WHOOP Podcast - Pierre-Henri Chuet, fighter pilot turned entrepreneur, discusses the mental state necessary to succeed in combat missions, and how he applies the lessons learned to the business world.

Episode Date: December 17, 2019

Combat pilot turned entrepreneur Pierre-Henri "Ate" Chuet talks about becoming Europe's youngest pilot at age 15 (4:54), his first aircraft carrier landing (7:10), turning anxiety into fuel (12:45), the impact flying has on your brain and body (18:10), his thoughts on the movie Top Gun (18:56), preventing mistakes in the air (25:25), combat mission preparation (33:10), what it's like to eject (36:40), how suffering a stroke at age 31 changed his life for the better (44:38), getting on WHOOP (52:09), the principles of "aviate, navigate and communicate" (54:24), and his best tips for combating jet lag and handling the effects of altitude (1:00:26). Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

We discovered that there were secrets that your body was trying to tell you that could really help you optimize performance, but no one could monitor those things. And that's when we set out to build the technology that we thought could really change the world. Welcome to the Whoop podcast. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of Whoop, where we are on a mission to unlock human performance. Our clients range from the best professional athletes in the world, to Navy SEALs, to fitness enthusiasts, to Fortune 500 CEOs and executives. The common thread among whoop members is a passion to improve.

What does it take to optimize performance for athletes, for humans, really anyone? And now that we've just launched all-new whoop strap 3.0 featuring Whoop Live, which takes real-time training and recovery analysis to the next level, you're going to hear how many of these users are optimizing their body with whoop and with other things in their life. On this podcast, we dig deeper. We interview experts. We interview industry leaders across sports, data, technology, physiology, athletic achievement, you name it. How can you use data to improve your body? What should you change about your life? My hope is that you'll leave these conversations with some new ideas and a greater passion for performance. With that in mind, I welcome you to the

Whoop podcast. Part of the training is getting to understand how you work as a human being and how you work under stress. So you're going to be stressed a lot and you're going to learn how you can use that stress to turn it into performance. People sometimes see stress or anxiety as something bad. And during your curriculum as a phytopilot, you learn how to use anxiety as a way to prepare.

What's up, folks? My guest today is former combat pilot Pierre Henri Chouet. He also goes by Atte. And in 2001, Atte became Europe's youngest pilot at age 15, literally the youngest licensed pilot. Pretty amazing. Between 2010 and 2018, he flew 18 combat missions in war zones, including deployments in Iraq and following the French terrorist attacks of 2015. Atte is now a commercial airline pilot and entrepreneur who applies many of the lessons he learned as a fighter pilot to the business world. He's also a huge whoop user. Atte and I discuss the mental state necessary to fly combat missions, including what it's like to land a plane on an aircraft carrier and his thoughts on how accurate the movie Top Gun really is, how pilots turn their anxiety into performance fuel

by visualizing their missions and what they need to know about themselves in order to succeed, and how a stroke at age 31 changed his life for the better by forcing him to transition to a new career and better understand his body. In particular, this is the introduction of whoop in his life and the importance of sleep and recovery. I found Atte completely fascinating. I think you're going to enjoy this episode. Without further ado, here is Atte. Atte, thanks for coming on the podcast. Thank you very much for having me. So you've had a pretty fascinating life at the young age of 33. A combat pilot.

at age 15. How did you get interested in being a combat pilot? My dad used to fly jets for the French Air Force. So I've been around jets my entire life. So it didn't feel very, I mean, just felt natural to follow his footsteps, basically. And at a young age, were you seeing planes and aviation and, you know, you're surrounded by that environment? Yes, actually, my first school was in the UK. My dad was an exchange officer for the Royal Air Force. So my first school was, on the British military base. Oh, wow.

And so how old were you? At that time, I was four. Four years old. Dressed in uniform on the British Royal Air Force Base with jets flying around my head all the time. Do you remember your first time going on a jet? First time sitting in a jet was when I was actually four during like a family day at the squadron.

So I had interest in it from an early age, of course. And I imagine that you liked the way it felt from the first time you got on there. Because, to be fair, like, it's a crazy experience, right? Being on a jet like that. I mean, I think it's all about getting used to it when you've been around your entire life. Like, all you meet are fire pilots from an early age.

It just feels almost normal. It's what your universe is about. So it doesn't feel of reach. Just feel something natural. And you tend to think it's possible to make it as a career. so you give it your best shot. Okay, so let's play this out. How do you become Europe's youngest pilot?

Like describe the process that it takes to even become a combat pilot. So basically it all starts with books. You have to study quite a lot. So I got into studying for the pilot exams when I was 14. I got the chance to start flying with an instructor when I was 14. And the day of my 15th birthday, which was September 9, 2001. I got to fly what we call solo,

so alone in the aircraft for the first time. And we created that small challenge where I had to fly on my own for three hours before taking an exam again that gave me the license of what we call recreational pallets, Brevet de Baz in French. Oh, wow. And the day of my 15th birthday,

so it made me the European youngest pilot back in the days, 2001. That's amazing. And the three, so the three hours, what happens in those three hours? So during those three hours, basically, to be able to pass the exam, to get, like, the degree, you have to fly on your own during three hours. So I just had to fly around the airport, basically, and make practice landings, what we call touch and goes, because I needed three hours of flying on my own experience to be able to take

the test. And how fast are you going? So back in those days, it was a single engine. in propeller driven aircraft, so I'm flying about 150 miles an hour. So basically just like a regular car. But the next steps brought me at faster speeds. Okay, so what were the next steps? So the next steps after that was graduating from high school.

So I went into a military high school called Saint-Cir lecolle. And then right after I joined the French Navy, because I wanted to do something different from my dad, he was Air Force. so I selected Navy. One of the reason I selected Navy was because we get our training in the U.S. So I got shipped to the U.S., got my training in Pensacola, Florida, then into Meridian, Mississippi, and started flying jets with the U.S. Navy, the T-45C, the Gawshark, and landed on the French Navy aircraft carrier for the first time in 2009.

Was that the scariest thing? Yes. Actually, I don't recall it, to be honest. seconds before landing on the boat, I have no memory of it. Basically, you're so stressed, like your brain erase what just happened. So it's amazing. I only have like three blank spots in my memory. It's my first three landing on an aircraft carrier.

After that, you get used to it. You just kind of black out. I mean, you're still flying. Just when you land on a boat, you try to recall what your actions were during the last 15 seconds, and you just can't. That's how I lived it. And is this a common phenomenon? Like, have you talked to other people?

Honestly, we don't discuss it that much. Really? Yes, it's like, oh boy. Am I going to get kicked out of the program because I don't recall it? So you just, I guess it's like if you spot a UFO, you just don't talk about it. It's just like stuff you don't discuss with your colleagues. So I don't know about my colleagues. Well, interesting.

There's a whole follow-up examination on that. So what does that feel like? I paint the picture of landing on an aircraft carrier. certainly not experiencing this. I bet our audience doesn't know that much about it. Like, what does that look like? At first, it's stressful. Because you're going into the unknown, you're like 21, 22 years old. You got a lot of training before. The US naval aviator curriculum is very well designed. So you get like hundreds of practices attempts on an airfield, but it's not like being on the boat. And the first time you're shipped to the boat, you're on your own.

There is no instructor in the back seat, even though you're flying an aircraft that could have an instructor in the back. You're on your own. So it's a really good opportunity to basically take ownership of your fate because there is no one in the aircraft that's going to be able to help you. It's something where you really have to face your responsibilities. So we really see it as a way to become naval aviators. Like you don't have a choice. There is no escape route. Nobody wants to quit at the point, but you just have to face it.

the exam basically so you have to give it a try and what's the worst that can happen you can cure yourself and has that happened yes it has happened in the past if you if you YouTube aircraft carrier jet crash you're going to see some videos and actually part of the training is watching those videos oh so you watch those videos oh yeah before doing it actually it's a very smart way to make sure the students understand the risks and consequences of their actions and do some people see those videos and they say I'm Usually, no, because you don't come all the way to landing on a boat by mistake. I mean, there's a lot of training.

There's a lot of self-selection for that. Exactly, yeah. So if you don't want to try it through, I mean, there are a lot of different airframes. You can fly in the military. You can select to fly helicopters. You can select to fly multi-engine propeller driven or jets where you don't have to land on a boat. Lending on a boat is the result of a long process that requires a lot of training, but also a lot of motivation.

Now, is the boat moving a lot when you land on it or just a little bit? That's what makes magic. It depends. It depends on the wind. What we're looking for is a number of knots of wind on the flight deck, usually around 30 knots, like let's say 35 miles an hour of wind on the flight deck. And depending on the weather at sea, the boat is going to move in a different direction and he's going to try to create those 35 miles an hour of wind.

So let's say there is like 35 miles. miles of an hour of wind at sea is going to go straight towards that wind and it won't be moving fast. Oh, right. Let's say there is only five knots of wind at sea. The boat is going to have to create his own wind so they're going to go full power.

It's like 28, 20 and 29 miles an hour. And then you're going to have a big wake in the back of the boat. So you're going to be able to see from the air, oh, there is this huge wake behind the aircraft carrier so he's moving fast. So that's how the wind is going to be. And there

is a lot of different chain, stuff that are going to be influenced. So every single landing, every single day is different. You're a badass, man. I mean, this is really fascinating. So play this out for me. You're like about to land. And maybe this is what you've blacked out. But what is your mental state?

Like I imagine there's a lot of training that goes into controlling your breathing, controlling your physiology. Describe that. Exactly. So there is a lot of preparation. before going to the boat. So you have to know yourself extremely well. So part of the training is getting to understand

how you work as a human being and how you work under stress. So you're going to be stressed a lot during your training to that point. And you're going to learn how you can use that stress to turn it into performance, basically. Love people sometimes see stress or anxiety

as something bad. And during your curriculum as a fire pilot, you learn how to use anxiety as a way to prepare for the stressful event. So that's basically what we're working on is we're going to use all the anxiety we have because we're not going to go to the boat for the first time. We're going to turn it into fuel to prepare for that stressful event, landing on the boat. So it's a long process, but after a year or two of training, it just feels natural.

And honestly, if you aren't able to do it, you're usually kicked out of the program before. And how exactly are you going about turning anxiety into fuel? Basically, it's all about the mindset. So you know you're a human being and you're going to be stressed. That's just how your design. There's no way you're not going to be stressed by landing on a boat or going to combat in Iraq, stuff like that. You know for a fact you're going to be stressed.

So now knowing you're going to be stressed creates some anxiety before. Now it's all about turning that anxiety into something productive. So there is a picture I like to use is like during spring and mountain. Let's say there is a big mountain. There have been some snow that landed on the mountain.

Spring is coming. The snow is going to melt. It's going to turn into water. So if you don't do anything, the water is going to become some sort of a huge wave destroying everything at the bottoms of mountain. But what you have to do is

use the water falling from the mountain and use it, canalyze it, basically bring it to a dam that's going to transform all this energy into electricity, like power. That's basically what we do. So it's all about being

able to drive all this flow, this water, of this anxiety towards something productive. So now what is productive to learn on a boat? It's working the books, all the textbooks, discussing with other pilots that do have the experience, sharing knowledge with them, learning

from their mistakes, flying into the simulator, so putting some extra hours in a simulator, even if you do have your regular training, but you want to go the extra mile to be prepared, see some unforeseen scenarios, and do mental visualization and preparation. It's all about being mentally ready, mentally prepared. So we would do some sort of, you could call it meditation or yoga or mental preparation, but you would sit in a chair, close your eyes, and imagine exactly what you're going to do. So I'm going to take off from the boat, I'm going to put the gear up, then I'm going to wait like 15 seconds, look to the right, look to the left, turn to the left at 30 degrees in Gulf Bank, climb at 1,000 feet, depart, come back, and you would go step by step.

Totally. What is my mission going to be? You're going to live it before in your brain, and then you're going to go through it with all what we call the what-ifs, the unforeseen stuff that could happen. What do I do if my gear does not come down? What do I do if the weather changes, if the boat moves, if the weather condition changes, if clouds come in, and you're going to prepare yourself mentally. And you're going to find energy to do that because we're talking long hours and long hours using that anxiety that you have because you're a human being and you know you're going to get yourself into your party if you don't do it. So it's some mindset stuff. I love that whole explanation.

I mean, you're essentially talking about using anxiety to give yourself. energy to complete all of these tasks but one of which is actually a task which is to relax the mind and to prepare the mind right and that piece the visualization piece from having i've gotten to speaking out of a lot of interesting athletes and performers you name it and a lot of them if not all of them use some form of visualization i mean it just always keeps coming back up when you visualize or when you did visualize would you see yourself in the third person or the first person it depends I would visualize at different times. During the day, I would like, as I said before, sitting a chair.

But I would also, that was more later down the stage as I knew myself better, let's say for combat missions. I would put alarm clocks during the night to wake up during the night and visualize laying in the bed. And I realized that I had access in a different way to my brain. And at that time, I would visualize more in the third person stuff. But I would think about what ifs that wouldn't come to my mind. during the day, just a different way. So you would actually intentionally wake up in the middle of the night

to do visualization exercises. Yes, I mean, middle of the night will be a bit wrong. Usually I would put my arm clock one hour before the time I would like to wake up and I would use this last hour. Yeah, yeah, one hour before and I would be like in and out of sleep

during that last hour accessing my brain. And in that case, you're actually picturing, you're looking down on yourself because you're describing yourself in the third person. Yes, it's more, a gods eye view and it was more for combat missions so it's more like I'm seeing myself in the aircraft I'm seeing the battlefield as well and I'm trying to think of scenarios that wouldn't normally come to my mind

to try to anticipate what could happen during the combat mission it's really interesting like the feedback I've gotten on visualization is that the third party view that you just described is very good for visualizing like the outcome or the success or even the next. negative. Whereas the first person can be, so that's where you're looking through your own eyes, that can be much more tactical. That can be, you know, you're visualizing literally flipping the switch on the dashboard. You're visualizing how to hit the shot in a sport, you know. Is that, does that sound consistent? Absolutely, yes. When you're visually using first person, that was what I used to learn on a boat is I have to go through procedures. I have to basically

train my brain in advance to be like an automatic mode because we have a saying in aviation is that every time you step in the aircraft, you're about 40% dumber than what you are on the ground. What does that mean because of the stress? Because of the stress, lack of oxygen. A lack of oxygen, right, yeah. Basically, it all comes down to we're human beings. We've been walking for thousands of years, but we haven't been flying for a long time. We've been flying for like 100 years. So we're not designed to fly. I like that. So we understand it, and now we know we're not going to be able to max perform yourself in the aircraft because they're just so new.

The body isn't used to it. I mean, we're not designed to fly. So we're just going to be dumber. And we like to say we're not very smart on the ground either, so we're really going to be stupid in the aircraft. That's why we have to prepare a lot because just like in top guns, they say it, like you don't have time to think when you're in the aircraft. And fighter jets, it's true. you have to make all the preparation in advance. And so that's why you use all that anxiety.

You turn it into your energy to work and to anticipate all the scenarios. You just reference Top Gun. What movie do you think portrays what it's like to be a combat pilot most accurately? If any, I mean... If any. I like Top Gun, but there are several ways of watching Top Gun. I think there are several layers at Top Gun. And some of them are actually pretty interesting.

If you look, let's say, the opening sequence of Top Gun. gun you see um so maverick is as a what we call the wingman he's number two he's not the leader yeah his leader is uh oh uh cougar yeah i think cougar is the leader yeah and um they have an engagement with what they call the mic 28 so the mic 28 does not exist in real life but they have an engagement with enemy aircraft and then you have the leader that freaks out and um basically and i think that's really nicely put he looks at a picture in the cockpit of his wife and kid and then during the debrief with the admiral he says like I was thinking about my wife and kid and I just I quit I resign and it's very interesting because we never fly

with a picture of our wife and kids but the reason is you don't want to be distracted yeah I bet and I think it's it portrays in a very good way the fact that being a fire pilot you have to be in the moment to be performant you have to focus on the moment and part of our job is to be able to to remove all the external stressors to be able to max perform during one to eight hours for the combat mission. And that's what I like about Top Gun

is the outside might be very Hollywood but there is some deeper layers and one of the reasons why fighter pilots quit or don't succeed is because, yes, they have too much stressors and they cannot just leave them outside the cockpit. They're unable to focus during one to eight hours on their task.

And if you can do that, you can fly a jet at Mach 1 or Mac 2. It's too dangerous. What was the hardest stressor for you to keep out of your mind? Being responsible of the life of special forces on the ground. Yeah. I got some what we call TIC troops in contact scenarios in Iraq. One of the biggest one was with guys from the U.S. Marine Corps.

It was back in 2016, and they were ambushed by snipers. Oh, wow. And I was caught, I was called to help them. I've been airborne for about six hours. And at that time... Which is a long fucking time, right? I mean, imagine six hours strapped in a single seat with the helmet on your head.

You cannot move, you cannot go to the restrooms. And you're sweating, right? You're sweating a bit, and you had to take off from the boat. We had done three air-to-air refueling at that point. We had dropped a bomb on some enemy guys. And you're getting ready to go back toward the boat, and then they call you, we need your assistance right now. The troops in contact are getting shot at.

And at that point, I was already a dad. I had two kids in 2016. I've got three. But what I thought at that point is, depending on how long it takes me to accomplish my mission and save those guys, a dad or a father in becoming might not make it back home in the States. And that was quite a big stressor because I had kids of my own. And you're like, oh, right now I'm holding the responsibility to bring fathers back home. Basically, I do have the opportunity to make a difference on the battlefield for those guys.

It's going to come down to how efficient, how well train, and how good I am for the next couple of minutes. So I think that's the biggest factor you can get, because people rely on you to save their lives, basically. Yeah, I mean, that's an unbelievable responsibility. And it sounds like you let that thought enter your mind, but then it sounds also like you use that thought to drive back to that idea of the anxiety to create fuel. It's like extra extra snow if you want

that now I can basically melt and turn into energy. Now, what else did you find about combat missions that was a worldly experience for you? I think it's interesting to see how fast the human being and the body

can adapt to situations. Oh wow. Yeah. So it was after the Bataklan assault, like a terrorist attack in France, we deployed two days after that. And at that point, it was October 2015, so we deployed two days after, and we started our missions about 10 days after the terrorist attacks. So it was big attacks in France that claimed, I think, 150 lives. Oh, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about it.

And so we deployed right after that, so the mission was clear. our goal was to help the Iraqi military regain control of the town of Ramadi, a very famous town, especially for the U.S. forces. So we were helping on the Ramadi battlefront, but also in the north, the Kurds. Anyway, so basically a week before the attacks, I was doing air shows.

So I was in charge of, at the time I was wingman of a flight of two Raphael, and we were doing air shows across France. So basically just signing autograph and flying low and fast in front of crowds, so a lot of fun. And then you're just doing cool, cool stuff. Like the cool stuff you can imagine was a jet. Like they gave you a 100 million jet.

I mean, two of them, and you have to basically entertain 100,000 people. So you're like the superstar, and it's pretty cool. That's awesome. So you're enjoying life, and you're not thinking about going to combat. And then a couple weeks after, you deployed, you're flying above enemy territory, and you have to do strikes. And the first mission is pretty stressful. Second mission that you do usually 48 hours after is still stressful.

But I mean, you've seen what it's like, and it's starting to, the stress level comes down a bit. And then from the third mission, it's just, I don't like the word routine, but it feels natural to go to combat. And it was really a surprise to me because I thought combat was going to be stressful the entire time. And that's one of the big stuff I learned about the human being is you can, adapt to anything. It's very impressive. Yeah, that's amazing. How about the team aspect of it? You know, like it sounds like each of these flights, you're up there alone or you have a partner? You never ever fly alone. You always have a partner. One of the reason for that is, as we said earlier, we know you were human beings. We know we're going to make mistakes. Sure. And right now,

I'm sitting in front of you, but I cannot see what's right behind me. Right. If there is somebody in my, like, let's say, two feet behind me, I won't be able to see him. And it's the same in an aircraft. You can see what's in front of you. You can see on the side, but there is no way you can tell what's in your blank spot, basically. And as human being, we do have some. So we never, ever go to combat alone. It's always a minimum of two jets so that we can, what we call, cross-check each other,

and we'll make sure the other guy is doing okay. Nobody is attacking the other guy. And we have an expression to check somebody's six o'clock. Yeah. So you're making sure nobody's in his dead zone, basically. And the same in commercial aviation. Now I fly commercial. And then there are two pilots, and the two pilots are the captain and the first officer.

We're sitting one next to the other. And the captain isn't sitting more forward than the first officer. It's on a straight line that you can easily look at each other and cross-check each other. Because we're going to make mistakes. We make mistakes as commercial pilots, as fighter pilots. We make mistake. I mean, we have been audited. Like, we make sometimes several, like, up to 200 mistakes in eight hours.

But we know we're going to make mistakes. So we have a mindset where we want to cut those mistakes as soon as possible to mitigate them from turning into accidents, basically. So 200 mistakes in eight hours, like to the naivier, that actually sounds like a lot. But what would classify as a mistake? I imagine you're probably pretty critical or so critical. Exactly. So that's a very good point.

anything that isn't perfect would be a mistake, basically. Let's say, I order you to switch to radio frequency 1-21 decimal 2-2, and you dial in 1-2-1-25, you cut it right away and you put it back to 2-2, that's a mistake. But the reason you want to identify every single small mistake is because at the end of the flight, you want to debrief yourself, you want to make a debriefing and learn from the mistakes that have been done

and try to find a way, if there are any way we could change our process to make sure we don't make them again. And by doing that, we have this continuous improvement methodology and philosophies that we use to turn a high school graduate into a fire pilot in a couple years, a young fighter pot into an instructor at 28 years old, and then turn him into like ed instructor before it's a 30 or 31st birthday. Well, you know, you've got what's called a growth mindset, which is someone who, is trying to find failure or mistakes and use them as an opportunity to improve and to grow. And it's a super, I mean, it's an incredibly healthy mindset that everyone should try to adopt to the extent that they can.

And what I love is that you're describing, you know, being a commercial pilot, which I imagine just doesn't have the same adrenaline rush as being a combat pilot. I don't think that's a controversial thing to say. And to be fair, you probably are going to get the plane from point. point A to point B, no matter what, right? It's just the consequence of me knowing that you've made any mistakes or zero as a passenger on your flight, yet you're describing how can I make zero mistakes over the course of the flight.

You're just trying to create this, you know, unrealistic challenge that then in turn pushes you to be a better pilot or a better version of yourself. Exactly. But even though the two might be very, look very different from the outside, it's all about the mission. Sure. And just my mission is extremely different.

When I fly a jet in training, a fire aircraft in training, my mission is to train without breaking anything because we don't want to bring jets. When we're going to

combat, my mission, let's say it's what we call closer support. My mission is to make sure I provide support to the troops on the ground. That's my mission. When I fly commercial aircraft,

my mission is to go from point A to point B. My mission is to be safe. and make sure my passengers arrive at point B with 100% safety. If I cannot get those 100% of safety, I won't go. And we see it as having a contract not only with the passengers, but also with the family of the passengers. So it's all about just understanding what your mission is

and then making sure you align yourself with the mission and you follow the process and it enables the mission to happen. Now, being a fighter pilot, that involves two aspects, right? One is really, well, I mean, I'm sure it involves a lot of aspects, but one is flying and the other is shooting, right? Correct. Now, I can imagine someone being good at one and not the other or a little better at one and not the other. How does that work? Actually, you could find more aspects.

Let's say one is flying. Yeah. The other one is tactics. Okay. And you can add the third one, which is leadership. Okay. As we said, we never go to combat alone. So there is a management part of being an officer

and also being a fighter pilot because you have to handle and manage other people. So you're either a wingman, just like Maverick, is a wingman for his leader. And if you're a wingman, you have to be a good follower. So followership is extremely important in the fighter aircraft community. Or you're a leader, and then you have to inspire the other guys

to make sure they perform at their best and make sure they want to follow you into combat because nowadays, I mean, I don't know about the U.S. military, but I'm pretty sure the same. You cannot force anyone to go to combat. Oh, really? French military is entirely like volunteer military and if somebody doesn't want to go to combat,

he's not going to go to combat. There is no way I can force him to take off and follow me toward the enemy territory. So you have to make sure... To be inspiring, yeah. You have to inspire the guy, make sure he understands why he's going, and make sure he's willing to max performance.

because let's say I have an issue with my aircraft, I have to reject. Now I need this guy to protect me, basically. So usually you have to be good in those three areas. If you're not good at flying the aircraft, you usually don't make it through the basic training. What we're looking for is a standard. If you don't fly the aircraft at a good standard, you won't be able to make it to what we call the fleet,

to your personal level. Same with airline pilots. For the shooting aspect, yes. But it's a small part. It's more the tactical aspect. Shooting is only the end. It's like, let's say you're a commercial, you work, you're a salesman. It's like closing the deal, signing the papers is really the end of the sales process.

For us, pressing the trigger is the end of the shooting process of all the tactical phase. So you want to be good at anticipating what the enemy is going to do and now you're going to move your assets to make sure you are at your advantage when you're going to deliver the weapon. So it's quell of training for the tactical phase. In the management phase, you can't make it to a leader position in the military if you're not good at handling your guy. So usually to be a fire pilot, you are good in those three parts. If you're missing one, you are either rerouted toward another route, another airframe,

or you don't last very long in the operational squadrons. They send you somewhere else because they usually want people under A games in combat squadrons. What would you do to prepare for a combat mission? You know, like say you knew tomorrow is a combat mission. Let's talk about sleep, food, nutrition, supplements, drugs, anything. You know, how would you think about that? Sure.

So going to combat is the end of a very long process that basically includes all your training phase. In the military, we train like 99% of the time. during the training we're going to grow our skills but also we're going to get to know ourselves better it's all about getting to know yourself so because know thyself yeah because i know how i react i know exactly what type of food or cycles i need so in terms of food let's say it's a morning flight early morning flight i have to take off at 6 a.m i know i'm taking off at 6 a.m i'm off for about 6 hours and a half in the jet, so let's say eight hours total in the aircraft because you have to start

up and taxi back. My day will start the day before. The headquarters are going to send me the orders and my mission, my task. I'm going to meet with my team, with my wingman at a given time and we're going to look at the orders and prepare the mission. We're going to do it the day before to anticipate and then I'm going to try to finish pretty early and we're going to have have dinner, do some paperwork, and go to sleep around, go to bed, around 10. I like to work out a bit in the evening before. So I'll try to get as much sleep as I can on the aircraft care. And then if we take off at six, I'll wake up at 3.30-ish.

Breakfast, I'll get with proteins a lot. I like proteins because it's going to, like for my energy level, it's going to be more stable. So I try to do with eggs in the morning. drink a lot because my fluid intake is going to be limited in the aircraft. I can only bring a water bottle of one liter with me for the eight hours. Oh, man. So I'm going to try to... I'm downing a one liter as we do an hour-long podcast to put that in perspective.

Yeah, it's a good thing. We just don't have enough room in the Rafael to bring more than that. So I'm taking a lot of fluids in, a lot of water. How much water would you drink before you get on there? Because I tend to work out a lot on the boat, so in the morning I'll try to get a liter in. So in the three hours before the flight. And I guess you have to be careful not drinking too much, right? Because you can't go to the bathroom?

Actually, you can. I mean, you use a system. So, I mean, okay, two different ways. You can have a diaper. I never tried. My understanding of it is more like a single shot. Or you can use what we use in hospitals. you have like a system with a bag.

Oh, yeah. So you prepare yourself in advance, just like in the hospitals. And then in flight, you can put your bag out and you plug yourself to the bag. And you can basically, and you would usually put 1.2 liters in eight hours in the bag. Wow. It's quite a lot, actually. Yeah, that's an enormous. And you want, you don't want to, you have to appear during the flight because let's say you have to eject.

it might be dangerous for your body if you eject and you take like 15 or 16 Gs during the ejection it might damage yourself if you don't pee basically If your blood is full Exactly if you're blood is full Have you ever had to eject? No, lucky me My dad had in 84 back in the days So that's literally like you eject and then you're immediately parachuting

Yes so basically when you eject so you pull the ejection handle Like you see in the top gun and you're being remove from the aircraft you are like on a huge rocket seat um you get attracted from the aircraft the aircraft continues to to fly a bit depending on the situation is going to crash but you don't know where if you eject that high altitude and then when you reach about 12,000 feet your parachute is going to deploy will it deploy automatically or it should yes it should deploy automatically because in the case you black out you yeah you're conscious it has to deploy sometimes you might have to deploy yourself on your own.

Let's say you eject above Afghanistan. There are a lot of hills or mountains. And the parachute is going to deploy around 12,000 feet because it's where you can breathe and it's where the temperature is correct. Let's say your parachute deploys at 30,000 feet. You're going to freeze and there isn't enough oxygen for you to breathe. But let's say you eject above mountains

and the mountains are very high, then you will have to detach yourself manually from the sea to make. make sure you don't crash basically in the mountains so that's one case you could have to do it yourself otherwise trust the system and then your parachute you're falling at about six many meters per second and you wait for the impact basically i've gone skydiving before ah nice would that be it's actually how many jumps did you get i only did one and it was tandem and so i had a dude on my back but we jumped probably from 12 000 feet yeah between

12 and 15,000. Yeah, usually it's 3,800 meters to 4,200 meters. Yeah. And the big difference is you have a sports shoot. When you eject from a jet, you're going to have a round parachute. It's not the same, so you can't control it as much. And you can't flare. That's a big difference.

So I'm pretty sure your instructor flared before landing. Yeah, where you kind of swoop down. Yeah, that's it. And then you run a bit. Exactly. Exactly. So for us, you're just falling. You just fall straight down. It's basically like jumping from a two or three-story building.

When you land. When you land, yeah. So you have to brace and wait for the impact? And have you practiced that before? Yeah, we get some training like with the U.S. Navy. We do some training with that. But I used to be a skydiver. I got 180 jumps, but...

You did 180 jumps. Yeah, when I was a teenager. So 180 times is many times. Yes. So that's pretty fun. But it doesn't prepare. superior you as much as you wished for an injection because you don't know how you're going to your body's going to react to the ejection You might have a broken back broken leg. There's a lot of difference. Oh, when you when you fly out of the plane Yes, yes, you might hurt yourself if you look at the movie behind enemy lines

Yeah, you have a super hornet that gets shut down in in Eastern Europe and it's a crew of two a pilot and a navigator Yeah, and the pilot gets hurt during the ejection so he cannot run away and it's something that might happen. So those are stuff you have to take into consideration when you think about your evasion plan, all that stuff beforehand. So let's go back to the prep and the supplements and stuff. Sure.

So you're eating mostly protein in the morning. You're drinking about a liter of water. You've only got a liter of water on the flight. Yes. Any caffeine? I used, no, back in those days. Would you drink coffee or anything? No, I started drinking coffee

when I started entrepreneurship. I was caffeine-free during my military career. But you can take pills. I think that's smart, though. I think that's smart because I imagine back to that whole concept of anxiety is fuel and also wanting to be super even keel. Because it's such a long period of time, eight hours, you know, I think caffeine's more effective if something's an hour or three hours, right?

Like, it's why athletes take caffeine before sporting events. But eight hours to me, then you're going to cross. crash at some point off of caffeine and it's a question of can you can you reload exactly yes my mindset back in those days was I don't need any external help I have to be able to be autonomous all the time so I don't want any external help they would give us pills if we want caffeine pills to help us remain awake and then they would give us pills if you want to sleep and part of my mindset was I'd never want to have to use those because I don't want to become dependent to using those spirits.

If I have to eject, spend 20 days, three weeks on the ground. I want to know I'm able to do it myself, and I don't rely on anything else. I love that. Have you ever taken things like Adderall or things like that that make you focus? No, never, no. And do you feel like those are getting more or less common in, you know, tactical situations? Because I've had conversations with Navy SEALs. And it's like actually pretty amazing all the stuff they'll take to stay awake for three days or something.

Yeah. Or constraints aren't the same as what sales can have because we're only doing eight hours. And you have to give back to the salesers or doing an amazing job and there have like crazy work schedules. But we're in charge of material. It's basically too expensive and too dangerous to be put at risk. So we want to make sure it's not a good way. I mean, as fighter pilots were a little bit, the princess. of the battlefield. I mean, it's true, it's true.

We have to be taking care of. We have to be put in good situations because there is absolutely no room for mistake for us. And if we make a mistake, we're going to crash. So we want to make sure we're able to perform at our best. One of the way to do that is to maintain within our operational and comfort zones. That's why we're going to do 12 hours.

We do 16 hours day on a daily schedule. on a daily schedule but for a 16-hour day you don't need to take pills yeah we don't have to remain awake for three days like navy seals do so it's still within human capacity and we don't have to medicate herself to do that when you get uh off the flight after you know eight hours right say say even you've gone to a on a combat mission you just come back do you find that your body is still amped or is your body like it crashes no it's it's still amped um what i would do during the flight so drink one liter and then I will use like protein bars every two hours

I would hit a protein bar so you have the protein bars in the air yeah I take them with me and I would have a protein bar every two hour and before landing on the boat I would take more a sports bar with sugar stuff like that basically to give me some kind of boost before landing on the boat because I need my attention

to rise so I would basically take some sugar before landing on the boat and then with all the pressure from the mission and running on the boat usually at night, what I would do is drink and go for a small run on a treadmill. So I would run for like 20 to 30 minutes

on the treadmill after the mission. I got the blood flowing in my legs because I haven't moved for eight hours. I like to use compression socks during the flight as well. So I would like get my legs moving a bit and then in the shower and then you do some paperwork called a debrief, a shower. It's important for the rest of the crew

because you really don't smell well. after that many time in the jet and after that you try to get a good night of sleep as well which is not always easy to to recover well after the missions it's super fascinating so let's talk about the transition what was the moment for you when you

you know because 33 right I imagine there's still plenty of fighter pilots that are older than you it's just that you got into this also much younger so what was the moment for you where you realized it's time to move on I had an exciting career I had a chance to fly air shows

I've been to combat I felt like I gave back to my country by doing so and I had goals that I set for myself entrepreneur goals stuff like that I'm French-Canadian so I've got a Canadian citizenship as well and I was very tired from my nine years

in operational squadron so I asked the Navy could you please like get me out of focus proportional squadrons for a couple years. I'm fatigued, I'm tired. I didn't know why I thought it was because of the combat rhythm, but I was really tired after my combat tour. And they told me, no, like you have a lot of instructor qualification. We need you to remain another 10 years in frontline squadrons. So I told them my marriage is not going to survive it. I'm not going to survive it. I'm too

tired. So I tried to join Air Canada. I got selected to join Air Canada, so I decided to live the service. And I started my pilot training with Air Canada, and after a couple days, qualified on the Boeing 737 max, I got a stroke at 31, almost day-to-day, almost two years ago. Wow. So I guess it's a good thing. I decided to leave the military and got into Air Canada first. And what they realized during the IRM is that I had a broken arteria.

You know, you have four arterias that go to the brain. Yeah. And I basically snap one of them. 14 months before my stroke during an air show. I damage my neck during an air show. I hurt myself. Oh, my gosh. And at the moment, it was very painful,

but, I mean, I still did the flight. I flew the next day under painkillers. And then I took a week off and then deployed to combat. Wait a minute. So you have this serious injury. You take some painkillers. You do all the flights. And then a week later, you go to combat.

Basically, yes. And it was still bothering you? Or it'd stop bothering you? Like, this seems like a very... It was still bothering me a bit. But we just started the Bataclan terrorist attacks. So, I mean, the mission was first, and we discussed about the mindset and what's the priorities.

So your mindset, and I imagine a lot of the training that you did mentally, helped you overcome any pain that you're in. Yes, yeah, I mean, your mission focused. Yeah, you're not going to start complaining when... I mean, I used to get phone calls from guys whose family members were... were either killed or wounded during the battle attack, so you're not going to start telling them, yeah, great, you know what, I'm not going to deploy

because I wrote my neck doing air shows and signing photographs. It's not the mindset you're in at the time. Yeah, but 14 months strikes me as a long time. So is this something that, you know, anyone could actually have injured and not recognize, or? It looks like it, yes. Looks like it. there is several ways for your arteria basically to get damage mine was it got blocked from the inside

like one of the side teared off and and basically blocked the blood flow so that's why i was so fatigued but i didn't recognize it and my medical examination you don't do iram so so so nobody noticed basically so i just i was tired that's basically it i was very fatigued during a while and that's when I started taking coffee, basically. I started after combat. So that was probably the whole cause. And where were you when you had the stroke? When I was back in France, so I basically did all my training with your Canada,

48 hours before, passed the exam, flew back to France. My wife was pregnant with her third kid. She was away during some exam for university, and I was alone with my two kids. So they were three and six at the time. time. So it was like 9 a.m. in the morning. I was giving them the baby bottles. And I couldn't swallow properly. So I was, oh, that's weird. It hurt me a bit when I tried to swallow. So I tried to move my face and you know, smile and stuff like that. And one side wouldn't respond.

Actually, it took a selfie, which is a good thing. The doctor told me it's very good to take a selfie when you have your stroke. And also what I didn't know, so it might help someone, is you want to move your um your um your tongue your tongue outside and see how your tongue moves because depending on what side of the brain and how the brain is damaged it's going to it's going to influence how you're um how you're able to to basically put your tongue outside so you'll if you see someone doing a stroke can take a picture and then you ask him to to put his tongue out and take a picture as well it helps the immediate action immediate feedback for for the doctors um so i basically try to text my wife.

I had issues texting because my right side wasn't working very well. So not just the right side of your face, but even your right arm. So my right hand was still working, but it was extremely difficult to make it work the way I wanted. It was also difficult to speak out the word I had in mind. It's not painful at all. It wasn't painful. And actually, I like that type of third person view feeling like, oh, like shit.

sorry for the curse sorry like oh oh that's happening that's bad and part of me always knew that's that's another point but part of me always knew

something like that would happen because when you're a fighter pilot you have to be fit and I had nourished the feelings that it wasn't fair to be allowed to fly jets when some people that might be smarter or more motivated than me weren't to like to fly jets for medical reason

So it had been like maybe five, 10 years or I basically had the feeling one day, physically something's going to come back. Like it cannot be, you cannot remain fit your entire life at some point. You just, bad luck's going to turn. So I wasn't very surprised because mentally I had thought about it before. Like one day, my physical condition won't last. And I wasn't expecting it to be at 31, to be honest. Yeah, right.

But I was like, okay, now I have to deal with it. So I called a doctor that basically told me hang up and call 9-1-1, like the French 911. Oh, wow. I called the French 911, and I was shipped to the hospital. Some friends took care of my kids, and I had to stay six days in intensive care. So basically the issue disappeared by itself, and then they started all the tests, try to find out exactly what was going on, and they don't really have a cause. I think it's related to stress and fatigue.

It forced me out of the cockpit for a minimum of one year, so I couldn't fly with her Canada for at least one year. And that's how I started my basically second life and starting a business in the UK. And actually, I've never been happier than now. So basically, it's crazy. Like the stroke brought me a new career. I wouldn't have dreamed of.

So my life has been much, much better since I got my stroke. So it's a good example. Lucky me. And along the way, you found whoop. Exactly. So we're all lucky. Exactly. Yes.

What happened to me is, so as an entrepreneur, I basically do consulting, keynotes and workshops. And we're expanding quite a lot. I mean, a lot for a small company, but now we're like six employees. And it's very difficult to manage your time. I mean, you know what it's like. You have a lot of social stations and you want to take care of the HR stuff. and being a former single-seat guy, I like stuff to be well-done,

and it's tough to find a good people to work with you initially. You have to train them. I mean, everything is time-consuming, and you still have to sleep. So I realized I was getting like four hours of sleep every night because I had absolutely no knowledge of the business world. So I would take care of my company during the day. During the night, listen to YouTube videos,

do some like remote MBA work, stuff like that you to understand what it's like. run a business. Sure. And I would sleep basically with a four hours left I have every day. And then I realized, hey man, you got a stroke like a year ago. Yeah, chill out. Maybe you should, I mean, people told me, maybe you should chill. But it's very tough to get disciplined to do it. And knowing myself, I knew I needed something external to be able to track my recovery, but also how fatigued I am. Yeah. And because, I mean, I'm speaking in front of people, stuff like that, I have to look like a firepot as well. So I started eating a lot because I wasn't sleeping enough and all that

stuff. So I started gaining some weight. So I went to work out again and working out when you're fatigued is not the best thing to do. And on Instagram, I saw a whoop advert. So initially it was on Instagram. And I was, oh, that looks interesting. So I started doing my research. I'm into researching stuff all the time. And I found the concept very interesting. And I really now use it as an external way to discipline myself. So it's like having a coach yelling at me of your evening, now go to sleep.

It's basically it, but I realize I'm not sleeping enough, like a lot. And sometimes you think you're recovering enough, but you're not. And it really helped me go back to what I actually preach

in keynotes is aviate. When you fly a jet, and there are three stuff you have to do. It's what we call aviate, navigate, and communicate. So if your aircraft isn't flying properly, let's say you're diving toward the ground.

Don't ask yourself where you're going or don't start communicating with air traffic control. Just put the aircraft, wings level, pull back, and make sure you have at least 30 seconds of survival in front of you. When you have your aircraft under control, you can ask yourself, navigate, where do I want to go, which direction?

And once you handle your aircraft properly and you know where you're going, you can start communicating with the outside word. And I wrote a book called Debrief that basically is around those three themes. And you can adapt it to your everyday life. So Aviate is taking care of your body, yourself, physically and mentally. If it's not taking care of, there is no way you can give yourself goals professionally or personally. And once you can take care of yourself and you know what you want in life, you can start communicating with other people.

And when you're a manager is the same, like Aviate is does your team, work together properly. Navigate is what are other goals and communicate once your team know how to work properly and where to go, then can start interacting with clients or with other groups of the company. And basically who helps me aviate on a daily basis, because if I don't sleep well, I'm going to be not very nice with my, not my customers, but with my team, I might be a bit rude or I might not have good ideas, so it all starts with basically your sleep and the way you know yourself and also it's a good way to know how fatigue you are to handle your workload during the day if i'm not recovered because i had big flight i'm going to try to mitigate

my workload during the day that's how i use whoop that's awesome man i mean it's it's incredible for me to hear that from you uh you know you've got a really inspiring life story and message and uh and you know really the whole uh vision for whoop uh was to build a product for high performance people. And I always believe that the same technology that could make a professional athlete optimal would be able to make an individual who, like you, is go, go, go, figure out how to dial it back. And so, look, we're all proud at Whoop that it's played an important role in your life and you've been able to find more balance as a result. And it sounds like find more happiness as well in your own life.

Yeah, absolutely. Now, what are some tricks that you have for our audience? As a guy who is, you know, clearly super motivated, ambitious, what are things that you do when you see that your whoop data is telling you you're not sleeping enough or you're not recovered enough? What are some ways you get back on track? Step by step. Basically, I try to take my goals, break them into a lot of small achievable goals.

and let's say I'm Which by the way is some of the best advice you can give anyone about anything is take big goals and break up into small And something I've learned During my my father-apult career on a boat Is no goal is too small And it's all about maintaining a positive mindset

So whatever you do in life It's all about your mindset Your mindset dictates everything I mean you could have a PhD from Columbia from whatever university And be very smart or have money If you don't have the good mindset, it's not going to work out. If you have the mindset, it's going to lead everything.

So usually what I realize is when I've got poor recovery stats is my mindset is impacted. So I tend to detect it and say, oh, my mindset might be impacted by my fatigue. But basically when I'm fatigued, my mindset is less go, go, go, and I tend to procrastinate more stuff like that. So I'm going to break my goals into much smaller goals to try to go back into a positive mindset, like go from very small victories to very small victories. And just like very simple stuff, very simple stuff in a row, and it's going to usually put me back on track for the rest of the day. So I tend to detect it and say, oh, like the goals I had set for the day,

I'm never going to be able to basically find the energy to do it. So I'm going to set myself new goals this morning just to get back in a good mindset. It could be very simple stuff, like just like 15 managed jog, a couple of stuff that I had on my tool list I want to get rid of, and I'm going to do it, even though I hadn't planned to do it this morning, just getting back in order. Build momentum. Exactly. That's exactly it.

I'm going to try to find a way to build momentum because it's all about momentum in the morning. Sometimes I'll write things down that I just did, just so I can check them off on a list. Yeah, that's a good one. You know, it's funny. Like, I think momentum is such an important phenomenon and something that people, people and especially entrepreneurs

don't really talk about. I find that successful entrepreneurs are very good at creating forms of momentum for themselves, that they're not even consciously aware that they're doing. You know, you just described this idea of doing some simple tasks that just kind of get you going, right? Exactly. Or interacting with people.

It's like yesterday evening I was fatigued with a jet flag and everything coming from Europe. And I wasn't in the mood of working out. I wasn't just in a good mood. I stopped in a shop to buy some protein shake, stuff like that. And I started talking with a guy. He asked me, what do you do? So I told him, man, I'm in town going to do a podcast.

And just starting discussing with a guy, interacting with a guy. And I left the shop feeling better, actually. That's cool. It's just funny. Like, sometimes just giving away some time or engaging with people and sharing some stuff gives you more energy. So I basically left the shop with some of the energy he gave me. And I used it to go work out after. That's great.

What do you do to fight jet lag? I anticipate. So basically, I read your article about jet lag. Yes. Did you like it? Yeah, I liked it. It's an article, I think it was a basketball team between East Coast and West Coast. Oh, yeah, totally.

You did some tests like that, so I've really enjoyed it. Actually, it's something I used to do myself. Like, sometime I would come in North America, coming from Europe just maybe for three or four days. I would try to maintain my European time zone because in North America, it's easy to get a stake at the time you want, stuff like easy to get food at any time during the day. So the phenomenon you're describing for our audience

who's listening is sleep consistency. So this idea that you want to go to bed and wake up at the same time, and you're describing, effectively staying on the same time zone, even though you're in a different location, to maintain the circadian rhythm and to maintain the sleep consistency. Exactly, that's it.

And when I can't, or let's say when I'm in North America for 10 days on my trip currently, I'm going to anticipate about two or three days prior. I'm going to go back to, I'm going to go to bed slightly, I'm going to move it about an hour a day. So I'm going to, instead of going to bed at 11 in France, I'm going to do 11 one day,

I'm going to do midnight the other days. I'm going to do 1 a.m. and then I'm moving across the Atlantic and then I'm going to shift basically my rhythm a little bit and then I'm going to take it from there in North America so then I'd say this morning I woke up at 5

I'm going to be at bed around 8 or 9 nothing planned tonight and then I'm going to keep that rhythm and then before going back to France I might switch it around a little bit so instead of facing a 6-hour jet lag I might only face 1 or 2 because I anticipate that's smart

Yeah, just shortening the time difference is also one way to think about it. And what are guilty pleasures for you? Like, do you ever drink alcohol? Do you ever? No. I feel like pilots don't drink alcohol. Some do. But I like to say last time I drank alcohol, I got married in Vegas, which is true.

I got married in Vegas. I don't drink alcohol just because I used to do a lot of sports. I was like in triathlons and duathlon 10 years ago quite a lot and I like to feel fit in the morning I don't like feeling wasted or something like that so I don't drink alcohol that much my pleasures will be

so I like sport but like guilty pleasures will be food yeah like when you see some donut shops here it's stuff to resist and what are some of the effects of altitude that we might not know about. So I'm someone who travels a lot.

Yes, I've got a good one for you. Do you drink coffee in flight? Well, I actually don't. You don't? Okay. But I think I know where you're going with this, so tell me why. Just some people don't know that, but basically, depending on the pressure, the temperature at which water balls changes. The cabin pressure.

The cabin pressure, exactly. So you're basically when you're flying in an aircraft, the water boiling temperature is about 92 degrees. So the taste and the coffee, everything's a bit different. Long story short, if you fly in a jet and you climb at 66,000 feet. Yeah, which is crazy. And then you have a decompression.

Like basically there's a hole in the cabin. So spoiler alert, airliners don't go at that altitude, so you don't risk anything. But the boiling temperature is 38 degrees, which is your blood temperature. That's why you might have, notice that when you look at some aircraft, let's say the U2 aircraft, a big spy aircraft, pilots, they have a specific way to dress and they have suits with their own oxygen inside

and pressurization. That's the reason why. If you look at modern aircraft, modern fighter aircraft, we don't normally go about 50,000 feet because if there is a pressure issue, it's going to affect us. That's a small thing. So it affects the coffee you're drinking every time you, you, you fly commercial. That's pretty cool. But the big, big, big takeaway would tell people is when you fly in a commercial aircraft, you should drink water at least two liters, especially during long haul, because the cabin is very dry. And the dehydrates. Yeah. And you should walk. Walk, yeah. You should walk. Usually they tell people you should stretch, but you should walk. And every time you walk, make sure you make at least 14 steps. Why 14? Because if you do less, it has been proven

that the flow isn't going to come back from your legs. Huh. And what you want to do is basically make sure the blood flows back toward your heart. So you want to make at least seven steps per foot, so 14 steps minimum. One tip I got recently that's made a huge difference to how I feel on flights and afterwards is to not eat. So interestingly when, and you already know this, but when you're at that altitude, your body's shutting down, unnecessary bodily functions, one of which is digestion. So when you eat a meal on a flight, your body isn't digesting it efficiently,

which in turn makes you lethargic and tired. Another thing I've learned just from flying a lot is you'll notice that stewardess is almost never eating on flights, and it's because they've got a job to do, and if they eat, they're going to get tired. And also you inflate a little bit because of the pressure. Oh, totally, yeah. So your shoe size. get a little slower.

Yeah, yeah. And so if you eat, it's going to basically create more gas as well. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, cool. And any other life hacks that we should know about to optimize our performance here, out there? I think setting goals,

I mean, that's a big classic for performance. But setting goals is key because setting goals, basically if you use goal setting, step by step methodology and then you're going to be able to have a positive mindset and go toward your objectives. We have a saying in dog fighting when you fight each other

is a lose sight, lose the fight. If you lose sight of the opponent, of the enemy aircraft, you're going to lose the fight for sure. Oh wow. Because you won't be able to max perform your aircraft and go in his 6 o'clock to be able to get a valid shot. Sure. So I think it's important to understand that unique objectives

and you have to maintain those inside. You never, ever forget what your objectives are so that you remain aligned all the time with those objectives and you can crush them and then move to the next one. I love it, man. Well, it's been really inspiring, sitting with you and talking to you, and congratulations on everything you've accomplished at the young age of 33.

And where can people find you if they're looking to learn more? It sounds like you've got a book as well, which we're going to include in the show notes. I'm on LinkedIn. So basically the best way to get in touch with me directly is on LinkedIn, Pierre Henri Chouet, if you Google that on LinkedIn. Otherwise, I've got a website.

It's Debrief, so www.D, like, delta. Yeah. And brief, Bravo, Romeo, India, Echo, Foxtrot. I enjoyed that. The name of the book, Debrief. It's in English. And we'll include that in the show notes. But thank you so much for coming on the,

The podcast has been a pleasure. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Thanks again to Atte for coming on the podcast, and we're thrilled to have him as a member on WOOP. If you're not already a WOOP member, you can join our community for as low as $30 to begin. We provide you with 24-7 access to your biometric data,

as well as analytics across strain, sleep, recovery, heart rate variability, and more. The membership comes with a free Woopstrap 3.0. We offer 6, 12, and 18-month memberships. The more you sign up for, the more you save. If you enter the code Will Ahmed at checkout, that's W-I-L-L-A-H-M-E-D, will give you $30 off a membership, just for listening to this podcast. For our European customers, the code is Will Ahmed E-U, and that will give you 30 euros off when you join. For our listeners in Australia, the code Will Ahmed

A.U. We'll get you 35 Australian dollars off your membership. And for our current members, you can upgrade to the Woop Strap 3.0 and get access to all the new Woop Live features by following the link in your Woop app. If you're out of contract, you'll literally get the

3.0 for free when you commit to another six months. Check out Woop.com slash the locker for show notes and more, including links to relevant topics from this conversation and others. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review the Whoop podcast on iTunes, Google, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. We'd love to hear your feedback. You can find me online at Will

Ahmed. I try to respond to everyone who reaches out. And you can also follow at Whoop on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. You can email The Locker at Whoop.com with any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions you may have. Thank you again to all our listeners, to all our members, we love you.