The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Making $100 Million A Year Eating Raw Liver: Liver King

Episode Date: August 22, 2022

The Liver King is an illusive internet sensation who says the secret to a healthy and happy life is to eat raw meat every day. An advocate of what he calls an 'ancestral lifestyle', we have to return to the lifestyle our hunter-gatherer forebears. Returning to this way of living is most consistent with our DNA and what we're genetically coded to want according to the Liver King. A controversial figure, his advocating of this diet is disputed by many nutritionists, but the Liver King says it has transformed his life, that of his family, and his followers who take up his suggestion. In this raw interview the Liver King opens up on criticism and his sometimes crippling anxieties for the first time, as well as how his ancestral lifestyle shapes his bond with his wife, the Liver Queen. It isn't always easy to be the king. Liver King:  Instagram - https://g2ul0.app.link/PPY0tPb3Gsb Twitter - https://g2ul0.app.link/LRMyYMe3Gsb Youtube channel - https://g2ul0.app.link/EzKvK2h3Gsb  Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo

Quick one. Just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly to to Amazon Music, who when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And

thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. It was like a living fucking hell. And I got the shit kicked out of me every single day. And all I wanted to do was just be different. This is liver cake. What up, primals? This is what we evolved with. Cheek and testicles, lungs. You are not replacing these nutrients with fucking vegetables. 70 pound kettlebells in each hand.

70 pounds in a backpack. It's 120 pounds on top of a sled. And you go one mile. I made my son do it when he turned 15. That sounds like toxic parenting. You know what? There's nothing toxic about this. Joe Rogan criticized you, alluded that you're on steroids. The liver king thing drives me nuts because that guy's on steroids. All I ask is for the opportunity to have the conversation with him face to face.

Most people are suffering with something. 50% on prescription medication, 20% can't have babies, 70% overweight. The six tribes that I've gone and visited with seems non-existent you're making over 100 million dollars a year from your businesses true or false true i own 10 or 12 companies right now where every single company is based on taking this ancestral message mainstream the world's really hurting what is the hardest moment of your adult life been? The hardest moment was when my son, Rad, got sick. We thought we were losing him. Why? Oh God, don't make me do this again. Part of the reason why I never wanted to publicly come out

as the liver king is because... Without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. Live a King. I am... I'm going to start where I always start,

but for you, I'm particularly interested in this. Can you tell me the context I would need to know about your earliest years that went into shaping the man that you went on to become? I'm talking before 10 years old. What is that context? Well, before 10 years old, I grew up with a brother and with a mom that was mom and dad. I have no memory of my dad. When I was two or three years old, he died. He was serving in the Air Force and he died.

And so my mom was really tough on us, really tough on us. What I mean by that is it seemed like, you know, brothers together are always raising hell, getting in trouble. And she seemed to just beat the shit out of us. It's just normal. It's just normal. And then sometimes she would drop us off at her parents' house in California, and they would do the same thing.

And later on I realized my mom got it from her dad. And they're just doing the best, right? They're doing the best that they can. And so I'll say my mom was really, really tough on me growing up. She had us enrolled in all the typical sports, all the traditional sports. And I just wanted to be just like my brother. He's a year and a half older than me. I just wanted to be exactly like my brother.

And here's the thing. We had two friends up the street, best friends, Chris and Aaron. And they were everything. You know, going to play sports, going to hang out with these guys, going skateboarding. It just seemed like every day was full of activity. And you said describe it up to 10. That was about 10. It's interesting that you said describe it up to 10

because I would say just to about 10, life was incredible. It was, like, perfect. Everything. I mean, just, like, every day was full of laughter, no responsibility, you know, falling off the skateboard, getting banged up, you know. And back then, you know, you could take your skateboard anywhere. You know, my mom would let us go to the movies, you know, on the skateboard. And so growing up, I just remember these were just up to about 10.

It was just filled with so much joy. Yeah. And then after 10? Yeah. So it's almost like it all switched overnight. So the friends that we had up the street, they moved to another town. And then I went from elementary school to middle school. And I would say this is when my first rite of passage really took place.

It was like a living fucking hell. I was the only one of my kind in middle school. I was undersized. I was tiny. I was just a little guy. I knew I looked funny and I got the shit kicked out of me every single day. I remember I would come home and I would look in the mirror. I would look at the clothes that I had. I had absolutely no concept of self-worth. I was totally embarrassed. I was humiliated of this kid that I had become. And all I wanted to do was just be different. I was like, why couldn't I have been born different? Why couldn't I look like these guys look?

And so I remember coming back from school the first day, tears coming out of my eyes, you know, and I told my mom, I'm never going back. And my mom, she looked at me with such certainty that she wasn't going to have any part of this conversation. And it was the first time she really did this. I'll say my mom, prior to that, like we could talk about anything. But the minute I brought this up, she was so stern about it. I knew that this was off limits. And so I never went back to her about any issue I had in middle school.

But middle school, think about this, my friends are gone from up the street. I had no one to talk to about this stuff. I didn't have a dad to mentor me. My brother that's a year and a half older is now hanging out with his older friends and then he goes off to high school. So I'm not able to talk to him about it and it's just, man, I just, I couldn't wait for these years to be over. And I remember keeping a list of people that, that like a hit list, I would write down the names. If I could get revenge on these people, these are the five or six guys, you know, that every fucking day they would, they would, they would bully me. They would, I mean, I would be blindsided out of nowhere. You know, sometimes somebody would punch me and, and I would wake up just with my book back. The bell had already rang and going

to middle school was, was just a living hell. I had to figure out a way out of that hell hole. I had started lifting weights just prior to 10 for no really good reason. One of my mom's boyfriend, Michael, Michael Glidens there, he was a pharmacist. He said, Hey, I got this old bench in my garage. You want this bench? And I was like, sure, I'll take it. And I was just drawn to it. You know, I was just drawn to it. And then something happened where I realized like, this is the only place I could really control the outcomes in my life. And so I was drawn to it more and more and more. And eventually I got strong and I look strong and I figured out a way out of this hell hole. I figured out how to kind of blend in. I figured out how to get some respect. I'm about 14 at this point. And at this point, I got both

my ears pierced twice. I got my hair slicked back. I'm wearing the baggy jeans. I got the bomber jacket on. I'm like, I'm kind of fitted in a little bit. I kind of figured that out. And my mom moved me. She moved us because the high school that the middle school fed to was more of the same, actually even worse, even worse. And so she moved me to predominantly Caucasian place that was more like me, but I had just figured out how to fit in

with a different demographic. And I'm thinking, I go to high school and I'm like, oh my God, not all over again. You know, everyone's wearing tight pants now. Nobody has their hair stick back. Nobody has an earring in their ear. But you know what? Like I had known, I figured this out before, you know, and I'll figure this out again. And this time I figured it out a lot faster and I'd already learned some self-worth. I'd already learned some respect. And so that's kind of how my life was my earlier years. That kid between 10 and 14 years old that went through that,

what would you say to him? How do you feel about him? What would you say to him if you could speak to him now? I do speak to him now. Those are my boys now. I mean, they're not going through what I went through, but stand up for yourself. You got something to do.

I tell my boys this all the time. I'd rather you look stupid, I'd rather you look like an asshole than look like a pussy. You've got to stand up for yourself. I never stood up for myself. I mean, every day something would happen, and I never stood up for myself. I never pushed back. I never punched back. And there was this one time in the courtyard, a new kid had come to school, Chuck.

He looked like me. He's getting in fights every day, but he's punching back. So once a week, he's leaving with a bloody face, and I'm thinking, oh, God, I don't want to look like that. I don't want anything to do with that. Eventually, I start to make friends with this guy, Chuck. But Chuck now gets accepted because Chuck is pushing back and Chuck is fighting back. And meanwhile, in parallel, I'm kind of making friends with him. And then somebody tells him something about me. And then

he approaches me in the courtyard and he starts pushing me in the courtyard. Now we've got a group of, I don't know, 50, 60, 70 people circling around us. He's just pushing me back and pushing me back. And I'm just going back, going back. And eventually I trip over a planter. But right before that, I say, hey, man, you don't want to fight me. You don't want to fight me. I'm a pussy. That's what I said to him.

And for the longest time, I wouldn't tell that story to anybody. I wouldn't tell it to my own kids. I was so embarrassed to tell that story. I'm proud to tell that story now. Because what forged me are those days, right? And so if I had the opportunity, what I would have said is push back, fight. You know, you need to stand up for yourself right now and for the rest of your life. This is what you need to do. And everything's going to be okay. You know, it's okay to get bloody. It's okay to fight.

You need to fight. We evolved fighting, right? Somewhere along the way, you know, I just, I didn't know that was okay. And I was just scared out of my mind that the kind of fights that I saw every day, you know, just there's so much blood and the teachers would never break up these fights because if a teacher broke up this fight, that teacher's getting it that day. So the fights lasted so long, they would wait for the gym coaches to come all the way over to the fight to break up those fights. I wanted no part of that. So I wish I had somebody tell me, you know, I don't give a shit about you getting suspended. I don't care what happens to your face. You've got to stand up for yourself and you got to push back and you got to fight.

If I could give you an eraser and you could apply that eraser to those four years in your life from 10 to 14 and you could make it different, you could make it rosy and idyllic and picturesque, would you now use the eraser and erase those four years of your life? You know, the answer is no.

You know, I mean, I couldn't be more grateful, you know, for those four years. This life? You know, the answer is no. You know, I mean, I couldn't be more grateful, you know, for those four years. This was my first rite of passage. This forged me into the unrelenting evolutionary hunter that I am today. I mean, I figured that shit out on my own. You know, this is probably a gift I didn't have a dad. You know, this is probably a gift

I didn't have somebody to put their arms, because you figure that shit out on your own. You cross this chasm, right? I always think about going through these four years and I think I would never allow my kids to do this, but my kids need this too, right? They need the equivalent of this rite of passage. So no, I would never take it. And I think everyone, you know, who is self-made has various rites of passage at different stages and phases of their life. This was my first rite of passage. So I didn't tell you how grateful I am for it.

I'm incredibly grateful. I figured that shit out. And then I figured out the next one and the next one. And then eventually you're like, you know what? When people tell you how you really can do anything, you start to realize, oh my God, I really can do anything. But what about if I said your son, who I just met, you've got two lovely sons that are upstairs.

What if I said your sons had to go through those four years to figure it out? Would you, and there's a button here that you can press they get bullied beat up every day for four years and feel how you felt at 10 years old would you press the button and put your two sons through it i would put them through it i i hesitated because a lot of people didn't make it out of that shit you know a lot of people do show up with a gun. So would you risk it? Am I their dad at the same time? Today, they're going to go through it for the next few years. A hundred percent, especially with my guidance. Absolutely, I would.

You know, a lot of the kids that I went to middle school with did die. You know, a lot of them, you know, are in jail. And so this is what I know a lot of people that are in a similar situation. They just don't make it out. You know, something happens to them. With a little bit of guidance, and I wouldn't give them even a lot of people that are in a similar situation. They just don't make it out. You know, something happens to them with a little bit of guidance. And I wouldn't give them even a lot of guidance. You know, I think they would kick ass. So absolutely, I want them to go through something similar.

Those moments and the moments in my life that were the most difficult are clearly the moments that created my best qualities and i say best qualities because usually these are best qualities in the eyes of the external world so my success or you know all of these things probably came from some kind of hardship some insecurity some shit i went through it's like you know i was poked in a really aggressive way and then at the other end you know determination comes out right i realize that my insecurity created my brilliance. But with that, always comes a dark side. When you become an extreme person in any respect, there's nearly always a dark side. There's always another cost to that. Everyone

claps and goes, ah, standout person, outstanding, different. But what's the dark side in your case? I've became obsessive about this, about controlling outcomes in my life. You know, I stopped really leaning on other people. You know, things have changed. You know, now I would say that I really have a truly interdependent and synergistic culture.

You know, I'm sure that you know that culture and chemistry is where it's at. You can do anything. People say this all the time, the cliche, but it's true. You know, you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go as a team, you know, and it took a while to put that stuff together. I think that a big part of the dark side is I'm so obsessive about controlling certain outcomes in my life. That's why I spend three or four hours in the gym every day, every day, you know, and, and a lot of people like, Hey man, you just, don't you have other things that you, and I'm like, you know what? No,

this is what I have to do. I have to do this. Why do you have to do it? Cause I do. Why? You know, it's, I start with the hardest thing I'm going to do all day. So I put myself through that. I'm like, if I can do this now, everything's going to be a little bit easier. And I've tried taking some time off, you know, a lot of, usually I'm so overtrained that the brain isn't even thinking right. And so when I take a little bit of time off, I do a five day fast once a quarter. Um, when I take, and so I don't work out when I do a five day fast and my brain is like on another level. Is there not an element of the fact that the gym is what saved you from the bullies? I'm sure it is. So you, it's a So it's a survival mechanism, that place. I'm sure it is.

And so much of my message today is that strength is an alpha virtue across time and space. And so the fact that I can get in there and I can control that, and I can get stronger and I can look stronger, and that work, you know, that's not something that you can just buy at the mall, at a credit card, right, on a credit card. This is something that you have to forge day in, day out. You know, and that's not something that you can just buy at the mall at a credit card, right on a credit card. This is something that you have to forge day in, day out. You know, it's not just the gym, but I'm sure that that has something to do with like, this is what saved me. This is where, you know, if I'm not in the gym, the pain of not being in the gym far exceeds the pain of three or four hours of working out.

Was there a catalyst moment in terms of you transitioning from being Brian, a name, a person you don't even recognize now I hear, to being Liver King? Was there a catalyst? I read there was illness and allergies within your kids. Right. Was that the catalyst? It happened sometime around there.

Because you used to wear t-shirts, you used to be called Brian, and now you don't even really resonate with that. Right. You know, so, so this is the message I think when I've really fully let this barbarian out. So I believe everybody's born a primal, right? Wild and free, undomesticated, right? Before we domesticated ourselves, before we were mindlessly compliant, right? Everyone is wild and free. We're this primal version. And then through social norms and being nice and, you know, then we start to conform to something other than our primal self. And with enough time, I think because of my upbringing and a fight situation, a life and death situation,

this guy comes out of the cage. When you train really, really hard in the gym and you're going for PRs and you're doing a 500 pound back squat, if you screw that up, there's real danger involved. And I believe if that guy comes out enough, every single time he comes out, he gets a taste for it. He gets a little bit stronger. And I believe one day that guy broke out, Liver King. And I always say this. He ate Brian Johnson.

He ate his predecessor. That guy's gone. Because when that guy comes out, it's your truest, most authentic form. And that's why I said I think we're going to be, you know, dynamic here today, because if this is about being real and raw, a true primal is the most authentic, truest, you know, to him. And, and when you can be that uninhibited, it's freeing, it's completely freeing. And I was like, when, when you can be like that, life's like a party. Why would you ever want to go back? I call Brian Johnson the corporate Brian. Why would you ever want to go back to that, to being nice and to saying things that you don't actually mean?

When you say being nice, what's wrong with being nice? Because you're a very nice guy. Thank you for saying so. I asked my kids on the way over here to explain know, to explain to me how you would describe me. And one of them said, badass. Another said, like a king because you dominate your environment. And then he said, because sometimes you're also a dick. And I said, let's talk about that, right?

Because public accountability is a big deal to me. And again, what we do is far more important than what we say. And if somebody is making excuses in front of my kids, I say, hey man, what you're doing is making excuses. What you need to do is own what you did because I don't want to hear excuses. You need to have enough insight.

Somebody needs to tell you. And the thing is, if I don't do it right now, number one, it's not a good example for my kids. Number two, because of time, I might not ever see this person again. And so I take the time to do it. And I'm sure that person thinks I'm a dick. And everyone kind of thinks I'm a dick.

You know, I could have done it privately. But if I think like that, it probably would never happen. So thank you for saying that you believe I'm a nice guy. I believe I'm a nice guy too. But I believe in accountability. You know, I could give you some examples. On the way to the airport, our driver was supposed to be here 15 minutes early. He's supposed to have my car picked up.

I got an F-450 dually truck. It's supposed to be in the shade 15 minutes early. And it's not. He showed up really just on time. He showed up just on time. And we get in the car. It's hot as shit. We're all sweating, you know.

And, again, I'm good with all that stuff. I'm good with it. But you know what what I sweat for four or five hours a day you know I'm like I'm ready to get in the car I'm ready to be right now I'm ready to be comfortable and I said hey Adam um what happened and he said well I just got back from Mexico I was driving somebody you know in an RV yada yada yada I got it and I said Adam all those excuses. What I want to hear you just say is I showed up late. This is my fault. This won't happen again. And so he starts going into all it. And I said, oh man, don't make me do this. Not in front of my kids. Right. Because I can't allow you to do this. I can't allow this to be any. So I let him have it. I say, man, I just want you to own it. I want you to say that you messed up. Here's how you're going to get better. Here's

how you're going to fix it. And he proceeds to still defend. He felt like he needed to defend himself a little bit more. And so he did apologize. You know, what I ended up saying is, you know, primitive culture tribes don't really have a word for, I'm sorry. You know, it's, I'll get better. You know, they first have to have the insight to, hey, I fucked up and I'm going to get better. And that's all I want to hear. Yeah. So, you know, in that time, I'm sure, and it happens all the time, you know, Hey, how was your food? You know, and I'm going to, I'm going to tell you how, in fact, I'll probably tell you how it was before you asked, you know, and I'm very confident when the food is great, this is the best eating experience I could have. If the food's not great and we missed here, I'm going to let you know how that happened.

So I think because of that, you know, sometimes, you know, I can be perceived as not being a nice guy. Why is that responsibility and accountability so important? Why is it so important? What's the cost to ourselves, our lives, our society, if we don't take responsibility and we aren't accountable and we resort to blame and excuses? Yeah. You know, so the name is Liver King for a couple of different reasons, but I believe everybody has the same primal potential to become anything. And when you can become anything, you realize that you're a true King, you're a self-made King. And that's all about what I, what I believe I model teach and preach is, is taken extreme ownership, leadership,

responsibility over the life that you shape and create, right? This is the opposite of the guy sitting on the couch, making reaction videos, making excuses for his life, right? You have to have that insight. You have to be held accountable either by someone else and or to hold yourself accountable to one day move along the continuum from being dependent to finally independent to interdependent, right? Somewhere along that maturity continuum, I believe it's unacceptable for us to allow people to continue to do that. Have we lost ourselves a little bit there? Have we gone a bit soft?

Have we gone a little bit too far in the direction of lack of accountability, blame, and yeah, lack of personal responsibility? I believe so. I believe 100% we have. You know, some things happen where people really watch what they have to say today. You know, we're nice to each other. Um, you know, I, I, I say there's something that's happened where men have become pussies today, you know, and of course there's exceptions to this,

right. But, um, I believe hard times make strong men and there's no requirement for hard times in the modern world. And if you look at our ancestral past, the kind of things we had to do just for food, right? For shelter and perpetuity. If you wanted sex, the kind of things you had to do as our early ancestors required real work, hard work, hard times to make strong men. And today, there's no requirement for any of that. There's an app for it. You can outsource it. And when you go and you do these types of things. Let's say you miss. Nobody's really holding you accountable to that miss. It's become acceptable today. And then I think what a result of this is you have 80% of people.

The world's really suffering, right? The world's really hurting. And there's these modern-day conditions that don't exist in modern-day primitive culture tribes. You know, so the six tribes that I've gone and visited with, I've tried to assess and figure out, is there depression? Is there anxiety? Is there infertility? Are there autoimmune conditions in these tribes?

And it seems non-existent. But today we're really hurting with these things. And so I think that we have missed something. I think we have missed. And I think that we need to hold each other accountable to a higher standard. I say one way or another, you're gonna suffer. You can actively suffer and put in the work to grow and to get better. Or you can passively suffer with these conditions that you have to. Most people are suffering with something passively and their life could be so much better. So I do think

that we've missed. I think we've become very soft and I think we need more people. I think there's something to this. We can be nice and generous. We can be fucking honest and candid with one another. What this guy needs over here is not for the next 20 people to say, oh, I accept that excuse. What this guy needs is people to say, hey, man, you're better than this. This is the reality of it. You're in control of these outcomes. And for him to realize, oh, my God, I am in control. I can shape and create the life that I want to live in.

So I do believe that we've gotten soft today. And I believe there's something we need to do about it. That suffering, you talked about that passive suffering and that mental suffering that society is quite clearly going through. What is the cause of that suffering? Let's just focus on the mental suffering. We're talking about mental ailments in your view. So anxiety, depression, these kinds of things, depending on who you ask and depending which research you look at and factoring that there's an increase in awareness. So there's an increase in labeling and diagnosis. What is your

view on why these mental health predicaments have become so prevalent in society i believe it's really multifactorial i believe it's all nine ancestral tenets every single one of them i'll say them real quickly it's sleep eat move shield connect cold sun fight and bond all nine of these have an impact on our hormones on our neurochemistry every single one of them right you go without sleep a couple of days how much you want to bet you show up in a horrific have an impact on our hormones, on our neurochemistry, every single one of them, right? You go without sleep a couple of days, how much do you want to bet you show up in a horrific mood? That's why I'm wearing this.

I know you probably don't agree with the technology, but for me, I actually only put it on yesterday, but it's to help my sleep. So I woke up this morning and it says, you got eight hours sleep, you got six hours of REM sleep, you did a good job. I'll probably take it off at some point, but I just need to get into it. Use it for a while to figure out those things, right? I see people wearing those, those watches and I say subprimal, right? Because, because the

fourth ancestral tenant is shield. And these are non-native signals that, that we've never been in contact with before. And we have enough of them, right? Most people keep their cell phone next to their dick and balls. This is unacceptable, right? You don't have to have it there. So if you sleep like shit, you're going to show up not the way that you want to show up. If you eat horrifically, this is the same thing. If you don't move, if you don't exercise, it's all nine ancestral tenets. The last one is bond. You know the importance. So all of them shape, you know, how we look, feel, function, what we express epigenetically from a hormonal standpoint, from an endocrine standpoint, from a neurochemistry standpoint, all of them matter. And so it kind of depends on where you're at, what you're doing. But I'll tell you, I rarely meet somebody who's doing all nine of these right

and has a shitty life, right? Because people are really hurting and hating and suffering and struggling with modern day conditions like depression, anxiety, autoimmune, low energy, low libido and low ambition in life. Like there's a better life to fucking live. You got a great taste of this. So many people are living this kind of lifestyle. That's why I believe it's my job to model, teach

and preach this way so that our people no longer have to suffer so that we can express our highest and most dominant form because this is a simple, elegant solution, right? It's not like I came up with this way of living, right? This is your message. This is the message of our ancestors. When people start to hate on this message, you know, and maybe we'll get talking about some of the critics. I'm like, can you really hate on our species this much, right? Can you hate on your ancestors? This is not a message that I've invented. This is what our early ancestors have done. This is what modern day primitive cultures do. And they're happy as fuck. They're

kicking our ass at life. And they have nothing. You've been in seen tribes that live very closely to all of these nine ancestral tenants. Tell me about what you've learned. Give me an example of tribes that you visited where you saw them doing these things and you saw some kind of, I guess, subjective evidence that you gained that it's working for them? Yeah. You know, as soon as you start to meet with them, you feel it. You feel how happy, you feel how fulfilled they are. They're laughing, they're smiling. You know, a lot of these things, it's just really clear, they don't have shoes, shoes right so one of the ancestral tenets is connect they're connected to the earth 24 7 365 right because of modern day shoes elevated bed buildings and stuff like that we hardly ever come

into contact with the actual earth anymore i'd like to point out yes yes you're probably not officially grounding right now but but But let me ask you this. When's the last time you had your bare feet connected to the earth? When, so my girlfriend's been living in Bali. So she will often tell me to take my shoes off so that I ground myself. Perfect.

And a lot of people will say last time I was on the beach. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't happen. Of course it doesn't happen. If I walked down the street with my shoes off, people would probably call emergency services and have me sectioned or something. Yeah. And then so someone's like, hey, last time I was at the beach, I was like, what were you doing? Like, oh yeah, I was with my wife. We were holding hands. We were walking on the beach under

the sun. I'm like, how did it make you feel? Oh, it was one of the best memories. And you know, the earth has a slightly negative charge. We're electrophysical beings, right? Every single cell is electrical in nature. And so just by default, you see all of the primitive culture tribes connecting with the earth almost 24, 7, 365. This is one of them, right? So it's sleep, eat, move, shield, connect, cold, sun, fight, bond, right? They're under the sun. You know, most of the day they're under the sun. They're hardly wearing any clothing. They're getting plenty of sun. Bonding is required in this culture. Everybody knows the purpose.

Everybody knows what their job is. When we go on a hunt, everybody knows who the lead hunter is. You know, they don't have to say anything. And again, the way that they organize, there's this time I tell this story every once in a while because I just love telling the story. We were on a hunt looking for baboons. And one of the chiefs took a shot with an arrow almost straight up in the air. And I'm thinking, oh, my God, like you took, what if that comes down near us? Anyways, it came down right next to my son and me.

Ends up actually striking my cameraman, the broad side of the arrow in the torso. It doesn't pierce him, but it hits him, like really close call. They think it's the most hilarious thing they've ever seen. They're laughing so hard at the, what are you going to do? Right? No one's yelling at anybody, you know, and he just said, we're not doing that again. You know, and these guys laugh so hard, you know, and when they go on a hunt, it's, this is a matter of life and death. If they're not successful in the hunt, they don't eat, right? And they don't bring anything back to the rest of the tribe. The way that they sleep, this is just – so I always say some of the easy things you can do to sleep better is finish your last meal three to four hours before bed.

Get early morning sun at the same time every day. This helps to set your biocercadian rhythm, right? So your body knows when to be alert and awake versus sleepy and sleeping. So most people don't realize this. If you really want to set up your sleep, it starts first thing in the morning. Get early morning sun through the eyes on the face on the skin, first thing in the morning. So get early morning sun, finish your last meal three to four hours before bed, take in the sunset as a final environmental cue that the day is winding down,

and then try and block these artificial lights, you know, with blue light blocking glasses or just have firelight, candlelight, stuff like that in the house. By default, they do all these things. They already do all these things. The way that they eat, there's no processed food. There's no vegetable seed oils. There's no liquid calories. They eat the whole animal nose to tail. There can be some foraging foods as well.

But this is what I see. When I've gone and visited with the Machiganga, with the Maasai, what they eat is blood, milk, and meat. That's all they eat. The Maasai only eat blood, milk, and meat. And if you could see their jawline and their teeth and their smiles, you're thinking, how do I get what they have? Again, their disposition, you know, is incredible. The way that everyone's required to move just to go get water and then to carry the water back. The way that every primitive culture tribe has shielded or protected themselves. We no longer have to run away from lions, but now we're bombarded with all these non-native signals, with all these non-native chemicals. So I always tell people, get your cell phone out of your

pocket. Put in airplane mode if you're not using it, at least when you're sleeping. You don't need your phone on when you're sleeping, right? Put that in airplane mode. Turn your Wi-Fi router off when you're sleeping. There's some really basic things we can do. Stop wearing petrochemical clothing. Stop wearing xenoestrogen-laden perfumes. All these foreign substances wreak havoc on our endocrine system. So all nine ancestral tenants, this is sort of an example. You asked me for an example of visiting with the tribes. By default, they do all of these things. They do all nine ancestral tenants. On these ancestral tenants, the first one is sleep, right?

And I read that you sleep on a wooden board. And I've seen your house. I call it a house. That's a lie. It's a estate, a mansion. What would you call it? I call it my cave. Your cave.

Okay. Well, cave is slightly underselling it, but you sleep on a piece of wood. Why? You know, first thing I'll say is a lot of people think that I actually don't do it. I have a video that shows my bed and anyone who comes over,

I'm like, you want to check out my bed? I sleep on wooden planks. Check it out. I got this tiny thin wool mat. It's about that thick. It's just made out of wool. out my bed? I sleep on wooden planks. Check it out. I got this tiny, thin wool mat. It's about that thick. It's just made out of wool. Before, we used to just sleep on wood.

And my liver queen is hardcore. She's like, we're just going to sleep on wood. And I said, fine, let's just sleep on wood. After about a year of having bone bruises on the hip and shoulders, I'm like, listen, I don't think my body's adapting. And we went to visit with primitive culture tribes, and they all have a little bit of cushion. Either some natural ground or some leaves, some little cushion. And I said, you know what? I'm going to do that too. I'm going to do that too. And I slept much better.

The answers are our bodies were never really meant to be in this kind of cast, to be in something so think about it. You go up to modern day beds and it's a perfect height, right? You just barely fall into it, you know? And so there's a few things. One is that like, I got to get down to get into my bed. Same way. So the mobility requirements are greater. You meet with these 80 and 90 year olds of these primitive culture tribes. They have no trouble sitting in a full squat position for hours on end.

Every single day, they're getting down here and they're getting up and down. How many people just in their 40s and 50s can't do that? If you never stop doing it, you never lose that mobility. So that's one reason. Another reason is modern day mattresses, most of them are off-gassing, right? So you've got your head, you're taken in this sort of toxic stuff, like off-gassing of non-native materials while you're sleeping. A lot of these also have springs in them, these metal springs that conduct ambient EMF electricity, right? So you need to be in the deepest parasympathetic sleep environment when you're sleeping to restore and recover and reload for the next day. Sleep is, I think, one of the most complicated ones,

so I try and make it simple. Here's a few things you can do. People aren't going to start sleeping on the ground, right? What I said earlier is get early morning sun, finish your last meal three to four hours before bed, take in the sunset. And then after the sunset, you need to shield yourself from some of the blue lights.

You can either wear the UVX glasses or put some candle lights up. How much you want to bet that's going to improve your sleep so much. And then if you want to go overboard and be obsessive, probably like you are and like I am, there's about six or seven other things you can do that will drastically improve

your sleep. And sleeping closer to the ground, sleeping with a much stiffer environment is going to help you out. You know, it's the reason why I told you this before we started recording, but the reason why I was really, really keen to have this conversation with you is because I've seen in culture over the last 10 years, having, you know, I'm a social media native, so I've seen how conversation around mental health and mental well-being has evolved over the last 10-15 years and the the emergence of the conversation the very sort of prolific conversation around mental health and the the cures for much of these sort of mental um ailments or our well-being crises that that has emerged tend to be really

really complicated and they tend and I think in part they're complicated so that we can sell people stuff. Like if it's simple, if it's as simple as you're kind of saying it is, I can't actually sell you that. Me telling you to sleep is not something that I can necessarily sell you, but I could sell you some 17-step course

to better sleep with some contraption that goes on. That's what I love about my message is, you know, early, all my companies, it's the exact same message. It's all nine ancestral tenants, somebody who comes to us with a neurocognitive condition, we start talking about getting cold, getting really fucking cold, have some egg yolks, connect with the earth. And they start asking, where do I buy this? we're not selling that right or you could say we're selling it but we're not there's there's no financial exchange here and this is it i i think that humans took a wrong turn in our development we as you said and i wrote about this in my book in the chapter called the journey back to being a human um we live in four white walls we live

we're lonelier than ever before yeah we order our food using glass screens we connect using glass screens we we um if yeah like if i'm hungry like i don't even have to move these days someone will bring it to me in a in a tin can and come to my door and knock it and hand me my taco yeah or my coca-cola you know what i mean yeah so um it appears to me when you think about the things that are really helping us like and you look at the data around being out in nature and exercise and breathing properly and cold water, all things that our ancestors did, that's why I was so compelled by you,

because I do think we've overcomplicated it. And I think the simple approach of just figuring out how to be human again, turning back down that path and going back towards our ancestors is one to be listened to. So the second ancestral tenet is about food. When you look at how we're eating these days, what do you think we're doing wrong? I think we've really abandoned the ways of our ancestors, really. I mean, all primitive culture tribes, they put the animal at the center of the diet and they eat nose to tail.

We no longer do that, right? Instead, we eat some muscle meat that falls off the bone, but we're eating processed foods and we're no longer eating the organs, right? Almost all primitive culture tribes go for the liver and the bone marrow first. The Maasai went for the kidney first, right? But they're all going for the organs and they leave the muscle meats for the dogs and the birds, right? They know that the value is in the organs. So I think where we've gone wrong is really just for convenience and somebody has sold us something and we're buying it, right? We're buying processed food, we're buying convenience and we're buying it to our detriment because we don't feel good and we're not doing good, right? And we know that we're meant for more and we know

that we want to feel better, but there's a lack of information out there. And you see, like I said, how happy these people are, or this is where we started with my own kids. My own kids were sick. You know, my own kids were taking ambulance rides to the hospital. They couldn't breathe. They needed an EpiPen. They wouldn't be released from the hospital because they couldn't fucking, they didn't recover their breathing. And so, you know, at some point you say enough is enough. And so we took matters into our own hands. We started researching. Every doctor just gave more EpiPen, more Benadryl, stuff like that.

And for me, the easiest thing to do was to implement a diet change. We threw out all the processed food, the seed oils, the liquid calories. We brought in nose-to-tail, wild-caught organic foods, cheaply nose-to-tail stuff like liver and bone marrow and bone soups. Within about a week, our kids did a 180. I mean, they're no longer having, I mean, they just couldn't even sit here and have a conversation without wheezing. They couldn't breathe, right? We take this for granted, breathing.

They couldn't even breathe, right, with that kind of freedom. And so when we did this, it's like the light bulb came on. The personalities, their true personalities came through. I don't know what would have happened if we sort of subsisted like that for 15, 20 years. Like what kind of humans would they evolve to become? And within the space of almost a week, this is what happened. So I think what's gone wrong is, you know, out of convenience, because you can get cheap food, right? You're still going to pay for this, right, some other way. Because you feel like shit, your joints hurt, you know, you're not able to do nearly a fraction, express your potential.

So that's where I think we went wrong is we're eating stuff out of convenience. And because the price point is so low today. You're the first guest I've ever had on this show that's actually brought their family with them. And your family got to meet them lovely family before we started recording. One of your tenants, number, I guess you could say number nine, but also I guess number five is a little bit more about the earth, but number nine about bonding. When I was writing and looking at the topic of loneliness, one of the stats that was really alarming to me was that the medium answer

to the question for Americans these days, how many people have you got that you could turn to in a time of crisis, has dropped over the last decade from three people i could turn to to to zero and in the uk theresa may was the first prime minister to appoint a loneliness czar someone in charge of loneliness because it's reached pandemic levels why is it so important and what have we done wrong in terms of that ninth tenant, which is bonding? Because I thought it was really awesome that your family are here and that you travel with them. But we are getting lonelier and there's a cost to that. Thank you for saying so. Like I shared with you, I don't go anywhere without them.

You know, I take them everywhere I go. I need them, you know, and I need them to feel fulfilled. You know, my most important job is as a dad. And, you know, so where I think we went wrong is, you know, people are on this thing today that we call a phone and they're on there nonstop. They're on there on some kind of screen. You know, when I've talked to enough people, most people that I talk to, they hate their jobs. They come home to a life that they don't love. And they sedate themselves enough with screen time, with Netflix, with a phone, with medication to feel better, to get hard, call it a day, call it a week, call it their lives. And they're sedating themselves just enough on this thing. And we've allowed this to happen.

My kids get 40 minutes a day on the screen time if they earn it. And here's what happens. When you put down that damn phone and you have these kind of conversations and you get in a little group of people doing the same thing. Again, you get this electricity, the chemistry, the culture that can only happen. These intangible things happen when you connect, when you look someone in the eye and you feel them heart to heart. Right. When you're that authentic, when you're true, when you're primal, you know, this is you see this with every primitive culture. They don't have phones. They don't have any screens. You know, they want to have fun.

They're sitting around a fire and they're just talking. They're laughing, you know? And so today it's just so pervasive and no one's saying anything about it. No one's doing anything about it, right? And so I do think a lot more awareness needs to come here. And again, it's all nine ancestral tenets, but this one bonding, you know, we've always needed each other and we still do, right? There's nothing more primal than

purpose itself. Like we used to know that our role was to protect the perimeter, right? We used to know that building and shelter making and wise traditions, this concept of bonding, we needed each other to do these things, to pass down the information so that we could survive and thrive. And somewhere along the way, we've started buying screen time, these distractions, and it's to our detriment. You know, once again, like you talk to people, very few people love what they do for a living and then come home to a life that they love too.

And I can't tell you how many people that I talk to, I'm out there in the street and I'm talking with people, how much TV do you watch? And almost everyone is watching hours of TV and we're on their phone hours at a time. So yeah, there's something going on there. And what we really need to do is put down that goddamn phone, you know, and have some conversations. When I was in New York city, I was in the subway, every single person, every single one of them, you know, and you go and you talk to someone and they almost can't believe what are you doing?

I have my kids approach people. I'm trying to show them how to pick up girls. And I'm also trying to show them just to have, how do you have, and so many people are freaked out. My kids are going up to them saying, hey, how's it going? What's your name? What are you doing here? They're like, whoa, what's going on? Is there an ulterior motive?

We've lost that touch just to have a conversation, right? We need to bring that back. So again, I feel like this is my job to model, teach and preach this, right? I'm going to do as much of this stuff as I can on social media because I know when somebody puts down the phone and they have this kind of conversation,

it fills you up. Are you optimistic? I would say I'm optimistic. You look at the world, you know that we're heading in one direction. If you look at the last 10 years of our trajectory towards living in the metaverse and digitalization and social media usage, the world is flying in that direction.

So are you optimistic that we're going to be able to go back to a more ancestral way of living? That's my job. That's 100% my job. You know, it's to take this message mainstream so that, that what I know is people know that they're missing something and that they're meant for more and they don't want to suffer like this. And so I got to look you in the eye and tell you, not only am I optimistic about this is my job, right? And I just got on

social media recently. And if you look at the followership that we have, like I've struck in a chord, I've struck in a nerve with people again, because they know that there's been a problem and people that have started implementing just some basic things. The name is liver King. Cause I want everyone to start with liver. If you start eating liver, this is the easiest lever to a trajectory to a better life. And I could get into some of the background wide, but, but I just say, Hey, start doing this, go to a farmer's market, go to your butcher, go get some liver, start eating a little bit of liver every single day. and you know how many people start feeling profoundly better right and so so am i optimistic about it um hell yeah i'm optimistic about it we gotta make this happen

your success on social media you touched on it there how many followers you got some six million i saw just looking at two channels i probably missed a couple of them how many followers has he got do you know 1.6 on instagram 3.5 on tiktok he doesn't know he doesn't know let's just call it five okay five million followers if you if i had your message um and i was a scientist looking guy with a shirt on and a tie on and i was had old gray hair and I was kind of monotone, you know, I'd have three followers with the exact same message. So you must understand the role that your presentation is playing in that message, right? You understand there's a brand there. What I know is I never had an intention of going to doing social media. People would come over to my house and say, Liver King, you got to get on social media.

The way that you guys live, you don't even have to change anything about your life. Do what you do. All you got to do is record what you do every day. And I was really reluctant to this because prior to social media, I was rich and anonymous. And now I'm still rich, but I'm no longer anonymous. And there's a lot of stuff that comes with not being anonymous

that are not favorable things. Like anytime I'm still rich, but I'm no longer anonymous. And there's a lot of stuff that comes with not being anonymous that are not favorable things. Like anytime I'm out with my kids and people want to talk to Liver King, and now there's a line of people that want to talk and take pictures, and my kids are right here. And I'm here to hang out with my kids and Liver Queen. And I want them to know, hey, here's how we're going to interact. We're going to talk. I want to try to get you guys involved too.

But a lot of, I mean, we got to the hotel. The first thing that the driver did is he wanted to take a picture. Before we unloaded, before we did anything, you know, of course we're going to take a picture. You know, to me, this is validation that the message is getting out. But about social media and doing this thing, I didn't wear a shirt before social media. I didn't shave before social media. I don't brush my teeth before social. I still don't. Right. And so it wasn't like, Hey, let's develop this personal brand for social media. It's man, you know what? I love my life so much. I love the roles and goals that I have. I believe that I

figured out how to achieve. I figured out how to do this in harmony with the true art of fulfillment. And it's almost effortless when you do these nine ancestral tenets. You know, like I said, the hardest thing I do every day is a workout, right? And then the tough conversations that you have with people, this is easy. You know, everything else is easy. I love the food that I get to eat. I love the relationships, the bonds that I have. My most important meeting of the day is my CEO meeting with my family. I call that the board meeting. I prepare for that the most, you know, to have these conversations with my kids. So prior to social media, this is how I lived after social media. This is how, and I said, fuck it, we'll do it. We'll put myself out there. We'll do this thing. We'll see how the world responds to it. And I mean, every day, the kind

of messages that we get, you know, blow me away, you know, messages from kiddos that say, I wish you were my dad, right, because I've grown up to hate myself. And I would rather hate my dad than hate myself because my dad made me do hard shit, you know, because I get endless hours of video games. The kind of messages I get from kids, you know, the kind of messages I get from moms, it's like, well, this is why we do this every single day. And so I'm going to try my best, you know, it's like, okay, I didn't, I didn't sign up for this. But anytime that you take on more responsibility in life, you know, I feel like this leads to progress. And I feel like progress and happiness are really one in the same. So this is this has been a challenge to get out and to connect and to do some of these things. But I wouldn't, this is my fight. This is what I exist for now. With that also comes criticism.

You alluded to some of it earlier on. You said that there's a lot of critics and stuff like that. People that are, you know, resisting the message. And everybody's got their own agendas when they're resisting messages and their own skepticism. And we can all understand that, I guess. Joe Rogan criticized you,

which I know you know about because I've heard you talk about that before Joe Rogan's a big person in terms of his platform is big how did that feel when he said he alluded that you're on steroids or something like that yeah

how did that feel oh cloud nine really I've entered his ecosystem Joe Rogan is talking about liver king you know how obscure I was to most of his audience before he's talking about me, you know? And so I love it, you know, and now I have the opportunity to engage deeper with this idea. I think it's dangerous when somebody points the finger and has a self-limiting

belief about themselves or somebody else or, or any, anything for that matter. Like it was impossible to sell a podcast for $200 million until you did it, right? It's impossible to defend the world champion title five times until you do it, you know, and I guarantee you, nobody has done what I've done for this many decades on, and this kind of work, this kind of depth, this kind of suffer, you know, nobody lives the way that I live. And so what I want is the opportunity to correct that. I want the opportunity to go on a show, talk to him face-to-face. You know, at the end of the day, there is a lot of hate and there's a lot of criticism.

But when I say a lot, it's probably about 5% of the vocal minority. And I tell my kids this all the time. You know, when we talk to each other, these are just words, right? And these words are vibrations that go into our ears, right? And then our brain assigns meaning to it. So nobody can really offend you, right? You're assigning meaning to whatever they're saying. And so when Joe Rogan's talking about me, what I'm saying is, fuck you.

I mean, I went and ran to my wife and I told her, oh my God, can you believe this? Joe Rogan is talking about me, you know? And he's done it more than once. And so all I ask is for the opportunity to have the conversation with him face-to-face because all nine ancestral tenets allow us to express something that was otherwise impossible, right?

We all have the same potential. It's not just as physical potential, right? And I always say at the end of the day, cheating doesn't scale. It's not sustainable and it doesn't scale, right? And what I've achieved from a financial standpoint, from a family standpoint, you know, from a true fulfillment standpoint, you know, I say how you do anything is how you do everything, right? This is not just, you know, my physical, you know, expression. I think that when you really get to know me, what I hope at the end of the day, you say your physique is the least impressive thing about you, you know, because at the end

of the day, this is not what I'm about. I've never told anybody start eating liver and you're going to look like liver king, right? What I do is I say, if you start doing these things, start every day by getting early morning sun, put your bare feet connected, anchored, grounded into the earth, right? I show what I'm eating for dinner every day. It's usually liver, raw liver, raw bone marrow. And I'm being nourished in the most profound way because my family is around me. It's these simple things that you do. Each of them shape how we look, feel and function. And so when I enter someone's ecosystem, like Joe Rogan, I couldn't be more excited about it. And I just want to have the opportunity to have a face-to-face conversation with him about it. Because I think at the end of the day, if you say he's got an ass full of

steroids, I think what you're, invariably some people want to look like Liver King. They want to look like me. And what you're saying is you've got to do that if you want to look like him. And number one, I don't do it. And number two, what I want you to say is, you know what? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, that guy, in fact, he did say he's in the 0.00001% of genetics if he does it naturally. But I'm here to tell you, if you do all nine ancestral tenets, you're going to look, feel, and function at your best. You're going to express, will you ever look like me? You know, if you want to look like me, you've already lost, right? What you need to do is look like the best version of yourself. And barely so many of us are really scratching the potential

of our being. And so that's what I want. I want the opportunity to talk about that self-limiting belief mindset. I want to encourage people, get out there and do these things, and you're going to see how much more you can become. Hardship is part of being a human. It's almost unavoidable. It'll come out of anywhere. It could be disease or loss or grief, whatever it might be. You told me about the hardship you underwent between 10 and 14 years old. What is the hardest moment of your adult life been? The hardest moment was when my son, Rad, got sick. And we thought we were losing him. He lost his bind.

You know, there's something called PANDAS. It stands for Pediatric Autoimmune Neurological Disorder, something like that. And it basically is like the manifestation of like these obsessive thoughts. And you can't stop thinking about these obsessive thoughts. It just takes over you. And one day he asked if a bad guy spits on the ground, and if you see that spit, does that make you a bad person? We just thought this is the strangest question, right? Of course not. But then immediately it was like the same question, but a slight variation. If you touch the spit, you know, if you spit on the ground and it was, it consumed him and it was him asking those questions. And then one day he said, oh God, I already asked that question, didn't I? And then he realized, and it was nonstop. It was nonstop. And I remember, you know, my wife and I just,

we were crying on each other because we thought we lost them. And when you learn about more about what pandas is and, you know, kids are kind of relegated to like a chemical straitjacket, they're sedated enough to where they're not in such torment because it's either him constantly asking these questions or he's screaming out of the top, just top of his lungs, he's screaming. And one day he said, I wish I had a baseball bat because I would rather hit my brain and do damage to this brain

than to live with this brain. And so I would say, you know, this is probably the last rite of passage that I've been through, like to go through this with my family and to figure it out, you know, with him. And we figured it out. And, you know, we had already been living this lifestyle. The only thing that we really needed to fix, I don't know if you've heard of Paul Saladino. He's a carnivore MD. He's an incredible friend.

And I said, hey man, what's going on? What's going on here? And he said, oh my God, you guys are still eating a hundred percent cacao chocolate and raw honey every day. Take that out of his diet. Take that out. And that's the only thing he really wanted to eat. So we took it out. He didn't really want to eat for a couple of days. And then he got better in like three or four days. So this is incredible to me. You know, when you think that you've lost your kid, I mean, this is when they've lost their mind like this, you know, when you read about the prognosis with kiddos, with pandas, it's not good. You know, and again, it's like the best you could do

is give them enough medication to sedate them enough to take that edge off. And it took a while to figure this out. I bet it took, I don't know, six weeks or so, maybe eight weeks or so to do it. But we did it. And again, like by default, he didn't want to eat anything because this is like the only thing he wanted to eat at the time.

He would eat a little of the other stuff because we forced him to. But, you know, he, by default, he pretty much fasted for a couple of days and then he would eat because he got hungry enough. So he was eating the food that we would give him, you know, his nose to tail meats and stuff. And he got better. And I think this is an important thing to share. My wife and I talked about this for a long time that we wouldn't share this publicly. I don't even know why. Maybe to protect him, you know, but I can just imagine how many kids out there that have the same thing, you know, and the parents have lost hope. And there are so many things that can be done.

You know, you just need to continue to fight. And I don't know if he was allergic to something in the chocolate or the honey, but taking those things out and doing a strict keto carnivore diet, maybe just doing a strict keto diet. Is it so anti-inflammatory with the brain? Maybe that. I don't know. But all I know is he got better, and we got him back. And what we realized is he had been suffering with lighter symptoms for the last couple of years.

And we looked back at some of the pictures and it's almost like his personality had been taken away slowly and slow. And then it led up to this point and then we got him better. And so this is for sure the hardest thing that I've had to deal with over the last couple of years. One of your tenets is about shielding, number four, about shielding your family protection. I can't, I mean, I can't imagine what it's like to have a, the feeling of helplessness, because I've heard about that disease before. I think I've spoken to someone on this podcast who has a son that's good that was going through that what is that like in a moment where you when you read that prognosis and you see that happening to

your son and you're a man you want to shield and protect your family how how does that feel yeah there's uh so many different feelings of course you feel totally helpless at the same time I always say that your woman and you as a man, you need to know that you can protect in a dark alley. And I mean it literally, but really figuratively, right? Like you got the strength and courage to do that. If that time comes, she needs to know you're going to do it. You need to know that you're capable of it because the financial crisis is going to come too. She needs to know that you're going to be able to protect and fight in that financial crisis. The health crisis is going to come to. She needs to know that you're going to be able to protect and fight in that

financial crisis. The health crisis is going to come to. And so I think that we've been through enough together that I knew that I would never stop fighting for this until we figured this out. So on one hand, there's a totally helpless feeling. On the other hand, it's like, you just keep fighting, you know, you just keep fighting and you keep having conversations and you keep looking and, you know, there's no limit, there's no end, you know, that, that I would have gone to until we sorted this out. So yeah, it's, it's like a helpless feeling, but of course you're never going to stop. You're going to figure it out. As a parent, do you, do you, do you fall into the temptation of guilt? Because that's your child. And you're like, I remember one time when my dog got sick,

my dog's upstairs. I remember my dog being sick and me running through all the things I'd just done and thinking maybe I didn't walk my dog enough or maybe I shouldn't have given him this or maybe I shouldn't have done this. And then I remember it was actually a couple of weeks ago, I'm laying there on my back and my dog is like throwing up repeatedly

and feeling that feeling of guilt, which was consuming me because I don't have children, but my dog Pablo is basically my child. Yeah. I don't know how much I would identify with the guilt. Sure, I'm sure there's, but, you know, more than anything, it was like, how the fuck do we fix this? You know, is there something toxic in the house?

You know, we have all the walls shielded with shielding paint to make sure non-native EMFs and signals don't come in. You know, could there be something toxic in that? Is he interacting with something in the house that's hot? Do we have, we got everything tested again and again and again. We went to different environments to see if he still, for extended periods of time, did he still exhibit those symptoms in different environments? The answer was yes. So I feel like obviously there's a sense of that, but more than anything, I'm like, I'm so goddamn driven that we're just going to take massive action.

And we're going to course correct and course correct and course correct. And we're going to try whatever we need to try until we figure out this thing. So guilt was definitely a part of it. But more than anything, it was like, okay, you know, we're done crying. And now we just got to get back to work and figure this out I mean nothing in life means anything you know it's like my companies you know didn't mean anything to me when when this was happening this is this is the only thing that mattered and so it's it's yeah this was everything and just got to figure it out which we did. Have you as a as a adult ever

experienced your own had your own experiences with these mental health elements of anxiety and depression and lows and things like that? Well, so I would identify that I have these feelings that resonate with me, that tell me something that say you better fucking get to work. You better fix this shit. Right. And so I'll say like if I have really say like, if, if I have really low energy, uh, if my motivation, you know, is kind of gone, you know, I'm like, okay, I got to fit life's too short. I got to fix this. I do a five day water only fast. I'll take some kind of massive action to be like, this is not okay. I got to fix this. Um, if I feel anxious about something like, okay, I got to take massive, I don't sleep until I fix it. Or if I get up at one o'clock and I'm thinking about this thing,

I'm like, I got to do this right now. So I've never experienced any of a depression or anxiety long-term like that. But what I would say is I think that I've had some of the symptoms and I've really kind of used that as a signal, like I better get to fucking work. I better do something because I can't,

there's too many important roles and goals that I have in life to allow this to consume work. I better do something because I can't exist. There's too many important roles and goals that I have in life to allow this to consume me. What about anxiety? You know what it is? I thought I was immune to everything growing up, especially when I was like 18, 19, 20.

I kind of abandoned what it is to be a human and made myself really lonely in the pursuit of money. I got there, I made it, but there was a sacrifice. And one of the sacrifices for me was your number nine

in your list of tenants, which was bonding. I kind of made myself so lonely that i think i'd i started to exhibit some of the symptoms of like lowness i wouldn't say it was depression i've like but then i also i've i also thought i was immune from anxiety and then when my business had real crunch moments cash flow problems whatever you've got thousand you know a thousand employees around the world then anxiety showed up for the first time in my life. So I'm wondering if you've ever had a moment of anxiety, even a day where you just struggle to shake it. Now that you say some of those examples, I mean, there's about a decade that my wife and I struggled in business. And that was another rite of passage that we went through. And this was really never our fight.

And we fought, you know, for about a decade. And I'm sure you probably know as a business owner, you get paid last. You know, everybody else gets paid. You're lucky. Yeah, everyone's driving nice cars and you're down to one. And so when you don't know how you're going to make payroll, you know, and you start to, you know,

this happens so many times and I don't think that it ever gets any easier. You're freaking out. You know, they need to get paid, you know, so that they can provide for their own family. People are really depending on this level of success. So, you know, I never considered that anxiety before. Maybe that is anxiety, you know, but I've definitely lost my shit, you know, trying to figure that out. And then going and asking anyone and everyone for help. I remember one time I asked Ben, our lab technician, if he had any money he could loan me to help make payroll for the whole company, for 23 people.

You go and you ask everybody. At some point, everybody says no. And you still got to figure it out. So I would say that there's probably a lot of mixed emotions in that timeframe over that decade. I'm sure there's a lot of that in there, a lot of worrying how we're going to make payroll, a lot of losing my shit on that. And I would say more than anything, it just, it drove me, it drove me to, you got to figure this out. All these people, all their families are counting on you, are depending on you. And so you just sacrifice your sleep. You sacrifice everything you need to sacrifice

in order to make it happen. Business. People don't talk about your business portfolio, your business success as much as they talk about other things. You know, you said that you were earlier on in the conversation, you said, I was rich before I became in the public perception, joined social media and became liver king. What was that business? So I own, I would say 10 or 12 companies right now. They're all ancestral related. We do have some real estate stuff from, from back in the day. Um, but some of the companies are, um, dietary supplement companies like ancestral supplements, strong jaw, there's the fittest. Um, so there's a whole bunch of them, including heart and soil. These are all companies. I want to have a hundred of these in every different category,

right? And just remember every single company is based on taking this ancestral message mainstream. So if somebody has a dental issue, recurrent or chronic decay, they can't figure it out, they're brushing, they're flossing. I always say our early ancestors didn't brush, didn't floss, didn't get cavities, right? But today we say, hey, go brush, go out. They're brushing, they're flossing. I always say our early ancestors didn't brush, didn't floss, didn't get cavities, right? But today we say, hey, go brush, go floss. It's this hygiene hypothesis. I haven't brushed in a decade. Wow.

And if I needed a dentist, I wouldn't have to go far because my wife is a retired dentist. Every once in a while, I'm like, hey, just take a look. I just want to know. I just want to know. And so she'll take a look and she's like, yeah, you got some plaque in there. But everything looks great. Everything looks great. And so if somebody has a dental issue, they're going to the respective expert that they believe is a dentist looking for help. Right. And so, so what we try to do is create a company in every category to still spread this message, right? You still need sunlight. You

still need a bond. If you're not sleeping, you're not going to heal anything, right? It's all nine ancestral tenants. It's this kind of nourishment from the inside out that's going to get us healthy. And so I always say that an evolutionary hunter leaves the comfort of the cave, right? To do something different for the betterment of humanity. So all my companies are based on getting out this ancestral message so that it goes mainstream. A lot of the companies are dietary supplement companies. And then I'm involved also with the supply chain upstream and downstream. A little birdie told me these companies are doing very well.

You know, once again, they are. They're doing great. And I can't take credit because I'm not CEOing any of these companies anymore. I moved over to CEO the ancestral lifestyle. And, you know, at the end of the day, it's like, do you have the right people in the right positions doing the right things for the right reasons? You know, And, and, um, the other day I gave a talk about, um, advice to entrepreneurs and I would say, number one, you got to figure out how to let that primal guy out. Cause how

the fuck are you going to scale and lead a team if you can't do that yourself? And, you know, I see so many young guys, um, that are so incredibly immature and I don't see them really focusing on themselves, scaling and leading themselves to do that with a team. So I say, figure that out. And if you need help on figuring that out, go learn the barbarian. This is a workout that I created. It's the hardest thing.

It's a rite of passage, a modern day rite of passage. Learn the barbarian, train the barbarian, become the barbarian, and then renew that rite of passage often and frequently. You do this, you're going to figure out how to scale and lead yourself. You're going to know true strength and you're going to figure out

how to scale and lead a company. The barbarian, I think you should just pause and explain. What the barbarian is? Yeah, because I heard your son, you made your son do the barbarian against liver queen's wishes. That's right. This is true. Once again, it's tough to say, hey, you're going to go through four years of this living hell. So I know I need to create some rite of passage for my kids. And when I figured this out with my kids, I also want to bring this mainstream. So adults and young people today will also have a rite of passage.

Every primitive culture tribe has had a rite of passage. You know, the Spartans at seven years old leave for the next 13 years to become warriors, to become men. You have the Aztec at 13. They have to capture a neighboring tribe and bring them back for sacrifice. That's the rite of passage. There's a lot of modern day tribes, you'll leave for three months, go on a vision quest, you may or may not come back. Everyone's had a rite of passage.

We've lost this rite of passage. When people turn 16 today, you know what we do for them? Buy them a car. You buy them a car, you might have a sweet 16 party. There's no effort. There's no rite of passage. There's no leave, cross this chasm. And now you know what you're capable of. There's none of that anymore. So that's why I created the Barbarian is I wanted something like that. And I remember the first day I did it. It's 70 pound kettlebells in each hand. It's 70 pounds in a backpack. It's 120 pounds on top of a sled,

20 pound ankle weights. And you go one mile, you go one mile. And I remember I left the house like this. And I remember it scared the shit out of me because I didn't know if I could complete it. And I know you and I can talk about this. Hey, you could just put the weights down. You could come back.

Not in my mind. In my mind, I had to go through the whole circle. I had to complete the one mile and it scared the shit out of me. And it took me several hours to complete. And I came back and I said, oh, that's it. That's the rite of passage. I'm going to bring this forward and I'm going to share this with my friends. And I've shared this with my friends. Some people can do it quickly. Some people take six or eight hours. A lot of people won't be able to complete it, period. But that's what the barbarian is. And so this is a rite of passage, you know, that anyone can do today.

You made your son do it? I made my son do it when he turned 15. We had him do the barbarian, and then we took him, I took him on a sacred hunt. But I like how you said it gets liver queen's wishes because nobody thought he could do it. I mean, he's grown up tall, and he's not a real muscular guy yet. He's adding muscle. I mean, he's added a lot of muscle recently, but everyone just thought, oh, first of all, he can't do it. Secondly, if he attempts to do it, he's going to get hurt. His own CrossFit coach said he doesn't need to do this. I remember at dinner, she said the same thing. Oh, this, you know, this

is dangerous. And I just, I put the fucking hammer down. I said, there's no way anyone's talking us out of it. He's doing it. He's going to train for it. And when he does it, he's going to show all you guys what you thought was impossible is possible. And he's going to know what he's capable of. This is his rite of passage. Don't take that from him. What if he'd failed?

There's no, I don't, so this is what I believe. He gets halfway. He falls over. He says, dad, I don't want to do this. I want to go back. He knows that's not an option. What I told him before starting is, I don't care how many days it takes you.

If you need to fall down on the side of the road, if you sprained your ankle, if you've broken something, you're going to take a rest on the side of the road. I'll bring you a fucking blanket if I need to bring you a blanket. You're going to sleep here until you go out, you complete this, you come back,

you're changed forever. And it's the hardest thing people will do. There's a point in time where it's like your soul leaves your body. It's the hardest thing you've done physically. You have nothing physical left in you. And so now something else takes over and has to move through the rest of that rite of passage. And when you complete that, when you do that, you're changed. It's the, what do you say to people that say that that sounds like toxic parenting? That's, that's too much. That's, you know? Yeah. You know, I've heard this toxic masculinity, right? I'm like, you know what? There's nothing toxic about masculinity. Number one, number two, we live in a society today. That's a soft, we have a soft

manicured man problem, right? We need to do more hard shit like this. And I put this hard thing in front of my boy, right? And I was going to make sure that he got it done. I remember when he took off, Liver Queen says, I'm going to go check on him. I said, no fucking way. You're going to check on him. Because I know she made eye contact with him. In that moment of suffer, you know,

she would let him know, hey, I'm here to protect you. I want to, I'll bring you in. And if he can feel that for a second, you know what that does, you know, to the being. And so I said, there's no way you can check. His brother can drive the ranger way out, you know, front to make sure he's not passed out or something, but you're not going to check on him. So, you know, you know what I would say today is we've got a soft manicured man problem where a lot of men today hate the person that they've become. And we got to do something. We got to move men along this continuum so that they know hard times, so that they know what they're capable of, so that they can believe in themselves. So yeah, every once in a while, somebody tells me

something like that. And I'm like, you know, we've lost this kind of value. You know, our own forefathers were offered more value and perpetuity than we do today, right? Had more strength, courage, mastery, and honor than we do today. We got to take that back, you know, and people are like, oh, you know, where's the scientific proof? Sometimes I hear that. I'm like, you know, if you just look at these statistics, look at the statistics, and I don't know if we talked about this earlier, but 80% of people are struggling living paycheck

to paycheck. We have 70% that are overweight, 50% on prescription medication. We have 20% that can't have babies, right? That want to be healthy enough to be fertile enough to propagate our species and they can't have kids. And 40% have cancer, will get kids. We got some major, major stuff going on today. And so this isn't the silver bullet to it, but this is part of it, you know, is getting

out there and knowing what this true strength feels like. Again, this isn't just about physical strength. You come back and you'll know physical strength. But again, the real strength is, holy shit, I did this thing. It took active suffering and struggling and discipline. And I practiced this thing and look at what I'm capable of. And now I'm capable of doing this in a business, in a relationship. You're capable of doing, pointing this process at anything

so that you can take extreme ownership and create the life that you want to live in. And those statistics that I talk about start to fall away. I agree with all of that. I think, you know, when I said your businesses are doing really well, I mean, really, really well. I read online, Little Birdie told me that you're making over $100 million a year from your businesses. True or false?

True. True. That's a pretty staggering accomplishment. What role does money play in your life now? Like, when you think about the relationship with money, obviously money isn't a thing that is ancestral. I mean, you could make, I guess, through lines

to status in tribes, I guess, because money in our society is often associated with status or status, what the American pronunciation is. But what role does money play in your ancestral being, if I've even said that correctly?

Not much. I mean, I have Liver King Ranch. We have plenty of acreage. We have all of our food out there. You know, we're here in the UK. We decided a couple of days ago, hey, let's go to the UK. It's so easy to get on the plane, to go to the UK, to check out a badass fight, to build a podcast with you today. So I would say that money just amplifies more of what you are, right? And I don't know who coined this, who first said it, but if you're an asshole before you had money, now you get money, you're more of an asshole, right? If you're a generous person, you know, and it amplifies your ability to be generous. Every once in a while, we go wakeboarding or I'll give you this example.

When I was growing up, I snowboarded a lot. When I was in college, I would take off snowboarding. After college, I would take off snowboarding and I went by myself all the time. But immediately I would seek out somebody to bond with, to go snowboarding with. And so I was always, you know, hanging out with people and that's what made it special, right? I talked to my friend, Paul Saladino. I'm like, hey, imagine going wake surfing by yourself. You just got like a driver out here. You're wake surfing back here.

Nobody's back here cheersing for you. You know, it's not about our ability to get, it's about our ability to give and to share and have these altruistic goals personally and professionally. You know, the role that it's played now in our personal lives, you know, a lot of people say, hey, you know, you can do all these things because you have money, you know. And it's like if you look at actually the amount of money that we spend to have Liver King Ranch, you know, it's self-sufficient.

You know, in fact, we make money from selling meat from Liver King Ranch. from liver cake ranch um and so you know i'm i don't know if that answers your question but i would say um it hasn't really changed a whole lot other than creating a vehicle to be able to go and to deepen the experiences and say hey let's go to the abu dhabi fight let's go to the uk fight let's go do those things as a family and let's go on some adventures one thing you say has changed things for you is liver queen, Barbara. She goes by liver queen because she introduced, I met her earlier on and she introduced herself as liver queen. So how did that change you meeting her? So I've said this before, but I believe because of the rites of passage we've talked about, I figured out how to be a man, right? I figured out how to be strong and courageous and develop mastery level skills and be honorable to an honor system of other men

and accountability with other men. So I think I had figured that out. I was pretty good at that, but I wasn't really a good man. And so when I met her, I met her snowboarding. I met her snowboarding. She was already on the mountain. She was strapping into her snowboard, getting ready to take off. I'm coming off a chairlift. I'm with, at the time, my best friend, Jeff Parchment. And I said, hey, man, this is his first time snowboarding. I said, hey, I got to go. I see a girl. I'm going to go and see if I can talk with her. I ended up talking with her and said, hey, I caught her down at the next lift line. And I said, hey, I know this mountain pretty well. Can I show you around? And she said, yeah. And I tell my kids this all the time, like this is why we have to get good

at interacting with people, right? This stuff doesn't happen over an app or a text message, right? We got to interact with people. We've got to feel that chemistry and that electricity. And it may take you going up to a hundred or a thousand individuals to find your soulmate. But I found my soulmate and I knew immediately and she knew immediately and we moved a million miles an hour. And I knew immediately that if I didn't rise to the occasion, that she would see right through me. And I knew I could become anything. I'd done enough things in my life to where I know I have the discipline. And I immediately knew from a character ethic standpoint, I had to be better. And she would see right through me if I wasn't. And I made a decision. I'm going to be better now. For the rest of my life, I'm going to be better. So she really challenged me to do that. And so, you know, I would say there's a couple little examples,

like some white lies, you know, that I would tell here and there. And I remember she caught me. She's like, hey, that's a white lie. I was like, yeah, this is a white lie. You know how people do white lies, right? I grew up with white lies, you know. And she goes, no, like not a single white lie ever again. And this is not easy. And maybe this is why I come off as a dick sometimes because I've tried to not sugarcoat things. And so there's so many little things like that, you know.

Generosity, you know, generosity, you know, what was a big thing. And I believe that we became so generous at one point that it was to our detriment. This was through that 10-year stint of us failing in business. And other people were doing pretty well, but we weren't doing very well. And it's like, you know, we got to take that back. But I would say more than anything, you know, she's shown me what it's like to be a family man. You know, I grew up having TV dinners. You know, mom might put some food out and just you help yourself to it.

You know, as soon as I met her, it's like we sit down every day. Oh, my God, we sit down every day. And then with the kids, we sit down every single day from the beginning. You know, and then we go and we have dinner with our parents once a week and everyone sits around. And this is the staple every single day. So she's really taught me how to be a family man. There's a lot of incredible qualities that I would attribute to her. You referred to her as your soulmate, which is a beautiful thing to say.

In my mind, the question became, and it came into my mind because it's something that I've been trying to understand from studying our sort of prehistoric foundations is, is monogamy part of the ancestral way of living? So you get various responses. When I visit with primitive culture tribes, half are monogamous, half are not. And so I don't know how far back you'd have to go, how many different tribes you'd have to study. This is my way. I think that it confers parental investment advantages.

I think it confers our ability to pass on wisdom. And so I do believe that there's some truth to that. But again, to me, it's like, what I talk a lot about, this is crazy. A lot of, I get a lot of young kids saying, how do I get a queen? How do I get a queen? I'm like, oh my God, you're asking me for advice on how to get. And so I started thinking about how do I serve these people, right? And so what I share back is you attract your complimentary opposite. And if you really want to be with a 10, you got to become a 10, right?

If you want to be with a queen, you got to become a king. You got to invest in yourself. You got to put yourself in the gym. You got to express your highest, most dominant form physically, socially, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. You can do that holistically together. Something happened in society today where somebody said you can put your best foot forward to meet somebody.

And then you guys meet each other and then you're comfortable. Then you gain 20 pounds. You lose 20 pounds for the wedding. You take your pictures and then you gain another five pounds a year in perpetuity. You wake up to somebody you barely recognize, right? You wake up to that person. You love that person. Sure. But do you lost for that person? Do you want to have sex with that person? Do you have that kind of fire, that kind of intensity, that kind of passion for that person, right? I believe if you do, you invest it. I say you owe it to your fucking self. You owe it to her too. To keep what you deem as attractive and sexy in your marriage, you got to express your highest and most dominant physical form. She'll do the same, her highest and most dominant,

beautiful form, right? And then polygamy means nothing, right? That's because imagine the ability to wake up with your soulmate that you connect with at the deepest level and all aspects. And you think there's nothing more beautiful physically than that physical attraction just grows more over time. So that's what I believe about that. I wouldn't have it any other way. If I were to ask her, live a queen,

if I said, what does he need to work on? Wow. said what does he need to work on wow well this this is the thing you know when you are with your complimentary opposite it's and we've been together we just celebrated our 18th anniversary and um i i do this thing here's what liver king's having for dinner today. Every day I record my dinners, and by the way, someone should tune into the stories because if you're confused about how to, I show it every single day on my stories. One day I'm looking for this protein that I have. It's called the Whole Beast.

It's going to be called the Whole Feast protein, and it has all these organs in it, liver, heart, pancreas, spleen, blood. Anyways, I'm looking for this bag, the Whole Feast, and we're getting ready to tape. And, and I get, I said, where the fuck is the bag? And there's a few people around and, and, uh, and she brings me a bag and I, and I kind of yelled a little bit, Hey, don't waste my time. And, uh, as she whispers in my ear, it was in your office. It was in your office, you know? and she said it so nice to me. And, uh, and so she's so here's, here's the thing. Um, 10 years ago, she would have let me have it.

Don't you fucking talk to me that way. Don't you do you know how embarrassing that is. And now the way that she handles herself. In fact, I look like a fool. I make myself look like a fool. You know, I make myself look like an ass and the way that she handles it with such class, you know, I think what she might say is, um, and actually the kids told me this today. Uh, I don't have a lot of patience. I don't have a lot of patience. I feel like at some point, uh, one, one day we were, uh, we were doing mushrooms. We're on the top of this Hill. And she said to me, when, when, when did you become a dick? When do you think you became a dick? And I was like, you know what? When I ran out of time, when, when, when did you become a dick? When do you think you became a dick?

And I was like, you know what? When I ran out of time, when I started to run out of time, you know, I used to write down some things in my journal too, you know, and I stopped when I ran out of time. I stopped being extra nice to people saying these extra, when I ran out of time, like, I feel like I became more honest, more primal, more authentic, you know, when, when we have to go out and achieve. So I think she might say, I should have more grace. I should have more patience. That would probably it. And do you agree with her? I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. Fuck, you're going to keep looking at me? Okay. Here's the thing. I think that if anybody's the same person, you know, in three months or a year, we're catastrophic failures, right? Like we got to continue to grow and progress and everything that we do. My social, my relationship with her, I spend 10 hours with

her every Saturday. It's part of our system. We do this together every Saturday. And then the things that we unpack, the things that we do together over that Saturday, we get to integrate that over the next six days until we do it again. So yeah, I think if I really think about it, I could do better. I think I could as well. And that's really why I was pressing on that point, because I was trying to learn something because I think I've done the same thing where I've just, my lack of time has allowed me to, I think, self-justify sometimes cutting corners on some of the things that I know are the right thing to do. So you're right.

Like I should never really, I think as a man, let my manners be sacrificed in the name of like time efficiency. And if I were to write down the values that I want my children to have, I'd write that for them. So when we talked about learning through vicariously through observation and how we behave being the best way to teach our kids, of course, I need to do that myself. That's eyeopening. Just yesterday, I saw Stryker lose his patience like that. And I'm like, hey, man. Stryker, your son.

Yeah. Yeah. I said, hey, man, you know, when you lose your patience like that. And I'm like, hey man. Strikey your son. Yeah. Yeah. I said, hey man, you know, when you lose your patience like that, you know, you're not thinking clearly, right? You know that you're not going to make the right, like, you know, I'm sure he got it from me. I'm sure he got it from me. So I do need to do better. I need to, I think that you really just opened my eyes because what I want to show the kids, what I want to show them. I'm going to do better. What do you teach your kids about emotion? You know, one of the conversations that's really popular at the moment, because of some of those statistics around male suicide, is that men aren't speaking enough about how they're feeling. So you have these,

you know, the single biggest killer of men, I believe under the age of 40, in this country, is themselves, killing themselves. And I've sat here with multiple people that have talked about, you know, their best friend killed themselves out of the blue, never said anything. And a lot of the experts in this space point to the fact that men haven't learned

how to express their emotions as being some of, not all, but some of the reason for that. Yeah. You know, I think that what I try and teach them is through modeling. You know, I never had, I didn't have a dad growing up and I never had a dad tell me, I love you. I never had a dad, you know, affirm me the same kind of way. So part of me is like, you know what? I wish I had that. I do. And so I tell my kids, you know, every night before they go to bed, we give each other hugs. I tell them how much I love them. It's not just an exercise. It's, I need to feel your fucking heart, man. You're going to give

me a big hug. I'm going to feel that. And I'm going to tell you, I love you. I want you to feel, I want you to really know that I love you. I don't know how much I've really taught them vocally, you know, conceptually about emotions. They get to see me and Liver Queen argue, you know, about things. We try not to hide any of that stuff from them. They get to see us make up. You know, they get to see the affection that we have for one another. So I think, you know, earlier when I said,

I think what we do is far more important than what we say. I hope that that's happening. But I know so many friends whose dad never told them that they love them and they can't say it to another guy. And, you know, and I'll hug one of my friends, you know, this happened just the other day. And I'll tell him, hey man, I love you. And I do.

And usually they'll say it back, but it's so hard, you know, or I'm like, wow, you know, I don't know if I believe you. The way that you said it was almost like you had to say it back. I want my kids, you know, like when that primal, authentic, true version of you comes out, you know, to be able to share it back. If you do, and if you don't, hey man, I don't love you back. Let's talk about that. So what about crying? What about it? Have they ever seen you cry? They see me cry. Oh God, don't make me do this again. When I talk about Rad, you know, when I

talk about him going through pandas, you know, if this comes up, this is the thing for me, you know, is that brings me to my fucking knees, you know, and when I do barbarian, that's when everything else leaves me, you know, if I need the power, that's what I think about. I think I would rather do barbarian every single day of my life than have Rad live another day like that. So I get choked up, you know, when I talk about that, because it's, it's just, I feel it. I feel how desperate, you know, I was, I feel how horrifically he was hurting. So they, they, they see me get choked up and I would say, yeah, probably one other time. I can't remember what, what it was about. But I don't, I don't cry a lot, but I've cried.

It's really, it's really interesting speaking to you for so many reasons. I mean, you know, so many of the things that you say are on one hand there, you know, some people might consider them to be controversial, but they're so, they're almost impossible to disagree with. And that's an interesting place to find yourself. And I think your message is incredibly, you know, the message about living more human is incredibly important in society right now we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest and i'm going to i wouldn't

bullshit you because i know you'd correct me if i did i never see the question so i i enjoy seeing the question with you. So the question is, I love this one. Tell me something you have never told anyone before. There's something that comes to mind, but I have told my family this. That's okay. So,

part of the reason why I never wanted to publicly come out as the liver king is because I've been completely terrified of public speaking. Just, in fact, I don't know if I've ever told my family. I'm sure liver queen knows that, but I'm to the point where it's completely crippling. Like, I don't know if I've ever told my, my family, uh, I'm sure liver queen knows that, but I mean, to the point where it's completely crippling, like words don't come out and, um, and everybody thinks, oh, there's no way because you're so gregarious and, you know, you can talk and I've led teams and I'll get, but like, you know, it starts with one person in my company

and then it's two and then, and you know what, I've gotten to know you guys around the table so well. And then there's this assumption like, oh, hey, no problem. Like you got this engagement, go do this. And I've tried and words don't come out. You know, there's maybe this is the anxiety, but the anxiety is so extreme. It's so crippling that words actually don't come out. And I don't know what it is that I'm, you know, particularly scared of, you know, when it comes to that. I said I would never do a podcast. I would never do a podcast. Like I said, I didn't want to go on social media. Now we have the opportunity to make a TV show, which is exciting. But again, it's like, I know

what my job is. And my job is to take this message mainstream because kids like my kids deserve a better shot at life. There's this kid, Saul, that ran across the Brooklyn Bridge when I was doing Barbarian. He goes, hey, liver king, liver king, it's Saul. I'm the kid that DMs you. I lost 60 pounds because of you. I stopped drinking alcohol. I got the confidence to reconnect with life. There's so many stories why I do this. It's like, this message has to get out. I don't even know how the fuck I did it. You know, it's like, uh, Winston Churchill says, you know, I'm sure this is wrong, but if, if, if you had the danger head on, you cut the consequence in half. It's like, holy shit. You know what? Maybe that's true. Maybe we should do it. And, um,

and then Logan Paul invited me on the impulse. And I was like, oh my God, nobody knew that I didn't sleep for the longest time leading up to that because I didn't want to tell anybody how terrified I was of this. I knew I had to do it. If I'm going to be successful getting this message out, I knew that I had to do it. But I didn't dare tell my kids. I didn't tell my wife. I told nobody, you know, I, I took that shit, those waking hours of the night thinking about this again, I've tried to contemplate what is it that I'm so terrified of what it, and all I could come back with is I've tried this and it didn't work. Words don't come out. The words don't actually come out of my mouth. I mean, it's so crippling.

The heart's going a million miles an hour. I can't breathe. The words just don't come out. And so I kept thinking, is that going to happen again? Why didn't you tell Liver Queen? Leading up to that Logan Paul podcast, one of the biggest podcasts in the world, you're having sleepless nights. You've got doubts, uncertainties, worries. Why don't you tell anybody?

I wanted all of that. I would say I wanted all of it. I almost feel like maybe I would have made it true. I almost feel like I would have manifested it. I also feel like I would have cried sharing it. And it would have been like, I would have seen back in her eyes, hey, you don't have to do this.

Why are you doing this? You don't have to do this. Why are you doing this? You don't have to do this. You know, I knew that I did have to do it. I know that I have to do it. You know, having this opportunity, the truth is, I told you earlier, hell yeah. The first thing was like, not again. During this podcast. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's never easy. Just the other, it was a week ago and we had a PFL fight and the owner of the PFL said, hey, we're going to put you on ESPN Live. And I said, yeah. You know, that's my knee jerk reaction. I tell my kids, regret what you do, not what you don't do. You'd rather regret what you do.

So take massive action. Do it., correct, figure that shit out. And while I've been on a couple of podcasts, um, it's, it has gotten a little bit easier. I'd never been on live TV before. And the guy next to me is trying to tell me what to say. I can't fucking process anything. You know, I can't believe I'm about to do this. I don't know what to say. I can't get two words out, you know? And, and once again, it's like, you know what? Nobody knows who I am. That's what I tell myself is nobody knows who I am. Nobody knows this message.

I'm not competing with anybody. Like what I'm trying to do is get this message out and I might fuck up the whole thing. I'm already kind of thinking, how did I do today? I'll give myself an F. I'll give myself a solid F on how I did today. But you know how much better it is to give myself an F than to not show up at all? Again, I tell my kids this all the time.

You'd rather look like an asshole, rather look like an idiot, rather look stupid than look like a pussy. You got to show up to do your job. So I think that if I told her, I think she would have looked me back in the eye. She would have seen how crippling that fear was and then I wasn't sleeping and how it's tearing me up and how one thing might lead to another. And now I'm going to be doing a podcast a week and I can't sleep and I can't move forward in life. The truth is, you know, after we did it, I thought, oh my God, I did it. I can't believe I did it. And then I did share with the kids. I did share at dinner. Do you guys know how hard this has been?

It wasn't right afterwards. It was after some time. Do you know how hard, how I thought this thing was impossible to do? But I signed up for it and I did it. And there's going to be so many opportunities, so many things like this in your life that you're going to think are impossible to do. But I want you to regret what you attempt to do as opposed to not doing it at all. And I see them now when they go to talk to girls, I see that same crippling, I don't know if it's genetic. I don't know if they, I think they got it from me. I don't know, but it's, it's so, I can see the heart, they're getting nervous. The

heart's going a million miles and it's almost so hard and and but they're getting the reps in and i think it's getting a little bit easier um what's your brain telling you what is the because you know fears fear is the consequence of a story we're telling ourselves about usually about the worst possible outcome about what will happen if and and then based on our own experiences our own childhood the consequence that we're creating can be so unbelievably crippling or it can be let's do this and so you know when i think about public speaking the the usual fear people create in their head is like, if it all goes wrong, then I'll be rejected socially from the crowd. And I, when I was, I was trying to piece together why that might be. And I go back to this idea of rejection. I actually did a lot of reading from this professor about the

idea of rejection and where it comes from. And he said, I think I'm going to say his name's Professor John Gottman, but I think I've got that wrong. He said that the reason why rejection hurts so much is because if you go back 10,000 years, being rejected from the tribe actually meant death. It actually meant death because you wouldn't be able to survive. Your brain physiologically falls into this state they call self-preservation,

where you become really selfish. Just your life expectancy lowers if you were kicked out of the tribe. and then you basically go into the survival mode because rejection used to mean death it doesn't these days like going up to that girl you're you know if your son goes up to that girl the reason he feels all of that is because you know deep within us we were programmed to stay within the tribe yeah and that's a moment where he's fearing rejection so yeah and i think i reflect on your your early years where you were socially rejected to stay within the tribe. Yeah. And that's a moment where he's fearing rejection. So, and I think I reflect on your early years where you were socially rejected.

I was socially rejected. Oh, absolutely. I was. And I remember meeting a group of guys that took me in. And I was probably 15, 16. That was the first time anybody really took me in. And we would practice, you know, hey, you go talk to those girls.

And sometimes we'd go talk to them all together, which was easier, but never went well because I think it was intimidating. And so it was less intimidating for the girls if one guy approached. And, you know, the first several times I did it and I pretended to say something and I came back and I was like, yeah, this is what happened. But nothing came out, you know. And then eventually something did come out, you know, after maybe 20, 30 times, and then it's a hundred times. And then I met my wife, you know, no problem and running towards it. I knew that the same thing would happen doing this.

And I'm sure it is the fear of rejection. I was rejected for a long fucking time. And, you know, I don't need to go through it. That's what I thought. I'm like, do I need to go through this shit again? Like, I got a pretty good life. I love my family, you know. I feel like I live a grand life in all aspects of my life.

I'm like, do I really need to do this? But I knew that if we're going to take this message mainstream, right, because this goal, we got to fight this fight, so that we can help other people. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to put myself in front of the camera, we're going to see what happens. And I think I think we're doing it. I know I'm doing a decent job. I think that is an understatement. I think you're doing a superb job and I definitely would give you an a star on on today as well and I genuinely mean that I wouldn't bullshit you it's one of my been one of my favorite conversations for so many reasons but you are an outstanding

talker you're in it you know what your ability to recite ideas is way better than mine and I have a podcast where that's literally what I do and I mean that it's way better than mine and your delivery the emotion the the passion, all of it is captivating. And your story, the story that lies underneath all of that presentation is a very, very important one. So that is, you know, hearing that you struggle with that is quite frankly, shocking. It's, it blows my mind because, um, on the surface, you're the antithesis of that on the surface. You are some of the, one of the best guests I've ever had in terms of everything that matters to deliver a good story. So thank you for that. On the surface, you are one of the best guests I've ever had in terms of everything that matters to deliver a good story.

So thank you for that. Thank you for coming here. You know, I didn't realize that there was a resistance to, a psychological resistance to even doing this. So that makes me even more honored that you pushed past that to be here. And thank you for what has been a truly eye-opening conversation.

Amazing. You're welcome. Thank you. It was great to meet you. I always end the same way. If it's okay, I want to go ahead and say it right now. You're going to make me eat liver.

I was like fucking terrified. We did. We did bring some liver. We did because anywhere I go, it's like, it's my favorite thing, you know, is liver.

And it's the best thing I know to give, to share. Well, we're actually out of times would you share a piece 100 go ahead oh they're actually bringing out the liver okay okay okay i don't have to kill the animal that's fine this is great thank you kimberly thank you kimberly so much thank you so much kimberly for this i'm going to take a piece and then i'm going to throw that piece to you. What is this? Raw liver? This is raw liver. We're going to hold it up for a cheers.

Cheers. Down the hatch, my man. This makes you a primal. It's actually good. I'm so glad you said that, because a lot of people are so apprehensive about it. This is fresh. Aftertaste. There's a little bit of an aftertaste.

Yeah, you're right. Oh, aftertaste is strong. Okay. But no, it's good. We shared some liver. You're officially a primal. You know, when you do all nine things, you know, you're a full sin primal.

How long have I got to wait for the muscles? You know what? You'll be amazed. I've heard you talk about this. You know, like the things you're doing, how you're tracking 81% of the time you're working full sin primal. How long have I got to wait for the muscles? You know what? You'll be amazed. I've heard you talk about this. You know, like the things you're doing, how you're tracking 81% of the time you're working out and this and that. When you start adopting

more of these nine ancestral tenets, you'd be amazed at how effortless it is to maintain the body composition that you want. I get it. You know, like I said, I know I work out a lot, but I always worked out a lot. And when I started doing these things, the deeper that I got into it, the much more favorable my body composition, my strength, my recovery got.

And so as you go further down, you know, these nine ancestral tenets, you know, the basis of them all, right? You do them better. And you're going to be like, you know what I mean? I maintain a six pack with a lot less effort and you're going to become such a true believer. I believe that you're going to help me spread the message as well. I can't wait. And I will. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Leverking out. Bye.