Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2735: How to Reverse Aging, Live Longer & Be a Better Dad with Shawn Stevenson

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

Shawn Stevenson Eat smarter! (1:46) Emphasizing the impact of relationships on our psychology. (2:50) You get to choose what you focus on. Opening up on the loss of his father. (6:49) The difficulty is relying on others when you have a lone wolf mentality. (10:03) What the science says about relationships and what it does for our health. (13:35) Vulnerability on a podcast vs. in your personal life. (18:24) The plasticity of epigenetics and the value of vitamin D-3 supplementation. (24:09) The dream stream effects of xenoestrogens. (37:11) Your perception of your environment affects your genes more than the environment itself. (39:19) Coach behaviors, not macros and calories. (44:07) Reversing the aging process through strength training. (51:43) Choosing your own thoughts, rather than being told what to think. (54:32) Processed relationships. (58:43) Lessons learned through fatherhood. (1:02:41) The gut-wrenching moment that flipped the switch in his career path. (1:14:19) The importance of raising your kids under your roof. (1:20:20) The value of mentorship. (1:26:00) The cultural challenges of raising children today. (1:27:37) Related Links/Products Mentioned Eat Smarter Family Cookbook: 100 Delicious Recipes to Transform Your Health, Happiness, and Connection Eat Smarter: Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life Visit Vuori Clothing for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** No code to receive 20% off your first order. ** BLACK FRIDAY SALE: 60% off ALL Programs, Guides, and MODs **Code BLACKFRIDAY at checkout** Mind Pump Store The Model Health Show Episodes - YouTube Social relationships and mortality risk: a meta-analytic review Vitamin D supplements may slow biological aging Mind over milkshakes: mindsets, not just nutrients, determine ghrelin response Postprandial energy expenditure in whole-food and processed-food meals: implications for daily energy expenditure Resistance Exercise Reverses Aging in Human Skeletal Muscle TMHS 393: The Extraordinary Link Between Exercise, Joy, And Human Connection – With Guest Dr. Kelly McGonigal From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life – Book by Arthur Brooks Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources Featured Guest/People Mentioned Shawn Stevenson (@shawnmodel) Instagram   Website Michael B. Beckwith Bedros Keuilian (@bedroskeuilian) Instagram Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (@drgabriellelyon) Instagram Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D (@brucelipton) Instagram Dr. Ellen Langer, Ph.D. (@ellenjlanger) Instagram Arthur Brooks (@arthurcbrooks) Instagram Alia Crum (@draliacrum) Instagram Kelly McGonigal (@kellymariemcgonigal) Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump. Mind Pump with your hosts. Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's guest, Sean Stevenson. He comes on to talk about longevity and health and fatherhood.

It's a great episode. You can find him at Sean Model. This is on Instagram, and he's written some great books. of them is eat smarter and sleep smarter. He is a bestselling author. Now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. Viori Clothing. This is the best F. Leisureware company in the world.

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The code is Black Friday. Every purchase is going to get you triple entries into one of those things. And it's 60% off. Everything's 60% off. You guys, real quick, I just want to mention we got a sale. It's up to 25% off equipment and select apparel on our store. Right now, there'll be $5 items as well. Sale will be from November 20th through November 30th.

Go check it out at Mind Pumpstore.com. Sean, welcome back to the show, man. This is the greatest studio in podcast. Come on. You're just saying that. You're just messing with us. He's been a lot. He knows.

He knows, man. I believe him. Come on. Sounds like I'll take. to compliment. Go ahead. Tell me how great we are. We're just talking about how long it's been since we had you on. It was right after you wrote your book, right? Your first book. The cookbook that my wife loves. I swear she's in that all the time. That was a 2023. Yeah. So that was my latest book. That was the latest book. That was the latest one cookbook, new release in the country.

We have all kinds of cookbooks. We cook out of that more than any other cookbook. I don't know that. Man, come on. That's what it's all about. Yeah. Yeah. No, really. I mean, maybe because I guess it fits like our wheelhouse of the food that we're always trying to make food like that. And I don't know too many cookbooks that are that are balanced like that nutritionally and taste good. Like it just, I don't know. I feel like it's either or a lot of times. Either like it's all about how good can you make it.

Macros are horrible. Or it's all about macros fitting a certain kind and that tastes like crap. And it's just, you did such a good job of that. Thank you. That means everything. We were also just talking and you were talking about how you had been going through some difficult times since then, but how you kept going back to the show. and how nine to ten times, I think you said,

that the interviews were, you felt like they were for you. Yeah. Things that you were interested in or things you want to learn about. Things I needed to hear. Things you needed to hear. What were the things that interested you the most during this period of time? Like, what have you learned? Because you're a smart dude.

Every time I talk to you, I always think, man, this guy really smart dude, really knows his stuff, but also learns a lot. Like, has anything, have any of your opinions changed or have you grown in any of those areas that, you know, since we had you on. Yeah. You know, the main thing would definitely be

just the emphasis on relationships and how impactful they are on our psychology, on our practices, and, you know, it's just even more so than even previous. And a big thing for me, man,

was just like, and you know this, especially as guys, like we tend to compartmentalize. We tend to process things just enough to keep going, you know? And so I got to kind of

to confront some of those things. And for example, I had an expert who came in who was like the world leading expert on burnout. I don't know what the fuck burnout was. Like that didn't exist to me. Like what? And also we relate something like burnout to work. And I'm just like, I love my work. You know, I get up every day for this. It feels great. But it's not just the one thing. It's an overall life construct, right? So maybe you're dealing with family difficulties. Like I mentioned, I just rattled out to you guys like so many people that passed away that were close to me. and it all happened really in a short amount of time. And so even that just psychologically making me feel more and more kind of depleted

and just kind of struggling to figure things out. Because when you lose somebody, you have to restructure how you think, right? In the same way when you gain somebody. And this was another revelation was like, every time I had a child, it's like another part of your brain is confiscated. Like it is permanently devoted to that. human being that just showed up, right? And so it starts to split you, right? And so when my daughter was born, she was my first, and immediately there was a split in my brain that always focus on where

is she, what is she doing? Is she okay? Right. I got to protect her. And my son came in, came next, my oldest son. Another split happened, right? Can I be the man that I need to be? Am I going to be able to like throw the football around with my kid and teach him how to be a good man and all these things. Then my baby boy who's here at the studio, I'm so grateful to say, shows up. And again, it splits you again. And so these are all things that just kind of these conversations, these experts that I had the opportunity to talk to, the things that I was inspired to do master classes on myself and kind of deconstruct. It was all just a part of the healing process. You guys know this. The thing that I love most about you guys, and I think about you guys, like,

actually pretty frequently, because you guys hold each other accountable. You have something so special here where if one of you guys is dealing with something or struggling, like the other two guys, like, just the energy in here, it's like going to keep you thinking about how can I improve. I got to figure this stuff out. You know, it's such a powerful force. We talk about how lucky we are to the exact point you're making. I think men do a really bad job of seeking out other men to confide in, hold them accountable to. We tend to hang out still with the guys that we probably went through high school or college with. We have different reasons why we're attacking. of them, maybe they're not always growth-minded or sharing those personal things. This forces us

to have that bond in relationship. And I think because of that, we really value that ability for us to hold each other accountable, push each other and grow. It's like, I'd say it's one of my favorite parts about that relationship because you're right. I think iron sharpens on him. And men don't do a good job with this. We become hermits. We're really bad at it. We really are. Do you have a group of men that you know you can go to that are going to call you out, that you can tell them, hey, man, I'm feeling weak or I'm feeling tired. Do you have that group? That's such a great question.

First of all, I'm going to say, yes, there are a couple of people, but I didn't grow up like that. And so I was very hesitant, extremely hesitant, even through my struggles, you know, with losing people that are close to me, changes in my household, you know, having kids move out. and a lot of that stuff was a big struggle. I know that some of the men in my life could be very helpful because oftentimes, especially when you're dealing with kids, it's very helpful to have those outside voices. Oh, yeah.

Right? That they respect. And so I knew that those people were there for me to reach out to and they would always affirm that, but I was just like, nah, I got it. I'll figure it out. And so it took a minute, man. It took a while. And the most important thing is the exposures, right? just being around them was these touch points.

And so one of those people was actually Dr. Michael Beckwith, right? So he's the founder of Agape Spiritual Center. And I met him while I was speaking in an event of all places in Portugal, which is crazy because I'm like just coming from where I come from, when I found out about him, it was the movie The Secret. Yeah. I was living in the hood hood, like Ferguson, Missouri, mattress on the floor, you know. and but I felt connected to him, like of all the people and the messages, and then I end up meeting

this guy on the other side of the planet, you know, like, it was just magical. And so we instantly connected, and he's been there kind of like a mentor and a brother and like a father figure too in some ways. And so just dealing with processing the loss of my father, but it wasn't even so much losing my father, which he was in assisted living for about 12 years because of drugs and alcohol, brain damage, and he just couldn't shake these seizures. And he had gotten clean, but he, you know, these seizures and just continued degradation with his brain. He had to stay in his home. But losing him was, for me, you know, we said this before the show, there's levels to it, But I just felt this very strong sense of gratitude because I got to experience.

You get to choose what you focus on. Let me put it like that, right? I could focus on all the negative things and a lot of negative things happen. But I got to grow up with somebody who had this incredible childlike nature too. He was a very strong, very strong, dedicated man. You know, very strong alcoholic too. but he got up every day and went to work no matter what no matter what and I picked that up you know and that's a great quality to have you know but also when our times together was like playing

video games or he come out and play basketball with my friends nobody else dad did that and guess what my son knows this I'm the dad that's out playing basketball with the kids you know like these are those things that I picked up and I'm so grateful that I had that opportunity you know is it hard for a guy like you who is probably consistently affirmed through the world that through your own work, your own effort, you're going to get the stuff that you want because you do that. You work hard, you bust your butt. Is it hard for a guy like you after being able to do that to say, yeah, I need to depend on other people? Exactly.

You just said it. You know, I've been that person. And so the other thing I picked up from him, he didn't mess with people. right he's very much a lone wolf he would have like one friend maybe he'll come around like while he's drinking and you know i kind of picked up that temperament whereas my brother and sister they have tons of friends they mess with a lot of people and that kind of lone wolf mentality just kind of went with me through my adulthood and you know but then the greatest blessing of starting the model health show was my relationships and i didn't even sign up for that man i didn't know that was going to happen

And you guys know this too. It's like it's such a blessing to meet all these incredible people. Having conversations. Yeah. Like I had no idea. And so it just really kind of opened me up to how powerful that is. And, you know, with that being said, with Michael Beckwith in an instance, it wasn't so much about dealing with my father's loss. It was dealing with my family.

Right. Because I was seen as quote, the one. Right. I'm the one who like made it, figure some things out. I took care of everything with the funeral and all the different pieces. But where do you turn? Exactly. Exactly.

And because of that, man, and I haven't really talked about this. And my son knows this. But I just, I had this pain, this terrible pain that popped up in my neck, in my shoulder. I couldn't turn my head after he passed away like two days later. And I'm just like, but I don't feel like sad or hurt or angry. Like I feel love. And, you know, I finally talked with Michael Beckwith about it. Like, just open like, hey, you know, like this is going on.

And he just asked me some questions. And it was mainly about, you know, my little brother and sister. Because growing up in that environment, they had an opportunity or choice to make. Like, are we going to model our parents? Are we going to do something differently? And they modeled my parents significantly. And I'm just like, with him passing, that was another thing. It was, I was so hopeful.

No, not even hopeful. I almost had this internal. demand that you see this is what can happen. Don't let this happen to you. I hope you guys get the message now. But it was unconscious. But talking with him, he helped me to realize and redirect that it was my expectation that was causing me pain, expecting them to be a certain way instead of just seeing them as they are and loving them as they are. And so, and I wouldn't believe it if I'm very skeptical, very analytical. But the next day I woke up in that pain that had been haunting me, like we on a vacation because we had a vacation schedule to go to Maui.

I never been to Maui. So I'm in Maui, and I can't turn my neck, right? And I went and got the special like loamy, loamy massage, this little Hawaiian lady put her elbows all up in it, destroyed the knot that was in my shoulder. But then it would pop up on the other side. Right? And I just...

It was funny. It wasn't until I got back, got on the phone with him, told him what was going on, changed the way I was thinking, and the pain went away. To try to separate the mind from the body is silly. It's so silly. Talk about the data, Sean. I know you're a big data guy and a science guy.

Talk about what the science says of relationships and what it does for our health, longevity, how it impacts us. Because for me personally, this is the most fascinating data. There's almost nothing that will predict mortality or longevity like your relationships, which is wild. Because you're like, what does that have to do with my feelings? physical body. But talk about some of that and some of the people we've talked to. Sure. Well, one of the largest studies ever conducted was conducted by researchers at Brigham Young University. And this was a meta-analysis of 148 studies and over 300,000 study participants. So it's a big data set. Yeah. And they're tracking these individuals, following them for a significant amount of

time and just looking at all these various lifestyle factors to see how it impacts their longevity, how long they live. And after compiling all the data, they found that individuals who had healthy social bonds had a 50% reduction in all-cause mortality. All right. A 50% reduction from early death

from all causes, all right? Said another way, individuals with healthy relationships had a 50% boost in longevity. All right. And so this was a greater increase than beating obesity, then stopping smoking,

all these other factors, it was the quality of their relationships that stood out far and away more than anything. I find that study so fascinating because of how much, like, we've, you know, we demonized smoking cigarettes, as we should. It's very unhealthy for you to do. But, like, we talk,

if you were to ask the average person, you know, what's the best thing or the healthiest thing you can do for longevity? They'd probably say not smoke, not drink, so like that. When in reality, it's, you know, how much energy are you putting towards building relationships with people?

Now, when you start unpacking this, you're connecting these dots. Do you begin to put new practices into your life? Or you, like, a lot of times you know the data. You know what you need to be doing, but then they actually take action to foster those relationships, especially for a man, especially a man that's older, you know,

to now build new relationships or focus on those things. Do you find yourself having to create new habits or do new things? Like, has stuff like that changed for you at all? That's a great question. Now, just to lean in, let's use a cigarette example. because chances are if somebody starts smoking,

it's because of a relationship, right? Drinking, what you eat. That's an interesting point. Your sleep habits. Your sleep habits are more influenced by your wife and kids than anybody on earth by far. Fact. Right?

Your exercise habits are influenced by your relationships more than anything. I can go on and on what it is, and this is just real practical. So we're not even talking about like quantum level and all that stuff. we're talking very practical. Why are relationships so influential on our longevity and our health?

It's because it's the tip of the spear. It's what affects everything else that you attribute to your health and wellness. Now, with that said, I've simply decided to be more intentional and strategic about who I have around me. Right. And my son, funny enough, my son who's sitting right back there, he asked me today, you know, with all the shows that I do and all these incredible people, I've interviewed, he was like, do you, do you usually become friends with them? And I'm like, yeah, I mean, pretty much, we're, we're friends, but like, we don't have, we don't, like, have long-term relationships. And it kind of made me sad, but also told him that there's seasons,

right? Certain people that I meet that enter my life, we might spend a season together. Maybe it's like, we're close for a couple of years, right? And so that's what, when you asked me the question initially, like, who are some of these people? And I thought about my guy, Bedros. Pedro's Kulian, right? So there was a season where me and Bezos were like seeing each other more frequently. He's in Chino Hills.

So it's a nice little trek from L.A., but he actually flew out to St. Louis to kick it with me. He brought his family. And we all went out together to Ted Drews, frozen custard. Shout out to Ted Drews. You know what I mean?

And just we went and got barbecue together and just like, and the same thing when I came out to see him and, you know, just being able, in that high level of thinking and that inspiration that he brings,

being around him and him having these things for me as well that added value to his life. But we haven't seen each other in probably two years now. I've just kind of flown by, but I think about him often and I pray for him and his family. But I just actually did the opening keynote for his event because he had a scheduling thing

where he couldn't be there to open his own event, the fitness business, you know, event. And he had enough invested in me to trust me to do that for him, you know? So... Do you find it easier to be vulnerable and open when you're on a podcast

than you are in your real life and your personal life, I should say? Mate, that is such a great question too. Oh my God, man, I got chills from that one. My wife gets mad at me because she finds out, like my mother-in-law listens to every episode of my show. Find out more from your show than they do talking.

She'll find out that I cried and then tell my wife, she's like, I've never seen you cry. It's, I don't know. You know, it's just, I think it's cathartic to be able to talk about certain things. But also, I was very exposed, like, the last couple of years with all the things that happened.

Like, I just felt more sensitive, you know? And so having these conversations, like, stuff would just come out, you know? But for, it's not that I'm trying to, like, you know, not, you know, cry around my wife or whatever. Like, I didn't cry. I cried when, last time I cried, I cried, I was like 16, and then I think I had like one Johnny Depp cry baby tear when my grandmother passed away. And then that was it. I didn't cry again until, I don't know, my mid-30s.

You know what I mean? I'm just, it's not, it wasn't some kind of badge of honor. But of course, there's a subconscious thing there being tough, yes. But also like, I'm just not somebody who cries a lot, you know. I just, I'm very, I'm very aware of circumstances and just kind of like I think about that. I'm a thinker, you know, but just being, allowing myself to be more in my feelings, you know, which can be seen as a negative thing in our culture. Like, there's even a term, like, you're all in your feelings, you know. But doing that in the context of safety and, and insight, you know, and so it's very cathartic. So, but, and also to answer your question, though, I've had the most amazing time with my wife, you know, through, especially this last like six months, you know, because of all the processing of things that have

happened separately. For her, is voice texting with her friends and these little mini fucking podcast they do for each other. All right. So she's been processing stuff as well because all this lost, like she lost her father as well. Yeah. You know, our son moved out of the house and changed the dynamics of the household. Our baby boy is growing up and he's a teenager now, right? And so we been able to, again, have relationships where we can have a space to be able to process things and come back together and to process and have great conversations and experiences together as well. Yeah, I can identify with a lot of what you're saying. I think it's very difficult when you've accomplished things in life by your own merit, working hard. I can do this. But eventually get hit

with something where you're like, I can't. I don't know. I heard. heard something from a friend of mine that hit me so hard. I thought it was so true. You know, we always hear, I don't know if you've ever heard this, people will say, you know, God only gives you what you can handle. And my buddy's like, that's not biblical at all. He says, God gives you more than you can handle, so you lean on him. And I was like, oh, no, I've been doing this all wrong.

It's surrendered. Yeah. And I asked you about that vulnerability question because another thing that struck me was somebody told me, your friendships can only be as deep as you allow them to get with you. So if you're only so deep, that's as deep as it's going to go, which means you got to take a step out into the scary, uh-oh, what's this person going to do with this information? Do they think I'm weak? Are they going to think I'm, am I going to feel weak? Yeah.

Makes it very, very difficult. It's why it's so important to really know thyself. Yeah. you know, this incredible tenant. But, you know, I love the saying or statement or belief that people are in your life for a reason, for a season, or for a lifetime. Yeah. Right.

And we tend to get very, obviously, attached to certain things, a certain ways of being, a certain lifestyle factors, and comfortability. And, you know, just to go back to my son's question about my friendships, you know, like the most incredible friendships are manifesting now where I was on, some Drake energy, like, let me know, no new friends, you know, that kind of thing. Like, I'm good. But just being open and receptive. And, you know, I could see who's in my life right now for probably for a lifetime. And it would be, you know, my wife, my Michael Beckwith, for example, they just come to mind. They pop into my mind. But there are people in my life for this season of

my life right now that are so amazing, you know, so thoughtful. One of those people, I'm going to shout her out is Dr. Gabriel Lyon. Yeah, she's great. Love Dr. Lyon. Of everybody that I've met the past, you know, five years, she is the person who checks on me the most often. She's very genuine. What's cool about that,

it's so impressive considering everything she's done in her life, how busy she is. And, I mean, I'll back that up. She's, I'm, I, out of the three of four of us, I tend to communicate the most with our friends from the podcast. and she beats me. She's the first one to always reach out first. And I'm like, gosh, how does she do that?

That's my thing. I'm good at that. And she's better than I am at. She's so good about checking in. And I always think, man, I'm so blown away by the amount of relationships that she manages, all the things she does in her life and still has the time to do that. But values what we're talking about, right? Sean, one of the things I find really fascinating that's really been something that

we've only really been talking about for the last 10 years, but probably mostly for last five years, is how are genes expressed themselves or epigenetics? You know, there was this belief in the past, you had your genes and that was it. But now we're finding, we know that behavior, lifestyle, thoughts, relationships, changes. How they, you're not set. They're not set in stone. So you may have a predisposition for anxiety or for heart disease or for other things. and what you do, how you think will change how they express themselves.

What are some of the things that you've learned in some of your interviews and in your study about epigenetics and just how plastic they seem to be? Yeah. So this was, it's getting closer 20 years ago now when I was first exposed to Dr. Bruce Lipton's work. He's cell biologist. He's really, most people would attribute him to being like the father of epigenetic. in communication to popular culture and, you know, modern medicine and science. And so, again, just the blessing of doing this work in the show,

I got to have multiple conversations with him over the years. And, you know, he told me from the very beginning, you know, I get, you know, when I went to school, when I was in my expensive university, we were really in the age of genes caused diseases. Right. Right. And the truth is, again, there's, again, there's more. multiple published peer-viewed studies on this top scientific journals affirming that less than

1% of all diseases are directly caused by defective disease. Isn't that wild? Right. And so keeping that in mind, then what happens? How do we manifest these diseases? And so this is looking towards the new frontier of epigenetics. And I struggled and I was about, I didn't want to say new because it's not new. It's just new that we know about it.

That's right. You know, and gene expression. So we have this conglomeration of genes that make us up. But there are hundreds or even thousands of possible expressions of what a gene can look like or the proteins that can be printed out of you. All right. The genes are blueprints to print out materials that make you up. And it's going to be depended most by the environment.

and Dr. Lipton continued to correct me and like, it's not just the tangible environment that you're thinking about, it's the environment of your mind. It is the number one thing. Yep. Because your perception of the environment affects your body more than the environment itself. All right. And so what I mean by that also,

our thoughts create chemistry in our bodies instantaneously. Every single thought that we have changes our chemistry. We produce different hormones and neurotransmitters. instantaneously. All of our trillions of cells are immediately changed just based on our thoughts. That is so powerful. But what are you thinking? What are you thinking right now? What are you chronically thinking? What is your habitual thoughts? And are these thoughts of fear and stress and worry and doubt? Lack? Or are they thoughts of affirmation and joy and love and peace? And we get to choose. But in our society today, we're so distracted, we forget that we have a choice. And we often just

become victims to our environment or our circumstances. And so that's just kind of setting the table. And so what I want to share today are some of the things because our gene expression is really, if we're breaking it down to this foundational level, that's how we're experiencing this process of aging is through what our genes are doing. Because we know that we can have a genetic expression that can change and make us essentially like a younger version of ourselves. And specifically, so let's just go,

let's go through some of these. So this just came out this summer, all right. And this was conducted by researchers at Harvard, publishing the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. And they were looking at rate of aging and using all these different biological markers, including monitoring their telomere length. And I'm sure you guys have talked about telomeres

many times over the years. So these are the in caps on our chromosomes. And so as we have each cell division, a little bit gets clipped off. That's associated with biological age. And one of the strongest markers we have. And so these researchers were looking at vitamin D3, omega-3s, and placebo to find out, do any of these common supplements slow a rate of aging? All right.

This was a four-year study. All right. And they tracked all the, again, all these different biological. markers. And after compiling the data at the end of this four-year study period, the individuals who were taking the vitamin D3 aged about three years less in that four-year study than people who are not, who were taking the placebo or even the omega-3s. The omega-3s didn't really make a difference when it came to biological aging. And so this is, it was 2000 IUs international units a day. It's like 40 cents a day.

There's nothing. Incredible. Again, for your study, the people taking the vitamin D3 only aged essentially one year, biologically. And also, let's take a step back, actually, because we subconsciously think that the calendar is toxic. We think the calendar is deadly. The calendar is killing us. We have associations with the calendar and certain markers of aging. But the truth is, and this is based on the widest body of study.

that we have, there is a, there's a variance, there's a statistical variance in biological aging versus, so we've got the calendar, right? We've got chronological aging and we've got phenotypic or biological aging. So this is what your cells are doing, cognitive function, the health of your organs, immune system, all that stuff, right? And so the calendar is correlated with aging, but it does not cause aging. All right. There's a statistical, Statistical variance of five years on average, older or younger for what your calendar year is for the average person.

Half a decade. Right? Statistical variance, five years older or younger, but then there are outliers who are 10 or 20 years older than their biological age or 10 or 20 years younger than their biological age. That's exciting. Yeah.

And recently I did all this stuff, whatever. I was almost eight years younger than my chronological age. Through what you were doing? Oh, you got tested. I did the whole, you know, gamut of blood tests and whatnot. And again, this is just, we're still figuring this stuff out. But, you know, keeping that in mind, the calendar is not toxic, all right? And so there are the, but how are certain people aging younger or aging slower than other people?

Vitamin D3 is one of these powerful markers. Where does it naturally come from? Having some time in the fucking sun. That's what that points. To me, that stuff like that research that I just, just how important getting outside in the sun is more than anything else. I think it's less of magic from the sun, although it's magical, and more a result of the deficiency of sunlight that we all just are chronically under because...

Well, yeah, that's why the supplementation can make such an impact is because we're so deficient that makes a huge difference. You got it. So, but the study, if you just read out of face value, it's like, I need to take vitamin D3, right? And that can absolutely be helpful. Absolutely. 2,000 I use a day, all right. But what is the core problem here?

Yep. Right? 60% of our population in the United States is deficient in vitamin D. 60%. And for some demographics, it's far more. Yeah. Like African American, 80%. Yep.

Hispanic, 70. All right. Why is that? Got a little more melanin. Yeah. All right. So a little bit less absorption. of that, as you said,

the magical interaction with the sun's rays in our biology, right? And so people with more melanin need even more time in the sun, right? But we've had all this marketing. And of course, I'm not saying to go from spending a year,

nine to five, and just in your car and then going to the beach, right, for your vacation. Yeah, yeah. That's a way to get sunburned and fuck yourself up. That's stupid.

But to have a lifestyle where you're not getting sun exposure because of all of this silliness because of our lifestyle yes in a busyness but also because of the messages around the sun is trying to kill you right and so it's being smart and having we don't have life here on this planet without that flaming ball we don't you know and so just a real quick caveat sidebar the sun's rays hits us like we have photoreceptors on our skin that picks up light and it sends data to all of ourselves it's critical for setting our circadian rhythm with I'm going to get to next.

And beyond that, this vitamin D production, it interacts with cholesterol in our system as well. But then there are all these processes. It's got to associate with your liver. It's got to associate with your kidneys. Like if you have poor function of all these other organs, like you may not even have good conversion of vitamin D. That could be another place for supplementation.

But this is why, and here's the takeaway for everybody with this one. This is just, we'll just say tip number one, vitamin D supplementation. 2000 I use a day. It has to be vitamin D3. When I was in college, we were not taught that. It didn't matter

what was in my centrum vitamin. So vitamin D3, because that has been, that is more of an end product for our bodies to use it. If you have poor liver function or kidney function, whatever the case might be,

it's more usable by our body. Number two, you need to take it with vitamin K2 so that because it's going to associate with calcium as well, we want to make sure that stuff is ending up in the right place. All right, we don't want calcium to end up in your arteries. It's vitamin K2 and D3 together. Again, 2,000 IUs a day.

And then the last tip within this, I mean, we can keep going, but it would be to get some sunlight, to get some sun exposure, make it a mandate, make it a habit, and help to kind of build up that resilience. Because the sun is just like, I haven't seen you in a while. Fuck you. You know? So it's just like having that association where we're getting some sun exposure because your body needs it.

I mean, to tie it all together, the stuff that we've been talking about, maybe the healthiest thing you could possibly do for yourself is take a 30-minute walk with someone you love out in the sun. I mean, we talk about relationships being so powerful. And I know that a lot of our podcast is dedicated to nutrition and at strength training and all the things that are related to that. But this is why I think as my training career has evolved, a lot of times that's what my initial tips to someone getting started looks like is like hey before I write you this extensive workout program and this crazy diet with all the macros bounce like get outside and go walk with your spouse for 30 minutes to an hour out in the

sun like every day and that right there will make such an impact on 90% of people's lives just doing that long time just to back you up like if you took somebody if I took somebody as a as a fitness professional who never exercised and I take him in the gym and I just beat the crap out of them. You know what you're going to see? Damage. Over stress.

Harm. That's what's going to happen if I take somebody who doesn't work out and I'm like, we're going to do a hardcore workout. And the data would show, if that's what we studied, don't do this.

You guys, exercise is terrible for you. Oh my God, look at these studies on people who never exercise and then suddenly go spend a day at the gym. This is terrible. It's causing cancer. inflammation, injuries, heart disease. This is not good.

This is what we're looking at when we're looking at people who are getting sunburn. Is that their bodies aren't able to, they haven't been around it. They haven't been outside. They can't adapt to going outside to the park for two hours because otherwise they're indoors all day long. And so what you see are cancer rates going up. You see damage. You see sunburn.

So this is where the messaging got all messed up, the result of which, hey, here's what you do. If you do go out in the sun, let's just cover you in these chemicals. Let's put all these xenoestrogens on your mind. Let's talk about that for a second, Sean. Because that's controversial, and I know you don't mind going that direction.

Let's talk about the sunscreens that people have used historically to protect themselves from the dangerous sun. And what have you learned about the effects of the sunscreens themselves? Yeah. So it's not different. to find at this point, you know, the benzene, and as you mentioned, you know, you've got these

parabins and thylates and, you know, but here's the thing, even with all the newly invented chemicals that we are slathering on our bodies to protect us, but we're doing this, we're doing this with, with hope and trust, okay? What we need to ask is, is it working? Have rates of skin cancer gone down? You know? No! They've gone up since we've been using sunscreen. All right? It's not working. It's not working.

And so we're doing something that contributes to poor health. You know, it's carcinogens, all these different carcinogens. But that's where I'm a big fan of results. Like if it's working, I'm for it. Like all the give me all of it. Right. But it's just not working. And so it's just a silly, it's a very silly thing.

But there are ways to protect your skin. You know, obviously again, clothing, wear a hat, there's zinc. Slowly get a tan. Slowly build. That's the ultimate. Slowly build up.

Exposure to the sun. Your body knows how to handle the sun because your genes evolved. And that was my whole point with starting it off with the vitamin D3 thing is we've got, I mean, thousands of studies on vitamin D now in all these different areas

of health that it's impacting, whether this is improving sexual function, cardiovascular health, cognitive function, immune system function. But at the heart, we've got really great data on all of the epigenetic influence it has. Thousands of your genes are instantly influenced when your body's producing and or you're bringing in more vitamin D. Yeah, vitamin D technically could even be referred to as a hormone, the way it acts in the body, which is, you know, pretty remarkable.

Going back to how your perception of your environment affects your genes more than the environment itself, what's interesting to me is when you look at the data on people. with trauma or stress and its correlation to autoimmune disorders and diseases. It's this really strong connection. It's as if hating yourself turns your immune system on against yourself, which makes perfect sense. If you're perceiving something, your body will follow that perception because that's the most accurate thing you could possibly find is your perception of things, not necessarily this objective. It's not like a computer that it measures the environment. It's how you perceive the

environment that changes those things. Yeah. I'm going to go there since we're looking at what can we do to slow down biological aging. It's your mindset. Yeah. And have you guys talked to Dr. Ellen Langer? No. So she's considered to be the mother of mindfulness. You know, she's the first woman to receive tenure and in the Harvard psychology department where she's still teaching today. All of this these studies that are conducted on how our thoughts affect our biology, she started this. Oh, wow. Literally, in 1979 was her first study that she conducted looking at the impact of your

beliefs in your environment and your biology. And so she took eight elderly old men and they retrofit in an environment to be decades younger, right? So the environment that they bring them to has like posters from that time, you know, decades earlier. They only played the music from decades earlier. The newspapers and magazines were more from youthful versions of themselves. It's like a time machine.

It's a time machine. And the results were, I mean, unbelievable. Let me tell you some of these results. This was, I remember this. I never heard of that. I didn't know that. I wonder if she's friends with Arthur Brooks. I can't believe I've never heard of her.

I'm not familiar at all. So after compiling the data, because what they did was they took all of these different biometrics before and after. they took photos before and after. So these individuals, within a week, had improvements in their vision, improvements in their flexibility, dexterity, improvements in their IQ,

and overall cognition, improvements in their gait, improvements in their hearing. In one week? Wow. You don't hear about an elderly man getting their hearing back or having their hearing improved

without some kind of medical intervention. And their faces were visibly younger. Like they had people. to actually like look at before and after pictures. That's hilarious. They looked younger. In a one week? In one week being an environment that said,

hey, I'm my younger version of myself. They changed, okay? And what it really boils down to is what's happening at the level of the genes. And so how do we utilize this? We have to, if we strive to have a more youthful disposition, we have to think younger, right? We tend, as we tend, as we,

we get older to blame things on age, haphazardly, right? You get an injury, right? Maybe you injure your, maybe you injure your Achilles, right? And you blame it all, it's because I'm older. Halliburton just tore his.

Jason Tatum tore his. The difference is they're young and they're just like, I'm just going to rehab and get better. We tend to start chalking things up to these things when people get hurt at all ages. Yes, you can have, you can slow down how quickly

get well. But it doesn't have to be that way. And so we need to be careful about haphazardly blaming things on age. And also, what are the, what are the ingredients that tell your genes that you are younger to keep producing these young? And I'm going to actually share a study in a little bit demonstrating this. But one of the most powerful inputs is something that we just, we do not think about our value enough in its play. Yep. Mm-hmm. Children have a disposition of play. All right. And as we get older, we stop playing. And so having that as like a hallmark in our lives to keep playing, to keep a youthful mindset, a youthful disposition, if we want to, again, kind of mimic these results in this trial. And the same thing with Ellen. When I had the

opportunity to talk with her, she was talking, she plays tennis, you know what I'm saying? She's like, I think she's mid-70s or 80s, whatever. 78. She had, she had a terrible injury, like maybe 10, 15 years ago, like, and the doctor's like, you're not going to be able to play tennis again. She's like, fuck that. You don't know who I am. I'm going to continue to do what I love. And she got better and she healed, you know.

And so countless examples of this, I want to give one more since I'm with you guys. The crazy thing was meeting her. I'd referenced her so many times and also the work of her students. One of her students is Dr. Alia Crum, and she was doing work at Stanford. And it was the milkshake experiment.

All right? And so this is, I love this study. All right. So they blended up a big batch of milkshakes and they were giving them to study participants. We'll just say that the milkshakes were 380 calories. But they labeled them differently. Some of the milkshakes were labeled as when they gave them to participants as high calorie indulgent milkshakes where they put 620 calories on it. Same calories.

All right, but they label it different. And then for some people, they put a label of low. calorie, sensible milkshake, that's only 180 calories, same amount of calories. All right. They compiled the data and they were looking at, and this was a cool thing about it. They're doing blood tests and they're looking at hunger and satiety hormones. So grelin, when the individuals had what they believed to be a more indulgent milkshake that was high calories, they're grelin plummeted.

All right. So they were not hungry potentially for a significant amount of time afterwards because their biology said, I already had a lot. Sure. The people who had what they believed to be the low calorie milkshake, even though it was the same amount of calories for everybody, their guerrellen didn't budge, didn't change. So what does that say for us practically is that they're going to be hungry again shortly thereafter.

They're going to want to eat more because they feel, they believe that what they were consuming wasn't that much. All right. This actually is so cool because it also proves why we don't have a lot of success with like all these low-calorie snacks that have been around forever because you subconsciously eat that little 120-calorie snack go like, oh, I'm hungry again a half hour later. And you end up eating what the 400 or 500 calorie snack would have been just through three of those instead. Yeah. Let alone the value, the actual nutritional value that contains, our belief about it supersedes so much. And this is what

I call, you know, I talked about this in my previous book, Eat Smarter, these epi-caloric controllers. Mm-hmm. Right. Calories is a very sound science. Yes. But even as I say that, it's the least sound measurement that we have. Because, like, we can go right now and measure out 100 yards. It's always 100 yards. Calories are always different. What is on that label for that pack of D's nuts? Yeah.

All right. Shout out to, I think, is it Mr. B. Mr. Bees? Yeah, Mr. Bees has these nuts. It might say 400 calories, but it could be 300. Yeah. It could be 500. it's going to depend, right?

And the same thing with your exercise. Like, oh, you do the math, whatever, I'm going to burn off whatever amount of calories on this treadmill. It's going to be different. You can't, it is so variable in it of itself. Yeah. You know, it's just that, but that's just the foundation of it. But then we have these epi-caloric controllers that determine how your body

responds or interacts to the calories that you consume or the calories that you expend. And so we need to put more attention on those things, not to negate the value of having calorie management, but what's going on with your microbiome, what's going on with the nutrients that you're eating themselves? We know that the macros influence the calories and how your body processes them. We know the power of protein.

Stress in your day. Stress, sleep has a huge impact on how your body processes calories. Huge impact and several other factors. And not to mention, you know, the quality of the food itself, You know, I think I might have shared with you guys the sandwich experiment. I don't remember with you guys? No, I don't know. Do it again.

Let me hear it. Okay. Yeah. All right. So this study was published in food and nutrition research. And the scientists wanted to find out would our bodies respond differently, metabolically, to an ultra-process sandwich versus what they consider to be a whole food sandwich. Same amount of calories, same macros.

But one sandwich was cheddar cheese and whole grain bread. And the other was white bread and cheese product, right? Like craft singles, which we know they can't call it cheese. It's not craft cheese. It's craft singles. They can't legally call it cheese. There's not enough cheese in the cheese. All right.

And so they consume these sandwiches. And of course, they were able to measure how much calories you're expending, right? Because most of our calories are actually coming out through our breathing. All right. Yes, we could sweat it out and all that kind of stuff. but we're just expending calories. That's the primary. And so they strap them to these monitors.

And so they're measuring how much energy is coming out after eating these respective sandwiches. And here's what happened. Again, these sandwiches had the same amount of calories and same macros on paper. But when people ate the ultra-process version of the sandwich, they had a 50% reduction in calorie burn after eating that sandwich than when they ate the whole food sandwich. 50%? 50% reduction.

I don't remember that. I don't remember that. No. No, that's interesting. Again, this is published in food and nutrition research. And now here's the thing. What's going on here? I refer to that as like it's creating a metabolic clock.

Like it's just a complexity. It's difficult for your body to process this stuff. And so you end up retaining more of it. But let me be clear. If people read further into it, you could assume like, this is kind of a temporary thing. Your body will sort things out over time. But what if you do that every day?

Yeah. Day after day after meal after meal. Guess what? You have a severely deranged and clogged metabolism where your body is just having a hard time processing all this fake shit. Yeah. Yeah, it's to try to separate food into its chemical makeup, calories, macros, nutrients,

which are all important. But just to make it just that, completely flies in the face of, human behavior, culture, history. I mean, we eat, how many people eat food based off of its just pure nutrient? Like, this is what I, it's, it's never that. It's always, I'm hanging out with somebody, or I'm watching this movie, or it's breakfast, lunch, dinner. Or it's a wedding, or I'm sad.

Food, it means so much more to us. So I always thought it was silly. In fact, good coaches know this. Good personal trainers and coaches. coach behaviors and not macros and calories and have far more success over that long term than people that just are like, here's your macros, you know, follow this, that, and the other.

And let's see what happens. Precisely. I totally agree. You know, again, we have a tendency, you know, I get it. We like to simplify things, but we tend to oversimplify things. Of course. You know, and something is so complex. Like, I was just thinking about, I mean, he showed me the Megalodon tooth.

Yeah. Cool, huh? Right? Like, this, we don't know what's going on. We have no clue. We're just here trying to figure it out and maybe, you know, enjoy the process a little bit here and there. Like, this is all just really great mystery.

We know a time, we know like a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent about what's going on. Yeah. And that's awesome. Now, part of that discovery is understanding the genes, right? And so what I wanted to share with you guys earlier, just like a very specific testament to this.

So this was published. First of all, let me tell you the title of study. Resistance exercise reverses aging in human skeletal muscle. This is published in PLOS 1. Now I'm going to talk specifically about gene expression. The researchers took 25 healthy elderly people with an average age of like 68

and 26 young adults. They had an average age of around 24. and collected their genetic data. What I loved about this, too, they also took muscle biopsies from the participants, which is not fun. The elderly participants were put onto a structured full body strength training program for 26 weeks,

and the researchers had them to just do two full body strength training sessions each week, progressively increasing the amount of weight that they lifted as they got stronger. What you guys do. Now, this is where it gets interesting. They tracked nearly 600 of their genes from the young people and the older people.

The young people didn't do anything different in their lifestyle. The older people started strength training. So the control group, young people. Yeah. And so 600 genes related to aging showed significant differences between the young people and the old people.

The old people's genes expression just was like all associated with stuff that we attribute to older people and being stuff that's kind of getting messed up or messed up. Now, here's what happened. at the end of the study, again, this was a 26-week strength training program for the older people, nearly 200 of their genes in these older people showed remarkable change in their expression, now mirroring the younger people.

All right? 200 of those genes, almost 200, of their genes were now looking as if they were younger, decades younger. So you couldn't even tell between the 200 and the other, these are the same age. So we're saying, we're not even saying slowing down the, the aging process. We're saying potentially reversing it through strength training. How profound is that? So profound.

Yeah. Yeah, I always refer to, well, exercise in general, if you had to label anything a fountain of youth, which there's so many things that could contribute to this, but exercise in general. And then more specifically, I would say, strength training, just because if it's, it directly combats all the physical things that we could, that we would normally attribute to aging, you know, frailty, mobility, strength. insulin sensitivity, you know, all the things that we would normally say would decline as you get older, that form of exercise directly combat.

So it's not a surprise to me that you would see on a test reversal of age with genes because that's what's happening. Absolutely. You're going backwards with that stuff. When we're talking about mindset, at this point, I don't think it's woo-woo. I think at this point, people will hear it and go, yeah, you know, I've seen studies. it makes sense. The challenge, though, is how do you change the mindset, right? So it's like, okay, well, I just think like a kid.

Like, what does that look like? One of the things I like to point to is the data on stress. So if you look at studies on stress, chronic stress, you have studies where they say, okay, let's list all the areas of stress in your life and then let's take them out of your life and let's see what happens. And then we have other studies where they take people who have list all the things in stress and they say, we're not going to take anything out. we're just going to now try to work on assigning meaning and purpose to the stress.

And the meaning and purpose side crushes. Crushes the take things out of my life that are stressful type of things. And for me, that makes perfect sense because objectively, if you live in a modern society, objective, there's always situations, but objectively speaking, we have far less objective hardcore stress than people a hundred years ago. Like this is just

it's just a fact. They've got to deal with Megalodon. Yeah. Or even 100 of you like, you know, Great depressions and world wars and just, you know,

your kid got, you know, bronchitis and they might die, you know. Yet, we're more stressed. So I don't necessarily, and a lot of times we have all the stress in our life.

I think it's less of that and more of we have no meaning and purpose behind the stuff that we're doing. How do you feel about some of that? Yeah. Oh, man. This reminds me of my conversation with health psychologist, Kelly McGonigal.

And this was the first thing that I ever shared that went crazy viral. It was like 100 million views on social media. And it was just a little snippet from our conversation. And what she was talking about, in the clip she was talking about how exercise, elicits what, you know, is, quote, hope molecules. Yeah, yeah. We, now, of course. I remember this clip.

Myokines and all the other. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But another part of that conversation and what she really got on my radar for, you know, this was about 10 years ago, was her data affirming how you perceive stress makes all the difference in the world. So if somebody is dealing with a stressful situation,

they see it like the stress is just killing me, it's breaking me down, and so be it. But when you can perceive it as this stress, is making me stronger. I have what it takes to make it through this. This two shall pass. Just having a more affirmative mindset in the face of stress. Again, the mindset piece, people were in fact more resilient, had a healthier gene expression, had healthier biology, because they chose to see the stress differently. Now, I say chose very loosely because most of the time we're unconscious that we do this. Some people we think just seem to have this temperament where I just see things like that, right? But you

can learn to do that. And you can also unlearn it in a way or be beaten into a situation where you change. And you're like, well, you know, it is taking me down. And any of us this can happen to, this is the power of remembering. Right. And this is why shows like this is so important. This isn't just your learning stuff. You know, some stuff you might even know.

It's to remember. It's those constant reminders from people that you know and trust to remember how powerful you are to affect change, to determine how you think, to choose your own thoughts, instead of being told what to think, and to be programmed that I can't. I'm disempowered. There's all this stuff going on in the world. And you just said it to, you know, our stress is different today. Like most of, especially if you're listening to this, you got a phone.

You got a phone. Like, we've got so much access and opportunity. and we don't have to worry about even it. I don't know if you guys saw this data, but the obesity epidemic is on par, like even in the homeless population, is on par with the general population. You don't even have to have a home.

Yeah. And you can be big as you want to be. We have access to food and calories. Again, I'm not saying that it's healthy. So many of our needs are being met, but it's the psychological need. of meaning and purpose, right? We need that.

We absolutely need that as human beings. And if I was not particularly prepared, but I have multiple studies affirming how purpose, a sense of purpose contributes to longevity and slowing down the rate of aging. We, many people know like superficially the legend of people retiring and then they begin the process of degradation and dying quickly thereafter.

Clear data all that. Right? And so even if you retire, quote, retire from a career, you've got to be proactive at investing yourself in something that gives you meaning and purpose. And this is why these long-lived cultures, this is yet another reason, why these long-lived cultures with all these centarians,

it's not against, the food is one thing. Yes, relationships, community, but it's meaning and purpose. The elders still have jobs to do. They still have important roles in the community, in the family structure. And we today, more than ever, we have to proactively find that for ourselves

because we're so fractured. We're so fractured in our relationships. And we don't have a lack of access to it, but we do have a lack of awareness. What I see, and that's, by the way, spot on, you look at these old cultures, and you compare to, like, our culture, where youth is valued and wisdom is not,

You know, getting old here is, ugh, you know, you go to Okinawa, you go to Sardinia. And people who are older are, you want their wisdom, you want their, you know, Arthur Brooks wrote this great book on this. And you mentioned how when people retire, their health suddenly declines. But there is a subset of that group where they're actually, they flourish. And he looked into this and said, what's the difference? Well, the difference was that the people who flourished went from doing to teaching. So now they're done with their work.

but then they started mentoring and teaching and volunteering and they just continue to flourish. Whereas the other group was like done with work. It's like, okay, now I'm just going to go sit on a beach or whatever, relax, watch TV. And their health took a terrible dive because of that lack of purpose. And with this, there's a few places that I can see where this is an issue. We're talking about relationships in particular. We know how bad processed foods are. Okay.

So I think now this is not even controversial to say that heavily processed foods. generally not good for you in pretty much any way. Okay, about the only value of processed foods is their long shelf life. So I could see how there might be some positive applications there. Otherwise, it's just bad for you. What we've done with relationships is we've made them processed is what we've done. Same thing we did to food. So we've taken real relationships where I walk out my house, talk to my neighbor,

knock on someone's door, someone comes to my house. We're hanging out. You've got to do the weird, awkward thing. and they're coming over, the house is clearly, whatever. So that little bit of work, but now it's face-to-face. And we've just processed it. So it's like, yeah, I'm talking to people. I'm on social media.

I have 100 Facebook friends. Yeah, I'm texting, you know, which, you know, processed food gives you calories. You're not going to starve. Process relationships is not like just being in a room, not talking to anybody, but it's not real relationships. And it's just as bad for you as processed food. And we've processed a lot of things.

And relationships, in my opinion, is one of the worst ones. so well said yeah so i want to uh is it okay i'd like to take a left i don't know if unless you because i know i know we were going to talk about uh anti-aging and stuff like that but i uh i personally or selfishly wanted to get into like fatherhood stuff with you i just uh it's obviously i'm of all of us on the the the newest or youngest father my son's only six and anytime i get to talk to somebody like you who's had the success you've had had the came up from what you came and then raised multiple children and that all at a wide range of age now.

I just love to hear the wisdom and experience of that. And so to kick you off, I want you to take me through each kid and what that kid taught you about yourself or that you learn from raising that kid. So take me through each kid and the first thing that comes in mind of what that kid taught you about yourself

or raising them. Yeah. This is pretty, unique because I've been a father most of my life. I became a father at 16 and my daughter is almost 30. And so most of my, you know, memories are of being a dad. And it was kind of expected in my environment again. Like my mom had me at 18 and, you know, many of my friends, this thing, environment was my mom didn't even make a big deal out of it. I would lose my shit if, you know, like any parent would, having a kid, you know, like when you're a teen. And, you know, it's is a very difficult circumstance, obviously being a kid.

And the crazy thing was when my daughter was born, I was student advisor. I was in a program called Enroads, you know, being able to take college classes at St. Louis University. I was what was called, it was the teenage health consultant program where I go to the classrooms and talk about health, which I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about. But I was a scholar athlete,

3.8 GPA, all the things, man. And the thing was, I don't even feel like I was trying, right? I had all of these aspirations and all of this opportunity in front of me, and I was getting bust out to the, quote, good schools from the inner city in the DSEG program.

And just with the weight on my shoulders, of not being able to have my daughter under my roof because I lived at home, right? I ended up getting into a fight in high school and end up getting kicked out for a year, my junior year. And it was just I was carrying all this anguish and anger because in my environment also I was taught to solve our problems with violence, right?

And so I was fighting a lot coming up, but I kind of like settled in in high school knowing, because I got suspended a couple of times in middle school, like, I can get kicked out of school. So I chilled. And I'm saying all that to say that during that time, I became like a full-time adult because while I was kicked out of school, I was taking care of my daughter and going to work. I was working at the St. Louis Stadium at the time, which was a dope job, by the way. And when I was there, Wayne Greske got traded for a brief moment to our team. We had Brett Hall, Wayne Greske.

It was crazy. It was the lecture. but I was like now living this adult life and I felt the full weight of like being responsible for this human being and I embraced it and that's one of the things that for many people and it is for us for people like us for guys like us where we are in our lives we want to be a dad right for many people they are not aware that you have to choose it you have to choose it for Like where you guys are at now, it's just like, it's automatic. Like, I'm a fucking dad.

But for many people, they don't realize, like, you have to commit to being there for that person and raising that person. And so through that process, man, having a little girl is the best, you know. And I was her first love. You know, we did a ton of daddy daughter stuff. But I didn't know how to be a good dad. I was just doing what I think would be. be ideal things for a kid to be exposed to. So, like, I take her to the ice capades

and I take her to six flags. And, you know, every time I pick her up, it's date time. Like, we're going to Chuck E. Cheese. We were at Chuck E. Cheese so fucking much. And she always had her songs that she wants to hear on the radio, you know, and just like, and to this day, she sends me, like, if these songs, like, come on,

like, these are our songs, you know? And so what I learned then is how we parent unconsciously based on what we were exposed to, right? I had these, I did have the experience of being around my grandmother who taught me the value of education and stuff like that and love and all those different things, making magical moments. So that's where I was kind of expressing those things.

But most of my life I live with my mother and my stepfather in this very violent environment, very impatient. My mom, as, you know, as much as she's grown today, like she barely said something once before she's yelling at you and just calling people out their names, you know, the things she would say, especially like to my little sister, my little brother, it's tough. And so I was impatient with my daughter. I would sit there. I knew that her key to making it out of the hood that we lived in was through education. And so when she was in kindergarten, I was getting these workbooks. We're doing second grade work, first grade, second grade,

and I'd be impatient with her. But she ended up. She ended up. up graduating with honors, you know, being the Vali Victorian or whatever, even in middle school, she was like the person who got the stood up and talked to the class. So that stuff worked, but I was so impatient. And thank you for asking this, by the way. And so my son, my oldest son was born. Before you get to him, I want to point out something else that you said that I think is so powerful and important is that you said that you chose to be a father. And something that I didn't know growing up that I learned later on in life is that love is not a feeling. It's a choice. And so I'd make the case, too, that she taught you how to love too. And I think that a lot of

people think that, oh, this feeling's going to happen or I just become a parent and you're just going to, you're going to love it or you're going to love this person. You're going to marry. It's like, you have to make that choice because it's an actual action. It's not a feeling that a lot of people tend to wait for. And I think all the Disney movies that we watch, we think that you're going to have this overwhelming feeling or someone's going to sweep you off your feet. But no, it's a choice that you have to actively choose to do that you do every day. And hearing that, that's what I hear too, is that she taught you how to love too. Yeah. You said it. You're so right, man. And she also guided my choices, too. So like, I could have, I got accepted to go to some schools out of

state, you know, out of town. But I stayed, you know, I stayed close by so I could see her and be there with her. So again, like, looking back on it, I'm able to see how committed I was to her, you know, and to being her dad. And so my son was born when I just passed my 21st birthday. And this is when I was a big mess, you know, living in Ferguson, so-called incurable spinal condition. You know, I've got my picture of holding him at the hospital, I've got an Isaac Bruce jersey on, the St. Louis Rams. And, but I was like, I was really, I was like, I was like, I was like, overweight man you know like you could see me just like I did not look like I looked today and you know but that's when when he was born that's when everything kind of kicked in of like I'm throwing my life

away by relenting to not get well when I and I start to have these fears of like not being able to throw the ball around with him like I was in so much pain man it was a mess and teach him how to be a good man to be strong and prior to getting that diagnosis I was very much like, I don't give a fuck what you say I'm going to figure it out type, but it was basically a permission slip once I get that diagnosis to not fight because I was constantly fighting my whole life, you know? And obviously, long story short with that, obviously I reversed the condition and got me into this field, but he was the inspiration for that. Like, he was my inspiration to be the man that I had aspired to be. And I started to garner more patience with

him, still, you know, impatient with my daughter. Because again, it's kind of, Kind of like a relationship, a template, but you're unconscious. And, but now I got my two kids, and, like, we spend a lot of time together and just doing stuff as a family now. And, you know, with my son, yeah, I mean, just having a boy, you know, it's just different. Like, my little girl is, like, my little girl. And then having a son, like, you're trying to find that balance of, like, how do you make sure that he's strong and tough, but also, like, a kid and joyful and fun.

And I think I did a pretty good job with him. And his brother's back there, and he'll tell you, like, he's just a very strong kid, like physically strong. Like, you could see it. Yeah. And, but he's also very goofy and fun, right? And I instilled, like, I unintentionally instilled that because of my temperament with him, right? And so, but it was with him, you know, my daughter was eight and my son was three when I met my,

my now wife who I've been with for 21 years. And when she tells the story, like, I didn't really realize, but when I first met her, like, I'm just like, I have two kids and, like, they're going to be with me. Like, if you, you can't, you know what I'm saying? If you can't accept that, you know what I'm saying? We can't really, I can't really mess with you, you know? And in her head, she was like, well, I'm not going to mess with you then.

And so, like, she talked to her cousin who had a kid. She was like, what if somebody said that to me, that they weren't going to date. me because I had a kid. Wouldn't you defend me? Like, what would you be upset? She was like, yeah, you're right. And so she ended up, you know, rock her with me, which I didn't know this till literally a few years ago.

Oh, wow. In her head, she was like, fuck that. But, you know, so it was just like, again, my kids are with me. We're doing stuff together. And, you know, it was an incredible learning process for her because she's, I was 24. She was 22. And now it's just like she got these two kids. She's like picking up.

and taking places and all this stuff too. So, and I didn't fully understand it then of what she became or was kind of forced to become because she chose to be with me. And I'm so grateful for that that she did. And I didn't fuck it up either. But, you know, when my youngest son was born, and I'm saying all this to set this thing up, which is he'll tell you, I am infinitely patient. Like, I'm the most patient person that.

You're a black belt now. You know what I'm saying? You had to go 15, 20 years under your belt by the time he'd come around, you know? Unless we're playing 2K on PlayStation, I'm just like, I'm very patient, you know, like, I don't really get upset like that, you know, whereas it's light years difference. Yeah, how old are you when you have him? How old? I'm 31. 31, okay.

Yeah. Right. So this is, yeah. And now I'm very intentional and conscious of what I'm doing now. Are you, tell me, because I don't remember where you're at in your career. financially at this point, are you well established by 31? Are you still climbing right now, like financially and where are you at? Oh, man, I got a quick super thing story to tell you with that.

So at this point, because when my wife met me, she actually met me in the gym. I was working at the university gym, right? And I was a trainer. And she even said it to him the other day, the story, like she saw me the first time she came into the gym. I didn't know this until a few years ago. She was like, oh, I want him to train me. You know, this girl.

I didn't know, but because I was so locked in and I changed my character prior to meeting her, this is why I had, you know, two kids already. I messed with a lot of girl, a lot, a lot. But part of me getting well was, and I didn't know this, it wasn't just my body, but my mind changed. And I just, I didn't see being, I wasn't congruent. If I wanted to be this healthy person who was being of service to these people, I couldn't be out here like messing with all these girls and like, being honest with myself, like, fucking with their emotions, right?

And so I just like really just turned all that stuff off. And so when she came into the gym, I didn't even notice. Like, I was just like, oh, she's dedicated. Like, I see this girl keep coming. I wasn't like, like, thinking about her like that, you know, which is a good place to be, right? And so, um, obviously, you know, time went on once she was, when she was pregnant with my son, Braden,

at this point so that's what 24 that's like we'll just say seven years that I'm working at health and fitness and at this point I'm a nutritionist I have a clinical practice I'm working with people but I was in this phase of giving more than I had to give in a way right and what I'm saying is that there often was more month left at the end of the money because maybe I was seeing we'll just say four people and that last person that comes in, we have an hour session, and we are incredibly successful at helping people

coming in with chronic conditions. I'm mainly focused on, you know, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, all this stuff. Incredible results. But instead of spending one hour, I'd spend five.

I'm like, you know what? Let's just go to the store. Yeah. And let's, you know, so you're, it's your kids, let's go, I'll stop by and let's talk to your kids.

Right? And so it wasn't scalable what I was doing. I was learning a lot. I was helping a lot of people, but we were struggling, right? Because my time was not being used efficiently. And when she was pregnant with him, maybe six months pregnant, and it was getting cold outside. Maybe it was more than six months. I don't know what, I don't know where she was in the pregnancy, but I know that we had to spend the night in the basement because there was a wood burning stove in our house.

because the gas got cut off. And that was my lowest moment as a dad and as a husband. Yeah. But in that moment, I promised, I made a promise to myself that I would never let that happen again. And I, from there, I mean, it was honestly, within a matter of months, everything just started to skyrocket. And it was just, and you guys know, this is a beautiful thing for everybody to hear and to take away, there are trainers who are multi-millionaires and they're trainers who are struggling to get by.

What's the difference? Is it potential? Is it talent? Is it even experience? It's none of these things. It's just you're doing things in a certain way. You're doing things in a certain way. Sometimes doing things in a certain way takes experience and all these other things.

But all I did was structure my time better. I started to have, instead of just these. one-off things, I started to create packages. Like, I started to be more intelligent with my time and having like specific cutoff times. Little things like this, and it changed everything. Do you remember meeting like

a mentor or maybe your wife at that time? Because obviously that was a moment that obviously the switch hit. I got to fix this. I got to do something different. But then the tools, the skill sets, or the direction, did that come from somewhere else? Yeah. Okay, let me hear.

There was somebody in the office that I had. I shared a building with a massage therapist. And she was some kind of therapist, like some kind of psychologist. Okay. To this day, I don't know really what she does. But she shared some, it was some CDs with me about marketing for people in the health and wellness space. Like, that showed up. But she, I'd known her for probably two years at that point.

and she gave me that disc set and I automobile university like I put in my car and then I listened to when I got home taking notes and yeah so I like had a virtual mentor basically you know but it was from a resource in a relationship right

that was there the whole time but I wasn't ready yet and I didn't ask the right questions you know what I like about the story too is that you the root and passion of wanting to help people was there

the rest of it came afterwards. But that was the key because once you applied the systems, then you're just going to do great. You're just going to do great. So that's what I like about that, because there are a lot of trainers and coaches that listen to our podcast. And we always communicate. I mean, you've got to know the systems. You've got to know how to put your business together. Very important. But if the root is wrong, this is not the field for you. Say that, man. Say it. Say it. I mean, and just to put the icing on the cake with my youngest son and just what I've learned and experienced, You know, like I said, I had to mourn not having a little kid anymore because I constantly had a baby in my arms.

Like once my oldest son got to be, you know, he was like he was 11 when he was born. It was like their birthdays is September 2nd, my youngest, and then September 5th. So it was three days before his birthday, my oldest son. He welcomed his baby brother. And he was kind of still like, you know, had his kind of little toys or whatever, but he was changing, you know. And so I experienced that through the lens of I got a baby in my arms and like, okay, I'm just coaching my older kids. Like, just do this. Like, I'm seeing them grow.

Yeah. And I'm, I don't have time to feel the feelings about I'm never going to hold my little girl again, like a baby, you know. Oh, man. Oh, man. So, you know, with my youngest son, I really was more present to. the moments, like of those small things of like picking him up and putting him in the car seat and taking him to school and picking him up and just, I'm more present and savoring the moments and appreciating the process, right? Whereas, you know, previously as more as just

busyness. And there's also, it comes with the phase of life and the growth phase and all the, changes that come with that. But one thing I'll tell you this, let me tell you this, everybody listening who has kids one of the most important things if you if at all possible is and I'm just going to say it raising your kids under your roof as a man it is so difficult to raise your children when they're not under your roof

and it is obviously it's possible it's just so much more difficult keep tabs on your kids like do your best to keep your kids keep your family together, keep your kids under your household. When you have two different households, it's two different cultures. Yep. You know, and I've done all that.

I've done the drop-offs and the pickups and the, it's, I hate to see that. Even if I watch a movie right now, like, it fucks me up, man, seeing somebody dropping their kid off. Like, it really, because I know what that feels like. Yeah. And it was a miracle for my oldest son to when he was 12, like a year later, he grew up in a household. All he knows is having his big brother in the house. Yeah. It's so important.

It's do whatever you can to keep your kids under your roof. It is so important, especially today. And also be proactive at, this isn't about work-life balance. It's work-life integration. And so what you guys do, our kids can be. You see my son is right here with me. Expose your kids. kids to these things, you know, sometimes even with fitness, like your kids can see you, like,

oh, mom goes off to this place where she comes back sweaty and happier. Like, what is that? You know, like, where is this mystical gym? Like, expose your kids to the things that you want them to have as a part of their lives. All my son knows the life of health and fitness and connectivity. Yeah. Right. And so even though it was expensive, I, you know there was a time when I would leave and for like maybe two weeks and I'm like going to all this media all over the country and like doing book signings and like whatever and I come back and it's just like I miss two weeks with him he's like he looks older yeah right and I'm coming back he liked it because I come back with the Lego sets right but at some point I'm just like I can't do this anymore

and I'm not going to I'm not going to leave unless I'm taking my family and so I bake that into, instead of like buying fancy, whatever, I would invest in travel. I would invest in being able to have my family together for these experiences, right? So this kid has been going to events with me. The last time he was in San Francisco was an event that I did together. We went on, we were on tour, me and Eric Thomas, E.T. The hip-hop preacher. And we were here in San Francisco. And he was probably like seven at the time. So he doesn't remember exactly. But, you know, like, I'm paying to have him there. And I remember after that one in particular,

because afterwards I saw his notes he wrote. He was writing notes of everybody's talks, you know, E.T. and myself and, you know, the other speakers. That's so good. And I was just like, it's priceless. So do your best to expose your kids. Don't, I mean, it's not, of course, like sometimes we just want to get away,

want to do our thing. And, you know, kids can't be around sometimes. but be more intentional about integrating. And so one of the things I did, my oldest son who's about that life with his fitness, as soon as he was old enough to come to Golds with me, it was either 12 or 13. He's been there.

Banging and clanging. Like, that's all he's known, you know. And every Saturday, we would all go to the track together. Right. And so, like, just finding ways to integrate, even if you're experiencing where you have kids in different households, for example,

like finding those ways to integrate things with higher leverage because doing stuff together with fitness, families that train together remain together. Believe that. Believe that. You know, you were talking about just your level of patience as you went down, you know, from your first, your second to your third.

So true. In fact, I was having this conversation on my siblings. We actually, we have this big family group thread. And my brother sends this hilarious meme. And it's like, you know, when, you know, when I would act up how my mom would react and then how her grand, how she reacts when her grandkids. And it's like totally different. Right. Like my mom, her patience level.

It's like, I see my parents now. My kids are just like, oh, you know, no, no, no, no never get mad or something. I'm like, man, they are not the same. Yep. Yep. Because when I was a kid, like my mom had that wooden spoon issue. Yeah. It's so different.

And to a young man listening right now, you might think, well, this, I guess this is just going to happen through having a lot of kids. and I'm going to be less than paid. And yeah, you could do it that way. But historically, cultures, young men had mentors. And I think it's so important for men. And this is again, back to relationships. Like, I think, because I have four kids and I have two older and two younger from different, you know, I was married, my first marriage and my second marriage.

And I am way different as a father with my younger ones than I was with my older ones when they were little, you know, had I really had a mentor that I respected, that I went to for these things and said, hey, man, I'm going to have kids. You've already had kids and taken their advice. I think it would have helped. Absolutely. I think it would help rather than going through it and then be like, oh, man, I could have been more patient.

Yeah. You know, because the same experience as you. How, you know, with the gaps all the way from teenage, all the way up to 30s, what have you seen like culturally, like the challenges? I think it's so interesting. Like I know he grew up in the iPhone generation, right? Probably, you know, everybody probably has one at school. So like that where your 30-year-old, no one probably had this.

She probably just barely got theirs, you know, 10 years ago or whatever. So what has that been like with how different the culture is today, raising them? Have you found that you've had to mold as a father? Do you find yourself having to talk about something you really didn't have to talk about before? What's that been like? Yeah, this experience is way different with my youngest. because it's the first time that somebody's acting like I'm not cool, right? Because, you know, with my daughter, like, you know, she would see it.

Just like her teachers are trying to hit on me. Yeah. I'm picking her up and all her little friends like me, you know. And the same thing, my oldest son, like, where our cultures are so close because I was 21. So when he is in high school, like... You were still hip to that generation. Yeah, exactly. Like, we listened to the same stuff, you know.

You're a boomer to this generation. Right. And I remember, you know, like he started to act a little bit like I'm not cool, a little bit. But then like his friends were like following me on social media or whatever. And they're like, dude, your dad was with, you know, I don't know, whoever, whoever they were following. He's like, yo, your dad is, you know. And so it's just like, he was like, yeah, you're right. He all right.

He all right. And so, but, you know, seeing that transition with the, you know, with the technology for sure. I mean, you know, my kids, both of my kids were in it, my older two kids. But for him, now I know. And so, like, we were the last, he knows this to get, like, an iPhone and, you know, into middle school. And also we have family culture around it, right? And so no social, the social media piece, right? That's incredibly dangerous.

And we know this. Like, there's too many studies already that are citing on this stuff. And the fact that there's kids in elementary. school getting phones. That's crazy. All right. Six years old, six year old kids, six year old kids with phones is crazy. But again, if we don't know, we don't know. And parents are not trying to hurt their kids. It's just like it seems so, it's insidious. Yeah. It's culturally accepted. So everybody thinks it's the norm. Yeah. You just here, put the kid in front of a screen.

Right. And so, yeah, just having a culture of a healthier relationship with the devices. This is a problem for all of us. We know it. You know, picking on my phone for those that don't see the video, but, you know, and so one of the things that we observe, like, family dinners, right? We don't bring phones to the table, something very practical. And he'll tell you, like, I'm the main one that I don't even have my phone near me a lot of times, right? So, like, if we're all hanging out in the living room, for example, like, my phone is in the kitchen, you know.

We don't have the phone, especially at bedtime, right? Having kids, having their study just came out, I think last week or last month on, in particular, it was found when kids have their phone at night. Yeah. Right. And it just, it's so obvious. Like if the child has their phone at night, interrupting their sleep. And so what the study was affirming was worse mental health, higher rates of all manner

of, you know, all of that, depression, anxiety and, you know, ideation, right? And so having that phone at night, so he doesn't have the phone in his room at night. It's good. Right. And so just having some basic parameters around it, but also knowing he's going to have his phone, he's going to be talking with his friends. He's going to be watching some, you know, video clips. Like I just showed you his AAU basketball clips, for example. Like he loves that kind of stuff. And so that's great. But it's being mindful, monitoring as well, because you know it. I could just put up a video that we're all watching. Maybe it's a Mr. B's video. But then it's like some dick pill. commercial comes up or whatever, just like, you know, and if he was younger, he's like, what is that? Yeah. You know, what is the blue chew?

Yeah. Whatever I think is blue chew. I don't know. But, you know, it's just like the culture that we exist in is going to be putting stuff in front of our kids. Yeah. And so we've got to educate them about it. Be proactive.

Tell them in advance. That's the key right there. I, you know, I have friends that are going through trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube, right? and take it away. And you can see the resentment from the teenagers and the kids that are just like, what, you've always let me have this. Now I can't.

And there's not a lot of communication. There's not a lot of education to the why. And then I have a cousin who homeschooled their kids. They have teenagers. And they have very strict parameters around the phone, social media, all those things. And I remember talking to her as a teenager like, you know, does that bother you that mom and dad only let you do it for this long or you have this and that? She goes, yeah, I wish I could do it more.

And then I said, when you become a parent one day and you have kids, what will you do? I would do the same thing. So, you know, and that shows me that they, you know, they can admit, yeah, of course I want it more. But then also they've done a good job as parents of informing and educating them why they're doing that. And enough to where she's saying, yeah, when I become a parent, I would enforce the same rules. I think it's why the example, like I said, I have four kids. and my two older ones were, especially my oldest, when he was growing up, this is when it all started becoming popular. I just wasn't aware.

You know, I thought it was like TV. Like when I was a kid, we had TV. So, yeah, it's like TV. It's not like TV. It's very different from TV. With my younger ones, much more, much, much more strict. And even my 15-year-old, it's like much more strict. In fact, she always tells me, my friends get to do all this and that.

I'm like, I don't want you to be like everybody, you know? And I show her the stats. You want to be like this? And she's like, okay. but the example that was given to me, which I thought was perfect, it's like, would you allow,

would you just put a bunch of candy and garbage food around your kids and then say, you choose what you want to eat. You can make those choices. You know what you're going to do. No. They don't have the capacity,

the maturity to be able to make good choices when they're presented with things that are so well engineered. Now at multiply that times 10,000, and that's what you, have with the engineered algorithms. It's the equivalent of processed food engineering itself as you're eating it. That's what the algorithm is doing. As you're using them, they are engineering themselves to be that much more attractive. So if you give that to your kid, your teenage kid even, and you're just like, you know, you educate them. You're just, you're setting them up for failure,

in my strong opinion. So in my opinion on this has changed dramatically as I've been. As I've become more educated on this. So with my youngest ones, it's going to be, I'm going to keep them away from it as long as I possibly can. And again, even my 15-year-old,

she gets five minutes a day on Instagram, five minutes. Let me tell you, we fight over this still all the time. And I'm like, we're going to keep it a five.

Hey, that's good dad shit right there. That's good dad's shit. You know, and he, my son can see the difference with his friends, you know.

That's good. He has that awareness. Yeah. Because there's a very clear difference between these kids that had unfettered access for people to have it. For sure, for sure.

And of course, like kids today, a lot of times they get together and get on their phones together. Sure. Right? Which is so funny to see. And so, but of course, like, they're sharing memes and stuff like that too.

You know, it's a way to interact. And we do the same, you know. But to be able to see the difference when a kid is easily distracted, right, having a difficult time focusing, right? We're programming not just our children, but ourselves, but especially our children, to struggle to pay attention to things.

That's right. We already have this epidemic of ADHD and ADD, but it's not an accident, right? It's not an accident. And, you know, the research is like, you know, maybe we had two to three minutes of, like, attention span. Now it's like, you know, seconds. Seconds. And it's, we're just, our brains are very good at automation.

And it's just, it's just learning. And so unlearning is more difficult, as you just mentioned. So if we can come into this with some, with some intention, with some struggle. with communication, and also being a dad, being a parent, and also having these parameters, and sometimes it seems tough. But- Yeah, it's tough.

Yeah. You're gonna be different from everybody else. That's the point. That's the point. Yeah. If you want to be healthy, spiritually, mentally, physically, you have to live differently than the norm, because the norm is not healthy.

And that's the conversation I constantly have in my 15-year-old, she's like, everybody else. Like, we're not gonna be like everybody else. and I'm sorry, but I love you too much. And so that's the struggle, 100%. Bro, thanks for coming back on. Yeah, yeah. Good time.

Always a good time. Great conversation. Thank you guys so much. Always a great conversation. Great podcast. You're one of the few podcasts in our space that has stood to test the time. We were just talking about this the other day. We've been on air now for 10 years, and we've seen so many health podcasts that, you know,

come up to the top, disappear, whatever. And you're always doing such a great job. And that's the testament to the authenticity and just your ability to communicate and bring out the best in people. So, yeah, good job, man. I appreciate that, guys. Thank you so much. You got it. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

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