here's the most important question

people ask me this question all the time

they say Steve what is your favorite

ever episode on the DI ofo podcast and I

think the more important question is

actually what is your favorite episode

on the DI of AO podcast of all time and

so I went out to try and answer that

question what is your favorite episode

what is your favorite moment on this

podcast of all time and using a data

scientist and a big team of analysts

we've found the most replayed moments of

all the hundreds of episodes we've

produced this year to show to you today

these are the moments that you replayed

and shared more than any other moment on

this podcast

theoretically this should be the most

valuable D of a CEO episode you ever

listen to because it's a compation of

the most valuable moments that we've

ever had on this show in 2020

[Music]

three the seventh most replayed moment

is my conversation with jles yo where he

takes on some of the biggest myths about

Health weight obesity and he answers the

question do we have to get fatter as we

age is it genetic what are the easy ways

to manage our weight after I read it in

your book about us gaining more and more

weight his we age I Googled it and the

healthcare research and quality agency

said that we naturally tend to gain

weight as we age to the tune of 1 to2

pounds per year according to their

review and that's from the agency for

healthare research and quality which I

found quite startling but but completely

accurate so the numbers so what what the

numbers that we have is yeah I think

that's right actually so between 20 and

50 years old those 30 years intervening

the average person average will gain

about 15 kilos in weight which is 32.

yes 2 pound a year one to 2 pound a year

15 kilos in weight is gained over 30

years on average some gain very little

others gain a hell of a lot more we look

at ourselves in a mirror I look at

myself in a mirror um but it's true I

don't want to be that

guy mate I don't know how much choice

you have what can I do to to to try and

stay CU for me it's not really about the

weight thing or how you look it's more

about like

I I am I don't know how to say this but

there was this big set of stairs the

other day really really long set of

stairs leading down to this Lake I was

in Indonesia a couple of months ago um

and I I remember thinking about those

stairs and thinking God if I wasn't you

know athletic and strong and didn't have

good knees and things like that there's

no way I'd be able to get down this long

winding handcarved set of Indonesian

stairs so that I could go on this boat

trip that I was going to go on and I

just thought about how it was a weird

thing I know this is kind of a strange

story to tell but it crossed my mind I

got to the bottom of the stairs and I

turned to the person I was with and was

literally like you know that's why I've

got to stay in shape for as long as I

can because I want to do these boat

trips and I want to go on this little

rafting thing but I won't even be able

to access it unless I can go down up and

down those stairs like 200 meters of

stairs down this Cliff um so that's what

I care about I care about being active

and strong and fit for as long as I

possibly can and I from what you've said

about gravity and weight um being

overweight is going to inhibit my

chances of being able to do those stairs

so so that I think there are two

elements there first of all there is

doing the things that we want to do okay

like that because you're exactly right

these are the things which I can still

do that I can still walk up a mountain

or down a mountain because I'm still fit

enough to do that and I want to stay as

fit as long as I can to do that and

weight will inhibit that undoubtedly but

then there's a second element to

actually consider now that's healthy

look none of us are going to live longer

we

hopefully and anyway if we left lived

longer but was unhealthy would you want

to live longer so you want to live

longer but healthier for longer okay and

undoubtedly the thing that is closest

related to health when you age is not

your total weight there's a role to play

there the amount of muscle you have it

is your muscle mass as you age

independent of how much fat you have

okay that will determine how healthy you

are as you age so as so now the moment

now I'm talking about going into the 60s

and the the 70s rather than when one is

able to go down a 200 me set of steps

okay so now as you get older the most

crucial bit of information is to

maintain resistance training not lifting

and that's not what I'm talking about

sitting on a wall getting up and down a

chair because that the amount of muscle

mass you have really really really marks

the level of Health that that you're

going to get and then the the signs is

startling it is so so so related

independent of independent of weight you

know from from from the so muscle mass

is the most important for healthy aging

the moment you get 60 70 plus

interesting okay so I'll keep I'll keep

doing resistance training correct always

keep resistance training and lifting

weights as long as I can lifting weights

as long as you can at some point you

won't be able to lift weights just don't

don't write me off don't write me off

John the hubis of Youth yeah that's the

naivity of Youth yeah you just assume

you'll always be able to do what you can

do now I I yeah it's something I think a

lot about and I think a lot of people

will watch this podcast

because probably especially this time of

year we're in January they'll probably

be trying to find ways that they can cut

fat they want to be a bit skinnier you

said think you said half a stone you

want to lose I'm in the same place I

think most people want to lose a half a

stone or something what is the way that

you would suggest to do that the simple

way you know not the like

complicated go by this guy's course and

do three million sit-ups whatever the

simple advice you would give someone

that's H hoping to create sort of

sustainable weight loss so the first is

the amount of protein you eat and you

need to try and focus on trying to keep

to about 16% of the energy in your day

okay from protein 16% and there's a

sweet spot so if you eat too much and

you're not lifting you're stressing your

kidneys because your kidneys have to get

rid of the nitrogen from the protein

okay so 16% is a sweet spot and it

doesn't mean steaks only it can mean

beans tofu any kind of protein from from

anywhere 16 % second is fiber we need to

eat as much fiber as physically possible

okay 30 gr we want to aim for although

we're looking at the moment on average

in this country we're probably only

eating 15 grams we need to double the

amount of fiber we actually eat third we

need to limit the amount of added sugars

into our diet added sugars meaning

sugars not tied up in fiber powdered

stuff uh uh um maple syrup alav nectar

all those are added sugars you put in

keep it to 5% or less of the of the

energy content in your day and those are

the three numbers that that that I want

you to think about so 16% of protein 30

gram of fiber 5% or less of added sugars

apply that to whatever you want what

keto um whatever you want to do apply

that and I think that will be a

sustainable healthy way to eat the sixth

most replayed moment is a conversation I

had with Dr Mindy pels who talks about

the belly fat burning diet nutrition is

a huge thing at this time of year and so

she lays out exactly how to eat and

behave in order to reduce belly fat and

to improve your overall health you told

me about the first two styles of fasting

the first one was intim fasting which is

12 to 16 hours which is good for weight

loss brain fog that kind of thing the

second is autography autophagy what did

I say autography but I like it I said

autophagy I said autophagy we can play

that back I definitely said autophagy

and if I didn't we'll fix it with AI um

autophagy fasting which is 17 to 72

hours good for balancing sex hormones

and preventing illness yeah number three

we haven't spoken about gut reset fast

yeah what's that yeah so that's based

off uh a study that came out of MIT that

showed 24 hours without food and your

intestinal stem cells inside your gut

actually start to reboot themselves now

a stem cell is a cell that can go to

anywhere in the body and repair itself

but at 24 hours you get a plethora of

them in your gut and in the gut we've

got a damaged microbiome from everything

that we've just been talking about so

what I discovered in this 24-hour fast

is I could take women that had been on

birth control pill for years um people

that had been on multiple rounds of

antibiotics people who had been eating

horrible food and I could actually put

them through a 24-hour fast once a week

once every every couple of weeks and

these stem cells would come in there and

they would start to repair and so now if

I teach that person How to Eat Right

their food is actually starting to build

a better microbiome in the gut so that

24-hour fast became this go-to in my

clinic where I could take all these gut

challenges and I could start to unwind

them just because I knew the body had

this capability of making these

intestinal stem cells and it was crazy

like we got people off supp ments we got

people that were didn't weren't making

serotonin which affects moods comes from

the gut all of a sudden start to become

happier people who hadn't had bowel

movements in like three days all of a

sudden we started to put in these this

gut reset and it was like a miracle it

was incredible number four fat burner

fast so the fat burner fast is probably

my favorite for those people who want to

lose weight the research was done that

36 hours without food followed by 12

hours of eating and then another 30 they

actually did it over a 30-day period but

we've been using it in our community

just dosing it in that at 36 hours what

happens is that's enough time where the

blood sugars come come down where all of

a sudden the body it's so smart it goes

okay blood sugar is not common we've

been in this fasted State we've

triggered autophagy we've brought

inflammation down we've made you ketones

we're trying to go find food but this

extra weight it's not not serving you

you cuz remember you got to go find food

so it drops weight and it's the most

beautiful way to get a person to unstick

any kind of weight loss resistance but

most importantly you know where it it

dropped the most amount of weight from

where does everybody want to lose weight

belly yep so it is the I probably should

have called it the fat burning belly fat

burning the belly fat yeah that would

have banged yeah but yeah and so that's

what they showed is that actually a 36

hour fast started to unstick weight loss

and it was started with weight around

the

belly

compelling number five the dopamine

reset fast yeah so number five um I

found some research showing that when

people go without food for 48 hours the

whole dopamine system will be rebooted

so what's important to know about the

dopamine system is it is our molecule of

happiness it is the thing that it's

actually a motivation molecule and it's

a neurotransmitter that allows thoughts

happy thoughts to go across from neuron

to neuron and so what happens and I'm

sure you've talked about this on your

podcast that we're so dopamine saturated

right now but specifically people who

are Overeaters they actually are finding

the study I quote in the book is that

they found that people who had food

addiction people who had extra weight

like obese

situations they were not getting as much

happiness out of their food because

their dopamine receptor sites were

saturated so they had to eat more food

to get more happiness and a lot and you

know food is a state changer it does

make us happy so what they found is if

they put them into a 48 hour fast that

they actually rebooted the whole

dopamine system and new dopamine recept

toyes appeared so that when they brought

food back in to the equation they

actually got more enjoyment out of food

with less food this kind of got me

thinking about a conversation I was

having yesterday with some of my team

here we were talking about how um it

almost feels like sometimes if I've

eaten sugar I can go into a bit of a

sugar cycle and what I mean by that is

I'll have some sugar and then like a

couple of hours later I'll have another

craving for sugar and then a couple of

hours later I'll have another craving

for sugar but then at other times

specifically for example when I did keto

I was I did the keto diet for about

eight month uh eight weeks bloody eight

months I wish um8 weeks and throughout

that period I didn't have any cravings

for sugar yep I we had some chocolate

come into the studio and I walked over

to the chocolate and I smell it Y and I

didn't want any of it y it had gone but

then when I'm in my what I call like the

sugar cycle I'm eating sugar maybe you

know once or twice a day and I'm getting

like the craving for it where which I

just can't seem to resist yep well

dopamine's the molecule of more it's not

the molecule of enough so what it does

is when you get sugar you get this

dopamine rush and the Brain goes woo

love that give me more of that and so

you con you it's it's endless you will

never be fully satisfied it constantly

wants you to come back for more and more

and more so when you start to go off the

ketogenic Energy System you're getting

the same Euphoria you probably felt the

same high the the same mental Clarity

but you've totally taken this molecule

more out of the out of the picture it's

it in fact dopamine will actually you

know you you get those receptor sites

that will be repaired but you're not

getting a big dopamine buzz when you're

in a ketogenic State you're getting

ketones I was I was mulling it with my

team how long I had to stay away from

sugar to kind of get out of that vicious

give me more cycle yeah my experience

has been it's about three days three

days that's what I thought yeah I think

I said four or five but it's just from

experience as well if I haven't had

sugar for three or four days I mean like

a like a chocolate but something

significant in terms of sugar then after

3 or 4 days the craving for it seems to

to vanish yeah yeah it's not it's not if

you think about that it's not hard if

you're trying to overcome a sugar

addiction yeah like just bear it for 3

days and then that dopamine stops

barking at you and then if you attack

fasting onto it now you're getting

ketones and so you're not needing that

as much ketones kill hunger and they

make you so mentally mentally clear they

give you this euphoric feeling so you

don't have that urge to go for the for

the sugar and the ketones come from

fasting which is when your body switches

metabolic State yeah the last and final

fasting style immune reset fast yeah so

immune reset was built off of Dr wter

Longo's work and he did a study on

people who had cancer and were going

through chemotherapy and one of the

challenges we know about chemotherapy is

that it wipes out the whole immune

system and so he wanted to see well what

if I put somebody in a fasted State as

they went through chemotherapy would

there be a difference and what he found

is after 3 days of fasting the white

blood cells in our system actually

reboot themselves so what they do is all

old white blood cells are are sloughed

away and new white blood cells emerge so

people were able to come out of that

chemotherapy experience and have a

stronger immune system as opposed to

what we were seeing was that it was

wiping the immune system out so that

launched the whole three-day water fast

sort of craze at least here in America

we're seeing a lot of people that are

just going after 3-day water fast to

Prime their immune system but you also

also at three days get stem cells full

systemic stem cells so all of a sudden

your body's got in surging with stem

cells going to all parts of the body

repairing it the great example I always

use on this one was I had an Achilles

tendon injury and nothing was nothing

was helping it so I threw a 5-day water

fast at it on the fourth day I felt this

buzz in my achilles tendon and I was

like oh wonder what that is

and it stayed all the way through I went

five full days and um about the fifth

and sixth day so sixth day I was

entering food back in all the pain

completely went away and it never came

back I tried everything I tried

everything and that was the only thing

that repaired

it it does make again evolutionary sense

that if our body senses we're injured

because we're not eating or you know

some other signal that we are

on a course to not survive to put it

nicely it does make sense that it might

set about to repair whatever needs to be

repaired you're getting it you know cuz

like if I was a wounded human back in on

the savanas of I don't know Africa or

wherever we came from um and I'm laid

there and I'm not eating my body should

probably go okay Steve might need

something fixed so that he can get back

to yeah hunting so you're getting it so

survival that that is the number one

priority of the body so when you go

without food you amplify every resource

it has to keep you alive and if

repairing my achilles means I can now go

hunt for food it's going to do that it's

going to make me stronger and I in the

book I I stumbled when I was writing the

book I stumbled upon a really cool

hypothesis that's called the Thrifty

Gene hypothesis and it said that what

it's a theory obviously it's hypoth

hthis it's a theory that the people the

humans that evolved out of the Primal

days had a very specific genotype and

this genotype allowed us to

metabolically flex and and be stronger

in a fasted State because we had to

survive and the people that didn't make

it from that time period didn't have

that Gene but think about this for this

moment so they think we all have this

Gene inside of us right now this Thrifty

Gene where we can go long periods

without food and we can survive so what

happens when we're eating all day what

happens when we're ignoring and we're

not actually activating that genetic

profile so what they are now believing

is that diabetes metabolic syndrome all

of that is largely happening because we

are going against the G the genetic

profile that we are now seeing in humans

we're like on the opposite end of the

spectrum we're overloading our bodies

yeah

which is meaning that the survival Gene

you referen there is not being activated

to help us that's right that's right

interesting the fifth most replayed

moment is a moment from my conversation

with Matthew Walker who is the world's

number one expert on the subject of

sleep he explains the importance of

sleep on our overall health on our

weights and everything in between but

most importantly of all he gives us a

road map for how to sleep better and I

know so many of you are struggling so

I'm not surprised that this is one of

the most replayed moments of the dire of

a CEO of 2023 had a lot of Health

experts on this podcast recently but

none of them have really talk to me

about the role that sleep or sleep

deprivation plays

in

wait is there a

relationship it's probably one of the

most well defined relationships that we

know in all of sleep

science and it is at least a three-part

story so the first Emer evidence came in

terms of um hormones so there are what

we call appetite regulating hormones and

the two principle ones of concern here

are something called leptin and gin now

leptin when it's released will signal to

your brain that you're satisfied with

your food you are satiated and you are

no longer hungry grin does the opposite

when grin is released it says no you're

not satisfied with your food you are not

full you still want to eat more you are

still hungry and some of the first the

they started to uh just limit people

restrict people's sleep to 6 hours or 5

hours or 4 hours and what they found was

that um there

was firstly that signal leptin that says

no you're satisfied with your food you

don't want to eat anymore you're full

that signal of fullness satiation was

decreased by 18%

if that wasn't bad enough grin which is

the hunger hormone that Leed up by

28% overall hunger levels Rose by about

uh

26% so firstly you are it's almost like

double jeopardy that you are getting

punished twice for the same crime of not

sleeping enough once by losing the

signal of I'm full I I don't want to eat

anymore and once again for the no I'm

much more hungry and I'm just going to

overeat which is

gring so what that produces is a profile

of increased eating so on average

underslept individuals started to eat in

those studies about 3 to

400 extra calories at each sit at each

sitting by way of insufficient

sleep then what they discovered is that

it's not just that you want to eat more

it's what it is that you have a craving

for when you are

underslept and this is the problem what

they found is that when you're

underslept you eat more of everything

but you especially eat more of these

heavy-hitting stodgy carbohydrates bread

pasta

pizza the the next thing that you

started to eat have a preference for was

simple sugary Foods sweets and chocolate

and then finally you started to Crave

very salty food and high sodium food

intake will increase your blood

pressure so that was the first of the

the three mechanisms then we did a study

where we said perhaps it's not just the

circulating hormones in the body the

brain is the ultimate Arbiter of your

food decisions so what's going on in the

brain so we took a group of perfectly

healthy individuals and we put them

through the experiment twice once when

they'd had a full 8 hours of sleep and

once when we deprived them of sleep and

then the next day we place them inside

an MRI scanner and we showed them images

of lots of different foods that range

from being sort of you know very healthy

to being very unhealthy and of ice cream

and you know chocolate and pizza and

things to Leafy salads and nuts and

greens and vegetables and we asked them

to rate how much they wanted that food

for each item now we did something a bit

sort of dedly to make it more

ecologically correct so that they

weren't just saying okay they probably

think I should probably say that's how

healthy we said we're going to randomly

select one of these images these food

images that you see and after you get

out the brain scanner we're going to

give you that food and we're going to

politely ask you to eat it all so it

made it a bit more realistic so the

choices were more you know as much as

that we could so what we found is that

when they were sleep deprived the Deep

honic centers the emotional centers of

the brain these desire centers these

reward centers um they ramped up in

their activity in response these highly

desirable highly unhealthy Foods so

these more basic sort of you know

gutteral parts of the brain as it were

um these reward centers were lighting up

much more strongly when you sleep

deprived were still the impulse control

regions in the front of the brain what

we call the prefrontal cortex they were

shut down they were taken offline so as

a consequence you lost your impulse

control and that's why you start to then

say you know when I'm sleep deprived at

the food sort of buffet I'm not I'm not

going to do salad I'm just gonna that

pizza looks awful good or that Pastor

with the cre I'm just going to go into

that all go so so your it's what we call

a pattern in terms of brain activity uh

in Neuroscience of honic eating that

your brain goes into this honic desire

profile so now we understood it's not

just hormones in the body it's also

changes in the brain then came the

finding that there's another chemical in

the body that's

responsible and this comes on to

cannabis when people

um when people when people that you may

know have smoked cannabis they'll often

say I get viciously hungry I get the

munchies I get really hungry that's no

coincidence because cannabis will

stimulate appetite now we all have

naturally occurring cannabis compounds

in our brain brain and our bodies they

are called endoc canabo Endo meaning

comes from insiders um whereas the

Cannabis that comes externally when you

sort of smoke it or um take

Edibles

so Endo canabo do many things for the

brain and the body but one of the things

that they do is control your appetite

and your hunger and what we found is

that when you sleep deprived individuals

these naturally occurring endoc canabo

rocketed up by over 20 % cranking up

people's

appetite and so these three ways lead

you to start packing on you know when

insufficient sleep is occurring when

sleep gets short your waistline

typically starts to expand and we Now

understand the reasons if that wasn't

bad enough it is bad enough the yeah can

you just stop M honestly I'm really uh

the the last thing that we discovered is

that let's say that you're trying to be

really careful and you're trying to diet

and you're trying to lose

weight if you're not getting sufficient

sleep then 60% of all of the weight that

you lose will come from lean muscle mass

oh God no and not fat not the muscle I

know exactly so in other words when you

are dieting but you are underslept you

lose what you want to keep which is

muscle and you keep what you want to

lose which is fat

so again it's I'm sold not an ideal

situation sleep is important I get it

I'm sold how do I my question is what

are the things that in the modern

society are standing in the way of sleep

we've touched on some of them Loosely

but some of the like big obvious things

the things that you would suggest doing

very actionable things we could do

straight away to improve our chances of

having that healthy um deep sleep that

we need to be um optimal in every regard

of our health and performance there's

probably I think five standard tips what

we call sort of sleep hygiene that you

can do and then I'll come on to maybe

just some unconventional tips uh that

we've sort of touched on and we've

spoken about many of these the first

thing I would recommend people to do and

this is why when some people say oh what

about this new sleep supplement or you

know it's it's 40 quid for this bottle

of these sleep new sleep natural

medications I'm going to give it a try I

would say try these tried and true

things first before you spend your money

on supplements the first thing is

regularity go to bed at the same time

and wake up at the same time no matter

whether it's the weekday or the weekend

your brain expects regularity it thrives

best under conditions of regularity when

you give it regularity you can improve

the quantity and the quantity of your

sleep the second thing is get some

Darkness at night as I said we don't get

enough darkness in the modern world

and so the trick I would offer and I

don't use it I don't like the word hack

but the suggestion would be in the last

hour before bed try this experiment for

everyone listening for the next week dim

down half of the lights or switch off

half of the lights or even a 34s of the

lights in your home in the last hour

before bed all of the lights in every

room in all of the rooms you know switch

off almost all of the light now I'm not

suggesting be unsafe and walk around in

the darkness in the last hour that's not

what I want to saying just dim down you

know switch off half of the lights you

will be surprised at how sleepy that

Darkness will make you feel and it's

also an incredible behavioral

trigger to signal to your brain that it

is time for sleep that darkness is

around me that's the second tip is

Darkness the third T tip is temperature

most people sleep in an ambient bedroom

temperature that is too high and you

need to aim for a bedroom temperature of

about 18 18 and a half degrees celus

around about 65 to 68° Fahrenheit if I'm

I'm probably butchering the the

mathematics there on that but um you

need to get cool now you can wear thick

socks you can have a hot water bottle

that's fine but the ambient needs to be

cold because you need to drop your core

body temperature and your brain

temperature by about 1 de Cel to fall

asleep and stay asleep and it's the

reason that you will always find it

easier to fall asleep in a room that's

too cold and too hot so make your

bedroom cold make it dark like a cave

the the fourth question would be what

we've or fourth suggestion would be Walk

It Out and we've spoken about this the

30 minute rule you know get up do

something different or meditate you know

don't lie in bed awake for too long then

the final two things we've spoken about

well we've spoken about caffeine we

haven't spoken about alcohol but let me

just say as the kind of headline of it

alcohol is not a sleep aid many people

use it as a sleep aid it is not your

friend alcohol again is a sedative so it

knocks you out the second is that it

fragments your sleep so you wake up your

sleep is littered with all of these

small Awakenings most of them you don't

remember because they're too brief but

it makes for miserable lousy quality

sleep and the final thing is that

alcohol is very good at blocking your

REM sleep or your dream sleep which we

know is critical for many other

functions as well so alcohol is not your

friend that's the sort of the final tip

again you know just every if you're with

friends have a glass of red wine just

know okay my sleep's not going to be

great and you know I'm not yeah

I'm whatever it's just you know live

life to of course I'm not saying that

the fourth most replayed moment is a

moment from my conversation with the

world leading neuroscientist the man who

has scanned more brains than anybody

else Dr Daniel aan who is a favorite on

the D CEO and he tells us very very

clearly how to grow a healthier brain I

can change my brain it's the most

exciting lesson that I've learned you're

not stuck I'm not stuck with the brain I

had you're not stuck with the brain you

have you can make it better I can prove

it in fact every day what I've come to

believe you're making your brain better

or you're making it worse let's start

there by what you're doing what things

make the brain worse what are the common

things that most of us do without

thinking that make the brain

worse when my daughter Khloe was in

second grade I went to her classroom and

I wrote 20 things on the board and I

went separate them for me good for your

brain bad for your brain seven year olds

they got 19 out of 20 right so most

people

know the only thing they got wrong was

orange juice they put it in the healthy

category when in fact when is it

rational to unwrap fruit sugar from its

fiber source because it turns toxic in

your body so I'm not a fan of fruit

juice I'm a fan of fruit not fruit juice

what's bad about sugar for the

pro-inflammatory

which what does that mean it makes you

diabetic but I mean as it relates to the

brain why is like orange juice or the

ice cream bad for my brain because it's

ultimately going to give you high blood

sugar levels MH which erode your blood

vessels and you're going to have lower

blood flow to your brain that's bad

thing I mean there's so many things

about it so it's addictive it's proin

inflammatory it makes it more likely

you're going to have diabetes and

obesity so 72% of Americans are

overweight 42% are

obese I've published three studies on

35,000 people as your weight goes up the

actual physical size and function of

your brain goes down that should scare

the fat off anyone I used to be chubby

but when I figured out that connection

I'm like oh no I'm it was that that gave

me the motivation to drop about 25 PBS

and so

sugar is the gateway drug to diabetes

and obesity and so not to

mention

inflammation which is the cause of

depression and dementia so you want to

avoid things that cause low blood flow

caffeine nicotine caffeine caffeine

constricts blood flow to the brain what

does that do to my brain Con well

constricts blood flow so you're going to

get less blood flow and remember I

showed you that progression with

age no you don't want that you want to

do things that increase blood flow to

your brain so exercise genko this one of

the supplements I'm going to give you

eat foods like um beets

oregano Rosemary

cinnamon they increase blood flow while

we're on blood flow 40% of 40y olds have

erectile

dysfunction 70% of 70y olds have

erectile dysfunction what that means if

you have blood flow problems anywhere it

means they're

everywhere and

so like

no and it means either you're too

sedentary you're overweight you're

smoking or having too much

caffeine or using marijuana because

marijuana lowers blood flow to the brain

and so just in that one of the 11 it's

exercise

genko for you not for everybody but for

you hyperbaric oxygen those three things

will make a big difference in blood flow

flow genko genko what is that it's a

supplement what does it do uh increases

blood flow to the brain the prettiest

brains I've ever seen take genko there's

actually a spec study uh they gave uh

people 120 milligrams of genko twice a

day significant Improvement in blood

flow to the

brain and so in one of the supplements

I'm going to give you we have genko I

I've taken it every day for the last 20

years at least and then this is where

the US government got an F for the

pandemic

loneliness accelerates dementia and

brain problems and so when they isolated

us the whole significant increase in

brain problems so get connected to other

people the eye in bright Minds is

inflammation so what increases

inflammation low omega-3 fat fat acid

levels and we are

deficient 93% of the population is

deficient in omega-3 fatty acids

93% so all of us should be either eating

more fish

or taking an omega3 supplement like fish

oil gum disease like who knew like I

wasn't really that good at taking care

of my gums until I started reading the

studies you have gum disease you have

inflammation you're more likely to get

depressed and have dementia the third

most replayed moment is a moment from my

conversation with Gary Breer where he

lays out how you can become a superhuman

strip the fat off your body and get

yourself healthy with free easy simple

exercises that will cost you nothing at

all when I heard the story about Dana

White and I saw he had gone from

respectfully being a man that had a

little bit of weight to to having this

these six-pack abs on Instagram of

course the six-pack isn't the the

outcome it's as you've said it's the

stuff going on inside him that's really

the transformation but what can someone

who's just heard that at home where do

they start with getting extending their

life by triple and getting the so you

know he also started something called a

superhuman protocol and superhuman

protocol is using magnetism oxygen and

light right so the only things that we

really get from Mother Nature the the

the big benefit we get from Mother

Nature is is we get magnetism from the

earth we get oxygen from the air we get

light from the sun the truth is most of

us are not contacting the surface of the

Earth that much anymore so he bought

$150,000 worth of equipment a pmf mat an

oxygen what's called a hypermax oxygen

to do exercise with oxygen therapy and a

red light therapy bed and I had him use

that equipment every single day seven

days a week but if your listeners want

to do it for

free you can take off your shoes and

contact the surface of the Earth and I'm

talking about bare feet on soil dirt

grass sand because earthing and

grounding is a very real thing we

actually discharge into the Earth we

actually human beings build up a charge

do you know that pH the acid alkaline

scale pH stands for potential hydrogen

it's a charge it's a complete fallacy

that you can get alkaline by drinking

alkaline water that's the biggest

marketing myth ever sold to the public

um but you can get alkaline by

contacting the surface of the Earth so

if you don't have 150 Grand which I

don't expect anybody listening to this

podcast to spend 150 Grand but he did I

said you need a MAG you need a pmf mat

so you can be alkaline you need to spend

10 minutes a day breathing um 95% O2

under mild exercise and you need to lay

in a red light therapy bed so in the

absence of the Superhuman protocol you

can become superhuman by contacting the

Earth and by learning to do breath work

let's talk about breath work I spend 8

minutes every day doing a very specific

series of breath work people do not

realize the power of something that is

so accessible so free and so easy to do

right they they want things to be more

complicated but it's not and when I said

the presence of oxygen is the absence of

disease it's absolutely true remember

that every elevated emotional state that

a human being can experience actually

has in its molecular structure oxygen is

a component of that emotion so if you

look at the difference between passion

Elation Joy arousal libido and anger for

example it's usually only one

neurotransmitter and the presence of

oxygen the reason why no human being is

ever woken up laughing is because you

don't have the oxidative state to

experience laughter right out of deep

sleep but can you wake up angry yes

because anger doesn't require oxygen so

every morning contact the surface of the

Earth and then spend eight minutes doing

I do a wimh off style of breath work I

give credit where credits do he's the

father of breath work as far as I'm

concerned so I do three rounds of 30

deep breaths

like obnoxiously deep breaths and I

start by trying to take my belly button

and pull my belly button out towards the

wall imagine there's a string pulling

your belly button towards the wall and

then you you fill from the loes of the

lung to the apex of the lung and then

you exhale and just

relax did God knows what they think

we're doing out there right outside this

podcast they're like a bunch of freaka I

knew it was a cult um KN I knew he was a

cult leader but um so you do three

rounds of 30 breaths on the 30th breath

you exhale and you hold allow the

carbohydrate rep receptor to reset when

you don't feel you can hold anymore you

take a deep breath

in you hold again and you let it out

slow and you start again I would suggest

that you start with three rounds of five

breaths then work to 10 15 20 25 and 30

if you get laded this is a good sign

that the oxygen tension is changing in

your brain if your fingers and toes get

tingly this is a good sign that you're

changing the oxygen tension if you feel

some kind of heat uh temperature change

in your neck these are all Great Signs

you will get to the point where you can

actually hold your breath for two or

three minutes sometimes four minutes

between rounds of breath work um and

then the last thing is to expose

yourself to natural sunlight first thing

in the morning the first 45 minutes of

the day God gives us a very very special

type of light it's called First Light

there's no UVA there's no UVB rays in

this light um so that it's not the

damaging Rays from the Sun it still

generates vitamin D3 it has a positive

effect on cortisol on vitamin D3 first

light is the best way to reset your

circadian rhythm so by contacting the

surface of the Earth doing breath work

and getting first light you can get to

the same place that Dana White did with

150 Grand in equipment what about oxygen

masks cuz I I'll be honest when I read

when I read um about the Dana story I

went on Amazon soon after and I was like

I'm just going to buy an oxygen canister

good idea bad idea um so what you want

to do is um you know you get an oxygen

concentrator which takes 21% oxygen from

which is what the concentration at sea

level it turns it into 95% O2 and it

fills this bag and it can refill this

bag over and over and over again okay I

use one called the hypermax you can see

it on my Instagram and um you turn you

plug it in you turn it on it fills this

bag and then you go in you put an oxygen

mask on and you exercise for 10 minutes

only 10 minutes cycle for 3 minutes uh

Sprint for 30 seconds cycle for 3

minutes Sprint for 30 seconds cycle 3

minutes Sprint 30 seconds and you're

done and what this does is it raises

something called the partial pressure

the the storage of oxygen in your blood

the only two time two-time Nobel Ora

Prize winner in Medicine Dr otter

warberg won both of his Nobel prizes for

his work in exercise with oxygen therapy

you want to be a superum do mild

exercise every day while breathing 95%

O2 it's important that you're exercising

and then after that you move into a red

light therapy bed

photobiomodulation um so you know if you

don't have access to a hypermax oxygen

machine just do the breath work get the

breath in you know exchange the oxygen

tension and the tissues and expose

yourself to First Light what about cold

cold with the plunging so I'm a huge fan

of cold water punching but probably not

for the reasons why you think you know

um I also sit on the board of the NFL um

uh lumni Association athletica as a

health services director you know there

there was a time when we used to think

that putting athletes in cold water

after exercise was good because of its

anti-inflammatory effects we know now

that that's only about 15% of the

benefit the majority of the benefit

comes from something called a cold shock

protein if you really want to be

fascinated Google cold shock proteins

these are reserved proteins that are in

your liver they're dumped into the

bloodstream in effort to save your life

when you put yourself in cold water they

scour the body of free radical oxidation

they increase the rate of protein

synthesis muscle repair they are free

you get them when you put yourself in

cold water um I don't know what the

Celsius conversion is but I use 50° for

3 minutes minimum 6 minutes maximum cold

yes it's it's actually not that cold I

mean you know I see people getting in 37

38 degree water there's no evidence that

I've read that shows that colder is

better you get a peripheral Vaso

constriction so it forces all the oxygen

into the core and up to the brain um and

you you get an activation of something

called Brown fat right um thermogenesis

comes from Brown fat and for the women

that are listening for some reason I

seem to insens snare the women when I

say this

remember that the definition of a

calorie is a measure of heat right I

mean the definition of a calorie is the

amount of energy it takes to raise 1

cubic cimeter of water 1° Centigrade so

if if if a calorie is a measure of heat

then this means that when Heat's leaving

your body calories are leaving your body

so if there is nothing nothing no amount

of exercise hits cardio no type of

cardiovascular or weight training that

comes anywhere close to immersing

yourself in cold water in terms of what

will strip fat off your body fast if you

want to strip fat off your body get in

cold water 3 to six minutes a day that's

fascinating because because the oxygen

rushes to my head that's why it has a

really profound impact on mood that's

why it has a very profound impact on

mood because if you think about it

what's the reason why we need deep sleep

what happens in deep Sleep that's so

special there's a secondary oxygen

transfer we transfer oxygen from the

periphery from the extremities to the

brain remember the brain's a

non-metabolic organ so in other words

it's unlike a muscle if I pick up a

weight wait and start to work out my

muscle my arm my body will send more

blood more amino acids more oxygen to

that muscle because it's working well if

I'm sitting at my computer and I'm

watching reruns of The Simpsons or I'm

sitting in my computer and I'm solving

the most complex joint venture agreement

partnership agreement with all kinds of

mathematical equations my brain gets the

same amount of nutrients same amount of

blood flow same amount of oxygen so it

eats the same meal whether or not it's

in a dead Sprint or whether or not it's

just chilling on the couch except

in deep sleep and when you're in cold

water because it's forcing the oxygen up

to the brain the second most replayed

moment is a moment from my conversation

with Dr Tim Spectre a favorite on the

Diary of a CEO and here he talks about

health more holistically and some of the

biggest myths that most of us believe

that are currently standing in our way

we've got a fitness group among some of

my friends there's about 10 of us in it

and um we've been tracking how often we

work out and how frequently work out and

the workouts that we do and one of the

things I have to say is pretty much no

one in the group has lost any weight

we've been doing this for a

year and uh that kind of bucks what you

would think so the only time that I lost

weight was actually when I went on the

keto keto diet I went from 14 Stone 8 to

13 stone 8 in roughly in several weeks

but exercise and exercising for almost

religiously for the last two and a half

years doesn't really seem to impact my

weight at all in a you know in the way

that the Fitness Experts might tell me

on Instagram what's your stance on the

role that exercise play plays in weight

loss has very little role in weight loss

all the studies long-term studies show

uh it doesn't help uh weight loss and

it's been grossly exaggerated as an easy

fix for our obesity problem exercise

doesn't help weight loss no all the

studies show that the only caveat to

that is if you have ch ched your diet

improved your diet and you've lost some

weight at maintaining some exercise does

help prevent it going back up again but

as on its own if you don't change your

Dart it's of no use and that's well

known Now by all the Obesity experts and

all the studies does sugar make us fat

is that the

culprit one of the main things that's

contributing to no again that's that's

reductionism you know we the

but the reason the reason exercise

doesn't work it's important to realize

this is because we all know this that

you know you go for a walk build up

Hunger before a meal that's what your

parents told you you know and everything

about exercise is after it your body

slows down your your metabolism slows

down and it tries to

regain the energy that you've lost

that's just our EV Evolution and so

that's why it's a you're not going to

it's great for your health I'm in know I

exercise fantastic for your mood um it's

great for your heart anti-cancer all

kinds of things we should all do it but

absolutely not if your goal is weight

loss you have to do something about

changing your diet and I think that's

that's the big a huge myth particularly

Peto by gyms and uh fitness apps and

everything else and it it is complete

nonsense I read that you um when you

look to studies over 30 years and you

looked at how many studies had been done

on the relationship of exercise and

weight versus things like sugar and

weight there was 12 more 12 times more

studies done on the relationship of

exercise and weight versus sugar and

weight and why why is that why is there

less research done on the

latter um I think that's the influence

of governments and the food companies

and the drink companies so uh a lot of

the excise SI research done in the last

20 years was sponsored by uh large

corporations who wanted to make this

link between

uh exercise and weight loss so that they

could continue to sell sugary Ultra

processed foods and drinks and just say

it's you know childhood obesities

because we've we don't have playgrounds

and we don't uh encourage this and

that's why the Cokes and the Pepsis are

always there at the Olympic sponsoring

Olympic events and associating

themselves with Sport and they gave

hundreds of millions to various

physiology departments Sports

departments nutrition departments to do

research in this area basically it was

very hard to get anyone to do research

into how sugary drinks make you uh gain

weight or cause problems because they

the amount of money for nutrition has

been abysmally poor you know in from

from governments and that's why you know

we the only the first ever study of

ultra processed food in a controlled

trial was only about three years ago and

it's been around for you know 30 40

years so such is the power of that Lobby

that it it doesn't necessarily distort

the research in a sort of you know evil

way but they point it to make sure that

the researchers are working in an area

that they want uh people to work in and

distracting them keeping them away from

talking about sugars or even artificial

sweeteners which in my view are nearly

as bad because they're sort of you know

hidden um and and deflecting us from the

idea that yes giving kids sugary drinks

or even artificial sweet drinks is going

to be bad for them and cause obesity

wait so I'm I've been I've cut my I cut

out sugar drinks about a year ago I

still have the same Brands but I have

the no sugar version oh dear oh

what do you mean oh dear well all the

all the summary of the trials shows that

if you take uh young adult young adults

and kids and they would say on two cans

of you know full sugar sodas and you

change them to the diet version there's

no real difference in in weight or um

metabolic um changes in their blood um

the

you will go to the dentist less so you

don't get as many fillings

but and yet you you should be gaining

300 calories right if you doing two cans

a day so it doesn't work out as it

should do and that's because of the

extra these chemicals are not inert so

the sweeteners in kids they changed

their their brains to give

them they want more Sweetness in their

food okay so it it could reflect your

wish for your your late night milk

chocolate who knows um and it it makes

it very difficult to train kids to have

more bitter Foods or sour Foods if

they've got these artificial sweeteners

in their diet all the time but they've

now shown that all these sweeteners

actually affect your gut microbes so

even Stevia you know these sort of

so-called healthy ones have an effect on

your gut microbes and they're not inert

so we know that sacarin and sucros is

also cause spikes in your blood sugar uh

when I did it you know have a

trace they're not supposed to but they

they actually do things they're not

supposed to so we know very little about

these these products and my view is that

they are harmful probably not as bad as

having the sugar but they are absolutely

not a health drink and we should be

encouraging people to have you know teas

and kombuchas and uh more bitter tasting

interesting flavors and Foods than just

this Ultra sweet uh chemical concoctions

it's this sugar conglomerate that have

been funding much of the research that

points towards um some of the things

you're talking about

there there that's also the conglomerate

that wants us to believe the calories in

calories out approach because if I just

view every all foods as kind of equal

and on this sort of calorie number then

I can drink some of the sugary Fizz

fizzy drinks and some of the processed

foods as long as I keep it within that

sort of calorie deficit I'll be fine and

so are they is that Sugar conglomerate

is the processed food

conglomerate for the calorie model

absolutely they need that right they

absolutely it's vital you know zero

calories or one calorie you know on the

can that's what you see and you know

you're fooling people into thinking this

is a a healthy drink and oh you know if

I used to have full Coke or Pepsi and

now having the diet version I'm getting

300 calories less a day I should lose

weight it's exactly what they've been

doing and they're also desperate to show

that artificial sweeteners

are really healthy and they come down on

anyone who who tries to say that they're

you know could be any way dangerous and

yet they're not obliged to test them so

none of the none of the chemicals added

really go through rigorous testing on

how they affect our gut microbes and

this is

this you know their testing mechanisms

haven't changed in 50 years as you'll

know if you've listened to this podcast

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sell out and here is the single most

replayed moment as it relates to health

on the Diary of a CEO of 2023 so the

first thing I came up against because

this was around the time of the

financial crisis was the lack of

understanding of the brain Body

Connection so these high performing

Executives were kind of acting

like their body was just the vehicle

that was moving their brain around from

meeting to meeting and both

disrespecting their their physical

health but also not understanding that

what they were actually really being

paid for was to use their brain and they

weren't creating the best conditions for

that brain to operate in um and I'm

talking about really basic things like

sleep and a good diet and hydration and

not being sedentary managing your stress

Etc so you know this tiny

organ if it's not in an environment that

is giving it the best chance of doing

its job it's not going to and a crack's

going to appear somewhere um and the

first time we really kind of had a big

confrontation with the bank was when

people were dropping dead on the trading

floor of heart

attacks and they asked me to work more

in my capacity as a former medical

doctor to help with the physical stuff

and I said I can't do that if we don't

address the mental and emotional piece

because that's what's causing this and

they just could could not get that what

did you want to do with those people in

a specific and practical sense what if

you could have you know been in charge

of preventing them from dropping dead on

the trading floor where would you have

started the understanding that stress so

everything that you're experiencing

mentally and emotionally that's

challenging and things like a lot of

travel which is challenging for your

body that that raises levels of the

hormone cortisol which comes from your

adrenal glands and that cortisol courses

around your blood through your entire

body and brain and the brain has

receptors for understanding what's going

on in terms of threat to your survival

so in a 24hour cycle depending on your

age and your gender there's a normal

range for cortisol so it can go up and

down like this you know if something

challenging happens we need to adapt and

rise to meet that challenge but when

that level is above the top range all

the time these receptors in your brain

basically think that there's an imminent

threat to your survival so there's this

whole Cascade of

hormones and they basically cortisol

causes inflammation in the body MH so

inflammation of your vascular system

inflammation around your heart and

everything else gut and you know other

things but particularly around that time

we were seeing a lot of heart attacks

caused by stress this was in the absence

of high blood pressure high cholesterol

smoking it was all stress once upon a

time I Googled um because I had a thesis

I Googled is stress contagious MH and it

came up and it said it was

contagious is it contagious in what

circumstances do we need to be aware of

that contagion and more importantly how

and why is it contagious okay I will

tell you the answer to that but I'm

going to ask you a question first have

you ever walked into a room with someone

and by the time you've left that meeting

with them you just feel so

drained okay so yeah you know so you

know the feeling so I'll I'll tell you

how it works physiologically um I'm

going to start with something else to

like build you up to this story so did

you know that women who live together or

work closely together will synchronize

their menstrual periods within two or

three months so whenever I want to

explain something that's complex or I

don't actually know the current

Neuroscience I always take it back to

what happened in ancient times so when

we were living in the cave the men

hunted and gathered and lived quite

nomadically so sometimes they would go

away for months at a time and in those

days the most fundamental important

thing for the survival of the human

species was that the alpha male must

pass on his

genes so if he was going to be away for

months and he couldn't you know that

there weren't men there to defend the

women from predators maybe there was

going to be a spell of the Ice Age and

they would all freeze to death or they

wouldn't have food um he needed to make

sure that at least at least five women

were impregnated with his sperm at the

same time so that if there was a food

shortage or there was like still birth

or miscarriage or whatever at least one

out of five would survive so to be able

to do that they had to be fertile at the

same time so that's why that mechanism

exists now we don't need that mechanism

now but it's still wired into the way

that we operate so those sex steroid

hormones like estrogen and progesterone

they leak out of our sweat about this

far around us and that's why if you're

living with another woman or if you know

you're sitting across the desk every day

then particles of hormone from my sweat

would go into the through the skin of

the other woman if she's within what

distance I mean it's not you wouldn't

have to be sitting next to each other if

you live together that that means you're

interacting enough that it would happen

Okay so particles but not not if you

work together if you work together and

you sit right next to each other every

day then it does happen too

so you know in a a small office that's

got like six girls in it that that the

menstrual synchronization will happen

interestingly it's led by the alpha

female so yeah so you can you can work

out if you don't know already who the

alpha female well if you you know

basically let's say My Cycles don't

change and everyone says oh I've got my

period early or I haven't had my period

yet but now it's started then that would

mean that probably I was the alpha

female how does the body know who the

alpha female is that will be to do with

levels of testosterone why why did the

body why does that matter who the alpha

female is why does it matter that they

sync up with her I I don't I don't know

if it really matters I think it's just a

case of physiology so it's a little bit

like in the um troops of

gorillas the stress levels of the silver

backat gorilla affect the other gorillas

more than gorillas who are peers to each

other so there is we have a natural

hierarchy and it must be related to

survival as well so she was probably the

person who the alpha male was going to

impregnate first probably so everyone

needs to kind of fall in line because

when she starts having sex they need to

be ready yeah okay and also it'll

probably be to do with things like you

know survival genes so it'll be the

people with the hardiest genes because

that's what you'll want to pass on as

well mhm okay makes sense most resilient

okay okay so where were we stressing

contagion done all the hormones and the

menal so basically cortisol is a hormone

that works in that same way so cortisol

is the main stress hormone and this one

doesn't matter if you're male or female

but it does matter where you are in the

hierarchy of the organization as I just

mentioned

so usually in that conversation I

mentioned to you where you go into a

room and you just feel completely

drained afterwards usually the person

that comes out feeling drained is less

senior than the person that's had that

effect on them and that's why this is so

crucial to lead leadership because your

stress levels as a leader as a CEO are

going to have more impact on everybody

else than the rest of the people um put

together basically so managing your

stress is obviously important for you

but it's important in terms of what

happens to other people and the first

issue I came up against was CEOs and

CFOs that said well I won't show them

that I'm stressed I won't I won't tell

them what's happening with the numbers I

won't display emotions in front of them

and I said they're still going to know

physiologically it's going to impact

them so now you really have to do

something about

it um and the other thing about cortisol

which is quite funny well one of the

side effects is quite funny is that as a

survival mechanism it will help you to

store fat around your

abdomen so you know again in the cave if

you were potentially going to like not

find food for a month then if you had

extra fat around your abdomen you could

digest that and survive till you could

find

food so with my clients in financial

services it got to a point where as soon

as I walked into the room they just lift

their t-shirt up and say now you know

how I've been in the last month so

stress causes belly fat belly fat that's

really hard to shift so again what I

would see with people is that they would

say oh I've put on a bit of weight

around the middle you know had to loosen

the belt a bit so I've started eating

less I've started like exercising more

and I still can't shift it and again

that's when I would explain this is the

impact of cortisol as long as you're

still leaking out extra cortisol

nothing's going to change

so and like I said even exercising more

or eating better less or differently

whatever it is wouldn't shift that fat

you had to get to the root cause you had

to reduce the

cortisol for any of you that are still

here I have a bonus moment for you I

often get asked what is my favorite

episode of the dire of a CEO of all time

and I often try and avoid that question

because I don't want to pick one

particular episode it's kind of like

picking your children however because

you've gotten here I'm going to reveal

it to you and I'm going to play you a

moment from that conversation my

favorite ever episode on the dire of a

CEO of all time is episode

101 and it just happens to be the most

shared episode we've ever had of all

time time on WhatsApp and I know that

sounds a little bit obscure but the

interesting thing about WhatsApp is it's

one toone typically so it's typically

one friend sending it to a family member

or to a friend or something like that

and for it to be the most transferred

between one person and another I think

is telling about the value of that

conversation here is one of the most

important moments from my favorite

episode on the Diary of a CEO of all

time to understand what happiness is you

have to understand the cause of it yes

and you write about that extensively and

solve for happy so what is the cause of

unhappiness as you see it especially if

you're building sort of machine learning

applications that are going to you know

um solve you know make people arrive at

contentment or happiness in a

personalized way we must be able to know

what's causing this lack of allow me a

bit of time to explain it because it

it's simple when we get it but it's not

simple to get to it so so happiness is

very predictable okay if you look back

at any point your life where you ever

felt happy there is one commonality

across all of those moments that can

actually be be documented in a

mathematical equation okay you've never

felt happy because of a specific event

in your life okay uh take for example

rain rain doesn't make you happy or

unhappy there is no inherent value of

happiness in Rain okay rain makes you

happy when you want to order your plant

and it makes you unhappy when you want a

sunbath right and so it's not just the

event rain it's the comparison between

the event and an expectation in your

mind of how life should be okay if

you're worried about your plants then

life should be generous to me and get me

rain so I can water the plants and if

life does that then life meets your

expectations and you're happy okay and

so happiness in that sense becomes equal

to or greater than so it's really

mathematics the your perception of the

events of your life minus your

expectations of how life should be

okay and apply that to anything apply

that to anything so you know my favorite

example is nature we're all happy in

nature why are we all happy in nature I

mean you go out there and there are ants

and there are flies and you know trees

are crooked and there are you know

shrubs everywhere and bushes and it's

just really not that hedged and

organized but that's what we expect so

you know Nature's chaos is what we

expect nature to be and so we feel happy

you know nobody ever sits in front of

the ocean and says I like the view but

please mute the sound okay you just take

it you know it's it's the monotonous

sound and the view and the wind and and

the Sun and the whole experience right

uh and because of

that uh happiness becomes very different

than what was defined to us okay what

was defined to us is that happiness is

found in a a gathering at the pub or

party or a you know an activity or some

kind of pleasure or fun or Elation or

whatever that is that's not at all true

these are I call these the state of

Escape okay happiness as per the

definition of the happiness equation is

events equal to or beating expectations

life going my way okay and so basically

happiness is that calm and peacefulness

you feel when you're okay with life as

it is it doesn't really matter what life

is okay what matters is that you can be

okay with it

right so so you take you know the any

example huh if your boss is annoying and

your expectation is yeah bosses are

annoying this is what life is about they

become bosses because they're annoying

right and and so if if that's your

expectation you're going to look at it

and go like yeah I need to learn the

skill of managing annoying bosses okay

and if that's the case then you're not

going to be upset about it uh similarly

anything else if you look at it then

it's not just the event it's your

perception of the event so you have a a

something to influence it's not just the

event huh your partner might say

something hurtful on Friday at 4

p.m. that's the event my partner said

something hurtful at Sunday morning you

tell yourself he or she doesn't love me

anymore okay that's your perception of

the event that's not actually the event

the event is something hurtful was said

but your perception of the event is your

work is your it's your brain adding

color to it and then you compare that to

your expectations right you compared my

boss is annoying to my boss shouldn't be

annoying where did you get that from

right so we blur the happiness equation

we break the happiness equation because

of what I call the six and seven okay

six Grand Illusions and seven blind

spots which are the six Grand Illusions

are

basically uh call them

Pathways uh that the modern world

teaches us to navigate the modern world

that our Illusions are not true okay

take for example control everyone knows

that to succeed in the modern world you

have to learn to control certain events

right so you start to believe that the

way to succeed in life is to control

everything but the truth is even if you

go down to the basics of physics that we

never are in control that the the

absolute design of nature itself of the

universe itself is entropy and Chaos

right that's the actual design and so if

you try to control it you're bound to be

disappointed a lot of events are going

to miss your expectations okay and yes

I'm not saying don't control anything at

all but start to understand that you're

you're going to be selective because you

have a finite amount of effort and by

the way even if you're selective and you

you try to control everything sometimes

things will fall out of control okay and

that should be your expectation once you

get that right that was one that was my

biggest illusion okay I a mathematician

I'm a software developer I am a

physicist I am an engineer and I am a

senior executive that doesn't get worse

than that okay I'm like the worst

absolute the worst I used to give my

wonderful wife I swear to you Stephen

don't judge me I used to give her a

spreadsheet that would tell her when to

wash the colors and when to wash the

whites based on our average consumption

as a family to save the environment and

poor Niel would would actually you smile

at me and say sure baby I will use this

right of course and ignores the hell out

of me because that's how crazy you can

be when it comes to control now these

are the Illusions if you live your life

through the illusion of control good

luck finding happiness so six Grand

Illusions the illusion of uh of thought

the illusion the illusion of self the

illusion of uh knowledge the illusion of

time control and fear okay now that's

one side and that disrupts your your

entire view of what to expect from life

because you're expecting life to behave

through a length of a a lens of an

illusion the other side of it is what I

call Seven blind spots okay and the

Seven blind spots are not really defects

in your brain as a matter of fact they

are the very design of your brain okay

your brain is designed to tell you

what's wrong okay it's not designed to

you know if a Tiger shows up right here

now my brain has no you you whatsoever

in telling me Oh my god look how

Majestic that animal is right yeah it's

a beautiful animal but my brain will say

we're going to die okay and we're going

to die is the idea that basically makes

our uh our brain constantly look for

what's wrong blur the events of life huh

you ask a mother and and she will say oh

my daughter's been sick all winter no

she just had two episodes of flu 3 days

each but to the to the Caring Heart of a

mother that needs to be exaggerated to

the exaggeration is one of the blind

spots your your brain is trying to get

you to take action so it pushes you it

pushes You by exaggerating the event a

little bit so that you jump in and take

action and accordingly the event you're

comparing to you're comparing the wrong

event to the wrong expectation and the

happiness equation falls apart isn't

this cool every single conversation I

have here on the DI of AO at the very

end of it you'll know I ask the guest to

leave a question in the Diary of a CEO

and what we've done is we've turned

every single question written in the

Diary of a CEO into these conversation

cards that you can play at home so

you've got every guest we've ever had

their question their name and on the

back of it if you scan that QR code you

get to watch on your phone the person

who answered that question the next

guest we're finally revealing all of the

question questions and the people that

answered the question and we've just

released the updated conversation cards

we released it the first time and it

sold out instantly we released

conversation cards again and they sold

out instantly for a second time we've

updated the cards put all the new

questions in and we've introduced a

Twist on the back of the conversation

cards now we've got different levels of

vulnerability so level one these are

more sort of surface level questions and

by the time you get down to level three

the questions become a little bit more

challenging a little bit more vulnerable

and that's really where connection

happens to test the power of these cards

we invited 20 total strangers to come

and have dinner and the only thing they

had to do was answer a level three

question that was put in front of them

in a room full of strangers and we saw

unbelievable almost magical results

people teers people forming lifelong

friendships and people unlocking truths

within them that they' been too scared

to confront vulnerability is the door to

connection that is what we've always

done here on this podcast and that's

exactly what these conversation cards do

you can play them with your partner at

home you can play them with your

colleagues at work or you can play them

with your best friend on the weekend the

stories we've heard about these cards

about a grandson playing it with their

grandfather to get to know them pulling

them out in the midst of a divorce with

their wife and saving their marriage as

you've often seen on this podcast

sometimes one question and someone who

is genuinely open to answering it is all

it takes to unlock a truth that will end

up setting you free and that's exactly

why we made these conversation cards and

you can get them right now at the

conversation cards.com I'll put a link

to the conversation cards in the

description below they've sold out twice

instantaneously so if you are interest

in getting hold of some limited edition

conversation cards I really really

recommend acting quickly and let me know

how powerful they were for you and or

for your relationships thank

you do you need a podcast to listen to

next we've discovered that people who

liked this episode also tend to

absolutely love another recent episode

we've done so I've linked that episode

in the description below I know you'll

enjoy it

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oh

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