So that was injury number one, which was gnarly, and it sucked. And. And shortly thereafter, shortly thereafter, I was done in North Carolina and I was transferred to Hawaii. K Bay. Kaneohe Bay. And when I was there, I, you know, was doing the. The same work stuff. I stayed committed to my working out. I was doing triathlons, made a couple mistakes, got married and divorced in, like a week. Basically, where I met somebody. We agreed to get married for a contract marriage, get out the barracks. Like this could work.

Was this a Hawaiian lady?

She was in the military.

Yeah.

Stupid decision, right? Military people do it all the time. Because you don't want to live in the barracks. You want more money and a paycheck. And so it was like this convenient way, and then I was like, I thought it was real, and then it wasn't. And then we got divorced, you know, like nine, 10 months later, which should have just been annulled in the first place. But right at the end of that, our dad got sick. March 5th of 2008, I got a phone call that our dad had basically had a seizure and passed out. So didn't really know what was going on. Got a Red Cross message, flown on emergency leave, Walked into the oncology department, which we all know what oncology means at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. And that was the day that we were told that my father was diagnosed with metastatic brain and lung cancer. He had a mass on his lung that metastasized to his brain. And that's when kind of everything full circle came to play. Now, I had healed my relationship with my father for the most part, but didn't really know what this meant. And so, you know, my parents had told both of us that they were clean, they weren't doing drugs anymore. Like, my dad was working up until that point. And then I was in the room, and I remember very specifically, Dr. Kadis said, Leslie, I need you to take your shirt off. And he wouldn't take his shirt off with me in the room. And so I knew immediately that he'd been using again. Ended up taking it off, you know, kind of bawling his eyes. I was having a breakdown, and we had a couple come to Jesus moments, and the Marine Corps transferred me on a humanitarian transfer to take care of him. So I got to spend basically seven months at home now.

How old are you at this time?

24.

So this is like, the first 25 years of your life just listening to this, and I'm connecting with this story, and I'm just like. It just seems like there was never peace.

Never.

So the whole aspect of peace and, like, looking at the emotional work and how many people you serve now on your site, man, you said, helping a billion people. A billion with a B. Live a better life, either through the people that you coach or.

Well, that's. That's.

Or through you.

That's my vision. That's the mission.

So then I got to wonder, like, what. What was one of the thresholds where you said, okay, I'm really going to do this inner work. I'm actually going to look within for.

The first time the moment my dad died, like, number one, right? Because, like, I stayed home to take care of him. My brother and I both took care of him. My brother was a minor, and so I had a lot of responsibility. All the hospital bills became mine. All the prescriptions came mine. All the drug debt became mine. So I sold all of my worldly possessions. So I'd been deployed, I'd worked my ass off. My family was poor and broke my whole life. And then I. Here I am in Hawaii. I have a motorcycle, I have a boat. I have a truck. I have everything I need. And then my dad gets sick, and I have to sell it all gone. And. And I would make the choice again in a heartbeat, right? But, like, it's like, to be that young or to be in the life that we've both had, like, I Don't feel like it was fair, but I wouldn't change it. But I've learned a lot of lessons that still live within me to where, like, inner work is a requirement to survive. And so, like, that was a big one. So I took care of my dad for six months. And, I mean, it was hell. In the matter of a month from when he had a seizure. He was paralyzed from the neck down because his tumor swelled so much that he was paralyzed from the neck down. So we're talking radiation, then we're talking ischemia in his toe. Then we agreed to have surgery to have his big toe removed. And he comes out without a leg from the knee down, right? And our father's a stubborn right. Like, that's probably why I'm successful, because I got that part of it. Comes out of surgery, had his leg amputated six hours prior, had a temporary prosthetic, and they can't find him. It's because he decided to walk outside and have a cigarette, right? Like, that level of stubborn and stupid. So I stayed and I took care of him. And then the Marine Corps said, hey, it's been six months. You can't stay anymore. Like, you got to go back. So I set them up the best that I could. Steve had a job. Steve had his truck. We'd given a lot of stuff back to the bank. We let stuff get repoed. I paid the bills off, and I went back to Hawaii with nothing. Like, literally nothing. I had an empty apartment. Like, I didn't even have a bed because they sold everything. And he stayed to take care of them. And I actually remember I ended up leaving on my brother's birthday. September 30th is when I went back to Hawaii. And then on December 5, I got a phone call. My dad was going in for a biopsy, and things had been great. He'd been active. He was actually dating my brother, was working and kind of taking care of him. It was functional. He was losing it. Like, his brain wasn't functioning. Like, he was a little bit senile and delusioned, probably from the tumor and the drug use and everything like that. And. And then on December 5, I talked to him on the phone, and he's like, yeah, I'm going to the hospital. They're going to do a biopsy today. They're going to check the tumor on my brain. I'm like, cool, call me when you're done. He calls me when he's done. His mother's driving him, my grandmother. He's like, yep, had the appointment, like, it was great. They're going to let me know. And then he's like, hold on, I'm getting a call. And I was like, all right, cool. So I held on for a minute and then he flicked back over and he's like, hey, that was the hospital. They need me to come back to talk about my biopsy. I'm like, all right, cool. He's like, so I'm going to go back and then I'll call you later. And that was the last I ever talked to him. He hung up the phone. My grandmother and him left the Dunkin Donuts parking lot because he was addicted to Dunkin Donuts. He'd get a coffee, left the parking lot, and then as soon as they were pulling out, my father had a stroke, like, immediately. And then he was basically instantly brain dead. So you did the funeral stuff and then cleaned out the entire house? My grandmother's house, and then moved my brother back with me to Hawaii. And then that was the.

Now I've taken like five deep breaths internally as I'm listening to you, because I'm realizing, like, damn, George, this is what forged you to be able to be so strong now, man. Like, it's. It's this double edged sword, actually, because with that stuff didn't happen for you, there's no way you'd be able to hold the weight and the responsibility you have now.

No, no.

What is the responsibility you have now? Knowing that that's where you came from.

It's interesting what happens. Like you said, dichotomy, right? And so I feel like I have a daily. I don't want to use the word like conundrum or like, it's like a daily conflict, but conflict in a good way, because it's a very conscious choice for me because there's days that I just want to crawl in a hole and be done. I mean, it's exhausting, right? Like, you know, I mean, you can do as much work as you want, but work never stops, right? And there's only so many times that, like, I have like the best mindset or the best capacity to like, rip the pieces of that work out and be like, yeah, this feels amazing. It's like, you know, fuck you. Like, I didn't ask for this shit. Yeah, right. Like, I got this shit and that's fine. Um, but yeah, the responsibility is, is. Is massive. And the reason I feel like I'm able to do it is because it's so cathartic for me. Like, it's. It's My work, like it keeps me present to the work, but like I struggle daily. Like daily. The thing is, is I just don't allow the struggle to own my day.

Damn, that's so powerful. Last night I actually cried on my own. I was talking to Josh on the way up here and I think that what you're describing and why I respect you so much, man, why I was so stoked to connect with you, is because you are part of this new narrat, masculine for men that actually allow themselves to feel their feelings. Like thousands of people are going to watch you cry, but you're still doing it anyways, man. This is who you are. This, this shamelessness that you have. There's no shame for you. How have you actually gotten rid of the shame? Because it seems like coming from that background, like, holy.

So the, the shame is there. It's the choosing to believe it or not, right? So there's four rules that I live by. No fault, no blame, no guilt, no shame out of a 24 hour day. I probably live by those rules maybe for 30 minutes, but I always choose those 30 minutes very wisely to forgive myself in that moment to move forward. I feel like there's this illusion that with the work that's happened, or from being bulimic or making mistakes or being like a bad husband or a bad father and all the mistakes that I've made, that there's this illusion that like once you've done the work, like you move past it, like the feeling goes away and it's not true at all. You learn to coexist with the feeling to where your neighbor is no longer toxic, it's neutral, right? So it's like as you go through this life and I go through this life and I have all these experiences, every one of these experiences is like a neighbor moving into my neighborhood. And the truth is, is that some of those neighbors I hate and when I resist them, they persist and they come back. It's when I learn to love my neighbors. And that doesn't mean I have dinner with them every night. It doesn't mean that I invite over from my house, but I acknowledge their existence, that they become neutral. And then I'm like, I see you shame. Like I see you fault. I choose not to hear you right now or God, you asshole. Like, you're good today, right? And it's like, all right, I'll give you your power for 30 seconds before I take it right back. It's a daily practice, like daily with.

This contrast then, man, like, how do you cultivate the joy because it seems like there's a lot of old programming, like, almost like a neurological imprinting that you're in the process of unraveling.

There. There. There's neural pathways that have been burnt through. Let's call it 35 years of trauma. I've done everything. I've did two years of EMDR. I've done prolonged exposure. I've done psycho. I mean, I've done MDMA thanks to maps and, you know, finding that out. I've done traditional counseling all day. I've ripped through psychiatrists like they're my underwear.

Do you feel. Do you feel like talk therapy is. It has a place, and then it's almost like we graduate from that? Or do you think that talk therapy is. Is always a place of integrative mental health?

I feel like talking in general is the most underutilized and important facet of any healing whatsoever. And I don't give a if it's with a therapist or with a mirror, your dog, whatever. I've learned this and this. To answer your question, like, how do you neutralize fault? How do you neutralize shame, blame, and guilt? It's really, really simple. Those emotions only have power over you as long as you allow them to stay in your head. We are our own worst enemies. We, as human beings, biologically are designed to survive. We remember things on purpose. To wire and program ourselves to get into a sympathetic state, to get into this adrenaline rush, to get into this fight or flight mode. But that's also a very, very big problem, because when I make a mistake or I do something and I don't acknowledge it or I don't ask a question, I'm left to my story to figure out the meaning of that, which means it's always not going to be good enough, and it's always going to be a failure and never quite up to par. And so there's one way, and I did this beginning, and nobody knew about my sexual abuse ever, until my wife. She's the only one who knew. And it's because she could tell, which is amazing. My wife's a very connected, intelligent human being. And she's like, I've known for a long time because you're not like this. And she got me to talk about it and to be open, and then I would give keynotes on authenticity. And she's like, but do you really feel like you're being authentic? And I'm like, no, there's a part missing. And so I came out to the world about my sexual Abuse at the opening of a keynote of mine.

Was that the first time you'd ever done it?

Paleo effects.

Could you hear literally a fucking pin drop in the room?

Yeah. So it was really interesting because now I can explain it as to why what happened, right? So I've now deducted and learned from this that if there's any thoughts that we have in our brain, in our head, in, in our being, that are taking up real estate or affecting an emotion that's anything but neutral, the only reason it's capable of doing that is because there's only one person that knows it's happening and that's us. Right? And so it keeps us disconnected, it keeps us in self sabotage mode. And of course, when I'm like, well, tell somebody, you're like, no, because we're all committed to being right or committed to being right about our stories and our paradigms and it's uncomfortable to go to the other side. But the second you can take a thought that's in your brain and speak it into the universe, it neutralizes the charge because it no longer is just yours, now it's everybody's. There's different inputs, there's different stories, there's different responses. And you're like all of a sudden like, oh, that wasn't that big of a deal.

Do you feel like the recipe for actually halting self sabotage once and for all? First of all, is there a once and for all? And then on top of that, is the recipe for that just truly human connection and expression?

Thousand percent. And it's still the hardest thing for me. I was in therapy yesterday and there's the first therapist I've ever had that literally called on me. And he's like, your accolades don't matter in this room. He's like, because you can talk circles about everybody in your charisma gets you everywhere that you need to go, except for where you want to go, which is connection. And he's like, so do me a favor and shut up.

What a great therapist.

And I was like, God, you nailed it. Like, and he was like picking me at pieces, right? But, but the thing is, is like connection is like a muscle. If you don't work at it, it will not get stronger. It will atrophy, wilt away and die. And so that sexual abuse story, what happened was I was giving a keynote at Paleo Effects, say the main stage. And like, when I'm talking, like, audience, like all my friends from the audience, right, Like Sean Stevenson, Melissa Hartwig, Terry Walls, Rob Mark, like all These people, these are my peers. These are people that they know I'm bulimic. They don't really know anything. And I went up on stage and I set a timer for 60 seconds. And I said, this is my 60 seconds of truth. And I've done that in every talk sense, by the way. And I start a timer, I tell everybody how I feel. I tell them I'm scared. I tell them if there's someone in the audience that I don't like that I would prefer not be there. Like, I just call it out as it is. And that one was a. You don't know why I do the talk that I do or why I was bulimic and this is why. And I told the story. And people that were sitting, they were standing up, sat down. People that were sitting down leaned in. And I was working through these fears of mine with my wife before. And I was like, babe, I'm scared. She's like, what's the worst that's gonna happen? I'm like, people are gonna leave. And she's like, all right, what's the next worst thing? I'm like, that I'm gonna go out of business. She's like, all right, what's the next worst thing? Like, people are gonna judge me. And she's like, all right, cool. She's like, does any of that matter to you? And I'm like, well, yeah, yeah, but no at the same time. And she's like, yeah, but like, this is you to be free. And she kind of coached me and I went up there and that was when I learned the lesson that I will always create situations in my brain that are worse than anything that could ever happen in person. And if I just simply choose to act towards that fear or be a heat seeking missile for what I fear most, the Results are always 10, 20, 30 times better than I could have ever expected. And it creates so much possibility for me. So connection is number one. I think to clarify that when like is the remedy. Human connection, yes, but at first it's authentic connection to yourself. Like who you are at the core. Not who you think you are, who you project to be or who you pretend to be, but unapologetically who you are at the core. For all of the pieces that we allow society to make up about us that are indiscretions, which are not. They're just your unique self. Yeah, that connection is number one because then you can authentically connect to number two, you, which is everybody else. And in all self awareness, I'm still on Number one. I have moments of being good with number one where my wife feels supported or my team feels supported, but a good majority of the time, they don't. And I'm working through not feeling like a up or that everything I do is wrong or that when my wife simply asked me to not put my luggage on the living room floor and put it away, that that makes me a bad husband. Right? Because, like, I walk in the door, I've been on the road, I'm exhausted. I put my bag down, I sit on the couch. I'm excited to see my wife. She's like, yeah, babe, it's good to see you. I love you. I'm like, awesome. And she's like, can you do me a favor? Can you just, you know, try to put your bag away? I'm like, yeah, sure. And then I go sit on the couch, and for five minutes, my God, I'm the worst husband. She's gonna leave.

He's like, roommating.

I did not, like, literally put my luggage away. She's asked me six times. She's gonna tell me that. She's asked me before this. Like, why am I such a dick? Like, why can't I just hear like. Like, this goes on 24 7. And it's only when I'm like, hey, babe, thank you. I'll put it away. I'm making up stories about our marriage right now. Like, I really feel like you're going to leave me because of the luggage. She's like, no, I'm not going to leave you, because large, I'm going to leave you if you keep beating yourself up. And I'm like, okay, touche, right? And, like, this is the thing. And I'm like. I'm like, hey, Jeremy. Like, I've noticed this, but I'm feeling this, and I kind of feel bad. He's like, what are you talking about? I'm like, well, I just feel like I didn't show up authentically or, like, as supportive as I could. And so, for me, the only way that I've been able to kind of transcend all the mistakes that I made in my life. Burning bridges, hurting people, taking things from people, infidelity, like, all of those things, is to be unapologetically, authentically who I am, which allows me the space to connect with people and to move forward in a very real space.

And I can't think of something more disturbing than if you're on a stage in front of people that you love and respect and they don't know this about you and you're going to that dark place speaking your deepest truth. But then, man, when you finished like that must have been the most liberating, freeing, explosive day after you did that.

It was. And it put all the cards on the table to be really frank about it. Right. Like, so a lot of people have noticed that for the last three or four years I haven't gone to Paleo fx. I'm not a big supporter. I don't work with other Paleo bloggers. My truth put all the cards on the table for who people really were and who was important in my life. And it was, it was very freeing in many, many aspects. And business relationships in what I thought were friendships into like what I'm committed to and is worrying about that really congruent or aligned to the vision that I have to help a billion people. And it very quickly put things into perspective for me on like what matters, what's important and the impact that can be had when you focus on the right things.

Man, I love hearing you talk. And I was just visualizing as you were speaking about all these stories that we tell ourselves the of these fricking stories. And I think about one of the physicians we had, she's a behavioral specialist and she was mentioning Dr. Karabinet. There's a part of our brain deep attached to the amygdala and it's the Habenula. It's this record keeper for failure.

Oh, that's mine's got to be enlarged.

And I think about this like some of us have more deposits of negativity in that Habenula bank than others.

Oh for sure.

So for the people that are watching or listening, like where would they actually start?

Man, I'm like a Rothschild with that Habenula.

Yeah, you got some serious deposits in there.

Like I'm single handedly funding this entire planet with that thing.

But it's also paradoxically what is driving you to serve the billion thousand percent. Isn't it interesting this duality we always play with it is.

And this is where it gets dangerous. When you're subconsciously working towards something like that, you kind of get a pass. You can get away with it. Right. So I was a 22 week New York Times bestseller. Ask me if that means shit to me. No, they threw me a party. My wife and family put a ton of time into it. I was the biggest asshole that dinner because I felt like I didn't deserve it and it meant nothing. Right. So in the moments of those accolades coming up, I don't have or in the past, up until now, I hadn't had the presence or the connection or the empathy or compassion to like or the capacity to celebrate a win because nothing was a win. Nothing was good enough. It was like, yeah, it was number four. But why wasn't a number one? It was 22 weeks. Why wasn't it 220? Right. It was. It's this constant. And before I had done personal development worker had all this pain. I very naively was able to operate in that context. And it was okay. And it made me successful, it made me charismatic, it made me driven. Right. But then the shit gets real when you start unraveling all of it.

Hell yeah.

When you become aware that you're doing it. Because now, now the thing that's fueled you for 30 years of your life no longer starts your car. You're like, hey, you've been driving this car. You know how to drive it. You know it, it's really fast. You can control it. It's the best thing ever. Yep. You can't have any more gas for that car. You need to go build a new car and you need to figure out how to fuel it, how to create combustion, how to create energy, longevity, consistency, and nobody's ever done it before. And so I had this really, really interesting period of depression, hospitalization, self sabotage, and fucking misery as I went through that transition. Because the only thing that I'd known my entire life got ripped away from me because I decided to do a goddamn personal development course. And they figured out a way to communicate with me and tell me that my success was all predicated on me being an asshole and I couldn't do it anymore. Amazing feedback. But God, to unravel 30 years of beliefs and try to rebuild them overnight was impossible.

Damn. It's almost like people are trying to be strategically vulnerable.

Yeah. Which is bullshit.

You're talking about just being vulnerable because, like, this is what you're healing and your cleansing looks like.

Yeah.

But they're doing it. And I see so many people being vulnerable. Like, almost like, hey guys, I just want to let you know this is going to be a really vulnerable post. It's like, why don't you just be vulnerable and not tell us it's going to be vulnerable?

Yeah, yeah. Like vulnerability became a problem marketing tool in the last two years. Right. But luckily it stands out like a black sheep. Like it's so easily.

We have this existential barometer for bullshit now. All of us, we're becoming trained.

I literally tell my marketing clients that 2018, my word of the year is discernment. Because people are so connected and in tune with all the tactics and crap that there's only one thing that's standing above everything else in marketing, and it's relationships. And the most successful companies, the most successful influencers, the most successful people are all masters at building relationships. And they've cultivated them. They create that space, and it works. And so, yeah, discernment's my word. It is a. It is a barometer of bullshit. Like, you can't play authentic, right? Like, I've spent enough of my life being a human doing, and I realized that the only way to succeed is to be a human being, right? And I still go to checklists, like, hey, babe, I'm sorry I upset you. Can you tell me what I should do differently next time? She's like, no, I can't, because I can't give you a checklist on how to be a good person. And I'm like, oh, okay, I'm gonna go sit on that one.

Oh, dude.

And. And it's so true, though. And it's so true. And, like, you know, I'm not really upset. There's no destination, right. I wouldn't be doing the work, that I would be wallowed up in a hole and depressed. But for somebody whose entire life, mine was programmed that everything was black and white. It was. If you did this, it led to this, which was either abuse, negativity, disgustingness, or if you did this, it led to basically a little bit of safety. And the only time safety came was if everything was perfect. Like, I was told yesterday by my therapist, like, I don't know how to love myself. I don't know what joy is. I don't know what not working is. I don't know what stillness is. Like, unless I'm sitting with medicine, which even then, part of those journeys and the work for those, as I do medicine, is discovering the path to create that and even getting there in those moments and. And being okay with whatever comes up and being surrendered to that, whether it's a good one or a bad one. And I've had both.

Can you talk to us then? Can you talk to the people that are listening to you? And they're literally at that point where they know they want to do something different.

Yeah.

Where do they go?

Yeah. So this is really interesting because I've never done a drug in my life, ever, because of my childhood, my family. I mean, obviously, pain. Painkillers are a drug. I will say I abuse those, but I meant, like, in a Setting outside of. Yeah, I'm very, very much new to this world of like plant medicine in general. Any. Any medicine outside of the traditional western medicine, right? Like medicine in the form of ice baths, medicine in the form of meditation, holotropic breathing, which by the way, is insane. Like that.

So powerful.

Holy moly. Like, you want to talk about natural DMT release, right? And I've never experienced DMT straight, but like, when I do that correctly, it's insane. It's like out of those body experience. But yeah, so this is all relatively new to me and I'm luckily blessed to be around people like Aubrey Marcus and Kyle Kingsberry and Rick Doblin from Maps and God, everyone from. From Paul Check. And I was around it enough that my preconceived notions of drugs, quote unquote, the walls were ripped down because I. Drugs were always a bad thing in my life, right? And then I was like, these aren't drugs. These are tools.

Who told you they were bad?

Just because you saw families. My children, like, my life told me they were bad, right? They equaled police and arrests and abuse and neglect and everything. Like, our mother's brain dead. I mean, like, she might listen to this. I love you, mom, but like, I feel like my mother has no connection to what our fucking life was like as kids. And when you use drugs, like your whole life recreationally, to the point of whether it's heroin or coke or whatever, everything they were doing, like, you kill those parts. Like, it's like, it's like it never happened. Like it still fucking happened to me, right? And so, like, I just had all these negative things. And so then I was around it and I'd done so much work and I'm like, there has to be something else for me. Like, I'm like, I can only talk so many more times. I can only meditate so many more times. And like, I just. I'm still having nightmares every night. All these different things that are unresolved. And so I found a friend, a couple friends, obviously, but, you know, they've been talking to me about MDMA and the benefits of MDMA for depression, primarily PTSD anxiety, things like that. MDMA is more for PTSD anxiety. When you, when you see that through Maps, I think it's. And 81% success rate with one treatment.

And there's actually a phase three trial we had.

They just got approved.

Brad Burge on the show from Maps, and, and he was talking about this like, it's happening in 2021.

I know legalization they're, they're literally planning their first clinics in Austin in like 2021, they told me. But yeah, 81% success rate with one treatment on basically curing or supporting PTSD or high levels of anxiety. And so I found a couple of my friends that I trust and I did my first MDMA experience with intention and guides and support and it changed my life, like single handedly changed my life, like one day changed my life.

What did you realize?

You know, I'm still integrating from that experience. I had a really good analogy. So for a lot of people listening, I'm no, no means an expert whatsoever, but I'm around a lot of people that have done MDMA for therapy. And what I found when I've heard from people is typically one of two experiences happen when people do MDMA the first time. They're either really, really quiet and introspective, where they talk uncontrollably. I was the latter. Shocker, right? No doubt. I love to hear myself talk. So that experience was amazing. Set my intention, the space was perfect. I sat with the right people. And for the first two hours I was like a broken record and I was talking circles around the same exact things. And what I've come to find out is those are the things that I needed to do a lot of work on. And I was like repackaging it and explaining it differently. And who I was sitting with was amazing because he was like, mm, tell me more, right? Like he just pulled it out of me for like two hours. And then at the end of two hours, I hit this point and I just sat there and I had nothing left. I had no words, no breath, like I had nothing. There was not a thought in my brain, except I have no thoughts in my brain. And I then spent the next 36 hours in silence. And the analogy that I use is like, you know, ocean pollution is no joke, but you see the pictures of the ocean being polluted, right? Where there's like just these layers of trash that's like four feet deep, right? And that's what it felt like. That's what my brain felt like. I felt like that first two hours, all I was doing was creating a hole so I could jump in. And I got to the point where I cleared enough debris that I could dive in. And as soon as I dived in, it was just stillness and silence. And I learned that I'm safe in silence. I learned that I truly am a good hearted, good intentioned individual. I accepted that I'm not damaged goods, that I'M not, you know, broken property. I came to understand that I can't help a billion people when I make it all about myself, Because I make a majority of everything about me, which is why I've been successful. So it's like these curtains get ripped down and these false beliefs go away. Like, it. I don't want to say it hurts, but it's raw. Like, yeah, it's there. Like, nobody wants to sit here and be like, no, like, I'm an egotistical prick.

Like, I know that's the case for so many.

Everything about me, right? Like, but it's in true awareness that we create the window to possibility. Someone should tweet that. It's in true awareness that we do create the window to possibility. And I've learned that.

And one thing I'm really excited about, and I'm just, like, I'm feeling that lump in my throat, too, man, because my life mirrors many shadows that you've had with my weight loss and things that I've gone through. And I think back to what you said on a video actually was like, this week or last week, and you're like, you know, for the first time ever, I'm actually happy that I have this extra weight on because it's a gift that now I get to learn. Like, you actually get to learn how to lose it from a place of love instead of losing it from a place of anger or binging or whatever it might be. And, man, I'm carrying extra weight right now, too, you know, and I'm in the health and wellness is Wellness Force, baby. And I'm carrying extra weight for Wellness Force, so. So talk to us about this paradigm shift. Like, how are you coming from this place of love now when before it was cycles of kind of hatred and anger.

Yeah. So you noticed. You noticed something earlier where you said you noticed this pattern where, like, I've never really gotten to rest, but there's all these mountains, right? There's all these accolades of, like, of course you're in the best shape ever, and you almost lose your legs. Of course, you, you know, start a new sport, you master it, and then you quit.

Of course I wasn't trying to be your therapist.

No, but. No, but it's. It's a very, very valid, valid, solid point. Like, what we resist persists. Right? I keep creating this same exact results in hundreds of different scenarios because the universe will keep giving you the lesson until you learn it. And that's a very, very important distinction. Right. It's no reason. Like, there's there's no accident. The point that like I had my first stitches when I was like 15 months old. Like, can I scream any louder? Like, hey, pay attention to me. I've been at this weight for about a year now and I've tested and tried everything and it'll move like five, six pounds and it'll come back and it'll move and it'll come back. And I've been sitting a lot with it and figuring out why. And I realized that I'm. My body, my brain, my mind subconsciously will not allow me to lose the weight if it is not set up for long term success and in the right place. And so I started figuring out what was underneath that. And very frankly, I don't know how to love myself. I don't know how to acknowledge myself for what I do do and I don't know what success looks like. And so I've gotten from 235 to 220, 235 to 217 and somehow I creep right back up within a matter of days or weeks. 225, 230. And I realize it's because I'll focus on an area, I'll focus on self love, but I won't focus on the rest and then I'll like, like lose the consistency or the commitment and then it comes back. And so I talked about this in a video and for me it's a daily reminder that this is how it will be until I simply learn to love myself and then the weight won't matter. Now I don't have any body image issues right now. Like I'm not feeling like binging or purging. Like my eating disorders are all healed. Like I'm, I'm good, I'm good. It's more of a, like a frustration place for me because I now know that if I go into it to lose the weight or to have an eight pack or to prove everybody wrong, that I will not be able to have that.

It's not sustainable anymore.

And so it's figuring out like how do I design my lifestyle, how do I design my family, my work, my diet, my exercise that supports my long term goals of being able to do backflips at 80 with my kid. Right. And walking on my, that's one of your goals? Yeah, being able to walk on my hands with all my grandkids laughing at me when I'm like 82 years old. Like I just want to be a monkey. Like I want to be a grown ass monkey. I haven't figured out how to do it from a place of love yet. What I figured out is that everything I've tried to this point is I've learned different parts that do support that, and then I've learned the parts that don't support that, and I'm putting them all together to create that perfect recipe, which is actually what we're building. Like, I realized that, like, I am not fulfilling my purpose on civilized caveman by selling cookbooks or selling recipes or things like that, because there's so much more to life than the. The ingredients that go into a recipe. There's the meaning behind it, why we choose to make it, why we choose to eat it. And so I'm basically developing this new community and membership. And it's all predicated on the work that I do every day. And it's the self love, it's the mindset. So it's the wellness, the recipes, the fitness, and the mindset piece on how you tie it all together and you make it fit and you accept it and there's no fault, no blame, no guilt, no shame, and you can work through it. So I don't like saying I don't know because when I say I don't know, it means I'm not the best. I don't know the answers. But you still said it to be humble. It makes me very uncomfortable to not have the answers. And so I look at that as an opportunity to be like, I don't know or I haven't figured that out yet. Why don't you help me? Right? Because I do realize that, you know, human beings in this world basically want one of two things. They want to be heard or they want to be right. Right. And that those are the core emotions that get under a lot of stuff. And. But I do realize that every time that I make myself right, everybody else is wrong. And it's one of those things that I actively practice of humbling myself and basically in my brain saying, shut your effing mouth and just listen for a minute. So people feel safe and connected and understood. And it actually allows me to have the leg up and supporting them and knowing their story because they feel safe and that's there. So this was an opportunity, like, where I feel safe with you even in just us knowing each other in person today. But it's a testament to, like, you, your connection, how you position things, the way that you frame things, the way that you talk about things. Like, you hold this space of safety. So in all authenticity, the only reason I'm Able to say it is because I feel safe enough in your presence to say it.

Wow, man, that's a huge compliment coming from you. And I think it's because I've experienced not your story at all, but parts of your story where I can actually connect with those, because I felt the pain of that. And. And I know there's somebody listening too, and I know they're feeling like, George. Where do I start? You know, what do I actually do? Because, you know, one of the fascinating things that you've been quoted for a lot, man, is food is not the problem. It's the belief system beneath the food, I think, and I know that's what everybody's feeling.

My favorite quote is, you're not in a monogamous relationship with food. There is no cheating, only choices. Yeah, cheating implies victim. Choices implies responsibility. When you choose something, you can always choose something else. Where do I start? If you're listening to this and you're. You're in a similar situation or any situation whatsoever, where do you start? Well, if I was to go back and give myself the same advice, I would start with, number one, acknowledging where you are. So I've deducted five things that have been at the core of everything that I've had success with, and they're all A's. And there's five A's. A number one is awareness. Awareness, because in order to go somewhere, we need to know where we are. And I see this all the time. I see people plugging destinations into their gps, but they don't have a starting line because they're not aware. They're basically either avoiding it, they haven't gotten feedback, or they just don't want to accept it. Right. So awareness is number one. One. Acceptance is number two. And I want to talk about acceptance because I thought for the longest time acceptance meant that I accept these things, and that means that's who I am. And it's very much different than that. I accept these things because it allows me the capacity to move past them and create something different. Just because I make a mistake, like because I get in a car accident, doesn't make me a bad driver. That choice or that moment created an undesirable outcome. But if I want to change that, I have to accept that that happened. And the fact that I was texting and driving made me rear end somebody. And then a solution to that is to take an action in the opposite direction. So the third A is action. What action would I take? Put my phone in my trunk. Problem solved. 4th A. Accountability Tell somebody like, hey, I rear ended somebody today because I was texting and driving. Not, oh, officer. Like, it was my GPS that I was looking at. Like, no, don't lie. Don't lie to yourself, number one, and don't lie to other people. But then you take an action, and then you tell somebody to be accountable for it. Because now when you're accountable to something greater than yourself, you can't make excuses. You can't be like, I'll just in my hand this one time, or, I'll put it in my phone holder this one time. It's like, no, like, you made a commitment. Like, you. You signed a verbal contract that said you put it in your trunk. So you put it in your trunk. And then the fifth A is attitude for gratitude, where you can only use external people so many times to create your results before you create massive monster that's unsustainable. And the fifth A is designed for that. And it's an attitude of gratitude. It's once you have completed something or stuck to your goal or had a breakthrough or put your phone in the trunk or chose not to binge eat or acknowledged where you were and you got the support, then you have to acknowledge yourself and you have to reward yourself and say, hey, look what I did. Like, I did tell somebody, and they held me accountable. But, like, I did this. Like, this was my choice. This is my power. This is my journey that I'm stepping on. And so next time, I'm gonna try this without the accountability, because I've done this and I've created the habit, and I know I can do it, right? And so that that accountability kind of helps you navigate that and get that confidence. It gives you that dopamine hit right away, right?

Where it's like, also being seen for sure, right?

And, like, you're like, oh, you did it. Yeah, you're amazing, right? So, like, I always tell people, I'm like, use Facebook. I'm like, because everybody wants to tell you how amazing you are on Facebook. And, like, it's amazing. So, like, if you decide not to binge eat, and you're like, hey, guys, I was about to binge eat. It was gonna spiral my bulimia. I've been clean for, you know, 18 months, and instead I went for a walk outside, and I just wanted to tell everybody, you will never open the refrigerator again because you can have seven friends, and you're gonna get 187 comments that are like, oh, my God, you're amazing. I wish I could be like, you can you tell me how you did it or why you did it? Right. And it's all those things required. Then you're like, I did do that. Like, I did. Like, you're. You're basically taking all of those deposits into your confidence and into your toolbox to. Then when that problem comes up again or that situation arises, you have all the ammunition required to choose that empowering choice or that empowering journey.

And whether you call it ammunition or evidence, I almost feel like really what you're talking about is like, it's our responsibility to collect the evidence, man. Yeah, we're collecting evidence either way. In the Habenula, you're like, yeah, I'm the Rothschild of the Habenula. Yeah, the Habenula is going to get full whether we like it or not. So. So it's our loving ownership, it's our responsibility to collect the evidence that we're loved, that we're supported, that we're on the right path for sure.

And I think. I think the other thing, too. You remember I said no fault, no blame, no guilt, no shame. And I mean to cut you off. Sorry. I'm still addicted to listening to myself talk. When you look at that situation, the other side of that coin is when we make commitments to ourselves, like, we're going to change our behavior, we're going to work out, or we're going to change our eating habits. We're going to cut out gluten, right? You're going to fail. Like, I just want everybody to know that. But failure is not what we define it as. It doesn't mean, like, it's mortal, it's game over. It just means in that moment, you made a choice that wasn't aligned to your bigger vision. And this is the best part. A moment later, you can choose again. And that's why I'm very confident, very aggressive in the fact that I'm like, there's no cheating. There's only choices. Because choice implies responsible. And so I still have those days where I go to the refrigerator and I'm like, I'm about to binge eat brownies. I should probably tell someone. Nope, I'm not telling anybody. Okay? I'm not gonna binge. I'm not gonna tell anybody. I'm gonna binge eat the brownies. And it happens. And what happens after is what's most important. Because I'm like, yeah, look, I chose to ate the brownies. This is the result that was created. Probably not gonna help me lose weight, probably not gonna be aligned to my goals, but I chose it. And what can I do now? Well, I have two choices. I can stick my finger down my throat and that'll not be worth it, or I can just accept the fact that I did it and realize, like, why I chose to do it or what made me keep doing it. And then I can figure out what that was and I can adjust it for the next time. So, like, you own who you are, you own the choices that you make. Like, you own your entire space. You own it from a place of like, I create my life, I create my results, right? And then when you do that, you always own the right to choose to create a different result. So, yeah, it's. It's interesting.

It's the gathering of the evidence continuously, man. And so what are you actually helping people do now? You've come from this line of like civilized caveman cooking creations. You got rid of the creations.

We got rid of the creations and the cooking.

But now it seems like you're doing more marketing than actual nutritional programming.

I am.

So what's next then?

I am. So I learned two years ago that I don't like cooking. And here's why. Cooking for me was a vessel. I taught myself to cook so I could combat bulimia, right? And I didn't tell anybody. So it was like my secret accountability. Like, if I cooked a new recipe every day or I posted on the blog every day that nobody would know I was bulimic. But I had accountability outside of myself. And so I used the, like, cooking, taught myself cooking, becoming a cookbook author and app developer, all those things to basically climb a peak. But then once I hit that peak anymore and I came back down and went through the death again of like, reinvention, I didn't need this skill to cook anymore. Like, I don't enjoy, number one, doing dishes, so I would hire somebody to do my dishes when I cooked. But number two, when I think of like my ideal day or my hell, yes, designing my life, I would choose to spend it speaking or teaching versus cooking, recipe development or something like those. Now I love eating, but I love eating food that other people create. But I love what we built with civilized caveman. And just like anybody has growth cycles, I had a growth cycle where, yes, I have a very successful food blog and I'm going to keep it going. But now it allows me to make it about other people. So rather than all being my recipes, now they are community driven recipes and creator driven. And I have these influencers are that that have been blogging for six years and can't build an audience, but have amazing photos and amazing products. And now I get to feature them and showcase them. So it becomes a win win for the world versus a win win for me. And I can spend my time doing what I love doing, which is facilitating conversation, which is being unapologetically authentic, to create possibility for people to speak, to teach. And I do it in marketing and I do it in the health world. So for Caveman, it's to keep the website going. It's civilized Caveman. And we expanded to wellness, recipes and fitness. We're launching a podcast, which we're not going to talk about right now. We'll talk about that later. We're launching a podcast, we have videos, we're posting every single week of like, different wellness tips, mindset tips, fitness, body weight movements, things that help you align your life or your day to create the results that you want. And I get to facilitate that through my story. But then I also get to empower other people to help other people through their stories where it's not about me. Like, I get to be the wizard of the Oz. Wizard of the Oz behind the curtain. Right. Where, like, I don't really need you to know what I am. Like, my big goal and this is to keep me in check and to keep my ego in check is that it does get made about somebody else.

Do you want the spotlight less on you?

No, I want all the spotlight on me, but all the spotlight on me doesn't help a million people. So quite frankly, I will always want all the attention, but all the attention does not align to my vision. And so that's where self awareness comes in.

I think our tribes have a lot of crossover because a lot of the people that write in and like, the most important topics, the ones that are most hand picked are the ones that are around emotional intelligence, the ones where they're actually looking within. And damn, have you looked within, man? Like, you have had a lifetime of looking within. So now I almost feel like, and tell me if I'm incorrect here. You're almost at this pivot point where you spent so many years going from threshold to threshold that now you're at this new threshold where you're actually taking the fuel from a place of this love.

Yeah.

And showing other people how to do the same thing and being okay, saying, I don't know, which is the whole beautiful part of the whole thing.

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. Because, like, my wife is pretty frank with me. She's like, I want you to be with me and our family. I don't want you working all the time. I don't want you creating another threshold. I don't want you self sabotaging our family. And she's right. And that's exactly what I'm doing. And I've done this since the beginning. I've never shied away from like, hey guys, I'm gonna figure this out as we go, or like, hey, guys, this is my journey, but this is the first time where I've built it for me, and I'm utilizing it to help other people along the way with me. And it is learning to come from a place of, like, stillness and existence, of being and being okay with being and being okay with what I know. And it's okay that I don't know everything but what I do know and making that have a maximum impact while providing a safe space for people. Right? So there's. There's three things then. This is a little bit of my marketing, but there's three things every human being needs to take an action, and they need them in this order. It's permission, safety, and accountability. And you can deduct basically any human behavior down to that. And this is what I teach in marketing. And so I look at all the different ways that I can use my platform, civilized, caveman, my social media, my story to do those things. And probably my biggest superpower is that I basically give everybody permission through my vulnerability and authenticity, which has always been the case. But the biggest piece that was missing is not everybody felt safe because my energy is so back and forth between, like, this thing and this thing and this thing and this product or this recipe and this book or this idea or this shiny object. And so everybody has always had the permission, but nobody has subconsciously felt safe in my existence because there's been so much change and so much constant variance that they weren't able to commit to have the results that they wanted. And that's what's different. I hired a coach. I have coaches. I get coaching all the time. And in order for that safety to exist, there has to be consistency and there has to be this bigger vision, Things that are bigger than myself. And so that's what this new program and the new thing that I'm really, really focused on, it's like, this will be my life's work under the caveman brand. And then I will teach about this work in my marketing world and in my, you know, business development world. But it's. I give people the permission, and now it's giving them the space to feel safe so they can step into their power. Right. Like, leaders don't pull people, and leaders don't push. People walk hand in hand with people as they take their own journey.

You have this metaphor, too, where you're like, I don't actually like to lead from the front or the back. I want to be in the middle. Because then you can pull people that need pulling up and you can push people that are getting tired.

Yep.

Did that come from the military?

That was the thing that got me in trouble the most in the military, you know, because the Marine Corps is very egotistical in the sense of, like, you lead from the front. If. If one of your Marines beats you in Iran, then you're not fit for a leader. If one of your Marines finishes before you, then how can you save their life in combat? Like, that is the Marine Corps. And I. I get why, like, Marines are programmed in a very psychotic manner to win. You know, there's a reason there's only, like, 175,000 Marines and the army has, like, 26 times the amount of people, but yet the Marines go in and do their thing. And I'm not. Like, I appreciate every service. Right. But it's. It's a different breed. Like, the psychology behind it is that, like, there is no weakness. Like, all of our T shirts say, pain is weakness leaving the body, which.

Always isn't the case.

No, but the. They. They really teach you that, right? Like, I remember, like, I was wrong because I broke my leg and I wanted to go to Sick Call, and they're like, no, like, stop being a pansy. Suck it up. It's fine. Take some ibuprofen. Like, that's the culture. Like, that's why there's such a problem with mental health and PTSD and all this other stuff is because the culture doesn't exist for people to feel safe. Right? And so, yeah, I. I learned that in my career. And, like, I would get in trouble with my bosses, but my Marines were always loyal, right? And it's this one thing I learned that, like, if I stayed within the boundaries, if I was tactful and I took care of my Marines within reason, and I didn't break any laws or, you know, violate any uniform codes of military justice stuff. But, like, I just basically put their being at number one, I would succeed whether or not my bosses liked me. And I did. I was promoted very fast and won many awards and accolades. And if you ask any of my bosses, they will tell you I was the biggest pain in the ass. But I always took care of my marines and I, that's when I learned that I was like, I can't. Like, when I'm in the front, I don't know that somebody's struggling or falling back or they're depressed. And I'm like, if I'm in the back, like, I can't keep my, my hands on the guys in the front to make sure. Like, hey, you need to slow down because you have eight more miles to go. Or like, hey, you need to slow down because you had 18 more years to go. Right? Like, and so the middle is where I found myself. And this is where I tell everybody, like, my favorite place to be is in the trenches with you figure out the tough.

It's also a huge responsibility, man, being in the middle and doing what you do. And really what you're talking about is you're bringing attention to a lot of the systems that are economically and military and all these different complexes. Like, everything that you're still healing from is a product of that. Like, how do you manage this responsibility? This is a massive responsibility.

I don't take it on like, it's all mine. I take it on as like, I'm the facilitate facilitator of this. Like, I'm the CEO of this vision. But just like any good company CEOs, their job is to see the vision and keep running towards the vision, but to surround themselves with a team of like minded, driven, amazing people that all do their part and execute. And the CEO's part is no more important than every other person's part. So like my team, my brother Jeremy, I told them we're equals. I'm like, there's no CEO here. I'm like, we're all CEOs and CEOs and like, I'm just as much wrong as I am. Right, right. And we all get to do this together. And so like, I might have an idea, you might trumpet, you might have an idea, I might trump it. I'm like, but the thing is that collectively we all own it. And it eliminates my ego. And you know, to be really frank, like, one of the biggest struggles for me in business is accepting business advice from my wife. Massively successful before ever meeting me. World renowned speaker, like, used to close a half a million in sales from stage. Like, she used to sell a book for a grand. Like, I mean, like a book. And because of my story and her being that partner that is helping me heal. And we heal together and we do that work. The only feedback that I Ever have trouble receiving is feedback from her because it's like a direct injection into my heart. So my wife and I, you know, we fight all the time because I have a lot of work to do and that I get. I have a lot of work I get to do.

I like that catch. I'm always asking my friends to catch me on my language.

I catch myself a lot that I get to do, and. And part of that is being surrendered to it, looking a different way.

Yeah.

And so we were in this, like, a little disagreement, and it was. It was good. Like, we were. We were communicating. And I was feeling that, though. Like, I can't take advice from you. Like, I don't want to feel wrong. Well, if I'm like, why don't you run, caveman? She looked me square in the eye. She's like, okay. And I was like, okay, okay, we're doing this. Cool. I'm like, tell me what you need. And I told them, and I told Jeremy, and I'm like, this is actually a good thing. Like, it's a family business. I want my wife. I love my wife. She's so intelligent. And there's no better way for me to do the work or to have a breakthrough than to have the single most hardest trigger for me sitting in front of my face. And me have to do the work every single day.

Yeah.

To hear the ideas, to make it about her and Steve and Jeremy and the people that we're serving versus about me and it being my idea or the right way. And. And, God, I'm so scared when I record this podcast, like, right now, like, this is, like, so exposed of, like, oh, my God. People literally gonna think I'm this, like, selfish, egotistical.

They're also gonna think it's incredibly awesome.

And I'm like. And that's okay, too, though, right? Like, I. But, like, I always like to acknowledge, like, when it comes up, like. Because I just caught myself. Myself when I said that, I'm like, God, like, I could totally sound like an husband. Like, oh. Or I could just sound like an honest one that's doing the work. I'm like. But I still, like, in the middle of these conversations, in the middle of my flow and my speaking, because I'm sure you notice I can go for a while. I still catch myself. And I'm like, should I stop now? Did that land like, it was supposed to land? And I. Yeah. Oh, my God. I watched Josh's face.

Is that a skill set that you're constantly paying attention to? Like, am I going too much.

Much. How do you.

How do you that. What's that look like?

I base that on people's energy.

Yeah.

And I've only learned this out of survival. Like, my wife is certified in hypnosis and nlp.

So I pick up, I gotta meet your wife, man. She sounds cool.

Well, you'll meet her a little while. But I. I picked up. I pick up things from her just through, like, habit. Like, I feel like my wife has programmed me to be a really good husband. And I don't feel like any of it was me. I feel like it's very, very good, high level ethical manipulation from, like, nlp, like, when she talks to me.

Ethical manipulation?

Yeah. That's what I call it. That's what I call good marketing. Yeah, it's ethical manipulation, but, yeah. And then, so when I look at it, like, I feel like I've learned it as a skill set on how to survive. I learned my parents body language. I could tell my dad was angry, not angry based on his tics. I could tell when he was connected, in a good mood, sober, drunk, high, not high in the Marine Corps. I could tell when my bosses were pissed, when it was landing, when it wasn't landing. I could tell when my marines hated me or they love me. Right. I was just always just paying attention. So, like, now I speak. And, like, I love speaking because, like, I can look at you. I can watch your body language. I can see your arms cross when you wink. If you wink, when I say certain things, I know that it landed or didn't land. I can see when you look away where your eyes go like, yes, I'm doing this 24 7.

But then how do you be present, though? Because you're still so.

It's so conscious, subconscious to me.

Yeah.

Like, it's not that. Like, I'm like, oh, my God, he just blinked when I said that. But I will catch it. And then it comes up and I have a thought in my brain already. And so, like, the thought continues while I catch it and I figure out where I'm going to go. And so, like, when I do this in consulting, it's. I feel like one of the superpowers that makes me a very, very good consultant is that I can take what you're saying and I can go wherever you want to go. And then based on what I'm teaching or what I'm sharing, I can watch your body language. I can watch your tics, your responses, the inflection of your voice, your modulation and everything, and figure out if it's on path or not on path. And I can adjust without having to interrupt the flow or change anything. And that's what I do when I speak and when I do consulting.

The big point around this, too, is, like, we look at the new narrative. It's 2018, man. We have so many distractions, so many things that are pulling us away from one another. What do you want people to feel at the end of the day? Like, if you left the planet in five years, like, what would you want people to remember about you?

That I taught them that it was okay to be themselves. That. That, like, my impact or my legacy is that people no longer needed permission to love themselves. That, like, we lived on this planet or we had this earth where my son and daughter get to grow up. And they're taught and they're no, they know. Like, they just know every moment of every day that they're just a good person just to be a good person. That they don't have to prove it. They don't have to look a certain way. They don't have to post something. They don't have to be afraid to talk about who they are. They don't have to be afraid to talk about mental illness. They're not afraid to talk about depression or sadness or PTSD or abuse or anything. And at the same time that they never have to be afraid to talk about their accolades and to love themselves and to be proud of what they've done and to have an impact. Right? So I think more than anything, my impact or my legacy would have my name mean something. But that my story and the work that I've done and the things that I've experienced gave people permission to get into their own work and feel safe and to do the things required of them because they weren't afraid of what other people would think or what. Even what. They weren't afraid of what they think about themselves. Like, they were just okay with it in that existence, and they got to do something with it.

I have had so many moments during this conversation where I felt like crying myself. And I think you have this ability to bring up the deepest truth in human beings. And that is why I really wanted to share your message and who you are with Wellness Force Man. And I. I look at this question that I ask everyone, and I'm like, wow, I am so excited to hear what you're going to say. And the question is, wellness. How would you actually define this? Like, how do you define wellness in your life? What does wellness really mean to you to be.

Well, when I look at wellness or I look at anything in life, there's basically inputs and there's outputs. We have inputs, they get going through a process and we get a result which is the output. And wellness is probably the widest umbrella out of all of them. And I feel like one of the mistakes that I've seen the most in the online communities around fitness, health, wellness, mindset, all that stuff is that we try to prescribe a dogmatic approach to a very unique, individualistic item. And wellness for me is the inputs required for you to be mentally, physically, and emotionally strong and complete to create the results that you want in your life. And so for some of us, that may be fitness. For other of us, it may be sitting on the couch and watching television. For some of us, it might be green smoothies or being a vegetarian. For other us, it's going to be keto and eating meat. For some of us, it's going to be having three really, really close friends. And for some of us, it's going to be being a social butterfly and going out in community. And so all of us, and I can't speak for anybody, I'm saying all of us to create possibility for you to think about. We know the wickets that fill our tank and we know the wickets that drain our tank. And we can't have an impact with ourselves or with other people if our tank is empty. And so wellness for me is finding. Finding the, the finding the, the tools or finding the actual fuel itself for your tank and then capitalizing on those and then filling that tank so you can do whatever it is that you want to do. That would be my definition of wellness.

And it's a big ass tank.

It's a big ass tank. Sometimes I feel like I spend eight hours a day trying to fill that thing up and it's still on E.

Well, dude, thank you so much for letting me share space with you being so open. I know you probably hear that a lot of people like George, thank you for being so open.

I will say, like, I was authentically open in this conversation, not my scripted I've done a thousand interview kind of thing. Like, yeah, this was the, the real. The real ish.

Where can they go to learn more.

Civilized caveman on Instagram. Civilized caveman on Facebook. But we do have a Facebook group where we do all of like my live streams, my deep stuff and that's probably where the majority you'll find the best of everything. It's called on Facebook, Civilized caveman lifestyle. If you search it. You can just request to join and we'll add you right in. I believe there's a URL that used to redirect, but I can't remember.

Okay, we'll find it and put it in the show.

Civilized cavemangroup.com. okay, I'm pretty sure, but that would be the best place. That's where. That's where the rules of acceptance are simple. You can come into the group and there is no fault, no blame, no guilt, no shame, and no being a dick. Those are the five rules.

Let's end the interview just on that phrase, man. Thank you so much.

Thank you, boss. I appreciate it, man.