Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #219 Afif Ghannoum

Episode Date: September 22, 2021

Afif Ghannoum is back y’all! He is definitely a black belt in all things gut mic(r)obiome, and we touch on that in this episode as well as how gut health can manifest outwardly in the form of stress or grace, depending on the state of your biome. Afif has dove deep into stoicism and we follow him down that rabbit hole as well. Enjoy! Connect with Afif:   Website: www.biohmhealth.com  Instagram: @afifghannoum  Facebook: BIOHM Health  Twitter: @biohmhealth  YouTube: BIOHM Health  Show Notes:   “Total Gut Balance” - Mahmoud Ghannoum and Eve Adamson Biohmhealth.com Amazon https://guttesting.com Use “KKP” at checkout for 20% off everything on the site  The Truth About Covid 19 - Dr Joseph Mercola Sponsors:   Super Speciosa is the absolute best Kratom I’ve worked with head over to getsuperleaf.com/kkp for 20% off everything in store! Higher Dose “Get high naturally!” Go over to their site… www.higherdose.com, check out what these mad scientists have cooked up and get their portable Infrared Sauna or PEMF Mat. Use code “KKP75” to get $75 off your order. EightSleep Pod Pro Fully optimize your sleep with their wide range of programmable temps by going to www.eightsleep.com/KKP  and use code “KKP” for $150 off the pad or mattress. Upgraded Formulas from our boy Barton Scott!! Get your mineral levels figured out and head to www.upgradedformulas.com, punch in “KKP15” at checkout and get 15% off your order including the hair mineral test! Connect with Kyle:   Instagram: @livingwiththekingsburys   Youtube: Kyle Kingbury Podcast  Kyles website: www.kingsbu.com  Like and subscribe to the podcast anywhere you can find podcasts. Leave a 5-star review and let me know what resonates or doesn’t.

Eric Clapton. Most people know that I start the podcast with some reference to being clapped in. And it never gets old for me. I hope it's not getting old for you because the name puns are something that I thoroughly enjoy. And now I'm rambling. But I digress. We have the return of Afif Ghanoum from Biome Health. You may recognize the name Afif from when, or Biome for that matter, from when I had Afif and his father, Mahmoud Ghanoum, who coined the term the mycobiome and did his thesis on candida 40 years ago.

To say these guys are gut specialists would be a vast understatement. They have literally changed the game when it comes to understanding the microbiome and the mycobiome, the fungal network, as well as the bacterial networks that subside and live with us in harmony or disharmony, depending on what your gut is like. These guys are awesome. They really are on the cutting edge, not only of understanding the gut, but gut testing as well as probiotics and different ways of influencing gut health. We dive into a lot. It's been a bit over a year. The last time, I think the second time that I had Afif and his father Mahmood on, we talked quite a bit about their upcoming book, which is now out. And I'm

forgetting the name, but we will have it linked in the show notes. and I'm sure a thief mentions it here on the podcast, but guttesting.com is where you can take a personalized gut test to actually find out what's going on inside your body. Really, really state of the art. It's one of the most important things for health. I think somebody can do because without the health of our gut, we lose.

I mean, it's system failure on all levels. When we have a healthy gut, we are resilient to all kinds of things. It improves inflammation. It improves recovery, protein assimilation. We get into a lot of different ins and outs of why it's important to have a healthy gut. But really what's cool about this podcast is we get into the ins and outs of the mental space, how the microbiome and microbiome influence neurotransmitters and how we think, feel, and operate in the world and our response to stress.

So many of you have heard me flat out say that I have been quite stressed over the last year and a half. I should say that the first year of all the nonsense, you know, from March 2020 to March 2021. And only in the last six or seven months have I really started to navigate this gracefully. And it is through a return to the basics and a return to taking care of my body first and foremost, through what I put in, you know, Dr. Diet, Dr. Movement, what are my movement practices, really lightening those up using the easy strength protocol and deadlifting my back back into a working functioning back as well as starting martial arts again, jujitsu and Muay Thai and boxing. I'm training my boy, Aaron Alexander, who's recently moved out here.

And that's been awesome. Bear is in classes. And that's given me a strong impetus to want to sharpen my skills and stay sharp in those departments. But I digress again. That is all in the nature of taking care of myself, which mitigates stress. And we dive into that. We dive into stoicism and a lot of the things that have helped a thief during these times. And it really was an interesting podcast because we took it in a direction I didn't know we were going to go.

It's really awesome when we have, anytime I have a guest on who I respect and appreciate, who takes it in a direction I have no idea we're going to go. It's like, oh, fuck yeah. This is one of the reasons I do the podcast is because it's different every time. And each conversation is unique, even when we have a returning guest. So lots of juicy stuff on this episode. I know you guys are going to dig it. Check out guttesting.com and use code KKP for 20% off everything on the site from their probiotics to their green drinks, to their gut test. It's all there and available. We'll link to that in the show notes. Just remember KKP at checkout. Also support our sponsors and leave us a five-star review. If you leave us a five-star review

with one or two ways the show has helped you out in life, that is a fantastic way for other people to see the show and good old-fashioned sharing. You can do a swipe up on the gram if you feel so inclined or just share it with your friends and family, share it with the people you care about most and say, Hey, this is a dope episode. I think you'll dig it. And hopefully they don't mind F-bombs and things of that nature because I've been known to drop a few of them on these podcasts and that's okay. Even though I claim to be working on that and we're using Mark England's word magic and all that good stuff, it's still a work in progress. But check out these show sponsors. We have a brand new sponsor today, somebody that I've been just chomping at the bit to tell you about because they've been sending me product for a while and it

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Kratom, but for the people, the culture, and the fight game. Muay Thai is one of my favorite martial arts. Loved being in Thailand. My brother-in-law is Thai. My nephews are half Thai. And oh, my niece, my brand new niece, she's half Thai as well. And I get to see him soon. So pumped. Again, digressing. back to this amazing Kratom Super Speciosa. This is an absolute game changer. It helps to energize your mind and relax your body. It just helps you feel good without feeling impaired. There is a euphoric effect from this. Caution, you will feel fucking amazing when you take Kratom. Super Speciosa has only one ingredient, just pure kratom leaf. There are no fillers, binders, anything else. I absolutely love this stuff.

It's funny, whoever's seen Half Baked, when they remember the guy going down the list of all the ways you can be high, like you ever looked at a back of a $1 bill on weed, and he just keeps going on and on about how amazing cannabis is? That's how I feel about Kratom. I love it for workouts. It is my favorite pre-workout. I mix it with some Perfect Amino. No, they don't sponsor the show, but they're awesome. I mix it with Perfect Amino and some of the red juice from Organifi, and it's phenomenal. I also mix this with the greens probiotics that a Feef's company, Biome, makes, and that's fantastic. I've mixed it with Organifi greens, and that's fantastic. All of the ways that I mix this up pre-workout make it taste phenomenal, and the experience is like nothing else. Imagine magnifying your runner's high. I went for a two mile run yesterday while Bear was on the bike and it was fucking pure ecstasy. I mean,

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old joint stiffness that I have seems to evaporate when I roll out and do stretching and different things like Kelly Sturette's mobility stuff. My mind muscle connection seems to be heightened, meaning I have the ability to talk to my muscles. And that may sound fucking weird, but as I'm breathing into a stretch, and of course, Pavel Tatsun is huge into this. As I breathe into the stretch, my body just seems to respond and open up better than without. And in fact, I'm going to test this out. I'm going to get a massage with my boy, Alex Rubchinsky, and I'm going to have a high dose of Kratom during that, this strain of red Bali,

to see how much into my body I can consciously work to unlock the stiff parts and start to realign myself back to my perfect being. Super Speciosa is awesome. It's a bit more heady in the fact that I feel, definitely feel more high on super speciosa. And that's an awesome thing. I mean, I worked out on that. I'm trying these things as I get any pig stuff in many different form factors. All of them are fantastic. Sometimes kratom will keep

you up at night. So people have this idea. If I take a high dose of kratom, it's going to knock me out. It depends what strain you take, right? Just like cannabis. Sometimes I'll have kratom at night and it keeps me awake at night. I feel great, but I'm not able to sleep. Other times, if I have red Bali, I can crash immediately. So again, if it's in the body and this, I'm saying all this to say, you wanna try a few different strains.

And the reason for that is it's gonna act differently for everybody. Not everyone's neurochemistry is the same. Even when it comes to cannabis, some people, the traditional thought has been indica is heady and will floor your ass, couch lock, sativa is going to be more alert and awake and allow you to get shit done and creative and good for painting and et cetera. Some people, it doesn't matter which strain they have, it gives them amped. Some people, it doesn't matter which strain they have. It makes them tired.

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just back the dose down. Cut it in half. Because start with a half teaspoon. Work your way up to a teaspoon. you feel a little bit of nausea or discomfort, just back the dose down, cut it in half. Cause start with a half teaspoon, work your way up to a teaspoon. Um, it is truly an R you know, it is in the arsenal of plant medicines amongst all the greats that I've mentioned on this podcast before. I absolutely love it. I mentioned working out, uh, primarily, um, in this ad read, but it's great for all sorts of shit. I was standup paddleboarding out in Wimberley last weekend with my son and my wife and a bunch of buddies.

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upgradedformulas.com and save 15% on your first purchase with code KKP15 at checkout. And without further ado, my man Af Afif Ghanoum, is back. Eric Clapton, we're clapped in. Have you ever seen, you probably haven't, but it's got Peabody and Sherman. Oh yeah, the cartoon. There's the old one on Rocky and Bullwinkle, but then they did a movie.

Yeah, yeah. Tons of puns in that. And then the Madagascar movies, they did with Ben Stiller, they did a spinoff, The Penguins of Madagascar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In that movie, there are more like name puns

than any other movie I've ever seen. It's like, Nicholas, cage them. He's like, they just toss it in all the time. That's my, yeah, that's on my mind. Hence the Eric Clapton, which I've used before. My apologies for the lame humor. Afif, welcome back to the podcast, brother. Always great to be here.

I'll have you scoot in just a little bit. And I'm sorry for the folks that hear my teeth smacking in the background. Hopefully we can edit some of that out, but I'm absolutely starved. Oh, and there's another rookie move. Sometimes this thing turns on in my pocket. Yeah, I've been getting up early and doing sauna and ice bath every day

for probably the last six to eight weeks. And since I started doing easy strengths when I'm training five days a week, real easy, but lifting five major movements. So do you have that, I don't remember the name of it, starts with an M, the ice bath? Morosco. Yes. No, I don't. They're actually buddies of mine. They make a really good one. Yeah. I think that's what Rogan has. I'm using a cold plunge which is in my opinion i mean it looks a hundred times better right um doesn't quite get as cold but i don't think there's a lot we could get into on that you know minimum effective dose i think is a super important thing to logistically like it's

easy to do like i always think like i would love to do that more regularly like i have sauna but do you logistically have to bring ice in? Like how does that work? No, no, no, no, never. I mean, it stays, it'll, so it stays at 39 degrees around the clock and I'll get in the sauna for the first round. Cause it's not as hot, you know, I'll let it warm up for like 15 minutes. I'll get in for 25 to 30, get out.

I'll do only a minute in the ice bath. Cause I don bath because I don't want to get my core temperature that low. That way I can sweat for round two, go back in for 12 to 20 minutes. Then I'll go in for another two or three minutes in the ice bath to finish off. And again, I'm stopping short. So I don't have this giant yo-yo of core body temperature that can make me sick.

And at the same time, you know, like when I was at training, every time I've trained with Gabby and Laird, you're doing a minute in the ice bath. That's it. Right. And it's 32 or 33 degrees. They've got actual ice in there, but they're, they're capping you, you know, unless it's your final round or the end of your workout and you want to go as long as you want to go because you want to get warm. Most people, some people are doing that before they work out or immediately follow. I stretch. So I do a lot of Kelly Sturette stuff with the bands for the shoulder girdle after I get out.

So I can't go into that cold. I want to be sweating a little bit. So I'll just do like a two or three minute cap. But yeah, I've been doing that and it's crazy. I'm not, I don't have the cardio I did when I was fighting, but body fat wise, how I feel, how I look aesthetically. Um, I haven't been in shape like this since I was fighting. It's bananas. Just lean and calm. Yeah. It's phenomenal. And honestly, like it's one of those things where as long as I get the sauna and the ice bath,

like we're going to train a little bit today after the podcast it's it's a it's an easy day for me it's not a hard day but if i saw in an ice bath it doesn't matter what else i have on the schedule that day it doesn't matter how many emails i have what meeting i get sucked into both kids are sick whatever the case is it's like i'm fucking gravy the whole rest of the damn gravy dude it i've especially during covid we'll get into this um understanding how to not necessarily increase the positivity but lessen the negativity through like physical movement like you know i i find stoicism like super super helpful it's it's been like game changer and every morning like just you, you know, everybody finds what works for them. But I literally, I divide an hour where it's quick training, uh,

in the morning I'll do Peloton at night, but then I also take 25 minutes and I just either read discourses or Seneca or one of them, not to, you know, necessarily study, but just like ease and lubricate the mind for what's coming for the day and it's made such a difference like you said like it doesn't matter emails kids are going nuts something sick misplaced it doesn't matter you know and it's that i think we're dawning on this age and what i love about you guys you've always been sort of on the forefront of this idea of it's really that meld of physical and mental that, that, that is wellness. You know what I mean? It's, uh, it's like Epictetus. He talks about the fact that like, we put so much emphasis on this sort of like meat bag, but we really,

really ignore a lot of times just the mental aspects of health. And so I've really tried to internalize that. It makes, it's made such a difference, you know? Yeah. And those two are, are deeply intertwined, right? Like, I think that's some of the stuff that I've really come to grasp and utilize is that like, I, why at this point would I make weight training such an important part of my daily routine? Right? Like, I love it. It's fun. I'm not trying to get PRs. I'm not going to compete again in anything. You know, I already look, I look fine even if I was to lift once a week.

Like I've tried that too. Like, you know, like the ARX stuff and Doug McGuff, I believe, you know, like the Body by Science guy, you know, that Tim Ferriss talked about. Like, yeah, all right, cool. I'll train once a week. And then it's like, no, I actually enjoy this. Yeah. And, you know, that Tim Ferriss talked about like, yeah, all right, cool. I'll train once a week. And then it's like, no, I actually enjoy this. And, you know, looking at some of the

different ways we can reverse engineer our mental emotional states from breath alone, from, you know, the various guys that have studied that I've had on the podcast and Brian McKenzie and Rob Wilson from Art of Breath, Dr. Andy Galpin, who's homies with them, Dr. Andrew Huberman, you know, who's blowing up now, been on Rogan's a whole bunch. Awesome guy. You had him on the pod? Yeah, he's been on a couple of times.

I actually went out the second time to his lab at Stanford. Phenomenal dude, right? Yeah, he's, he, he, I was talking to my dad about him because it is so rare. Like my dad has a science piece in, in, you know, spades, but he's not, he's not, you know, a verbose sort of talking head. So first time I heard Huberman, I'm like, man, this guy is a rare species. It's like Lex, you know, where they

really do have the scientific technical discipline, but they can talk like, you know, a Dr. Oz or someone that really can break it down. Like that's, it's, it's not shocking. He's, he's blown up because that is so rare and just the, he's credible and people want to feel like the people they're listening to are actual experts. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I love, I love Huberman. He's, he's phenomenal, but those are, they're actually looking at the scientific backing of the fact that breathwork alone can gear you up, gear you down. It can enhance your sleep. It can enhance your mood.

It can enhance all sorts of things. It changes neurochemistry. Right. And performance, right? Performance outcomes. know we can do that reverse engineer the mind from breath can we reverse engineer our emotional state by training the body as a tuning fork right does weight training effectively make me feel good for the rest of the fucking day right does the contrast therapy of extremely hot and extremely cold back and forth a couple of rounds change the way that I experienced. Like, what are the filters that I

have on my head as I look out and perceive the world all day long? Is it a happy filter or is it a worried, what the fuck's going to happen next filter? And I lived with those glasses on for over a year. You know, it took its toll on me. I pulled my back, reaching for something off the floor, like an 80 year old. You know, like I was not in a good state. And the beauty of this is that for me, the crazier this shit gets with COVID and quarantines and fucking vaccine passports, there's a lot that's out of my hands that I'm not going to be able to control. But I can control how I react to that. I can control how I show up. And if I let that affect me to the point where it affects how I am in relationship with my wife or

with my kids, then I'm failing, right? Like that, that's, that is under my control. So I'm doing everything in my power and ability to make sure that my experience for the rest of my life is going to be as good as humanly possible. Well, again, not to keep bringing it back to the stoic piece, but that it's one of these things, simple in principle, a lifetime of discipline to master, you know, but this idea that just let the external go and only concentrate on the internal. Like what can I actually influence? What can I not? And you know, when, for me, I I've never been religious. I've never been drawn to like, you know, we all know people that, you know, whatever it is, Bible, you know, Quranic verses, et cetera, that they're just drawn to it. Right. I never identified with

that when I started reading, like, you know, the discourses and really understanding this approach and like, you can be free, you can be free, but, but you have to just let external go. And when you think about it that way, it's, it's like shocking that it's that supposedly simple, but it, but it's so difficult to actually do so, but it's like a day at a time, you know, just like, is this thing, it's like the idea of, you it, but it's so difficult to actually do so, but it's like a day at a time, you know, just like, is this thing, it's like the idea of, you know, impressions, do you know that concept impressions? This was one of those where I literally wrote in the book, this most important thing I've ever read in my life, you know, and the, an impression is this idea that I'll give you an example. Uh, doorbell rings. There's a mailman.

So I have a certified letter. And this happened. This is why I was like, this is a great example. And I saw the certified letter. And in giant letters, it says IRS. And that's never good when you see a letter from a government agency. And the guy's like fumbling. And I'm like, just give me this.

Like, what is this? Right? And it was like, notice change of address. Like, it was nothing. Right? like what is this right and it was like notice change of address like it was nothing right but an impression is you see uh something interact with your uh senses so i see this letter i instantly interpret those letters irs to be negative and i have this visceral reaction right and then i don't even know if that's right. And it was a change of address. But in that like three to five minutes, I was so anxious. You know, cortisol, you know, all of it. The flood, yep.

Dude. And maybe if, you know, so in stoicism, the idea of impressions is that if you can negate or at least recognize that initial reaction to whatever it is, and then don't react until you understand what it is, enormous difference. Because you actually, I did not realize how many things in my life were controlled by this visceral reaction, like phone call from that guy, this guy, you know what I mean? I don't even know what, you know, maybe he's just calling to catch up or something or, or, you know, even the reverse. So it's this idea of if you can take it back to not being positive, but negating negativity and then investigate, see what you can do and really control that negative emotion. For me, it's been absolute game changer. And you, and you, you start to realize how much of your life is controlled by these things that are, it's not real until you make it real and your emotional reactions real. You know, so for me, it's, uh, it's really wild to, to uncover that part of like how you can really optimize your life just by not always thinking about it.

Cause we talk about positivity all the time. That's a big theme, especially nowadays, like in COVID, but it's more about just not being negative because the positive things come like interactions with the kids you and i text a lot about kids and stuff like that like there there are these joys in our life like we we have these positive things but so many times you know it's like something going on in the day or something and again if you take a step back and be like is that something i can control no why why am I getting fucking worked up over this? Do you know what I mean? Like, so, so those things, and it's so simple, these principles, but like literally every day I am like, I have to put 20 minutes into this just to remind myself,

like, you know, and again, if a guy like Marcus Aurelius could think that he's going to run into unreasonable day people in his day i'm going to too you know what i mean like and so little things like that like it's just anybody who's interested in that stuff just like look up the concept of impressions and um just dealing with like setbacks just through some of these simple things to me even just those two things made such a difference it's it's i've been reading i do the same i usually do it in the evening since my mornings i'm up just early enough to get this shit done before my kids come in like barrel come into the garage he knows i'm in there and he's like daddy when are you gonna be done i'm like all right uh give me uh one minute and i'll say that 15 times till i'm actually done

but uh there's this book that um buddy, this is totally, well, actually, yeah, I can just say my buddy and not be a guy who name drops. My buddy who studied the Kabbalah very well, and is also a well-known guy. He told me to start with the power of Kabbalah, you know, and I've learned from, I'm not well versed in it, but one of the things in that book in particular is they talk about almost a very similar concept in that you have a reactive state and a proactive state. And it's the pause button that you hit when you feel the knee-jerk reaction brewing. And if you pause, that's what lets the light in and allows you to choose a different path and be proactive.

And the more often, we always have choices, right? Millions of them. So many decisions that we make, we have no idea we're actually making a decision every single day. When I start to shift from reactive to proactive, that's where I start drawing more light in. That's the whole self-mastery game. And there's an infinite number of opportunities or tests or however you want to look at that, challenges, whatever. It's just life. It just is at the end of the day. But the more often that I can shift to from the knee-jerk reaction of like, fuck, I don't like this to like, is that so?

All right, this too will pass. All right. Okay. What do I want to do in this situation? That's better than my knee jerk reaction. A hundred percent. Like I read this book called the stoic challenge. And, you know, again, I love, I love little analogies. I love the little stories that make it easy to understand. And they said, you know, if you look at life or whatever part of life you're going through that, you know, someone doing an obstacle course, they don't get

to the first obstacle. I go, God damn it. Like, no, it's part of the race, right? You literally have to go or like a hurdle or like, no, I got to get over those hurdles to get the end of it. If you sort of reframe that, it's not a challenge. This is the deal. You're going to run into stuff. And when you come to that thing, okay, well, how do I deal with this and start to negate or at least recognize that initial, you know, and, and for most people, it is a negative response when something comes up that's unexpected or frustrating or a setback, just sort of like that idea of like, keep calm and carry on. Like, like, okay, well, how do we deal with this? Just that little reframing. It's, it's wild. It really is wild how much it changes. And again, every day I say that, and then something else comes out and you're,

you know what you mean? Like it's, it's, it's a forever thing always that you'll work on. You know what I mean? But I love it. It's not that complicated. That's the best part about it. You know, just these little nuances of how to adjust just reactions. You know what I mean? It's not even a reaction. It's like, if you can somehow pause the reaction, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And I find that, you know, to circle back, like the more, if I'm able to fill my cup first thing in the morning before the kids get up, before I have anything that's work related or anything else that, that certainly quiets the noise throughout my day, you know, and there's a lot of it. I mean, I've got one of the things that's helped me and I talked about this at our last Fit for Service meetup was like, don't read any of the dark shit at night. You know, like I can't eat a pizza right before's happening in Australia or, you know what I'm saying? Like, I can't do that and then think that I'm just going to turn it off and fall right asleep.

I have to do that during the day. And if I'm really thinking about it, like, let me do it on a walk when I'm outside and I can be in touch with nature and feel held by something bigger than myself. Like, then it's easy. And I'm moving too. So I'm literally letting this, this negative stuff move through me as I'm processing it. Well, and I also think that stuff is like, we've been flooded the last few days with these images out of Afghanistan. Right. And you know, this idea of it's very difficult to take what we have and be grateful. Right. Like we forget even, even like, I really try and remind myself, oh man. So, you know, especially like immigrant here,

like, man, we are so lucky in our life. Right. But you forget the next day you're annoyed about something. Right. So I was saying to my wife, like, you see these images of these people hanging onto a plane, like so desperate that they're like, I'm going to take my shot. And like, and, and if that doesn't give you a moment to like reflect and say, that's awful. There's a lot of that in the world. I am so grateful for what is working in my life. And my challenges are not challenges in the big picture. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So things like that where like, cause I think it's, you know, my wife, she, she falls apart. She sees a story about like a child hurt or something like that, which, you know, we all do, but it's like things

like that, or like, you know, these, these world events or Australia or wildfires or whatever it is. I just, I always like trying to think, okay, instead of this being like man this is so awful like it just makes me try to be more thankful about just my my presence like what like what i have going on with me because there's always someone dealing with something not worse like 10x worse you know did you hear uh the rogan episode with yeon me park the north korean defector that was the the if i was to put in one place of content the ultimate reframe yes that's it like there's there's no movie there's no documentary um i've been to afghanistan twice you like, and I was pampered on the, anytime I've done a tour for the troops, pampered, well-protected, never in harm's way. So I'm not saying it to say like, yeah, I've been in the trenches or I've been to the, no, that's not it at all.

But I have been to countries that are war-torn. I've been to Afghanistan twice, Iraq, Djibouti, a whole bunch of times, not a war-torn place, but also, sorry Djibouti, but you know, it's, it's definitely, you know, not my favorite stop on those tours. And when I think of that stuff, I think of like the reframe, like you come back to America and you're like, wow, wow. You know, and like that lasts for a little while, but it doesn't, it doesn't stick. It really doesn't. And then it's like, you make a joke, like, oh, first world it really doesn't then it's like you make a joke like oh first world problem like that guy shit you know it's like oh they fucked up my latte like whatever the case is but um listening to her like we've heard stories about north korea but nothing like that i mean fucking nothing like that and it, that was one of those things too.

Like I was listening to that at night and I was like, I can't, I got to fucking not listen. I literally stopped listening to it. Yeah. Cause usually I'll listen to him or, you know, some sort of like Dan Carlin or something, something that's so like, not what I'm dealing with just to kind of do, this is so heavy. I can't. Yeah. An hour in, I turned it off and I was up for another hour trying to process.

And then finally I fell asleep. But finishing that during the day, I was happy I did because the fact that it, there's so many gems in that, you know, like really a, the professor tells her she's brainwashed. Right. Because she didn't think a guy holding a door open for her, she thought it was decent. Right. If a man held a door open for her, you know, like you're just brainwashed. It's like, what are we doing here? Like that. Well, her journey is almost cartoonishly extreme. Like when you're listening,'re like oh my god like you could almost i know i was doing it and you could definitely hear joe do it like again visceral reaction like what you know i mean like this is insane you know you had a hundred deep breaths easily oh dude like

and and the thing is like it's easy to think living in america like wow that's insane but that's north korea right that's like a wild example, but it's a spectrum. There's, there's a spectrum between where we live and the things we deal with in North Korea that I think we don't realize, you know, that one of the stories I always tell is like growing up in Kuwait. Um, I, because remember one of the things she said is it's not a choice to like, well, I'm going to respect the dictator, like, you know, Kim Jong-un and ill, they just, it was born in them. You know what I mean? Like in the closest I can identify with that is I knew growing up and everybody around

me knew you just do not talk about the Royal family. You don't talk about the government. You just don't do it. And when you do people disappear. And that's a place like Kuwait. You know what I mean? Which in the spectrum, not, you know, it's not, it's not, it's a different universe compared to North Korea, but even in that world, you're in no fuck around territory. Like you do not take pictures of them. You will disappear. You know, things like that. That's just here. We can't understand that. You know what I mean? It's like,

you know, us has a lot of problems. us has a lot of problems there's a lot of things obviously we're collectively dealing with now and frustrations and but just being able to voice those frustrations i think it's very difficult for people to understand how not uh normal that is for a lot of places in the world yeah not only not normal, but like you, they will kill you. Yeah. Which, which, which is hard to like conceptualize. Do you know what I mean? Like, what do you mean? Like, what if I don't agree? No, no, it doesn't matter. They will kill you. And that happens right now. And it's particularly hard in like, uh, um, have you heard of the handmaid's tale? No. Oh, tell me about it. Break it down. Oh my God. So

did you ever watch mad men remember peggy i've seen a couple episodes so so so i forget her name she's a famous actress now like more on tv but in handmaid's tale is based on a book it's this dystopian world where basically the u.s is invaded by like this ultra radical um religious sect And it's basically like Armageddon, but now they keep all the women as these handmaids. And so imagine like we go from our world to, um, you know, literally your wife and this happened, this is kind of the basis of the whole series. The wife is separated and she is basically like a sex slave for these commanders, quote unquote, of this new regime. And it's whole, the whole series

is her like trying to get out of it and helping others. And I said to my wife, like, I almost don't want to watch this because this is literally happening in places right now. You look at like, you know, Saudi Arabia, you look at obviously North Korea, like Afghanistan, like what's the number one thing that you're hearing outside of like the terrorist thing? People are all talking about women and girls and their rights just being eviscerated now in, in Afghanistan. Like, so this thing that like we watch, you know, fictional TV shows about it's real. They will hang you for this stuff. It's like, it's like, I, again, it's, it's so hard to explain that because, you know, it just doesn't seem plausible.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. There's something that's out. If it's outside of our wheelhouse or outside of our purview, it's hard to wrap our head around. I think it's especially hard with a younger generation that feels so entitled. Oh.

Right? Like if you're deserving of the best, if that's the shoes that you're walking in, how can one really wrap their heads around the way it goes down in other countries? Right now. Not 100 years ago. Not 50 years ago. Right now. Correct. And, you know, I really try to not be a doomsday guy or any of that stuff because,

and I give people the how to, like, this is how I stay positive is by focusing on myself and filling my cup before I start each day, right? Critical. Don't miss that ingredient, right? Don't listen to the shit at night. But at the same time, the further we get along in the war on our ability to communicate freely, the more and more this looks right here on our doorstep. Right. And to give an example, you know, I've spoken before on this podcast about how before social media companies were policing people and fucking the active president of the United States get kicked off Twitter, right? Just absurd shit. The government always said like, well, they're their own company.

They're a private company. They are not journalists. They can do whatever they want to do. But now openly the administration has said like, we're actively going to help Facebook and tell them what is misinformation. Right. That no longer is then, you know, often an arm's length. That is their direct impact on what they're considering to be

misinformation. And that is a direct violation of freedom of speech. What this is blossoming into, and I think it was maybe a few days ago I saw this, It might have been a week ago when it was announced. But they're now saying that they're going to treat misinformation around COVID-19 as a terrorist act. So to understand that, that's a felony. A terrorist act is a felony. You lose your right to vote. You lose your right to bear arms. And a whole host of other shit, financial and otherwise prison, that kind of stuff, right? So it's not, this isn't to be taken lightly. This is where we're at.

Well, and there's a couple things to unpack in what you were talking about. Have you heard of this idea of the town square doctrine? Okay. So what you brought up is very important. It's really important on back. So as a basic premise, it's true. A private entity can kind of tell you what you want to do. That's why a business that you work for can tell you, you cannot wear a shirt that says fuck off to work. Like we can't do that. We're a private business. You don't have to do that, but you don't have the right to work here where, you know, the, the town square principle is the idea that sometimes an entity becomes so monolithic that they literally start acting like a public town square. And it's been in the context traditionally of like malls or like almost like

private sort of outdoor malls where someone was protesting and the mall says, you can't do that here, private property. And the courts have said, no, no, no, no. In this town, you are literally like the public square, right? So you are now starting to infringe on their rights to free speech. So to me, it's absolutely wild that, you know, they're not more proactively talking about regulating them as town squares because you can't do that. You can't just, and here's the problem. Trump was such an easy example to be like, shut him off. We don't like what he's saying. Right?

Like he's, he's a caricature. Right? The problem is not every decision like that is that seemingly straightforward, right? Now it's how many pictures have they been pulling down of the Taliban with newsworthy photos? They're pulling them down. You're like, well, why? Or photos directly from the CDC's website. Correct.

That's how my buddy, Dr. Kirk Parsley, got pulled off of Twitter. He's suspended indefinitely. He was a Navy SEAL and then a medical doctor for the Navy SEALs. And he's an active medical doctor right now. And he put no spin on it. He didn't add his two cents in the comment section. He just posted the photo from the CDC's website that was completely contradictory to what Anthony Fauci was saying. Right. Right. And then, hey, you're suspended for possibly misleading information. And they've never allowed him back on.

Well, and what's scary, but you're seeing this, the thing is it extends beyond just the free speech piece. I think it's becoming just crystallizing. Like you have, what, five companies that are just not powerful, like shockingly powerful. like Apple, you know, in Facebook ad world, they just change one setting impacts millions and millions of businesses,

right? You have what, and why is that you're seeing it with the app store and they go, well, you don't have to be in our app store. You're like, well, I kind of do your Apple, you're 60% of all smartphones anywhere. Right. Like, so I think this is what's crazy is that how can four or five companies in these very, very important, like the way we communicate the way, like they have access to our data, the way they can stop or, you know, encourage certain speech and pick and choose winners and losers in that, you know, and, and they're so powerful again, Trump, who one of the most prolific, uh, megaphones of all time, right. He gets turned off. Did you see what happened with the traffic to his like Donald J. Trump blog? It was like,

you know, I don't know the exact number, but like, let's say tens of thousands of visits, right. Versus hundreds of million on, on like Twitter, like these platforms are just so powerful. It almost can make you relevant or irrelevant. Do you know what I mean? Just by cutting your access. So it's, it's, it's so, so such an important inflection point for us to figure out like, how do you want to deal with these companies? Do you really want Amazon owning every grocery store or all the movie studios? Like that's not an exaggeration. That's real. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. Yeah. Wild times. Wild, wild, wild times. Well, I mean, you spoke a little bit about what you've been up to.

I think you guys, you and your father were on a year and a half, two years ago, something like that. Been on a couple of times. Right. You guys, you had your father were on a year and a half, two years ago, something like that. Been on a couple of times. Yeah. Right. You guys, uh, you had a book come out. Yeah. Um, I don't think I had you on, I think I had you on right before the book came out. It was right as the book was launching. Yep. Yep. Total gut balance that, you know, well, first thanks for having us on, uh, ended up being a bestseller, which was exciting for my dad. He's, you know, 71 year old guy and, and getting his first book out there. So it was, it was a lot ofller, which was exciting for my dad. He's a 71-year-old guy and getting his first book out there. So it was a lot of fun. But since then, again, I've never seen a guy that spry, but he's still publishing. We're still doing some really interesting stuff. So one of the

things I want to talk to you about was he's actually this month publishing a peer reviewed paper on the triangulation of COVID depression in the microbiome. Really, really interesting stuff. So you okay if I roll it? Please let's do it, brother. We've been 30 minutes on world events and how we've been managing our navigating through life. And I want to dive right into this. You sent me this I think a few days ago and I, and I eyeballed it, but I didn't get a chance to really unpack it. And obviously we're new.

We're going to do it here. So please dive into this. This is super important information. So here's what's wild, right? Um, sometimes the most important things in this paper illustrated this to me, they're right in front of our faces, but sometimes it needs a little bit of, of triangulation. So my dad, he's, he's doing a lot in the gut brain access now. Like he's actually writing for psychology today doing a lot because this is, you know, you were talking actually earlier about how, you know, your tone for the day, your physicality, physicality can really impact, you know, your brain. There's so many connections, right? And so one of the areas my dad has been really concentrating on is how the gut and the brain

are connected in this sort of bimodal highway back and forth, right? And so he was looking and he's like, man, here's what's wild. He was seeing studies where during COVID all sorts of prescriptions, probably not shockingly went up, right? Depression, anxiety, insomnia, right? Why? We're all collectively stressed. But we know this, right? Not really surprising. The part that started to get surprising, though, is when he looked at other studies, especially

out of Asia, was that the symptom reduction that people were experiencing from depression, from using medication, they started to evaporate. Like people were not actually seeing even some of the relief, even when they consider cognitive behavior therapy plus medication, they were just not seeing a relief. And it was starting to get really sticky, right? Like depression during COVID really, really hard to shake. And they had this idea of COVID stress syndrome is that they're talking about. So my dad looked at this and he's like, you know, I want to see, is there a connection to microbiome? So why would there be a connection to microbiome?

Well, it turns out there's something called the ACE2 receptor. And this is really where COVID gets a hook into our respiratory system on these receptors. But when my dad saw it was that, and he didn't discover this, this is known, but the connecting the dots is that the ACE2 inhibitor is also present where? Our guts. So my dad's like, that's kind of interesting. I wonder what these studies are finding about what's going on with microbiome. And so there's a lot of studies that start coming out showing that COVID patients, when they did fecal sampling to look what's going on, really pathogenic fungi, like Canada oris spiking through the roof, right? Like really high. And so my dad's like, you know, why, again, why would that be what,

why would we have such a visceral connection? You know? And so when they looked at the, um, there's some really fascinating studies showing that you can actually predict depression based on your microbiome and based on certain organisms, organisms being elevated or missing. So for example, example, uh, bifidobacterium and, uh, lactobacillus. So you'll see a lot of supplements will have L-acidophilus. That L is lactobacillus. Depressive patients, completely reduced levels of those, which are very good probiotic organisms. So what my dad did, he put this paper together, basically like showing like, during COVID, the way we're trying to manage stress, it's not working. And especially depression, we're trying to do it like through typical methodology. But really what we need to be

doing is looking at the microbiome's role in optimizing or at least reducing the level of depressive symptoms. Why? Again, because of this triangulation that depression is getting hit by COVID, but because of the lifestyle that can impact your microbiota, it's actually making all your depressive symptoms worse. So that really was the unlock of looking like, oh, okay, we've been ignoring this piece of the microbiome and its role in depression during COVID. So lots to unpack there, but that's sort of the 10,000-foot view is really can we manage depression through better managing our microbiome, especially now that we're like Delta variant. it's so confusing when you're seeing all the recommendations and this, and like, again, we're parents like schools, what are they doing with schools? Are you going to, you know, force masks on kids? Like what, what, what is the plan here? It's not necessarily that I think COVID itself is causing the depression.

I think it's that plus all this uncertainty that now it's just like baked into our systems over, you know, we're talking about two years now. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's the back and forth. Let's do this. Hey, that didn't work. Oh wait, let's try it again. Let's do the thing that failed the first round with now the Delta variant and act like that's going to work. It's get vaccinated. That way you're not going to spread it to other people. And then, oh wait, those people are so susceptible to getting it and spreading it. I mean, it's, it's this back and forth that ultimately is a mind fuck. And it doesn't matter if you choose to wholeheartedly listen to it

or if you choose to go your own way and take health upon yourself, that back and forth from the narrative, it's so contradictory. Charles Eisenstein was just speaking at our last Fit for Service event and he's like, it makes you feel fucking insane. Yeah.

Absolutely. If you pay attention to this and you're actually watching it, this jump back and forth is like, that doesn't make sense. And you say that enough times to where it's like, am I losing my mind here? Can anyone else see this? Well, and the problem is there's no there. I think the mega messed up was that at the beginning of pandemic, no one knew what the hell was going on. Right. Like we were all in like certain same levels. So CDC, you know, maybe you take a good faith. Like they're trying to figure out WHO. They're trying to figure out the best way forward. The problem is if things started developing and it turns out certain things didn't make sense,

they wouldn't back off. They wouldn't say, okay, you know what? Looking at data, we now know better on this aspect. No, no, no. They wanted to like double down on the problem is when you do that, people are like, well, wait a second. You said this over here. So now you're building mistrust. And that that's a nightmare because CDC, like these public health organizations, that's the only way you solve this, but you have to have people's buy-in that what you're saying is accurate. And if you don't know, that's okay. Like we understand that, but you gotta, there's gotta be fidelity in the message. You know, it's like after, uh, I was talking about this yesterday, you remember in March, like when all hell broke loose, March, 2020. And do you remember what was that light switch moment? Like, do you remember what happened where all of a sudden we shut everything down?

I don't remember. We saw in Italy, all true hell breaking loose, like people in bubbles, like, you know, just death. And we thought, oh my God, if we don't adjust, that's going to be us. Right. Reasonable first response, at least at first. But then their version of NIH, which I don't know the name of, but the Italian version of that, they released a study and they said, okay, well, who actually was dying? You know, when this first wave really hit Italy and what they found was people with severe comorbidities and the elderly. And by the way, in Italy, unlike here, most households are like three generation households. So you had very young people and it was spreading to grandma who's in her mid eighties, right? Or like severely ill, you know, diabetic brother or something like that. So instead of us learning and being like, okay, can't blame us for taking a very cautious first, you know, response, but the data is now showing us that that premise was flawed, right? Let's adjust. They didn't. So now you're looking, you're like, well, wait a second. Why aren't we talking about this? Because things like that was being flagged as misinformation, you know? And it's like, well, why now? Like, you know, I, I consider myself like I I've been born breathing science and trusting science, like just because of, you know, my dad and his work. So someone like me is like, well, wait a second.

That doesn't make sense. Well, why aren't you fine? So imagine someone who's a little more skeptical as a baseline, you're going to completely lose those people. Do you know what I mean? So I think a lot of this was just like from day one, just bizarrely awful management of, of the message and not trusting of, of the population. You know what I mean? Like, don't, don't treat us like idiots. You know, we don't expect, you know, everything, but just tell us that don't lie. Don't, don't say, well, you know, it's like when Fauci, um, no, no, no, you don't need a mask. And it turns out he's saying that because they don't want health workers out of it. Okay. well now, whatever you tell me next,

is there some agenda? You know what I mean? And again, the difficult part, going back to where your buddy said it fit for service, is now you don't know what to make of it. And it starts, am I being overreactive to this stuff? You know what I mean? And that's the problem.

I think that's why this thing's going to be around a long time. Yeah. And, you know, i mean like and that that that's the problem i think that's why this thing's gonna be around a long time yeah and you know i mean it is gonna be the thing is it's not it's not going anywhere whether we had if the brand new vaccine was not experimental and it was had a hundred percent efficacy with no side effects and the entire world said yes to it, that's a situation that is not what's going on currently and is not what's going to happen. But if that did happen and we never had to face this again, fine, but there, I'm going to go out on a limb, 99.99999% chance that we always deal with this on an annual basis, just like the flu or anything else.

And if it's going to be here with us, what is the best approach? Well, it was the same approach from the get-go. The same approach from the get-go is the quote from Paul Cech that I love. Sooner or later, your health will become your number one concern. What are the steps you actively take every single day that fills your cup and boosts your health meter. Do you have comorbidities? Let's fucking go. Let's look at those, right? Let's change that. Let's start with the gut. Let's start with movement. Let's start with the food we eat. Let's start with all those things. And as that improves, we'll see response to sickness improve. You know, like

we're going to see the fact that a working immune system works. Well, and I think it also was an illustration of how not seriously we took the flu. You know, I would say like, when's the last time you asked someone like, oh, how was that concert? And they go, oh, we didn't go. There was a bad flu outbreak. No, no, nobody does that. But flu, like people die from the flu.

You know what I mean? And it's like, well well listen um you got to look at that stuff like well you know and you hit the nail on the head like this is not going anywhere so if there's like a new uh uh path forward so that we continue to live you know a seemingly quasi back to normal existence like what is that threading of the needle? But I think it's gotta be cooperative on all sides. Like, I think it's one of these where, um, it's being driven emotionally now, you know what I mean? Like you're seeing it in, in whether it's like Florida or whether, you know, obviously you're in Texas and, and a little bit in Ohio, like, okay, how are we make, making decisions? You know what I mean? Is it based on actual science? Is it based on

reaction to science? Like what, what is it based on? You know what I mean? Cause one side feels, oh, it's based on just sort of sticking it to Fauci and that set. And the other side feels, well, no, no, no, no. They're not being honest with us about what, what actually makes sense to do. It doesn't make sense to put masks on children going back to school. I haven't heard that discussion. I heard a lot of like, you're not, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a lot of it's framed around of impinging on freedom versus public health. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and all of it, all of it's there, right? Like there's no, it can no longer be argued. Right. Is freedom being impinged upon. When they first had mask mandates and a lot of people were saying like, oh, this is taking away my freedom. I was like, I kind of laughed.

Like, I mean, to be perfectly honest, I had no compassion for that. I was like, fuck are you talking about, dude? You know, like I put on a mask and, you know, there was, I think I talked with you talking about, dude? Right. You know, like I put on a mask and, you know, there was, I think I talked with you about this, but the seven medical doctors that went on Tony Robbins' show, his second episode on COVID out of three.

And I think he just quit there because he was getting nowhere with it. But two were from Stanford, two from the Cleveland Clinic, one from the Mayo clinic, the Senator from Minnesota unanimously, they said, masks aren't going to work against the virus. The KN95 mask is not going to work against the virus. And even knowing that I'd still throw a mask on around old people. Cause I'm not going to prove that to somebody while standing in the checkout line. Right. You know, like if you're in fear and we're already, already fear's peaking, right? I'm not going to let this guy think like, I'm the reason he's going to die now, you know, or have,

you know, get into an argument about that in a gas station. Like, I'm cool, dude. No big deal. But, but now the longer this has gone on, the longer we start to say like, oh, there are legitimate impingements on our freedoms that are taking place right now. Right now, like the Dirty Dozen list they did where Dr. Joseph Mercola was number one, Dr. Sherry Tenpenny, Dr. Rashid Buttar, a whole list of medical doctors. Some of which, I mean, I've been following Mercola for 15 years. He had 20 years of information on his website, and he had to take it down. He wrote a fantastic book, The Truth Behind COVID-19, and really broke down the health. He also really broke down part of the agenda and what's at stake here, you know, and that's still for sale on Amazon for

whatever reason, but he's got to take down his blog posts, most of which were teaching people how to be healthy with supplements, with sunlight, with movement. He was into all of it. A lot of his books were on fasting and ketogenic diets and metabolic flexibility. He wasn't a conspiracy theorist guy. So this wave has already hit is what I'm getting at. And it's not enough to just say like, all right, is it only about this? Is it only about this? The reason I liked what he was proposing is because he was saying, this is what's happening to us right now. And if we're not paying attention, we turn into China. At the same point, here's what you do to prevent. Here's what you can do prophylactically for your health. That's going to make a big impact. And here's what you can do in the acute scenario.

That's going to help. Right. And I love that information. I highly recommend that book for people when it comes to this stuff. And, you know, it's kind of like doomsday prepping, you know, like I used to laugh at the preppers. Then Rogan had this guy on who was writing a book about it really to poke fun and just take a look at a weird, you know, subculture part of the population.

Right. And he's like, it actually makes sense. You know, like every year people prepared for the long winter, you know, they would stockpile, they'd preserve, can some fruit, that kind of stuff, preserve some meat and just leave a little extra in there. And, you know, we started doing that over the winter. And then we had the snow apocalypse hit, the power's off, that kind of shit. And like, I had eight people staying at my house that couldn't fly home. We fed them all. We had a plethora. We had a ton of good stuff, you know? And it was like, oh, cool. That preparation

does matter a little bit. So the preparation of your health matters a little bit now, you know? And I know we've talked a little bit about the mental side of it, which impacts the body. And we've talked about the body, which impacts the mental side. We've touched a little bit about the mental side of it, which impacts the body. And we've talked about the body, which impacts the mental side. We've touched a little bit of the iceberg around the microbiome, but you guys with your gut test have a whole host of information of how lifestyle impacts the microbiome and ultimately your health. Can you unpack some of that? Yeah, and last thing, just to the previous part, um, the, the, the last thing I wish was done a little more because we have just not just in historically, but just, there are times where freedoms are impinged, but that's part of the deal, right? Like we're saying, like, you can't walk into an office and wear whatever you want. Like that's an impingement on our freedoms. Right. So to me, I wish the part that, um, was framed was, I think DeSantis is an easy example, right?

He was very bold early, early in, in the pandemic and it appeared to pay off. Right. I think the part where he's losing the crowd with some people is we understand what you're saying. Impingement on freedom, but, but, but let the other shoe drop and explain why I think that's the part that's not getting communicated well, like based on what, like, like because the premise of an impingement on freedom is okay. If there's a reason for it, that's backed in science, logic, whatever. That's the part that I think is missing is it's sort of stopping the conversation at the impingement of freedom. it's like okay well explain you know explain why

so i get what you're saying um yeah so one of the things with microbiome that people do not understand this goes back again to the earliest part of our conversation is how much your lifestyle can really really impact your microbiome right right? Like people, I think, understand now diet can have a big impact, obviously medications, not shockingly your genetics, but lifestyle factors are insanely important. So what do I mean by lifestyle factors? Really three, right? That you could, that most people can do something to control. One is exercise. Exercise is incredibly important. Why? Because what we see is people that exercise more, they have more diversity in their gut. Again, microbiome science

is so early. One of the things I always compare it to is like cancer research in the sixties. Like we know this is important, but we have a lot of work ahead of us, right? So we're probably that stage. What we know is it really has an impact. Is it going back to the gut brain access to do with that? Probably, but we don't know yet. Is it metabolites that they excrete? We're learning that. But what we do know is that people exercise more, just have better microbiome health. But importantly, there's a nuance to that. And it relates to the second part of lifestyle that you can control, which is stress. So sometimes people that exercise very vigorously, right?

So MMA fighters, bodybuilders, ultramarathoners, crossfitters, right? People who really put their body through the rigors, even when they're actually in very good shape, terrible digestive issues. And we hear from people like this all the time. They're like, I've done this with my diet. I'm really careful with fermented foods. Like I take a probiotic, like I just can't kick this. I just don't feel well. And what they don't realize is when you put a tremendous amount of exercise stress on your gut, you can cause insane GI issue and microbiome issues. And it becomes this terrible cycle, right? Because then they're trying to adjust, but they're really not looking at that underlying thing. So I really, really encourage people, especially, and I know you have them as part

of your audience, people who are like extreme physical fitness, like you said, like ultramarathon is a great example of that. If you're dealing with GI issues, you need to at least look at that, especially if you are doing the other things reasonably, we see it a lot. And then there's other things that, you know, protein powder is, is, is one of the ones that can cause just big, big GI issues for people. It's just for whatever reason, gut tolerability with protein can be a big issue. So anybody who's like a really, really fitness, you know, minded, I always say like, before you look at anything else, how aggressive are you in the way you exercise? And you know, do you use protein powder? And if you do, and you look at those things, that's a good starting

point. So you have exercise next. Let's talk about stress. Stress is probably the number one lifestyle thing you can try and work on to optimize your microbiome. We see this all the time. People take our gut test. And again, they point to, I eat really well. Like, because take a step back. If you're taking a gut test, you're pretty freaking motivated there. You know, it takes a few weeks. It's not cheap. Like you've probably done a lot of other things to see if you can improve your gut health. So you're at the point where you're like, I want to take a test to see what's going on. So those people, when we see that and they'll talk to our nutritionist and

it's literally like a script, I I'm eating really well. I exercise. I don't have a family history of it, but I just have terrible GI issues. And then we look in their questionnaire and they identify as extremely, extremely stressed. And that's what we see in the data. People who are extremely stressed, their microbiome just looks different. So you need to figure out how to get ahold of that because, you know, beyond your microbiome, obviously the impact of stress on your health is just devastating. But if you're dealing with GI issues and you're highly stressed, I would honestly at the isolation of everything else, look at what can you do to alleviate that.

So the third area is sleep. Sleep, again, it can't be underemphasized. It's just, it's like the new exercise regimen. You know what I mean? Like we see chronically underslept people, they just have very bad GI issues or they're at least susceptible to very bad GI issues. So those are the three parts of lifestyle because sometimes, you know, my dad, oh, he'll be on podcast.

Oh yeah, you got to improve your lifestyle. And that seems very soft. You know what I mean? Like people sort of, okay, well, what do you mean? You know? And it's, it's these three areas. If you really, really take a step back and like, what can I do to optimize those? A lot of people just making those adjustments unlock a lot in their microbiome. Yeah. They're, they're massive, you know, and, and it's, it's funny how they all interrelate, right? They all do. Like if you, if you work out appropriately, which is completely individual, that's a, to say we work out appropriately is, it doesn't narrow anything down or mean anything specifically. It means something to each of us individually, right? Appropriately would mean I have an acute stress

that I have a hormetic response to, right? There's a net rebound because of however hard I've worked out, I've rested well enough and eaten the right foods and slept well enough to fully recover before coming back. Charlie Francis was Ben Johnson's coach, guy who I think broke the 100 meter record before they took it away from him

and gave him to Carl Lewis due to testing positive for windstraw in the 88 Olympics. Canadian runner. But Francis, his coach was brilliant. And he said, like, if you're not one to 3% better every time you set foot in the gym, you're coming back too soon, right? One to 3% stronger, one to 3% faster. There's no point in being on the track that day or in the gym that day. And that's, that's an important piece to understand because if you continue at that, then it's no longer an acute hormetic stressor. It's chronic stress, right? The guy who puts in a hundred miles a week running, who has not done that before. And it's just starting out and reading, you know, the fucking best runner in the world does this. So I'm going to do it. Right.

That becomes chronic stress. Right. And that will fuck your immune system up your microbiome. It'll also mess your sleep up. One of the first signs of overtraining is you can't fall asleep at night. Right. So all those things interrelate. And then of course, stress, like if there's one of the things that I absolutely love that I changed on a daily basis was, you know, we talked earlier about like not digesting some of the harder to digest dark stuff at night was just this idea that if I can section out 10 minutes for a walk during the day, you know,

not meditation, but contemplation. If I can get out in nature and move my body and not be on my phone, but actually just think whatever's coming up, like the little self-reflection time. Journaling works great, but I like walking. If I'm walking and I can do that once or twice throughout the day, just 10 minutes of time. Now I'm up to like 30 minutes or 40 minutes because I'm walking the dog and little wolf in the stroller

as you saw that photo this morning. That's my morning and my evening. When I do that, I'm able to process what's coming and what just happened. So then when I lay down at night and I hit the sheets, that's not the first time I have self-reflection. If I have a super packed fucking day and the first time I think about my day is right when I lay in bed at night, there's no way I'm falling asleep. I'm not shutting anything off. I have all this stuff to digest mentally

before I can actually fall asleep and be cool with that. You know, so like that's an important piece on the stress and lifestyle as a whole is the self-reflection, you know? A hundred percent. Like I don't remember her last name, but she's a meditation coach, Emily. It's going to come. She's Emily. Yeah. One of my favorite people in the podcast. She's a great, she's great. She was on our podcast and I saw her at summit series. I did

a workshop with her and I'm going to butcher it, but it's basically what you're saying, where she used the analogy of when you have a browser with 50 tabs open, you're just processing so much trying to figure it out. Right. And it's like, you got to slowly, but truly methodically go through those. All right. Shut that off, shut that off until you're back to, you know, one main thing. And then you're relaxed. It's like everybody understands and feels that like, where it's just working in the background and you're not getting a chance to be like, all right, I'll talk to him, you know, get a handle on that. But yeah, you're completely right.

But again, this is why like, it goes back to what we were talking in the very beginning about this idea of we put a huge premium on physicality and physical health and obviously external things like just consumerism, but we are not taking the time to really figure out, well, how, how do we manage the mental piece? Because it's not tied together, like figuratively, it's literally tied together. Like the way we feel emotionally can impact the way we feel physically and vice versa, right? And so the other part on stress that I love as an example is they did a study and they looked at the microbiomes of people who had just been through

severe trauma, like a car crash in the ER and their microbiomes, it looked like, you know, a TV that's been hit, right? Like the signal was just off. Why? Because their body just tremendous amount of body just tremendous amount of stress, tremendous amount of inflammation. Inflammation is one of the mega drivers of microbiome health, you know? So what's inflaming your body? Over-exercise, the types of foods you're eating, chronic stress. So, you know, it's, again, it's microbiome is fascinating because it's so nuanced, but that's one of the things that can make it also very frustrating to deal with GI issues because it's not just one thing. It's a plethora of things that you have to really try and optimize and manage.

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, something we've been talking about throughout this is reverse engineering. you know and and i think that's that's a really important thing to consider when it comes to the microbiome and you guys have some of the best probiotic products on the planet you've been a sponsor of this show for a while now um the greens plus plus probiotics i give to my kids i even throw it in oatmeal sometimes for them we got the organic gluten-free so it's you know and things and it sweetens it it's like oh cool we don't even need honey now right you know, and things and it sweetens it. It's like, Oh, cool. We don't even need honey now. You know, it's awesome. Um, and you guys just created a new one, right? The capsules talk about that. Yeah. Yeah. So we actually have a ton of really cool innovation coming. So, so you said a really important thing, reverse engineering. So a lot of times when you create a product,

you have an idea with the ingredients, especially when it's a medical product where you're trying to see if it will help with, with an outcome, right? Like stress or something, right? So you, you'll find an ingredient and you'll test it in a few people and you'll see like, oh, okay. It actually helps some people. Oh, maybe it didn't. We work backwards. So when we created biome, uh, it was off my father's initial, uh, Crohn's microbiome study. He was clinical trial. He was doing for NIH. And what we saw was that people with Crohn's were creating these very viscous plaques in their gut called biofilms. And it was made up of three organisms,

Canada, E. Coli, which everyone's heard of and Sarrasha narcissus, which is, I always start having a lisp after I pronounce. Right. And so we worked backwards. We said, well is, I always start having a lisp after I pronounce, right? And so we worked backwards. We said, well, what if we just made a probiotic, not just for Crohn's, but, you know, for anybody.

And we targeted those organisms. Like that seems like it would work. And that's what we found. We, you know, when we say that we were able to really reduce these biofilms, these plaques. And so moving forward, because we've, forward, because we continue to do clinical trials, we have one of the largest microbiome databases in the world. We're now looking at that data by cohort, and we're starting to work backwards to make better probiotics, better products.

So for example, women. Women, which not shockingly by most probiotics, they have a completely distinct microbiome to men, right? So one of the things we're doing is we're looking and saying, instead of just taking like general probiotics and doing a little clinical trial and seeing if it works with women, why don't we work backwards and look at a woman's microbiome and see what do we need to do to fortify it, to optimize the things that are going great and to control or neutralize the things that maybe they're low on certain species, right? So we're going through these cohorts of our data around people that have different diet lifestyles like keto versus vegetarians. One thing we found with vegetarians, they are statistically significantly more likely to have candida overgrowth than someone who's not a vegetarian.

Now, that's surprising because what's one of the things I've said to you on past podcasts, plant-based diet is ideal for your microbiome. So a lot of people, when we saw that, you know, I was saying to my dad, well, why would that be like candida shouldn't flourish? And he said, and this is where we're doing further study. He said, just because people identify as vegetarian doesn't mean they're plant-based. You know you know they there's tons of processed things that are quote-unquote vegetarian you know yeah you're talking like a whole food plant something direct from nature versus something bought that's on a shelf right that that is quote-unquote vegetarian yeah uh oreos are a vegan food i've mentioned that before yeah yeah exactly right so like and there's artificial sweeteners like we

know those have uh microbiome impacts so this is where we're splicing this data to figure out okay well what does that mean you know as a vegetarian like does that actually mean you know these are the true foods you need to be avoiding you know what i mean so that that's the power of this data you know so um it'd be interesting to know if you guys dive further into that amongst vegetarian population what their macros kind of look like from a guessing point. Because to me, and you know, that was one of the things that I found fascinating and reading a lot into the ketogenic diet was that it's actually easier for vegetarians and vegans

to get into ketosis. And simply because they're not going to hit that protein threshold, which most people, you know, meat people, you know, not carnivores in particular, but just like somebody like me, the bulk of my plate, you know, not carnivores in particular, but just like somebody like me, like the bulk of my plate, at least half of it's going to be meat in most meals. And then I'm going to have, you know, sections of whatever else, either a starch,

if I'm having some carbs, always fermented veggies or some type of cruciferous, that way I'm feeding the good guys. And that also makes me have the best poop, which is Paul Cech's perfect marker. Like you do not want to spend money. Like how does it, what does your shit look like? A hundred percent. Right. So I have the best poop from eating cruciferous veggies that are cooked, not raw. Right. And when I think about that though, even though it's doable to get into ketosis really easy on a vegetarian or vegan standpoint, most people aren't going to get,

you know, 60 to 80% of their macros from fat. If there's a lot of Mac nuts, you know, and it's, you know, if you're trying to get full and you're not eating meat, it's quite likely you're going to load up on rice or quinoa or something.

That's a cheap bulky starch and your carbohydrates are looking at me way higher, which likely is going to contribute to Candida and other things. Oh, totally. Totally. Especially in fruit plays a role in that, right? If you have a lot of fruit, you're also more likely to have Candida overgrowth. Why? Because of the sugars, you know? So it's, it's a lot of it is about owning, uh, your understanding of what's going on. You know, we, we always say on the business side, uh, you improve what you measure, right? Like KPIs, all these things. Well, you got to track your own KPIs, right?

Like, what are you actually eating? What are you doing? You know, calorically, what are you doing with your macros? Are you improving? You're talking about one to 3% improvement with your exercise. Like, are you actually tracking those things? Like every time I work out, I track exactly the weights and then, oh, okay. This feels, you know, uh, good, which means I need to bump it up a little bit.

Right. Like that's how you make improvements, you know? So part of, you know, microbiome health is really understanding. Like you should be able to say, yeah, for me, digestive issues relate to stress. It's something I'm working on. But how do you know that unless you've dialed in and understood, like, what are the factors and triggers for you? You know what I mean? That's difficult to do unless you're very mindful about it, you know? Yeah. And like Bruce Lee said, it's not enough to know we must do right. A lot of people can say like, I have this problem. It's like in a, in a Tommy boy when Dan, I cried, he's like, what's that smell? And they're in the elevator and he's like, it's a car freshener.

I'm sorry. You know, he's brought this pine saw car freshener all over his body. He's like, you've identified the problem. Now it's time to take care of it. Dude, someone said this and I love it. They said, if we, if all we had to do was read, we'd all have six packs and be billionaires. No, no, you have to actually do like, like that. That's the beauty. It's like, you know, an idea is worth nothing without the execution, you know, same, same exact thing. It's like, we're surrounded in unending knowledge, right. Of, of how to improve and optimize. But, you know, and again, that becomes, uh, intimidating, you know? So that's the other thing where we say like, just try and change one thing. Don't try and do it. You're just not going to do it. You know, it's just very difficult to change everything all at once. So

one little change, you know, at a time, that's how you, and that's important too, especially with microbiome because change too many things at once. You're not going to know, um, what's just now, one thing I always like to mention too, if you do make big changes in your diet on the idea that you're trying to optimize your microbiome first few weeks and feel really uncomfortable, like bloating, like, Oh, I don't feel right. This isn't for me. That's your body adjusting. You know, you, you've depleted the enzymes that actually help you, uh, digest and work with, you know, like you said, like cruciferous and just, uh, sweet potatoes, all these like starchy, starchy resistant starches, your body's not used to that.

So it takes a few weeks for that to repopulate. So don't get discouraged because we have a lot of people that are like, Oh no, I did. I just doesn't work for me. No, your body's this beautiful thing that will adjust, but it needs a minute. Yeah. It could be die off too. Right. Oh, totally. Your body's just literally adjusting your microbiome. What's interesting. You can adjust the fungi in your microbiome in 24 hours. The bacteria can take like up to six months, but the fungi in your, in your GI will adjust very quickly. And you might feel that, you know, it's wild. That's brilliant. So you talked about women's products that are coming out because of the differences there. It's, I thought of this story, um, of, you know, reading about human newer and, about humanure and I saw it actually in Kiss the Ground documentary on Netflix, which is cool,

but it's definitely has a vegan push. But they offered a lot from the author of The Soil Will Save Us, which is a fantastic book on the probiotics microbiome of the soil. But on the humanure, there were native American cultures that would have the women poop in the river and they were always going to poop in the river and the men would poop on land.

And I was like, that's super interesting that they recognize the difference. And it was, everything's kosher if it's women are pooping in the water, not the men and the men are pooping on land in various spots. And yeah, just thinking into that, you know, like it's, it's pretty cool that there are significant differences. What else do you guys have on the horizon? I know I've just picked up something from you,

sent me out to test the capsules. What, what is that? Talk about it. So with the capsules, one of the things we're doing is, uh, we're everything we're doing moving forward is based on data, right? So whether it's from the original biome formulation based on the Crohn's data, but more importantly, like for example, we hear it from a lot of parents that they use the greens and the reds for their kids. So we're actually coming out with a kid's, uh, super shake version. That's optimized just for children, getting all the nutrients they need, that sort of thing. So over the next year, we have about, I don't know, 12, 15 new products coming out, but it's all driven by the data. That, again, we think when you look at it targeted – so taking a step back, you hear this all the time, personalized nutrition, personalized, you know, targeted nutrition.

I think the most realistic is not that you're going to end up getting something that's tailored specifically for you, but that you're, it's tailored specifically for a cluster, like a cohort. Because what we see is microbiomes like a fingerprint light. It's not individualistic to that point, but we see that as a cohort, like we said, like depressed people or different ways with spice of data, there's enough commonalities that solution will work for 90% of those people in the group. I'm using that term that 90% loosely, but, um, that's how we're approaching it. So with the capsules, we're coming out with a higher dose and really, really, uh, to break down those biophones based on just juicing what we're seeing through the data. That's awesome. So potentially you could have something for hardcore athletes or for mothers or, yeah. And just really get nitty gritty on that. Yeah. Yeah. That that's the opportunity. And that's what we're trying to do. Especially like, like you say, like, uh, I actually, a couple of years ago, I even talked to Aubrey about this,

this idea of like, man, just taking extreme athletes and really creating an optimized formulation just to optimize maybe towards our microbiome or towards things, things they may be missing. You know what I mean? Yeah. I remember that conversation. We were in that, that's when I was in product development here and we were talking about protein utilization. Yes. How the microbiome can enhance and plays a direct role in how much you assimilate.

Like people are always like, oh, you got to get a gram per pound of body weight or whatever that number is. Right. It's like, how much are you actually taking in? Correct. That's the critical thing. The working out creates an impetus for a need, and that can increase your absorption rate.

But the gut is that single barrier. That's the single thing that's going to make the most difference. Well, especially if you have biofilms covering the GI. So one thing we're literally studying now, we're going to be doing some clinical studies, is how can you impact absorption by removing those biofilms? So we're going to be kicking off some clinical trials, just studying that. That's super exciting because absorption,

you know, these nutrients beyond just like protein, but like vitamin C, vitamin D, like, how do you actually increase what you're actually absorbing? You know? So it's exciting. I would say to my dad, like, man, I'm trying to do something really big in this space and it takes just time and a lot of energy, but it's cool to be working on something that's, you know, a passion for my dad's whole career and trying to bring that, you know, to life. Yeah, that's incredible too. When you think about like vitamin C and vitamin D,

D3 has been said as acts more like a hormone than a vitamin. Most people are going to consume that orally. You know, like most people are indoors all day long. Doesn't matter if you live in Florida or Texas. Like I'm outdoors a lot and I'm still not outdoors, you know, half as long as my ancestors were, like three generations back and before that. Like there's no question we're not outdoors enough. So if D3 is consumed orally, how much of that is getting broken down?

How much of that is making its way in? And I'm really curious to find out about that because D3 has been one of those critical factors in response to COVID and other forms of viral infection and things of that nature. It seems to be one of the critical pieces to our immunity. Well, what's, what's so cool too now is you're seeing the last like five or six years understanding the source of the nutrient,

the quality, the transparency of the supply chain, that, that is all critical. You know what I mean? Like are you getting a high quality ingredient? Where is it getting sourced from? I think that's one of the things that I, I, you know, we, we've always made everything in the U S so when COVID hit, our biggest problem is getting like plastic bottles, right? Like, but that was for everybody. Why? Because they don't really make them in the U S anymore. That's a problem. I think we collectively saw, wait a second, all this stuff is made in China. You know what I mean? Like medications, you know, like, and it wasn't nefarious that we can get it.

It was just, there's no one shipping. You can't get stuff in the country. Like it's really crazy, you know? So I always look at life, like in not just life, like, uh, history of humanity, like a blank of an eye it's since like the 50s probably till now when oh globalization you know oh offshore that that's not even you know uh half a human life you know what i mean so it's not crazy that over the next 50 100 years we may be like you know what that was too much we need core things you know on short and maybe some of these other things we answered, you know, so it's interesting to look at stuff like that when you think of, well, what does the internet look like? Not in 20 years, like 200 years, like in these like power dynamics, we were talking

about all those things. It's like, we're just, just, just scratching that, you know, for a surface of all these amazing things, you know, cause you're about like, oh yeah. That war between those two countries. Yeah. It was 200 year war. You know what I mean? Like what, it's just hard to conceptualize. So when you think like some, so many things in our, in our, you know, history as humans go over millennia or, or minimally hundreds of years to see real things come to fruition.

So the idea that like, you know, onshoring offshoring medications being realized, like, that's not a great idea, but it took, yeah, it took 50 years for a pandemic to show that it's kind of cool. You know what I mean? Like, I love looking at stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. I think, uh, uh, Carlin and Hardcore History. Oh, I just listened to him, yeah. Yeah, he talked about that in the Wrath of Khan. He's like, I can write about this.

I can talk about this now because we are far enough removed from Genghis Khan that there is no offense. There's no emotional response to it. It's like eventually someone will write about the benefits of Nazi Germany. And he's like, even just saying that right now, like obviously this horrific, but it happened.

What came out of that that was positive, right? Like this shit right now is more than a head scratcher. I think there is a lot of things that are not just mismanaged, but guided with poor intention. And with that, whether that's true or not, there will still be a benefit to it. There will still be good that comes from this. And there's still going to be a lot of understanding of what systems are broken, what needs to be fixed and a better way forward. Well, two things I'd say one, Dan Carlin, his latest season about basically

Japan's role in world war II. He literally, his first episode, which his episodes are what, like four or five hours, you know, like monolithic. He starts in like the early 1800s because his point is like, for you to understand the nation Japan was going into World War II, you really need to understand how it got there over the previous 150 years.

Like that, that's what I'm talking about. You know what I mean? It takes that long talking about you know what i mean it takes that long for you know it to go from the you know samurai and the um what were the other big like warrior class in japan i'm not remembering but like basically you know go from like a samurai culture to like japan and world war II, very militaristic. You know what I mean? Like, how did it get there? How did you, so I look at stuff like that. It's, it's just amazing that you got to take a lens like that to see like, oh, okay. This stuff sometimes

takes 150 years. It's like, you know, I'm going to butcher it, but Winston Churchill said like democracy's like a terrible system, but it's the best we have. You know what I mean? It's like, we're still figuring out, you know, closing in on 300 years later, like how do we optimize this beautiful experiment that is America and our, and our systems and the federal versus state, you know what I mean? Like all these things, like it just takes hundreds of years and hundreds and thousands of test cases to really figure out like, well, what is the best way, the optimal way to run this? You know what I mean? So that that's cool. But in the moment, it's not cool. You need to be like, you know, a hundred years removed from it. But yeah. So

again, it goes back to what we're saying. Like you got to look at all this stuff is like just a collective journey. And each of these things is, you know, not an obstacle, but an opportunity for us to figure out, well, how do we make it better? You know? Yeah. Yeah. It was something that really helped me was the book, the fourth turning talks a lot about the cyclical nature of time and how we moved through 80 year cycles at 20 years at a time. It goes from the high to the awakening, to the unraveling, to the crisis period. And our crisis started in 2008 and will run until 2028. Interesting.

But the last time there was a crisis here, it's funny because as much as I want to believe, the world has never been this fucked up. It's like, no, just in my lifetime. Because the last time there was a crisis was the Great Depression and World War II. And if we're fucking living through World War II right now after a Great Depression depression we might say this is armageddon this is the end of days where's the mark of the beast you know what i'm saying like well take what you said the great depression how did we improve like people were literally starving in the great depression there was no safety net you know what i mean that did not exist and guess what f realized, no, no, no. We're too great of a

country to have citizens truly starving because of no jobs. Right. So we created, uh, Medicare, we created these, these, uh, welfare, we created, you know, food stamps. I don't know if food stamps happened right then, but like the basis of it, why? Cause we looked and we're like, you know what? This is something we can improve. Now it doesn't mean it's perfect, right? Like all these things are just a continuing experiment, but these really serious challenges, um, we come out and we're like, okay, out of that was terrible era, but we created safety nets. What's interesting to me about the whole Afghanistan thing. Be interested in your perspective is, you know, we say like, we got to get out, we got to get out. But what's interesting to me about the whole Afghanistan thing, interesting in your perspective, is we say we got to get out, we got to get out. But what's interesting is you look at Japan, you look at Germany, you look at Korea.

We've been there since basically World War II. And it seems like we'll be there forever. So to me, I don't know enough about this to understand like, well, what's the difference in those situations where after a major war, we've sort of built permanent bases and we just thought we have to be in this area. Why it was different for Afghanistan that like, maybe we don't want a nation build. I understand that, but why remove complete presence? You know, it's kind of interesting. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like what, why in these cases cases and not so that's above my pay grade but yeah and certainly i mean there's a lot of i have a lot of friends you know in the armed forces that

i mean even people that are not armchair quarterbacks could say like yeah this was going to go to shit if we did it that way right if we just pull everyone out like it's going to get bad really quick uh Overnight. Right. So I mean, that, that, so yeah, again, more head scratching to that effect. And yeah, I've been to Heidelberg and some of the different places that we have still in Germany. And there's, there's a lot of places I've been where there was considered Southwest Asia. They wouldn't call it what it was and we weren't technically supposed to be there, but to be there, but we were allowed to be there as an exchange for protection and things of that nature. And, you know, we're still there.

We're still in a lot of these places. So yeah, yeah, I'm with you on that. That's a head scratcher for sure. And certainly a head scratcher when you consider that all that went into that for 20 years, all that went in there and what people give when they go to a place like that, you know, and don't come back with, you know, like that's, that's a big one. So, I mean, I can sit here and postulate different ideas and reasoning and point fingers and all that shit,

but it's the people that come back missing things that really left something there that are like, what the fuck is happening right now? What did I do that for? You know, that, that, that's who I have compassion for in this, you know? Yeah. And I think a couple of people have been saying over the last few days, but I thought it was an interesting and smart take that, like, it isn't all for not, you really did keep the country safe for two decades. You really did reset, you know, Al Qaeda. That was this massive force. Not that they're gone, but they're not what they were. You know what I mean?

Like, that's important. Taliban might come back. And I think it seems like, you know, you read Thomas Friedman. Some of these guys are like, listen, Taliban is going to, you know, sort of be probably the same brutes internally. But I think they learned their lesson. Like, no, no, us will be back here in a nanosecond. If you're harboring the Al Qaeda's of the world, the ISIS of the world. So if that is the adjustment, you know, it's not, it's not binary all for not, do you know

what I mean? Yeah. It's interesting. But again, it seems to be above everybody's pay grade not just ours but it's it's wild yeah i got i got a few buddies i want to chat with you know really get their their intuition and stuff and what they're feeling on that but dude it's been i mean we've got almost an hour and a half this has been phenomenal brother um where can people find you and uh what do you recommend people start with you You know, when they- Yeah, if you want to join my dozens of followers,

it's at Afif Ghanoum, A-F-I-F-G-H-A-N-N-O-U-M on IG. And then Biome is just at B-I-O-H-M health or biomehealth.com. Again, that's B as in boy, I-O-H-M health.com. Awesome, brother. We'll link to all that in the show notes. All right. Thanks for having me.

Fuck yeah. Yeah, brother. We'll link to all that in the show notes. All right. Thanks for having me. Fuck yeah. Yeah, brother. you