Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Part 1: Nutritional Scientist Chris Talley on Maximizing Weaknesses and Minimizing Strengths

Episode Date: January 17, 2018

Nutritional scientist Chris Talley is my go-to for all things food science. We've worked together with hundreds of professional athletes and Olympians. We worked together at Red Bull with their high performance program, up at the Seahawks and with handfuls of athletes that live right on the edge of intense risk and danger.I hope you enjoy Chris' mind and world-views as much as I do.This conversation is loaded so we’ve split it up into two parts.In part one, you’ll learn about Chris’ journey, his work with many NFL teams and Olympians, and what’s driven him to work so hard to become the best at what he does._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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showing you who you already know that can help you open doors or make a warm introduction. In other words, it's not about more outreach. It's about smarter, more human outreach. And that's something here at Finding Mastery that our team lives and breathes by. If you're ready to start building stronger relationships that actually convert, try LinkedIn Sales Navigator for free for 60 days at linkedin.com slash deal. That's linkedin.com slash deal for For two full months for free, terms and conditions apply. Finding Mastery is brought to you by David Protein. I'm pretty intentional about what I eat, and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods. And when I'm traveling or in between meals, on a demanding day certainly,

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So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Now, this conversation is with Chris Talley. Chris is flat out my go-to for all things related to food science. We've worked together for a long time with hundreds of professional athletes and Olympians. And we worked together at the Red Bull High Performance Program when that was getting together. We're working together right now at the Seattle Seahawks and with handfuls of other athletes that are doing extraordinary difficult things, including entrepreneurs and business executives. So it's been a real treat to learn

from him. I use him myself. My family uses him. I can't give a higher glowing praise than that. His mind is, he thinks really clearly about very complicated things. And this is going to be a two-part conversation. In part one, you'll learn about Chris's journey, his work with NFL teams, Major League Baseball, NBA, tip of the arrow guys in every major sport, including the Olympics and action sports, and what is driving him and what has driven him to work so hard to be one of the best at what he does. And then in part two, we'll take a deeper dive into the mechanics of nutrition. And with that, let's jump right into this conversation

with Chris Talley. What's up, Chris? Mike, how are you doing? Great. This has been something that I've wanted to do for a long time. And why have you been ducking me? I know it's been probably two years or something that you've been trying to get me on here. So I've finally, uh, you've pinned me down by putting it far enough out in advance where I was like, Oh, I don't have anything on my calendar then. Perfect. Okay. So we've been friends for a long time and I feel fortunate to know you in the space of high performance because you help the people I work with be significantly better. And that's by adding your lenses and your science and the art of food science to the equation. So today I want to understand at a deeper level, because we know each other really well,

so this is going to be a tricky conversation, because I want to ask things that I don't know about you, and just because we haven't gone there before or whatever. And at the same time, people need to know who you are that are listening. So it's, this is going to be an interesting challenge, I think, for me, in this conversation. So why don't we start with a simple question? Why food? Why the science of food? It's funny, the initial interest there was more on the exercise side of things. When I was in high school and college, I was interested in putting on muscle mass and I was trying different workouts, all those things. And then you start reading about nutrition. It was, you know, the way a lot of people just kind of approach amateur athletic stuff.

Why did you want to put on muscle mass? I was really skinny. How skinny? Because you're built like a brick house. How tall are you? 6'2". 6'2", and how much do you weigh? 2.35. Yeah, and body fat, I'm guessing, is like in low teens. Probably in some way.

So super lean, super great mass is what your frame looks like. Okay, but in college you... Well, it was more high school. I was 6'2 and at one point 145. So that's pretty darn skinny. It's really skinny. Yeah. Well, I'm laughing because compared to you now, it's hard to see that image.

Okay. So what was that like for you? Tall and skinny? It wasn't like I was getting picked on. It was just one of those things where i just kind of went okay this is not a good look how come how come i didn't think it was a good look um a lot of the things that i like to do required a little bit of strength and i you know whether it was you know i'm using an example camping stuff or or even working on a

car if you have to you know if you're doing the high school and college thing where you're modifying an off-road vehicle and you're moving 100-pound tires around and that type of stuff. It's not an easy thing for a skinny person to do. So it was functional for you. It wasn't that you looked at Muscle Fitness Shape magazine, other athletes and said… Maybe that too, but that wasn't the purpose.

It was more functional strength. Okay. In high school, were you wrenching on cars yeah all right and then why cars um i thought it was fascinating actually this is going to apply here but i thought it was fascinating that you could take a car that was an average car do a few things to it and it performs at a higher level. And so kind of carried on to other areas and now working with high performance athletes, that's the same territory really. Is that how you see the food science and the science and art of what you're doing is that if you manipulate, that sounds like a bad word. It's not a bad word, but if you change or upgrade or enhance a few patterns of eating or suppressing some cycles and activating other cycles,

that you can get more out of the human experience for people. Yeah. And that's one of those things that it's constantly evolving. Um, you know, back when I was focused on the exercise part of it, I felt like I was starting to master that territory. And it got boring. I mean, it was one of those things where it's just the nuances between one workout and another workout and what it's going to do for you. It was not that exciting anymore. But the nutrition side of it, you know, if you could do a couple of little tweaks and get your body to produce more testosterone than what you would produce otherwise, and you're doing it in a clean, way hey that's great and so that's really how i fell into the nutrition territory okay so let's keep going backwards um college and high

schools non-functional body type or not not type non-functional body structure is that fair for what i wanted to do for what you wanted to do yeah and then take us earlier into what it was like growing up and wherever you'd want to start um yeah take us take us there it was very uh typical i think just as far as a middle class family although you know looking back on it maybe we were a little below that just because, you know, if we'd go out to eat somewhere, it was understood that you do not order milk when you go out to eat because that's going to get expensive. And what you pay for one glass is what you can buy a gallon of milk for, whatever, all those things that my dad would say.

So, you know, it was... What did dad do? He was a aerospace engineer. Okay. And mom? Housewife. And how many brothers and sisters? I had three brothers, no sisters.

And your placement is? Oldest brother. Okay. What was that like? Middle class, dad, aerospace engineer. So I'm guessing smart, thoughtful. Was he more linear thinking or more vertical in his thinking approaches um i would say linear um there was a thing where you know there was that uh thing where he kind of wanted to be in charge of his domain and so it was a thing where you know being the oldest brother i was usually the one that fell in line And then kind of as it went down the lineup, the behavior changed a little bit. But it might also be that I fatigued them enough that they adapted. You have that about you still. Okay, good. I'll explain that in a minute. Okay. So then what was it like growing up?

I don't have anything that was really out of the ordinary. I was an average student in high school. I think anyone that knows you that maybe I've introduced you to or whatever would never believe that. It wasn't because I wasn't smart enough to do things. It was that I had other things that I wanted to do besides homework. And so I just, you know, I would do enough to, to get B's and C's. And it was a thing where I just didn't put that much energy into homework, but it was, you know, if it was something else that I was building something or, you know, on the exercise front, that became a significant interest. I love hearing that because it brings me some solace, like, because that was very much a similar

experience I had, as we've talked about, that surfing was the thing that I was paying more attention to. And I ended up leaving high school not knowing how to study at all. I couldn't get into a four-year university because I didn't take the PSAT or the SAT. I didn't take any entrance exams. So I needed to go community college. And then I tested into remedial math and remedial English. I didn't know that. I know. This goes both ways for us today. No, that's, yeah. I know for me, that's, I went to El Camino Junior College and it was a thing where, you know, I didn't have the, I did great on the SAT, but it was a thing where it was just, I didn't even take any preparation courses or anything. And I didn't have the, I did great on the SAT, but it was a thing where it was just, I didn't even take any preparation courses or anything. And I didn't have the grades where I

was, you know, friends were going to UCLA and Harvard and wherever. And I was just kind of like, well, okay, I'm still figuring out what I'm doing here. I love that too, because you're, for sure, I consider you at the tip of the arrow for food science. And that's not just my opinion, but every organization that we've been part of together, they all nod their head like, oh, yeah, Tali knows his stuff. And they know their stuff. So to go from kind of bumbling in high school on an educational path and then be able to rise to the tip of the arrow in a complicated neuro, sometimes biological, physiological arena of chemistry is really cool. And even in college, I got much better grades in college, but that was the thing where I think I was in a circle of extremely smart high school kids, like I was in the nerd crowd.

And when I got thrown in with the rest of the population, it was like, wow, people really aren't that smart. So it was interesting how little effort I had to put in at the college level to get much better grades than I did. And I was in all the advanced classes in high school. I just didn't get good grades. What's been the central question that you've wrestled with throughout the years or central questions that you've wrestled with? In what territory? Well, I purposely left it. I'm glad you asked because we can open it up to questions about life, questions about people, questions about optimization. You know, I just want to I actually just wanted to. It's not quite fair, I wanted to see where you wanted to go. Oh, okay. Questions.

I don't know that I've asked that many questions of myself. I think as this conversation goes on, you're going to see I'm a very imbalanced person, but I've come to embrace that, and it's a thing where a lot of people are seeking balance, and I know this is probably going to go against some of where you're you're normally putting people but I I do ask that question about balance and I'll make up a number right now because we haven't

run the stats is that 90 percent 95 percent of people that have been on this, been in these conversations have no clue about balance. Okay. Yeah. And I don't either. So, and I don't, I'm not sure. I don't know anyone that does.

Do you have what balance? No, not thoughts about it, but like their, their life is in balance. I think a lot of people I work with strive for balance. And in fact, if you go into Hollywood and you're dealing with all that side of things, everyone thinks that they're,

you know, it's something they're on the quest for as far as trying to find balance. And I think at some point I actually thought, wow, that would be nice to have. And I tried to put a little effort into it. I went, wow, that's a lot of work. And then I realized that if you're balanced, and this is going to go back to one of my early theories on people, but I have a theory that everyone's born with 100 points. And how you distribute those points is up to you. And you kind of figure that out along the way. And so if you min-max yourself, you put a bunch in one territory and very little in others, you're completely imbalanced, but you may do something exceptional. And so that's kind of where I've just embraced it and just gone, you know what, I did this to myself.

There's areas where I have complete weakness. And, you know, as far as I think when you're looking for things that give someone territory that they're exceptional at, they're probably going to be horribly weak in other areas. Okay. And is your approach, I know we're getting right into some heavy philosophical stuff, which, you know, I can't get enough of, especially with you. But is your approach to maximize strengths or minimize weaknesses? What it's turned out to be is maximize weaknesses and minimize strengths because the fewer strengths you have, the more you're going to put into that one thing that you do. And I'd rather have one thing that I'm incredibly good at

than 50 things that I'm okay at. You know that's just my kind of feel on it. I have so many things that I'm horrible at my friends that kind of laugh at me just because it's there's a lot of imbalance and that is a thing that I've just recently kind of started to accept that, hey, you know what? I don't need to be good at things that I'm not interested in. So go back to college because this is going to paint the picture of how and why and who you are as a man and a practitioner. So go back to college. What did you study?

And walk us through that. My degree was actually in aerospace physiology, which I know doesn't have much to what I'm doing now, much connection. But when I was in school, there was, yes, I studied the materials that I was supposed to be studying. And usually I read the book in the first week. It would be a thing where I was really actively wanting to.

You liked it. Yeah, I really enjoyed the subject material. I've never missed a class. I'd always be in class. I, this is again, going to sound a little different, but I had a policy of taking one piece of paper to class for the entire quarter semester, whatever it was. That was my entire, I was not permitted to take any more notes except one piece of paper. That's what I allowed myself. And so. I knew you were weird.

The reason why was because that forced me to pay attention. And I think people scribble a bunch of notes when the professor is talking and they aren't actually actively listening to the professor. And I found that I was much better off being engaged than scribbling a million notes and paying half attention to what the person's saying and writing the rest of the time. And so, yes, if there were key big words that I was going to need to know, I'd write that down. There were a few classes where I wished I had more pieces of paper because it was diagonal writing by the end of it and fitting things into tiny spaces. But I still have all my notes from college and it was just each class had one piece of paper. Do you design your life with forcing functions like that? Like compression of resources to get

the most out of your time? It's just I found it to be more effective because honestly if you look at a professor's face and think about if you're a professor and you're teaching a subject when you get to something that you think is important you're going to light up a little bit and I'd rather be looking at the professor see when the professor's face lights up and go hey this is important what he or she is saying right now and take a note off of that even if it's just a couple of words i've written down because this is a key point instead of some useless information that everyone's just frantically writing okay go back to the question though do you use forcing functions well so as far as forcing boy i hadn't processed that until you're asking about it. I guess I do put myself in situations where,

you know, for a lot of people when they go on a vacation, they want to have a relaxing time, go get pampered and massaged and whatever. And I think for my vacations, I usually plan things that are off-road expeditions into the middle of nowhere where there's going to be hardship and uh you know a week of of uh depending on your own skills to survive and when i come back i feel totally refreshed it's one of those things where i'm like wow running water and microwaves and you're fascinated with all the little things that you didn't have and it makes you really appreciate things so i guess in that case i am kind of creating an environment artificially that has now put me in a survival situation that I wouldn't have been in otherwise. Okay. And I'm going to add to this. There was a

time when you were struggling with one part of life. Okay. And you said, Mike, if I don't get this done, when I say struggling, it's like, this isn't going to be the stab myself in the leg part, is it? If I don't get this done by the end of the week, I need you to promise to me that you're going to stab me in the leg. So that's a forcing function, but like I never put the themes together for you, but do you create that as a, as a way? Well, it's one of those things where some of the things that I've tried to use to

motivate myself have not worked. And this is where i've declared that imbalance is just part of the thing i'm going to have to accept because there have been times where i i've bought a new tv a new computer something and i've uh put it aside and said okay when i do, then I could open the box. And I have had things that have been in boxes for a very long time. Yeah, stabbing you in the leg. Did I agree? You did, but then you failed to actually execute it. I think I got excited. I got it done.

You did get it done. Yeah, yeah. Okay, all right. Yeah, good. All right. So then, uh, aerospace physiology, you had an intense way of learning. Yeah. And with the, so let's say the first week I read the book, I went to every class and I wrote my one page of paper over the whole semester because I was engaged in the class. There wasn't really studying that I had to do outside of that. And I found myself in the stacks, which nowadays they don't have the same arrangement in the library. But where there would be all the journals, and I'd just go digging through journals that had nothing to do with the class I was in.

You know what's funny? I did the same thing. I've never even thought to talk about this ever before. But I didn't do the one-page thing. That absolutely sounds ridiculous me, but no, but I get it. I'm laughing with you. being absorbed reading journal articles. And it was almost like this amazing, I sound like a total nerd, but it was amazing trail of information that kept, kept pulling me in different directions. And I have to go to a journal, B journal, C journal. So you had the same thing. Yeah, I would spend hours in the library just reading, you know, whether it was some of the Soviet sport related things at the time, you know, whether it was some of the Soviet sport-related things at the time,

you know, things that were not, they were off the beaten path, and I just wanted some different perspectives on the topic. Right out of school, what did you do? Out of college? Through college, I was a personal trainer, so that was how I kind of, you know, had some spending money and whatever. The original plan was to go into the space program, and that was part of the reason I got the aerospace physiology background. The space program thing didn't work out,

but the part of it that was useful was a lot of these things that, as far as the research side of it, if you're looking at things that affect muscle mass in a microgravity environment, if you can preserve muscle mass without gravity, you've got all the things in place to put on muscle in a training environment. So it translated really easily into the sports performance side of it. All those things that have to do with nervous system function, everything kind of carries over to an athlete-oriented territory. And so it was a really easy fit, and especially I knew a few athletes from when I was a personal trainer. I kind of started working with some of

them. Next thing you know, it's just taken off, and I've really ended up in different territory because I don't work with a whole lot of normal people. I love working with normal people more than the athletes actually, but it's just a thing where I've backtracked into normal people from the athletic world. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday. What you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentous.

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FindingMastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. We've spent a lot of time in some pretty intense environments, Red Bull, Seattle Seahawks. Talk about some of the other projects and places that your other clubs or individuals that you're working with that you're permitted to talk about. Yeah, on the sports team side of it, it's kind of the nfl it's really taken off so that's a huge number of nfl teams are running their players through this testing um how many boy that's a good question uh 11 teams 11 teams in the nfl are using your uh competitive nutritional analysis i love it um kind of i know with the seahawks you had some

your team okay because you know like i think the seahawks was probably was probably your first right and then actually oh don't don't try to back out of it no that's true that was the first team application i worked with a ton of football players but as far as the whole team that was the first application yeah um the nfl is constantly evolving and it's one of those things where everyone's looking for what can they do different than the other guy to to stay at the top okay and then so keep going as far as the team yeah just like it's fun to like reflect on some really cool places and experiences you've had yeah and i and I think it's in the team environment, there's, the team can't mandate that people take the test. And so it's a thing where it has to be voluntary. And so if you get the leaders of the team to buy in, it's interesting the psychology behind it,

because then you have the other people on the team begging to do the test, which if it was flipped around the other way and it was a mandated thing, you would have everyone just not even wanting any part of it. But it's, you know, they're wanting the same thing that the team leaders are doing. So I think that kind of goes into the tribe mentality. And then as well as with how many Olympic athletes, I think, a gold, let's just say gold medalists or medalists. Yeah, I stopped counting on that, but I think the last time I counted, it was right around 20 Olympic sports. I know it's over that now, so I've had a gold medalist.

But again, that's a territory where if you're looking at a 100-meter sprint, the difference between that first place and second place person is going to be much less than 1%. And it's just, you know, from a marketing perspective, if someone said, hey, I'm going to have you do this thing that's really expensive, and it's going to make you 1% better. That doesn't sound like a good plan. But in this world, that's the one percent is everything how did you go from a nerd i'm glad we're both laughing but like seriously like you're nerdy about this stuff like how did you go from a nerd who wanted to read a lot and understand deeply to having an interest in exercise science and movement and training to crack your first client, to build the business on it, and then to get move into

the elite performer stage phase. Like how did that happen for you? Because right now you've got a really super successful business based on what you've taught me about, like education, assessment, and basically you own a kitchen that you customize meals for people. Yeah, so with the meal side of it, we're using a bunch of different kitchens. So let's say with the sports teams, we'll have meals prepared for the athletes. A lot of those are on site with the team. It's prepared to specification. So for each player, I've put software together where the information from that blood test gets imported into the software. We're crunching the numbers, putting together, okay, this person's deficient in beta carotene,

so they're going to get more carrots and red bell peppers and sweet potatoes and the things that are going to fall into that, supplying that nutrient. So the meals are prepared specific to the individual. That's a secondary side of it with the nutritional blood testing is the kind of getting that baseline. And for a lot of athletes, that's all they, you know, you give them the information and go through it and they're going to go apply it. And that's, it works great. For a normal sized, and again, I don't even know what normal is. I'm just thinking average human, male or female.

What would be the cost if they were going to buy on, let's say, a weekly basis, if they're going to go out and buy the food to have a healthful nutritional plan? What would be that cost, And then what would be the cost if they're buying it from you? That is like, if you're supposed to have 13 stocks of asparagus a week, that someone in your kitchen is measuring and weighing 13 stocks and making sure I or somebody gets it. By the way, I love, this sounds like a cheesy endorsement, but I wouldn't have you on if I didn't believe it. I'm better when I'm on your program, flat out. And so what is the cost difference, though,

between those two variants that I just talked about? With the food program, we're just charging a flat $15 per meal. Oh, it's not based on weight? No, because most of the expense is on the labor side of it because it is in gram weights, what we're generating with the software, and so chefs are having to weigh each meal out and whether it's a small meal or a large meal you're still weighing out the ingredients which just takes time okay so that's that's not that expensive i mean it's expensive it adds up if you're doing four or five meals you know it adds up quickly but is it that much different than if I'm going to go cook it and the labor

involved? And I, you know, I don't like cooking. I'm not good at it. I don't like it. I don't want to learn it. Um, I love you, Lisa, but she's the same, you know, so we're not good. We're not good on the side of it from a family structure. Yeah. And so with the, um, you could do it on the cheap, uh, you know, just by making better choices when you're in the market as far as which things are on sale and all. It's kind of putting the effort in. I couldn't tell you what the exact price would be on that end. Some things are expensive. Let's say grass-fed beef, the cost just adds up.

Do you use grass-fed? Yeah. With the grass-fed beef, yeah, the cost adds up. Dealing with organic turkey or chicken or other things, it just becomes more expensive. From a health point of view, there are certain nutrients that are in things where you have to weigh, okay, well, what is the nutrient value versus what is the negative impact?

So let's say with kale, I don't want to destroy anyone's love of kale in the audience, but with the sports teams, what I found is that the more kale that someone consumes, the higher their heavy metal tests will come back. And it's not that kale itself is toxic in some way. It's just that kale does a really great job of pulling everything from the soil so as far as the middle it's like a little chelation well it just if

you've got uh magnesium or whatever it is in the soil that it will pull that but it's also you know these these heavy metals these are naturally occurring things look at that so it's also pulling arsenic yep aluminum so arsenic cadmium, not so much the mercury that I see. Is mercury in soil? Yeah, but you don't see that from a kale exposure thing. More fish. Yeah. But yeah, with the arsenic and cadmium, that's actually one of the first questions I ask

is when I see a high square there is how much kale do you eat? Kale and quinoa. And that's what you're eating? Well yeah until you coach me up on it. Okay. And so now it's just every once in a while I'll have some kale. Yeah. Yeah instead of regular basis. Okay all right. And it's not the kale like if kale was grown in soil that didn't have those things that would be great but even on the same farm you may have some parts of the farm that have it and other parts that don't and it's not something that any farmer is going to know. It's not the farmer's fault it's just some parts of the farm that have it and other parts that don't. And it's not something that any farmer is going to know.

It's not the farmer's fault. It's just part of the natural environment to have these things in the earth's crust. So we're based in California in the United States. If somebody is in France, they obviously can't use your kitchen, right? But they could get your blood test. You could do that properly we've even done it with people in australia so that's um it was a shared client right yeah that's right yeah okay good so uh you know it's it's not remember how bad that one was they don't know who

we're talking about you know because we've shared so many clients. Remember how bad that test was? Tests have been all over the place. Yeah, and a couple people I'm thinking of that have had really bad tests were exceptional athletes. Yeah, I know. No names. I'm going to go with one of the guys in the boxing program that Mike and I were involved in. Oh, yeah. So he came back.

Heavyweight boxing program. Yeah, heavyweight boxers. They were trying to create the next heavyweight champ. And this kid was a really great fighter for a couple of rounds. And then he'd be gassed. And it was a thing where initially he did everything possible to fight against making any nutritional changes. And then slowly but surely he started asking a couple of questions. And, oh, if I was just going to take one supplement, what would it be? And, you know, it finally eased into him doing a nutritional test.

And his test came back with, you know, if he listens to this, he's going to laugh because he's going to know who I'm talking about. But it's the thing where he came back with some major needs. And Mike was present when I went through his test. And it was a thing where, you know, he basically said, look, I'm just going to do what you tell me to do. If you give me food, I'm going to eat the food. And over the next eight weeks, it was just fascinating what happened to him. Because without with no change in his exercise routine he ended up putting on close to 15 pounds of muscle he got totally ripped uh he was a nightmare for everyone else in the boxing program because he went from struggling after two rounds like everyone kind of knew you just stay away from him for the first couple rounds then go after him and he was trash

talking for eight rounds and a huge change in personality. Um, uh, that was just a really, that was a really fun project that we worked on. Yeah. That part, that, that athlete for sure. Okay. Um, what's the hardest thing you've been through? Hardest thing, uh, back in 2011, I had a, uh, uh, interesting visit to the doctor for a checkup. So that was something where I didn't think there was anything wrong with me. Someone had asked, well, the technician said, oh, have you had an echocardiogram done? Which in college, I was actually the guinea pig for electrocardiogram stuff. They would hook me up every Tuesday and Thursday in lab.

So I knew what my electrocardiogram looked like, but I had never had an echocardiogram. And they said, well, you know, we should do this just as a precautionary thing. Yeah, sure, whatever. And you could tell by the technician's face. You know they can't tell you anything based on what they're seeing.

But the technician's face, like her jaw kind of dropped and she was just moving the thing back and forth over my chest with a look of shock I'm like uh-oh I said what's wrong and she goes wait wait wait wait before you tell me what was your response in that moment because you you're good at reading people's micro expressions you saw that she was concerned what was your first impulse i know physiologically i i was uh thinking well i don't want to start getting anxious about this because she's looking at my heart i don't want to have a a response that's going to make my heart's behavior change and so there's a lot of thinking that was going into having a calming effect at the same time processing what her reaction was.

And, you know, it was a thing where... So you were almost tipping into like a panic, an anxious, panicky state? It was a very relaxed panic where I was trying to keep myself in a relaxed space, but having a feeling of something is not right. And so when I asked her, you know, or is everything okay? And she said, yeah, I'm just trying to get every angle of this so they could see this later and which not what you want to hear. Um, and, uh, afterwards when the doctor came in, um, she told me, you know, don't put your shirt back on yet. The doctor's going to want to check you, whatever.

So I'm in jeans, no shirt. And, you know, I'm not sounding overconfident here, but, you know, I've got a six-pack looking good, kind of feeling like I was king of the world at the time just from a training perspective. And the doctor came in, looked me up and down, looked at some charts, flipped some papers, and turned around and walked out of the room. And a minute later, came back, looks at me. He said, you know, he asked me who I was just to make sure he had the right person, because I guess he was expecting me to look very different based upon what had just been uncovered on this echocardiogram. You know, it turns out

that my aorta was, the average aorta is about one inch around and mine was three and a half inches around the entire upper curve of the thing and that my heart had apparently adapted over decades I guess just from not having that valve function properly at the top of the ventricle and it just increased the stroke volume year after year after year. And I always found cardio was a little hard to do, but I was just, I just thought everyone hates doing cardio. It's hard for everybody. And I had no idea that there was anything that was different. And apparently it's just something that's been like that, you know, for, you know, most of my life. The concern there was that now that they knew about that, that it could burst.

And it was a thing where the night before I went in for this test, I had lifted heavy. I was doing bent over rows with 315. I had 70 pounds strapped to myself for pull-ups. You know, it wasn't, if I was trying to burst my aorta, that would have been a good way to do it. And, you know, after the doctor brought up the fact that they wanted me to go straight to the ER, I was, I'm just like, I can't go to, what are you talking about? I thought it was a joke.

So I'm like, if my ear was going to burst, it would have burst last night. So, yeah, that was an interesting experience being in a hospital bed. Basically, they kept me there for six weeks waiting. There were only a couple of doctors that were going to be able to do this surgery to replace my aorta. And it wasn't so much that people hadn't replaced aorta, you know, some span of the aorta. It was that it was right up against the rib cage. And so if someone starts cutting into the rib cage to go in there and do anything, they're going to nick it. And you know, now you've got a major issue.

And so that was a really, really tough span because from my point of view, I was the same as I was before I walked in the door that, that day that the technician. I remember during that phase, we were talking all the time and you're like, I feel fine. Yeah. But you're about to have major surgery. Well, and that was it. And I just kept working and I was having to review blood tests with people. They had no idea I was in a hospital bed and I'm reviewing a blood test on the phone. And I, you know, when they're saying paging Dr. Watkins or whatever, I was having to mute the phone and, uh, work around all kinds of things to, uh, you know, obviously it's a weird territory to be in when

you're telling someone what they need to do to be healthy. But at the same time, there was some level of me thinking, well, how am I giving them advice when I'm super unhealthy right now? I'm in a hospital. And it doesn't sound good when your nutrition guy is about to go for open heart surgery. Was this something you created or was this something that was congenial and you're born with? No one really was able to give me an answer on that. And so that was a thing where it could have happened from some really heavy lifting. I don't know. But at the time, the doctor told me, oh,

this is the end of you exercising and all this other stuff, which I was like, yeah, that's not happening. So you just didn't give, you didn't give his medical guidance, um, credence. No, because I just figured I'm just going to have to work around this. And I know even when I was in the hospital, I needed a break from being in the hospital. They wouldn't let me leave because if I left, I was no longer an emergency case and they wanted to get me in right away. And I know this sounds really bad. My brother, Matt and I, we look pretty similar and I was going to slip the band off my wrist and have him stay for a day in the hospital so I could take a little break from it. My mom put an end to that pretty quickly, but anyway, the surgery went fine. I know it was a thing we're heading into it. The doctor was saying, well, you know, you have a 40% chance

of making it out of this, which I don't know. I guess I kind of went in confident being like, yeah, I'm going to make it out of this. And he said, even if you do make it out of this, which I don't know, I guess I kind of went in confident being like, yeah, I'm going to make it out of this. And he said, even if you do make it out, you're not going to be the same, all this other information. And I'm actually better now than I was before I went in. I didn't even realize what I was missing as far as having the endurance side of things, just because that valve hadn't been working right for most of my life apparently. So they put a mechanical valve in? Yeah so the valve had to be replaced the aorta was replaced that was it. Did you have an option to do cadaver or did you want mechanical? They could only do mechanical just because it was attached to that aorta so they had to replace the

whole unit. I can hear your heart ticking. Yeah, it makes a little bit of a tick noise. And what is that like for you to live with that ticking? I mean, if it's really quiet, I guess it's something that I'll think through. A lot of times if I'm going into a business meeting or something, I'll throw a watch on just because you don't want someone to be like, what's that ticking noise? But, uh, it's my heart. Um, but yeah, that was a tough stretch. I think partly because I didn't want to be hypocritical. And for me giving advice to someone when now I have something that's wrong with me and I had to have, you know, this other person hasn't had open heart surgery and here I am having had open heart surgery. It felt really, even though I knew it wasn't a nutritional thing, it was a, the thinking in my head really interfered with my ability to do my thing.

How did you work through that? Oh, I think the, there wasn't really too much choice. I mean, it was a thing where I was doing what I loved. I didn't want to change that. It definitely was a bump in the road of, you know, how, like if I was mapping out how my life is going to go, that was not part of the plan. Are we talking about imposter syndrome? What is that? Like you felt like you were a phony? It wasn't so much feeling like I was a phony. It was especially if I saw someone with a blood test where they had a lot of cardiac-related markers come back on their test. With the elite athletes, it wasn't much of an issue.

But with someone that I really had legitimate concern about their cardiac health, that's where I felt that maybe that what you're describing as far as the imposter thing where I was thinking, well, I've actually worse off than you are. And yeah, so the imposter piece is like, one day, someone is going to find out that I'm not what they think I am. Yeah, yeah. And then and then so how did you do tell people? I brought it up on occasion, because there's been some people who have had to, you know, something heart related come up and, and they're very shocked to find out that I had any background just because, you know, from their point of view, I'm for my age and pretty darn good shape and yeah, a picture of health.

Yeah. Yeah. And then so transparency was kind of part of it. And then it sounds like you just said, well, listen, it's either me get out of this field because I can't deal with this inner conflict or just keep getting better, Chris. And there was no getting out of it. It was just I had to work through that on my end, just as far as how to give that advice where. How did you do it? This is the psychology piece. Huh. how did you do it this is the psychology piece huh um i'm trying to think of what i did that was uh

that i would pass along to someone else that's a tough question yeah yeah it's like it's like pulling back on the process, but maybe you weren't quite sure what you did. It might be more of what you would describe as fake it till you make it. Except in that territory, I had to fake it until I made it a thing where I was comfortable with it. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep.

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conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. How do your friends describe you or your, your, your loved ones? Like how do people describe you? I'm sure they think I'm crazy. I don't know. That fits. So I would say that too. Okay. And then what is the, people don't talk about this, but we're kind of on the cusp of it, the dark side of being exceptional and you are exceptional at your craft. Is there a dark side that you've had to wrestle with? Well, I think that I've, in exchange for being good at what I do, you know, all those

things I was talking about min-maxing, I mean, the things that I don't do, I just am horrible at. I don't do it all, and a lot of it is even with, you know, business-related stuff, it's funny how I could be running a business and not good at business. I'm not good at sales, but I end up with a lineup of people just because I'm good at what I do. How do you get in your own way, Chris? Oh, I'm horrible at getting in my own way.

I'm actually shocked that I'm still in business, because it's a thing where I'm really good at what I do. But I also just from a, you know, whether it's staying on top of invoicing, or just general business management, and, you know, feeling bad for an employee that's really, you know, that probably shouldn't be part of the business anymore. Um, uh, you know, maybe some people have hung around longer than they should have. You are hopeless when it comes to taking care of people in that way. Yeah. And so, um, you know, that's, uh, as far as me getting in my own way, I think also taking on more projects than what I should, because I probably have enough, you know, if I just focused on the nutritional side of things, that would be enough. But as you know, with things like Heaven Center or whatever, where, you know, I come up with some idea of, hey, wouldn't it be great if, and then I'm off on something that's

a two year full-time job of, which are always really exciting and out there. And I love being part of them. So, you know, and which was heaven sent, which is, can we find you, this is your idea, not mine. Could we find somebody to jump out of a plane without a parachute into a, what at one point was going to be this really elaborate slide, you know, on the edge of the Grand Canyon. We almost made that happen, but there was a slight shift in it. Luke Akins ended up doing this into a net, a 16-story net. It was a thing where Jimmy Smith had asked me to,

he said, we're trying to put an event together. I said, you want an event? I'll give you an event. Give me a week to think about it.immy was on uh the finding mastery podcast as well yeah on a previous episode and so um you know i spent a week brainstorming the idea and uh came up with five ideas that i thought were you know pretty unique ideas and uh one of my friends i we were at dina's restaurant and we were, I was just kind of saying, here's my ideas I came up with. And the first thing I threw out was Heaven Sent. And she said, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. And so it was a thing

where, you know, it's all in one sentence. You know, someone's got to jump out of a plane at 25,000 feet with no parachute. I think it's probably one of the dangerous projects I've worked on. Yeah. And I know for you, that was kind of a tough one to... It was extraordinary. Yeah. But it was critically dangerous, obviously. Well, and from my point of view, it was fascinating just because it's something that sounds impossible.

It's completely doable. It was not a thing where I felt that it was as high risk as it sounded with all the safety precautions we put into place to guide him toward the target. Okay. On that note, is there a philosophy that guides your life? Boy, as far as philosophies, I think when it comes to nutrition, I've always had a policy of give away the information in that conversation. That's probably where, you know, let's say on the sales side of it, my lack of salesmanship has been made up for by me feeling free to discuss anything nutritional.

I think a lot of people in the field clench to everything they have because they think that's their trade secret. And there's so much information, no matter how much you give out in that initial conversation, there's a thousand times more than that that's there. That initial conversation, though, it sets the precedent for that person wanting to have more contact with you. Okay. So that's like your, your approach to business

really. Uh, but also your craft is give away as much as you can. Yeah. I don't think that there's a, you are a giver more than much more than a taker. Yeah. Yeah, I never have thought of you as a taker. So is there a word that cuts to the center of who you are as a man? Boy, that's a tough one. And I think a big thing for are looking to be centered and kind of have all aspects of their life functioning at an efficient level and I've pretty much accepted that there are some things that are just going to be a little off and the things that I really enjoy and that I put my heart and soul into to do those better than anybody on the planet.

And, you know, I think that's how you leave your mark. Like you really do something exceptional because there's a lot of people who aren't doing things that are exceptional and just kind of plod along through life, just doing what's expected of them rather than, you know, let's say with the five ideas that I came up with for that event, I was trying to think of, OK, what sounds impossible? And then I jot that down and then I think, well, how can I make that happen? Is legacy important to you? It hadn't been before. And I guess at this point, I'm realizing there's a certain amount of time in your life to do things and setting up a business where it can function without you

and not necessarily that something bad happened to me. It's the thing where just making it so that the business can run and do the same thing that you're doing without you being involved in daily operations, technology is becoming available that would allow that to happen. And that's fascinating territory. Is there a word or phrase that cuts to the center of what you understand most? I think on the nutritional science side of it, when you're looking at a blood test, there's very few people that have seen as many tests as I've seen. And so that would be, you know, if I'm picking one thing that I'm better at, then I'd say anyone on the planet, it's going to be that territory. Okay, brilliant. If I asked again,

and you said my philosophy is, how would you finish that? On a personal level, I think my point of view is, and I don't know who said this quote a long time ago, but I remember reading it and thinking that's interesting, but be nice to people on the way up because they're the same people you're going to run into on the way down. And so it doesn't matter who I'm talking to, whether it's a famous coach of a football team or if it's a housewife that most likely doesn't have the financial resources to do the testing with me, I put the same love and effort into that conversation, no matter who it is. You've been, you've seen so many world-class athletes and

performers and been part of their experiences. This is not a loaded question. I really want to know how you think about this. What percentage of success on the world stage is related to the mind? Oh, that's a huge chunk of it. I think that if someone is going to perform at a world-class level, that you cannot get there without having the right, you have to be in the right mental space. I've seen a lot of athletes that have huge egos, but aren't necessarily in the right space. And I don't know how much of that is phony or real, but it's just a thing where for the mental side of it, even just to put in the dedication to making sure that they are eating right all the time. I mean, that's a lot of effort to put in. And, you know, if you are going, I'm using Cheesecake Factory to pick on here, but if you're going to Cheesecake Factory with your family and it's someone's birthday, that athlete can make a good choice there. And it's just they have to have the mental discipline to do that so what would you say the

percentage of um i it's hard to put a percentage on that i think it's a requirement more than a it's a cool thought yeah that's a cool thought and then now this is squarely in your lap of your expertise is when you get the nutrition right, how does that impact the psychology? All those things that are involved in production of I'm going to use dopamine as an example, just because I'm finding that that's really key to athletic performance. Motivation, mood stabilization well even just on a inhibition level of if you're you know let's say that you are a baseball player and you're up to bat and you've got a you know millisecond to make a decision on whether or not you're swinging on this pitch all of those thoughts of what you're going to do and how you're going to swing are are being somewhat suppressed so that you can stay there at the ready. And dopamine is unique just because it lets, it's what's allowing you to make that

decision of which one of those actions is going to take place. And because I see so many athletes come back deficient in, let's say, vitamin B6, which is involved, it's necessary for production of dopamine. Tyrosine and phenylalanine are in that pathway. You know, you have a lot of things that are feeding that pathway that if someone's in a really high-pressure situation for a long period of time, you'll see someone will end up depleted in those things. And in the athletic world, everyone refers to it as adrenal burnout, and that's not a scientific term. But it's a thing where because dopamine is used to produce norepinephrine and epinephrine and that pathway to make those, you need copper and vitamin C. You know,

things that are common, you know, no one really thinks about it. If you end up with deficiencies there, that pathway doesn't work like it should. And it's not, I would say, super common, but with really high-level people that have pushed themselves hard, I find that that's a problem area more so than the general population. Okay, brilliant. Okay, how about this? Pressure comes from? That would just be my own expectations of myself. I put a ton of pressure on myself to, I guess, somewhat be a perfectionist.

And it doesn't matter how many blood tests I've reviewed in a day. If it's the end of the day and I'm starting to fade a little bit, I've just got to rally and just give this person 100% of my attention, even if at the end of it I feel like I'm going to go pass out. So I do put a lot of pressure on myself to give everyone the same amount of attention. It all comes down to? I think this is from you, but the way you do the little things is the way that you end up doing the bigger things.

Yeah, the way you do small things is the way you do all things the way you do all things yeah very cool really that has impacted you yeah i think that and i don't think i i heard that term before you said it but it was a thing where i found that you know especially with the athletes um you could tell who's got it together and who doesn't uh in a very short conversation but i know for myself that applies too, is just if you're going to do something, do it right. And it seems to carry on to the bigger things. How would you finish this thought? My vision?

So on a business side of things, that would be... If you said my vision, you would say... Yeah. things that would be if you said my vision you would say yeah um and this would just be a future look is is where i'm going with that i i would say the advent of artificial tech or artificial intelligence i think is going to change a lot of things in the nutritional realm. I think microfluidics are going to play a role in the nutritional realm. The combination of those two will be interesting. I know AI freaks me out a little bit just on creating something that's more intelligent than the smartest person on the planet right now is going going into unique territory and so it

leaves me a little uncomfortable but it's also uh ai is amazing with huge sets of data and so as far as the vision there it would be that if you could get a large number of people's nutritional blood tests and and mine that and look for all those things where if this is high and this is low and something else is in things where if this is high and this is low and something else is in the middle what does that do to someone's testosterone you know that day is here i mean it's a thing where you can use ai to do that type of research where you're you're actually advancing the field of nutrition faster than it has at any point in history. And I think in the next few years, actually, that there'll be some major, major bits of information

coming out of that territory that were unknown before. How would you answer this, I am? These are hard questions. I think I'm pretty intense when it comes to my ideas whether it's a guy jumping out of a plane with no parachute or you know if i'm if i'm in whether it's a practical joke or a you know whatever it is i'm in a hundred percent so i i think there there's probably a high level of intensity even though my personality wouldn't seem like I'm an intense person from just someone interacting with me they'd probably be like maybe it's pretty mellow last kind of zinger here not

zinger but like a challenging question is how do you articulate or define or think about the concept of mastery? Mastery is kind of a unique territory because you, to be the best at something, which is kind of what I would consider to be a master of whatever it is, that thing that I was saying earlier about basically minimizing strengths and maximizing weaknesses really comes into play because, and this is not to say that the thing that you're strong at should be minimized, but making it so you've got one thing that you're incredible at and you kind of have to let some other things go. Things that are not as important to you, just being willing to let those things go and focus on what is your main endeavor. No one's ever said that.

It doesn't surprise me that you say it, but no one's ever said that before. It's cool. Is there one characteristic or a key characteristic for mastery? I think determination would be a big part of that. I don't think that, you know, if you're talking about someone who's achieved a level of mastery on the football field versus someone that's achieved a level of mastery in the laboratory in a scientific setting, there's probably a similar determination that drives them. It's just a totally different way of applying it. All right, that's it for part one. I hope you enjoyed getting to know Chris and

what he stands for in a psychological framework. And I just want to nudge and encourage you to hop over to part two, where we take a deeper dive into the mechanics of nutrition. And I think you'll enjoy it. I think you'll be surprised by some of the common misconceptions associated with a healthy diet. And we discuss a vegan diet, vegetarian diets, gluten-free diets, carbs, protein, testosterone levels, and all that stuff. So we've got it covered in this conversation. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community.

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So seek assistance from your healthcare providers. Again, a sincere thank you for listening. Until next episode, be well, think well, keep exploring.