There are in fact many roads to

Alzheimer's disease and it's things like

marijuana, alcohol, and football. And

then a study found that people who had a

simple carbohydrate based diet had a

400% increased risk of getting

Alzheimer's. But one of the major causes

is

gosh. Dr. Daniel Amen is the renowned

psychiatrist and brain health expert

scanned over 260,000 brains including

Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, and Kendall

Jenner

to determine what we need to do for

optimum brain health. In 2024, the word

of the year was brain rot.

Why? Because people are worried that

their habits are shrinking their brain.

Like food, gaming, social media,

pornography. What about working with

Bad for your brain.

And then is there anything non-obvious

that we do to our children's brains?

Yes. And this is so important because

this is one thing a lot of parents do

without knowing the consequences for

their children. And we'll talk about

that. What about negative thinking?

Well, we just published this huge study

on this and the science is really clear.

It decreases activity in your prefrontal

cortex which impacts your motivation,

focus, and mood. It is detrimental to

your brain. So, how can you kill the

negative thoughts? Well, there's a whole

bunch of things. One is saffron. Head to

head has been shown to be equally

effective as antidepressants. And then

whenever you feel sad or mad or nervous,

what I want you to do is it's so simple.

I have been forced into a bet with my

team. We're about to hit 10 million

subscribers on YouTube which is our

biggest milestone ever thanks to all of

you and we want to have a massive party

for the people that have worked on this

show for years behind the scenes. So,

they said to me, "Steve, for every new

subscriber we get in the next 30 days,

can $1 be given to our celebration fund

for the entire team?" And I've agreed to

the bet. So, if you want to say thank

you to the team behind the scenes at

Diary of a CEO, all you've got to do is

hit the subscribe button. So, actually

this is the first time I'm going to tell

you not to subscribe because it might

end up costing me an awful lot.

Dr. Daniel Amen.

If someone's just clicked on this

conversation now and they have no idea

who you are,

which is highly, highly unlikely,

can you tell me

why listening

to you and this conversation and the

work that we're about to go through now

is so important for everyone, even those

who believe that right now they have no

issues.

Everybody has a brain that's listening.

It controls everything they do, how they

think, how they feel, how they act, how

they get along with other people.

And most people know it but don't your

brain is the organ of intelligence,

character, and every decision you make.

And when it works right, you work right.

And when it doesn't, you have trouble.

And most people have no idea that their

bad decisions, their sadness, their

anxiety, their insomnia,

their poor relationship

has to do with the physical functioning

of their brain. So, if they want

to be happier,

they need to think about loving and

caring for their brain.

Optimize

your brain, you optimize your mind's

ability.

You mentioned scanning brains. Now,

remind me again how many people's brains

you've scanned now. So, it's now about

260,000.

260,000 people's brains and you've

scanned some famous brains.

Yes, actually people from 9 months old

to 105 from 155

countries. And it's public knowledge.

I've been in Justin Bieber's docu-series

seasons, I scanned his brain. I've

scanned Miley Cyrus's brain.

Um Mel Gibson just went on Joe Rogan and

talked about me scanning his brain. Um

Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Jake Paul.

You also scanned my brain and you

actually taught me a lot from scanning

my brain which I'm And did you think

about your brain after we talked about

it?

I think about it all the time now.

It's also interesting that in 2024, the

year just gone, the word of the year

was the word brain rot.

And that's interesting because the

subject of the brain, I don't think has

been

given the credit and the attention it

deserves really until recently. And much

of your work has played into that. Why

do you think, if you had to guess, why

do you think Oxford University's word of

the year was brain rot?

Because people are worried that their

habits are shrinking

their brain,

especially

social media and digital addictions.

I'm so hoping they'll go to brain health

as

be more aspirational.

We've talked about a lot of things on

this show. Um one of the things that

really stuck with me is how the content

we consume can have a profound impact on

our brains. We often think of the

chemicals, the the drugs, the alcohol,

and all those things which you want to

talk about. But one such piece of

content which I don't think we have

talked about is the impact of

pornography on the brain.

Is there a link between brain health and

pornography consumption?

You know, it's such an important

question.

And the first thing that comes to my

mind is

exposing

developing brains to pornography is so

dangerous. And 8, 9, 10-year-old boys

are being exposed to the internet where

they can see all sorts of pornography

when their brains aren't anywhere near

the ability to discern Mhm.

what's good, what's not good, what's

healthy, what's not healthy. And it's

deadening.

And I use that word purposefully.

The nucleus accumbens which is the area

of your brain that produces, that

responds to dopamine. So, dopamine and I

know you've done podcasts on dopamine.

It's the neurotransmitter

that helps us with motivation, Mhm.

which helps us with focus, which helps

us with happiness and mood. And when

the nucleus accumbens gets hit

repeatedly

with pornographic images, it's like

dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. It begins

to deaden that area and then you need

more and more to begin to feel anything

at all. That's why fame is so hard on

the brain. But pornography, especially

in the young, is incredibly damaging to

the brain. So, is that applicable to all

things that cause like a really sharp

burst of dopamine and stimulation? So,

you said there

fame, pornography, I mean potentially

gaming or gambling, those kinds of

things. Um alcohol's obviously one of

those things as well. Cocaine. Cocaine.

Especially for a developing brain.

Especially for a developing brain. If

there's any message, protect your brain

until you're 25. And then your brain

will protect you. But until then, your

prefrontal cortex, that front third of

your brain, is not fully developed.

Which is sort of why God gave you

parents. It's like so you supervise.

It's like, "Oh, my teenagers hate it if

I supervise them." And yeah, they hate

it more if you don't. Um But what if you

get to 25 and you're listening to this

now and you go, "Jesus,

I Does this mean that I can do nothing

about my brain?"

Of course not.

I mean, what I've shown is let's just

take the NFL work.

High big damage, right? Let's stop lying

about this. Football is a brain damaging

sport. And soccer as well is a brain

damaging sport. So, high levels of

damage. 80% of my NFL players got better

when we put them on a rehabilitation

program.

So, if you've been bad to your brain,

like non-stop gaming, lots of

pornography, terrible food,

and all of a sudden you go,

"Oh,

I can have a better brain."

Your brain can be better in as little as

a couple of months

where you just feel better, think

better, your mood is better.

But it has to start with this concept.

I think we've talked about brain envy.

It's You have to want to have a better

brain.

When When people come to you,

what is it they're typically

motivated by? Like in terms When they

come to you, why do they come to you? Is

it because they've heard of your work on

the internet and they they want to just

they're curious about getting their

brain scanned. Or is Do they usually

come with a symptom or some other

ailment?

No, usually they come because they're in

pain.

That they're anxious, they're depressed,

their

um

marriage is falling apart, or

um their wife says, "Come, or I'm going

to divorce you." It's not an uncommon

thing. Or they're struggling in school,

they're not

living up to their potential in one way

or another. Now, about 10% of the people

come to us go, "I'm fine,

but I want to see, and I want to be

better.

And I don't want Alzheimer's." So, a lot

of people come because they love a

parent or grandparent that has

Alzheimer's. They realize there's a

genetic component to it,

and they don't want to have that. But

that's really someone who is

forward-thinking.

I think

more people come because they're

hurting.

What evidence have we got that alcohol

is

bad for the brain and bad for the rest

of our body, especially in moderation?

Well, the certain US Surgeon General

just came out wanting to put cancer

warning labels on all alcohol.

Um

that's sort of big evidence. I mean, 3

years ago, the American Cancer Society

came out against any alcohol because

drinking any alcohol increases your risk

of seven different cancers.

And that's a big deal. And then the

evidence I have in my first clinic was

outside of the Napa Valley in Northern

California. So, alcohol is a big thing.

And as I was looking at scans, I'm like,

"Your brain's older than you are."

That alcohol is not a health food. It is

detrimental

to brain function. And then, of course,

you know, so I've been a psychiatrist.

Now, I decided to be a psychiatrist 46

years ago.

The number one problem I see is someone

drinks, and they make a bad decision.

Someone drinks, and they say something

to their partner that they just

shouldn't have said. Or they drink, and

they go to work. Or they drink, and they

drive. Or they drink, and

it just causes so much trouble. And in

1999, I did a show

uh called The Truth About Drinking. And

we took a young adult um who had trouble

with alcohol, got him sober, scanned

him, and then on national television, we

got him drunk. Just like he got drunk.

And it just crashed his frontal lobes.

And you just It's so clear that

alcohol takes the brake off

your brain.

And so, people use it to calm the brain

down. But there's certain parts of your

brain you really don't want to go

offline.

The part that says, "Don't say that.

Don't do that." Is that just when when

I've had one drink, and then when I

sober up, I'm back to normal?

Or is this chronic? Well, it depends.

One drink will decrease

um in a mild way, your decision-making.

When it becomes chronic,

your life begins to get out of control.

Cuz I'm wondering if you know, if if

people drink in moderation, are they

going to see long-term impacts to their

brain? What is there such thing as

um

drinking just a little bit and being

fine?

Well, I you know, I think there's always

sort of a dose response. There was a

study in Spain that looked at people who

had mild, moderate, and severe drinking,

and they compared them to people who

didn't drink at all.

Even the people who only drank a little

had disruptions

in the white matter of their brain. Now,

most people have heard about gray matter

and white matter. Gray matter is nerve

cell bodies.

White matter is nerve cell tracks. So,

if you think of gray matter is where the

computation

uh is happening in the brain, and white

matter are like the highways.

And so, even a little bit of alcohol is

creating potholes. It's disrupting the

highways

in the brain. And if you're drinking a

lot, you are prematurely aging your

brain.

You've scanned a lot of people who are

alcoholics. Lots.

I mean, I've got some scans

here, and which I'll put on the screen.

But can you explain to me exactly what a

brain looks like when the person has

been drinking heavily for a long period

of time?

So,

again, we do a study called SPECT, and

SPECT looks at blood flow and activity.

It looks at how the brain works. And

for people who know the mitochondria,

those are the little powerhouse energy

plants in your cells.

The SPECT tracer, 49% of it is taken up

by the mitochondria in the brain. So,

we're also looking at energy metabolism.

And what we see with alcoholic brains is

something we call scalloping, which is

this global decrease

in activity. So, a healthy brain, full,

even, symmetrical activity. It sort of

look big, fat, and round.

With alcohol

or other drugs, too, you see the brain

begin to shrivel. And you see it it look

gets this wavy appearance. And I'm like,

"The real reason

not to drink is it damages your brain."

So, if you drink, then you have a

smaller brain than you would have

otherwise. Correct?

That's pretty scary.

And what is it Why does brain size

matter? You know, when people say it's

going to shrink your brain.

Why does that matter?

So, I often say the only organ where

size really does matter is your brain.

Um

because you don't want to

lose

brain tissue.

Right? There is a part of your brain

called the hippocampus, which is

on the inside of your temporal lobes,

right here. And it's really important.

And um

it makes new stem cells every day, about

700.

And if you're

drinking,

it's not allowing those new stem cells

to take hold, to take root. You want to

strengthen them so they will continue to

support mood, memory,

um spatial orientation, spatial

processing. So, that's the symptoms.

You're you're naming that in advance the

symptoms of someone who has damaged

their hippocampus. Right? So, poor

memory,

probably poor spatial awareness, brain

fog.

And mood. And mood issues. And judgment,

and impulse control. Um

But it it impacts the brain globally.

So, the cerebellum, so they're not going

to process as quickly. Their decisions

are not going to be as good. And um

I worked with my friend BJ Fogg, who

wrote a wonderful book called Tiny

Habits. And he's the

um director of Stanford's Persuasive

Technology Lab, which is really on how

people change. And he and I worked

together cuz I'm always interested in

how I can help my patients better. Um

And I met him at a conference like 18

months after we worked together. And he

said,

"I just want to thank you."

I'm like, "Why?"

He said, "I wake up 100%

every day."

I'm like, "Why?"

"I stopped drinking."

Cuz people with and they're around me

enough, they either drink more, I

suspect, or they stop. And

isn't that what you want?

You wake up 100%

every day.

Why would you ever do anything

that damages

stem cell production in your brain?

One might argue that it's serving me in

the short term. Of course. But there

lots of things that are like you see,

you know, so say you're married, but

you're at a conference, and you see this

really

cute person.

And you're like, "Oh, well, in the short

run, that could be awesome." Mhm. And in

the long run, you lose half your net

worth and visit your children on the

weekends. It's like

that's not a good thing.

And you know, in the short run, you feel

more relaxed.

Right? With alcohol, you feel more

relaxed.

And in the long run, it increases your

risk of Alzheimer's

disease. I'm like, that's not a good

trade-off. On your blog, you published a

study from 2019, sorry, from 2009. It

was a study on monkeys that showed a

decline in new brain cell development.

And in that study, there was a 58%

decline in new brain cells and a 63%

reduction in the survival rate of new

cells from alcohol use.

They had monkeys drinking alcohol? Yes.

They have monkeys doing all sorts of

things they shouldn't be doing.

Which is effectively like premature

brain aging.

Right.

And it's worse

if you do it before your brain is

finished developing.

And so, if you think of

fraternities Yeah. and sororities. Like,

I'm not a fan of sending children away

to college. And um

is cuz you have all these underdeveloped

brains or not fully developed brains,

and you put them all together

without appropriate adult supervision,

and a lot of bad things happen

at

fraternity parties and sorority parties.

They're drinking less though now. No,

they're still drinking.

Oh, really? There's one second. And now,

they're adding mushroom parties to it.

So, it's alcohol and psilocybin and

marijuana because everybody thinks

marijuana is innocuous, which is a lie.

And uh Is it?

Like marijuana? It's a lie.

Yeah, and I was actually really upset.

Um

So, President Biden

during the time he was running for

president,

so this is 2019.

He's on debate stage with a lot of other

people, and they ask him if he would

federally

legalize marijuana.

And he said, "I don't think the science

is

decided.

And no, I don't think I would." And Cory

Booker, the senator from New Jersey,

shamed Biden on national television. He

said, "Man, are you high?"

Which is just horrifying. And I'm

watching this

going,

"The science is actually really clear.

Marijuana is bad for the brain." I

published a study on a thousand

marijuana users. Every area of their

brain is lower in activity. And just

today, a study came out in the Journal

of the American Medical Association on a

thousand twenty-one thousand

twenty-seven marijuana users. Um

it decreased activity in the hippocampus

that affected their memory centers.

If you're a teenager and you use

marijuana,

in your 20s, you have a higher incidence

of anxiety, depression, and suicide.

This is not innocuous. And we've been

advertised this load of crap, which is,

"Oh, it's just good medicine." And for

some people, it is helpful.

But let's not say

it's innocuous because that's a lie. And

we are now, so many states have

legalized

marijuana for recreational use,

including here in California.

And the mental health crisis

is not better.

If anything, it's dramatically worse.

There's two issues here, isn't there?

There's the impact cannabis has on the

brain, and then there's the whole issue

of legalization.

And I was as you were speaking, I was

just looking at some of the research,

and it it says exactly what you said. It

says that there was a study published in

JAMA Network, which examined over a

thousand young adults' brains.

And almost 70% of heavy users exhibited

reduced brain activity during working

memory tasks. The decline was associated

with poor poor performance in retaining

and using information. Long-term

cannabis use has been linked to smaller

hippocampus volume, which again impacts

memory and learning.

So, I mean, the the science is clear

that of what it's doing, but the the

question of legalization is a whole

'nother issue because

Well, please don't put people who use

marijuana in jail. Yeah. Like, that's

just a bad use of money. Yeah. That

that's

not smart. But the the problem becomes

we're not educating

kids on the potential damage to brain

development, which nobody really argues

about.

No Nobody's really Nobody reputable I

know of is going, "Yeah, give it to

teenagers and let them smoke all they

want." No, it's just dumb.

So, I think it's a bigger question, and

I think the answer

I have a high school course in

um it's called Brain Thrive by 25. And

we actually studied it in 16 schools.

Decreases drug, alcohol, and tobacco

use. Decreases depression and improves

self-esteem.

Why? We teach kids to love and care for

their brain. You got your brain scanned,

and now you love your brain more. You

You want it to be better. That's the

answer. It's not scanning everybody.

It's educating everybody. Your brain

controls everything you do, and when it

works right, you work right, and when it

doesn't, you don't.

So, let's love it, and let's learn

together

to optimize it. But the big innovation,

Stephen, for 2025 in psychiatry

are marijuana, psilocybin, and ketamine.

The street drugs of the '60s are coming

back. And I'm like,

I feel like I'm living in this insane

world where we're not talking about

you should eat better and exercise and

learn not to believe every stupid thing

you think. And meditation could calm

your mind

probably more effectively

than alcohol or marijuana.

And it's not hard to learn. What's wrong

with psilocybin magic mushrooms?

Yeah, everybody's so excited about

microdosing, and it's a treatment for

depression, and I think I've seen this

story before.

So, in the early '80s,

benzos, you know, like Xanax and

Klonopin and Ativan, they were mommy's

little helper.

And this will really help your anxiety.

The problem is they make your brain look

older than you are, and they're

addictive as hell.

Then there was alcohol is a health food.

Marijuana's innocuous. Pain is the fifth

vital sign, which led to the opioid

epidemic. And now we're into mushrooms.

Psilocybin-associated

psychosis

has gone up 300%

in the last couple of years. That not

for everybody, but for some vulnerable

people, and we don't know who they are,

it can flip them into a psychotic

episode. I'm like, we need to be

careful. We need to be thoughtful.

So, psilocybin hasn't yet been legalized

in the US.

In Oregon. Oh, it has been in Oregon. Um

Is it being delivered yet in Oregon? In

effect I think just now. Is it? So, it

There was a 2-year waiting period. Yeah.

And they were training

people to do psilocybin-assisted

psychotherapy. But there isn't a

psilocybin compound that's been approved

yet by the FDA. So,

they're still I think it's stage three

clinical trials, from what I understand.

I was quite involved in

that world as an investor once upon a

time. So, I understand the like rigor to

get these compounds clinically

approved. And you're right. So, in the

early like clinical trials, there's I

mean, groups of like 20 people in some

of the early clinical trials. And as

they're progressing now, and I think

getting to stage three, they need to

have bigger sample sizes

and make sure that they these compounds

are safe. And from what I've seen, a lot

of people are trying to get it approved

in a clinical setting for cases of

treatment-resistant depression, where

you do see, even in those the studies

that I've read, you see some people have

adverse responses. So, some people get

worse. And there's, you know, if you

take a someone who's treatment-resistant

depressed and potentially suicidal, and

you give them a a quite a strong

compound like psilocybin,

some people can get worse.

But for the ones that get better,

it's pretty remarkable.

It's like I've been I remember the first

study that I read, I think it coming out

of the London

one of the London universities that's

really leading on this. Maybe Imperial

College London or something.

And it said something like 30% of people

that did one dose of psilocybin were

went into clinical remission after 12

weeks after one dose. And there's really

like nothing else that I can think of

that can deliver that kind of

response in that period of time.

Ketamine.

Ketamine. I mean, MDMA has I think been

Ketamine can do it, but then ketamine

can also be addictive and

can be problematic.

So, I'm like, well, why wouldn't we scan

them first

and then try to figure out why you're

depressed? Cuz if you think about it,

depression is like chest pain.

And nobody gets a diagnosis of chest

pain.

Why?

It doesn't tell you what's causing it

and it doesn't tell you what to do for

it.

All sorts of things can cause chest

pain, right? From a heart attack, a

heart arrhythmia, a heart infection,

gas, an ulcer, grief.

All of those can cause chest pain.

Well, there's a whole bunch of things

that can cause depression.

Like loss, negative thinking, low

thyroid,

having a head injury, um

being exposed to mold or mercury,

lead.

It's like

if you don't look, if you just give

everybody you're depressed based on

these nine symptoms,

and now we go give everybody an SSRI,

which is ludicrous, cuz that's assuming

everybody with It's sort of like giving

everybody with chest pain

nitroglycerin,

which

is stupid.

Right? You would never

give everybody who has chest pain one

treatment. You'd go, I have to target

the treatment

to the cause.

But if you never look,

you have no idea.

So, for example, I was on the

Kardashians. And so, it's public that um

I saw Kendall

and I saw her for post-COVID anxiety.

Her brain was on fire

from COVID. And a lot of people don't

understand that COVID and other

infections can cause inflammation

in the brain.

Well, that's not a psilocybin

thing. That's an anti-inflammatory

cocktail to help post-COVID anxiety or

post-COVID depression. If you don't

look, you don't know. You end up flying

blind.

And that's what I've been fighting with

my colleagues for the last 33 years.

And it's how do you know unless you

look? And what other medical specialist

never look at the organ

they treat? So, we could talk about Oh,

I've seen these amazing results.

And I think we should see, well, what's

the scan pattern

that you're going to respond to

psilocybin

or Lexapro or ketamine or Lamictal,

right? I mean, it's great we have all

these treatments,

but

let's not fly blind

when we don't have to.

There's this graph I saw the other day

circulating around the internet, which

I'm going to show you, and I'll put it

on the screen for anybody that can't see

it, but it shows globally which

countries distribute the most

antidepressant pills, SSRIs,

and the United States leads the way by a

long margin.

I mean, I think in in looking at that

graph, it's almost 10 times more

antidepressant pills per person are

handed out in the United States than

other parts of the world.

And I wondered why. Why does the USA

hand out

antidepressant pills like

like they're water or something?

It's such an interesting graph um

because

here in America, we want the fast

answer.

I don't feel well, fix me.

And

what doctors have. Do you know 85% of

psychiatric drugs in America are

prescribed by non-psychiatric

physicians in 7-minute office visits

that do standard of care 12%

of the time.

What does that mean?

And that they do what most doctors would

consider good medicine

12% of the time. So, you go to your

family doctor or your nurse practitioner

and you go, I'm sad, I'm anxious, I'm

not sleeping. You might, and we hear

this all the time at Amen Clinics. I

have 11 clinics around the United

States. We hear it all the time

that I went to my doctor and he gave me

a prescription for Lexapro, Xanax, and

Ambien.

And

it just blows my mind that they would

put you on something that changes your

brain

to need them in order for you to feel

normal. See, people don't understand,

and I am not opposed to medication. I

use it when I think I need to.

But

let's be clear, they do not heal,

fix

anything.

What they do is they suppress symptoms.

But then, once they've suppressed the

symptoms, they've changed your brain, so

you need them

in order to feel okay.

I don't like that.

Like, what can I do naturally

head-to-head

against antidepressants? Saffron has

been shown to be equally effective. The

spice saffron.

Head-to-head against antidepressants,

walking like you're late, 45 minutes

four times a week,

equally effective. Head-to-head against

antidepressants, taking omega-3 fatty

acids, equally effective in a study from

Australia.

Head-to-head against antidepressants,

learning how to not believe every stupid

thing you think

has been shown to be equally effective.

So, why not if you're depressed

and you can't get scanned,

start walking,

take omega-3 fatty acids and saffron,

and learn how to kill the ants.

Ant stands for automatic negative

thoughts, the thoughts that come into

your mind automatically and ruin your

day. And we grow up. I don't know if the

same thing is in England.

There's no training on how to manage

your mind.

Right? I was 28 years old in my

psychiatric residency when one of my

professors said, you have to teach your

patients not to believe every stupid

thing they think.

And I'm 28.

And I'm I'm in my residency, which means

I finished college, I finished medical

school,

and I believe every stupid thing I

think, that no one had ever taught me

how to manage my own thoughts.

I can't believe that thing you just said

about saffron.

I was reading about it here. It says

research indicates that saffron may be

as effective as SSRIs in treating mild

and moderate depression. And a

meta-analysis of eight studies found

no difference between saffron and SSRIs

in reducing depressive symptoms, but in

fact the side effect fact profile is

probably better for saffron.

Well, so I got interested in saffron

about 25 years ago

because I saw a study. So, there are now

25

randomized controlled trials showing

that saffron is as effective

as SSRIs and other antidepressants.

But the thing that caught my interest,

this may speak more about me,

is they didn't decrease sexual function.

In fact, they enhanced it. And so, I've

been a psychiatrist a long time,

and

SSRIs for the right brain, they work,

but they make it harder to have an

orgasm. They decrease your libido.

And I don't like that. I don't want to

separate. If you're depressed, you're

already separated from your partner.

Yeah. If you're depressed and you can't

have an orgasm or you're not interested,

that's damaging

not only to you, but it damages your

partner. And so, when I thought saffron

can enhance sexual function,

and I'm like, okay, I'm paying

attention. And so, I have collected

every study ever published on saffron

and brain and mental health. There's

actually five studies showing it

enhances memory, that it was as good as

Aricept in people Aricept, a medicine we

use in Alzheimer's disease, and it's as

good as Aricept, so it helps memory. It

helps mood. It helps sexual function.

I'm like, mood, memory, and sex, I'm

going to take it. Mood, memory, and sex.

So, yeah, I

love saffron.

So, why wouldn't we start with that

and exercise and learn to manage your

mind rather than start with Lexapro or

even psilocybin or

ketamine? One of the things when people

are talking about psychedelics that

they're trying to treat is trauma.

Right. Early childhood trauma. Um is

that something that you can see if you

looked at my brain? Could you see trauma

on my brain? Yes.

And have you looked at trauma

pattern that I've written about, I

published in actually Discover magazine

in 2016

listed my study. So, I published a study

on 21,000 people showing we could

separate post-traumatic stress disorder

from traumatic brain injury with high

levels of accuracy.

And then we repeated the study on

soldiers and showed the same thing.

And this year, I just published the

world's largest study on childhood

trauma. So, do you know the A score?

Yes, which is a measure of childhood

trauma. Childhood trauma. Adverse

childhood experiences. So, it's on a

scale of 0 to 10. How many bad things

happened to you as a child? Physical,

emotional, sexual abuse, neglect, um

being raised with parent that has a

mental illness, that's incarcerated,

addiction, watching

um your mother be abused. So, domestic

violence. So, 0 to 10. I'm a one. My

wife's an eight. We adopted our two

nieces who are both nines. And so, I'm

very interested in childhood trauma. So,

sorry, a nine is good or bad? Nine is

terrible.

Okay, so higher the number

So, zero is means you have none of

those.

Okay.

Eight,

you have a lot.

And

we If you have four or more,

you have an increased risk of seven of

the top 10 leading causes of death.

If you have six or more, so my wife's an

eight, my nieces are nines,

you die 20 years earlier than the

general population.

And

in our study, what we showed, the more

Aces you had, the more activation

of your limbic structures, especially

a very interesting area

called the anterior cingulate gyrus. I

think of this is the brain's gear

shifter. Let's you go from thought to

thought, move from idea to idea, be

flexible, go with the flow. And when

this is overactive, people

worry. They hold on to things. It's like

the trauma is always in front of them.

And I often do timeline. I ask people,

do you see your life

um

going from left to right

or from front to back?

And I see the past behind me.

My wife sees the past in front of her.

And that's often what you see with

trauma.

And their brain becomes overactive

in their emotional brain, which makes

them at higher risk for pains and

problems.

Um

Higher risk for anxiety, higher risk for

depression, higher risk for insomnia.

They're they're sort of always looking

for bad things to happen. Is there

anything someone can do at home?

Because, you know, not everybody can

afford to go to a therapist. It's hard

to get access to the these kind of

treatments. If if I have some kind of

trapped trauma or traumatic experience

PTSD that I've been through and I don't

have any money at all, it What would you

recommend for me?

Well, I mean, the first thing I want

everyone to do is love their brain.

Right? The healthier your brain,

and before we we started, we talked

about this idea, it's the brain you

bring into trauma

that often determines how you deal with

it. And to get well, you have to get

your brain healthy.

So, that's the first thing. So, that

means getting off the alcohol, exercise,

eat well. Certain simple supplements.

Yes. What supplements?

And then

um

multivitamin

for basic nutrition, know your vitamin D

level and optimize it. And most people

need to supplement vitamin D. And if you

have darker skin,

you need five times the level of sun as

someone from northern Europe to get a

healthy vitamin D level. So, you should

know your vitamin D level and optimize

it. Like I always say, can't change what

you don't measure, and vitamin D is a

very important number to know. So,

multivitamin, vitamin D,

omega-3 fatty acid. I did a study

50 consecutive patients staying in

clinics who are not taking vitamin D. We

measured their omega-3 index. 49 were

sub optimal.

And so, I think most people would

benefit from

an omega-3 fatty acid supplement.

And then it sort of depends. If you have

issues with your mood, saffron would be

great. If you tend to be anxious, don't

go for the benzo.

Um

theanine.

Ashwagandha, magnesium, GABA,

diaphragmatic breathing, hypnosis. So

many things to help anxiety before you

ever go to something that's addictive,

that makes your brain look older than

you are, that increases your risk of

dementia.

One of the really, really interesting

things that you mentioned, which I had

never heard of or thought thought of

before, is the impact of negative

thinking on your brain.

We just published this huge study on

negativity bias, and it's not good for

your frontal lobes. And so, I love doing

positivity bias training. Like I train

all of my patients, start every day,

today is going to be a great day. I

mean,

somebody asked me today if I believe in

manifestation.

Um sort of. I think you have to tell

your brain what you want, and then your

brain will figure out how to get it.

And so, if you go, today is going to be

a great day,

your brain starts looking like, well,

why is today going to be a great day?

And when you go to bed at night, what

went well today?

That's so helpful

to just start programming your brain to

look for what's right, not just for

what's wrong. Virtually every depressed

patient I said have a high negativity

bias. And so, training them

to be more positive. Now, not

irrationally positive.

Cuz you need some anxiety. People have

low levels of anxiety die early

from accidents and preventable

illnesses. People who have low levels of

anxiety.

Low levels of anxiety. So, I always I

have an older brother who I love. Um

but he's one of the don't worry, be

happy people.

And I sort of always wanted to be like

him cuz I'm much more serious, much more

driven. And

I'm like Now, I wanted to be like him

until I read the research.

The people who live the longest, so

there's a study from Stanford. They

started in 1921.

And

they looked at 1,548

10-year-old children.

And they were looking for what goes with

success, health, and longevity.

And what they found was shocking.

The don't worry, be happy people died

the earliest from accidents and

preventable illnesses.

The people who live the longest,

the one theme

was they were conscientious.

If they said they were going to show up,

and they showed up reliably,

consistently, they'll live longer

than everyone else. And that just shows

they had good frontal lobe function.

It's like if I say I'm going to do

something and I commit to it, I do it.

You'll live longer. Could that be also

linked to like discipline?

Those people are more likely to be

disciplined with other areas of their

life, habits, eating, gym. Yes, which

means they had better frontal lobe

function. So, why would we ever take

these guys' frontal lobes offline?

No, love your frontal lobes. This is why

when you have children, don't let them

hit soccer balls with their forehead.

It's just not a smart

thing to do. I think that's probably a

big thing people are thinking about this

time of the year. So, we're recording

now in January 2025. Wow. Um and

everybody's thinking about new year, new

me. They're thinking about their New

Year's resolution, becoming a new

person.

Habits, motivation, discipline.

These are like the trifecta of what I I

see people talking about the most at

this time of year. When you With what

everything you understand about the

brain, how do I become a more

disciplined, motivated person who has

better habits?

So, one, you take care of your brain.

And two, you know when relapse happens.

Relapse happens when you don't sleep.

Okay. When

you've gone too long without eating.

When blood sugar levels go low,

relapse happens. You start making bad

decisions.

When if you're female,

when you're in the last week of your

cycle because blood flow to your frontal

lobe drops for many women. So I have

five sisters and five daughters. I

completely believe in PMS and

I've scanned people best time of their

cycle worst time. It's like they're two

different people sort of like they have

multiple personality. Disorganized their

brain is just so different. Now

obviously not with all women, but for

certain ones it's a big issue and if the

ants

are taken over. So if the automatic

negative thoughts which also tend to go

up if you haven't slept, if you've gone

too long without eating, if you're at

that time of your cycle or you're under

chronic stress or you're drinking or

using other drugs. So you might suppress

them but then they come back and they

attack you. So then you have to suppress

them again and this is how addiction

starts. So is it fair to say that if

you're trying to change who you are,

you're trying to establish a new habit

or crack motivation, then the goal

shouldn't be necessarily to get a six

pack. It should probably be be something

further upstream like sleep well.

Or

better frontal lobes. And so how do I

get better frontal lobes? And three

strategies.

Frontal lobe envy right brain envy got

to care about it.

Avoid things that hurt damaging my

frontal lobes.

And do things that strengthen

my frontal lobes.

We talked about two of these points

earlier but you talked we talked about

alcohol but in the context of sleep I've

heard on your I think it was on your

podcast change your brain after two

drinks your REM sleep drops to roughly

an hour. After four drinks your REM

sleep drops to 30 minutes and after six

drinks your REM sleep drops to less than

two minutes for many people.

Um obviously these aren't

specific numbers because everybody's

brain is different.

But it just goes to show I guess the

relative drop in REM sleep which is your

restorative sleep based on alcohol

consumption. And so if I drink I'm not

going to sleep well. I'm not going to

get restorative sleep. I wake up the

next day I'm going to struggle more with

motivation

and keeping any habit that I have. And

anxiety and then it is you're going to

be more ants.

And then you're going to drink more to

shut up the ants and then when they come

back they come back

stronger. And by ants you mean the

automatic negative thoughts. Okay.

The chatter that hurts you.

And we talked about

how to kill them. So whenever you feel

sad or mad or nervous or out of control

what I want you to do is just write it

down.

And then

ask yourself a series

of questions. Um and I have I have this

cute diagram of the different types of

ants and I always ask my patients so

which which are your ants? Are they like

all or nothing ants where you think in

words like always, never, everyone,

every time? Are they less than ants

given to us by social media

where we compare ourselves to others in

a negative way? Guilt beating ants, mind

reading ants, fortune telling ants,

blaming ants. Um

So identify the type.

Do you have a example of a bad thought

that just sort of runs around your head?

Ooh gosh.

Um

I think I live in a permanent state of

assuming I'm going to get bad bad news

and it doesn't haunt me. I think I'm

generally quite a calm person and quite

focused and peaceful in my brain but I

think because I've ran companies for the

last 10 years or longer

you're always just about to get bad

news. So I think that can be

that can be playing on the radio in the

background somewhere.

Like I'm going to open an email and it's

going to be bad news. There's so many

opportunities for bad news in my world.

So yeah. Yeah. So I think you write it

down. This is going to be bad.

And then my friend Byron Katie has this

process that I've refined a bit. So

that's a fortune telling ant. Right.

And so this is going to be bad news or I

always get bad news.

Fortune telling

and all or nothing.

And so the first question

is is it true?

No.

The second question is it absolutely

true with 100% certainty and if one is

no two is automatically no. The third

question is how does that thought make

me feel? Mhm.

On edge.

On edge. How does the thought make me

act? So the third question has three

parts. How does the thought make me

feel? Tense, on edge. How does it make

me act?

Um

removed uh

What's that word? Is it apathetic?

Reticent.

Yeah. Yeah.

And the third part of that what's the

outcome of believing

it's always going to be bad

news?

I mean there's no good outcome really.

Suffering.

Yeah. Suffering, yeah. The fourth

question is how would you feel if you

didn't have that thought? Free.

And how would you act?

Uh happier and

more present.

And the outcome of not having that

thought?

Better relationships.

Better life.

Cuz you're more present. Yeah. Yeah.

And then the fifth question. So the

first one is is it true? The second one

is it absolutely true? The third one how

would I

how do I feel, act and what's the

outcome of having this thought? Fourth

question is how would I feel, act and

what's the outcome not having the

thought?

The fifth question's my favorite.

Just take the thought and turn it to the

opposite.

And then ask yourself is that true?

So

it's going to be good news.

Or it's

going to be innocuous news.

And then go yeah. 99 times out of 100

that's true.

And then I would cuz I'm also a CEO.

I'm like well how many of these things

can't I handle?

Virtually none of them. I can handle all

of them.

Right?

Mhm.

So

I'll be okay.

And then I meditate

on the opposite of the thought that's

bothering me.

And so I take these thoughts captive.

I like that.

And people who are depressed

are infested

with negativity.

But you can train that your brain is

healthy it's easier to do. You can train

that but you imagine there's no second

grade class in the world

where teachers teach children not to

believe every stupid thing they think.

In fact I was watching one of the

confirmation hearings today and

the senators were filled with ants. Oh

yeah.

They were distorting things. They were

angry. They were making things more

negative than they needed to be. We are

modeled

bad thinking. Mhm.

And the news does it purposefully

because they know if they piss you off,

if they scare you you're going to tune

in so they can sell you more copper

underwear.

So we're in a society that breeds these

ant

attacks.

So you have to be careful. People who

watch the news in the morning are 27%

less happy in the afternoon. And so you

have to guard what goes in.

So every day you're programming

happiness or sadness.

And I believe

Um Dennis Prager has this great five

minute video called why be happy.

And I love it so much. I wrote a book

called you happier and

I start with his idea that happiness is

a moral obligation

and I'm like so I grew up not too far

from here. I went to Catholic school. My

mom was very serious about being

Catholic.

And growing up the idea happiness is a

moral obligation was nowhere in my

childhood and I had a good childhood.

Why is it a moral obligation? Because of

how you impact other people.

If you were raised by an unhappy parent

or married to an unhappy spouse or

raised an unhappy child and you ask

those people is happiness an ethical

issue?

They would all say yes.

So is it wrong to program your mind to

look for what's right?

It's hard.

For some people.

It's just a pattern. Right? It's like

getting biceps are hard.

But it's it's not, right? It's just

repeatedly

doing the same thing

that gives you the desire you want. Have

you seen someone shift from being a

stereotypically negative person

down and out, negative, depressed to the

opposite? Yes.

Truly the opposite. A lot.

But

you got to do the process.

And it's you you got to do the work.

When you love yourself,

you do

the work.

Like I come from a family of fat people,

but I'm not. Why? Because I know it's a

risk

for me, and so every day of my life I'm

on an obesity prevention plan.

And I wish I didn't have to be, right? I

wish I could just eat anything I want

and it would be okay. But it's

not the reality of my life.

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Now, for people that don't know who

Elizabeth Smart is,

who is she and what did you learn from

scanning her brain?

So, Elizabeth is someone who made really

international news

many years ago. She was kidnapped when

she was a teenager

and virtually raped every day for 9

months.

And then, she was found.

Um that she was actually very smart, and

she manipulated her kidnappers to bring

her back to Utah, Salt Lake City, where

they kidnapped her from, and she was

found by the police.

And one would think she would have

severe, lasting post-traumatic stress

disorder.

And

I was very interested to scan her and

be helpful

to her.

She in fact did not have post-traumatic

stress disorder. She had post-traumatic

growth.

She took her trauma

and made something

special

out of it, where she actually runs an

organization for women who

have been abused.

Um

and I just remember

sitting there, and her brain was

actually quite healthy.

I think she helped me more than I helped

her.

Just

so fascinated

by how she could take

something that's truly horrifying

and come out of it

and be quite okay. And she's how old

now? She's in her late

She's in her early 30s. And she's in a

relationship, married?

She's married, she has children, she's

running an organization, she speaks

around the country.

I mean, when people hear that,

they

might begin to question

how they think about trauma, because we

think of trauma as a very deterministic

thing. I If that happens to you, I can

predict that you're going to be X.

You're going to be, you know, maybe

depressed, you're not going to be

socially uh functioning. You're probably

not going to have functional, good

relationships. That's the kind of thing

we think when we hear about such a

horrific event. We kind of see it as

deterministic of who you then become.

But she's proving that that that's not

the case. No, in fact, of people who go

through something really terrible,

about 10% of people will develop PTSD.

And about 10% of people will develop

post-traumatic growth.

And most people sort of land in the

middle. I wrote an article

1982 when I was a resident at Walter

Reed, um

called post-Vietnam stress disorder,

a metaphor for current and past life

events.

And

it was

when I was resident I got the idea it's

the brain you bring into Vietnam that

often determines the brain that comes

out of Vietnam. That if you grew up in

an alcoholic home or you grew up with a

lot of stress, you are much more likely

to become a heroin addict and much more

likely to come home and struggle.

Um obviously not always.

But we should There's a concept since I

started imaging that I just dearly love

so much called brain reserve. So, brain

reserve is the extra tissue you have to

deal with whatever stress comes your

way.

And brain reserve actually starts

before you were conceived.

So, if you get your brain wrapped around

that a little bit, this idea of

epigenetics.

And if your parents grew up

in trauma and abuse,

it changed their genes to make you more

vulnerable.

And

if So, your genetic history matters,

the health

of your mom while she's carrying you,

your brain starts to develop 3 weeks

after she gets pregnant.

3 weeks, like about day 21.

And

so, her stress level,

her infectious disease level burden, her

nutrition, her sleep,

all of these things matter. When one of

my patients' wife is pregnant, I'm like,

you need to be nice to her. You need to

like lower her stress because your child

that this has generational

consequences.

And then, when you're born, how did the

birth go? And then, as a child, what was

your nutrition like? What were your

stress levels like? Did you play

football? Did you

fall off the swing?

All of those things

are either building your brain reserve

or stealing

your brain reserve. So, when you

get kidnapped,

or let's just take two soldiers in war.

They're in the same tank.

They go over an IED. So, they're both

the tank is blown up.

One walks away unharmed.

The other one's permanently disabled.

Why?

It's their brain reserve.

The brain they brought into the

explosion

often determines

how they are. So, I argue

we should always be building

reserve.

And I turn 70 this year, and I know 50%

of people 85 and older

have Alzheimer's disease. One in two.

Horrifying statistics. And so, I know

that. So, between now and 15 years from

now, what are the things I can do to

build my reserve so the gravity of age

has less impact on me. Because your

brain is going to shrink with aging

regardless of any It it's going to show.

Although, I have a whole group of

super brains, people that are 80, 90,

100, 105, like stunningly beautiful

brains.

But they're people that had stunningly

beautiful brain reserve habits. Okay.

That they didn't smoke, they weren't

drinkers, they ate well, they were not

overweight. So, on the subject of

Alzheimer's, it's increasing

uh globally. The

reading something I think from like the

Alzheimer's Association that said

uh they're predicting by 2050 that

there's going to be 150 or 160 million

people globally that have Alzheimer's

disease.

There's still a lot of question marks

around what causes it, what increases

its probability, etc. But what do you

think the cause of Alzheimer's is? I

think there are many causes

of it. And the going wisdom until

recently was excessive beta amyloid

plaque formation

caused Alzheimer's. And there's a lot of

questions around that theory.

I think

I have a mnemonic I like called bright

minds. You want to keep your brain

healthy or rescue it, you have to

prevent or treat the 11 major risk

factors. So, I think there are in fact

many roads

to Alzheimer's disease. And people go,

"What's the difference between

Alzheimer's and dementia?" Dementia is

the umbrella category.

You start losing your faculties.

Alzheimer's is one of the types. But,

the more you get into it, you realize

it's a pretty mixed bag. And so,

bright minds,

blood flow, retirement and aging,

inflammation, genetics, head trauma,

toxins, mental health, you know,

if a woman is depressed, it doubles her

risk of Alzheimer's disease. If a man is

depressed, it quadruples

his risk of Alzheimer's. And then, the

sleeper in all of these is infections,

immunity and infections. Many of us

think it's a major one of the major

causes of Alzheimer's disease. In fact,

there's a new study out on COVID. People

who had COVID had an significantly

increased risk of getting Alzheimer's

disease. And then, neuro hormones. And

we have this epidemic of low

testosterone in young males now. Um

diabesity

and sleep. Diabesity is you either have

high blood sugar

and or you're overweight.

And that one risk factor,

if you have that one risk factor, now

all of a sudden you have 10 of the 11

risk factors. If you have one if you

have diabetes.

If you're

overweight

or you have high blood sugar,

it lowers blood flow to your brain. It

prematurely ages your brain. It

increases inflammation. Fat cells

produce something called adipokines,

which is inflammatory molecules. It

changes your genetics. Fat stores

toxins. You're more likely to be

depressed. Your It damages your

immunity. Um

takes healthy testosterone, turns it

into unhealthy cancer-promoting forms of

estrogen, and impairs your sleep and I'm

just saying. And then, people go, "Oh,

but you're fat-shaming." And it's like,

"No, I published a study on 33,000

people. As your weight goes up, the size

and function of the brain goes down.

Somebody's got to like say the truth.

The truth is being at an unhealthy

weight is unhealthy for your brain and

body."

I was reading uh some studies earlier on

when I spoke to a insulin resistance

expert. One of the things he said to me

was that they now almost describe

Alzheimer's as

type three diabetes. That's a a phrase

that's often used. And when they look at

brains that are insulin resistant, the

person between 40 or 80% of the time,

depending on which studies you look at,

has insulin resistance. I they've had

elevated blood sugar levels, which of

course then insulin resistance or

something else. It could be stress that

causes insulin resistance or many other

things.

But, it's interesting to think of

to think of

as you said, that that one thing, which

is the high blood sugar levels, insulin

resistance, can

have such a profound impact on the

brain. And if I've ever heard a case for

being a bit more careful about

sugar

and other things that will spike my

blood sugar levels in chronically,

I think that's probably it.

You know, because your brain, as you

said at the start of this conversation,

drives everything in your life. And

to think that sugar and overconsumption

of sugar, should I say, has such a

profound impact on the brain is is pause

for me.

Because I don't like sugar that much.

Um You don't like it as much as you like

your brain. Yeah, and my life.

So, there's a study from the Mayo Clinic

where

they looked at people who had primarily

a fat-based diet. So, fish,

healthy oils, avocados, nuts and seeds,

they had 42% less risk of getting

Alzheimer's disease.

And then, they looked at people who had

primarily a protein-based diet. So,

think of a caveman diet. 21% less risk

of getting Alzheimer's disease. And

then, they looked at people that had a

standard American diet, simple

carbohydrate-based diet, bread, pasta,

potatoes, rice,

fruit juice, sugar,

a 400%

increased risk

of getting Alzheimer's disease.

It's the sugar and the foods that

quickly turn to sugar, which goes with

the insulin

diabetes type three hypothesis.

You have to manage it. And the reason

this is so important to me

is

having high blood sugar

makes your blood vessels

brittle

and more likely to break,

which means it takes longer for things

to heal.

And you're more likely to have a stroke.

And having a stroke increases your risk

of Alzheimer's tenfold.

So, you've a fan of the keto diet. I

sound like a For some people. I I I find

that it doesn't have

enough plants

in it, which means it's probably not

going to be awesome for your microbiome.

So, I'm more

a fan of a paleo

diet that has healthy fat, healthy

protein,

and lots of plants.

We've covered so much. There's

The one thing we talked we started

talking about briefly, I think before we

started recording, was the subject of

hope and grief.

I've never heard someone talk about the

impact that grief has on the brain when

we lose someone, when we're going

through prolonged pain because of a

loss.

Oh, I know more about this than I want.

It

activates

the limbic or emotional circuits in the

brain. And so, when you lose

someone important to you

or even a pet,

like I had

Make me cry.

a white shepherd.

And so beautiful and so sweet. And he

got cancer.

And when he died,

he still lives in my head.

And I lost someone important to me about

20 years ago.

And for like a year, I was just not

okay. And so, I scanned myself and my

emotional brain was so

busy.

And it's like when you have someone,

they actually become ingrained

in every fun place in your brain. So,

they get stored in multiple places in

your brain. And when they're not there

anymore, your brain still looks for

them.

And

figuring out ways to sort of calm down

your emotional brain can be

so help so helpful.

What part of the brain is that? Is that

the amygdala?

No, it's more the insular cortex and the

thalamus.

And that's what we found with

depression. I published a study with

scientists from USC and Los Angeles

Children's Hospital on depression. And

what we found, those were the structures

that were dramatically

overactive compared to people who were

not depressed. So, in grief,

the prefrontal cortex, assuming because

that's the more rational part of the

brain, that's probably going to be

quieter.

Right.

What do I And so, it's the prefrontal

cortex you bring in

to the loss that often determines how

you deal with it. Okay.

And so,

your emotional brain fires up.

If you're drinking and taking the

prefrontal cortex offline, it can't

manage it. So, one thing people don't

understand

is the fibers from the prefrontal cortex

to the rest of the brain

are inhibitory,

which means they calm things down. So,

if this isn't working right, the

emotional part can sort of override it.

And it becomes problematic.

And so protecting this is

so important to managing so much of your

life. I mean, it's really the human most

human thoughtful

part of us.

And what we found

within hope

was that insular cortex was low.

It's really

interesting to us. And hope

is

tomorrow can be better and I have a part

in it.

When you're hopeless, you don't believe

you have agency

to make tomorrow better.

And so often

there

hope training courses

that can be good. And I with all of my

patients, I do this exercise called the

one-page miracle I referred to earlier.

It's like, write down what do you want?

Relationships, work, money, physical,

emotional, spiritual health. All these

things, write it down. And so we talked

to earlier about we're recording this in

January.

I have all my patients do it when I

first see them

and then every January for sure.

And then you just ask yourself, does my

behavior get me what I want?

Mhm.

But But it starts with

what do you want?

You have to write it down. Like with my

wife,

I'm very clear.

I want a kind, caring, loving,

supportive,

passionate relationship.

Always want that.

Don't always feel like that. I have

these rude thoughts that show up or

conflicting ideas that'll just show up

in my head.

And I'm like, oh no.

Don't say that.

No, don't do that. Cuz it doesn't fit.

And

it's been the best relationship of my

life because both of us have the same

goals.

And we're pretty good

at matching our behavior to the goal.

And as a CEO, right? What do you do with

companies?

You have a business plan.

And then you have regular meetings and

key performance indicators to let go,

how are we doing?

And if we're not doing great, we change.

But it always starts with plan.

And most individuals never have a plan.

So they're kind of just being dragged

around by

whatever. I mean,

And now in social media, it's very

dangerous because you might want what

the Kardashians have.

And it's like, wait a minute.

Relationships, work, money, physical,

emotional, spiritual health. And then if

I had tattoos, I don't yet.

My wife got one and it freaked me out.

It's my daughter's birthday. But

the tattoo would be does it fit?

Know what you want and then ask yourself

every day,

my behavior get me what I want? And some

people go, well, isn't that selfish?

It's like, absolutely not.

Cuz if I'm good,

I'm good for everyone around me.

Your goal could be to be a great father.

It absolutely should be a great father.

It's to be a loving

husband, kind, caring, loving,

supportive, passionate.

It's And oh, by the way, when people do

our program,

their erections are better, just saying.

Because blood flow is better

when brain health is better. Mhm. Cuz