The Rich Roll Podcast - The Best of 2018: Part I

Episode Date: December 24, 2018

Welcome to the 6th annual Best of the RRP Anthology — our way of taking a moment to reflect on the year, express gratitude and give thanks for taking this journey with us. Over the last twelve months, I've had the honor of sharing meaningful conversations with a wide variety of extraordinary people. Second listens brought new insights — and more reminders that that these evergreen exchanges continue to inspire and inform. For long-time listeners, the next two episodes are intended to launch you into 2019 with renewed vigor and intention. Lean in to the wisdom. Leverage it to clarify your 2019 goals. If you're newer to the show, my hope is that this anthology will stir you to peruse the back catalog and/or check out episodes you may have missed. Links to the full episodes excerpted in this anthology are enumerated below. The video version of this episode (minus Mirna Valerio & Alex Hutchinson, which are audio only) is available on YouTube at bit.ly/bestof2018_1 Here's to an extraordinary 2019. Join me, and let's make it the best year ever — together. Peace + Plants, Rich

To me the big moments were sort of identifying that this is something that is important enough to my life that I'm willing to do the work and then the moment where I'd realized that I had done all the work that I needed to do which is sort of a different way of looking at I'm now ready to do this. Instead of looking at it like I'm ready to climb El Cap it's actually more of I have done the work that I needed and therefore you know being able to do it like naturally follows. I think that people should just think about what is the thing that's worth it to you. And then what is the work that you need to put into that? That's Alex Honnold. And this is part one of our annual best of 2018

edition of the R Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. Happy holidays. Welcome or welcome back to the podcast, the place where I do my best to have deep, to have meaningful, long-form conversations, conversations that matter with the world's best and brightest across all categories of health, wellness, diet, fitness, nutrition, basically positive paradigm-breaking culture change. Appreciate you guys for listening, for subscribing to the show, for spreading the word. It's been an amazing year. And as part of the process of preparing for the year to come, I think it's important for all of us to reflect back, to celebrate our victories, to take stock, take inventory of where we were last December,

and use that, leverage that as a means of beginning the process of visualizing and preparing and setting intentions and goals for where we would like to be 12 months from now. And it's in that spirit that we started this annual tradition here on the podcast to end each year with a look back at the previous months of the show, to look back in the rear view mirror with this sort of two-parter compilation of clips excerpted from the year's best guests. The idea being to have this kind of refresher course for the avid fans, as well as an anthology or a digest for those who are newer to the podcast. And it's all coming up quick, but first. We're brought to you today by recovery.com.

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I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life and recovery is wonderful. And recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, I got to say up front before we even get into this that it is very hard to choose amongst my babies because I love all my guests. Every single one of them has been a gift and it's almost impossible to choose who to put in the best of series and who gets left out. So please know that if one of your favorites was omitted that I get it. It breaks my heart to leave anybody out of this. Not only did we do our best,

I think the next two episodes are the best of our annual best ofs to date. And I'm super excited to share it with you. Anyway, these next two shows are basically a love letter to all of you guys. It's my way of saying thank you that I recognize you, I appreciate you, I believe in positive change, I believe in you, and I believe in the power we all have to do better, to be better, to live better, to step into our best, most authentic selves, and essentially then help others around us to do the same, to live and be better. So with that being said, let's just dive in. Right up top here, we have one of the most remarkable people I have ever met, the free soul of free solo climbing from episode 351, none other than Alex Honnold.

Alex is a renowned professional adventure rock climber whose audacious free solo ascents of America's biggest cliffs have made him one of the most masterful and compelling athletes of our generation. Over the course of almost two hours, we covered his boundary-crushing El Cap free solo climb, which is now an amazing documentary, Free Solo. You can learn more about that at freesolofilm.com, as well as his most recent expedition to Antarctica. We discussed his passion for environmental conservation, the benefits of his minimalist lifestyle, and of course, we explored his training routines

and mostly vegan diet. But more than anything, this was a conversation that not only examined the how behind Alex's feats, but the why behind his pursuits. Here's Alex. Well, this conversation around fear and death, I mean, this is, this comes up. I mean, it's impossible for anybody to have a conversation with you without that. I mean, you get tired of like talking about it. No, I think people, I think people should think about

that stuff more. I mean, when was the last time the average person thought about the mortality and really made choices that could lead to death i mean my other than lifestyle choices like eating a twinkie or whatever right those are so far removed that you don't get that immediate like sense of dread yeah they're like oh my god i'm so afraid if i eat this i'm gonna die in 40 years from heart disease you know it's like a different right i don't know well i think that that most of us live our lives in a waking dream and we we expend a tremendous amount of energy trying to pretend we're not going to die or denying that the inevitable. I think that's such a,

and in certain ways you have a healthier perspective on it because you're so connected with that reality. I was back in Yosemite in the fall and I look up at El Cap and honestly, it doesn't, you know, even having, having climbed without a rope now, it still looks so crazy. I'm like, what an amazing wall. Like, that's so cool. I mean, do you think like, you know, even having climbed without a rope now, it still looks so crazy. Like, what an amazing wall. Like, that's so cool. I mean, do you think, like, you know, when I was 15 or whatever, like, do you think back to that young kid and think what would he think of what you've been able to do? Yeah, I mean, yeah, 10 or 15 years ago, the first times I looked at El Cap, I thought it looked totally crazy. And now, I mean, it looks a little bit less so.

But you still look at it and you're like, that's an intimidating wall. Like that is a big, crazy wall. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, yeah, I mean, you see people up there and it's like little tiny dots and you're just like, wow, that's really big. Right. It is crazy, man.

Yeah. I mean, what do you think is like behind it? Like what's driving you? What's the motivation? Is it love? Is it a sense of adventure? Is it a, is it a sense of adventure? Is it a competitiveness? Like what's the psychology behind what motivates you to do all this? I don't know. I mean, it's, it's a lot of things, I guess. I mean, part of it is definitely

trying to see what I can do, what I'm capable of. I mean, especially with El Cap, it was something that I felt like I was maybe uniquely capable of doing in, in this generation, at of. I mean, especially with El Cap, it was something that I felt like I was maybe uniquely capable of doing in this generation, at least. I mean, I'm sure people will do it in the future more and, you know, might not be that crazy in 20 years. But at this point in time, I was like, if anyone is going to do this, I think it could be me if I apply myself to it and if I really care about it. And, you know, being the first to do something like that I mean was that that hasn't always been a huge motivator for me for various projects but for El Cap I mean I did kind of I did kind of want that right I was like I mean you look at that wall and you're just like I don't know it's so proud yeah you know and I'd spent all my years of climbing looking at it as the ultimate objective like the pinnacle of rock climbing and I was like that could you know

I could I could do that that could be me and, I could, I could do that. That could be me. And so then, you know, I sort of felt obligated to try. Yeah. I think there's something almost like a, um, like a childlike innocence about, you know, what you do. It's so primal. It's like, there's a mountain I'm going to climb it. Like there's that thing. It's elemental. Yeah, it's very basic. Yeah, and I think to ask someone like yourself, like why do you do what you do? It's just like this is who I am. It's an expression of something so deep and so innate in my personality and how I'm hardwired. Why do people surf? Yeah, exactly.

Because it's awesome. But I mean for you, it it's a love for somebody else they're like that's the most terrifying thing i've ever seen like i wouldn't go anywhere near yeah that's fair i mean that's how i feel like about singing you know if i had to go up on stage and sing i got i might as well just kill myself like it would be a disaster but a lot of people love you know music performance any of that and that's great i mean everybody has something that they're passionate about right so what else scares you then well i don't, any of that. And that's great. I mean, everybody has something that they're passionate about. Right. So what else scares you then? Well, I don't know. I mean, that kind of stuff is probably at the, at the core of it, you know,

public performance. Yeah. Being in front of people or give talks all the time, but that's because I've had a lot of practice now. Um, but so interestingly, um, I'm supposed to give a Ted talk this year, um, at like the conference in, in April in vancouver like the big ted wow yeah which i'm like oh fantastic yeah well big opportunity yeah exactly exactly you're like way scarier than like climbing out like oh so i've sort of written an outline for it and i've like worked through some ideas and some themes and um which is all due basically tomorrow the end of the month which is tomorrow um and so i'm like oh no but um i think that what i've been kind of struggling with or working on is to make the climbing more applicable to to the layperson to any average person or the lesson yeah

and i think that one of the ideas is like what is the thing that is worth putting the work in for you or what is the thing that's most important to you like in my case i'm talking about all cap and my preparation for free selling all cap and and to me l cap was the thing that was worth the work but basically like what is the thing that's worth it to you? And then what is the work that you need to put into that? You know, and I'm still fleshing out the ideas, but with El Cap, you know, to me, the big moments were sort of identifying that this is something that is important enough to my life that I'm willing to do the work. And then the moment where I'd realized that I had done all the work that I need to do, which is sort of a different way of looking at, I'm now ready to do this.

You know, instead of looking at it, I was like, I'm ready to climb El Cap. It's actually more of, I have done the work that I needed. And therefore, you know, being able to do it like naturally follows. But I don't know. So, I mean, I think that people should just think about what is the thing that they want to do. And then, you know, what are the steps to do? Like, what is the work involved? And like, I i don't know it's very much a work in progress

yeah no i like that though i mean you know baked into that is is is uh an appreciation for the hard work and the level to which you know you completely devoted yourself to this pursuit not just lcap but like you know just climbing in general in a culture in which it's all about hacks and shortcuts right yeah that stuff drives me crazy yeah i can't stand it you know i can't stand it if you really want value out of your life experience like stop yeah it's about the process shortcut i know i know that yeah because when you're 70 and you look back on l Cap, you're probably not going to, it's the memory of being on the peak probably pales in comparison to thinking about all those days of preparation that, you know, that's the meaning of it for you.

Yeah. Well, I mean, the memory of being on the peak is still very excited about it, but it is true that it's years and years. It's so meaningful because of everything that preceded it. Yeah, because I've spent years working on it, years thinking about it that it's years and years. So meaningful because of everything. Because I've spent years working on it and years thinking about it. And yeah, no, I mean, for sure. For sure. I mean, that, that idea of, you know, like what's the life hack to mastery.

And you're like, Oh, the whole, by definition, mastery takes years and years. You know, it's like, you don't, you don't just like life hack it or whatever. That stuff really annoys me because you know if if there was an easy way to do it then everybody would do it like you know i mean if it was easy then it wouldn't be hard yeah but that's i mean some things just require time and work and effort and you just well mastery certainly does proficiency not necessarily and it seems like we've we've prioritized you know adequacy over over like the appreciation for truly, you know, what it takes to be a master of something. Yeah. I mean, that's another one of the ideas

that I've been thinking about a lot with regards to potential Ted talk or something, the idea of mastery and like, because why is free solo climbing so important to me? And, uh, you know, the pursuit of mastery is a big part of that, like feeling like you're good at what you do. It is an example. It it is a it is a manifestation and expression of mastery you know yeah well so what is that thing you want to master and how much work do you have to put into it and speaking of free solo episode 407 a more recent episode graced us with the amazing filmmaking couple behind that masterpiece documentary jimmy chin and chai vazarelli. If you enjoyed the Alex Honnold episode and my conversations with other adventure athletes

like Conrad Anker, Hillary Nelson, Colin O'Brady, then this dynamic duo's conversation is one you're not going to want to miss. Free Solo is this beautiful cinematic celebration of human possibility, and these are the brilliant minds behind it. So without further ado, here's Chai and Jimmy. You know, that cross-pollination essentially from Chai's talents and where she comes from

and her very strong background over the last, what, 15 years of, you know, serious nonfiction documentary work combined with, you know, what I've been doing for 20 years. And, you know, I think the biggest thing is that there's a lot of trust there. And, you know, sometimes I wonder, in some ways, our working relationships on films, on this film, it's almost simpler compared to being married and having children and all those things. Because I think it's very easily recognizable what we each bring to the table on that level. And I guess it's similar, you know. But it's hard, I mean, the... Your slide up on the table.

Yeah, it was wonderful to bring our children to Yosemite, you know, and it was definitely part of my motivation was keeping everyone together and bringing our children to this wonderful place. But now in this part, right, like you've got both parents on the road and that's hard. Yeah. So it's, there are kind of those very practical considerations that become tough on us as a family. Yeah. But in the work, in the work, it's really, it works because Jimmy and I trust each other so much. I know he's going to make the right decisions when he's shooting.

He trusts when I'm asking for something that I'm asking for it for a reason. Get that shot. And it's really important that we film that. And it kind of works that way. Even on this film, they're toiling away on the wall with Alex for eight hours, ten hours. And then Alex sits down, but they're still up there

gathering the ropes and getting down. And myself and a different team, like a Verite cinematographer, would be there to talk to Alex about life and love and his dad. And you need both. I mean, Jimmy, you know, on the one hand, like you're the only person who could be doing what you're doing.

You have the climbing expertise and the background and the experience, and you have this incredible acuity with the camera, your cinematographer's eye. And then Chai, you bring the emotionality and the narrative structure to this to really take these extraordinary visuals and turn them into a narrative that will connect with people's hearts. Is that fair? I think it's fair, but I think that it's often easy to underestimate Jimmy in that particular respect. Whereas I think we have a great cheat, so to

speak, where Jimmy in this one brings such an intimate knowledge of this world. And I often feel like just more of an interpreter for his instincts and bring some exteriority to it. Because I think what also is strong about the film is it looks at Alex's interior life and tries to build a story while also aspiring to be something that the core respects, right? Like there's an authenticity that is a hundred percent Jimmy. Yeah. You have to serve two masters, right? You can't alienate the hard cores, but you also have to make it appealing and interesting and compelling for somebody who knows nothing about this world. Yeah. So it has to make both of us happy, which is kind of what that is, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it works that way. I mean, I think she's very accurate about that in the sense that, you know, a lot of the heart and the soul of both Meru and Free Solo are ideas that, you know, I've experienced or seen or feel deeply about because I've been in this world. And they're the great lessons or the great conflicts, internal conflicts that I have suffered or people around me in my peer group have experienced. You know, those are ideas that are really the inspiration behind the films, you know, the mentorship and the camaraderie and the friendships that I felt so deeply,

uh, you know, that have driven me to make these films. The task though, is that I've never, it's, you're so close to it, it's really hard to translate. And like I said, I mean, Chai has been like the great interpreter. She has been able to kind of stand outside of it and be able to tell that story in a way that every people can digest it. And that is really powerful because I have not,

you know, I know it well. And so those are the conversations, you know, when Chiron are sitting there in the edit room or when we're making these films, it's, you know, she's just kind of,

you know, her first strokes at it are usually very good. And then, and then we start to kind of refine those things. And then also making sure, you know her first strokes at it are usually very good and then and then we start to kind of refine those things uh and then also making sure you know of course it has to also speak to the core like there's no way i'm ever going to put out a film where i can't feel proud walking into a room full of my peer group yeah yeah yeah you know yeah but i would suspect that from your perspective jimmy you may think you're conveying a certain point because you're so close to it.

And Chai can say, yeah, you think you're saying this, but actually I'm not getting it. Or the average person is not going to understand what you're trying to convey. It's more like that's a wonderful point. It's very important that we achieve this other thing. We get to that other thing and then I'm like, okay, let's go back to what Jimmy was saying. Right. And see if we can make it work within what we've done.

So you're polishing each other's stones. Yeah. And it's really important. It's like this concept that was incredibly important in the film. It's a good example about preserving Alex's experience of the climb, right? Like that's actually the most important part of the task for us was to make sure that Alex enjoyed and got what he wanted out of this. But that is a very elusive idea for people who don't understand climate right right and i i mean you certainly achieved that um it's an extraordinary accomplishment this movie i mean you guys have

achieved something extraordinary with the work that you have done and i have no doubt will continue to do uh for people out there that are interested in either narrative or documentary filmmaking and are struggling to figure out their voice or how to get going, what, what can you say to those people? I think that making films is hard. So if you're going to make a film, it should be about something that is incredibly meaningful to you. You know, and that's, that's, that's why you would use your voice.

So that meaning, find that meaning. And it's okay to wait until you find it or bumble along the way and find it later, but it should be meaningful. Yeah, I would echo that. It's really about finding, it's a bigger question. It's about finding your purpose and finding what gives you meaning and finding things that you're inspired and passionate about, because like I said, it's very hard to make films, but when you find something that gives you that drive and purpose, you have to be relentless regardless. It's a lot easier when you find something that

has a lot of meaning behind it. Our next clip is from Zach Bush, MD, who is a triple board certified physician and one of the most profound, deep thinkers that I've ever come across when it comes to diet, nutrition, disease prevention, wellness, environmentalism, and soil conservation, among many other subjects. This was an absolutely mind-blowing conversation. We explored new insights into the mechanisms behind human health and longevity, the massive misunderstood impact of industrial farming, chemical pesticides, the pharmaceutical industry, and even errant Western medical practices have had on both human

and planetary health. And I think we only scratched the surface when it comes to Zach's depth of expertise. And I got good news because he's coming back in early 2019. But until then, have a listen. One of the reasons I think that glyphosate was not put on the market in 1958 when it was discovered is because the Japanese inventor of that chemical recognized that that was a water-soluble toxin. You do not want to introduce a water-soluble toxin into the environment because you can never get it back. If you have a fat-soluble toxin, it'll actually be sequestered by mycelium in the soil. If it gets into a human or another mammal, it'll be sequestered by fat cells,

so it never hits the brain. It'll be protective. A water-soluble toxin, on the other hand, can't be subtracted out of the ecosystem because everything on planet Earth, including your human body, is water. And that means that, sorry to interrupt, but that means that this chemical can pass through that one cell width of the brain blood barrier as well, right? It's going everywhere. And it's also before it even gets to the human body going

everywhere. And so the current statistics is that less than 1 tenth of 1% of the roundup used on the planet actually hits a weed the other 99.99% gets into the soil and in the water system and washes off and so we are now seeing the runoff from these farms and in the water table itself so we have fossil aquifers of the United States here that run from Canada all the way down to historically Mexico that has now dried up. We've turned over a thousand square miles of Texas into desert over just the last 20 years from sucking water out of the ground.

That fossil aquifer is now contaminated with Roundup that's filtered down into this ancient freshwater source for us. And then in the same moment, you've got the Mississippi River, which collects over 80% of all the Roundup in the country, and then it's evaporating the whole time. So it's going into the air that you breathe, and then it goes into the clouds, and then it rains down on us. Recent studies in the air and rainfall in the southern United States is showing 75% of the rain, 75% of the air contaminated with Roundup. So before you even take a bite of food, you're being hit with an antibiotic when you breathe. You're getting hit with an antibiotic when you

experience rainfall. And so you may be growing organic crops, but they're getting rained on. And so we have now locked this water-soluble toxin into our environment. Fortunately, to give you a little bit of breather here from the bad news, is that there are bacteria and fungi that can eventually digest the glyphosate. The downside is we need to stop spraying it so they can return. We're decimating those very bacteria and fungi by the presence of Roundup to the point where they're not digesting it. Current estimates is if we stop spraying Roundup tomorrow, it would take about 50 years

before our ecosystem saw a drop in the level of Roundup below our toxic levels. And what is the current, I don't know, market cap isn't the right word, but it's billions of dollars, right? Is there anybody outside of the organic farming community that does not use Roundup or people that are even just weeding their own gardens at home and spraying their lawns? That's actually where it started. So before we genetically modified crops to be able to be sprayed directly with Roundup in 1996, that occurred. But before that, it was really the homeowner that was contributing most to our toxin load because in the 1980s the epa allowed monsanto to go direct to consumer with their advertising for this chemical and so they created those super bowl commercials of a guy walking out of his suburban

garage with a dramatic soundtrack and he had two pistol grips on his side and he came out and and boldly sprayed down the four dandelions that were in his driveway, which happened to be superfood that kill cancer. But anyway, he sprays these four dandelions. He kills the two things that actually are awesome. He kills the only medicine on his property. And so suddenly it was by far and away the most effective direct-to-consumer advertising ever because suddenly males in the United States realized it could be manly to weed. Right, they're like shooting guns.

They're shooting guns. It's easy warfare, you know, whatever it is, instead of having to actually bend over and put on a pair of gloves or whatever it is. And so we started broadcasting this stuff across driveways, sidewalks, patios, into our own garden spaces and everything else. And now the difference between a homeowner who's going to go through a couple gallons

and a farmer who will go through tens of thousands of gallons, the farmer is super careful with the usage because their margins are so low. The homeowner doesn't care. So they're spraying it down, and they might use a quarter of a gallon of glyphosate in an afternoon, whereas a whole farm might treat the entire thousand acres with that same quarter gallon. So the smaller the user in some ways, the more dumping of this chemical they were doing. So by the 1980s, we were drinking Roundup out of our municipal water systems. Getting into our water system.

That's unbelievable. Well, let's take a moment and just kind of, you know, canvas what the discussion is around glyphosate, because I think, you know, it's worth mentioning that as soon as you bring this up, we start to venture tiptoe into this world of like, you know, crazy conspiracy theories, and you must be some, you know, insane hippie person to be bringing this up. And, you know, don't don't mind him, like, he's just a wacko. He's a whack job, like, he's a marginal character. You know, we know this stuff is safe. It's been around forever. It's been vetted. The EPA, they're on it. They know what's healthy for us. If it was dangerous, they would have

outlawed it. And this has been around for a long time. And there's no indication that anybody's getting sick from this. So what are you talking about? Yeah. If the conspiracy theorist was right, then we'd see one in two people with cancer. We'd see one in 30 kids with autism. We'd see Parkinson's going crazy. They're literally repeating back. If it was toxic, we'd see one in 30 kids with autism. We'd see Parkinson's going crazy. They're literally repeating back. If it was toxic, we would see literally what we're seeing. And so the reality is the public health statistics have gotten so grim in the last eight years that nobody can call this a conspiracy theory anymore. But it's almost like, yeah, but that's, where's the direct, where's the smoking gun? The smoking gun is what's been missing that's what we found in 2012 so in 2012 we found it backwards um i don't think anybody's actually smart enough with

the human gray matter that we're given to actually create a paradigm shift prospectively right so every great you know mind that we look to in past galileo or you know ben franklin or anybody we said oh they discovered something or Edison. These just came at moments when the evidence got so overwhelming that it became obvious, right? And so in the same way, in 2012, the evidence was getting so overwhelming that we were onto something in the nutrition world. But at the time, I was still thinking cancer, cancer therapy, because my background was in chemotherapy development. And so when I found these molecules in soil that looked similar to the chemotherapy I'd been making, a lot of bells started ringing. Like, what is that? Where'd it come from? How is there medicine in the dirt? Like, where is that coming from?

And within a few weeks of that discovery of those molecules, we found out that bacteria and fungi were making these specific shapes of these carbon molecules. And that really closed the loop for me because there had been some papers coming out in the mid 2000s in the cancer world that were starting to say that the bacteria in your gut were predicting which cancers you would get. If you're missing these bacteria, you would get prostate cancer. If you had these bacteria, you would get breast cancer. That was so radically bizarre and out there for our current model, even to this day as to how cancer worked. But now you fast forward eight, 10 years, and now there's tens of thousands of articles that are showing that genomically,

the bacterial genome is way more important in determining cancer than the human genome. And so this reality was hitting. And so in 2012, when we discovered these chemicals that look a little like chemotherapy that are made by bacteria and fungi in the soil, it suddenly closed the loop of, oh, my gosh, what if the bacteria in our gut is doing the same thing? What if the bacteria and the fungi are actually our best source of medicine for everything? And so that's the direction we were going. But as soon as we put this into petri dishes with cancer cells and beyond we suddenly realized no no there's something way deeper happening with these this information stream coming out of bacteria and fungi and it was my chief science officer dr john gilday's a phd in genetics and cell biology and he was the first to realize that we hadn't put our finger on the

glyphosate toxicity issue is that this communication network from the bacteria and fungi was actually supporting the protein structure in our gut lining and so it turns out that the gut is held together as these trillions of cells that make up that cellophane layer by tight junctions these are velcro-like proteins that hold one microscopic cell to the next to create this coherent carpet of two tennis courts and he he had recognized before this, in a number of other labs that started to publish, that glyphosate seemed to increase the permeability of this membrane. And nobody was really sure why yet. But we suddenly realized that if this bacterial communication network was in there, we couldn't injure the membrane. It became bulletproof to

the glyphosate injury. And so in that journey, we started to really study glyphosate and its relationship to the human cells. Because like you said, Monsanto has been swearing up and down that there is no harm to the human body because the shikimate pathway only exists in bacteria and fungi. Well, that may be true regarding that enzyme target, but the classic thing with any drug is it always has off-target effects, right? And so that's why drugs have side effects, is they don't actually go and do exactly what your doctor says it's going to go do. It's going to hit a bunch of other receptors and do other things.

The side effects of glyphosate that are outside of the shikimate pathway is direct injury to the protein structure that holds your gut lining together. This would be bad news if that was it. But it turns out that every macro membrane in your body, the blood vessels that fuel your entire body with oxygen and nutrients are held together with the same tight junctions. The blood-brain barrier that protects your peripheral nervous system and your brain, same tight junctions. The kidney tubules that are held together to detox your body, same tight junctions. And so what's happened as we've introduced a chemical that's directly toxic to this

Velcro-like protein is we turn into leaky sieves on the front end, gut leak and nasal sinus leak. And so every time we breathe, every time we eat, we're starting to leak and our immune system gets overwhelmed. Then the blood vessels that are supposed to deliver either an immune response from peripheral or get nutrients to some distant space is also leaking and so we're getting permeability of the blood vessels then you get to the blood-brain barrier this is supposed to be the holy of holies a peripheral nerve or the brain is supposed to be

protected against everything in your blood because even glucose which is the main fuel for your brain should not get into the brain in an unregulated fashion it will damage the nerves and so the holy of holies of the central and peripheral nervous system is being destroyed and so if that's true if glyphosate was really damaging that then we should see a massive explosion in neurologic injury to children and adults starting in about 1996 and that's exactly when we see this steep increase happening in autism Alzheimer's Parkinson, neurodegenerative conditions like MS, autoimmune diseases, and all the rest. That just blows my mind. So if you've been on this podcast adventure with me for a little while at this point, then

you know well that addiction, alcoholism, recovery, these are big recurring themes of the program, subjects that are very close to my heart as somebody whose life has been spared by sobriety, which is why I'm so excited to share this next clip from my friend, Amy Dresner. Amy is a recovering drug addict and all around quote unquote fuck up in her words. She's a writer, she's an author, and she wrote this amazing book called My Fair Junkie, she wrote this amazing book called My Fair Junkie, A Memoir of Getting Dirty and Staying Clean. I dig a good addiction yarn and Amy's chronicling of her descent into the throes of addiction and ultimately redemption is pretty much one for the ages. And this is definitely one of my favorite conversations of the year. Amy is incredible. She's hilarious. And what she had to share, I think, was really

profound, especially for those that still suffer or have loved ones that are currently suffering. So without further ado, here's Amy. I had to lose everything so I could be grateful and build it back on my own so I could have self-esteem. I think that when you're privileged and you're given everything, it cripples you in a weird way. I never did anything because I didn't have to. And then I felt like I couldn't and then I didn't. And it was this horrible cycle. And so... You had to be dismantled and dragged through the mud for years in order to wake up and and it's like i mean sweeping the streets i mean it created a sense of unity and compassion for other people that i never had before it was like you know at growing up in beverly hills and

all this stuff was like well that'll never happen to me. And it's like, I'm here to tell you, like, or getting arrested for felony, like all the things or shooting up in your, all of it, psych wards, like you, anything can happen to you. You are not immune. So if there's someone else and they've gone through that, try, have compassion. That could be you.

I'm here to tell you that absolutely could be you. Under the right or wrong circumstances, with the right mix and wrong, just... Right. I mean, that all those things that I... And I was just like, wow, I'm not immune. And it really humbled me and connected me with other people in a way that I hadn't been before. You know, when I have people on that are in recovery, like I always want to hear what they have to say to somebody who might be listening, who is struggling, whether it's with relationships, sex or substances or some other behavior that is causing them pain.

As somebody who's been there and found their way out, like how do you speak to that person? I would say, first of all be gentle with yourself you know um drop the shame because that will just continue the use like you're doing the best you can with the tools that you have um i would say to be honest with other people and get help and go get a therapist or go to aa or go to SLAW or whatever. Get into a support group because it's so important. You know, when we're in a behavior that feels pathological, we isolate and that just makes it so much worse. And for me, a huge part of the healing has been the fellowship and my friends and feeling connected and reaching out.

I would say, don't give up no matter how many times you slip. Like if you're alive, you've still got a chance that you can get through this, that you're not a bad person, bad person, even if you've done bad things. I mean,

I think that's amazing advice. I think the hardest part for people um is that first step like well how do i reach out or like what exactly is what is the thing that i actually need to do first and the other thing is don't wait till you feel like you're ready you'll wait forever like if i waited till i was ready to write a book or if i like i've been waiting to feel like I'm ready and want to go to the gym and that's been a year and a half.

I know, don't judge me. But it's like, you know, you take action and that changes the feeling. Mood follows action. That took me forever to figure out. And there's a line in the book, you know, that my dad told me and it took me 20 years to figure it out. And there's a line in the book, you know, that my dad told me, and it took me 20 years to figure it out. He said, he said, stability doesn't create discipline. Discipline creates

stability. I was waiting to feel okay before I could do these things, but it was doing these things that made me feel okay. So I would say, you know, tell your feelings to shut the fuck up, your head to shut the fuck up and you take the action and it will change things, you know, and it's like, you can't get better. If I can get sober, anyone can get sober. Sorry. Like, come on. That story is gnarly. Yeah. And, and one of the things you've written a lot about is, is the importance of structure in your life. Like having a schedule. Well, now, I mean, I work from home. I, you know, I work from home.

I have a three-day-a-week editing job. I, you know, work for the fix. And it's hard. It's really hard. I have to force myself, you know, to like get out and do things. I guess the other thing, too, it's like you can change. You can change. I have to force myself to get out and do things. I guess the other thing, too, it's like you can change. You can change.

I really thought forever I was broken, and I was stuck with that person who I was. And it's like I'm not that person today. I'm a completely different person. And it's like I never thought that I could be the person who shows up and is inspiring to people and, you know, sweeps the floor, not the streets. But you know what I mean? Like, it's... Yeah.

And when you're in that cycle and you're surrounded by people who are telling you you're a piece of shit and you're never going to change. Yeah, that's... You believe that you're never going to change. Yeah. Fuck what people tell you. And you can never see your way out of it. Yeah.

Fuck what people tell you. You know, you can do it. And also the other thing too is like, you know, if you have an urge to use or drink or whatever or text that guy that's bad for you or whatever, it's like give yourself 20 minutes. Take a bath. Call someone. Watch an episode of Ozark. Jack off. Whatever it is.

Like do something and buy yourself 20 minutes, call someone, take a drive, take a walk. Because the urge passes, whether you pick up or not. That's really, it took me a long time to figure that out. And it's like, but if you don't ever sort of wait through that feeling, you don't realize that you can get through it. It feels overwhelming. And then the you're like i gotta do it i gotta do it you know yeah and you feel like you're gonna die if you don't indulge that impulse and you don't understand that it's it's so true right like it will pass yeah and it's if you could just just get through that and realize and go oh you realize that the feeling doesn't control you it It doesn't, it won't kill you.

You don't have to obey it. And that's where that freedom comes from. You know, you can, you're like, oh, I can change. And it's slow. It's a slow process, as you know. Takes a while to reward. Slowbrity. I know, right?

I hate that. All the annoying slogans. But that you can rewire your brain slowly over time, you know, through action. You really can. And you can be happy. You can have a good life. And you don't have to be, you know, a prisoner to that crap. How you guys doing out there?

Are you doing good? Don't worry. We've got a ton more great stuff coming up in a couple few. But first. more great stuff coming up in a couple few but first this next clip is from my friend paul de gelder it's from episode 350 paul is a former royal australian navy clearance diver which is essentially australia's version of the navy seals and it's the story of the shark attack that nearly killed him, but ultimately actually saved his life. It's a death-defying tale of survival, perseverance, positivity, grit, hope, rebirth, and the extraordinary breadth of human possibility. Paul is hands down one of the

most inspirational people I've ever met. This conversation left me breathless, and it inspired me beyond measure. So here's Paul recounting the attack that didn't take his life, but instead gave him a new one. It was early in the morning. We were doing a counterterrorism exercise. The goal was to test this new equipment that the R&D department of the military had created. It was unmanned video and sonar designed to detect attack swimmers and attack divers coming in to put bombs on our ships and equipment. So they set it up on the pier in Sydney Harbour alongside the Navy base. And it's very central to everything. You can see the Harbour Bridge. It's not that far away.

The Opera House that everyone knows about. You can see all of that. So I've got the new guy in the water. He's pretending to be an attack swimmer. All the R&D guys and my chief are up on the bow of one of the warships watching, and this equipment's on the pier trying to detect him. And he's swimming around for about half an hour, and I thought I'd do him a good

turn and i said jump out mate i'll take over for you you know i rolled over the edge of the little black zodiac in a black wetsuit and a pair of fins and i was doing what we call finning i was on my back on the surface just kicking my legs and it was a three-tier thing we were going to do surface swimming to see if it could detect us we were going to do scuba to see if it could detect us and then pure oxygen rebreathers with no bubbles to see if it could detect that so we're still in the first phase you know this is 40 minutes into testing and the on the very first day and i'm in the water on the surface and this is like this is simple routine shit this Yeah, this is nothing. This is like the boringest day ever. And I had to get up at four o'clock in the morning for this shit.

So it's end of February. Oh, it's February 11th. So the start of February, which is the end of summer for us, it's probably the hottest season of the year. But it was kind of chilly. It was overcast. The water's murky in Sydney Harbour. So combining all of that, you can't see through the water at all and i'm on one of my first runs towards one of the warships that i'm you know

pretending to attack and i look over my left shoulder to make sure that i'm going in the right direction and before i can turn back i just get this massive whack in my leg like someone's hit me with a baseball bat and it didn't really hurt it was just surprising more than anything else and I turned around to see what it was thinking the guys in the boat maybe got too close I couldn't hear because I had water in my ears and I turn around and my brain couldn't comprehend what I was seeing because I'd never seen a shark's head up close in real life like that before. And it took me a few seconds and I thought, holy fuck, it's a fucking shark. And all of these things ran through my head and I thought, okay, okay, okay.

I've seen the crocodile hunter. I've seen Discovery Channel. I'll jab it in the eyeball. And so I tried. You're supposed to punch it in the face, right? Yeah, right. Is that a myth or is that like a real thing? No, that's like people have said it works. I just thought eyeball because that's the softest spot so i tried but i couldn't move my arm for some reason and i looked down and i could see all the teeth half embedded into my thigh

i could see the lips pulled back all the pink gums and the teeth going all the way up my leg over my wrist which was by my side. So it had my hand in its mouth, which is why I couldn't move it. And it's still at this point, it didn't hurt. I can see the teeth embedded in my hand. I just thought, okay, left hand. So I reached for the eyeball, but it had me by the back of the leg. And I was inches away from that eyeball, just desperately trying to get my finger in it,

but I couldn't reach. So I tried to grab it by the nose and push it off sort of lever it off that way but all that did was push the teeth of the lower jaw deeper into my hamstring so I stopped that and I cocked back to give it a whack in the nose and just as I was coming in it started to shake me and this all-ing pain rattled me to my core and all the strength went out of my punch and i yelled and i think that's when the guys in the safety boat saw what was going on and when it's shaking you the lower jaw detaches right and it goes side to side so it becomes like this sawing effect yeah it's it's movable so that yeah it just basically was sawing the flesh

out of my body while i'm in agony terrified drowning this is my worst nightmare i was terrified of sharks really the only two things i was scared of was sharks and public speaking so and now this is your life i know it's weird as fuck that's the way the universe works it out man yeah you know your your greatest fears can actually become your greatest strengths and that i think at the end that's really the theme of your of your whole story yeah you know you got to embrace that shit because you don't know you don't you're not fully aware of what you can accomplish if you're letting especially if you're not fully aware of what you can accomplish, especially if you're letting fear hold you back. I mean, after you've survived what you've survived for,

I would imagine your relationship with life and death is different. Like, you know, what does fear look like for you? Well, I already accepted death. When I was under the water for those 10 seconds, drowning in total agony, I came to a realization that I was going to die. My brain was telling me, okay, you're going to die right now. You're not going home today. This is it. And so I accepted it already. And I just thought everything sped up in my brain. And I was thinking

a million miles a minute. And I just thought, well, I've lived 10 lives in these 31 years. If it's my time to die, then I'm okay okay with that and so i let go and a calm came over me and then the shark removed my hand removed my hamstring and because of my wetsuit i was positively buoyant and i popped to the surface and i looked around and the the tail of the shark splashed water in my face and i saw my safety boat and i thought oh shit I'm not dead I better get out of here so I start swimming back to the boat and so I I already accepted death and I realized that it's not it's nothing to be afraid of and so how does that color your day-to-day life well I I don't have to hold on to the mortal coil like everyone else does because I know that death is not scary you know what's scary not living Not doing everything that you

possibly can to live the best life you have. Because trust me, when you come to the end of your days, the only thing you're going to have is your regrets. And if you don't have any of those, it's a sweet home run. You got nothing to worry about. So when you go and you give these talks, what's you know what's the message that you're you're trying to leave people with it really depends on what the client asks me to talk about because i talk to everyone from primary school kids and six seven eight years old surprisingly enough all the way through high school all the way through college school, all the way through college, all through military groups or big business. I've got IBM coming up, Microsoft, big investment corporations,

12 bankers, 12 CEOs in a room and just me. And we talk about whatever they need to focus on. So there's a lot of common themes. There's embracing change because a lot of them go through takeovers and they're getting melded together with other companies and it's a change of culture and it's a change of personnel and everyone always fights against change because it makes them uncomfortable and they don't want to do something different when they're comfortable doing it this way so talking to them about embracing change and the opportunity that comes out of changing with the situation,

overcoming adversity, obviously, working the team network, being able to focus on looking after each other and doing a better job that way. So it's not just helping people on a personal level. It helps people throughout the whole process of living, being happy, the secrets of being happy. So you would probably believe, I would normally say you wouldn't believe, you would probably believe how many unhappy people there are. There's no question about it. And I meet them every time I finish my presentation. Sometimes I break down in my arms just because they're so grateful because you've given them a little nugget to make them believe that they can still be happy. And what is the message that you're delivering on happiness? Well, it's all about what you value and what is going to improve your life.

They have to be on common ground. What we were talking about earlier, doing things for other people. I've never had a greater sense of happiness than doing things for other people that can't pay me back. It's mostly weaved throughout the story. The things that have really broken my heart and the things that have made me elated and the value that I found in things that I really didn't think I would. And that giving with no expectation of receiving is a big one. Even if it's something as simple as going to the blood bank.

It doesn't cost you anything. It costs a little bit of time. Go in, throw some blood down a tube. Because I went through 150 donations. And I could have all the doctors in the world. I could have the best surgeons. But without that blood from those 150 amazing people, I would not be here today. It doesn't take a grand gesture.

It's just a pat on the back, a well done, a handshake, take someone out for a coffee and be a kind ear. If it's someone that maybe doesn't have anyone to turn to at work because they're not really well liked, maybe just put up with it and go and have a chat with them and make them happy because you might change that person's whole day or whole outlook on life. And that only comes back to you. It makes you feel good. That's where happiness is found in service. It's so true. And it's such counter-programming

from what we're kind of told growing up because we're kind of set in motion on this path of like trying to get as much as we can out of everything. And we approach situations with a perspective of like, how am I going to gain from this? What's in this for me? Like, how am I going to come out of this better than I was before?

And that doesn't really lead to happiness. You know, it does not. And when you approach a situation, an encounter, whatever it may be from a perspective of how can I give, how can I contribute to this then you're on you're on a different you know that's that's a different plane of consciousness and it's not my default but when i remember and i practice that exactly you know what i mean it's a practice it's a practice it's like it's not just like oh well that guy just that's his instinct

and that's how he does it like no you no, you have to remind yourself to do that. How do you get good at anything? How do you learn to ride a bike or learn to read or play a sport or do your job? You do it over and over and over until you get really good at it. It's the same with happiness. It's the same with gratefulness. It's the same with positivity and motivation. You have to keep practicing it. And the more you do, the easier it gets. This next clip is from Myrna Valerio, who's one of the most interesting, compelling, joyful, amazing, and inspiring examples of self-empowerment and self-acceptance through running. What's interesting about her is that

she doesn't cut the image of what you conjure when you think of a runner because she's big, She doesn't cut the image of what you conjure when you think of a runner because she's big. She's 250 pounds. But make no mistake, she is definitely a runner with an impressive slew of ultra marathons to her name. I first came across her story by way of a mini documentary produced by REI called The Marvator that went viral. I was hooked on that, determined to track her down, share her powerful story with you. And we did that in episode 340. She's also the author of a book called A Beautiful Work in Progress. And in this clip, she talks about her pain, her pain of being challenged because of her

size and being a runner. You know, is she glorifying obesity and changing people's perception and shifting paradigms? This conversation is definitely one of my favorite of the year. It's an exchange about the need to redefine how we think about and define athleticism, the spirit of sport and fitness in general. So without further ado, please enjoy this clip from my friend Myrna. What do you think people most misunderstand about what you're about and what you're trying to speak to? You know, probably one of the most common comments that I get is, or that I hear about or that I read about when I'm, you know, being spoken about in third person. When you get those notifications.

Yeah. You should really turn off. Or like, don't tag me in things I don't want to read that the thing that people misunderstand is they really do think I am there are two things that I

I'm really trying to glorify obesity and there's so many issues with that word anyway that I'm because that word dehumanizes fat people. And it makes it a very clinical thing when there's a lot of shame in that and in the medical arena when it comes to fat people. And so there's that, that I'm glorifying obesity just by being despite being like being alive because people would rather not see me um and then yeah that's got to be painful it is it's painful

um but I know it's there I know it's there and I'm still gonna keep doing what I'm doing um because as as you and I talked about like it has definitely hit a nerve with people in a positive way that they now feel entitled to go outside or to start a new physical fitness routine or to join a gym or to do whatever it is that they feel like they need to do

to improve what they need to improve about their bodies or what they want to improve about their bodies or what they want to improve about their bodies or change. And so that's that. And then the second thing is that people really do think that I'm sitting on the couch and eating a bag of potato chips. You're just faking the whole thing. Yeah. And I'm not going to lie, I love potato chips.

I love potato chips. Jalapeno kettle chips. But, you know, I'm not doing that. And so, like, you know, I do know that people see me as an anomaly and, you know, they can't wrap their minds around that. But those are the two big things. I'm glorifying obesity and that I cannot in reality be doing all the things that I say that I do. Right. Well, when you're in the business of trying to reframe these paradigms, it's so contrary to people's worldviews that they have to dismiss it somehow, right?

So, oh, she must not be doing this. It's the same thing with me being vegan. Like, oh, he's not really vegan. When no one's looking, he's eating this. Because if what I'm doing doesn't fit their worldview there has to be a way to dismiss it somewhere somehow and that comes in the form of some offhanded you know remark that makes them feel better but ultimately isn't rooted in any fact right yeah um and i would love to see people actually backing up their statements.

Oh, so how am I glorifying obesity? Like, what does it actually mean to glorify obesity? Like, what does that mean? Do you even know what you're saying? Or I get a lot of, you are going to ruin your niece. So that's a really, really good example of people just saying things because that's what they've always heard. That's a really, really good example of people just saying things because that's what they've always heard. That is what their norm is, even though it is not rooted in any truth or in any facts. And, okay, so tell me about how running ruins my knees.

Tell me about that. And I'm not afraid to have that conversation. That's kind of what I do in my job. I deal with cultural identity in my job. And my job is to have difficult conversations with people and to push people on the cultural diversity aspect of what you do and so yeah so so where did you hear that from did you do you have is there a scholarly article that you have about this particular thing about how am i ruining my news you get it you did you roll your sleeves up and get engaged in these conversations yeah i, I love it because it's just, you know, like it.

Because I really want to know where people are coming from. And if I can convince one more person that you can't just say things because that's what you've always heard without any real factual information, without any real factual information, then you can't just be saying these things because it doesn't mean anything. So, yeah. So, I kind of see it as my job, but like, oh, it's something that I think I do well. I think I pull things out of people and I really try to bring people to a new understanding of things. And if that is what I'm doing by just showing myself in public, I think it forces people to confront their own ideologies about body image or aesthetics. So what is the message that you want women to hear from you?

You can still be a good mom if you take care of yourself. In fact, in my own personal experience, the more I took care of myself, the healthier my family was, the better sleep everyone got, and the better our family is in general. Because if mommy's sick, everybody's sick. If mommy's tired, everybody's tired. And so, yeah, and it's not just if you're a parent. You don't have to be a parent to heed this message. You know, perhaps a few words of wisdom that you could impart to somebody

who can identify with you physically, who's listening, who just feels scared or feels like, well, I see Myrna out there doing it, but I just, I don't know how she does that. Like, somebody who is in a situation where they don't feel healthy or they don't feel empowered in their own body, but they want to make a difference, but they just can't, they don't know where to start. Number one, the utmost important thing is practicing self-love. And for a lot of people, that is going to take you out of your comfort zone because you probably don't know how to do it. There are lots of resources and whatnot, but just looking at yourself and saying, I love you and I am strong,

I am powerful, I am able, I am capable. Those things, like having a mantra, you can even use somebody else's mantra and repeating those things to yourself. Pete What are your mantras? Kirsten I have so many. I really love this mantra by Dr. Christiane Northrup. I love myself unconditionally right now. And, you know, sometimes you just have to go through the motions of saying it. Eventually, you will start to believe it, but there is a lot of power in saying things out loud. Again, even if you don't initially believe it, you will start to believe it. Language has so much power. So, get yourself a mantra. Take somebody else's. Say it to yourself. Whenever you are feeling doubtful,

when you're feeling happy, when you're feeling powerful, just say it to yourself over and over again. And I think that's, for a lot of people, it's an easy step. You don't have to buy anything. You don't have to really do anything differently. You're just stating that you love yourself. You're just stating that you love yourself. And then figure out ways to express that self-love, whether it's taking a walk or writing in a journal or doing morning pages. It's something I used to do all the time. Oh, yeah, me too. Artist way, man. Yep.

I recommend it constantly to people. Yes. You know, I don't do morning pages anymore, but when I did it, it changed my life. Super powerful. Yeah. Um, you know, whatever it is, you gotta find, find ways, um, or find things that make you happy, um, that aren't hard to do and just incorporate those things into your daily routine. Um, and then it becomes a routine, becomes a habit. And then you can add on to that. And then, and find something that you might be interested in that maybe you think you can't do, or maybe someone has told you, you won't be able to do that.

And God damn it, do it anyway. Just do it. You have to. This requires a huge step out of your comfort zone, but you are not going to learn anything or progress if you don't step out of your comfort zone. So, if you continue to stay in your own bubble, you're not going to be able to do something different. Yeah. At some point, you have to take an action, right? You can read a zillion self-help books and intellectualize it all but ultimately you have to like put something into into motion right absolutely um and then find people you know find a tribe um even if you're an introvert find a tribe find people who are

your cheerleaders people who will do stuff with you, people who will tell you the truth, people that love you unconditionally, because now you love yourself unconditionally. You have to find a tribe that replicates that. And yeah, do you, you know, maybe it's not running. Maybe it's not, maybe it's not writing a book. Maybe it's, I don't know, swimming in a lake, whatever it is, you know, do it and find somebody that will do it with you. Or even if not, even if you don't find a buddy, do it on your own. There's so much power in doing things individually. And all of these things, you know, I keep seeing that these things have to be a habit, but it's true. If you don't have a habit of self-love, if you don't have a habit of stepping out of your comfort zone, you won't experience growth. So the first step is creating that habit. Creating a habit.

And the creation of the habit begins with the first act. Yes, absolutely. And the last thing I'll say is that nothing happens overnight. So, know that whatever you are changing, whatever you're doing, whatever your goal is, it is going to be a journey. There will be moments of just of joy and amazement. And there will be moments of awfulness and where you just have to sort of be in the trenches and do the work. But that has tremendous implications for success. A regular speaker at Fortune 500 companies,

James Clear is a writer, blogger, author, and speaker who specializes in evidence-based self-improvement. He is the author of the massively best-selling book, Atomic Habits, which is this comprehensive primer on what actually works when it comes to behavior change. I found this book and our conversation, which was episode 401. Very powerful, potentially game-changing. And my hope is that this clip will help you reframe how you contemplate and act upon your ambitions. It's an explanation of why true behavior change is actually identity change. Here's James. There are a couple ways to think about it, but I would say just quick definition, a habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to be performed

more or less automatically. So you can do it pretty much on autopilot. But another way to think about it, and I think this is a useful way to define a habit, is that as you go through life, you face different problems. And some of those problems are big and some of them are small, like you need to tie your shoes. And whenever you face a problem, your brain starts looking for solutions to that. And as you come across solutions to the recurring problems in life, you start to automate those. And so every morning you wake up and you put your shoes on and you've got this little problem that you need to solve. And pretty soon after you tie your shoes 100 hundred times or 500 times or a thousand times, you can do it pretty much without thinking. And so that's another way of thinking about habits

is that they're kind of these like automatic solutions we fall into for whatever the recurring problems are we face. Right. Behavior that becomes habituated. Yeah. And you know, like they're, the interesting thing about this is you don't necessarily have to have the same habit to solve a recurring problem. Like if you come home from work each day and you feel stressed and exhausted, one person might play video games for an hour and that's a way to resolve that problem. So they get in the habit of doing it and they just walk over to the controller. They don't even think about it. Another person might go for a run for 20 minutes or meditate for 10 minutes. Third person might smoke a cigarette. And all of those are just solutions to that problem that you're facing. And that I think

is another powerful lesson is that your original habit is not necessarily the optimal one. And once you realize that, then it kind of becomes your responsibility to become a little more aware of what those habits are and then think about, can you shape them or design them? Right. And so to kind of deconstruct what a habit is, how to change it, what's a good habit, what's a bad habit, how to flow from bad to good, it demands, I would imagine, and you're the expert here, a real analysis of how our brains function. You have to look at psychology.

You have to look at neurology. You have to look at the science and understand the human mechanism in its holistic form. I think that's true. And you bring up a really interesting point and one that I wanted to answer or think about in the book. So, in the book, I lay out this four-stage model for how habits work. And the reason the second stage is there, it's all about craving and prediction. In other words, you come across a cue or some kind of context and then you interpret it in a certain way. And that's where we're getting to this point that you're just making, which is that the habit only comes after the habit is the behavior that follows your prediction or your interpretation of how you should act in a given context. And, um, you know, for one person,

they might see their couch as the place where they read for an hour given context. And, um, you know, for one person, they might see their couch as the place where they read for an hour each night. And so their interpretation of that context is I should open up a book for another person. They might see the couch as the place where they turn on Netflix for an hour and eat a bowl of ice cream. And so that's a different interpretation of the same physical cue. And, uh, so in that way, habits kind of follow. They're this lagging measure of how you predict you should respond to the different contexts in your life. Yeah. I mean, it's really, it's interesting that the more, this is like a subject matter that's so important because the habits that comprise how we behave and navigate our day are determinative of our entire experience as a

human being. Not only do they determine whether we're going to be, you know, quote unquote, successful or failures, they literally dictate every aspect of our experience as humans. So, on some level, like there is no subject more important than really understanding how behaviors work. I'm interested in what got you interested in this subject matter to begin with. I find that most people who walk that path of becoming obsessed with a certain subject matter or idea tend to be people who are trying to solve that equation for themselves. So, is that part of the influence? In a sense, every article I've written and this book is just a reminder to myself. I definitely had an internal desire for that.

And then there have been a variety of areas in my life where I've had to implement that. Athletics, photography, writing, and building a business, of course. And all of those have been kind of like test labs for me to put the ideas into practice. Right. But why zero in on this? On habits? Yeah. Well, I think that a little bit of it comes back to what you just mentioned a few minutes ago about how important habits are. I didn't know this at first. So I was a baseball player for many years. And as any athlete can tell you, there are all kinds of habits that you have at practice rituals, things like that. And I was benefiting from that. Um, you know, my strength coach would tell me to

do something or my coaches would hold me accountable to certain habits. And that would help pull the rest of my life in line. You know, I always did better in school when I had sports as well. Uh, it would, it would like give me something to anchor my day around. And so I knew that it was working, but I didn't have a language for it. And so it was only until maybe five years after my career ended and I finished graduate school and I started like looking into this stuff a little bit more that I started to come across the science of habit formation and behavior change and developed a language for it and started to write about it. So I kind of implicitly knew it was important, but didn't discover the actual way to write about it until later.

Now, the second thing here, though, is that as I dug into the topic more, I started to unearth these layers and realized, wow, this is actually even more important than I thought. And this comes back to the point that you made a few minutes ago, which is that habits are, one of the phrases I'd like to use is that pretty much any of the results in your life are a lagging measure of your habits, right? So your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your bank account is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. Like the outcomes

are just the, the manifestation of the behaviors that preceded them. Right. Um, so you kind of get what you repeat in that way. Well, that makes sense. People understand that that's important. So that's one reason why habits are crucial, but there's another thing that habits do that is even more central, even more important. And that is that your habits are the way that you embody a particular identity. So every morning that you make your bed, you embody the identity of an organized person, someone who's clean. Every time you go to the gym, you embody the identity of someone who is fit. Every time you sit down to write a sentence or a page, you embody the identity of someone who's

a writer. And so in that sense, habits are like every action you take is kind of like a vote for the type of person that you believe that you are. And as you take these actions, you build up evidence of a particular identity. And pretty soon your beliefs have something to like root themselves in. It's like, man, I, you know, I've showed up at the gym for four days a week for the last three months. I guess like I'm the type of person who doesn't miss workouts. And that I think is the true reason why habits are so important. Once I realized how beliefs and behaviors are connected,

that there's like this two way street, then I've started to think, all right, maybe this is really something. Not only does it deliver those external results, the clean room or the, you know, bigger bank account, but also the internal results

of shaping your sense of self-image and what you believe. This is why I think identity is such a crucial issue with habits is that true behavior change is really identity change because you're not really looking to go from the type of person who doesn't run to the type of person who can run a 5k. That's fine. That's good. It's the outcome. But the goal is not to run a marathon. The goal is to become a runner. The goal is not to write a book. The goal is to become a writer. And once you identify as that type of person, in a sense, you're not even really pursuing behavior change anymore. You're just acting in alignment with the type of person that you already believe that you are. Right. It's like one thing to say, I want this.

It's something different to say, I am this. This next clip is from plant-based dietitian, Juliana Hever and former NASA scientist turned nutrition scientist, Ray Cronise. These two combined their wonder twin powers to collaborate on a number of projects that include personalized nutrition consulting and co-authoring of both medical journal articles, as well as the recently released book, Plant-Based Nutrition, The Idiot's Guide Series. In this clip excerpted from episode 345, Juliana and Ray discuss the benefits of eating more fruits and vegetables, less food in general, hardly controversial, and finding a

community of like-minded individuals to stay on point. Here's Juliana and Ray. The book and this conversation, I think, is a perfect launch pad at this time of year for people who are finally in that spot and want to take that leap. So I thought it would be good and instructive to try to help guide people towards that first step. And because it is, look, it's called The Idiot's Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition, right, by its very nature, the work that you guys are doing

is introductory for a mainstream audience. So let's start at square one. Like somebody's listening to this. They're like, okay, tell me what to do. Where do I go? What's my first step? What do I get rid of? What do I eat? What do I focus on? What do I not have to worry about? What's the first step? The first step is to keep it simple. You know, we really just, there's an infinite variety of combinations of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, herbs, and spices. And you can meet any kind of taste preference. You can meet any kind of, you know, culinary

desires from making, from experimenting with those foods, those basic foods. So the first step is to go, okay, I'm just going to do this, you know, commit to a certain amount of time just to try it and see what happens. And now, I mean, my gosh, from the time that we made this transition, it's completely different now with the internet is exploding with recipes. There's information everywhere. There are books everywhere. Your books included. There's so many great sources and there's so many great things on the market. So, you know, I like to look at it as learning a new language. You know, first you got to learn the letters, you know, if there's a different alphabet. And so, Ooh, there's 10 different varieties of rice at the market now. And there's five different types of, you know, colored lentils that I could try. So those are like the letters

and the words, and you start kind of putting them together, look for recipes, do a search, find books that sound good, that appeal to you, look online and find recipes that sound delicious to you and then flip through them. And if you happen to love meatloaf, try a nut loaf or lentil loaf. If you happen to love chili, try, try a nut loaf or lentil loaf. If you happen to love chili, try find a great bean chili, just anything that speaks to you, start marking those off. And I like, you know, you just slowly build up your repertoire and you start building those words and those sentences. And suddenly you become fluent in this because you can go to the market and go, Oh, I'm going to make that, you know, that burrito. And I just

need these three ingredients sort of like, you just have it on the top of your head, but it's a learning curve and it just takes practice and experimentation. But I also recommend people think of it in a positive way. You know, it's not like, oh my gosh, I can't have, I can't have that. I can't have this. I can't have, instead think about all the new things you get to try and you're literally recreating the plate. You know, we all grew up with that meat in the center of the plate, and we're used to

thinking about food in a certain context. But there's so much more. And if you look, just even culturally speaking, there's so many delicious cuisines that are based on these plant foods, you know, Ethiopian food and Mexican food and just traditional diets that have all these really delicious types of cuisine that you may not have really spent time with. This is the time to do that. You know, go to different types of countries and look at their traditional diet and start experimenting. You know, look at how many times, three times a day in Asia, rice is consumed. You know,

that is like the staple or potatoes in Peru, or we're talking about potatoes or corn, but find the simple ingredients. Start with simple. It doesn't have to be complicated. You don't need to make some gourmet meal. We want to overcomplicate it. Right. Like, where's that? But I need, what kind of spirulina do I need? Yeah.

If it doesn't have an expiration date on it, buy it. Food that naturally that you can tell that it's not healthy to eat, like fruits and produce, they don't have expiration dates on them. You can tell that it's rotten. Oh, but they expire faster than the processed foods on the shelves, ironically. But you know that. So my point is they don't need a label. Fruits and vegetables don't need labels.

And you can buy things without labels. Yeah, I mean, it is so simple if you think about it. No one will argue that we need to eat more fruits and vegetables. If you make that your number one New Year's resolution to eat half your diet from fruits and vegetables, you're going to do better. Eat less frequently and eat more fruits and vegetables. Yeah, that's the two takeaways.

Two things done. If you just eat less frequently and eat more fruits and vegetables, you'll do well if you don't soak them in sugar, oil, and salt. When we're talking about eating fruits and vegetables, let's be clear. We're talking about whole food. We're not talking about potato chips and french fries. Those don't count. Veggie

chips, veggie whatever stuff in the bag with the stuff that you're talking about from the evil companies that you guys were discussing, right? We're not talking about the middle of the store stuff, right? But it's true. But if you just go with a vegan or plant-based label, we have to say it today. We didn't have to say it a decade ago because those things didn't exist. But today, everything can say vegan, can put the vegan. So I'm saying if you go to and eat whole foods.

You're just saying that just because it's vegan doesn't mean it's healthy. Right. Exactly. Just you need to recognize it in nature yeah yeah well one of the things that i think is interesting in your approach like i wanted to ask like you know in your experience of working with all these people and all the success stories you know people screw up they they mess up they make mistakes they slip backwards um you know what are some of the common things that you see uh that are tripping people up followed by you know what are some of the common things that you see that are tripping people up followed by you know the next question which is what are the strategies to avoid that

but even before that like we were talking before the podcast and ray you had said something really interesting that you actually build in this like failure mechanism into into the approach you want them to fail because that experience of failing will confront them with the kind of circumstances that led to the misstep, which creates greater self-knowledge for long-term future success. Yeah, just like fatigue and muscles and working out to the failure point causes that strength to happen, I believe that the main obstacle we have to success are the social pressures to eating. You know, today it's a lot more socially acceptable to say I didn't eat for 24 days than it was two years ago. Only marginally. And we're in LA. But more people do it. What do they say in Alabama? They think he's crazy. I'm fixing to shoot you. But today it's more acceptable to say I eat a plant-based diet than it was 10 years ago. Everywhere you say it. And now we've been all over, we've been all over the country and beyond

now. And like, no matter where you go, even in Huntsville, Alabama, where he lives, people go, when you say you're plant-based or vegan, they're like, Alabama, where he lives, people go, when you say you're plant-based or vegan, they're like, oh, like they know someone. Oh, I know someone, or I was vegan. Everyone has heard that term or is more familiar with it. And so what I was going to say with this is that the social pressure to eat is huge. Yeah. And that's one of the pitfalls. And that's also one of the solutions. And one of the things people should focus on if they're going in there, find your people, find support. Even if it's's not if your family doesn't agree with you or your friends you don't have a friend that's on board with you find it online go to a conference find people that

are like-minded because support is really important how are you guys doing so far good stuff right you know what else is good okay you guys up next is three-time RRP guest and favorite dr. Joel Kahn previously appearing on episodes 44 and 128 and most recently 349 that conversation the most recent one was focused on diet wars and the popular debate of plant-based versus ketogenic diets. Dr. Kahn is an interpreventional cardiologist, a clinical professor of medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine, founder of the Kahn Center for Cardiac Longevity in Michigan, and a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Michigan's prestigious Iniflex program, which is a six-year undergraduate slash graduate program that developed doctors fresh out of high

school. He's authored hundreds of articles on heart disease. He's a frequent lecturer on heart disease and its prevention. He's performed thousands of cardiac procedures, and he's the owner of Greenspace Cafe in Ferndale and Royal Oak, Michigan. In addition, Dr. Khan is the author of five books, including The Whole Heart Solution and his newest offering the plant-based solution and with that I give you Dr. Joel Kahn. The ketogenic diet is very popular right now the idea that really strictly eliminating carbs of all and we always have to be careful in the definition carbs are you know plants have food has usually carbs protein and fat in almost every food until you refine it a coconut has all those and an olive has all those once you refine it you may end up

with only fat so all foods have the three macronutrients i don't think there's any exception to that maybe different percentages so a low carb diet of course many of them continue to eat a decent amount of greens in their diet, but they're eliminating all the whites and they're hypervigilant about it. The big difference in the ketogenic diet, are you doing high-fat, low-carb, low-protein, which we can talk about, and with a plant-based approach may actually have some benefit in science, or are you doing a low-carb, high-fat, and high-protein diet, which probably ages you quicker than any other diet on the planet.

And that isn't always parsed out in their conversation. So the scary skeleton in the ketogenic diet closet is you'll lose weight, you may have some boost in energy for a period of time, you may be increasing your mortality risk. And they just don't talk about that with great regularity. So it's a difficult diet, and on the road, it's easier to be plant-based than it is to eat a strict ketogenic diet right now of high-fat options you're going to have to carry around in your own food.

But the gravest concern is, is it a healthy pattern? Is there any natural population that even slightly approaches it and has done well long term kind of a bullet shot at the plant-based movement show me a society that's been plant-based for centuries and has thrived you can talk about eskimos and the messiah who lived to age 30 or 40 well that's not kind of the example we're talking about show a okinawa type population that was 90% plus plant-based and thrived. Great. We have our example that approximates the way we eat.

They have great difficulty with that. In fact, the scientific data is it's the converse, that they are at risk shortening their lifespan. If it's an animal-based, low-carb diet, particularly if they're emphasizing foods that they feel are high in protein, which are typically going to be meats of a variety of kinds. No matter whether it's grass-fed or not, it's the basic constitution of animal muscle that can age you excessively, and the science is well-known. So a couple observations on that.

First, with respect to the degree of difficulty of maintaining a ketogenic diet. It's an interesting thing to talk about because you're right. Like to actually do a ketogenic diet properly requires an incredible amount of like a forethought and planning and discipline. It's not easy to really dial that in and make it work compared to a plant-based diet. to really dial that in and make it work compared to a plant-based diet. And yet I feel like the plant-based diet gets unduly criticized for being restrictive and too difficult and something that people are just never going to be able to maintain long-term, despite the fact that both of us have done that. But people are very quick to jump on the ketogenic bandwagon and try it with enthusiasm without that same concern being applied. Yeah, I agree completely. You know, just a couple examples.

There's Joe Rogan had a surgeon on Sean Baker, and I don't know Sean Baker very well. We go at each other a little bit on Twitter. And he said very casually even, he's an MD. And the ultimate example of these diets is there's a whole group of people eating nothing but meat three meals a day, literally nothing but meat. And for reasons I don't completely understand. Oh, he's the carnivore guy, right? Yeah, and he's one of many. I mean, he's not the only one that shows up there. They can claim short-term some pretty impressive pictures of their abs and weight, and some of them have some heart CT data.

Of course, there's nothing published in the literature. I want to come back to that. But, you know, Dr. Baker said, well, I didn't even bother to check my labs. Joe Rogan said, you've been doing this for a year? He goes, no, I didn't check my labs. Well, I have patients that do that, and they get their labs checked, not under my advice. And I have one that I'm going to write up maybe on the airplane flight back to Detroit later this evening. It's cholesterol from 250 to 750.

During the two months, he did a meat-only diet, trying to approximate what he was hearing on these rogue, not Rogan kind of podcasts. And it's insanity, and it's like religious fervor and follow the leader without thoughtfulness um the only medical condition that has any data everybody can verify this pubmed.com put in ketogenic diet refractory epilepsy in children and to some degree adults yeah have a number i mean several dozen published studies on an impact if standard drugs like Dilantin don't work. And, in fact, before Dilantin, ketogenic diet was a reasonable choice for kids with epilepsy.

As soon as drugs came out, it kind of faded off, and it's come back for that use. Daniel Amen, very famous local psychiatrist and a friend, has a grandson that had refractory seizures. Rather sadly and ironically, ketogenic diet was very beneficial. You go beyond that, you're just absent data. So another startup that's hot and it's worth talking about because your listeners will hear this is Virta Health, V-I-R-T-A, backed by Stephen Finney, MD.

I don't know much about him. He appeared in Dr. Malhotra's documentary about visiting the home of Ancel Keys, one of the most distorted and misleading documentaries ever done, called The POP Diet, P-I-O-P-P-I. Don't read it. Don't watch it. It's a waste of time, money, and honesty. But Virta Health claims with a ketogenic diet that you can reverse your type 2 diabetes with a high frequency,

and they've got a lot of backing, and they've got an app, and they've got a coaching system. So they have published a study in a journal that is so obscure and so non-reputable, but it is a journal of which there's a proliferation of scientific journals that are open, and you can either pay to publish an article or get access. But it's a small study of six-month duration, actually, originally 10-weeks duration, non-randomized, no control group. In the scientific world, this is about as low as it goes. And yes, with the dietary plan they advocated, very high dropout rate in the group studied.

They showed some drop in measures of diabetic control towards the better with their ketogenic diet coaching system. And on that, I speak to like brilliant people and they say, well, the debate's over. Virta Health has shown that ketogenic diet can solve multiple health problems. It's so overblown. And in fact, what's missing is the six, seven studies that suggest to get to the point. Big studies, hundreds of thousands of people. These are association studies. Group of people ate a certain way, questionnaires, food questionnaires, once food questionnaires, several times during a number of years.

Follow these people up. Harvard School of Public Health, Tufts School of Nutrition, very prominent places. Dramatic rise in long-term mortality by people whose food pattern, it can be called a low-carb, high-fat diet, a rise in death rate. If you've had a heart attack and you fill out questionnaires at the Harvard School of Public Health and they follow you long-term and your diet can be described as a low-carb, high-fat diet, you're much more likely to die in follow-up than people that describe

diets that are closer to high-carb, hopefully complex plant choices, though these aren't vegans, more like a Mediterranean-style diet. So that's the untold story. For anybody listening and that's falling for this optimization of performance and metabolism and control of cardiovascular risk, the data needs to be addressed about death rate. And until there's a study that resolves that issue and says that's wrong, six, seven different studies in different parts of the world, I could not in any good conscience advise somebody do an animal-based low-carb ketogenic pattern,

particularly if it's high in protein. Protein activates aging pathways. Protein activates biochemical pathways that right here in the City of the Angels have been found from yeast to mice to humans to cause accelerated aging and aging in every aspect of our body. And it is animal protein rich in an amino acid called leucine as the main trigger. And you can't get around it. Grass-fed beef, free-range chicken, and line-caught fish all have tremendously more leucine than the amino acid structure of plants.

They have it, but they don't have near the same amount. Our next clip is from Dotsie Bausch, a seven-time U.S. national champion, former world record holder, and two-time Pan American gold medal winner in track cycling who earned a silver in team pursuit at the 2012 London Olympics. Not only was she a longtime vegetarian at that time, now vegan, she was almost 40 years old when she won that medal, the oldest ever in her discipline and one of the oldest athletes to ever compete in an Olympic Games. So obviously, Dotsie's accomplishments are extraordinary, but more remarkable to me is the hard-fought road that this extraordinary athlete trudged to achieve these heights because Dotsie's biggest victory is the battle that she won to resurrect her life from the depths of an eating disorder that was so severe it very nearly claimed her life. it very nearly claimed her life. So in this clip, she talks about being vegan,

sharing the truth about the misinformation about dairy disease and animal agriculture, plus a little bit of advice for people struggling with an eating disorder. It's such a joy to sit down at every meal and you're aware that you are choosing conscience over ease, like whatever is just there. And it is so uplifting and so fulfilling and such an empowering feeling. I feel so strong every time I'm slightly challenged, let's say at a business dinner and we're at Ruth Chris, whatever, that happens once a freaking year, who cares? But people really don't understand not only protein, but they don't understand iron. They don't understand B12. They don't even understand what B12 is, that it's a bacteria and you know, where you can get it from. They think animals make B12. So there's,

there's just a lot of misconceptions out there about the different nutrients that they think that you need from the myth that we've been told and lied to about our whole lives, that you can only get that from animal flesh. Right. Well, it's amazing as somebody who not so long ago didn't even know these worlds existed, that you're having PSAs airing during the Olympics and you've created this compassionate champs movement? Like, tell me what that's all about. So, I'm learning more and more every day. But when I started Compassion Champs, it was really, it was kind of more out of a desire to meld together compassion and strength. I felt like there was, you know, nobody really that was having a real conversation about being able to be caring and compassionate and loving and empathetic, but also strong and fierce and badass. And those two just weren't coming together as a group of people.

So that's where it was kind of born out of. group of people. So that's where it was kind of born out of. I'm learning more and more as I am traversing this movement and reading more research and understanding more from being a part of the Game Changers film, which we can talk about. Yeah, I want to talk about that. That people, and just from my own experience, sadly and really disappointing to me is, by and large, people don't care about the animals. They just don't. They don't care about the suffering. They don't want to know about it. They don't want to hear it. They don't want you to show them. They definitely don't want you to talk about it, and they really don't want you to talk about it when

you're all eating. But people do care about their health and they do care about their performance, not just athlete, you know, athletic performance. People just care about their general performance and being better in their life, right? A lot of the people that you've had on here. So the conversation that I'm having is changing a bit more. The conversation that I'm having is changing a bit more. I think I'm almost feeling more like an undercover animal activist because it's at the core of what I care about the most. It's the least effective way to change people's minds. You have this competitive nature.

You have retired from cycling, where are you gonna channel this energy? Into this movement, yes? Or how does this, is that? There's no question in my mind that I will do this till the day I die. It fills every piece of my bursting heart with so much joy and need and fulfillment. And that this is, revealing the secrets behind this

is very similar to back in the day with tobacco. I feel such an inherent deep need to share truth with people. If they're not being told the truth, somebody has to tell them the truth. Somebody has to uncover. And if I can use the Olympian thing or the Olympics thing that I did and fought really hard for. Because you're right. People are interested in what an Olympian eats or what an Olympian does. I mean, that's part of this PSA with the seven Olympians. It's like, nobody's going, oh God, stupid Olympians, put them in the corner. People just kind of are inherently like, go team. And so that platform will hopefully allow us to reveal and uncover these untruths that people have been told their whole lives from animal agriculture all the way to all the different

diseases that the seven top diseases that we're dying from in this country, people are just consuming incredible amounts of dairy while they're fighting prostate cancer, incredible amounts of dairy while they're fighting ovarian cancer. It's insane. And so it's the only thing besides my relationship with my husband that I care the most about. It's everything to me. Well, it's beautiful and it's exciting times. I think the awareness is getting out there and there is a growing interest and receptivity to these ideas that I think is only going to build. And your role in all of that is prominent and growing. So, it's awesome to see. One final thing, if you'll indulge me. Do you have to go?

I got to keep the traffic. So I think it would be great to kind of end this with leaving a few thoughts for somebody who's listening to this, who perhaps is suffering from an eating disorder or is stuck in the cycle of, you know, a pattern that they can't see themselves through. So is there a lifeline that you could throw to that person or something they could think about or do

that could perhaps be helpful? Well, there's a couple of things. I think that when you're deep into the disorder, you definitely don't feel like there's ever any way out. And that's especially true with eating disorders because you have to continue to eat, right? You can't just be like, okay, no more drugs, no more alcohol. I felt so isolated by that. And just letting them know that there truly is a way out once an anorexic, not always an anorexic. It's not the same as it might be or

how many alcoholics look at it and for their own recovery. There is freedom on the other side. There really is a pathway, whichever pathway you choose to have freedom from it. So many eating disorder sufferers that I met, that's the one thing that they just don't really believe is true. And it is, there really is freedom. And I think the other thing is that most eating disorder sufferers are fairly type A, Most eating disorder sufferers are fairly type A and most that I've met want to contribute to society. I mean, they have a yearning, a desire. If you let this disease run its course and you die from it, you're not going to be able to do anything. You're not going to be able to have an impact on the world and you're not going to be able to do anything. You're not going to be able to have an impact on the world and you're not going to be able to do anything for the greater good.

And you're definitely not going to be able to do anything healthfully for the greater good while you're sick. So allow that to be your bright guiding and shining light out of this. That was a big part of it for me is recognizing that I can't do anything if I'm dead. So let that come to the top of your heart and let that guide you. There is a way out and you can't do anything for the world if you're dead. Yeah, beautifully put. A National Magazine award-winning journalist, Alex Hutchinson is a former runner for the

Canadian national team, turned writer, writer on all things athletic performance. He is the author of one of my favorite books of the year, Endure, Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance. It's an incredible read that blends cutting-edge science with incredible storytelling, kind of in the spirit of Malcolm Gladwell, who actually penned the foreword, to suggest the seemingly physical barriers

we encounter when tackling a challenge are set as much by the brain as by the body. So even if you're not an athlete, this conversation, which was episode 359, will, I think, leave you rethinking your own limits so that you may reach higher, push further, and ultimately become better in whatever discipline you are devoted to mastering. So without further ado, here's Alex. In a way, the most powerful ways we have of changing those unconscious things may be through conscious strategies. So here's another example of something that kind of blew my mind when this experiment happened.

This was a guy named Samuel Marcora at the University of Kent in England. He did a study with subliminal or unconscious images. So he had cyclists pedaling to exhaustion in a room and on this on the wall in front of them he was flashing smiling faces or frowning faces but he was doing it that it was about 16 milliseconds per image so that's like a tenth the length of a blink you don't you're totally unaware that there's you're not even consciously what you don't even actually see it you're not consciously aware that you've seen it. The cyclists didn't know there were images. They thought there was just a black cross on the wall. I didn't get that part when I was reading it. I knew it was

quick, but I didn't realize it wasn't registering. Yeah. No, afterwards, the debrief afterwards, like, you know, what was on the wall? Nothing. They had no idea that there were even pictures on the wall. So this kind of gets rid of the placebo problem, because when you do these brain experiments, you want to find out how the brain is living. It's almost impossible to disentangle the question of expectation and self-belief when you know you're getting some sort of intervention that's supposed to help. So in this case, they just thought they had a couple of rides to exhaustion, but they were something like 12% faster when smiling faces had been flashed instead of frowning faces. So this is a good example of changing the unconscious in a way that's not really replicable outside the lab. You know, you're not going to have, well, we hope we're not going to have subliminal images on the wall.

But it points the direction or points an arrow towards ways you can change, you know, you can smile. There are points and arrow towards ways you can change. You know, you can smile and that can achieve some of the same ideas of creating this sense of ease in your brain that affects how your brain is interpreting the signals from the rest of your body. And 12%, I mean, that's significant. Yeah. So, and, you know, one interesting, one sort of methodological thing that's worth pointing out is that a lot of lab studies use time to exhaustion tests where they say cycle at a certain power until you can't anymore. And the reason, one of the reasons they like those is it, it's, it takes out the role of pacing. So it's, it's more replicable, but it produces really big, the differences. If you do something that improves performance, the difference

that you'll see is about 10 times, 10 to 15 times bigger in a time to exhaustion test than a time trial. So when you see 12% in a time to exhaustion test, that means probably a little less than 1% in a race, which is still massive when you think of the highest levels that's determinative. Yeah. That's, that's, that's winner versus, you know, off the podium. Right. I mean, it's also, you know, for a lot of people that could be, you know, BQ versus no, you know, Boston qualifier versus no Boston qualifier or personal best versus not personal best. Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. So you break this down, you kind of evaluate the various aspects of performance limitation, you know, by chapter.

And you have pain, you have muscle, you have oxygen, heat, thirst, and fuel, right? So we're kind of talking about pain a little bit. So maybe we can dig into that a little bit deeper. One of the things that I thought was really cool in your exploration of that was the obvious question is like, do some people have a higher pain threshold? Like, what is pain? Do people experience pain differently? What would happen if we could remove pain? And there's that amazing experiment that was done with fentanyl, where they're like, all right, we'll give them fentanyl. They won't feel anything. But then they had no ability to gauge their own pace.

And they ended up not being able to perform because they couldn't like sort of evaluate their output. Yeah. So this was a really interesting series of experiments. Again, like you said, with fentanyl. So the neat thing about fentanyl is it doesn't block the signals traveling from your brain to your muscles. So you can cycle like normal, but it blocks the signals from your muscles to your brain. And what the researchers said is, you know, you give these guys fentanyl and you ask them to cycle a 5k time trial, they just feel great for a couple k. They're

like, they're pedaling as hard as they can and they're feeling no pain. And they're on pace for a great time. And about halfway is when things start to crater. They start to regress to their, you know, what their normal pace would be. And then they just keep getting worse and worse. And they get so slow by the end that they end up cycling about the same time. They just, they can't pace themselves because they don't have that feedback that tells them how close they are to their, their muscular limits. And so without that, they, they actually hit muscular limits in their legs. It was pretty funny listening to the descriptions from the scientists saying, you know, these guys, they, they literally could not walk that, you know, they'd finish, they'd be on the bikes and they, they try and help these guys off the bike. And they would just, the first one would like

collapsed on the floor. And after that, like, okay, we basically have to carry these guys over to the chair over there to, to, you know, let them sit down because their legs have, have totally maxed out. Right. Yeah. Which, which, you know, your brain will prevent you from doing that under normal circumstances, right? So there's these outlier examples that you kind of document in the book and reference where, you know, somebody does die because they've pushed themselves past that point, whether it's a free diver or there's that, you know, high school football player who dies of heat exhaustion after practice and, you know, the various expedition mountaineer people. And we kind of, you know, create a big story around these people. But what like Noak says is like, what's more interesting is that there aren't that many cases. Like it really doesn't happen that often. These are outliers.

Yeah. And you know that when you start talking about the brain's role and limits and how do we get around them, you know, the first, you know, a very good question is, well, maybe those lessons, you know, those limits are there for a reason. And is it dangerous to remove the limits? And ultimately, maybe yes. But like you said, you know, we're so far from our limits that it's, it's very, very hard to push to a point. Like no matter if I, if I headed out the door and just started sprinting and said, I'm going to run myself unconscious, I wouldn't be able to do it. Like I would, I would get too tired before I could run myself unconscious. Uh, and so. Yeah. Like everybody at the Olympics would be dying, you know, because they're all doing

everything they possibly can to exert themselves to the absolute max. And yeah, that's one of Tim Noakes' favorite, like at presentations, he'll put up a picture from 1996 where the winner of the marathon was South African. And it'll be him in the second place finisher from South Korea jogging around the track

just after the marathon finished. And I'll say, look at that guy, look at the silver medalist. He just finished three seconds behind the Olympic gold medalist I'll say, look at that guy. Look at the silver medalist. He just finished three seconds behind the Olympic gold medalist. You know, nobody is more motivated than if you enter the Olympic stadium three seconds short of, you know, immortality.

He was trying as hard as he could. But you notice he's not dead? Like, so clearly- And like kind of jogging around the track. Yeah, he finished and he's like, hey, look at me, I'm still moving. He can still move his legs. Like, so something, you know,

his legs were clearly capable of moving. And so the sort of other way of putting it is like, man, if you unleashed a bunch of, you know, lions at mile 20 of a big city marathon, you'd see that everyone can still run. They can still sprint. And so what's holding them back is not pure muscular limits. Okay, next up is none other than high performance psychologist, three time RRP guest host of the Finding Mastery podcast,

my good friend, Dr. Michael Gervais. This is a guy who works with the elite of the elite, the world's most prolific Olympic professional and extreme athletes, as well as high-level military, internationally acclaimed artists and musicians, and Fortune 100 CEOs. He's one of my very favorite people. And in this clip, excerpted from episode 366, Michael shares some insights on how he helps his elite clientele achieve peak performance, as well as some really great thoughts on the illusion, the quote unquote illusion of achieving balance in life. So I've been asking this question to people lately, and I don't know if it's a fair question,

and I'd like to get your thoughts on it. Love to win or hate to lose. And if there was space to choose a third option, would you choose a third option? Or would you just say, oh yeah, it's this one out of those two? I would choose a third option. For me, it's never about winning or not losing. It's just a function of whether I lived up to what I believe to be my potential. Like, did I do my best? Did I put everything into trying to achieve a certain result? And then, so that's why I think it's not a fair question. And that being said, is the process to better understand what is possible for anybody, for oneself or for somebody else, is difficult. Like, that takes discernment.

That takes deep thinking. To think about, like, and this, I think this might be one of the most loving thing we can do for another human is to think deeply about what is possible, have a conversation with that person, calibrate that conversation, nod our heads to it.

Once we get the fabric and the texture of that, that thought aligned and then commit to helping, supporting, and challenging that person through. And if we're left alone to do it, it's really hard. That's why I haven't seen anyone that does it alone, right? But back to the thought, hate to lose, love to win. Almost 95% of people that I ask that question to, whether they think that they are on the right path or not, no, no, let me not say it that way. That sounds almost crude.

95% are saying hate to lose. And then given a little bit more space. Is that true, really? Yeah. Yes, but what spurred me on that is your thought, which is I had to come from pain. So the pain of losing, which if we map it on the brain, there's no loss center of the brain. There's grief.

The redundancies in the brain are minimized because it's this amazing superpower computer that we don't even know really how it works. amazing superpower computer that we don't even know really how it works. But the thought that there's a center for losing a Super Bowl or losing an ultra event, there's no center in the brain for that. It is mapped over grief. So most people, grief is so hard for people. And then when they, so that when they go put their butt on the line and go for it in a competitive environment or a vulnerable environment, and they come up short, it feels like grief, and that's hard. And so hating to feel grief is the response. That's how I decode that thought. Like an avoidant strategy.

Yeah, like I hate it so much, I'll do whatever it takes to relieve myself from it. And I'm not sure that that's a beautiful way to do the process. Yeah, no, I don't think so. I don't think so. So when you sit down with somebody that you're working with, how do you begin to figure this out and find a different through line to connect with that person to perhaps provide a foundation for a healthier motivation? Well, we try to get clear. The first part is that, not first part, but just the value to discovery process. Now, let's just nod our head that the initial part, you're asking me like when

I'm doing my craft, is that right? Like as a sports psychologist or performance psychologist. So the initial, so the way I've structured it is that we spend eight hours together. That's a long day. By the end of the day, we're exhausted. We both are tired because we're working relentlessly towards insight. And then at the end of those eight hours, if we are so fortunate to have some insight about what makes this, the person that I'm working with, who are they and what makes them work, if you will, what are they driven by and driven toward? And then if we can get a handful of insights together, then we can set up and design a way to train one's mind and organize one's life for optimizing. Right. Okay. So, that deep, deep work is really like, who are you?

What are you driven by? What are you driven toward? And then what do you imagine is possible? And when you're doing that probing process, I mean, part of that, I would imagine, has to do with finding a way in. imagine has to do with finding a way in, like, how can I, like, what are the levers here that I can play with to motivate this person to, you know, unleash, you know, perhaps potential that's hidden within them? And I would imagine you're going to come across some levers that would work, but are unhealthy. Like, oh, this guy, you know, I don't know, you know, he hates his dad.

So I can play with that and I could get him to, you know, really, you know, I could perhaps get him to a new level in his, whatever his expertise is, but that's ultimately not a sustainable methodology, right? I love it. You know, okay, so one of the thoughts is there's an assumption that I'm making, is that you hold all of your insights. You are the container of wisdom as well. So there's nothing I'm going to say that is going to provide wisdom. Like, it's already inside you. We just need to figure it out. Everything you need is already inside you is the basic assumption. And you said like to help motivate people.

I don't think so. I don't think that that's, I'm not in the right business to help motivate people because the folks that I spend time with are highly driven, like the half percenters in the world driven. And so I think that part of the process is to create more space for the fire to burn more brightly, right? And then how do you do that? Well, each thought, this is a hypothesis, right? Thoughts lead to thought patterns. Thought patterns lead to thought habits. Once they become habits or habitual, they move below the surface for efficiency.

So there's just like physiological patterns, right? So from thoughts to thought patterns to habits, and then once they're a habit, they're below surface. So part of it is reminding them of the habits that they've already built. They've already had great success. Every human has. They've already figured out how to get out of jams.

You know, people have done. So let's use what's already below the surface and above the surface to figure it out. Now, if we reverse engineer that, each thought either creates space or tension. I'm going to oversimplify it, right? But just with that thought alone, if you can become more aware of your thoughts, and then is this particular thought that you're having right now rich? Because you're having thoughts, I'm having thoughts, and we're having a conversation. And the better this conversation goes is a direct relationship to the amount of thoughts that are not present.

Right? Right. Okay. So every thought that we have is either creating constriction or expansion. So every thought that we have is either creating constriction or expansion. And I learned that from Judson Brewer, who's a beautiful mind in the contemplative mindfulness research space. And it's like, yes, that's it. That's exactly it. And so that simple little insight, I think, really is how the process works.

Let's talk about balance. Can we do that? The. Let's talk about balance. Can we do that? The mythical ridgeline of balance. Yeah. What's your perspective on the conversation that swirls around the primacy or irrelevance of balance in the context of living authentically

and performing at your potential? I think balance is so overrated. You know, this concept, like the mythical ridgeline that one day I'll have balance. I don't know anyone that has balance. I don't have balance. And so I think it's way overrated. And the thought that you're supposed to have balance or that I'm supposed to have balance create incredible stress for me.

A lot of self-judgment. Yeah. So I say, forget about it. That's what I say. I say, forget about this idea of balance and work on being present. Well, you know what balance conjures up is like, I've got the right balance in my life between work, between family life, between hobbies, between whatever. I don't know anyone that has that. I really don't. And so I think the way to inoculate that thought is to one, just kind of square it up and say, is that really what I want? For me, that's not what I want.

What I want is I want to be fully immersed in wherever I am with this incredible passion that feels right to me, like an inner fire that's alive in the moment. And you know how I know that that's what I want or one of the things I want is because when I'm tired, so when I'm fatigued or when I'm fearful, it doesn't come out. And finally, last but not least, we're going to close the house down today with none other than plant-based nutrition science and lifestyle medicine power couple, Dean and Ann Ornish. Together, they have co-authored a brand new book entitled Undo It. It hits bookstores everywhere January 8th. You can pre-order it now.

It's great. And this clip was excerpted from episode 410, which was just last week. And in it, we discuss the importance of love, the importance of community, and the importance of why you should want longevity, the desire to live longer and to live better. So with that, I give you Dean and Anne Ornish. What is the meaning, the sense of purpose that's driving you to get up every day? And I just think that's so core because, again, it's not something outside of ourselves. It's not your doctor or your spouse telling you, you should do this. This is the good thing to,

you know, this would be good for your health. That only works for so long. It really has to come from the inside and we have to identify with what that is for us personally. And then we need to kind of re-up with that and amplify that throughout our days with every choice that we make. Yeah, let me just build on that real quickly, because earlier we were talking about how I could take all the meaning out of everything when I was so depressed. But later I learned we can actually put meaning into our lives. We can imbue our choices with meaning. And one way is by choosing not to eat certain foods, for example. I think that's why all religions, all spiritual paths, almost all of them have dietary guidelines.

And they're often in conflict with each other. One religion, you can eat this, but not that, or certain days of the week, or certain times of the day, or certain months of the year, whatever. Is God confused? I don't know. But whatever intrinsic benefit there is in making diet and lifestyle changes, just the act of choosing not to eat something that you otherwise could do, or the act of saying, I'm going to be in a monogamous relationship, or whatever. Is that deprivation? Well, it can be. That's often how it's portrayed. Or is it, first of all, what I gain is so much more than what I give up. But beyond that, because these underlying biological mechanisms are so dynamic, but beyond that, it's like just the act of choosing not to

do something, like not to eat certain foods, makes them, it imbues those choices with meaning and makes those choices sacred. Not sacred in the boring sense, but the most special, the most fun, the most erotic, the most pleasurable, the most meaningful.

You know, Viktor Frankl wrote this book years ago called Man's Search for Meaning. And he interviewed concentration camp survivors in the most dire circumstances. And he found that the ones who lived weren't necessarily the strongest or the healthiest. They were the ones who had the strongest sense of meaning and purpose.

Like, I have to survive so that I can be reunited with my loved ones or bear witness or whatever it happened to be, just like Anna's talking about. So, when people enter our program, one of the first questions we ask them is, why do you want to live longer? People go, oh, no one's ever asked me that before. No one's ever asked me that before. You know? Yeah, I think that that goes directly to the crux of so much of what ails us as a society, as a culture. And systemically, we're not raised or taught to think in those terms. And I think it's led us to a grand crisis of consciousness that is really fueling this epidemic of depression and suicide.

You can clean up your diet and eat a plant, have the most pristine plant-based diet, and that will, I believe, catalyze other changes in your life. It will have this effect that will spill over into hopefully leading you to a more purposeful direction in your life. But if you get stuck on the food and think that's going to solve all your problems, you're missing the big picture. And I really, I'm so glad to hear you say that because I really think that that is, you know, more important than any of the, you know, epidemiological studies or meta-analyses. It's like, if you can't find purpose and fulfillment in your life, then what else matters? Well, that's the point.

And so much of what we see now is, you know, and I ask people in our studies, because we would live together for a month at a time in our earlier studies or meet regularly for years at a time. I say, you know, teach me something. Why do you smoke? Why do you overeat? Why do you drink too much? Why do you abuse opioids? Why do you work too hard? Why do you play so many video games?

These behaviors seem so maladaptive to me. They kind of look at me and they go, you don't get it many video games? These behaviors seem so maladaptive to me. They kind of look at me and they go, you don't get it, do you? These behaviors aren't maladaptive. They're very adaptive because they help us deal with our pain, our loneliness, our depression. You know, there's been a radical disruption in our culture in the last 50 years with the disruption of the social networks that used to give people that sense of connection and community. Most people don't have a neighborhood that feels, you know, with two or three generations of people or a

job that feels secure where you've been there for 10 years or, you know, an extended family you see regularly or a church or synagogue. And what we're learning is that people say things like, I've got 20 friends in this pack of cigarettes and they're always there for me. You're going to take away my 20 friends? What are you going to give me? Or, you know, to build on that is, you know, not only why do you want to live longer, but the compass of that is self-reflection and self-awareness. And if we have that as much throughout the day, so that we can connect the dots between what we're feeling, what we're thinking, and what we're doing, and what we're doing, and then that feedback loop of how that makes us feel.

So for somebody who's crutching along with their 20 friends in their pack of cigarettes or the video games or whatever it is, it's numbing them, and really the next level for them is like that's just kind of my getting by standpoint but if you really look what's below the numbing which is what's you know what's really where the the locus of control is and where the transformation takes place really is that if you can connect the dots that those things aren't actually moving the needle of you feeling any better or you growing in any way. And so the moment that you identify or that I identify what my kind of personal roadmap of meaning is, what are my values, who are the people that I want to be spending my time with, how do we spend quality time? Well, I have to feel good in order to spend quality time with the people I love and to spending my time with. How do we spend quality time? Well, I have to feel good in order to spend quality time with the people I love and to do things with them.

So it comes from that place of self-awareness. Because if you realize that underneath whatever numbing mechanism has allowed you to cope, that you're actually not feeling well enough to do the things that are most enlivening to you, then the way to re-pattern that is just a, it happens in the mind, which just really happens even deeper in the heart. So, it's- Yeah, it's difficult for people to grasp that, though. It's a very ephemeral concept. Like, if you tell somebody, look, you got to cut out the cheeseburgers, or you got to quit smoking, like, they can wrap their head around that. It's a very tactile, you got to cut out the cheeseburgers or you got to quit smoking. Like they can wrap their head around that. It's very tactile, tangible thing that they can execute on.

But when you're like, look, you got to go on this inward journey. Like, look, I'm just trying to get my kids home from school and get through the day. And as somebody who's been in recovery for many years, one of the things that you learn very early is that the drugs and the alcohol aren't the problem. They're the solution to the problem. You can take away the drugs and the alcohol, but then you've got to deal with the underlying condition that compelled you to numb yourself out in that way.

So, you could tell somebody you've got to quit smoking, but yeah, that's their best friend that you're removing from them. And if that person doesn't have the support or the tools to then address the underlying condition that was driving them to check out, whether it's a video game or your phone or gambling or sex or whatever it is, then that person is going to lapse back into that behavior or they're going to be very unhappy. That's why we've learned it's not enough to give people information alone. If it were, nobody would smoke. It's not like I say. It's not an intellectual thing. Rich, I want you to quit smoking. It's bad for you. You go, oh, I didn't know smoking is bad for you. Everybody knows it's bad for you. It's on every pack of cigarettes. You have to say,

why do you smoke? And it's not enough to focus on the behavior. We need to work at a deeper level. And so in our program, we have support groups. And the support groups are not like helping people stay on the diet or exchanging recipes or types of running shoes. It's really creating a safe environment to replicate what people had when they grew up. When you grow up in an extended family or a neighborhood with three or three generations of people, they know you.

They don't just know your Facebook profile or your bio sketch or all your awards or whatever. They know where you messed up. And you know that they know and they know that you know that they know. There's just something profound. It's like in James Cameron's wonderful film Avatar. It's like, I see you. You know, it's like, I don't just see you, which is really from an African proverb. It's not, I just see your bio sketch.

I see where you messed up and I'm still there for you. And there's something really primal about that need for really authentic intimacy. In fact, there was a study that came out a few months ago that the more time you spend on Facebook, the more depressed you are. Why is that? Because it's not authentic. It's like, it looks like everybody has this perfect life, but you, you know, because people don't post, oh, my kid's on drugs or, oh, I'm having problems in my marriage or, oh, whatever. But in our support groups, that's what people talk about. We encourage people to say, what are you really feeling? Express it as a feeling because it's our feelings that connect us.

And it's so easy to make fun of that. Oh, it sounds so touchy-feely. It is touchy-feely. We are touchy-feely creatures. We're creatures of community. That's how we've survived as a species. are touchy-feely creatures. We're creatures of community. That's how we've survived as a species. And so for someone to say, gosh, you know, I may look like the perfect father, but my kid's on drugs or heroin or whatever. And someone else will say, gosh, what am I feeling when I hear that?

Oh, that sounds terrible. I'm so sorry to hear that. I used to have a drug problem, they might say, or gosh, my kid has another problem. It doesn't solve the issue, but it suddenly you don't feel so isolated. And study after study has shown that people who are lonely and depressed are three to ten times more likely to get sick and die prematurely from pretty much all causes when compared to those who have a sense of love and connection and community. And I don't know anything, even diet, that has that big an impact or smoking. And now they all interrelate because you're much more likely, as you both have said, to choose those behaviors, to numb it out, just to kind of deal with that pain. But if you numb out pain, you also numb out pleasure. So you kind of have this kind of gray life.

And if people don't remember anything else about this wonderful podcast that we're having today, is to say that the point of our program is not to help people live longer. It's to live better, as Anne was saying. Because there's no point in giving up something that you enjoy unless you get something back that's better and quickly. And because these underlying biological mechanisms are so dynamic, when you change your lifestyle, and ironically, it's sometimes easier to get people to make big changes all at once, because when you make big changes in your lifestyle, you feel so much better so quickly. It reframes the reason for making those changes from fear of dying or fear of something bad happening, or just numbing to get through the day to joy and pleasure and

feeling good. And, you know, and it gets into a virtuous cycle where you start to feel better and better. All right, you guys, I hope you enjoyed that look in the rear view part two with a bunch more awesome excerpted conversations will be up later this week, Thursday night, December 27th. So Merry Christmas to those who celebrate that holiday. And a reminder that you can watch a version of this recap on YouTube at youtube.com forward slash richroll. It's a little bit different because not all the guests were recorded on video. So it's a variation on this theme. But I think you guys will enjoy it.

Final reminder that our new gift cards for the Plant Power Meal Planner make a great stocking stuffer. So check those out at meals.richroll.com. And if you would like to support our work here on the show, there are a couple of ways to do just that. You can tell your friends about the show, about your favorite episode. You can share the show on social media, subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google Podcasts, leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and you can support the show on Patreon at richroll.com forward slash donate.

I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for videoing the podcast, for editing it, for graphics, along with Jessica Miranda, Reese Robinson for some portraits along the way, and David Kahn for advertiser relationships,

of course, very important. And theme music is always by Annalima. Thanks for the love, you guys. See you back here in a couple days as our recap of 2018 continues with the best of the RRP part two, 2018, Thursday night. Until then, peace plants.

Happy holidays. Namaste. Thank you.