Shaun Newman Podcast - #413 - Adam Hart

Episode Date: April 14, 2023

Best selling author (Power of Food), personal transformation coach, international speaker & co-founder of Clear Impact which aims at optimizing human health. Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast Let me know what you thinkText me 587-217-8500

This is Tamara Leach. This is Tom Corsky. This is Dr. Robert Malone. This is Wayne Peters. This is Kaler Betz. What's up, guys? It's Kid Carson. And you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast.

Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Friday. We get a good one on store for you today. But before we get there, let's get to today's episode sponsors, Kristen and team over at McGowan Professional Chartered Accountants. I finally dropped off my paperwork. I...

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if you're looking for a space give a way to call. 780808, 50, 25. That's all I got for you. You know, I hope your week is going as good as mine is. It's beautiful, love. I'm enjoying the sun.

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Pretty cool. And the sunshine, did I mention that? The beer tastes pretty good. And I got no cares in the world right now. So wherever you're at, I hope you're enjoying it as much as Sean is. Sean sounds like he's pretty chill, because Sean's pretty chill right now. And I'm talking about myself in the third person. which somebody mentioned that the other day, and I'm like, do I do that?

I'm like, I don't mean to do that. And now I'm like, catch myself doing it all the time. I got to stop that. Anyways, I don't mean to do that. Anyways, holidays are growing great. Let's get on that tale of the tape brought to you by Hancock Petroleum. For the past 80 years, they've been an industry leader in bulk fuels, lubricants, methanol, and chemicals delivering to your farm, commercial or oil field locations.

For more information, visit them at Hancock, Petroleum.com. He's a personal transformation coach. author. I'm talking about Adam Hart. So buckle up. Here we go. Hey guys, I'm Adam Hart and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Adam Hart. So first off, sir, thanks for hopping on. Yeah, thanks for having me, Sean. Appreciate it. Now, you know, we were just talking about this before we get going. You know, our chance encounter is, you know, through a mutual friend of Kig Carson. And I don't know, I guess I sit where probably most of my audience sits at this point.

If you hadn't reached out, I wouldn't know who Adam is. And I go, well, let's start there. Let's dig into Adam and we'll see where it gets to. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Well, you know, and I appreciate the opportunity to share. I think we all recognize we're at a critical time in human history. And a large part of my drive and my passion is around optimizing our own personal wellness,

but in the pursuits of how can we serve others in terms of, of having more critical thoughts so we can all have our lives be the best versions possible. And I think right now there's just so much stress that we're under, and especially as parents, knowing that you've got some young kids. I've got two young kids and a lot of parents are under a lot of pressure. So what can we do as parents to continue to stay optimized? And that for me comes from a personal story of being burnt out at a very young age and discovering some things that I think, you know, I would imagine your audience would be excited to hear about in terms of our wellness that are quite

easy to implement and fit our busy lifestyles and doesn't require a whole lot of restrictions and changes that, you know, has me on your podcast. Well, let's go back to the young days of Adam. What did it, what did it, what did it, what did it, what did it look like? You know, uh, uh, did you have hair back then? I had some hair. Yeah, I did. I didn't. Yeah. But, uh, no, I mean, I grew up with a, uh, chocolate bar in one hand, Coca-Cola in the other hand and, you know, live my life very disconnected from my own internal emotions, you know, as a lot of us have growing up, whether we're bullied in school or, you know, not quite the connected loving parenting, but had a lot of self-esteem, self-worth, shame, guilt issues.

When you say disconnected from internal emotions, what do you mean by that? Well, I had a diagnosis of ADHD very young, was labeled as learning disabled by the school system. And so I had a lot of thoughts that were very much about trying not to feel, trying to just snuff out emotion because there's a lot of pain in terms of my understanding of what pain felt like for me. It was like, felt quite dark, quite depressive. and so I didn't really have outlets outside of screens. So I became very addicted at young age to watching horror movies, which is a whole subject in itself and eating a lot of sugar.

It became very deep in the sugar. Well, I'm curious now. When you talk of horror movies, what was your go-to? The go-to. Are you Jason or Freddie? Are you, you Mike? Who you got? Yeah, so those are the three.

Those were the dominant ones. So obviously Friday the 13th was by far the number one. And then came Mike Myers and Halloween and Freddie Krueger and, you know, kind of cycle through those. But not not understanding, well, what was that? That was part of my numbing out. And, you know, this again comes down to this idea of numbing the emotions, but not wanting to feel whatever was going on internally of confusion around myself and the self-worth stuff. turn to sugar in horror movies. Well, I mean, as, you know, I don't have to get too deep in it,

but I think as a lot of kids, we turn to horror movies and sugar. I was always, I could never get Mike Myers. I know I'm making light of something so dark and everything else, but I'm like, here's this guy. He walks around nonstop. Don't get me wrong. I get he's super strong and everything else, but he walks around.

I never got it. Yeah. Just like literally, and I get fear paralyzed and everything else, but I'm like, he's literally walking. You're running as hard as you can go and he's got a knife and that's it. And it's just like, you know, they did, I don't know. Are you, are you fat? I have to say that I haven't watched any of the new ones.

No. Like I can't remember the last one I watched. Maybe Halloween age two. Yeah, it's been years since I went there in terms of my need for some sort of escape. You know, I think we have other ways to do that these days, especially as adults, whether it's social media and, you know, shopping, gambling. but as a kid, you know, the dominant two ways that we escape our lives as kids is a screen. And if you do get horror access, horror movies, it's a pretty powerful rush of dopamine

that the brain learns to lock into as a source of energy and sugar. And so, yeah, once I understood how to optimize my own nervous system regulation, I didn't need to turn to those anymore. Well, okay. We're going to put a pin in that thought for a second because I'm trying to figure out what Adam hits that you know like you're saying In a sense with the ADHD and like you're basically told This is the way I understand it and if I'm wrong on this please correct me. Yeah, it feels like they told you don't trust your inner voice Am I wrong on that? Well, I don't know if anybody even gave me guidance into how to explore an inner voice

You know I was just right away you put on medication because I was bouncing off the walls, apparently, according to my family. And, you know, yeah, definitely very, very hard to sustain attention was quite impulsive. And so there was no guidance on how can you, how can I actually go inward and explore what's happening? Why am I trying to run away from my own emotions in a way where I could explore them and be safe around the exploration of, them. And so I think that's, you know, a large part of how many of us grew up is, you know, escaping our own emotions because we don't know how to deal with them and not being given the right guidance on how to support a child to do that. My discoveries, you know, and a lot of this

comes down to the nervous system was in understanding that we could actually start to have that kind of interaction as kids with the right tools. You know, how do you teach a child to regulate their own response to stress in life. And that also... How do you teach a kid to respond to stress? How do you do? How does Adam do that? Well, and that comes from our own regulation.

You know, as parents, our ability to regulate our stress response does what's called co-regulation. It provides an environment through our nervous system that lets a child feel safe to explore inward themselves. But if we're always triggered as parents and always forward thinking, which tends to happen And as we get into adulthood, all of a sudden you're thinking about your finances and your career and your relationships and your own personal health. And the brain learns that these are causing stress and the brain likes to use pattern ways

of thinking to keep us stuck in these because it likes the adrenaline from the fight or flight response. And so that's no way to be regulated. And then when you're around your children, they feel your anxiousness around life. and so they don't feel safe in their ability to explore. And they're also doing the same things we're doing as adults. And so as we learn to regulate our response to life, we also provide the space for the kids to feel safe to do the same thing,

to start to learn what it feels like to be at peace in the moments. It's not something we know in society right now. It's also a large part of why, and this is obviously another pin to put down, but it's why we are, mindful of my words here, but somewhat controlled by the powers that be in terms of government and corporations is because we are dysregulated in our stress response to life. And the more that we understand that we can actually start to optimize our own regulation,

it empowers us in the ways that we show up for ourselves, our family, our community, in the world. Okay, I'm jotting a couple things down here because I want to make sure that I don't miss them. It makes perfect sense to me, you know, I grew up playing team sports and had different captains throughout my career. Some were very emotional human beings that loved the fight and loved, you know, like, and that's how they got everybody wound up and everything else. And those teams were fun. But the one that always sticks out to me was the guy that no matter the situation could never be faced. And so when you talk about, you know, if you're as a parent, you're calm, your kids will feed off that.

Certainly they love to test that, especially at young ages. I'm sure as they get older, they do the same thing. I'm not going to, I can't speak to a kid that's older than six at this point. But certainly, I fully understand what you're getting there. It's how, when you talk about optimizing our regulations, I think there's a, I think there's you said. How does one work on that then? If we both know that, you know what, being calm for most occasions is the right way to be.

And that will help calm everybody else around you, not just kids, but, you know, in general, probably the workplace, probably everything, right? Being able to remain calm and see a problem for what it is and everything else. How does one start to work on that? Explore that, right? Yeah, explore that. Yeah, that's a good way about that. Well, you know, I think the number one thing that we're told on this is, well, you should meditate.

Meditation, meditation. For me, it never worked. It was always just another source of fuel for my brain to create a stress response around. I appreciate that meditation is there's something there. So what is it in meditation that allows us to understand this connection to feeling peace and feeling calm? There's an element of working with our stress response in the moments it's happening. So in the moments of life, we can train our brain to not use a thought to trigger. So let's look at hockey for an example, because I've done this in hockey quite a bit,

where I'll be on the ice and I will just, you know, it's such a beautiful flow state sport, but there'll be moments where I'll get off the ice and I'll be frustrated with myself for missing the pass or for whatever scenario. And I'll be able to, in that moment that my mind is trying to create that trigger, I can reset my mind from being disruptive in that moment. And all of a sudden, it allows you to regain your endurance back and your focus and your energy. And it's all done through the breath. And so I discovered this from rock climbing.

I got really heavy into rock climbing when I was suffering with depression and anxiety in my 20s, had occupational burnout and discovered climbing. And when I discovered climbing, I realized, well, there's something about this sport that's making me feel, really good. It's giving me freedom from the 70,000 thoughts a day that we tend to have that often were, for me, quite triggering. So what is it about climbing that I'm doing? And as I was diving into climbing more and more, I realized, okay, this peace and calm, there's something biological about these moments in climbing that I'm able to reset my stress response to this real fighter flight scenario. And it was based off of what's called in the science.

of this is called heart rate variability. It's playing with the variability in the beats of your own heart, but in the moment of life that you're being disrupted. Now, in athletics, this isn't unknown. This is quite known, but not known enough. And it's not known enough in terms of how can we utilize what this breath practice actually does for us in our everyday lives. And essentially what this is, it's a sequence of 33 seconds where you are doing a four-second. in a seven second out rotation of your breath that helps to tone what's called your vagus nerve. And it's toning the vagus nerve so that it's communicating from your body, your heart, to your brain, to let your brain know that it's safe, that it can let go of the use of

the thoughts that it's producing to trigger you in those moments so that you can be at peace, not in fight or flight. This is, this is tricky because in modern society, there are so many things that are triggering us into fight or flight. And it comes at a cost because we know that we have symptoms based off of that. Most of those we know emotionally. We get frustrated. We get angry. We get agitated. We live with anxiety. But yet we don't realize that we can actually teach our brain to let go of a lot of these thoughts that are triggering us in the same moment that they are happening. And that's what I discovered through climbing, which I brought, started to bring into my everyday life, which is at the core of training ourselves to live inside of what's called regulation.

That's a short answer. Did you go to school for this? I'm not, I'm just curious. No. You just, you were, you talk about, it's funny, you talk about depression or getting, low or you know and uh it's it's interesting there's a lot of um i would say it was one of them at one point in time in life i thought i don't know i don't get it you know i just i don't get the depression thing i just how do you ever get there and then when you finally get there you're

like oh and then it's you know how do you pull yourself out of said situation right because it kind of you don't see it coming or at least i didn't see it coming i'm sure adam wasn't going i'm going i'm going to get depressed next week and we're going to carry on with life so how did you like I don't know, you know, when you talk about breath, and certainly in meditation, they use breath lots, right? Yeah, I mean, there's thousands of breath practices out there. 100%. Yeah. So how do you, like, you talk about being depressed.

Leave me through what happens from depression to stumbling into rock climbing, which seems like, I don't know. Like, is that out your back door? Is that like something that's just... No. I mean, I grew up in Toronto. And, you know, I was listening to what society tells was telling me. is how I'm supposed to live. I'm supposed to get the education and you know once you have your education you go and you get that job and you buy the house and you live happily ever after with

the family and you know but somewhere along that line it wasn't working for me and those thoughts of my past the self-worth and shame that's depressive thinking when I was continuing to focus on my past was where the depression energy the feeling of really being stuck started to accumulate to where I couldn't focus clean and clear. And next thing, I knew I was having a bully situation in my work. And it just perpetuated to this point where I was like, oh, my God, I need to figure this out because now I'm pre-diabetic from my sugar addiction. I'm overweight.

This is at 25, 26 years old. I'm now feeling anxious because a lot of my thoughts are focused on, how do I fix this? I feel like crap all the time. And I don't know what to do. And maybe I should buy another gym membership. maybe I should go on another diet. And every time I looked at what society kept telling me was the ways to get healthy made me feel crappier and crappier because I kept feeling frustrated and guilty

about not being able to achieve whatever the wellness practice was, like meditation. It just never worked for me because my brain wouldn't let me do it. Climbing came because I didn't want to buy another gym membership. I was like, holy crap, I got to figure this out. Something's got to come. And me and a buddy of mine, we were both not in great shape. And we were rollerblading downtown Toronto. And this is back when rollerblading was quite cool.

And we stumbled upon Joe Rockheads, which is a pretty popular climbing gym in Toronto area. And something about it right away. I was like, okay, this is interesting. I have a fear of heights. But let's try this because I don't want to buy another gym membership. So let's go in here. You had a fear of heights and we're like, I tell you what, that's fighting through something right there. Okay, fair.

You got, yeah. You know, because I think there was an element where I recognize, so this is kind of a safe environment to try this, to push myself into a space that's a little bit uncomfortable. And I realize, wow, my life has been so, you know, I've been avoiding it for so long that, okay, yes, I'm feeling really uncomfortable about this, but I think I can try this and push into it. And I did. And, you know, for sure, the first time I put on the harness and got on the plastic holes inside, I had a panic attack.

Halfway up, I'm yelling at my buddy. Let me down. I don't want to do this. But there was something that clicked. And I didn't know what it. Clicked in apologies. Clicked that time or multiple times later. No.

So there was something about it that I wanted to try again and again and again. And then as I kept trying, I realized that it was starting to show me that when I actually was on the wall climbing, I could create peace, right? Because when you climb, you can't be stuck in your head all the time, thinking all those thoughts about life, because then you're just, you're paralyzed and you don't move.

So all of a sudden, I was able to move a few more holds, a few more holds, and realizing, wow, this is giving me freedom in my own mind. You want to know something wild? That's what podcasting does for me.

So when you talk about meditation doesn't work, I've tried meditation. It works. it's just like for some reason it feels like work. I don't, I don't, does that make sense? I think I think I think it's never. And so it's not enjoyable. Like I mean it is and it isn't, I don't know, you know, like it's almost like a double-edged sword or something.

You know, like it works, but for some reason, Sean isn't drawn to it. I get into a conversation like this and it's just like you're creating a little bit of peace in your mind. I don't know how better to say it than what you just said. If I could take that and put it on a bumper sticker or podcasting about a big, Bing, but a boom, Adam. That's kind of what it is. Well, you know, and then it's a matter of understanding that that's a biological state. So what is it that I'm doing biologically that's giving me this feeling? And as you learn what your body and mind are actually doing in those moments, you realize,

wow, I can replicate this. And I didn't know this for a long time. Like I became addicted to climbing. It was the only thing that I could do that made me feel happy in my heart. And so I changed my whole life. I quit my job, which I was very happy to do. And I said, I'm going out west. I'm going to go explore the mountains.

You know, at this point, I had started climbing outdoors in Toronto. I had a mentor, a gentleman from Columbia, this gentleman Wolf, Wolfgang, became a very close friend. And he kind of mentored me. He kept taking me outside and made me feel comfortable with that process. And eventually, I said, well, I want to make this my life. I don't know what to do next, but I'm going to follow this thing that's making me feel good. And I moved to Golden BC, small town, British Columbia. Beautiful.

Amazing. You know, so here I am working up at kicking horse mountain. And I'm training to become a rock climbing guide. It's like, well, this is what I'm doing. This is my life now. But in the pursuit of that, I just, I really wanted to understand the science of what I was achieving mentally and physically. because it was so substantial and it didn't require me having to overhaul. Well, obviously, I had to overhaul my life, but not in terms of what we're being told

around our wellness practices. And I realized there's a missing link here. And in 2003, I decided, well, I'm going to start a company that teaches this understanding of mental health for companies because of my background in the corporate space. And so I, 2005, I moved to Squamish, BC, and I started to do corporate wellness training in Vancouver and really found out right away that there is a very big missing link in our ability to tune into mental health in a way that we actually have more access to it ourselves if we're given the right tools and the right support structure to really have an experience of what it feels like to be. at peace and to be in our own parasympathetic calm nervous system. And again, there is an element of society right now that is so in our face all the time and forcing us to be reactive and agitated

and seeking solutions that we see others on social media having that we don't have or whatever capacity that doesn't allow us access to feeling at peace in this moment. And I have not stopped the pursuit of sharing that with others. And I'm 15 plus years of doing this. Yeah, that's, that's an interesting thought, you know. I, uh, I don't know how to explain it other than, I don't, I don't know how rock climbing goes because I look at that and I'm like terrified. I'm like, yeah, good on you. No thank you. And saying that, would I try it once or twice?

Certainly. And probably my biggest fear is that you'd enjoy it. And then you'd be like, ah, crap, right? But there is this, you know, you wake up every morning on this side of things. And you walk to the studio, you hop in here, and you go, I got no idea what's coming at me a day. I got an idea, but I really don't know. It's such a roller coaster in the best possible sense.

of where a conversation's going to go every single day. And it is beyond addicting. I can't explain it any better than that. What I'm curious about is you said you've learned from rock climbing, this ability to essentially create peace, but you've taken that and now you've implemented it into your life in other places. Yeah. So what did you learn?

And then how did you start implementing it? Yeah. Well, there is a six-step process and kind of the main guide of when I do this work. I mean, I've been coaching on this front for quite a while and working with a lot of busy parents. And there really are six-step process. I call it the Unleash-your-energy roadmap. I do have a PDF that's downloadable for anybody. So you don't have to take notes, but there are some aspects of this that the more we can hear,

hear this language, the more we can anchor it in. But the first step is we have to understand that we are not our minds. We have, again, on average, 70,000 thoughts a day. And so it's very easy to get lost in those thoughts. But if we can pull ourselves back for a moment and recognize that our mind, as beautiful as it is, the brain, as an organ, it is a survival organ. And its number one source of survival is energy. And it uses our biology. So what are the main sources of? of energy for the body or for the brain. The number one is adrenaline. And another one is dopamine.

So adrenaline comes from the fighter flight. And dopamine comes a large part from our coping habits, the habits we use to escape our lives, like horror movies, like sugar. Again, social media, shopping. So step one, we have to become the observer. Where in my life do I have these patterned thoughts that are creating a disruption to my ability to be at peace this moment right now, the rest and digest calm state. And then you start to realize, wow, okay, there's a lot of those thoughts, a lot around my relationships with my kids,

a lot around my relationship with my partner, at work, you know, they're everywhere. So once we become the observer, then we want to start to play with those. We want to start to stop identifying and reacting to those, but we want to start to reset the brain in those moments using this breath practice. So I call the breath practice heart flow. Like I say, it takes 33 seconds. So another example, I share this a little bit in terms of, you know, for parents, you come down in the morning and the kids are yelling at each other. And it's, for me, noise is always a stress response.

It's a massive source of anxiety. And so I notice I'm about to react and yell at my kids. Shut up. Stop. And I'm like, okay. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I reset my mind because in those moments, my brain is like, yes, the kids are fighting. We're going to give Adam some thoughts and get.

them off the rails and we're going to get all that adrenaline. And then so I'm like, wait a minute, okay, reset this right now. Do this 33 seconds. And my family knows this now. They know, oh, there's that. He's breathing again. Okay. But in those moments, I do this breath practice 33 seconds later.

I am at peace. And so when you're able to start to recognize these patterns and you train your mind to let go of the trigger, the correlating result is that you're not reacting, but now you're not a source of reaction for anybody else around you. This is the co-regulation. Now your kids, my kids, they know that they can't trigger me. So they're not using me as, or their brain is not using me as a source, if that makes sense. That step, that step two, it's like, okay, now we got to start looking at our patterns and learn to reset our own reactions to life so that we have, step three, the possibility of what we do want to be our reality.

How can I shift this so that now I can have more peace around how I want my relationships to be with my partner, my kids, or at work, or how do I want my health to be? It's all discovered and explored and strengthened from our parasympathetic nervous system. I'm curious, do your kids just mess with you from time to time? Oh, yeah. You know, and, you know, they still have, their addictions are the same as, as us as adults in terms of the screens and sugar. Well, I mean, the screen, the screen, well, no, both though. Who am I kidding?

Both of them are so prevalent in everything. It's, well, I mean, it's almost insane to think about how much screen time or just screens, not even screen time, how many screens, you know, are just sitting as I sit here and talk to you through a screen and there's another screen right here. And there's just, there's screens everywhere. and kids are sponges at young ages. They see that. They're not. You know, and when's the last time you took your kids to a hockey arena? And what's what's at every corner, whether it's the vending machine or at the cafeteria,

you know, you go to the grocery store and it's not by accident that the whole checkout is filled with garbage, processed, sugary stuff that kids can have access to with their little hands. It's not like it's up out of the way. It's an adult's choice. It's all, you know, a lot of it's by design. Yeah, well, I tell you what, a supermarket. Like, you go to, I was just in Walmart the other day.

And I know a few people with a cringe or whatever else, but it's like, I was in a Walmart the other day. And I'm like, man, they really have done a lot of science on this. Because when you are walking now to check your stuff out, it's like you're in a, in a, I think a cattle, right? You're in like a pen and you go through it and then you pop out. And along that walk is every point. possible treat under the sun little finger thing that you're like, do I want, and then you're going to just stop looking. Just don't look at all the stuff they put out there.

But that's pretty much every store now, every retail store. They find ways to put little things in front of you right before you pay in the hopes that you're going to grab one more thing. And lots of times it works. There has to be some crazy science behind. Oh, it's, it's really, yeah. Well, and it's the same with the design of social media. We know that, you know, most of these social apps are designed for your attention.

Well, it's the same with the way that most of these stores are designed is they want to maximize profits. It's not the food company's fault, right? The food company, and I wrote a bestselling book all around nutrition called The Power of Food. I was a big, big into food security for many years. And it was kind of like one of my other big wakeups was like, whoa, the government really doesn't care about us in terms of nutrition. and their connection to big corporations and lobbying. So if we know that the majority of what these things are doing are triggering a stress response, which is what they are,

we can sort of start to simplify this a little bit because you think, okay, well, if our checkouts are filled with all this garbage, well, our kids are just going to get a lot of sugar and they're going to feel kind of crappy and not be so healthy. well, that's for sure, but more than that, it denies them access to their brain power, their ability to be to be connected to purpose, to passion, to fulfillment in a way that leads to how we take action for each other and how other companies perform in terms of where their missions are. And it starts with us as parents, for sure, but it's also, what are the

kids up against them? Right now, again, we're just so. and bartered with things that are disrupting our nervous system that's denying us having community and a sense of harmonious, calm, peaceful community in a way that we can empower each other to have things be the way we want. And so as much as we look at the checkout at Walmart and say, well, it's just kind of shitty that all this crappy foods here for the kids to be able to have access to. And I don't want to say it's more sidious than that, but it's a bit more troublesome than just that. One of the things I was, I was, um, um, one of the things I was wondering, you know,

like you start doing this podcast and then pretty soon you start questioning a lot of things and, you know, you start asking questions and you never stop and you just can't see, you know, I just see things and I'm like, why do we do that? And one of the ones has been since I was a kid is chocolate milk in the schools. I'm like, why do we do that? Like when you're trying to get kids, I have three young kids. you give them chocolate milk or anything with ample amounts of sugar and what's going to happen? They're not going to sit still.

That isn't the way this works. I have a hard enough time sitting still when I take. And yet, you look at the school systems and you watch how many, and once again, I'm going to point up myself. I loved chocolate milk at school. Why do we do that to kids? Why is that even allowed? Wow. Why is parents, do we write that off as all?

That's not a big deal. It's chocolate milk. Why is that? everywhere, right? So in hospitals, the same thing. You know, a large part of funding from the hospitals comes from the Milk Association, the Dairy Association. So, you know, if we really want to lift the veil off this, you really see quickly that it's all about profit, all of it. And So are you saying the reason they allow chocolate milk is if it was just plain white milk, they wouldn't sell nearly as much? I'm not saying that in terms of milk. I mean, milk itself,

there's a whole, you know, what's the real value nutritionally of milk in terms of our consumption of it, you know, and really dissecting into the health values of milk versus raw milk is a whole other discussion and why is that illegal? But there is ample evidence if we pull back to recognize that most of what our kids are given access to is given access because of what it produces in terms of profits, but also then what it does do to a little child's mind, which gets them to be addicted to the product. It's all about, you know, I think it was in the 50s

when these food companies discovered what was called the bliss point, scientifically induced amount of sugar and salt in a product that will get the taste buds to act a certain way in order for an addiction to occur to the product. I think it started out of the army. They wanted to get the right nutrients into soldiers, but wanted also for it to have that certain flavor so that they would consume it.

But anyway, the bliss point is a known thing, and it just became part of how all these companies, especially processed food companies, produce their products. What's the actual right amount of salt, sugar fat, which is the dominant three ways that our taste buds are hijacked, in a way that gets us to be triggered cognitively in a way where it gives the spike of dopamine

to the brain in a way where the brain says, that's my thing, that's my thing. And it happens even before you even eat the product. So you'll be driving down the highway and you'll see a sign on the side of the road for Tim Horton's little sandwich or whatever. And right away, your brain is going to trigger dopamine to say, go get it. It's all by design. And so it happens from a young age because of how, you know, this isn't really known for parents. And then when the kids go to schools or go to the swimming pool or go to the library,

although there's no libraries really all that much anymore, or go to the hockey arenas, it's everywhere, you know, every grocery store they go to, every, even now every clothing store has a checkout that's got some sort of candy that's sitting there. It's Anyway, you know, and again, I think what the core message, at least for me and why I share it this way is it's not about

highlighting the negativity of it. It's more of recognizing that, okay. So if we understand the playing field, we need to be educated ourselves so that we can co-regulate our brain's desire to feed off of this stuff and then also be able to provide our kids

with that co-regulation from us and the education, like when I don't deny my kids access to sugar. Not much at all, to be honest. But what I do is I do my best to educate them so that they're making the conscious choice to do it. Because when they do eat it, my daughter in particular, she's much harder to emotionally regulate herself. She's much quicker to trigger and be frustrated with life and fly off the handle.

And it's like, okay, well, now. I'm again as the parent and putting myself back in the position of not trying to fix her, but to help her understand what it feels like to feel regulated and empower her with choices, even though society does not value her having that kind of choice. Big discussion. Yeah, well, to me, I love food, right? I just, I enjoy good food. I just do.

That can go across the board. And when I hear you, I go, okay. So there's been times in my life, and it happens all the time where there's, you know, you brought up Tim Horton's. And sure, there's a box of donuts. You know you shouldn't have one. You don't really want to have one. And you eat one.

And you don't feel that great after it. And you kind of go, why did I do that? And then you play the pity party and whatever else, right? And you're just like, I kind of stop doing that. And then a couple days go by and the same, you know, and it just, so how? You know, six-step process you were talking about. Yeah. But one of the, I think he said step two is recognize the situation or the stress as it's happened.

It's like, well, you can recognize it. But now your brain's going, yeah, but you really want that. Yeah. Think of how good. That's going to taste. Oh, man. Totally. You know, for me, it's an apple fritter at Tim Horton's folks.

Ooh, I love myself an apple fritter. Anyways, you get the point. And it's like, yeah, but how do you get out of that? Well, it's not about perfection. That's the number one thing. have to be okay with giving ourselves leeway on this. I still love sugar. My go-to is always shortbread cookies. And if I can get my hands on cheesecake, look out. And it's okay. But it's okay because I'm consciously doing it. I'm constantly choosing to do it. I'm not being,

I'm not being sabotaged into it by my mind in terms of the addiction to it. The way that I started this in terms of my on the sugar front was that being being so highly addicted to sugar and it was again like to the point where I was pre-diabetic and given medication for Lipitor in my 20s which high cholesterol medication and 50 pounds overweight when I discovered through climbing again this idea of I can reset my own stress response in the moments I can reset my own mind and my mind's interpretation of the moment and and recognize that wow is this really fighter flight moment? Do I need to be triggered or can I be at peace? And so when I learned it through climbing, which is a real fighter flight, which I think which is what gives me the advantage over,

well, I'm mindful of that word advantage, but it gives me a perspective that most people don't have is that I put myself for years and hours on end in a real fighter flight scenario that I had to learn how to manage with my own mind and body. That's climbing. it's not an adrenaline sport. It's a continual engagement of recognizing your own response to your environment. But then again, what it got me to realize was, whoa. So I'm able to manage my anxiety like this in such a beautiful way that right away, I said, okay, I'm going to bring this into my sugar anxiety.

I'm going to bring this into my sugar addiction and see if I can do the same thing. Again, so it's like, what's my mind up to? That's the first step. Okay, it's asking me to go get more. more cookies out of the cover. Okay, I'm noticing that. Now I've got the cookie in my hand. Okay, so before I react and just shove it in my face, let's do this reset. Let's do, you know, the 33 seconds. I kept doing this on the side of the rock wall and I closed my eyes and I do this four seconds in, seven seconds out, beautiful rhythmic breath. And I would be feeling so powerful. All my endurance is

back. My focus is back. So now I'm doing it with the cookie in my hand, right? And it's, like, okay, just honor yourself, Adam. Take a moment, do the same practice. Reset your brain and its desire to shove this in your face right now. Immediately, it worked. And I was like, okay, whoa, I just did this reset and I'm not craving this as much. I'm still craving it. But here is the thing is, I never denied myself access to eating it. I just said to myself, as long as I take the pause and I do my own reset in this moment, I can still eat if I choose to. And the more I committed to doing that pause, the more I was able to have the power come back in my cognitive thinking to choose not to have it.

And it led to other things starting to show up that were making me feel really good, that were better for me, in a way where the cravings started to drop immensely. for the sugar and because I was no longer quickly reacting to the sugar, my brain stopped using it as a source as much as it was. Because now I'm not being triggered by it and the brain's not getting the same dopamine and the same adrenaline. It's an efficient organ. It won't keep using those thoughts if we teach the brain that we're not going to react to it. And that's how all that changed. And I can assume that if, uh, you know, at 30, I turn 37 here, short like, um, or if you're 45 or whatever, if you haven't, um, if you've been having this issue for 45,

you're trying to undo 45 years of like, I'm just going to have it. Right. I'm going to shove that cookie in my face. It's going to be delicious. And then I'm going to regret it. 10 minutes after, right? Like, I mean, you're really trying to undo programming that's been sitting there for a long, long time and trying to wrestle and grapple with that. No matter how much you understand like you start to you know I'm trying to figure out how many times at the very beginning Adam was walking around the house going deep breath in. Seven seconds out count it out. Hey you know I mean and and you know when I work with my clients in this way a lot of the times they're a little bit nervous about doing that that breath practice in front of their family for one and and then obviously in public because it's

important that if you know you have road rage and you're at the stoplight and you're raging in there. Yeah, you got to. If you want to, you don't have to, but if you really want to know the difference. And I used to have a lot of road rage in Toronto. I'd have a lot of wrestling matches on the street. You know, not pretty, but to be able to reset yourself in line at the grocery store when you're frustrated or, you know, whatever the scenario is where that that stress response is kicking in, you have to be okay with doing this reset. And that takes something. But once you do and you feel the benefit of that. Because it's an immediate result. Like immediately you start to feel what the parasympathetic nervous system feels like, which is what we all should know how that feels.

But it's not part of our understanding because over the last 100, 200, 300 years, it's kind of just bred out of us by the amount of stress we're under that we don't even realize how stuck we are in our own fight or flight. And so when you give somebody access in a way that fits a busy life, And all you're being told is to notice your patterns, start to work with your own breath in those moments, to train your brain. You start to realize really quick,

wow, there's something about just the simplicity of this that is making me feel more peaceful, more calm. But not only that, there's like this immediate biological enhancement. Your brain starts to operate differently because your executive function turns back on. So you actually have cleaner focus and more motivation. And your body transforms,

without you having to stick to any silly restrictive diets because all of a sudden now, because you're doing this reset, it's helping to manage your inflammatory response. It's helping your digestion, which boosts your immune function. It helps your mitochondrial energy, which is all around your cellular energy. It helps to balance your hormones. This all comes from just working with your own nervous system in the moment your brain is trying to mess it up. It's on it's again I you can hear in my energy too like I've been doing this for for 15 years and I'm more excited now than ever because of I know how this this works. I know how

how it helps us to flow with Maurice but I also I also get how it's a it's an opportunity for a really big solution for society in the whole you know it's interesting when you talk about society today and how much stress we're under and different things of that nature. And I chuckled about that because I'm like, you know, like, we're supposed to be in the world that has not no stress because there's no such thing as no stress, right? But certainly like when it comes to a standard of living in the Western world, I mean, like it's only a hundred years ago in this same country where, you know, I mean, living conditions are pretty pretty rough out here on the prairies right and you think

that's that had to have been way more stressful in what we're doing now but the type of stress is different is is kind of what I'm taking right and and I mean all I got to do is look at the phone and realize how quickly you can be immediately disrupted in and what you're thinking about and everything else you know one of the one of the things I I did with my phone which you know at times I wonder whether if it was the smartest choice or not you know when you're trying to do a podcast and everything else I just turned all notification off. All of them.

So now if somebody wants to email me, sometimes I never, like, I was like, not miss it, but I'm like, I don't really care. I mean, you know how stupid that sounds? It sounds a little stupid. Because you're supposed to be all over it, but it like, when you talk about stress and the peace of mind, not having to respond immediately to everything, you know,

it was only 15, 20 years ago. There was no cell phones, you know, in the modern working world, which means at night you went home and you didn't have that stress. Now it's 24-7. Like, it's a bit insane, actually. Well, the rise of the smartphone. So in 2010, like I mentioned, I used to do a lot of corporate wellness training around mental health. And in 2010, there was a few organizations I was working with that were wondering,

Adam, maybe you have an idea of what's happening because we're seeing this massive rise in our eFAP cost. This is the employee benefits costs, the insurance costs. I said, well, and it's all coming from the rise of pharmaceutical medication for depression and anxiety. And it's not just the employees, it's for their significant others. So all of a sudden there's this massive rise in the use of pharmaceutical medication for depression and anxiety, and they don't know why these costs are rising so high, so fast. And so as we have these conversations, to me, it was, you know, knowing what I know about nervous system function, it was so obvious.

And I said them, I said, well, you know, hopefully you're okay with what I'm going to share with you. But, you know, it's the rise of the smartphone is what the cause is. And there was a lot of discussion back then from many organizations who are like, okay, but that's a can of worms. We're not going to go near. So it was like wash our hands of it and not deal with it, which I get it. I mean, what are you going to do? It's the number one disruptor right now. you know okay sugar for sure is still so dominant but the smartphone and the ability for that phone

to disrupt your abundance disrupt your nervous system into a fighter flight stress response most people don't realize the extent of the harm that that causes and i still like i love my phone i'm not getting rid of it but the idea is well how do we continue to adapt to modern society in terms of the number of disruptors there are in our nervous system so that we can at least thrive. We don't have to give up our vitality. We're just not being, we're not being told to the amount that we're being sabotaged by our environment around us now. And it's leading us to be stuck in, in fixing mode and figuring out mode, which doesn't

give us the power to have our lives be the way we want them to be and let's big corporations and government continue to control the way they control. We need to get our critical thought back, but without having to eliminate the things like our cell phones, we just have to know that we have to mitigate our addiction to them by allowing ourselves to continually throughout the day, reset our nervous system back into a place where it can optimize our energy. That's the answer. Throughout the day, multiple times a day, reset your own nervous system, using some very specific practices like we've already talked about a few, but there's quite a few more,

but it's all about continuing to honor your nervous system in a way where you feel empowered, not like you're always chasing your power. You think that's possible? Well, it's tricky, you know, it's tricky because I think in the end too, it needs, and that's a great question, it needs community around it, right?

And so what I mean by that is it needs others who know how to regulate. We need to be in co-regulated community. We used to be that way. You know, used to be hundreds of years ago where you were in your tribes and you were, fighter flight was when you had to go after your food that once a day or once every few days. And yeah, sure, it's completely different in terms of what really is survival now. But so many of our interactions in our communities are our friction-based interactions,

reactive-based in the home front. And then when you get together with your friends and whatnot, it's, you know, it's a lot of let's escape, lives by having alcohol or party or whatever that looks like. But yet, where is the community related to empowering each other to be the best versions of ourselves possible? Which is why I reached out to you too, is knowing that you know, you're hosting these events in your community. That's everything. Being able to be in a space where you're not being triggered, but you're in, your power, which comes from your parasympathetic nervous system, the rest and digest. That's where fulfillment lives. That's where presence lives. If you cultivate,

a relationship with community that understands that regulation that makes that community unstoppable and the things that you can create together and empower others around you is unstoppable and that's that's that's that's where this becomes possible you cannot do this alone you can't be told oh you know you're you know to get yourself back to being fit and healthy you got to stop the sugar and stop your phones that we know that doesn't work it's Having the right tools in the right order, having the right support structure around you, and having a really strong community of co-regulators, that's the key. So over the past, I don't know, 10, 15 years, certainly the rise of the phone.

There's less and less people, you know, if I had my choice, I would do this in person every single time. It's way different and not saying that this isn't good. It is very good. but we both can agree be better if it was in person it's not even close so over the course of 15 years there's less and less people um you know like when when i went to go uh chasing my wife we went to the bar and we went dancing and we went you know all these different things and you know there were fights and everything else certainly i mean there was a ton of things and that seems to be falling away uh you know like the the ability to uh uh the ability to uh uh

get porn anywhere is like kind of insane actually probably is insane and you know like you just tack on all these things and then tack on the limited human interaction that's slowly disappearing to all those things are equating to like you know when you talk about community it's like oh that's why I put such a high value on it you know I talk about the book club and men's groups all the time. And I didn't fully understand the not the science behind it. Maybe it's the science behind it. I don't know, Adam can fill me in on this. But like we don't for an hour and a half once a week, we don't have our phones out. We sit and we talk as a

group of anywhere between nine or ten guys. It's great. And there's something really healthy about that. And if we've been starved of it for let's say 15 years, there'd be a reason why everybody who leaves there goes, yeah, it's all everything we're talking about because we're talking about lots of things, which we are. And we're holding each other accountable, which we are. But there's also the fact that we're just actually looking at each other and talking to each other, which is just as healthy as anything else under the sun. And it's been taken away not forcefully, actually quite willingly by all of us. Yeah. Yeah. And so you'll notice in those environments that there's a lot of common language

being used, right? And it's beautiful that you do that. So that's kind of like the first phase is okay let's find our tribe let's start to build a sense of community around who we're manifesting into our into our ability to serve right so this is the idea of when you become aligned with your own nervous system in this way you have an overflow of energy now to share with others and this is the co-regulation piece so then all of a sudden people will gravitate to you because you've got extra. You're not serving in a way where you're giving up your energy, which is what a lot of people do, and it becomes an addiction to serve others, but you don't realize it's at your own cost. But you work in a way where people come to you because you're co-regulating them. Now when you

hold space in that kind of a community, the interaction is something. And so here's the difference in the interaction. And I'm not assuming for a moment that this is what you're having, but we're most groups, and let's just say men's groups as an example, you create your men's group and you come together and you're in interaction with one another, well, there's going to be a lot of similar energy in terms of the language that's being used because language has a vibration to it. And a lot of that language most likely will have tingees of anxiety or stress response, meaning that there might be a lot of dialogue related to expression of how life is unfolding. Maybe my partner is not working so well or my kids are doing this and it'll be a lot of solution-based,

discussions of yeah, maybe we should have this as a as part of our group and talk more of, you know, it's a lot of fixing or a lot of camaraderie in similar experiences of how, of how life is unfolding. But is there what amount of that dialogue is creation based? What amount of the dialogue is in terms of what we can now do as empowered human beings together to lift other people up to be part of. of this conversation and I my sense is that that's where this has the potential to go is when we do find ourselves in community in that way when it has a lot of that regulation as part of it the dialogue changes the language changes to where you're we are all in this community where we have an overflow to now do so much more with that community versus continuing to kind of have the

the energy of trying to figure it out. Does that make sense? Yeah, but you said something that is going to, I'm going to ask directly about because otherwise I'm going to forget it and I'm trying to hold on to the thought. So you said language has a vibration to it, which like immediately I go, yeah, that makes sense. And then I thought about that and I'm like, but doesn't make sense?

I'm like, it certainly does, but I don't know how to explain. And so now I'm like, can we, can we just talk about that for a second? that language has a vibration to it. So, and same with thoughts, right? So this is the idea of quantum physics. And I get it. Like, listen, I'm a hockey player from Toronto, pre-diabetic. And, you know, it's like, now here, this is what I talk about, is energy.

I'm a hockey player from a small village hamlet of Saskatchewan. And I do this podcast now. So don't worry yourself. I'm not worried about it one bit. I'm curious by it. Yeah. Well, you know, I think that there is an else. element of the unseen that we tend to think is maybe possibly a little foofy or woofey or and I don't,

hey, listen, my mindset, and I'm not suggesting that that's what you're thinking. But again, this is my insecurities coming up, right? And that's where my mind used to go. It's like, well, if I can't see it, I'm not buying into it. But my understanding of what I started to tune into around my own energy, nervous system, started to lead me to the research on it, which led me to understanding a little more around quantum physics. So quantum physics, which you can also call it God or call it the universe, but it's the physics of energy in terms of the quantum field. So everything is linked energetically together. Okay, well, we don't see that, but it is. And how does that work? Well, it works in vibrations. It works in frequencies. And so we know this in terms of our

radio and our telephones and Wi-Fi. And, you know, it all works, but we don't see it, but it's there. So when we speak, it has a frequency to it. And so what ends up happening is that the frequency goes out and it's always, in terms of the quantum physics of this, it's looking to be matched with a similar frequency. And so it comes from the emotional state of your body, your nervous system. So whatever emotion you're holding has a large part of what the frequency is. is that you're sending out into the quantum field. I don't want us to get too lost in this, but this is why it's so important that we understand how

we are using words and how our brain produces thoughts because it's a predominantly, you can see how the rest of your life is unfolding with a similar feeling to it, a similar emotion. This is the idea, again, of if we take stock for a moment of the patterns of our life, how am I feeling about my health right now? How am I feeling about my life partner? How am I feeling about my kids? How am I feeling about my career? How am I feeling about my financial situation? There's going to have a similar frequency to all of it because it's all part of a similar manifestation, the frequency of your emotional state. Yet we get stuck in our heads and the identification with all these 70,000 thoughts and we just think that that's our lives and that

that's who we are and that's how we should approach things, but yet we don't realize that all of those thoughts are producing emotion. All of the thoughts or all of the words we say are producing emotion. And that's the frequency that's being sent out. And so as we learn to clean that dialogue up, it changes how we think about ourselves. It changes how we talk. And that changes how we then attract things to us in a way where you can be in a much higher vibration in terms of your ability to contribute not only to yourself but contribute to others. That's a deep thought. Well, that's a deep thought.

You don't have to be worried about saying anything on this podcast. Yeah, I know. I appreciate that. We've covered a whole gambit here in the last three years. So, you know, nothing, nothing you can say minus, I don't know, there's, I suppose, I suppose, folks, there's a few things Adam could say that I'd be like, okay. But overall, even then, I'd be like, I'd be more curious about it than anything. And this, this vibration thing is interesting because I've been told by different listeners that my voice has a certain vibration to it. And I'm like, I really don't know what that means.

Like, I, I'd love to sit here and act like I do, but I don't. And certainly I hear it. And I'm like, do words have vibration associated to it? Well, obviously, I mean, and how you say things at any given point is certainly you can infer a lot of things out of how someone says something. It's pretty noticeable. Well, it comes from the emotion of it, right? It's the emotional expression of the word that has the vibration. I mean, I know from my personal interaction with you just on this call, you have a very safe voice.

Right? It's like it's very inviting. It's got lots of space for others to be heard. That's powerful. But that I think also comes from what this provides you. What space internally this is providing you, as we were talking earlier, how this makes you feel. Well, that that's holding a particular energy that allows your voice to be. be what it is for your guests to have that experience with you. Isn't that a wild thought? Uh-huh. Yeah, it is. You know, like I, um, it's just, there's something to it. I guess it's kind of where I'm at. I don't know how much I can even articulate past that point because what you're

talking about is something that I've listened to a little bit. I've certainly heard different people speak on it, but I've never like done a deep dive into figuring this out because I'm like, I don't know, how much bearing does it really have on my life to go, like, do a deep dive into it. And yet, when you talk about what society is struggling with, certainly devices are, you can't even argue it anymore. I mean, like, there's a ton of good that comes from them, but there's equally, you know, when you're talking about triggered and things like that. And then, I mean, diet, like, yeah, like the amount of sugar and everything else is just so evident. but it seems like such a unmanageable problem.

Like how do you begin to even remotely fix that or even come to terms with it? Yeah, I appreciate that. And so this is where, you know, the evolution of what work that I do, you know, and again, looking at these six steps, you know, the first step being taking stock of your own mind, recognizing your patterns and your ways of thinking so that you recognize what your brain is up to. Where is it trying to trip you up? Where is it impacting your language in a way that's attracting more frustration, more guilt, more anger, more fixing.

Okay. Now step two, start to teach the mind to let go of those biologically, not just in words. Oh, we're just going to stop doing it. No, well, that doesn't work. But you have to train through your vagus nerve how to teach your brain to feel safe. So it doesn't feed off your response to those thoughts. Okay. Now you do that.

Now you got step three. Step three is starting to play with presence because that's what the result is. Now you're present. Now you can play with your emotions in a way that you can choose how you want to feel. Okay, there's a whole process to that. But that's really, that's, you know, at the core of manifestation, that's really now you have access to play with your emotions in a way where you get to, to attract more of what you do want. Then the next step is continuing to activate this emotion. And that has a process.

But the final one, and I think what you're alluding to here is, and the final one is this optimize. Optimization. So the foundation for our daily vitality and being the best version of ourselves possible comes from holding the parasympathetic nervous system as our dominant energy. Great. That's what these first few steps teach you to do. Now you can start to optimize the whole experience by looking at your wellness in a holistic,

which can't just be one area. So it can't just be, I'm going to look at food now and figure out how I'm going to do food better. No, we have to figure out all these areas in a way that optimizes the nervous system interaction with them. Right. So these areas are, and they're all related to holistic wellness. So these areas are your sleep, your nutrition, your fitness, your relationships around

you, and your environment. And just learn some really subtle ways to make sure that you are optimizing. those areas in a way that that helps your nervous system stay healthy and allows your mind to continue to live at peace and not use your sleep as a source of disruption, not use nutrition as a source of anxiety. But how do you use those in a way where it allows these daily routines in your life to be all about giving yourself more and more acts of self-love and self-care that fit your busy life that still has the phone with you everywhere you go, but in a way where you're still

feeling really strong mentally and physically. And it's doable, but it just requires the right practices and it requires the foundation of your nervous system to be what guides everything. I don't know if this is right, but when I hear that, I just, I feel like it's like all interconnected. Like when you talk about sleep, it's like, yeah, if you don't get enough sleep, it bleeds into this and then it's going to be tougher to do this. and it's going to be tougher to do that. And then it's funny, though, my brain goes to, but what about the person who says, you know, but I only live once?

And we're going to, we're going to eat too much candy on that. And then we're going to do X and we're going to do Y. What do you say to that person? They don't know what it feels like to fully embrace the feeling of fulfillment. Because I get it too, you know, having, having, and I still love beer. You know, I'm not the, the saint on the hill kind of thing. nothing to do with that. It's got nothing to do with sitting in a cave and meditating forever. I love my life. Like you, I love cheesecake still. I love, I love cookies. I still love all those

things. But what I love more is the feeling of fulfillment. I know what that really feels like for me as an internal experience. And I know it's just language and I don't know how that feels for anybody else, but I know what it feels like for me. Could my brain sabotage that? Yes, it does. it does it for moments where it used to sabotage it to a point where I didn't even know that that feeling existed. But now that I know that I have a connection to that feeling, my brain can't sabotage it. So I don't crave the escape. I don't crave just, you know, shoving the food down until I'm dead or whatever drugs or alcohol. It's just, it's not something that I crave. If I did, yeah, it would be very easy to give into it and say, well, I'm done.

But I now know, you know, I just turned 50 and I'm in the best shape of my life. Again, like all of a sudden, you know, I'm going out on the ice and I'm playing hockey and my heads up and my two hands are on my stick. And I'm like, holy crap, I'm playing better than I've ever played before. And I know it's because of how my nervous system is operating that I have an extra level of performance that provides that fulfillment feeling that I just, that's all I crave is to keep pushing that boundary. And the only thing that limits us, one, is not knowing that we can do this, but the only

thing that limits us is our own minds. And if we learn how to teach our minds to let go of all our past and let go of the need for the future to be different, all we have is this moment. And this moment is a place we can cultivate a deeper relationship with. And that's where fulfillment is. And it's a hard place to want to leave. Adam's laughing at me. I'm just taking it all in.

Can I just take it all it? Yeah, that's great. I'm just taking it all in. I have, you mentioned a word manifesting. Are you, are you a believer in that? Yes. I have to be, of course. I mean, I understand.

I understand it. Yeah. Yeah, we could definitely dive into that. Here's, here's, I'm trying. This is why I bring it up. The audience is going to laugh at me 10 times over, but that's all right. I've been trying to get this guy named George. Peterson on the podcast.

Yeah. And so I've been putting it out into the universe into, I've been doing a lot of different things. Yeah. Because I mean, Alberta boy who is now, you know, one of the most notorious Canadians, if nothing else, right? And it seems like all I do is talk to notorious Canadians, but I can't get, I don't even know how to start there.

And lots of people say, oh, you just need to manifest it out into the world. I'm like, that's great. Yeah. Well, here's a guy who's talking about. who's talking about different things and language and vibrations and energy and everything else. I'm like, all right. Well, I'm curious that if you got moments to spare on manifestation, I'm going to give you the big missing link to manifestation.

And I appreciate you asking this. And I appreciate that there are some very big names in this space. I will say that in all of those. names, none of them are going to tell you what I'm about to tell you. Number one, it's about the optimization of your nervous system in motion. That's what you're manifesting, right? How do you do that? Well, it's everything we've talked about to this point. But it's about utilization of the moments of life. Oh, okay, so wait a minute. So if I sit down in the morning and I have my intention and my goal setting it as Tony Robbins calls it, you know, priming your state, then I'm going to

manifest whatever that is. Well, no. Because as soon as you get it, you, get disrupted by your own brain, you're manifesting whatever that emotion is. Oh, okay. So then it's about optimizing your emotional state throughout the day to have it aligned with what you do want emotionally. This is the next big piece. It's not the outcome you're manifesting. So your desire to have Jordan Peterson on it. I appreciate that. And listen, I spent many years wanting to be on a big stage and I got it. I spent years 400 plus presentations. The bestselling book and cheerleading, rah, rah, rah, look at me on stage here, everybody. None of it was fulfilling because I was stuck on it needing to be that.

It had to show up that way. I needed to show up this way. This is the way I wanted to be. Manifestation doesn't care what you want. It's only matching your emotional state. That's what you're manifesting. So if you're attached to the outcome, yes, you might still get it, but it's going to lack fulfillment. it needs to be let go in terms of how it shows up right so you can have a vision board around

Jordan Peterson and all and connect to the emotion of having them on and that's beautiful but it's important that you don't let your mind own that as the only way that the reality of the emotion of that that that brings up for you is how it should come because then you're going to miss how the universe wants the emotion to be mad which could be something completely different. So what do you manifest? What do you what do you what does that make sense though or not really? Yeah, honestly, um, the Jordan Peterson thing hasn't bothered me and, uh, I don't know,

everybody, all the listeners, I've wanted him for, you know, since I started this. I started this podcast because of him, you know? Yeah. Like, no, I mean, maybe more of, he hit me in a time in life where I need to hear a certain, I don't know, I, or maybe I need to see something played out, you know, mob, modeled in front of me to be like, oh, yeah, and then off Sean went. I mean, it's not like he's been walking me down the street to the podcast for 400 and whatever it is, 12 episodes or whatever we're at.

That hasn't been the case at all. And yet, I sit and I go, man, he'd be fun. Like, he'd just be, I don't know. Maybe it'd suck. Like, it could totally suck. But, I mean, so could this, so could so many others. And so, like, I'm not really, I really want it. but I don't dictate the success of a podcast off of one guest.

I learned that lesson very, very, very, very early. But there is an emotional feeling. Like there's a, there's something that happens. There would be an immense amount of success. Like I, it would be like a little bit of a pat on the back, Sean.

Like, you got Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. Holy shit. Like, that's pretty cool. Yeah.

And then the next day would come and that would fade away and you'd have to carry on. Like, that's exactly what would happen. Yeah. But the emotion of that is, what you can learn to optimize as a frequency to attract it, right? The feeling that would come from you being able to engage with an intellect like Jordan Peterson, which to me, it's like,

whoa, I would be so lost in that conversation, but it would be such a neat interaction. But yet there's an emotional experience that you feel you would have from having that with him, that you can utilize that emotion to have that in your life now, if you know what I mean. I think I do. It doesn't have to just come from him. What my brain tells me, as soon as you say that, is I get the,

I bet you, and I've got to be careful on this, because obviously when I talk to Don Cherry, was it different than Adam Hart? Certainly. Like there's a lot of emotion attached to that man in particular. Oh, yeah. He grew up with Rockham, Sockham,

and everything else. But at the same time, every time I sit down in this chair and I'm listening to somebody, I'm like, I can be just as lost with Adam talking about what we've been talking about than Jordan Peters and talking about whatever else. Yeah. Like to me, and that's the fun of it. That's like the brain trying to grasp like abstract ideas and get it in a way that my brain's like, oh, oh. Yeah. Because I think the audience is right along with you if you can do that, I think.

Yeah. That's at least where my brain is at. Well, you see with Joe Rogan, you know, very much a similar style where it's just an exploration and willingness to be vulnerable and and not have all the answers and be in exploration of growth, which is your energy. That's phenomenal. You know, that's what makes you good at what you do and probably brings you a lot of fulfillment and why you, why you manifest doing more of this. I get. Sure. Sure.

Adams hit it on that. I don't know. I just find it fun. I just like, I didn't. I truthfully played hockey all my life, right? Been across, was I the greatest hockey player on the sun? No folks, not even remotely close. But somehow this guy managed to play it longer than most. And then when he comes home, you just like, and now what?

After you played hockey all your life, I mean all your life up until that point. And it was just kind of like, I'd never thought I'd find that feeling again. I just didn't. There was so much meaning in what I was doing. of being on the ice surface. And then I found this. And I'm like, oh, like this is now this is something, right? I can't imagine ever, you know, I think I have something until I'm 75.

You know, I don't know who will be listening to me then, but I don't know if I care. Right. Like if I'm still getting to sit and talk to people and have meaningful conversations, man, won't that be something at 75, right? And so, no, it's, it's, you've flipped the table on here. me here because I normally I go home after this and I kind of decompressed right because I'm like what did the guests just say to me and then I got to sit there and think and chew on some things because sometimes things Adam hit you harder

than then the way another person says it and sometimes I can't say it in a way that makes complete sense to you and other times they just hit you across the head and you're like holy crap why didn't I never see that I got to turn this off right now because I really need to go home yeah this thing with manifestation I believe I hear what you're saying yeah and saying all that, I'm probably going to have to go back and listen to it again. Well, and sometimes we need to hear this over and over again. That's right. So with Adam, what are you staring off into the sunset going, you know,

this is what I'm trying to work at? And what are you trying to do? Well, you know, my manifestation right now in terms of my energy and my understanding of my power and essentially it's just the idea of just living in my own full expression without holding myself back in any way and noticing what my mind is up to so that I can choose to be in fight or flight or not. I'm manifesting more community, more and more interaction with folks like yourself in terms of being able to be in co-regulation together, to share in this energy of exploration into what can we actually do with this energy? What can we do with the ability to be more at peace with our lives in this moment? And what manifests in terms of how we can contribute to our families,

our community in the world in a way that allows others to tune into their own connection to feeling fulfilled. That's everything for me. And it took me a long time to get out of my own way of that. And like I say, in terms of manifestation, the core of that came from my willingness to finally let go of the outcome, having it have to be a certain way. You know, you're growing a business and there's certain stressors that kick in. what the brain learns from and says,

ooh, now Adam's worried about where he's going to get his next sales calls funneling in, and now he's worried about his next client and, you know, it'll use that against you and you lose your manifestation. Now you're manifesting whatever that feeling is. That's a terrible feeling.

God, I hate that feeling. Yeah, I just, I just familiar though, right? We know I just did a show in Emmington. And that was the one kid Carson was up. It was a great show. It was a, the show was fantastic. But I say this with all sincerity when I say, I swear to God, it took 10 years off my life,

maybe a year off my life, I don't know. And part of that was Sean's own doing. He didn't, you know, he didn't think of like 50 of the problems that were going to come up. And when you learn new things, that is part of the process. I know that. Like, you're going to get stressed on things that you have no idea ever coming at you. And yet, man, that was something else. Like that took part of my soul for.

like a month trying to stress and figure that out and drive to amminton every like twice a week and and try and put together and it's just like by the end i was like oh i couldn't know i'll tell you i enjoyed the show but at the same time i almost didn't enjoy the show because i was so like just thankful it's over yeah it's hard to feel fulfilled so i used to put on my own full day events in vancouver you know i did it for probably an eight year period once a year twice a year and again if we don't recognize that the things that produce a stress response, your brain is like, again, I'm mindful of my language here, but it's very much like artificial intelligence. It's learning. It's learning like the algorithms of stress. And so if it knows,

wow, when you start to create an event and all of a sudden there's the stress of how do you fill the room and how do you produce a good event and da da da da da da da da. Your brain's learning. And it's now saying, woo, I get an adrenaline from those thoughts. I wonder if I keep producing those thoughts, if Adam will stay triggered in those thoughts. And if we don't in those moments train the brain to let go of the trigger, we're lost because now we're manifesting that in that whole experience. And there is no fulfillment in that. You can't show up regulated in a way where you can be in service to the people who are there with you.

It's very difficult to do that. That requires having an intellect internally where you, you know that space well enough to to hold it for somebody. That's what we're lacking right now. But I appreciate, you know, the effort that goes into doing what you do and what so many of us who are passionate about what we do, the one thing that we just miss out on is the understanding of our own biology. And when we don't understand how the brain is learning from stress and it's not the brain's

fault, but as a survival organ, it wants the adrenaline, it wants the cortisol. It's not the brain's fault. But if we don't remove ourselves from the thoughts, then we start to identify with the thoughts. And, you know, and then all the self-talk kicks in, well. How much does, like, energy, I hope I'm going to say this right, but like your energy level to combat your own thoughts matter. Because one of the things about it, it doesn't matter if it was in Eminton.

The ones in Lloyd are the same way. But at the end of the night, I'm like, normally I get to, I get energized. by sitting and talking to somebody. But by the end of an event, I'm like, I don't even know who I am anymore. I'm just like, I just get me out of here. I'm tired.

I'm war out. I can't think straight anymore, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And if I'm trying to even take a moment to wrestle with my thoughts or to bring my, it's like, it doesn't matter anymore.

I just need sleep. I just need to go be alone in a dark, silent place. Like, it sounds terrible, folks, because I love meeting everybody. It's just by the end of it,

I am, I am, I'm toast. Like I'm, especially when you put on your own event. It's different just to host for somebody than it is to put on an entire thing. But how much of what you're talking about? You need the energy level to, I don't know, performance the right way or just like. Yeah, I mean, it's, and it's real.

I mean, what you're experiencing there is you're experiencing a, a symptom of too much adrenaline. You know, and you get it in sports too, when you just drive too hard, too fast. and then next thing you know, you're crashing. And, you know, it's like, well, where's my recovery from? Unless you understand how to produce a constant state of recovery, you're not going to know the full extent of how you can show up and your performance. And so being on stage is the same thing. When you're in front of an audience and you're playing with their energy and you know this.

I mean, you've been on stage enough. If you're able to, if you have the, and this is just one example in terms of being on stage, but if you know your material, you can just be there in the energy with folks and play with their energy. But it's such a, and this again for me was an addiction around being on stage was it's a high. It's a very big high. And you do get a lot of dopamine from the experience. If we're not mindful of that and we're not doing the practices to help the body settle back into the parasympathetic, the brain will take over and it will just feed off of the adrenaline and the dopamine. me. Of course, then what's the correlating response? Well, by the time you're done, you're done.

You're exhausted. You're mentally exhausted. Your physically exhausted. And it's going to take you a while to recover from that. But if you can optimize your nervous system throughout it, now you're in a position where you're fully present and you're giving your overflow to your audience in a way where their experience goes to a whole other level, if that makes sense, because you're now regular yeah yeah well my brain goes to um part of what you're saying and part of it is is like being prepared and like having you know like not acting like you can do things in a really short period of time with all the stress it comes with it because that's what really pulls you apart you know you mentioned you you did live events for eight years what finally made you stop what and i don't mean

that sounded like i was meaning like i have to stop it's more like why did you stop well again it's the manifestation. All of a sudden, I found myself in this position where I could be in the presence of one person and be so filled with joy with myself because of how my energy is working, right? Being in this calmer state, more present, more fulfilled, the parasympathetic. All of a sudden, now I'm in this position with one person. And I'm feeling where they're at because like most of us, were very agitated and frustrated. And so I recognize, wow, just by being in the presence of one person and holding my energy in this way and I'm now co-regulating them, there is a correlating feeling of fulfillment

that was more powerful than being on stage in front of 500 people. And I could feel that. Can you say that one more time? Just being present with one person, it was more powerful than 500. Is that what you're saying? That's what I'm saying. The feeling. That's a, that's an interesting thought, though, right there. Well, and it came from from not needing the audience to fill me up. I mean, so much of my need for an audience was because I felt low self-esteem and self-worth that I charged so hard for manifesting this bestselling book, which I got and the stage and I got, but none of it was fulfilling because it wasn't coming from that heart-centered. So are you saying then when it comes to manifestation, be careful what you manifest for.

You shouldn't be manifesting, as you say, for like a certain outcome. It should be for more of just like your word is fulfillment. That's what you should be going after. And it comes from how your nervous system is vibrating. And so if you recognize that you can connect yourself with a vision. So yes, you do want to goal set and you want to do vision work. but the big problem with all of that is that it puts you into the future as where you're going to experience whatever you've just written down.

All that's doing is giving your brain so much fuel to mess you up. It's like, ooh, now you have to go there to feel that. Well, that doesn't exist right now. You have to be able to bring the emotional state of that future into your life right now. And that's through the parasympathetic. So being able to sit across from Jordan Peterson, as an example. And feeling what that feeling would be is if that was your reality right now and being able to harness the emotional state of that, you're going to realize pretty quick that

it has nothing to do with Jordan Peterson. It's got everything to do with the emotion that it's creating in you that you're now having more opportunity to live in your life. And like I say, when I started to realize that I'm manifesting group coaching, which is this community, I'm manifesting more one-on-one interaction with folks in a way where I know that my co-regulation is serving them. The fulfillment piece locked in a way where I was like, whoa, okay, did I give up a lot of years chasing something? Yes, I did, but it doesn't really matter because that's the past. And if I lock into the brain's use of the past and I didn't do it quite right and I wish I would have done, that's depressive thinking. And it's just going to cause trouble.

Instead, just keep owning this moment as your source of power. And all that's there is a continual connection to fulfillment as your place you can choose to live. Your brain will try and disrupt it. But if you know the pathway in like we're talking about, you don't want it to be disrupted because you realize how good it feels to be here right now. And it's an actual biological state that you can cultivate a relationship with. And think of how healthy that would be for you to live like that for not only, well, certainly your kids, your wife and, you know, your circle of acquaintances around you, right? That'd be a very positive outlook on life, I would assume. Well, you know, and beyond that, you know, me just turning 50, I feel, I feel amazing, right? Like, really, like, I just know how I used to chase my own health, you know, all the things I was. told on what I needed to do and all the diets that I was told to get on and all the fitness,

all the gym memberships I bought and, you know, and all the medication I was given and all the therapy sessions. And I'm not knocking any of that. But if I'm being blunt, it's not the solution. The solution is tuning in and learning how to optimize our own relationship with our stress response in a way where we cultivate this deeper connection to the parasympathetic nervous system state. It's a state that we have lost the ability to connect with because of the amount of pressure we're under and the amount of disruptors there are in modern society. And it's unfortunate, but it's the reality. So like we were talking about earlier, it's not about having to eliminate those because that's just going to cause stress. It's again, how do we learn to take all of

these disruptors like the phone and this process food and work with them in a way where they can be part of our abundance and not sabotage our abundance. And this has been, you know, I always love a good curveball. Like, I wonder what's coming in today. Is it going to be high heat? Is it going to be the old slow change or is it going to be one of those hanging curves? Anyways, I appreciate you, you hopping on and doing this. This has been an interesting little stretch here.

And I truly mean that. Let's end with the crude master final question, which is if you stand, if you're going to stand behind something and stand behind it absolutely what's one thing Adam stands behind? You know right away and I think I've heard this before how we don't want to be identified as whatever parent we identify ourselves as but for me it's it's it's being that role model for my kids you know my legacy now is it's all about providing the safest environment for my kids to embrace their full potential. So I think that's the one thing I'll share is in the end, that's the one thing that

matters most to me is just being the best version of myself possible for my kids so that they can grow up and do the same. Well, I appreciate that's a, that's a, there's nothing wrong with a family man. I think it's, I don't know, we need good role models in society and at times we, our role models chase all the wrong things, you know, so I appreciate that. are quite a bit. Either way, it's been enjoyable sitting across from you. And if I'm ever out to Squamish territory, make sure that I come, I come lucky up and maybe we can do this in person sometimes. Yeah, and bring your gear. We'll go get on the ice. I thought you're going to say,

get on the mountain. I'm like, nah, I don't know what you do. I can do that too. But I will say, Sean, I mean, in terms of the six steps, the Unleash Energy roadmap, just for your listeners, is if anybody resonates with this conversation. My website's the best place to grab it. It's a free download, and it kind of gives a little more meat to our discussion around those and the website's clear impact.io.

And what I'll do is I'll take it in the show notes, folks. That way you just scroll down and you can click on it and up pops Adam and the team over there. Right on. Thanks, Sean. I appreciate you having me. Hey, thanks for tuning in today, guys. Today's episode has been brought to you

by Cal Rock Industries here in, minster if you're looking for new used and refurbished oil and gas equipment they got it in stock cal rock industries give them a call 780 875 8802 and if you're uh i don't know if you've uh enjoyed the episode you've enjoyed the show make sure to share uh subscribe follow leave a comment leave a review i haven't been able to say this in a while because normally i don't leave anything at the end but thanks to cal rock wow we'd be coming at you uh at the ends. I don't know.

I don't have got a whole lot to say right now. I'm trying to enjoy the last day of being away from kids. Let's be clear. I'm excited to see them. I'm also, you know, soaking it up. Son, no responsibility. Did I say that? Anyways, wherever you're at, I hope you're enjoying.

I hope you get some plans for the weekend. And we're going to be coming hot and heavy next week. So enjoy your work. weekend. We'll catch up to you Monday. Either way, thanks for tuning in today. Shout out to Kell Rock for hopping on board with the SMP. Look forward to working with them here in the, well, as the 2023 progresses. Either way, we'll catch up to you guys next week.