REAL AF with Andy Frisella - Shawn Stevenson, Sleep, and Success, with Andy Frisella - MFCEO63

Episode Date: May 3, 2016

From nearly paralyzed to mobilizing the health and happiness ofmillions, Shawn Stevenson is the creator of The Model HealthShow,featured on iTunes as the #1 health podcast in the country,and the author of Sleep Smarter. In this episode, the MFCEO andVaughn the Impaler talk with Shawn about everything from businessand branding to sleep and success.

We gonna let the band deal with this. Ha ha. Mm-hmm. M.I.A. style. Ha. Old school. Uh-huh. Okay.

Shut up. Ha ha. Okay. What's up? Shut up. What's up, guys? You're listening to the MFCEO Project. I'm Andy.

I'm your host. And I am the motherfucking CEO. Guys, if this is your first time listening, realize this is all about taking responsibility, improving your life, getting your life on track, and treating yourself as the entrepreneur and CEO of yourself. So when we talk about being a motherfucking CEO, you don't have to own your own business to do that because you already are in charge of a massive pile of responsibilities called your life. And what we're trying to do here, guys, is get you on track and get you running full

speed ahead in the right direction with an attitude and a swagger and a confidence that you're not going to get other places. And that's the point of this podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Vaughn Kohler, a.k.a. Vaughn the Impaler, the pastor of disaster. What's up, my man? I'm doing my best Seth Godin impersonation. You look like him today.

Yeah, yeah. I thought I was going to get some sort of... Dude, I walked in here and I felt automatically, like, intellectually intimidated by your face. I'm sure, yeah. For those of you who can't see this, which I'm pretty sure it's everybody, I'm wearing glasses. It's awesome. I have these

chicks come up and say, are you Seth Godin? Oh, I bet. It happens two or three times a day. But here's the thing guys. We've got a really cool show today. We get emails and contacts and messages all the time. Hey, I want to start a business. Hey, I want to start a brand. Hey, I want to start a business.

Hey, I want to start a brand. Hey, I want to write a book. Where do I start? And so many people focus in on things that are going to make them money. And that's the equivalent of putting the cart before the horse. Okay. If you're struggling for a business idea or something that you want to do, you need to start looking at the problems. You need to start looking at the problems that surround your life.

A lot of these times they're going to be the problems that you deal with on a daily basis. And I find that all successful entrepreneurs and authors understand that problems are opportunities for success. It's not about, you know, I'm going to start a business to sell shit or I'm going to start a business to make money. Business, and I say this all the time, is about serving others. It's about service first. It's about solving problems. And to solve a problem, you've got to teach yourself how to identify them

up front all the time. We're surrounded by problems. I can't tell you how many times a day, and I know you guys are the same way listening. We look at things and we're like, God, that's fucking annoying. This annoys the shit out of me. You know, why can't this be like that? Those are the opportunities guys. And we're going to tell a really cool story. I've got a really awesome guest today. His name is Sean Stevenson. He's the author of Sleep Smarter, which is a tremendous book. I haven't read it yet, but I have heard from literally dozens and

dozens of people that I had greatly respect that this is a tremendous book and it's the pinnacle of the category that he's written in. So I want to welcome Sean. Welcome, brother. Hey, thanks so much for having me, man. Yeah, man. We're excited to hear about this. So my first question is for you on the Sleep Smarter. Yeah. Why sleep? Yeah, yeah. It seems like a very unsexy topic, you know. And what's so interesting, it definitely came out of my own struggles with this initially and so kind of my story when I was 20 years old I was diagnosed with degenerative bone disease and degenerative

spinal disease so I was coming from being a high level athlete I ran a 4-5-40 when I was 15 barely you know right after my birthday and things were looking good but then the letters stopped coming in when I broke my hip just at track practice all right and nobody stopped to ask what's wrong with this kid how is he breaking his hip just running this is usually for old ladies right right and so I went through the normal care you know ultrasound NSAID stay off the leg and when you're like 15 years old you have the hormones of the mythical beasts so you get better you know and but again nobody stopped to ask why, what happened. And 20 years old, finally I get this diagnosis,

and that just kind of created a downward spiral for me. Gained a bunch of weight, so I got to be super fluff. I'll say fluffy instead of, you know, fat. But I was fat. I was fat. And definitely just. I like thinking of myself as fluffy, too. Pleasantly fluffy.

I'm like teddy bear fluffy. Ask my wife. That's what she says so I was um definitely struggling with just even getting around and if people there's gonna be a lot of people hearing this that like I've got that same issue you know with my back and so it's the L4 L5 S1 and there's a lot of nerves that go through there so when people used to have back problems when I was in high school, I used to be like, man up. You know, it's your back. Like, walk it off. But everything is running through there, you know.

So that really started to shut down and cause problems also with sleeping, just changing positions to wake me up. So I started to really, man, I was keeping Tylenol PM in business, you know, just popping those pills, taking my prescription medication as well. Taking something to cover the symptoms. Yes. Right. So I was thinking that I was getting more sleep, but I'd wake up super groggy every single day, struggling to get through the day. And this whole process was incredibly embarrassing. Yeah. You know, and so I kind of lost my identity not being an athlete anymore.

And now it's just this chubby kid walking around campus, limping around campus. Right. And kind of lost. And so ultimately when things change, and this is really important, especially for being on your show, I was asking all the wrong questions. You know, why me? Why won't somebody help me? What's wrong with me? What I deserve to get this? Why am I not a professional athlete now? Dude, I've been exactly through that whole thing. And the crazy thing is, and so I'm a very I'm a scientist. I'm very analytical. Yeah. So when you ask questions, your brain, you know, your reticular activating system and your reticular cortex is looking for answers to support whatever you ask.

Right. So if you ask, you know, why does this happen to me? You start to find things to support how much you suck as a person. Right. You know, and so after that kind of revelation that I was asking the wrong questions and I kept putting my health and well-being off onto my physicians, even though they meant well, they're not thinking about me when I'm not there. Right. You know, and so I saw five guys, five different doctors, and they all told me the same thing. You know, you have the spine of an 80-year-old person. There's nothing you can do about this. This is incurable. We're sorry.

And I had a choice to make. So this is when I was 22. I'm either going to buy into that and just give up on my life or I'm going to do something about it. And so most people never actually do this really important point. They never really decide. And it's more like wishful thinking. And I did that. It's a hope.

I'll try. I hope this gets better. I wish this would work. But when you make a real decision about something, you cut away the possibility of failure. Yeah. I mean, the literal meaning of decide is to cut off. Yeah. It means to cut off all other possibilities.

Yeah. You know, and, you know, we could talk about that as a whole entire podcast. Right, right, right. People's inability to actually make a commitment on that decision. But yeah, sorry, man. No, all good. So I made that decision. And like you said, it's the Latin word de meaning from from and kydere which means to cut right so there was

no opportunity or option for failure it's like the burn the boats thing you know and so also being an analytical this doesn't mean like the the clouds parted and a unicorn came out or any magical thing happened i put a plan together right you know and so that plan entailed three specific things i was on the university diet I call it tough food which is typical university food at that time which so I had the Papa John's special five bucks for a whole pizza I'd slam that down whole pizza I'm not gonna say every day but it was close you know and of course McDonald's if I get up in time for the breakfast which apparently it's 24 hours now which a man I mean I would have had all kinds of diabetes at this point. But, you know, so I was that's how I was living my life because I didn't

know any better. And I asked my very first physician. And it's like this was sort of like a mystical miracle thing that I asked this question. I don't know if it was like my spirit animal or something, but I asked him, does this have anything to do with what I'm eating? And he looked at me like I was from another planet. And this was again, this was about 16 years ago. Right. And he told me this has nothing to do with what you're eating. And he looked at me like I was from another planet. And this was, again, this was about 16 years ago. And he told me this has nothing to do with what you're eating. But then he wrote me a prescription to eat some drugs. So it's like, what I'm putting in my mouth doesn't matter, but- But as long as it's this. Yeah. So it's just like, that never sat right with me. As long as it's this shit here that I'm going to make some money on.

Exactly. And so I changed the way that I was eating. And at the time I didn't know what to do. So I just started to, you know, I started to eat better quality of the things that I was already getting from McDonald's. So I, Whole Foods just opened at that point. And this was brand new in this city, which would tend to get stuff late. So it was just like me. I still feel like we just got it. Exactly. It was just me and like three other random people in the store. It's just like me, some lady with a tie-dye shirt on and then like a professional athlete I bumped into yeah but now it's of course exploded right and um but you know so I was buying like grass-fed beef instead of McDonald's whatever the hell's in there and um you know swapping out the the fries for vegetables eating uh you know a

lot more whole foods and drinking a lot of water, that kind of basic stuff. And the second part was, and this is a low-hanging fruit, especially for a lot of guys, was I started to exercise again. Right. Whereas my physicians, they were well-meaning, but they were telling me don't do anything. Rest it. Rest it. I was resting for two years, and your body would literally start to atrophy. Yeah.

And so your body requires movement in order to heal itself. So I really started to pay attention to this, and I took my time. I'm not saying if you're dealing with a back problem now to go deadlift 500 tomorrow. No. But do what you can. Or maybe take a walk. Yeah, so I just started walking. I started to get on the elliptical.

I started to lift a few weights after a few weeks. And the third part, and this was really the most important part, which I didn't understand until years later, was when I changed my habits during the day, my sleep got better. And I was able to not use medication just to go to sleep at night. And once my sleep got good, it's just like the floodgates opened and I got healthy so quickly. It's compounding effect. Yes. Because sleep is known as the anabolic state. This is when your body's producing all of the growth hormone, reparative enzymes, all the stuff to actually assimilate the food that you're taking in. if you're spending a lot of money on food, the exercise you're doing, your body heals itself when you're asleep. And so fast forward six weeks after this moment of decision, I lost 28 pounds. The pain I'd been experiencing for two and a half years was gone.

And the people at my university, I was still in school at the time, at UMSL I was going there actually, and my professors, I remember this one time I was walking out of the classroom, and he stopped me, and he was like, what happened to you? You look so healthy. Like it's a problem. You know, I'm just like, you know, I've just been taking care of myself. And so he ended up becoming my client, one of my first clients, not my very first.

So I started working with the faculty and the staff there and students and eventually thousands of people yeah and but by the way I went back and got a scan done of my spine after nine months and I completely reversed the regeneration I mean sorry the degeneration and through that process I lost three-fourths of an inch in my height and I gained half an inch back and my doctor all they could do was say you know whatever you're doing keep doing it yeah and so that was really the birthing of my career and since then uh I initially started off in the space of like doing talks you know speaking right being on stage teaching workshops that eventually evolved itself into a podcast which um crazy but today we're number one in the country in fitness and nutrition. Yeah, tremendous podcast, guys. You guys, if you're not, tell everybody, you guys should be listening to this podcast.

Yeah. So it's called The Model Health Show, and we are just crossing 4.5 million downloads, once a week podcast. That's awesome. These are masterclasses. So eventually after the whole thing of recovering myself and being a strength conditioning coach I focused in college on you know biology kinesiology and I opened up a practice in clinical nutrition yeah and so in my practice we really focused on chronic illnesses so we had like a 89% reversal

rate for type 2 diabetes helping people to get off their high blood pressure medication stuff like that and really just helped a lot of people, man. And working with thousands of people gave me a lot of leverage once we started the podcast. We came out of the gate excellent. That's the same way we did here. Yeah. Yeah. Had a built-in audience already.

Yeah. But that's nice. I can see why your podcast is so popular, dude. Like, not only is he smart, he's got, like, this silky butter voice, man. Very white. You got the freaking voice. Yeah. Yeah, he's got this silky butter voice. Barry White. You got the freaking voice. Yeah, he's butter. So I'm curious.

I mean, maybe I'm curious because this is the first time you've heard his story. Yeah. So treat Sean like game film. What do you notice about his story so far that you're like, yeah, this is. Look, man. First of all, I've been wanting to say something for a minute for you guys because there's like a bunch of lessons that need to be like pointed out for people that maybe aren't connecting the dots here if you're

an entrepreneur guys like and when I say entrepreneur I mean a literal entrepreneur like you guys actually out there running a business you are going to have these problems I promise you Sean and I were just talking before the show I have these problems I've had them for nearly 20 years when it comes to like sleeping because your mind is going to get so wrapped up in the process and there's so much stress involved. And it's just such a different thing to be working literally 24 seven. And when I say working, I don't mean just like working like physically. I mean, when you're not working, you're still working in your mind. And to get yourself out of that state into a relaxed state to be able to sleep restfully the right way.

I'm not talking about just lay there for six or seven, eight hours. It's a big deal. I struggle with it really hard. And that, you know, I'm going to be hitting you up on some of this stuff for sure. But, you know, the other thing, guys, is like the biggest lesson is repeating what I said in the beginning, what I hear so far. You know, man, there's a lot of lessons here I could go into. But the main thing here is that when you're looking for ideas to mold yourself or to get into business or to build something, you have to start looking and be aware of the problems that surround you. You know, I feel like so many people just,

they base ideas off of things that are going to like try to make the money. Right. You know what I mean? And where the reality is, is if you become really good at solving a specific problem, even if it's something that, you know, I mean, sleep. Everybody does it automatically.

Right. You know what I mean? Like, it's not, and I don't mean, like, disrespect, but it doesn't sound like, oh, yeah, that's a major problem. But it is a major problem when you're not getting it. And when there's millions of other people out there

that, like me, that toss a turn all night and wake up every day like a fucking zombie, you know what I mean? It takes me three hours to even get moving because night and wake up every day like a fucking zombie you know what i mean it takes me three hours to even get moving because i'm so exhausted every day dude that will take years off of your life i tell my wife all the time i'm like look i've got to get this figured out or i'm gonna fucking you know it's gonna be like another seven eight years for me that's gonna

be it you know in the book i actually talk about uh some research from university of california and i don't know if you guys know about telomeres. Do you know about telomeres? So what's been discovered recently is that we have these end caps on our DNA that keep it from breaking down. And as you get older, these end caps, kind of like the end of your shoe strings, that little plastic casing. Have you ever tried to tie your shoe up without those things? It's a bitch. Yeah. It's horrible.

Yeah. But so these things basically keep your DNA from fraying. And as you get older, they start to get clipped down. And so what they discovered was that this is the greatest biological marker that can tell how long you're going to live. Yeah. And Elizabeth Blackburn in 2011, I think, won the Nobel Prize for discovery that there's an enzyme that can add length back onto this.

Basically, literally reverse your aging. But in the book, I cite a study from, you know, I mentioned University of California, that sleep deprivation is the number one, well, up there in the top, almost number one, most, the thing that can accelerate your aging the most. Yeah. Right? And so it's really crazy, this idea in our culture is like, I'll sleep when I'm dead. Right.

You'll just be dead. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I hit on that a lot too. That's a pet peeve of mine. It's all these dudes on the internet saying, oh, you never have to fucking sleep and if you sleep,

you're a pussy. No. Dude, those guys are wrong and they're lying to you guys. Right. That's like a bragging right thing. It's not even true. Right. You know? Right. Well, you guys right that's like a that's like a bragging right thing yeah it's not even true right you know right well you know it's so funny that this and you mentioned earlier too about addressing the problems because a lot of us think that we're steve jobs right you

know like i'll make it and they don't even know they like it yet right right if you keep that up you're going to be stevie no job that's right yeah stevie no job yeah and it's understanding that you've got to create something that the market is already demanding look for a problem like you said and a lot of times it'll come from your own life right your own experience you know it's not like we don't need a toilet seat warmer with cup holders or whatever so it's gonna be hot right pay attention to what people actually want yeah the small little problems that annoy you yeah you know what i mean though it? It's not the massive. I mean, there is guys like Steve Jobs, right?

But, like, they're so few and far between. And I feel like that's, like, the thing everybody wants to be now. Everybody wants to be this dude who becomes the hero from revolutionizing everything that we do. And good for you. I appreciate that. But you still got to pay the bills. Yeah. So let's look at the small problems first because maybe you could start there. Yeah.

You know? Exactly. You know. Sean, do you think you would be where you are at now if you never had problems with your spine? No. No. It's the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. You know, I love that that happened.

And I love that it happened to me so young so that I can have all of this time to really execute and kind of get past that. But a lot of people, these bad things happen, and they throw in the towel. That's right. They don't even know that they're doing it. That's right. And so having this opportunity, I definitely am not going to let it pass. And this was really born out of – so according to research, 60% of all people in America have trouble sleeping every night or every other night. All right.

So that's nice. That's way more than half. It's almost two-thirds of us. That's a lot of people. Right. So for me to create this product, I'm already speaking to, and I haven't met one person yet that's just like, oh, that sounds okay. You know, there's like, I need that. Yeah.

You know, and so that's the marketing piece. But then it also, if you really want to be successful in business, it's about providing value. Will it actually work? And so you need to test, you know, don't just create something and, you know, throw it out there or even try to pitch it to a publisher. So what I did was, number one, in my clinical practice, I start to ask people about it. So this was about five years ago after five years in practice. And then I was shocked when I started to ask people about their sleep. I just took it for granted because I slept good. Right. And so people who, you know, I mentioned we had about an 89% reversal rate for type two diabetes. What about the 11% the other people? Right. And so I would start to quiz them and find out, you know, wow, they're sleeping less than four hours a night. They have a husband or wife who's dealing with sleep issues as it keeps them up.

And so I would start to find out these different stories. And once we got their sleep dialed in, it's like the floodgates would open again, and they start to get these results everybody else was getting, which was incredible. So number one in clinical practice, face-to-face helping a person. And that takes balls, too, to look a person in the eye and say, I want you to pay me and I'm going to help you. We're going to do this together. You need to trust me and we're going to finish this thing. And so developing that skill and then having that translate over online is really powerful. And so with the book, so step one was clinical practice. Step two was I did a post about it, you know, just on your website. You can just do an article and see if it gets any traction, see if anybody shares it, if anybody leaves any comments. I did

an article on some sleep tips and it did incredible. Like it was my most popular article I'd ever written. So then having the podcast platform, which is another free method that you can test your idea. I did. And so we were about 50, maybe about 40 episodes in and you can look at your metrics. And I saw the three shows I did on sleep episodes in. And you can look at your metrics. And I saw the three shows I did on Sleep were in the top 10 most popular. So it's like, wow, there's another proof that people are interested in this information. So from there, I decided, you know, and I don't know how much Vaughn knows this, but my wife knows. I don't like people telling me what to do.

So I didn't want to. That's a sign of a type A builder entrepreneur. That's a name of CEO. A builder entrepreneur. That's an MFCEO. That's right. I completely understand. So I'm in a safe space. Thank you. So I knew that I didn't really want to deal with a publisher telling me what I can and can't do. My platform was strong, but they would have probably had more leverage. And I just wanted to write this book and I knew that I could sell a lot of them and also know, and also help a lot of people. And so that's what I did. But here's the thing, you know, you don't need to wait around for a traditional publisher. The game has changed. All right. They're looking for sure things now.

And, but the, and this is because you can literally create a six figure business, just selling books on Amazon today. You know, so what I did was I enlisted, and I had friends who had the literary agents for me to talk to. I had the ends, but instead I went this track of, I enlisted everybody to do this the right way. So a person who's worked on New York Times bestselling books to edit my book. I made sure that, you know,

and this is just some tips for people. They can use 99 design, for example, to do your cover or enlist and hire, put out the money so that you can hire somebody who's actually worked on very successful books to do your cover. Um, the layout, same thing we paid and you can go to old desk or elance.com and you can throw up a job and somebody, you can, you know, filter everybody and get somebody who's actually executed and done this stuff. You might have to pay, but you're going to create a product that, number one, is selling that icon. And so we were able to sell well over 10,000 copies of the book pretty quickly. And that really made the major publishers pay attention.

So that's when I got with my literary agent. And we had a tremendous amount of leverage to the degree that my publisher, Rodale, which they've been phenomenal. They're an incredible publisher. They're the voice in wellness. But we didn't have any issues with them telling me what to do. It was really executing all of us coming together as a team to execute on my vision. Right. Dude, you know, what I'm hearing is the tip is that is well, when I say typical, I mean, it's just, it's the,

it's the typical entrepreneurial success story. People who don't, you didn't know how to do any of this shit. Just went on and did it. You know, we deal with so many people now through the podcast here that like you guys, you can't overanalyze or overthink or over plan. It's just about going and you go. And as you go, you will figure this shit out. You'll run into people who have done things that you want to do and they'll give you 15 minutes, 10 minutes of their time and give you little directions. You just have to pay attention. You know, the amount of value that he just provided any one of you looking to write a book in the last five minutes is invaluable, you know that's you know that's something that is very

it's not uncommon it's just people don't pay attention yeah you know what i mean i love that saying that done is better than perfect yeah you know because that's one of the things i did this wasn't my first book i also wrote i wrote another book earlier that didn't do as well because i kept on postponing how much did you learn from the first book? Yes, I'm so glad for that failure. Right, exactly. You know, like I've really, I've still got boxes of those books. Yeah.

And so we're just trying to figure out what to do with them. But, and so many people love the book, Larry. That's one of the first things that really connected him with us, a mutual friend of ours. Yeah. But that book, it really taught me about the process

and what I wasn't good at. Right. But what I made the biggest mistake of doing, I kept trying to, every time I'd review the book again, I'd want to change something. That's right. Instead of just getting the book out there. Right. And it became this really daunting, just prison in my mind.

Dude, it's like mental torture. Yeah. Mental torture. I wrote a book on credit repair when I was about 19. And I wrote it, rewrote it, re and i wrote it rewrote it rewrote it rewrote it to the point where i was like reading it and it was like not even making fucking sense it was like mush in my brain like i couldn't even read like i literally could not even read it anymore yeah and uh and dude i never end up doing anything with it because exactly that's the same

but there's so many people listening that have done that same thing right you know they've still got that book or they've been working on a book for five years. Just get it done. Just put it out. Tell yourself that story. You know what ends up happening and what always held me back. And honestly, like Tyler and I went to Miami this weekend and I'll talk about that here, too. You know, you you get to a point where you start convincing yourself that no one cares what you had to say. You know what I'm saying? You're like, oh, no one really cares what I had to say.

Dude, me and Tyler were in Miami this weekend. And, you know, I've been kind of like evaluating what I want to do with this and where I want to take it. Dude, we were there for five fucking minutes. And we had a dude run out of the elevator. And he's like, holy shit, it's Andy. Dude. And he like freaked the fuck out. More importantly was like an 18 year old kid yeah yeah wow who had started an app lit called lit that is uh that is about uh helping college-age students figure out which nightclubs are are lit at night. It's actually really cool. We talked to him for like an hour later on the trip. But dude, I had, it was weird

because this was the first time I was out of town where it was like, I was getting recognized like every fucking 30 minutes I was there. You know what I mean? And I started realizing the people, the things people were saying, what we're doing matters. You know what I mean? It was cool, man. Like it was very like eye-opening. things people were saying, what we're doing matters. Right.

You know what I mean? Right. It was cool, man. Like, it was very, like, eye-opening. I needed the reassurance, you know, because I even, as successful as our podcast has been and all this stuff that we're doing and my speaking that I've been doing, you know, you still tell yourself that story. Yeah. You're like, do people really care?

You know, were you really putting in all this time? And, dude, the answer to that is, is yeah a lot of people do care yeah you know what I mean and you guys were listening have a lot to offer other people you just have to understand and get over yourself first that it's okay to send that message out there yeah that reminds me and we just got another email that came through the hopper that I was going to pass on to you basically what the kid said and this is a young kid said i was going to kill myself and i came across this podcast and it kicked me in the butt and got me going i mean that's pretty heavy stuff yeah i mean it's it's humbling look dude especially i don't get off topic here for a

second but when you like want to build something and be successful and matter and it's that important to you, dude, it can get very depressing because you feel like you're not making progress. You feel like you're never going to be where you want to be. You feel like, you know, you're going to be a failure. People are going to laugh at you. And when things aren't going good, dude, that could beat the shit out of your own brain pretty hard. And for you guys who are listening and you have those kind of thoughts, you've got to realize, man, you've got to keep going. You've just got to keep going. It's not about, and this sounds so care bearish, but it's not about measuring yourself against other people, man. It's about improving on a daily basis.

And if you commit yourself to improving on a daily basis, you may not end up where so-and-so ends up, but you may end up better than that or different than that that matters in a more impactful way, which is ultimately all that matters in life. It doesn't matter what fucking car you drive. You guys know I like cars and I like cool shit, but when it comes down to it, I don't give a fuck about any of that. What I care about is that what we're doing here matters and helps and makes a difference for people

because I feel like the information that we're providing on this show just isn't getting told. I feel like everybody who's in a place to speak on motivation or success is using it to monetize or line their own pockets. And for that reason, they tell a story that isn't exactly true and they make it seem like it's easier or faster or more obtainable than what it really is. And I don't think that's right. I

don't agree with that. And I don't like getting tossed in with those people, which is why we had the podcast we had two weeks ago. Right. And I was talking to Emily about this last night, and I've been watching on Instagram and seeing the shit that people say and do and the messages they're telling these young kids, dude, it's just morally fucking wrong. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, dude, you know, sign up for my thing.

And, you know, in 12 months, you're going to be this. Or they tell them the story, you know, I was living in a basement 12 months ago. Now I'm a fucking millionaire. Dude. Yeah. You know, and that's what kids can come to expect. Because what sounds better? What sounds better?

I'm going to be a millionaire driving a fucking Lambo and in and 12 months or you're gonna have to work your ass off 15 years you know what i mean yeah that's a hard sale it's a hard sale it's hard for me to sell that against that right you know what i mean but it is the truth right and if you commit yourself to moving forward on a daily basis for 15 years you're gonna be wherever the fuck it is you want to be. There isn't true. It is what you know what I'm saying? Yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, one of the worst things we could do is measure our success against somebody else. I agree. You know, and you just said it just that continuous improvement. That's my thing. Like growth is my number one driving force, right? If I could just get 1% better every day, just think and I come I came from really really messed up circumstances too you know so everybody's

got their story but it's always this excuse and what you really need to be doing is measuring yourself against yourself like you said right here's the thing you know we all have these kind of innate talents and gifts that sometimes they're dormant. Sometimes they haven't been expressed yet. But getting out and taking action is going to help for those things to start to manifest themselves. So we've got to stop being scared. Dude, 100%. Like that's solid gold, what he just said.

We've got to stop being scared. You guys who are listening to this, you have to stop stopping yourself. Because that's what it is. You know, oh, I'm going to say this and people are going to laugh. Who cares? Say it and let people laugh. You know, dude, I don't know. I mean, we could beat this drum so hard, you know.

There's something else. I got to say this because this has probably been the biggest leverage that I've had that everybody actually has this access. The number one thing you can do in your business today, especially when everybody can get in the game, is to be yourself. Just be yourself. It's your biggest competitive advantage. You know, and because people are not buying your book, they're buying you. They're not tuning into your podcast or tuning into you. Right. You know, so be full out yourself. Right. You know, all of the quirky stuff all the stuff you're actually afraid of because you're collecting gi joes whatever it is i guarantee you there are thousands of dudes like you who are collecting gi joes and they're like that dude's a man yeah

let me buy his ebook right you know so be yourself because no one else can be you and that's the thing i'm not afraid of and so avon actuallyonne actually before the show asked me about Ariana Huffington and her books, The Sleep Revolution, and what I felt about it. If I feel it's a competitive thing, not at all. I think it's cooperation, you know, in a way. Like there is definitely some friendly competition with anything that I do. I want to win. But at the same time, if your message is out there, it's in the same domain as mine, I guarantee you there are going to be people who tune in to me because my voice speaks to them. Yeah, and not only that, you bring validity to each other.

It's obviously that big of a problem where there's competition for that space. Exactly. And what I like, what you just said too, is another thing that we can hit on, the scarcity mindset. Everybody thinks that there's only enough room for them and nobody else, which is why you see in business everybody talking shit on everybody else's products, which, by the way, is the worst fucking thing you could ever do because you never know who you're talking to. You could be talking to that person's cousin, their family, their friend, a person who used that other product and loved it. It changed their life. You have no idea. So then when you talk negatively, you're really just looking like an

asshole and calling that person stupid for using that product whatever it may be but it's scarcity mindset and i don't know anybody in the world i get competition i do i want to win but i also know there's going to be a lot of other guys that win too and it's okay to be friends with those guys yeah you know what i mean that was one of the things that i learned late really late in the game you know trying to be that and you've probably done this too like trying to change the world be the lone wolf i'm the leader i'm doing everything yeah and you will you know you'll die you're driving so crazy exactly yeah man you know i definitely uh have learned that lesson the hard way yeah because i'm a competitive dude man and you know i'm like you i come from sports background i want to win and i don't want to win. I want to fucking dominate. And

sometimes that shit gives me, it gets me too wrapped up in the wrong, focused on the wrong things. It's good to have that drive and that want to win. As long as you know that the way to win is not going to be to like try to actually destroy your competitor. It's going to be to take care of your customer. You know what I mean? i mean uh solve better problems i want to make an observation about your story and then throw it out to you guys to just flesh out what you think about it but i think that if they made sean stevenson excuse me sean stevenson the original motion picture the two the two scenes that i think would step step out in my mind would be one the moment moment you, you basically decided, well, no, I'm going to do something about this, you know, about your, about your spine. But even before that, to me, what's the really powerful moment is that you are,

I guess at this point, still an undergraduate, you're talking to a doctor who, and my wife's a doctor, so I'm not against physicians. Okay. You're talking to a doctor who has basically said, well, this is your situation. This is it. This is what, you know, you're basically the life you're going to be consigned to. And he or she, whoever it was, he or she is speaking with some serious authority because they're doctors. They know this stuff.

Who are you? And yet you made that decision to say, uh-uh, nope. And it seems to me like the people who are really successful in life, they know those key moments can do about this. You're just going to have to live with this. And what that is actually, and coming from an who's taking basically a fake chemotherapy medication, but they're in the study and they believe that it is chemotherapy medication, proceed to have their proceed to have their hair fall out. All right. They have all the symptoms of chemotherapy and their cancer can start to dissolve. And they're just taking a sugar pill. All right. That's the power of our mind. And of course, you know, anything that I say, I'm a big fact checker, and I provide a lot of studies on my show, but just go to Dr. Google, ask course you know anything that i say i'm a big fact checker and i provide a lot of studies on my show but just go to dr google ask you know you're going to find some crazy stuff but a nocebo effect is giving somebody a negative injunction like you know you have uh two weeks to

live or whatever and then they proceed to die yeah when they walked into the hospital just fine in a way you know they might have cancer but 24 hours they're wheelchair bound. I've seen this firsthand, you know? And so it's really, it takes a really, I'm not going to say it takes a special person, but it takes a very strong part of you that you have to be, you know, this goes back to that fear,

courageous enough to tap into. It took me two and a half years of just buying into it and giving up slowly. But we have to tap into that aggressiveness in our life to say, no, I'm not going to play this game. I'm not going to do what you told me to do. I'm not going to just quit. And by doing so, you start to elicit a whole different view on life. You start to see the opportunities instead of the problems. I personally, and this is on subjects, off subject,

but I think doctors abuse their power tremendously in the ways they speak to their patients sometimes. You know, and they feel like, oh, I've gone to school for so long and I know so much that this is the way it fucking is. And they talk to people in certain terms that, you know, I don't think are responsible. You know what I mean? Something like that, what you're talking about. Yeah.

But they're not taught as well. No, right. They're not taught humanity skills or communication. They're just taught anatomy and pharmacology. And I've got some amazing physicians in my network. But at the same time, you know, if you take a really smart person and you teach them the wrong thing, you take a really smart person and you teach them the wrong way to do something, they're going to be world-class at doing the wrong thing. Like they're going to be so good at doing the wrong thing.

It's scary and everybody's going to believe it, you know? And so there's a big transformation happening in our medical system right now. A lot of people don't know this, but it's called iatrogenesis. And that means physician-created is effectively the third leading cause of death in our country today. That's crazy. Yeah. So again, go to Dr. Google and check it out. And so this is unnecessary surgeries or wrongly prescribed medications, overdoses, you name it.

The number one place to die is in a hospital. You know, it's just kind of it is what it is. But it doesn't mean that they don't care and they're not trying. It's just if you're not taught the right thing and also how to communicate with people and understanding how powerful it is when somebody is hurt so bad and they're looking to you to save them. You have to say the right things you know and so that's something that become more gifted and skilled at and it's just a matter of teaching and training but it's so rigorous I can't stand I actually talk about this in the book which is crazy so the World Health Organization said that shift work is a

class 2a carcinogen so this means working overnight is a cancer-causing agent, right? And that's effectively ranked with lead and UVA radiation that causes skin cancer. So why is that happening? Well, potentially melatonin, which is a lot of people know about this and they're even taking supplements. This is potentially your body's number one anti-cancer hormone. And so if you're suppressing your melatonin all night by being up in under fluorescent light bulbs well you're setting your body up against something that's pretty pretty powerful in cancer you know and not having the proper defenses so in the book i cited a study on nurses that found that they have

30 more breast cancer than normal population and they're in the health business the ones who work overnight yeah you know and so that just speaks the health business, the ones who work overnight. You know, and so that just speaks to the fact that the people who are entrusted with taking care of us, we haven't done a good job taking care of them. And the system really beats them down. Working at the university for so many years, I got to work with so many nurses, so many pre-med students, and also seeing their friends in the before and afters. Like, when first come into college in the program and then eight years later, it's like you can't even recognize the person a lot of times. You know, they're so messed up.

You know, and I also, even today, but in the last couple years of my practice, if I'd ever come in contact with a nurse or even work with a nurse, I'd ask, okay, so of the nurses on your floor or at your hospital, at your office, out of every 10, how many are fit? And usually the answer is one or zero. One time it was two. It's just like, what's going on there? We're not taking care of them because it's kind of like this Navy SEAL training that lasts forever. You know what I'm saying?

Can I interject something? Lifetime hell week. Husband of a physician and someone I dated my wife all through. Well, I dated and was married to her all through the end of medical school and through residency. What you're saying really resonates with me because you have a culture that's supposedly about health. But the actual healers and the people who are a part of it, there are no checks and balances. She wasn't even given a lunch break, and she would have to work these intensely long hours,

no lunch break, completely anti-health. But it's not just physical. It's also mental. And this goes back to something we talk about all the time on this podcast, which is that because the average person in society is not held to their own decisions and called to take personal responsibility, there's a psychological and emotional stress on the doctors to feel responsible,

even though it's not their fault. There are people that simply are not doing what they should be doing. So, yeah, the whole system, I know we're kind of off on the topic, but the whole system's whacked. Yeah, but this is why you would tell somebody like myself a young kid 20 years old right not to do anything right it's just for his own good because i don't know if he's going to do anything if there is something good he can do just put this back brace on and sit down somewhere right you know and so this is like you said there's no checks

and balances to make sure that they're actually being able to take care of themselves, just minor stuff, basic stuff. And plus you said, you know, that psychological burden of like, I'm carrying around everybody else's problems and worries. I don't even have room for myself. And so many times it spirals out of control. And actually in Sleep Smarter, I did another, I mentioned another study. But we really, in the book, we focus on solutions. I'm a solutions guy.

But just so people understand, and also when it comes to being an entrepreneur, that we oftentimes mistake working for effectiveness. There's a difference between doing work and actually being effective. And there was a study done on physicians, and they had them to complete a task. Then they sleep deprived them for just 24 hours, which is common. They had them do the same exact thing, and they made 20% more mistakes doing the same exact thing. It took them 14% longer to do the same exact thing. I don't know about you, but I don't want somebody sleep-deprived handling my surgery or somebody that I care about.

But this is where we start to see those numbers with the iatrogenesis being so high as well. It's because as a society and as an institution, with education, we're not taking care of them, and it needs to change. Yeah, good thoughts. That's even more the reason why this badge of honor for no sleep is ridiculous. It's like the dumbest shit that I've ever heard.

People who brag about this, oh, I've got to work 37 hours on a 24-hour day right to be successful well you're either stupid you know or you're very inefficient or both because you should be able to do that shit in like 10 12 hours right maximum right you know what i mean i don't know how we're doing on time but i don't want our time to get away before you have the opportunity to share some of your key points for our listening audience. So I don't know, Andy, what's on your mind, but you want to do that? All right.

So let's kind of wrap everything up unless there's anything burning on either one of your hearts and minds. But give us your favorite most actionable sleep tips. Okay, okay. Well, first of all, again, just by this being the MFCEO and understanding that if you're going to be effective and you're going to play the long game, you really got to address your own health, you know, and this is just comes with the territory. I just talked with Gary Vaynerchuk recently and, uh, which was dope to do a wine tasting with him. Yeah. But, uh, I asked him like, what's your, what's up, you know, what's going on going on with your health practices he's like people think that i'm still getting my seven hours you

know like i am grinding i'm the hustle guy but he's playing the long game now and he knows himself too so he's like i'm not gonna go and do a push-up man so he hired this trainer to basically travel with him all the time you know yeah and so it's really interesting to see that a lot of people who are really getting it and understanding it's a whole new territory. And you've got to be able to, when you're up, to dominate. Like the lion, they sleep for like 20 hours. But those four hours they're up, they're killing everything. That's right.

And so that's what we really need to shift to doing. And so this is really foundational and important. But number one, I always like to go with the low-hanging fruit. And especially for a lot of guys and a lot of women who are very proactive in their life, they understand the benefits of exercise. But when you exercise, the time of day that you exercise can actually radically improve your sleep quality. And so there was a study done at Appalachian State University, and they had people to exercise at three different times. The first part, they exercise at 7 a.m. in the morning.

That's one phase of the study. Second phase at 7 a.m. in the morning. Okay. That's one phase of the study. Second phase at 1 p.m. in the afternoon. And then the third phase was at 7 p.m. at night. And at the end of the study, they found that the morning exercisers spend up to 75% more time in the deepest, most anabolic stages of sleep. All right. So simply not what I wanted you to say. All right. But we can, there's it. There's loopholes to all this stuff. So that's number one. Also, they had more efficient sleep cycles, which at no point in my book do I say you need to sleep blank hours, eight hours, whatever it is. Because that's really stupid.

We're all different. Right. And also our level of training, our level of stress, all that comes into play. What I really am changing in culture is that we need to focus on getting good sleep cycles, which are about 90 minutes each, and lumping those together. So a minimum would be four sleep cycles. That's about six hours of sleep. And there are people who are sleeping smarter, you know, for six hours who are crushing it, and they're getting the results that they want. And by the way, I got to say this too. This is important, especially with it being more of a nutrition-focused organization.

This study, there's so many I couldn't put into the book, but this one really blew my mind. University of Chicago did a study, and they put dieters on a very specific, rigorous diet, and they're counting calories, tracking everything. They're getting eight and a half hours of sleep in one phase. The other phase of the study, same exact diet, counting calories, very strict, and they sleep deprived them. So now they're only getting five and a half hours of sleep. They lost 55% more body fat when they were getting eight and a half hours of sleep. Huge deal. No difference in exercise or diet, just sleep and not necessarily great sleep, right? So we really focus on optimizing our sleep cycle.

So exercise in the morning helps to essentially reset your cortisol rhythm, which this is why when you wake up, if you're tired, it's because your cortisol is too low. Through evolutionary biology, your cortisol should be elevated between the hours of like 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. to its highest peak and then gradually drop as the day goes on. But at night, you're probably wired. And clinically, we call it tired and wired, where cortisol is too too high at night and cortisol and melatonin have an inverse relationship so if

cortisol is high melatonin is down all right and that sucks so you can physiologically pass out but if melatonin is not up your sleep's gonna suck right all right so get into morning exercise and it can just be five to ten minutes and i did an experiment i've been a morning exerciser for over 10 years but i did an experiment for an entire year last year, training in the afternoon, but still doing five to 10 minutes in the morning. And it didn't affect my training in the afternoon. Everything went up.

All of my numbers, my reaction time I tested, everything improved. So that five to 10 minutes in the morning is not going to affect if you're an afternoon trainer. Now, you don't want to exercise too late, though. All right? Even in my son's little book, it's like a bedtime book,

all the little animals do exercise right before bed. You know, it's that old book. Right, right, right. When you exercise at night, obviously cortisol is going to get elevated. So guess what happens? Again, you could pass out from exhaustion, but you're not going to necessarily get high-quality sleep. So I recommend

having about a three hour window, two to two hours minimum from when you end your training to when you go to bed. All right. So for a lot of people, they're like, you know, taking jujitsu class and things like that. And they're only in the evening and they're playing. They're also trying to get their sleep game up. You might need to find another class or reschedule your, your day, find another gym, because if your number one focus is health, then working out late is not going to cut it. I can't do the late-night workouts, dude. Yeah.

I mean, it keeps me awake. It's plain and simple. Yeah. We know this experientially, unless you just exercise to exhaustion, but then you're going to feel like the piñata after the party the next day. So that's number one, is getting some morning exercise in.

It just works to reset your cortisol rhythm. Another one, and this is a lot of these things that I'm talking about have got imbued into popular culture now. And I'm not saying it came from me, but it probably came from me at some point. So you've probably heard this one before, but I'm gonna tell you why.

You need to sleep in a pitch black room. Get your room as dark as possible. Unless you live in like a country setting and there's no street lights or neighbor porch light, moonlight is okay. It's unnatural light and what we're calling in our field, quote, light pollution. And so it's crazy, man. And so Harvard University confirmed that just being on your iPad or your iPhone can suppress your melatonin for about three hours. All right.

In particular, there's this blue light spectrum. Now, do you guys have iPhones? What do you have, man? Yeah, I've got an iPhone. Have you seen the new update? So there's a new on the iOS update. There's this button here. It's called Night Shift.

And it literally pulls out the most troublesome spectrum of light from your screen. And if Apple is doing this, it's serious. And so the blue light spectrum in particular is what Harvard researchers found is the most oppressive to your melatonin secretion and also disrupts your sleep cycle. They found that all light isn't created equal. So green light, basically blue light is twice as impactful on your melatonin than green light is. Red light is negligible. It doesn't on your melatonin than green light is. Red light is negligible.

It doesn't affect your melatonin at all. And if you look at evolutionary biology, what were you exposed to at night if we did have light? It's fire. And so cooling off your screens, there's an app on your laptop there you can get. It's called Flux, F-dot-L-U-X. I have that. And I've been using it for three years. It's fantastic.

It works automatically. It's super easy download and it pulls the most troublesome spectrum of color from your screen automatically at night and puts it back during the daytime. And you can easily disable it if you want to check out a Instagram post or something that you're designing or whatever, you know, so that, and also with your, your phones, but also have some, see these glasses for everything else. These blue blocking. You remember those blue blocker commercials? Blue blockers, baby. Yeah.

So they, but they cost a little bit, you know, and there's some that are cool, but there's some are like five bucks, but I'm not saying they're as effective, but I wear these. They're called Swanis. They're pretty dope. I wish I would have brought them. But so they literally, if I put them on right now, you just see blue light on the lenses because that blue light doesn't go through them. And so that's one of those things also to help to make sure you're increasing your melatonin Literally, if I put them on right now, you just see blue light on the lenses because that blue light doesn't go through them.

And so that's one of those things also to help to make sure you're increasing your melatonin and all that good stuff. So you wear those just at night? Yeah. Okay. When the lights go out, I mean, when it gets dark, then those go on, basically. Okay. So even if I am working, which— So, like, it gets dark at 8 o'clock, you put them on? Yeah.

Get ready for bed? Yeah. You don't wear them to bed, though? No. Okay, all right. So, like, Lewis Howes, who was justclock, you put them on, get ready for bed? Yeah. You don't wear them to bed, though? No. Okay, all right. So, like, Lewis Howes, who was just on the show. He was telling me about the glasses. Yeah, so when he came over, it was after he was here,

and he came over, he was hanging out at my house, and, you know, once it got, we were watching a game. Yeah. He's from Ohio or whatever, so he went to see Cleveland play. And so we were watching the game. I just threw those on, and I watched the TV, you know? And so those are little hacks that you can use but the best thing is especially for our busy-minded ceos and entrepreneurs is to give yourself a screen curfew period like give yourself some time to

unwind and get off your device right a lot of us how much time do you recommend for that i recommend 90 minutes okay but even 30 you know do something because we get ready for everything in our life except for bed. We get ready for work. We get ready for a date. We get ready to take our kids to school, but we don't get ready for bed anymore. But when we were kids, like, we had this whole ritual. Right. You know, and humans, we're just big babies.

You know, we have the same wiring. So we have these neural associations that it's starting to get dark. Well, I'm supposed to be on Instagram. Or it's starting to get dark. Well, I'm supposed to be on Instagram. Or it's starting to get dark, I should be watching Daredevil. And so especially if you've got these devices in your bedroom, that's one of the worst things you could do. And so there was a study done. It was an Italian study on some couples. They were like 50 years and older.

But what's so crazy is that 50% of the couples who had a television in their bedroom, I'm sorry, the couples who had a television in their bedroom had 50% less sex. And so some people are hearing this like, that's not true. Just wait. Because number one, you're interrupting your sleep quality, but also it's a distraction. So you want to create a, I call it a sleep sanctuary. So that neuroassociation, when you go in your bedroom, it's just for two things, sleep or sex. And that's it. I can say that's that's honestly the best thing I ever did was take the TV out of my bedroom. Yeah. You ever have a lot more sex with yourself?

That's so awesome. And so many people tell me that same thing, you know, so also the electromagnetic frequencies and all that kind of stuff. And again, I'm very analytical and science based. So it's not like whoo there's you know it's right it really does affect you and I've got the studies to show you that and so also black so we want to block out the external light pollution so getting some blackout curtains super easy thing that anybody can do throw those bad boys up and you're gonna sleep better I mean that's the number one thing for me personally that I saw the fastest change when my sleep quality immediately was blacking out my bedroom. So last thing is with that, within that particular point is get rid of the internal light pollution. So the alarm clock

that's staring at you all night, the television, there are grown men, I mean, grown men who are afraid of the dark, you know, and I'm sorry if that's you it's like i'm kind of scared right now actually but we've got to really evolve out of that it's really about beating our fear again like trusting life you were born in that atmosphere you know like there's this dark light balance in the world and being afraid of the dark is just uncalled for yeah like if you're if you're you know if you're really afraid check for the boogeyman. Get underneath, look under the bed, look in the closet. That's making me think of poltergeist, man. Don't look under that bed. Don't do it.

Poltergeist should give you enough reason not to have a TV in your room. Exactly. Sean, I have to ask because this is personally relevant, but what's your take on how much a bed really makes a difference? Wow. You know, people are spending, you know, thousands of dollars on the fanciest mattress, but there are people who are sleeping

better on the floor than those guys, because we're oftentimes the psychological warfare as well. It's not the bed, you know, so it's what's going on in our minds, like Andy mentioned earlier. So that's something I really focus on the book as well is calming down our inner chatter. And so, you know, for a lot of, there's this saying that's like my bed. It's this wonderful place that I go to remember everything I was supposed to do. It's the truth, man.

That's the truth for me. That, I can tell you right now, the bed and my notepad and my iPhone are keeping me from sleeping. you know what i mean yeah and it's just again it's starting to change here's why it's going to be tough though just be straight up with you like putting that telephone even out of your room it's hard because it's just like when you walk by it's like just touch me yeah you know just push me you know you want to yeah but it's because of this dopamine feedback loop and so this really interesting compound that we produce called dopamine,

it was once thought that it was about satisfaction. But it's really, it's a compound our body produces that drives us to seek, to look, to find. If we don't have that, we're not evolving as humans. We needed that to become what we are today. So what drives us to get better and to look for things is dopamine. So the problem is the internet is perfect for dopamine because you can seek forever,

like literally until you die. You'll never even cross half a percent of what's on there. But here's the thing, just seeking forever would drive you crazy if you didn't find things. Internet's perfect for that. So every time you seek on Instagram, find, seek, find. And every time you find something, get a little opioid hit.

So it's like a slow drip of morphine in your body. So that keeps you going just every time you scroll, Facebook, whatever it is. So we are physiologically addicted. It's just it is what it is. And once you become, awareness trumps everything. So once you become aware of it, you can start to catch yourself. But tell me you haven't had this happen where it's like, let's check my Instagram for a minute. Let's check Twitter for a minute.

And it's like 30 minutes later. Oh, yeah. You know, because it's that. Every time. Internet black hole sucks you in. Why I do it during cardio. And so it's just understanding that that's really what's going on, why it's so difficult. But if you are aware of it and then you can start to just implant.

Here's the thing about breaking addiction. It has to be something of equal or greater value in your life. So I guarantee you if it's your wife and she's like, baby, I need some attention, you know, and she's got on something amazing, whatever, you know, Victoria, whatever. All right. And so you're going to put your phone down because that's a greater value to you. You know, so if you can implant something that fills you up equally or more than Facebook, you're going to start to win, but it has to be consistent. So it could be, you know, time with your family, you know, uh, hanging out with your kids, playing

a game, you know, hanging out with your wife, you know, reading a good book or whatever the case may be for you. It has, it it's an individual you got to find that thing out don't just try go to go to go cold turkey it's so funny man because I had this happen before where I just like all right I'm not doing it for 90 minutes you start to like get a little twitchy you know like it's like it's the mental association of it's just like being on a diet I'm gonna cut out pizza and all your brain sees is pizza. Yeah.

That's why you want it so bad. Yeah, you get those pizza jitters or internet jitters. Sean, I have to pull the former pastor card because what I heard when you just said that, one of the things we used to talk about in the ministry all the time when people who had their lives were a wreck, was it's not enough just to run away from vice. You have to run toward virtue. Or it's not enough to run away from something bad. You have to run towards something good. I love that. So that's powerful. That's what I heard you saying. I want to hear that again. Like I didn't need to write

that down. Yeah. But you know, it's just back to the point with the bed. I do recommend certain things with your mattress you're sleeping on. So one of them is, so a lot of us don't really realize this. I don't know if you guys have ever had this happen, but you might have a mattress delivered and it smells funny in your room for a little bit. And they'll tell you like, you know, let the room air out. It'll go away in a few days. What the hell is that smell? Right? So these are flame retardants, toxic compounds, things to protect you in a way, but it's clinically proven that they're off-gassing and they're slowly poisoning you, right?

And there was one study, and I kind of, this was the one thing I had a conversation with my publisher about talking about in the book, but I couldn't do this without, with being in good conscience and not tell people about this, but SIDS cases, you know, so sudden infant death syndrome, being elevated by sleeping on mattresses that are not properly wrapped to keep those chemicals from basically poisoning the baby. Right. You know, and so the research is in the book. So you want to be aware of that. It's not, you know, we're a much bigger organism when we're older, so it doesn't impact us as much.

Right. But why even cause a problem for yourself, you know? And so that's one of the things is being aware where your mattress is actually coming from. It doesn't matter if it's a super pillow top, double stuffed Oreo, whatever bad mattress. It's like, is it poisoning me? And also you want to look for something that is called mattress resiliency. And a lot of people haven't heard that term in popular culture yet, but with your mattress, the first place to start to lose this resiliency is where your hips are. And as soon as your hips start to sink into that mattress, your spine begins to get out of alignment. And so even after all these back problems that I had and recovering and living for many years good, all of

a sudden I start to have some issues. And I was getting scared because it's like I still had that little inkling of fear in the back of my mind that what if this happens again? And come to find out, it was actually due to my mattress that was causing something called SI dysfunction so as my SI joint was just getting off because my hips were out of alignment I changed my mattress and the problem went away because another thing is like you shouldn't wake up feeling like you just got beat up just from going to sleep right you know so for a lot of us we're waking up to our bodies are so out of sorts because of our mattress.

So the mattress matters, but not as much as the other things. So Andy, you have to realize that I have heard about this stuff for the last six to nine months because my wife has been drinking deeply of the fountain of Sean's knowledge. And so part of the reason we haven't gotten a mattress yet is because she's like, nope, that one, off-gassing, all this kind of stuff. so here's another problem we need to find you need to work with some sort

of mattress company to design the sleep smarter mattress you know that's what that's what needs to happen you gotta be on that i've got some yeah like dude i'm sitting here hearing all these opportunities and i'm like dude he's already on this. Guys, we would be remiss if we did not tell you very strongly. Go check out Sean's website again. It's themodelhealthshow.com or just modelhealth? Yeah, themodelhealthshow.com. Modelhealthshow.com. Sean is at Sean Stevenson, and there's some derivatives of the name Sean.

So it's S-H-A-W-N. It's at Sean Model. Oh, oh, at Sean Model is your Instagram account? Yeah. Okay. Sean model, S H A W N M O D E L on Instagram and on Twitter. And, uh, I'm late to the game with social media, but my podcast, that's where people really know me from. You should definitely check that out. So it's just where you listen to this podcast, obviously on iTunes and a stitcher, or you could

check it out at the website itself, themodelhealthshow.com. And we also got videos there of the show, so you'll be in the studio with us, which I'm going to, after this, I'm going to encourage these guys to get on the video marketing, so you guys are going to see a lot more video from them, too. Right, right. So if we did not say this straight out about Lewis's book last week, we should have, and I want to say it about this book this week. Guys, buy the book. Go to Amazon, look up Sean Stevenson, Sleep Smarter,

and buy the book. Sean's another one of these guys that's putting out amazing content, providing amazing value, and barely monetizing on a regular basis. Go buy his book. Dude, thanks for coming on the show, man. It's been awesome.

I haven't said much because I'm just kind of soaking it in because this is a real problem for me. And I want to at least leave you guys with the strong recommendation that you take this seriously now and develop these good habits now because I'm a 60 year old 36 year old because of the life that I've lived for the last 17 18 years and I've got a lot of work to do on myself I wish I would have had this stuff when I was you know 1920 25 just getting going because dude as an entrepreneur or someone who there's just a tremendous amount of anxiety that you live with and and the the habits can two or three bad habits that you know come

from being in that environment all of your life and when i say all over like i mean 24 hours a day as an entrepreneur can really fuck you up and it's something that you guys need to take serious. I know this hasn't been our typical, you know, our typical direction of a topic, but I think it's an extremely, extremely important one, dude. I appreciate you coming on and spreading the gospel on it. It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me, man. All right, guys, we're going to catch up with you next time.

In the meantime, don't be a bitch. We're going to catch up with you next time. In the meantime, don't be a bitch. We're going to let the band deal with this. Mm-hmm. In my A-style. Old school. Uh-huh. Okay. Shut up.

Uh-huh. Okay. What's up? Shut up. Uh-huh. Okay.