Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #125 Jon Callahan

Episode Date: November 15, 2019

John "Cal" Callahan is one of those souls that you don't plan on meeting in life but later down the line becomes a brother. Cal and I jump into our back story of how we met, showing up for your family, his upcoming podcast in the works and the benefits of plant medicines.     Connect with John| Instagram -https://www.instagram.com/bunkercal/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/bunkercal?lang=en    Show Notes  Tribe by Sebastian Junger | https://amzn.to/30Joqkw Becoming A Supple Leopard by kelly Starrett | https://amzn.to/2M8hUyJ The Blue Zones by Dan Buettner | https://amzn.to/32WvLir AMP with Andrew Weil |    Show Sponsors Waayb CBD www.waayb.com (Get 10% off using code word Kyle at checkout)   Onnit  Get 10% off all foods and supplements at Onnit by going to  https://www.onnit.com/kyle/   Connect with Kyle Kingsbury on: Website | https://www.kingsbu.com/ ( Supplement List & Newsletter) Twitter | https://bit.ly/2DrhtKn Instagram | https://bit.ly/2DxeDrk Get 10% off at Onnit by going to https://www.onnit.com/podcast/   Subscribe to Kyle Kingsbury Podcast iTunes | https://apple.co/2P0GEJu Stitcher | https://bit.ly/2DzUSyp Spotify | https://spoti.fi/2ybfVTY    

What's up, friends? Today's guest is a very, very special friend of mine. It's a guy named John Callahan, affectionately known as Cal. When I first got to Onnit, I was participating in my usual guinea pig fashion and some really cool stuff. And the first time I got to try NAD injection therapy, it was with a who's who of really fucking rad and awesome people. As we mentioned on the show, I don't mind name dropping a second time, but there was Tim Ferriss and Lance Armstrong and a bunch of Lance's teammates. And then there was this dude in the corner who I was like, hmm, I don't know who you are. I don't recognize your name, but if you're sitting here with me, there must be something special about you. And as the conversation really got deep into some of the other cool topics as psychedelics and different things like that, things that I'm into, some of the ways that Tim

Ferris has influenced my life through his podcast, Cal had a lot of good questions. And we really gravitated towards one another and ended up becoming very, very close. I mean, I count him as one of my best friends in the world right now today, only a little bit over two years later. And he has a fascinating, fascinating story. Really did a lot for himself on the financial side coming up. And at the same time as can happen, made some pretty big sacrifices, kind of neglected some of the things that matter most in life. And this podcast, we dive deep into Cal, Cal's story. It's just fucking phenomenal. He's one of my best friends in the whole world. And I know you guys are going to love this show. He's got his own podcast that he's getting ready

to release. He's recorded with some really cool people. I'll put myself as a really cool person that's been a guest on his podcast, so make sure you check that one out. It's not out yet. I'll keep you guys posted. I'll definitely repost on Instagram when he finally gets his podcast up and running. Support the show. Support this show. Support his show.

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slash Kyle and you'll get 10% off. That's wave.com slash Kyle for 10% off any of their products. Also, Onnit. Guess what? This used to be the Onnit podcast. I still work at Onnit. I'm working in product development on some really cool products coming out right now. But on the topic of sleep, as we just mentioned, CBD being one of my favorites, there's actually three products that I take from Onnit religiously at night. I take our melatonin spray. I take our key minerals because of the magnesium. And I also take New Mood. New Mood started off as a roll-on roll-off. It was really a product that was used for the after effects of coming off of molly or ecstasy. And it works for that. It's got 5-HTP,-htp altryptophan and a number of other

things that can help boost serotonin production and neurotransmitters but what's fantastic about this is it also helps you sleep and i've verified this with the aura ring i've verified it with my whoop watch it'll actually increase my REM and my deep sleep so the quality of my sleep improves when i take new mood and that's why it is in my absolute daily. You'll find this out, too, if you go to kingsboo.com and enter your email where you can get my entire supplement list, everything I take to jumpstart my brain and get the cognitive function on blast in the morning to my pre-workout to what I take as my sleep cocktail. And I've mentioned a few of those ingredients thus far. So check out this podcast with Cal.

I hope you all enjoy it. Hit us up on Instagram. We've linked to his in the show notes as well as mine at Kingsboo Everywhere. Thanks for tuning in, y'all. We're clapped in. My boy Cal has finally come on the podcast. Yeah, man. Long time coming, I guess.

Yeah. And this has been, today is the two-year anniversary of when we first met. It's so crazy. I know someone had mentioned to me a couple days ago, it was the anniversary of the Vegas shooting. And I remember that two days after that is when I met you and she changed for me. So it's very apropos that I'm here today. Yeah, we're going to dive in all that.

We met each other. I just want to use this time to name drop as much as I can. We met each other doing just want to use this time to name drop as much as i can we met each other uh doing the nad treatment and lance armstrong was there tim ferris was there a couple of lance's teammates our boy college and there was you and i didn't i didn't really understand how you fit in like i knew like oh i'm sitting amongst some pretty high level folks here some royalty yeah so then i? Yeah. And so, but that was cool because that drew my attention to you. And you were probably, I mean, you know, initially I was just kind of a fly on the wall. And then as I started talking with Tim and Lance and, you know, Lance, of course, had never done any plant medicines. We, that conversation really opened up,

Tim and I, and you had a lot of questions around it. You know, a lot of dudes in the room weren't necessarily interested in that. So if you're a fly on the wall, what the fuck was I? Because I was a fly on the fly. I mean, I was just sitting there just like drooling, like listening, like taking it all in. And for me, it was like the first time, like I knew about kind of all the things

that y'all were talking about, but like a 10%, right. I kind of scratched the surface or had some experience with some of these things, but truth be told, I didn't know shit about it. And so when you and Tim started to go off, I'm like, slow that drip down. Like I'm not going anywhere. Like how many days do we get to do this? It was like eight in a row. It was like, babe, you know, I was talking to Peyton, my wife, I'm like, you just wouldn't believe the room that I'm in right now and all the shit I'm taking in. And so each day I'd go home, I'd Google all the shit you were

talking about. I'd start ordering books. I'd listen to podcasts. And it was, it just like blew everything open for me. Yeah. It was amazing. Yeah. It was fucking cool for me. I learned so much. That was my first time getting to meet tim and chat with him and a lot of the stuff that i got turned on to you know as i started listening to more podcasts right when i retired in 2014 and two podcasts released three released that year on the tim ferris show that i that like changed my life one with peter attia one with dominic d'agostino both both taught me fasting and the ketogenic diet, which helped me heal my brain. And another one with Dr. Jim Fadiman, where he talks about the Psychedelic Explorer's Guide

and microdosing. And that for sure changed my life and helped me heal my brain. All three of those from Tim. So it was really fucking special. But let's rewind here. I definitely like getting people's background. Talk about life growing up and the path that led you to really diving deep in the Chicago trade game. Yeah. So I grew up in a small town in the early 70s, right? So I'm rolling up to almost 40 years old now, but I grew up in a small town called Winthrop, Maine. About 5,000 or 6,000 people. By all accounts, I had a really happy childhood, had a bunch of friends on my street. I grew up playing hockey. That was really my main passion. And then kind of dicked around with soccer and a few other sports. But hockey was my thing. My parents, when I was, I want to say I was probably fifth or sixth grade, uh, bought a grocery store.

And so as a result, put a lot of time and effort into that. And, um, you know, so in some regards, I was on my own with my sister a lot of the time, which I think was a, uh, was a real benefit to us. I think it really created some resiliency and just having to figure shit out, you know, um, there was a shadow side to that as well, you know, with the, uh, you know, that whole bravado of never let them see you sweat because you've got to figure shit out yourself. Um, but at the same time, like, you know, my parents worked hard and I got to experience that too, you know, for, for my benefit, I got to work at the store a lot and, you know, it wasn't always easy working for my dad, but he was clear about his expectations. And I learned a lot about how to show up and how to be accountable. And, you know, uh,

side tangent here, like as a dad, now I find it really hard to, um, share those principles with my kids because I don't feel like I have an outlet for that. You know, it's like my kid's 16. I want to teach him about hard work. I mean, I'm retired right now, right? So I'm not really setting like an example on a day-to-day basis. Let me show you can say, well, if you work really hard, you could be retired. But that doesn't work that way. You know, that actually just puts more pressure on him, I think. Yeah, no question. Yeah, like your experience was palpable and tangible

because you went through it. You experienced it, right? There's no other way. Just talking about it, it's not the same experience. No, and so he worked, you know, at our golf course this summer, you know, cleaning golf carts. It's like, yeah, that was an experience. They kind of dick around a lot. There's not a lot to do, you know, cleaning golf carts. It's like, yeah, that was an experience. They kind of dick around a lot. There's not a lot to do, you know? So he spends a lot of time

on his phone and he's making not much money, which was good. It's like, okay, buddy, like, this is how long you have to work to make a hundred dollars. Like it's a lot of hours. Right. And so the benefit of that was, you know, finally teaching him the value of money. Right. Which has been hard for us. You know, like we we've done well. And so, you know, we like nice things and we like to go on nice vacations and do those things. So it's, you know, the downside of that is our kids, unfortunately, don't have a lot of exposure to like what I grew up in. Right. Which was mom and dad worked all the time. And, you know, we had to get loans to go to school and stuff like that. Like they won't have those same obstacles.

So anyway, I'll find a bit of a tangent there from a dad hat on, but, but really, you know, had a great childhood into went into college. I ended up playing hockey in college at a small school called Amherst College. It was a great experience. I always enjoyed the team atmosphere. That's really where I thrived. I was fortunate enough to really fall into a trading job in Chicago. I had interviewed for probably 10 different investment banking jobs and consulting jobs in New York prior to getting this job. And I thought that's what I wanted to do. Were you living at that point? I was coming out of college.

So I was in Massachusetts. And they'll come to our school, right? And recruit kids. And I thought it was hot shit because I got 10 interviews, right? All my hockey buddies basically got none, right? But Cal got zero second round interviews so it's like I gotta put it right back in my face um but fortunately that happened because the guy ended up hiring me and I became partners with in the trading business came by at the end

of the school year we hit it off I didn't really know much about trading I just knew that I loved playing team sports I loved being in the game at the end. You know, I was a goalie, so I had to be in the game at the end of the game. But, you know, that pressure situation for me really felt good. And so we really connected on that. I was pretty good at math, you know, not like super genius, but like I could do math quickly. So that helped, too. So I got hired hired and spent 18 years in Chicago as a trader and on another team, right? So my whole life I've been part of this team and really shaped who I am today and what is important for me. I'm not the lone wolf, you know, even though I want to go play that role sometimes. I understand. And, you know, now in my later years, in the last couple of years, it's changed from that team to tribe. You know, I understand what that means, what brotherhood means, you know, in sisterhood too, right? But like,

you know, what you and I have shared, what you've really brought into my life, how you changed my life, right? How to show up for other men in a meaningful way, you know, not just a pat on the ass, but like, to hold, embrace, to really love another man as a brother without condition, right? And so that's one of the greatest gifts you've given me, right? And what I've tried to do is share that with my brothers who I'm already tight with, but we've been able to take it to another level, you know, cause I've shown up with this energy of like, this is what it means to really love someone. Right. And so not to get too deep down that rabbit hole already,

but, you know, um, coming in here this morning, I was thinking about like all the shit that I've, you know, really learned over the last two years, you know, and I just so much of it, I credit to our relationship and our experience and what you've given me, right? And what you've given, you know, my family, my relationship with my wife, my kids, my, like I said, my brothers, like it's, I can't, um, I can't, can't overstate the impact that you've had on my life. And so to be here today with my brother that I truly love, like deeply love, you know, and I've been listening to obviously your podcast for the past two years. And it's just, it's such an honor to be here and so grateful for, for all of it, man.

Fuck yeah. Fucking all of it. I love you, brother. And I couldn't be more happy with where you've gone. And this is a conversation that we had before where it's kind of like you can take a horse to water, but whether it drinks or not, it's up to the horse, right? And I use that analogy loosely.

It doesn't directly tie, but there's been plenty of people who came to me with the calling to the medicine. They came to me with an intention to try and want to learn and want to grow. And they had all the right reasons. And it's not every time that people turn out the way you did. It's not every time that people decide, oh, wow, he planted the seed in me and I'm going to plant the seed in others. And that's even without the plants, right? To teach people how to love better, to teach people how to live better, to teach people how to grow, how to pay attention and watch their thoughts

like a hawk, and really be mindful of the practices that are uplifting, that leave us more whole. You're fucking doing all of it. And it's been so cool. It's so cool to watch. And, and you're sharing that medicine, the medicine of love, the medicine of growth with everyone, you know, who's willing, who's willing to drink the water. Right. And that to me is the coolest thing because, you know, at that ceremony, we had another guy who didn't take it the same way, you know, he didn't take it the same way and he's doing well now. But, you know, everybody walks their own path. Everyone receives their lessons at their own time. And our ability to surrender and pay attention and then embody whatever it is the teachings are, whether that's in a float tank or in breath work or with psilocybin or any other modality, our ability

to actually embody that stuff is what actually makes change happen. It's the resistance to that that will keep us locked into the exact same fucking space over and over again, receiving the same lessons until we break through it. Yeah, and in all these experiences, I've met that resistance, right?

At multiple times, and those create different experiences, right? And where in the past I would have maybe judged myself resistance, right? And multiple times and those create different experiences, right? And, and, and where in the past I would have, um, maybe judged myself or felt, you know, like, I kind of fucked that up because I didn't surrender. Right. It's like, no, that that's just where I'm at right now. Right. And so that's, that's information for me going forward that if you don't want to surrender, that's okay, but here's the outcome. And do you want that outcome? Okay. Well, next time let's really work on that intention of

surrendering. Right. But one of the things I wanted to mention too, is, is one of the other things I learned from you is you were never, um, the way you shared the information, it was more like, this is kind of what I'm doing. If you have questions, I'll answer them. But like, not Cal, this is what you need to do. You need to do this. This is how you need to change your life. And so for a guy that, you know, maybe a number of years ago, I was getting into coaching. I kind of swung the bat of, I knew what you needed to do better than you did. Right. A little bit of that hubris with well intentioned you know i wasn't trying to be a dick but like i just felt like i knew more than i did

right and and so for me it's shifted as this is what i'm doing right i really try to take that on and be nuanced about everybody i need to meet everybody where they're at right and we're all at different places and so if i can just be an example of the shit of where I've been, and I've been very honest, you know, again, taking your lead about this is where I was. This is where I was fucking up with my wife and my kids and my friends and whatever, right? And this is how it's started to shift, right?

I don't think you're ever at the other end of it. I think you're just on this kind of gradient of hopefully you're shifting through growth, evolution, whatever your kind of metric is. But I think it's important to understand that it's always ongoing, right? And you're never a finished product. You kind of get pulled back and that's okay. Yeah. The fact that you realize that you're getting pulled back into the shit and those thoughts and that story, that narrative, it's good. You didn't, I didn't used to know that. I was just living it. Yeah. Right. I would understand the consequences. The awareness is the key. You spoke about something that's very important and that's

receptivity. And receptivity is something that I've worked a lot on with myself because I too have had that, this is what you need to do. And this is the, I've worked a lot on with myself because I too have had that, this is what you need to do. And this is the, I'll beat the fucking psychedelic drum or beat the ketogenic drum or beat whatever thing that's, that's helping me. And, you know, I've had anybody who's played, played sports throughout their life. It's quite likely you've had more than one coach and hopefully you've had a variety of styles, right? So I always knew my high school coach was a fucking asshole. And he was a my way or the highway guy. He would talk shit to me on the field in front of everybody.

He'd say, Kingsbury's not going to play D1. No one will listen to him. He's too much of an asshole. And even though he was right in a lot of respects, his approach to it was as an asshole, right? And I remember the first time I had a players coach who'd really pull me aside and work with me and say hey i want you to try this next play you're doing good but let's let's

change some things up you know and if he took me under his wing i would do fucking anything for that guy right it was like oh okay he believes in me and he's not he's not yelling at me to do it he's offering me a different way right Right. And like that, that polarity in difference in coaching, it changed, it changed everything. I used it through fighting. I used it, you know, now even in my approach and communication as a family member, as a dad, as a podcast host, all those things. And I think that's, that's certainly a critical piece, but let's touch on this. I mean, you're, you're very successful in the trade game. You get out and you're passionate about fitness. So you jump in.

Yeah, so I, it was interesting. I was just talking to Dan Carcillo, who's just on here with you about, you know, him leaving hockey, you know, what that feels like. And for me, I was leaving trading, leaving my team, right? But I was getting into coaching. I like knew what my chapter two was. I was super into fitness. I was spending all my time like training, learning about nutrition, life coaching. Like it was my next thing. So I'm like, oh, I got this. So I got

right, like literally I stopped work on Friday. The next Monday I was in my office, like grinding through like learning different modalities and different coaching programs and stuff like that. Well, little did I know that I was completely bypassing this innate need for me to be on a team. Right. And so I'm going down this road. And what I find is that I'm starting to coach people and I'm trying to figure out what it looks like for me, right? And for a while, I thought I was going to open up a facility down in Austin. It seemed like the next logical step for me. But as I started to try to get the wheels in motion to do it,

I fucking couldn't pull the trigger on like finding a space or whatever. And I started to realize like I spent all this time, these 18 years working. Like I don't want to be, you know, beholden to a space where I have to be there and work a bunch of hours. Like my kids are young. Like I've got the freedom to spend time with them. And so I started to shift back. And I had a very good life coach at that point. He said, just because you told everybody you're going to do this doesn't mean you have to do it. Fuck it. It changed. And so I let go of it.

And literally that conversation like made all the difference for me. Like you reserved the right change your mind, you know? And I think a lot of us don't feel that way, especially if we're, if we're living in a black and white world where I really was at that point, there wasn't a lot of gray, there wasn't a lot of nuance for me. And so I felt like, oh shit, I'm a fraud. I told everybody I was going to do this. And if in order for me to be successful, I need to follow through on this. Like people don't give a fuck what I told them at a cocktail party or whatever. They really don't care. Right. It's just your own perception. And so anyway, I, I, I, I step away from that and I'm kind of coaching people remotely. And it's just, it's just, it's hard. It's a lot of work. It's still a lot of hours. And in order to

write programs, as you know, for people to get really good at it, you got to write like a thousand training programs and then you can do it, right? I'm grinding over because I want it to be good I want it to be individualized and so around this time uh I had an opportunity to be involved with a new um pro fitness league that was starting the national pro grid league and so this was in 2014 um this would have geez, I guess a year after I retired from trading. And it was like all the things I wanted to do, right? Sports, a team. You know, I've said it before. It's like I felt like I was a poor man's Mark Cuban, you know, has a lot less money to get in the door here. But, you know, I got involved with this league and for, you know, two years, it was an incredible experience, not without its bumps and bruises. I mean, we had a lot of hardship. We lost a lot of money. Like it was tough and there was some

tenuous relations between the league and the teams. And it just, it didn't flow like we all thought it maybe would. We weren't all necessarily going towards the same thing where I think the league was, you know, rightfully so. They were focused on dollars and cents and we were too, but we also needed to care for our athletes. And that was the most important thing for us, that these kids, you know, I mean, they were, you know, 21 and up, but like,

they're still kids to us and they're relying on us to take care of them. And so that was something that I, I love, you know, like you knowing me, like I love to nurture and take care and provide and do those things. And so for me, I was like in my element, right. But one of the things i did is this thing was coming to a close i had a lot of bitterness um because i was only looking at it through the financial loss lens you know um it was probably the biggest loss i'd ever had as an investment you know and and i'm you know i'm looking at the bottom line i'm like you, you're a fucking idiot, dude. Like, you didn't do your due diligence. Like, you know, my best friend who's my attorney is like, dude, you're an idiot for doing this.

This is not going to fucking work. Like, those numbers on the deck, they're awesome. They're never going to hit them, you know. And so it was a great lesson in that, but also like what I finally took away and it took until this past spring. So we're talking three years later, I finally understood this was one of the, the experiences that I've had. That was the closest that I felt to being on a team. And I was alive. I fucking loved it. It was, I was a different person. You know, I, it was like, I just lost all sense of time. I was just doing whatever I needed to do. And it was, it was an, it was

a reminder that this is where I need to be. I need to be surrounded by my brothers and sisters. And I need to find a way to do that. Whether it's through coaching groups or whatever, I don't know exactly what it looks like. I mean, I'm starting to figure it out. But man, like I would pay twice that to feel that, you know what I mean? Like, like, to feel what I felt, like was amazing. Right. And so I'm in a much different place now. I'm, I'm, I'm a much, um, more connected to who I am, um, than I was maybe three years ago and understand how to show up for myself, for my wife, for my kids. Um, but back then, man, I was, I was a broken man and I was looking to blame other people, right? And there was no blame. You know, my intuition was right. Go do this thing.

Fuck, it was awesome. It lost money. Who cares? You had that to lose. It's okay. You had this experience that you cannot duplicate. Be grateful for the experience and the fuck, what a lesson, you know? Yeah yeah it's a big lesson it's reminding me of sebastian junger's book tribe oh yeah thanks for that and so much so much of this correlates to community and we've seen like when someone can appropriately set up a business model that builds community we see them flourish like you look at crossfit and it doesn't matter what side of the fence you're on like oh it's over training or you're training to be the best in fitness or whatever whatever the knocks are you build community in that you build community around diet you know you think of people that that

do a ketogenic diet and get a lot of results from it uh that builds community and that's not across the board obviously that's why there's it doesn't work for everyone that's right those kind of things but um you know i think that's that's really what the key is and i think now as you're looking forward you've organized some some awesome men's hangs we've had some really powerful journeys and work out in sedona with aub and the guys you know we've got to meet some fantastic fucking people in doing that but i think that's the level of camaraderie and team that you want to have at every stage of life. And if we don't have that, that's one of the common denominators with loneliness, which is one of the common denominators with depression and a lot of these mental, physical ailments. You look in the blue zones, one of the common denominators is

community. It's multi-generational families. It's being in a neighborhood where you can walk everywhere and you know everyone's name, right? And you've known people for 30 plus fucking years, right? And that's so lost in the West. We have these giant cities and then people don't like the cities. They move out into the middle of nowhere and they're isolated. And we think social media connects us, but it's not the same. It's really not. No, one of the things I loved about that book, again, thanks for recommending it,

was this notion that in the poorer communities, they rely on one another. Whether they got to go next door to get something that they're making for dinner, they don't have everything at their disposal where, you know, as you become more affluent, you have all the things you need, you become more isolated, right? You can take care of yourself. And, and, and I, I totally recognize that, you know, I know that when the, you know, the experience of growing up in a small town, like we all knew each other. Everybody was

aunt and uncle. We were a big community. Nobody had much, maybe one of my buddies did, but that was it. You know, he didn't live on our street either. He moved off, you know, but it's like that, that's kind of what happens, right? He's actually a great example. Like his dad did well enough where he moved off our street and moved onto the lake and had this awesome house. And we love visiting him. He didn't live that far away. I mean, he had the best lumber parties, but but it was still he was missing that community. Right. And so as you I think, unfortunately, our society set up for as you become more affluent, you become more isolated. You know, and so that's why I think these these gatherings, as you said, in Sedona, like so powerful, those experiences. And, you know, one of the things that I want to

do, um, obviously I'm launching a podcast soon, but you know, uh, I've had this idea. I want to, I want to not necessarily recreate that experience, but I want to create an experience, a retreat for men. And right now it's just for men. I think eventually to be co-ed and I'll do something with my wife, Peyton, as she's working with women, but, but really bring men to a space, you know, for a couple of days, we would do a deep dive on this stuff where a lot of it has to just being present where there's breath work, right? Getting in the cold water, learning about, you know, the, the earth's magnetism and electromagnetic waves. And it's like just kind of giving everyone some touches on these things and experience and have

a guy like you come down, right. And talk about the things that you're doing, right. And Matt, you know, I've talked to Matt, our buddy, Matt Fisher about it. Matt's going to help me do it. And I think it's just to show men like, look, you can have a tribe of brothers. We're going to have one right here. And I, you know, what I want it to do is I want it to be like the seed for this larger men's group that just continues to grow and grow in this group of men that, you know, over time, it just, it's a place for men to show up for one another, right? There's plenty of other people that are doing this, but fuck, I want to do my own, right? And, and have my own, the things that are important to me and that I think can really benefit men. Um, and so that's in the works right now. And I'm super excited about it

because there's so, as you know, there's so much you can do over a couple of days but it's also like you you want it to be a little bit of a break you know you want yeah you need to be in the space you can't always be doing this shit right it's like doing versus being and i think um as men it's hard people don't want to hear that it's hard. People don't want to hear that. It's hard to turn off. And people were like, fuck that. You're a white male and you've had success. And I was like, sure. But there comes that isolation, right? And there comes this idea that you have to do it all on your own. And that's fucked up because it doesn't have to be that way. And that's what I finally understood. It took me a long time, but that whole mentality of me having to do it myself really fucked up my whole life, you know? And it really sent me deep into like exercise. Right. And so I would get like,

that was my thing. More doing, more doing. Right. And it was like one of the things that was like trying to replace or, or distract me from the fact that I wasn't surrounded by tribe. I didn't have brothers anymore that were around me. Sure, I have, you know, my boys from Chicago and stuff like that, but it wasn't the same. And so I threw myself into this, you know, fitness. And don't get me wrong, anything can be damaging if you you go to if you don't have the right relation with it right and for me fitness got to that point where i would go in i'd work out and i'd walk around with just a little bit of an edge it was because i was so fucking armored up you know and it was like with muscle it was amazing to me that as i started to let go of the muscle maybe it's a coincidence maybe it's not like my shit started to soften go of the muscle, maybe it's a coincidence, maybe it's not,

like my shit started to soften all over and I started to connect with my wife. I started to realize like, you know, my training was like, go do all these 10 things. That's your workout for the day. So I would do them, right? Mindlessly, just do them, right? Because that's what I was told to do.

And as a husband, I was doing all the things that anyone on the outside seeing it would say oh fuck he's a great husband look at all the shit he's doing he's providing he's got a great house they do this they do that yeah family vacations he takes care of himself look at him you look like a fucking greek god yeah all that shit and it's like the one thing i was missing fucking deeply was this connection with my wife and i didn't see it because I was so fucked in the head, like trying to do all the things because I thought I needed to do that. That's how I needed to show up. I needed to provide all these material things, right? And I

needed to be in great shape. And it just put me down this road where I became more and more armored up and closed off. And again, as I started to unlayer this through various means, right. Breath work, working with Matt Fisher, spending time with you, working with Ryan Frisinger, like all these things allowed me to start to strip away this armor. And it's like, I mean, I'm 20 pounds lighter and it's 100% muscle that's gone, you know? Yeah. But I'm in a much better place, you know? And it's so it's for me, it's been it's been it's really been interesting to watch the body transform and watch the mind transform in the heart. And everything just start has really opened up.

I mean, no more black and white. It's like I'm new. I don't know. You know, and a buddy of mine, Dave Regula, always likes to talk about the European soccer players. It's like when they talk, when they're interviewed, they always say, well, for me, because they don't want to talk for anybody else.

And I've noticed that that's how I talk now. You know, and it really, I think, is disarming for people. It's like, oh, okay. So this is just how you feel about you. And you don't really know. It's not definitive. It's you don't need to know. It's like your opinion, or this is how you feel. It's like, fuck, like that just, that allows everything to, to, you kind of surrender to all of that. It's awesome. It's been great for me. Yeah. And if it's non-prescriptive in the approach and your communication, then it is received better. But you talked, I mean, for people that are just listening to this, you still are a fucking physical specimen. You're not like you just turned into a fucking fat slob and threw

it all out the window. Right. So, I mean, I had similarly, this brings up, of course, you know the story, but one of my first trips to Sedona, I had a very deep download in breathwork with Anahata to soften my body and that would soften my heart. And so if I'm walking around stiff and sore and really feeling that physical pain each day, and look, I still push myself to soreness a couple of times a week, but there's balance now, right? There's much more attention to mobility, yoga, breathwork, working out tightness kinks. I get body work once a week, which not a lot of people can do. Obviously, there's a price point to doing that. But like Kelly Sturette's book, Becoming a Supple Leopard, really showed me the

different ways I could unlock parts of my body that were chronically tight, chronically tight from sitting, from working out. And as you open the physical body, there's a direct response to your mental emotional body, directly tied. And so that softening, that was very hard for me. It was really hard. It took me probably a year and a half to finally get it. Of course, you know this too, but when I retired from fighting, I'd already had been working with the plant. So I had no I'd already had no working with the plant so I had no attachment to being a fighter to identifying as a fighter but I still had serious attachment to looking the part I wanted to be five percent body fat year round I wanted people to know if shit at the fan I could fuck you up you know like that was the hardest thing to release and in the softening that's really what

it boiled down to was okay maybe I don't need to be 5% body fat anymore. And I can still look good and still be in shape. And I can do the things that I'm doing because I enjoy them, right? If I want to run a mile, that's fine. There's no judgment. If I want to run five miles, that's cool. But as long as the intention is just to push myself a little bit and not because I need to fucking burn out a flame that's burning inside and I'm not witnessing, right? So I think those check-ins and the practices that we have from

breath work to meditation to walking meditation and contemplation to Tai Chi, anything that slows down the busy schedule enough to get clear, I can see really easily like, oh, I ran myself through the fucking ground because I'm in fear of what's going to happen next in business or paying bills or whatever the case may be, wherever the stressor comes. If I'm acting on autopilot, I will resort to the same old shit. And I think that's what's cool about the plants is that the perspective shift to know it's okay.

There will be setbacks. There are times when there's regression. But once you're aware of it, that's all that's necessary. That's all that's needed to keep moving forward. Yeah. It's that awareness. And I still, you know, I'd come back, I stopped drinking maybe a year and a half ago. And I, we had come into, um, you know, we get, we go up to this place every summer and people hadn't seen me. Right. And so I had dropped the weight. I wasn't drinking. And they're just like,

basically, who the fuck are you like what happened to you and so that was a shot to the ego like oh i'm not fit guy around here and you know there's a lot of ex-pro athletes up there and so generally speaking i was the most fit guy there with the exception of some of the guys who were still playing right um and so i had to let go of that mantle right and uh and fortunately i um had done enough work to understand when those feelings were coming in when the ego was like oh motherfucker go hit that weight pile again get those muscles back you know get that let's feed that that yeah have a drink be social i'm like no like this is your opportunity to let go of that identity that, that. Yeah. Have a drink, be social. I'm like, no, like this is your opportunity to let go of that identity. That identity is not serving you anymore. And maybe it never really

did, but it was something I was holding onto. And as I let go of that, it was like, I kind of welcomed, like, I just want more people to recognize that I've lost the weight. And it's almost like just to continue to dull what the response would be like right and don't get me wrong like every now and then i'll see an old picture you know when i'm a little jacked up and i was like oh maybe i should do some fucking curls and some pull-ups today whatever fuck i don't want to do them and so i don't you know and so as you know i do a bunch of stuff on the peloton now i fucking love it you know and I'll take some heavy balls and I'll move them around. But I do the shit that I want to do.

And I, as you said, like, I'm still in really good shape. And so that's where I want to be. Like, it's almost like that being more nuanced about the whole paradigm, right? Like, I don't need to try to get that last 98, 99th percentile of whatever fill in the blank is, right? Like I don't need to try to get that last 98, 99th percentile of whatever fill in the blank is right. I want to be running at about 85, 90 across the board. Right. So if I'm putting too many eggs in the nutrition basket, I'm getting super dialed. It's like, why am I getting super dialed? Like, is that extra 10 or 15% really going to be the benefit for me? Or is it going to push me into some mindset, some mode where I'm starting to shut off again? I'm armored up because I need to do this and I can't be distracted by my wife and my kids

and the dog and the pig and the, you know, it's like all the things. And so it's like, it's been good for me, you know, to live in that space, to live in that, like, eking that last 100% out, which you never can, but like really time with it, do it every day, like focus on it. Right. But gain a certain aptitude for it and then let it fall back into the background and then just, you know, kind of let it weave its way into your routine. But you do need to spend time to gain some sort of aptitude around it. So it's not to say that everything's just whatever the fuck you want to do. Yeah, you can spend some time taking a deeper dive and giving things, especially when it comes to practices that are going to leave you more holding when you started, right? And breathwork, it's always going to charge the body. It doesn't matter if you're

doing Wim Hof or Breath of Fire or even just slow, you know, or Andrew Weil, you know, Aubrey just podcasted with Dr. Andrew Weil, who was a legend, you know, one of the first medical doctors to talk about plant medicines in a respectful way. And, you know, he just has a very simple four, seven, eight breathwork protocol. It was the very first one I was introduced to right when I started fighting. I listened to one of his books. You inhale for four count, hold for a seven count, exhale for an eight count. And that's the way he learned it in India. It fucking works. And it's the most simple. It all works. It all works, right? You got to remember, it all fucking works. Yeah. And that's just it though. If you spend time with one breathwork practice and it changes

and you continue to learn and continue to adopt, that's how you begin to see like, oh, I need to wake up. I'm going to do some breath of fire. Oh, I just crushed it in the gym like yesterday. I haven't worked out in 10 days. I'm going to talk with you about this, I'm sure, on your podcast. A couple of massive medicine journeys in Sedona and I was coaching the whole weekend for Fit for Service. And I'd hiked, but I hadn't worked out. And so I went in and I was thinking, all right, I'm going to crush it. I'm going to do back squats. I'm going to do bench. I'm gonna do all this shit that I haven't done. And as I started warming up, I was like, I really don't feel my body can handle this right now. I've been through a lot, you know? And so, and I'm still stiff from the flights and all the travel and all the car rides.

So I was like, maybe I'll just do some cardio. And I thought of, you the flights and all the travel and all the car rides. So I was like, maybe I'll just do some cardio. And I thought of the long slow. And I'm like, no, I don't want to spend that much time. So we got this thing called the acid wash that everyone's doing here. And it's a 500-meter sprint on the Concept 2 rower, 500-meter sprint on the ski erg, 1,000-meter sprint on the Concept 2 bike, which just came out. Okay. And so, you know, you're supposed to do it as fast as you can.

I took breaks in between each one, but I was still fucking lit. I mean, I could barely walk. So I took a lap. I jumped in the sauna with Tosh and then I went outside and I did some Wim Hof and I did two rounds of 50 breaths

with holds as long as I could. And then I did 100 breaths and held like on a half to level. And I was so fucking charged. you know, hands are curled in and just, just shaking with all this energy. And it was one of the coolest breathwork sessions I've ever had, but I'll tie that in. Like those are, those are, that's the nuance that you can gain with a certain degree of mastery. When you pay attention and you realize like, I can feel into this right now. What do I need to do? So my workout changed completely different than what I had on the schedule. Right. And then what I did to finish that off was completely

restorative because, you know, as a dad, you got to show up when you get home. You can't, for the first year I was here and on it, I'd limp back home and Tasha would be like, why the fuck did you train two times today? you don't have anything coming up you're not fighting anymore why'd you lift hard and do jujitsu and roll the whole 30 minutes you know and rightfully so like she's been staying home mom with dealing with the ball of light the whole day yeah in bear you know obviously it's before he's in school and and then i show up and i can't play with him because i fucking pushed it too hard like that's a piece of shit move you know know? So I think as we become aware, we can prioritize what really matters. It'd be interesting to uncover. I'm sure you have uncovered why all that was happening.

Oh, for sure. But I've been in that same spot. For sure. Yeah. Well, it was, I mean, it was the PTSD of losing my job. And even though there was no indication I was going to lose my job here, the way that I got here, as you know, is I was fired in the airport on a phone call from the CEO of my previous employer. And they told me they didn't have the funds to give me my severance. And now I'm flying to Austin for the interview. So I use their meditation app for the whole three hours and meditate. And I show up in a better place than before I heard the news. Hit it off with Aub, the rest is history, right? But it took

me realizing it was surrender. It was, I can't change that. There's not another check coming. And I'll need a loan to fucking move back into my mom's garage with a U-Haul. That level of fear. And so I didn't realize it at the time because I was able to shift in the present moment,

show up, obviously interview well. Aubrey is one of my best friends in the whole world now. But it took doing that. The issue is that that planted a seed of fear going forward. I had PTSD around it. And so for a year, I was a workaholic. For a year, I was fucking hopped up on a pot of coffee and Modafinil every day. And I was working out plenty. I'd remember to do that, but I wasn't working in. And that's been a huge lesson from Paul Cech. It's one of the reasons I have him on the show more than anyone else is because I continue to learn from him every time I'm around him. And that's something that he really taught me was that balance of anything that's energy expending, whether it's work, emails, phone calls,

podcasts, or working out, it's depleting. And you have to at least match the working in practices like breath work, the cold, the sauna, anything that's going to be restorative and lift you up. So that's been critical. Well, I hadn't shared this with you yet, but actually what we settled on as of now, the name for my podcast is actually Working In. No shit.

Yeah. And obviously it's a shout out to Paul. I've never studied under Paul, but I've read his stuff and I've obviously been around you for a long time. But I think, and it's going to be, listen, it's going to be more for men. Okay. My podcast, not that women can't gain insight. I mean, I think women could really learn a lot from the mindset of a man, right? Through what we'll share on the podcast. But it is just about that. It's about working in. It's like finding that balance. We spend so much of our time expending energy. We don't take time for ourselves. And however, whatever that means for you, it's different for everyone. And I think

that's something we talked about earlier. It's like everybody has to understand that you can learn from what everybody else is doing. Don't feel like you've got to copy what they're doing. Find out what works for you. And if it works for you, it fucking works for you. Like we're all N equals one. We're all our individual selves. And so just play with what works and be okay with it. You know?

And so anyway, the working in, like we tried a bunch of different things. It's just like, it all comes back to that. You know, it's the, it's a balance between working out and working in. It's about going inside, right? It's really going into who are you, what do you need? You know, not go, not looking for that external validation anymore. It's all about just inward, you know, and then you can bring your best self out. And so that's where we're at right now with it. But, um, but I love that stuff. That that's the stuff that changed my life. You know, I never had that balance. It was always, whether it was with work or training or whatever, it was always about expending or partying, right? It's all about, I was booze or cannabis or whatever, and, and they can all be used responsibly. I was just in a period

where I wasn't using any of it responsibly. And it was really a way for me, right? Before I met you and before, you know, the experience in Las Vegas, like I, that summer was just all booze, golf, cannabis. And I was around a bunch of guys. So I kind of had my team, but it wasn't the right atmosphere. And it had nothing to do with the individual guys. They're all beautiful men. I love them. They're all my brothers. But the way I was bringing it all together was just a shit show for me. But again, for me, fortunately or unfortunately, I need to experience that side of it, the shit. Now I can be on the other side of it and say,

okay, I've been there. I know that doesn't work for me. And I may go back there again, but as long as I have the awareness that I'm back there, I'll come back to the right side. Yeah, and I think having that awareness in the first place can let you know, am I partying consciously? Am I in celebration?

Am I celebrating the harvest of life with people I love? Or am I numbing? And am I around a bunch of people who are also numbing, who are in pain, who aren't paying attention to what's going on inside? It's a completely different fucking vibe. It's a completely different vibe to go get faced with your homies at a regular ass bar or to be on the playa and say i'm gonna push it a little bit tonight but everyone around me that's doing it we're all doing it in love we're all working on

ourselves we're gonna have stuff come up burning man is not easy it brings it brings a lot of whatever's going on inside out and in the best way possible. Fuck, then I guess I gotta wait for next year because every part of our experience was fucking amazing and easy and beautiful and just- That's awesome. Talk about that though.

I mean, we've got like, I know we got to jump on your podcast here in 15, but talk about your first experience. You went to Burning Man this last year and that was our first year not going out of the last three. Yeah. It's just very serendipitous the way it worked out too. My wife, Peyton and I were playing golf early. It was early August. And it was the only time we'd played all summer. And we'd kind of gotten a late start and it was probably 7, 7.30

and out where we're at, it stays light late. Hit our first drives and we go up and we hear some music playing on the first hole, right? It's like, I look up, I was like, oh, I know those motherfuckers. Like the boys who just came in from LA, they're so fun. We see them.

So we stop and we go up just to say hello. And we're going to continue our round. One thing leads to another. And my buddy has a camp there. And he's been talking to me about Burning Man for a couple of years. And I've always wanted to go on. I'm like, I think Peyton's about a year away from going. But I'm so in, brother.

Like, just keep a spot warm for us, right? So she comes over and they start talking and she had just donated some money to a friend of hers who was putting together an art car and so she was feeling a little bit of a different connection to it now she said oh it's not just this party i know it's not just this party it's like something that as far as i can tell is we've never experienced in our lives one thing leads leads to another, and she's like, I think I might be into going this year. So I'm looking at the schedule,

and like, it fucking totally works for us with the kids. My mom can watch the kids for the four days. One thing leads to another. We accept the invite. And as you know, it's a mad scramble to get all your supplies and your shit ready for it, right? So we spend the next couple of weeks doing this and then we head out there with literally zero expectations.

And we, we have no idea we're living in a tent. As you know, it's dusty as fuck. It's the most dust you can't, you don't know what dust is until you've been there. Um, and we just went with the flow,

and we didn't, you know, my good friend, Mike Regla, you met Mike. You know, Mike's been, he's like, don't have a schedule, get on your bikes, and just go and do what you're called to do, and we just followed that advice, and it was fucking magic, man. Like, the people we met, the experiences we had. And I think I told you, I probably had 20 to 30 of the best experiences of my life. And they were all with my wife. It's like, fuck, like she wasn't in,

you know, she was sprinkled in the top 15 at that point, but she just cleaned it out. It was amazing, you know, for us to just level up and to get to a place to heal stuff that I didn't, and she didn't know needed to be healed. Like it was, I just don't know how it would have happened otherwise, you know? And so it's such, it was such an amazing experience and we're so excited to go back and, and we'll go in with our head up. Like it's not always going to be like that. Right. And so that's good to hear that. But I just can't say enough about the experience and just the time we spent together. We've just never been, we've, and it's, and it's carried on since we've been home. It's just been,

we just see each other how we want to be seen. And I didn't realize I wanted to be seen a certain way until until she shared that with me, like how she saw me. It was like, fuck, I needed to hear that. And she had said it before, you know, like, I don't need any of this stuff. I'll live in this tent with you. Like, I don't fucking care about any of it. It's all nice. I'm grateful, but like, I don't care. And I'd been like living this life where I felt like I had to provide all those things that that's where my worth was. And she'd said it before, but I wasn't listening. I wasn't, I wasn't there. And I heard it and it finally just let all that go. And I just understood how much she loved me. It's like, fuck, I don't need to do all that shit. It's just

me. I just need to show up. And so anyway, that was, that was the magic for us, you know, and, and, and I got to hear, you know, her, you know, the pain she felt, you know, long ago. And I got to tell her like where I was coming from and how I was hurting. And it was just, as you know, when you get into this space, it can be just super healing if you allow it to, if you allow it to unfold and you don't come in with judgment and the ego and you just lay all that aside. And so it was beautiful. Yeah, brother brother thanks for asking massive massive yeah well i was hoping we'd get a good client yeah thank you of course thank you brother um where can people find you talk about the podcast social media all that good stuff yeah

so that the the podcast right now is going to be called working in With Cal. That may change. I'm on Instagram as Bunker Cal. And I'm on Facebook, but to be honest, I'm phasing that out. I just never look at it. Same, same. Yeah, I know there's a demographic there that may benefit from the retreats and stuff like that,

but there's something about that connection. I'm just not feeling it. So I'm going to focus on the Instagram. And I am on Twitter, but I'm just kind of a, a viewer on Twitter. I don't post anything. So yeah,

same. Fuck dude. Thank you so much, brother. Thank you, brother. And I'm going to join you here in a minute on yours. Awesome.

I love you, Cal. Love you, brother. Thank you guys for listening to the show. Remember, hit us up on Instagram. Let us know what you think.

You got more questions. Hopefully we got answers and go to kingsboo.com. Leave your email address. I will send you my supplement guide as well as a welcome letter, letting you know all the upcoming guests and everything that I'm into lately. Books that I'm reading, all the cool shit that I'm trying and experimenting on myself. I think in that I mentioned there is a microdosing protocol from Paul Stamets that I'm going to get started on. Haven't started yet, but I've also been doing some really deep, deep meditations with Joe Dispenza, Dr. Joe Dispenza's guided meditations, including some ketamine nasal spray. So the November newsletter will have the exact details of what that experience is like

and how accessible it is to the masses. Wish you all a good day, and I'll see you in a few. Thanks for tuning in.