Barbell Shrugged - Flow States & the Consciousness Revolution with Aubrey Marcus

Episode Date: July 19, 2017

This week we stopped by Onnit in Austin, Texas, to talk about some pretty big ideas with CEO and founder Aubrey Marcus. If, for example, you want to know how to change the world for the better, then this is the episode for you. “If you want to be of service for society at large, you’ve got to be fit for service. And to be fit for service, you have to do these personal practices. You have to get yourself in a state where you’re able to affect change and really help people.” Aubrey shared a lot of insight about what he does to get himself fit for service, and he peppers the podcast with both the science and ancient philosophies that justify his practices. Y’all know about ecstatic dance? If you don’t, you will by the time you’re done listening (and you might be looking up where to find it in your area). Aubrey tells us about how to stack practices wisely for the best results. Looking at health through the lens of identity and consciousness, Aubrey’s practices take functional fitness to a new level. Ecstatic dance is just one item in the toolkit he employs to reach a flow state on the regular. Meditation, floating, yoga, and (of course) the gym all have their place, too. He describes flow states as a “pause from all the stress and worry. It’s a really dramatic reset. Just like sleep resets all of these biological functions, I think flow resets a lot of these emotional functions… You get to escape that for a little while. And sometimes it’s waiting for you on the other side, but at least you’ve given yourself that break.” Enjoy the show, Mike

Awareness always comes first and that can come in a variety of ways but being aware of all of the pressures and all of the ideas and all of the things that have been impressed upon you and then say alright that's all that stuff where is that living inside of me what do I like and what do I don't like Welcome to Barbell Thug. I'm Mike Bledsoe. We're with Doug Larson, Alex Macklin. And we're hanging out on it in Austin, Texas. And we're with Aubrey Marcus, CEO, founder.

Did you have co-founders? No. Found this one on my own. But Rogan came in pretty quick. Yeah. He's kind of like a co-founder. Yeah. Big plus there.

Yeah. Big plus. And, you know, I think anyone who follows you on social media realizes that you're doing things differently. And you're a bit of an experimenter. You're pushing boundaries. You're not doing things that the typical person is doing. Yeah.

There's a lot of things that allow you to have that. You're an entrepreneur, so you don't have, so you don't have to clock in and clock out. Well, the entrepreneur also can never clock out. That's true. That's the other problem. As things get more and more hectic, sometimes I just fantasize about that job where I was done at the end of the day. Like, hey, my day's done.

I haven't had one of those days in a long time. I think every entrepreneur goes through that phase. There was definitely a time where I was like, oh, fuck, nine to five would be so cool right now. I could be off work and not think about it. What's that like? It's like the expression, it's that an entrepreneur is the only person

that will work an 80-hour work week, so he doesn't have to work a 40-hour work week. Exactly. It is exactly what suits me the best and i i wouldn't change anything i'm really living the dream but you know for people who put that on a pedestal and think if i was only an entrepreneur everything would be awesome like it's a fucking trial by fire too you know like all of these things have their strengths so you know be grateful for where you're at you know there's advantages no matter what you're doing for sure i like that yeah be grateful for where you're at

yeah yeah yeah i mean a lot of people just like they see the shiny object and then they're trying to chase that and they drop themselves crazy but sometimes you've got to appreciate where you're at at the current moment you know people are where you're supposed to be right now yeah they're good at finding the silver lining in other people's lives yeah it's true social media doesn't help though too some of that part you know yeah yeah i mean what am i gonna do am i gonna post like me being all stressed out oh here i am wicked stressed out of course i'm not gonna post yeah i mean i do talk about that kind of stuff openly because i want people to understand that you know i think we got to break these ideas of these fantasy lives that people live and you know anybody who's a leader or someone people look up to like i think it's our responsibility as leaders to show our vulnerability to show that

we have shitty days that we get lost trapped in our own head that we do stupid stuff and that we make mistakes and we forgive ourselves and move on. Speak for yourself, Aubrey. I think people appreciate that, actually. I think a lot of people respond positively to that because they see. Of course, because it's real. Yeah, because it's real. And, you know, you see this person and like, oh, shit, they're like this big thing. But they experience the same problems I do. So maybe I'm not that bad off, you know.

Do you see a shift right now in the business world with the increased transparency? And do you think that the vulnerability is a leadership quality that's more important now than it was 30 years ago? Transparency, yes. I still think there's a lot of struggle with vulnerability. I think people are still putting out more of a shell of what they think they want people to see than what is actually true and that's starting to shift a little bit but the transparency is more but more into the business practices you know less into man like i was really hard on myself i was really dumb i really you know that kind of the ego based side of things is little bit, is hanging on a little bit harder than the other business practices side.

Yeah. So, but, you know, obviously as this kind of consciousness revolution, which I feel like we're under, you know, advances, I think some of these principles are starting to come to the surface. And one of those is just saying it like it is opening up the whole, all the cabinets and being like, look, here's all the things going on and, um, and doing that as an act of service. Yeah. You're leading the way in that in a lot of ways. Are there things that you're, are there any practices that you have, uh, to keep yourself in check in that regard? To me, it's all about, you know, tapping back into those conscious principles. You know, there's the identity self and then there's the conscious self. And the identity self is always afraid of everything.

You know, it's afraid of the business getting taken away. It's afraid of your reputation losing this or that. It's desiring to acquire more things and be more successful. The identity self is always either afraid or greedy, you know. And so when you're in that mode, it's really difficult to be fully kind of happy and content and make really sound decisions. So I try to balance that. You never kill that side. And it's an interesting, spicy part of life. And I respect that part, but I always do things to pull myself more into the consciousness side, you know, be the observer

of that identity self and be the force that's animating this life. And so those practices are, you know, meditation, ecstatic dance, flotation, yoga, you know, thought practices, you know, nature, so many different ways. And then, of course, there's the, you know, some of the other things that I'm known for, like the plant medicine journeys, but that's not an everyday practice. That's every once in a while you take a reset and reconnect with that. But the daily practices are what sustain and elevate that level of consciousness. I imagine most people are not familiar with ecstatic dance. Yeah. How often do you do that?

And is there a place in Austin that you can do that? You know, I actually facilitate that here in Austin. Oh, really? So I end up, you know, participating and facilitating more than I do just participating here. I've done it in Sedona a couple times, in L.A. and other places. I know that there's some dance that's out here. But really it's an opportunity, you know, dancing to put yourself in a trance is not something new. This is not some new hippie idea.

I mean, this goes back tribally to tons of cultures around the world. I mean, you look at the Sundance, you know, dancing, dragging buffalo skulls through the dirt for nine days to elicit a trance state. And you see that in all kinds of different cultures. And the idea is that you lose, you know, the thought practice, get into a super flow state, like a flow state they call super fluidity, where it's basically the feedback loop is music and body and the mind is just out of the way. And you're just flowing with that. And it forms this kind of trance state, this meditative state that's similar to meditation or something you would find in yoga or whatever. But, you know, you just shorten that gap where you remove the mind from, you know, its judgments and its, judgments and its performance art of dance, worrying about what other people are thinking,

and it's just music and your body moving. And it can be incredibly powerful and recentering. Yeah, you just said flow states. I think a lot of people, a lot of athletes, this is a much more common term being thrown around. We used to talk about being in the zone. Now people are talking about flow States. Yep. Uh, are, are, in addition to what you mentioned, are there

things you're doing? Are you, do you try to be in flow States? Is that something that like you're always pursuing? Of course. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's flow States feel so fucking good. You know, that's like, that's really when I'm the happiest and there's a lot of ways that i can get there i can get there in the gym i can get there in the bedroom i can get there on the dance floor i can get there in a lot of different ways and i think um you know anytime you can just get fully out of your head and experience that timeless big now yeah you're just right there right now and and experiencing something i mean it's a it's a beautiful thing going we're blessed here we got a beautiful lake so i'll go out and go wake surfing out on the lake

and so many different ways that you can activate um activate that but it's usually some kind of embodied practice what do you think keeps people from being able to access flow states i think people do they just don't realize that i think that's one of the reasons why we like sex so much, you know, is that when it's good, you know, you lose track of time. You're just lost in a moment of physical feedback and tapping into this, you know, big now experience. You date or one of these things where you're just really enraptured in this moment. And I think that's also, you know, if you read like Jamie Wheal and Stephen Kotler's book, Stealing Fire, which just, you know, describes all forms of flow state. They call it ecstasis from, you know, the things that you can take to pharmacologically, you know, induce it to the practices like flow to sexual practices, the sound practices, the awe practices, all of these different ways that you can access it. It's just really a fundamental human drive.

And I think we've all touched it. I think it's just putting the language, the name, and then the intention to go find it. I think that's the spot that people aren't really aware of. Yeah. You find the more time you spend in a flow state, the rest of the time you just have more peace of mind? Yeah. I mean, it does have a carryover effect. I mean, that's a dramatic, it's a pause from all of the stress, from all of the worry.

It's like a really dramatic reset. Just like sleep resets, you know, a lot of these biological functions. I think flow resets a lot of these emotional functions and a lot of these things that are Trapping you in this world of identity You know you get to escape that for a little while and sometimes it's waiting for you on the other side You know but at least you've given yourself that break and also experience why it's so Fucking good to be alive like what the what the real magic of this existence is you've tasted it and when you've tasted it then it's a lot harder to be you know depressed or bummed out or anything it's like well yeah that may suck but man life is awesome yeah because you felt that you really really felt

it yeah there's like a lot of practices uh that i've developed and i think similar practices that you have and really digging into a single practice can get you really far but stacking practices yeah do you do that yeah yeah yeah i think that's and some people think that's oh man that's totally debaucherous how rude but and you have to do it intelligently because some will counteract each other like you know you always you know and if you're looking you know we've both been to burning man and there's all the whole pharmacopoeia of different substances available and you'll see people who will stack substances that just counteract each other you see that in a regular party environment like you know a strong stimulant, you know, that'll counteract

like a psychedelic, right? Like one or the other, man, like don't stack those. You're basically just counteracting them, but there's some that are really congruous and then really start to work together. And that's, you know, just accelerating this, um, this thing. And I think just doing it with intention and looking like, all right, what are the synergistic practices and what are the things that are not going to go so well like maybe psilocybin and ecstatic dance wow maybe dma and great sex with your partner you know like these practices that you can stack then can you know even propel you to to even greater heights yeah yeah i mean doing things like uh i mean substances aside there's a a stack i want to try to get home which is lucialite float tank sure lucialite

would be something that i think anybody could access if they had that in their town yeah and like one of the an easy stack for physiological you know benefit would be like the wim hof method which is breath and cold right you're stacking hyper oxygenation with ice bath therapy basically and both together produce a really incredible effect i mean that's talk about like a hard reset for everything for the nervous system for your mind for your emotions everything you know do that do that wim hof breath jump in the cold water, and you'll come out a different human being. Yeah.

What motivates you to do all these things? Well, I think my own suffering, honestly. I think I have the type of mind that likes to throw me into hell. You know, it likes to run scenarios and make assumptions and plot for worst case scenarios and concern itself with a whole variety of things. I mean, that's a strong external pressure

that I'm having to deal with. And my mind's a great tool as well. It helps me solve a lot of puzzles and I'm grateful for it, but it also really can suck the pleasure out of life. So I think for me, it's really to deal with that beast that I have on board and also to be able to share that with other people as well is a huge motivation.

When I don't feel compelled to give my gift and give wisdom and give my lessons from these battles I fought, when I don't feel compelled to share, then I feel less motivated to even try. That's a big component. Would you say you live in your head a lot, especially? Yeah, that's the tendency. That's what I've been fighting against for years. And still, incremental wins, then catastrophic losses,

and incremental wins, and sometimes big wins. But it's all a process generally moving forward in a direction but it's never fully linear yeah yeah i feel like a lot of athletes you know the pressure they're always thinking all like competition competing in their heads and always thinking about the next thing and not being in this like flow state like you like you describe like being present with their with their training or with themselves is just a huge issue with a lot of people. It's not just athletes. I mean, look at an entrepreneur.

Like, you know, right now I have 140 employees. You know, if I start thinking, oh, man, if I screw this up and if I don't get the cash flow right, and all of a sudden all these people are going to have to find jobs and I'll let them down, and I love these people and it's all on me. Yeah. You know, you just start to freak yourself out. Yeah. You know, whereas then you have to fall back to the very simple principle,

something like Don Miguel Ruiz's Four Agreements. Do your best. And that's really all we're responsible for doing. Four Agreements? The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Yeah, great, great intro-level book that anybody can get from a real philosophical master. What are some of the points of that? Well, one of them that I was just referring to is, you know, one of the agreements is do your best.

And I think that's something that people, it's very simple, but people get wrong. Because if you actually do your best. You're okay with it. Then what else are you responsible for? What else are you responsible for? Exactly. Like that's it. You're not responsible for the outcomes and all of these different things that happen in the world.

You're responsible for doing your best. So just do your best and let it go. Yeah. I also think understanding that other people are just trying to do their best with the ability, experience, and information that they have at all times helps me not be so stressed out about the decisions that they're making or the outcome of whatever they were assigned to do or whatever expectation I had of them. That they're just trying to do their best and that's all they can do. It makes me have a lot more peace of mind around what's happening in the world around me because everyone has good intentions. That's something I believe.

People have good intentions. They're just doing their best. Yeah, and that's another one of the agreements is don't take it personal. You know, like we always think that people are doing things to us. They're not doing things to us. They're just dealing with their own shit. Even if they say something really rude to us, it's not really about us. It's about them.

It's about their perception, their stuff that's going on in their head that's causing them to say that. It's up to us to decide whether we take that on board and agree with it. Someone's like, oh, you're ugly. You're like, that's not me, man. That's your perception. Your perception, right. That's the way that you're looking at things and the way that you're feeling now. That ain't my story.

What's the danger of taking something personally? If you're not, yeah. What's the danger there? Yeah, well, if you internalize that and then use that as a criteria to judge yourself, again, you'll just throw yourself into hell. If someone, you know, I think he uses the example of, you know, a girl who's her mother comes home and her mother has a headache and just really end up having a bad day. And her daughter is singing. Her daughter is singing a song and really jubilant and happy.

And mother's just frustrated and is like, stop singing. I hate your voice. So the girl shuts up and stops singing. If she takes that personally, and obviously she's a kid, so we don't have much resistance to do that. Highly likely. Highly likely, right? But it's a good illustrative example. That was the mother's story. It's not that the daughters had a bad voice, but the mother's story and her own state caused her to say that. But if the kid takes that and internalizes it and thinks, man, I don't have a good voice, then she'll have judgment around that. And she may not ever sing. And I bring this example up because it happened to my partner, Whitney, exactly like that. He writes the story in the book for agreements and the exact same thing. One day,

one random comment and Whitney's mom's great, but one day, one random comment from her stopped her from singing. One of the favorite things she's ever done. And even still to this day, it's really difficult for her to sing. Because she took on board somebody else's story and made it her own story. And then allowed her own self-judgment to be fueled by that story. Which is really, really risky. That's something I've never heard it like that before. And really kind of eye-opening.

I was talking to Mike earlier this week about it. But, yeah, that's someone else's story. And a lot of times it's hard to think about it that way because, you know, you just hear this attack on you and it seems like an attack on you. But it's really what's going on in their world. Yeah. Totally. The other day I was hanging out with a two-year-old.

And so his little two-year-old friend was over. with uh i have a two-year-old and so uh his little two-year-old friend was over and um i also have a seven-month-old and so the other little two-year-old friend looks at my seven-month-old we're kneeling down he's kind of playing with the baby and he goes he has a little nose and i was like that's right and he goes you have a big nose and i was like that's just your opinion dude i. I'm not living into your story. Yeah. So I think a lot of people, when they run into issues in their life, it's a collection of stories that they've adopted from other people. Yeah.

And I've watched myself and others kind of have that breakthrough of, oh, wait, I have complete control over how to create a story for myself versus just adopting what other people are saying. How do you, how do you break through that? Or how have you, have you experienced that? And how do you see other people having that realization that they can control their own story? Yeah. I mean, again, going back to the Toltec philosophy, you know he calls it the the dream of the world you know so the world implants these ideas in your head their own dream everybody's independently dreaming but collectively there forms this dream of the world and we get kind of awash in this dream of the world and it becomes our dream and then there's you know like

the second dreaming where the second awakening where we can create our own dream and the first step is to be aware of that be aware of you know awareness always comes first and that can come in a variety of ways but being aware of all of the pressures and all of the ideas and all of the things that have been impressed upon you and then say all right that's all that stuff where is that living inside of me what do i like and what do i don't like and then you still might not be able to shed it you know that's a whole nother thing but without awareness you have no chance so the first step is like all right i'm aware these are the things that my parents said to me these are the things that um my teacher said these are the things that society wants do i agree with those or do i not agree with those and then just become aware and then the deeper work comes from being

able to take some of those because they're like little fish hooks or barbs that can go way deep inside our body and finding the tools to get in there and you know surgically remove these ideas and concepts maybe insecurities or jealousies or fears or you know judgment constructs that we have and then actively going to remove those and um they're sticky they're barbie it's not it's hard yeah it's it's not easy to get let go of that stuff yeah similar to the story you were saying about uh about whitney and singing the other day i heard a guy tell a story actually i read this story on reddit where um guy was a little kid and he had drawn something at school artist he was super proud of his of his art and

the mom put it on the fridge dad was there dad's friend came over and saw the art on the fridge and was like what your little boy's a fag now and like said it like right in front of the kid and the dad didn't stand up for the kid he was just like yeah oh yeah right and like thought the kid wouldn't like recognize this and he was like like to this day 20 years later i still can't draw like i can't i just can't fucking do it wow it's crazy especially when you're kids man those those things can run deep you know and and uh just being aware of that and then also letting people know that there's like tools if they ever feel i think you're never going to protect everybody from any of these instances but i think that if you have parents, yeah, you're fucked up. So it's not, and even if you're a parent, like you're never going to be able to protect your kid completely. So the only, the only way

that you can help them is to give them the tools to be aware of these things. Like, Hey, if anybody ever says anything that makes you feel like really judgmental of yourself or makes you feel really self-critical or really, you know, hurts, hold it in let's talk about it and let's and then start explaining these consciousness constructs and these philosophical ideas about you know what that is and have that you know about that being their story and not yours and and really give them the tools to fix that because we can't bubble boy everybody and we're not going to bubble boy ourselves you know we have to just have the tools to be able to repair ourself and i think that's the part that's missing what are some of those tools that you're speaking of well a lot of it is the ideas you know the knowledge and books like that books like the four agreements you know

like if when my kids that book could be you know read by someone who's 10 11 years old easily you know and those conversations could start i don't think we give kids enough, you know, read by someone who's 10, 11 years old easily, you know, and those conversations could start. I don't think we give kids enough credit. You know, first of all, I think we look at them as little idiots instead of like little budding, sentient beings, you know, like, Oh, that's just a little idiot. Let's let him put them on the iPad. You know? Yeah. The thing I've been saying to my wife lately is that we're not raising children. We're raising adults who are going through childhood. Yeah, exactly. That's how I think about it. That's a huge paradigm shift. So yeah, I mean, I think the information is really key and then the awareness and then the tools. Again, really, this is a consciousness game. You know, this is how can you access those things that are outside of your identity? Just like

Einstein says, you can't solve a problem at the same level at which the problem was created. We can't go into the identity and the ego and fix all these things. We have to raise and elevate the other side of things, which is the force behind all that, the force behind all life, the consciousness, the awareness, the observer. So I think all of the practices that I mentioned earlier can help bring that about. It can help facilitate and elevate that level of consciousness. And then there's this Buddhist that I follow. His name is Mooji, M-O-O-J-I. And he talks about all of these fires that are created from the identity,

these different stories that people say, these fears, whatever. He's like, if you're in your identity and you're trying to put out these fires, it won't work because these fires just feed off attention. But if you remove yourself from identity and become conscious, then the fires will just go out on their own. And I think that's really ultimately the move. Awareness and then accessing that higher force that we have inside. So that term being conscious is becoming more and more and more mainstream. But what does that mean to you for someone that's not really familiar with that term being conscious is is becoming more and more and more mainstream but what does what does that mean to you for someone that's not really familiar with that term

well i think it's it's um i think you have to almost use the contrast of it like what is light without dark you know so it's there's the identity which is the the form that we're in for me it's the aubrey marcus the ceo the CEO, the guy who does all of these things, all of the descriptors. And then there's the awareness, just the pure awareness behind that. When I let all of that go, I have no thoughts. I'm fully in the now, either because of flow state

or one of these consciousness practices like meditation or dance or yoga or the plants or flotation, whatever, where I'm accessing just pure awareness and i become the observer of the abri marcus the animator of this of this body like that to me is the conscious self whereas the other self is the identity self locked in the thoughts in the mind producing all of these different you know ways and and it's a dance i mean we're both of those forms but um you know i i really look at

those as two distinct forms inside you know this one this one body yep so there's a lot less suffering being operating kind of more as the conscious self and a lot more suffering as the the identity self yeah there's fun in the identity self too you know like i'm not gonna and then and i think the way that you handle that is you just become really aware that when the identity self too you know like i'm not gonna and then and i think the way that you handle that is you just become really aware that when the identity self is causing suffering then you have a way to be you know to observe it you know if i'm really mad and or really hurt and i can say oh look the aubrey marcus is mad you know and then all of a sudden then it's like it's okay the aubrey marcus you'll be fine. And can come with it from that conscious perspective. And then it allows everything to relax.

But let's say I'm really enjoying something and I'm in some kind of mode where I'm just fucking like I want to growl and pick up pieces of dirt from the earth and rub them on my face and snarl at somebody. And I'm really in my kind of identity ego self and it just feels fucking good you know maybe i'm in competition or something like that yeah fuck yeah go for it you know just know that know when to indulge it and when to back out of it when it's no longer serving you you know because the the ego and the identity self can be a lot of fun but you know and the way that the toll techs handle this like don Don Miguel Ruiz's and particularly Castaneda talks about this he talks about your controlled folly so you know it's folly to be in the identity self but it's controlled and it's fun so it's like you're you're playing a game it's like oh I'm gonna play the video game of ego right now ego video game is fun

right now I like this level but when the level sucks you're gonna be like nah yeah let's not play this level again. I've played it before. It sucks. I already know this level. I've watched this movie. I'm going to be the conscious self at this point. And it's a hard dance to do.

It's a hard move to make. But the more fluid you get in that, the more you'll just start to laugh and enjoy life. Yeah. Let's take a break real quick and then we'll talk about your sleep habits. Hell yeah. Hey, everybody. Marcus Gersey, co-host of the Barbell Business Podcast. If you're a gym owner who's looking to fix, build, or just take your gym from good to great,

tune in every Tuesday to the Barbell Business Podcast. You can find us on iTunes and anywhere else you can download a podcast, or you can watch the video version on YouTube on the Barbell Shrugged channel. Tune in to find Doug, myself, and Mike Bledsoe talking about the latest tips and tricks to take your business to the next level. We'll see you Tuesday. All right, we're back with Aubrey. And a lot of the things you're talking about are applicable to the individual. These are like individual practices we can adopt. And one of the things that I've noticed is uh as i adopt a lot of these principles

there's it's like uh it's like i'm not participating and what's happening culturally a lot of times and uh how how do you see that tying in i see say, Western culture as like one big mind. And the majority of people are behaving in some of the ways that are taking things personally and things like that. How do you see that, I guess, that difference or is that the same? Well, I think really what we, the place to start is always with yourself. You know, to be of service, if you want to be of service to society at large, you got to be fit for service. And to be fit for service, you have to do these personal practices. You have to get yourself in a state where you're able to affect change and really help people. And I think that's the first thing that you got to worry about. I think a lot

of people put that backwards. They worry about what change they're going to affect societally without worrying about really getting reconciled completely and deeply internally. And then I think once you get there, the change happens easily. I mean, I was trying to get my parents to get on the consciousness path for years until finally one day I just sat down with them and let them see, you know, the changes that had happened in me. And instantly they wanted to move, you know, whereas me trying to do it and trying to drag someone with me isn't, wasn't effective, but what was effective was embodying those principles and then just allowing people to look and say, Oh man, you know, I want

to check that out myself. And I think that really that's, um, that's a lot of what we can do is just lead by example and go through, do the work ourselves. And then that'll start to affect the greater change. Yeah. Yeah. I think as any coach, I mean, if, if you want to try to change somebody, you gotta, you gotta be able to explain or demonstrate that you made that change yourself. Because, you know, you've got to – exactly like the example you said, like when I started to get into fitness, my parents, I tried to get them into fitness. And, you know, they resisted. They resisted for a long time until they saw the changes that I was making. And that became their motivation to actually want to change themselves.

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. You've got to be a role model for the change that you want to make. Like if you can't do it yourself, then no one's going to follow you. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that happens a lot in the fitness space with coaches. I don't know how many times we've put on events for gym owners and coaches, and they show up really out of shape it's like at some point during the conversation it may not be on day one some point it's like what are you doing yeah like how can you how can you be asking other people to do this when it's obvious that you're not taking care of yourself well some of the stuff that you mentioned about the mental stuff is i think a lot of coaches aren't really thinking about,

but if you're coaching athletes, the more, the more I'm dealing with other people, it's, it's very little has to do with, you know, nutrition or the training. It's a lot to do with,

with what's up here. And if you can't, if you haven't figured that out for yourself, there's no way you can help somebody else figure that out. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. Before the break, Mike mentioned that you can help somebody else figure that out. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed.

Before the break, Mike mentioned that you have some interesting sleep habits these days. You want to break down how you're sleeping? I've been watching him. It's like, damn, ain't – like Discovery Channel. Oh, there's a live feed to my bedroom. How much does that cost per month? It's a live sleep. There's a live feed to Bledsoe's bathtub, so it wouldn't be surprising.

That's right. It's called Bathtime with Bledsoe. Watch the Instagram. You'll know when it happens. Oh, man. I won't be watching that, by the way. Yeah, I've never been a really good sleeper. And I think I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to sleep all of my sleep in a single night.

You know, this kind of monophasic sleep idea that we have. Like, got to get your sleep, got to get your eight hours. It's been so ingrained. Like, I feel bad if you're not doing that. And then as I became more aware of all of the things that start happening to the body when you don't sleep, you know, the elevation of cortisol, the decrease in mental performance, a decrease in testosterone and recovery and all of this, then it stresses you out even more than, Oh my God, I only got five hours. And, and it starts to be this, this defeating cycle and, um, positive feedback loop. Yeah. And so I'm doing all the things, you know, I'm limiting the, I'm limiting

the blue lights before bed as much as I can. And I'm, I'm paying attention to all of the, the important things that you need to do to, to get good I'm just I think you know for me really it's a stress response you know it's a lot of adrenal stimulus that I've been kind of fueling this whole growth of the company and myself and it's really and now I'm kind of in a space where my adrenal glands need regular water and salt to just even relax enough for me to sleep. So I can't sleep long stretches anymore. So I can sleep maybe four and a half hours in a clip. And then I got to drink some water and have a little salt and then let things calm down. So I would try to just power through the night and I would take some supplements or,

you know, stronger thing, whatever I could find to try and get all my sleep in there. And then I read a book by Nick Littlehale called Sleep. And he worked with some of the top athletes from like Manchester United, the British cycling team. And he talks more about that polyphasic sleep model, where you're getting sleep at different points throughout the day, and how that is really equally as beneficial as trying to do it all in one go. And it really just took a lot of the pressure off. I mean, this is something that existed in a lot of ancestral and indigenous cultures,

also currently exists in like Spain and Egypt where they have this kind of siesta model where they sleep five hours in the night and then two hours in the afternoon or somewhere thereabouts. And they're up and out later during the week. Like if you're in spain and hanging out i remember being there and like the kids the parents were out with the kids at the restaurant at 11 o'clock at night well that's when they ate dinner and then that part of the world and i remember till late i remember thinking this is 15 years ago i remember thinking why are the kids at the bar of course you know a 20 year old, because they're getting their crunk on. They sleep from 2 to 7, and then they go and have their siesta after that.

Are we in your space, Juan? We can probably just do the podcast while you're... Yeah, you're cool. Get a little live action going on. Yeah, so this polyphasic sleep, that's basically breaking up your, I guess if you say to get eight hours, you get, you know, four hours a night and then break it up during the daytime. Yeah, so for me, what it ends up looking like is like I don't have a set siesta time because they have the advantage of the whole culture shuts down. Yeah. Everybody gets to do it. how do you get your friends on board yeah exactly so what i found is you know i generally have to show up for the morning

meetings or whatever and get to get that done so i just take whatever sleep i get at night you know i try to get as much sleep as i can and if i wake up and i got you know energy then i'll just start working on my writing or you know writing a book Now I'll start working on stuff that, um, that I need to start working on. And then realizing and understanding that I'll carve out a little extra time throughout the afternoon. And there's two spots where, uh, the circadian rhythm kind of dips where we naturally feel a little bit fatigued. And that's between one and three and between five and seven, roughly.

I usually fight one and 3 with sugar and caffeine. Yeah, exactly. And most of us do that, right? I mean, you eat a big meal at lunch, and that's already going to just amplify the effect. I'm joking, by the way. Definitely used to do that. Sometimes joking. That's what most people do.

There are times. Probably sometimes. But sugar, we've probably. I mean, they made a whole, what, five-hour energy, the afternoon sleepies. I mean, that was their whole thing. Yeah, so we feel those natural natural things but we usually fight it and what i've just decided to do is just to go with it yeah whether that's a 30 minute binaural beat nap you know which i'll just do on my couch i'll just shut the lights off close the door you know in my office i have a little couch and i'll just crash out for 30 minutes and that that's enough you know you'll

prioritize those um you know those kind of restorative cycles that you need if you actually go all the way into sleep you'll prioritize rem cycles if you need it um the body's good at making these adaptations but even just dropping your brain waves even if you don't go fully out even just dropping your brain waves is incredibly refreshing so if i can go you know five hours plus one he calls them, Nick Littlehill calls them a controlled recovery period. You know, so one CRP, one controlled recovery period in the afternoon, I feel pretty good. He counts that as a sleep cycle. So for him, he's looking at like the whole week, like how many sleep cycles can you get in a week?

He wants you to get 30 to 35 sleep cycles in a week. And all of these controlled recovery periods count as a cycle. So whether it's a 30 minute binaural beats or an hour long float or a full 90 minute, one sleep cycle nap, you know, there's ways to catch up on it. And it just really takes the pressure off and gives a more expanded model of what that looks like. And one question for you is that you said you, when you go to sleep, um, you try to get your four hours, however you can or just whatever you can get. Is that because, um, are you, are you just busy at night? Are you just going to bed super, super late? It's honestly, I can't sleep more than that in a single click usually, you know, like your body just says my body's just gets up. And I really

think, you know, ultimately when I have a little more time and efforts i think doing some really good restorative practices with the um you know with my adrenal glands and really making sure that my stress response is in balance i think would be helpful but you know i mean you use all the fuel that you have yeah to build a company like this yeah and um and then you know there's some costs yeah that i've incurred along the way. And I think this is one of those costs. But with this solution, I'm able to still catch up on my sleep and still feel alert and active. Yeah, I was going to ask you, how do you feel now, like, by doing this practice?

Yeah, I feel great. You know, I mean, I feel like it, and I feel empowered, most importantly. Not stressed out. I feel like it's in my control. No matter what happens during the night, like, I got plans and solutions. And I just prioritize that. I'll carve out spots in my schedule. Not stressed out. cycles, which is like three hours in that night, which usually I can do better than that. But even if I only get three with two more, you know, two spots in the day where I can get a two 30 minute controlled recovery periods, then I'm back to four sleep cycles, which is, you know, pretty comfortable for me. Yeah. So do you have a set time at night that you typically shoot for? Like I sleep from one to six or? Yeah. I mean, that's, it's somewhere around there. It's usually around

like midnight that I start to wind it down. And then whenever I fall asleep and then, you know, a lot of times that first wake up is somewhere around 430, you know, 430, sometimes I make it to five. And then from there, you know, I kind of assess, it's always again, some water and some salt, you know, the, the adrenal glands, you know, like those electrolytes and like that sea salt or Himalayan salt really. So you put salt in water, just some salt. Yeah. Yeah. Some magnesium is great. You know, we have a supplement called new mood, which has some magnesium and some other things that I'll take at that point in the night as well. And, um, sometimes I'm up and I'm just working. And sometimes after that, I'm just still kind of like, Oh, I think I can get a few more. I can get a few more hours that same night. Where did you get the idea for the salt?

Well, I actually got the idea for the salt from, again, personal necessity. I was basically trying to go to bed, and I could hear my pulse pounding in my ear. And I talked to my functional medicine doctor, Dr. Dan Engel. And I was like, hey, Dan, like this is crazy. I'm like literally hearing this pulse in my ear. And he's like, well, you know, try taking like three grams of salt and lie back down, you know, in 20 minutes, 30 minutes, see how you feel. And I did that, put three grams of salt and a little bit of water, took that down. And I could feel like literally feel everything relaxed and um you know looking at the research that those electrolytes are really necessary to maintain you know adrenal adrenal integrity especially

when they're stressed so um you know the body needs salt salt is not an sure sure i found the same like feel your heartbeat throughout your yeah like when i was training hard as an athlete i would get in bed and feel my whole body beating against the bed type of thing yeah and and uh it wasn't until i was taking magnesium yeah that it helped and i'll also tell another secret smoke a bowl or cbd or cbd non-psychoactive you can get it in all 50 states this was back before cbd was like widely available, because stuff for me like THC will actually sometimes increase the anxiety. Yeah, that's how I am.

But CBD will always relax me. Yeah. Do you have like a pre-bedtime ritual that you employ? I do, yeah. I mean, I think there's quite a few things that I do before bed. I think one of the key things is a journaling practice that I do. I take one single page so it doesn't get overwhelming.

I take one single page, and on the top of the page, I write my mission down. That's my overarching mission for life. You do this every day? Every day. Does it change at all? Yeah, it does. I restate it in certain words. Sometimes it'll look like you know i want to

you know feel and and give as much love as possible sometimes it'll be used the word consciousness and sometimes it'll you know it's very broad strokes but i'll just rewrite it however it seems to come to me that that day sometimes it's going to end up looking very similar almost the same probably through the combination sometimes it's exactly the same but just putting that down and actually writing it with my hand reinforces, all right, that's what I'm here to do. Ultimately, I'm here to do this. And then I write the top three objectives for my next day. Not necessarily my task list, that's in other project management and whatever, but my top three objectives. These are the three things that I want to accomplish next day. And that really helps me relax. And also in the next morning, I can look at it and be like, all right, here's my three objectives. These are the three things that I want to accomplish next day. And that really helps me relax. And also in the next morning I can look at it and be like, all right, here's my

three objectives for the day. I know exactly what I need to do. This is my mission and go. And it really kind of aligns things for me. And I think that's one of the better practices that I have. When you, at the end of the night, do you look at what the previous day and say oh did i do this or or do you have some reflection because i'll be turning the page yeah you know yeah all right how did we do here sometimes i'll actually check them off yeah it kind of feels good like yeah that did that or sometimes i'll circle one and be like all right didn't really get to you know actualize that objective and what's that what's that do for you just kind of just let your mind yeah it takes all you know a lot of things i think we spend a lot of time reinforcing these things in our mind you know we

reinforce what we need to do what all of this mental energy and stress is spent reminding ourselves reminding ourselves we're afraid of forgetting all right remind remind remind oh yeah get it down on the paper then you can it's almost like outsourcing that information to a place where you know you're not going to forget it so you you can relax. Yeah. I talked to so many people that when they try to go to bed, they can't go to bed because there's a million things running in their mind. Totally. Uh, I have a lot of friends who, uh, you know, the, the morning routine has become a big thing. Everybody, Tim Ferriss started talking about it and then a lot of people adopted it and they're talking about it. I have a morning routine.

I think we all have some type of morning routine. I imagine you do as well. And then when I got, I started talking to people about bedtime routines and anyone I know who, and I'm wondering if you agree with this, is anyone I know that's adopted a bedtime routine says that that's actually more important than the morning routine for them. And I find it more difficult to do the evening routine, the bedtime routine, than the morning routine for them. And I find it more difficult to do the evening routine, the bedtime routine, than the morning routine. And going to bed with an intention will allow you to wake up.

Do you set an intention beyond, or would you say your mission is the intention? Yeah, the mission is the overriding intention, and then there's the sub-missions, which are the objectives. So those things are going to support the overall mission but um yeah i mean so i think that's that's really setting my intent for the following day gotcha yeah uh so a few minutes ago you mentioned your book and yeah you're explaining to us uh some aspects of the earlier day you're trying to to to put every single kind of good healthy practice all into one day to like

make like some type of a perfect day is that it's like what you're getting out yeah the books books can be called own the day and it's really taking all of the best practices and putting them into a single day so from the morning routine to the afternoon routine to the workout routine to the nutrition component to um to everything that's that's there um put that all through an overarching day and so that the idea is if you can live one perfect day then you know you can live more perfect days or maybe you just pick little pieces that you like and add them to your routine but give people that example of what an ideal day would look like and then let them work backwards from there yep so is that is that comprehensive across you know like like physical emotional intellectual

professional life work like it's the whole comprehensive system of your life yep kind of like a roadmap yeah yeah i mean it covers everything like everything that you could think you want to do in an ideal day from playing to having sex to working to waking to eating to drinking to the whole deal like it was you know really and really making it so this isn't a day that you know is not fun and sucks and it's like oh man i gotta do one of those on the days it's like no like here's the spot where you drink your wine you know in the day like here's the let's make this about real life and about really enjoying ourselves and and but doing it in an intelligent way and paying attention to the timing of things and paying attention to when is most optimal to optimize these different

systems so it's not just how to get more work done no yeah because that's not the point of life my life is to get a lot of work done and get a lot of fun and, you know, really enjoy ourselves to feel healthy and excited and passionate and, um, you know, really get the most out of everything. Yeah. Thanks for joining us today. Yeah. If people want to follow you, yep. Where should they be doing that? Yeah. So obviously on it has a ton of stuff. O N N I T. Um, and then for me personally, pretty much everything is at Aubrey Marcus and I have a podcast called the Aubrey Marcus Podcast. And I'm always dropping stuff on there too.

Excellent. Thanks for joining us. Thanks, Aubrey. It's been a pleasure. Yeah, man.