This is the end my show Welcome back to Matt's out everybody my guest today is a guy I really admire He's an out-of-the-box thinker. He's an entrepreneur. I call him a life optimization guru of sorts and overall just a world-class communicator Tons of mutual friends New York Times best-selling author 50 million downloads on his podcast and a really good man And I'm excited to have him on so Aubrey Marcus welcome to the show brother happy to be here brother This is gonna be fun I'm happy to have you here because you know our worlds have sort of collided like we keep missing one another with so many of our mutual friends And like these just hearing about you is like I just want to get to know this man a lot better And I'm really glad I get to know you as I share you with the audience too So I'm gonna go everywhere But I want to ask you a little bit about stuff I've read about you too like what is to you what's the definition of total human optimization? What does that mean?
Well, I think a lot of times we look at different parts in a silo even the mind and body We talk about these as separate things. They're not separate things and if you look at every clinical trial that studies every aspect of the physical body What are they accounting for the placebo? Or what the fuck is the placebo the placebo is the mind tricking the body into healing itself or creating a reaction? Physically in the body and I think we all too often overlook the interlap that happens between mind body spirit So total human optimization is of course you got to take care of the physical aspects of the body You got to move you got to get light you got to get water you got to get breath You have to cover got to get sleep you have to have sex you have to do all the basics to really support that but there's so much more in mindset It's also equally important so that you're signaling to your body the right things to live the most thriving life What's one of the things you do on the thinking side because the physical side will talk about with the stuff that you do with breathing and All these other things that you talk really eloquently about give me one thing you do on the thinking side that maybe someone's not heard before that's unique I try every way possible to get still like get the mind to quiet down because the mind is a noisy beast I mean it is just snarling and growling and when it's untamed It's even louder and it's even noisier and it's gonna drag you down a lot of dark Allys where a lot of you know dark emotions and thoughts are gonna be there waiting for you and it can be productive to lean into that and actually Target those places that are scary but do it with intention, you know do it as the one deciding which direction you're gonna go But before you do that you got to get still so whether that's a meditation practice or whether that's some kind of flow practice either Exstatic dance where you're getting into a state of super fluidity where it's just sound and movement or whether it's a sport or whether it's something else Like finding all of the opportunities to get my mind still is crucial because like everybody my mind is noisy as the next guys are girls So really finding a ways to get in that deep stillness so that I know that I'm navigating my own path So how do you know when something is so you guys are built an unbelievable company called on it?
And then I think this year you sort of decided that that's not your role to be leading it anymore And one of the things for me on getting my mind a little bit more quiet because I struggle with a t-tone I was like a lot about this I just really struggle with it. So you know my meditation practices are like really dear to me I know they are for you too, but for me also It's anything that no longer serves me getting rid of it if it doesn't serve me anymore Is that was that part of your decision making and making that step down or unrelated completely? You know not really because I'd love on it, you know And it just felt like I had given my gift to that company and in the way that I you know Desired to give it, you know I was able to birth this amazing company and put all of these things out And I'm still founder the still founder still chairman of the board still contributing to product development and kind of communicating with all the leaders But to really be an effective CEO I mean that's a 60-hour week kind of thing minimum, you know And I was that guy I was that guy who was just looking at everything if there was a rug And I thought there might be some stuff underneath the rug I was the one picking up the rug and seeing if there was cobwebs and you need someone in that position And I just lost that drive that fire to be that guy You know I wanted to be the inspirational leader I wanted to come up with great ideas and then allow my team to execute and I was just really blessed that after a certain amount of time My team was incredibly capable So allowing you know our new CEO Jason Havy who was our COO for a while and then our president for a while allowing him to step into the CEO role And actually be a CEO that's going to be working harder than anybody else in the company Which I think is a natural part of leadership and actually is healthy for the whole organism It's healthier with me stepping back and having someone in that role who's actually doing what a CEO in my opinion should And so it was it was as much a decision that this was the best thing for on it because I wasn't gonna and I beat myself up About I was like come on man, you got to do it You got to get in there you got to look at all that you know you got to look at all the accounts You got to look at everything you got to turn over every rock But I just wasn't naturally Inclinated to do it so I really wanted to podcast and I wanted to write more books and I wanted to you know Continue my own spiritual practice and I recently got married and there's a lot of other things that were driving my passion Rather than you know that kind of nitty gritty aspect of being a CEO I you open the door. I want to go through so bad like for four weeks I've wanted to ask you about this So we're gonna go back to entrepreneurship because you can't have a guy's been a successful number But you did just get married and I cannot wait to freakin talk about this topic You know where I'm gonna go so of course let's go so when I when I first off obviously interesting dude and that when I First knew with him and I saw him I think maybe I have a little of this to I was like this is a dude's dude like you know MMA stuff all this I'm like This is a dude's dude's dude then I found it was a successful entrepreneur then I started to listen to him And I'm like oh I love this dude because it goes far beyond that into the spiritual side into being present side Into the expanding your mind side and then I went a little further I'm like get out this dude was in an open relationship and talked about it for years And so I'm really curious because I think I'm right when I say this it you're in this open relationship And then you it was with Whitney I think I'm right about that right and you were open about it both of you're open about it I don't know if you preach to the benefits of it But you certainly were open about that and now you're in a new relationship I am dying to hear about your thoughts about the structure of your previous relationship the structure of your new one And what you've learned about yourself and that human dynamics of relationships as a result You know I still can preach the benefits of it because as I was mentioning This is one of the scariest things that we can endeavor to do now I would talk to some of the homies and they'd be like oh man This is amazing you get to date anybody one and I was like yeah, yeah, that part's good that part's cool It's beautiful.
I get to make new connections. I get to meet new people. I'm completely free However put yourself in the shoes where your sweet are your girl that you love so much your precious girl is also fucking whoever she wants Like and whoever she wants because that's what's fair is fair, right? I'm not trying to run a harem here This was true open relationship polyamory So there is that side of the freedom of exploration which feels really good But there's the absolute agony of you know Just combating and dealing with the jealousy that comes up and the insecurity that comes up and the need for validation that comes up So the benefit is is that it's gonna put you square into all of these challenges It's gonna test your own self love because if you're getting validation by your partner loving you choosing you wanting to be with you As soon as she starts falling in love with somebody else or enjoying your physical experience with somebody else more than you It's really gonna test how much do I love myself and how much am I dependent upon Whitney loving me to love myself?
So the path of the path of polyamory an open relationship it can be exciting It's absolutely torturous, but it's definitely a path for growth So if you enter into it knowing that it's going to be hard But you know resistance creates adaptation you know challenge creates the potential benefit on the other side to your own psyche and emotions Then I think it's it's a great choice And I think perhaps some people are better than me I've spent six years trying to overcome and slay the dragon of jealousy Slay the dragon of the need for you know validation from a partner and really love myself radically Be absolutely as happy for her to experience pleasure with anybody as experience pleasure with me I couldn't get there, you know And but I know that and I did my best and I gained a lot along the way But ultimately I could never I could never conquer it There's just perhaps too much hardwired or I just hadn't evolved enough on my own spiritual practice my own emotional mastery To actually make it through the other side So it was a beautiful experience and I'm just incredibly grateful to Whitney and my other paramores that I had that experience with and even Whitney's Partners who all taught me a lot and but there was a time where I was like alright This is you know, I've done my absolute best I gave it everything I got it ultimately wasn't for me and you know at the same time You know by line on my current wife kind of came in and I was ready to transition into a different type of relationship And I'm really just could not be happier with the situation I'm in now and but also I don't think I would be able to be as content and as happy if I hadn't explored polyamory like I did Because it would always be a thought in my mind, you know I'm a I'm never gonna be the guy that's gonna cheat on my girl my woman my wife I won't do it, you know partly because that's my morality and partly because I'd be just an absolute nervous wreck Like it would just tear me up It's like it would the cost benefit of that doesn't make any sense to me and it violates, you know The core understanding of who I am but polyamory being absolutely honest absolutely truthful and you know everything is discussed It's all out in the open that would always be dangling and I'd always be wondering like I wonder I wonder if that would work for me But now I don't have a big shiny glittery alluring, you know sirens question mark on that and I'd like I've been there I'd done that it had incredible beauty incredible challenge, but I'm really ready to settle into a different type of relationship now And so this relationship by the way my audience is going well We've never gone there on the show before right, but I wanted it I wanted to go through it because I think in some ways it can strengthen a relationship It's committed by hearing the I like that. There's no judgment I don't need judgment about anybody does in their life I just really don't their path is their path their needs or their needs But I did not hurt someone's kind of an influencer space I think it took a tremendous amount of vulnerability occurred to go Hey, this is the way I'm living my life and then even more to come back now and say you know That was a season of my life and I just that is not for me So does that mean your relationship now is what you would call a one-on-one committed marriage Monogamous yeah, and what have you learned in this one that you like more about it than the other one other Is it the commitment part is it the is it is it giving you a deeper intimacy because it's with this one person? What do you think the difference is? There's you know There's just an immense amount of emotional energy that you have to put into a polyamorous or open relationship First of all you have connections with multiple people you have the interactions between the connections with multiple people You're constantly processing constantly talking constantly dealing with your own shadows and your own demons and all the things that are coming up I mean it is an incredible amount of energy that you're outputting and in this Everything is just so much it's so much lighter and it's so much more playful You know like I used to cherish those moments where I could kind of drop the weight of it and everything felt good And I felt like I could play and just smile freely without something torturing my mind And now you know with my wife we were playing all the time just you know loving each other enjoying being silly And of course, you know we're human beings There's going to be attraction to other human beings But I know what the cost is to go and try and acquire that and it's just not worth it So I'm settled like I'm settled in my mind And you know we get to choose by Lana and I get to choose each other every day and just have an amazing time together Yeah, you think I'm something powerful there about choice because I've heard you talk about this and I love what you just said because You I had a Matthew Hussey on my show He said you know how about being in a new relationship with the same person and you know that hit me You know really really hard you can choose to be in a new relationship with the same person the relationship can begin to evolve and be different Have different elements of it.
There's a fine line man like because I've heard you say choice is a superpower Yeah, right and that can be anything we believe extended too far out can begin to lose the meaning it originally had its intention You know I mean that's why sometimes people take statements just way too far out from what their intended statements were originally So I really love that you stayed with a theme of choice being an anonymous relationship a loving traditional marriage isn't the lack of choice It's a choice to be in that relationship, right? And I love that you said I'm really glad that you said it that way because I think you know I'm I am certainly not wired To have to deal with the energy drain and the worries and the jealousy that you were experiencing I just know for sure There's just no damn way in the world But I want you to talk about that as a broader statement that you've made Why is choice because I think it's one of these things we have that we don't acknowledge we have why is choice a superpower in the general sense? When you really look at it like what we're capable of is so much more than we think we then we think we are and all too often We'll just accept what society says. We'll accept what our conditioning tells us We'll just accept that there's rules of the game that just everybody's doing it So there's just rules and I think a lot of times in relationship There was just this is the way it's done your monogamous you get married you lose passion blah blah blah you deal with it You start a family and this is just a way but when you when that's the when that's how it's going it robs you have that You know really sacred power you have to say like no actually I'm choosing this I mean even the language we use is oppressive.
I should I have to all I have to do this I have to do this thing for work No, you don't you don't have to do that you can do whatever the fuck you want and like to really claim that then start I actually work with by my wife that we catch each other every time we use a language of compulsion because it's it's never true Oh, I've got to go see my family. No, you don't you don't have to go see your family You can choose not to go see your family. Oh, I gotta I gotta do a cleanse. No, you don't you don't have to do I gotta go to the gym I have to have to get some you know you don't you want to you want to and then when you start to realize like everything in your life For the most part you're doing because you want to unless there's some other oppressive force outside of your control Which sometimes is the case and in that specific instance, you know, there may be that choice But even if something is happening like if you're starving I have to eat no You know you can choose not to eat you might die and you could choose to die like you have choice and to recognize that we're constantly making choices There's something really liberating about that and it just removes so much self-oppression.
It's exciting to me brother It's huge It's it's I know for sure where we are right now is the reason I had you on the show because I've been the universe God always delivers to you Like someone who's speaking to right where you are and I gotta tell you you said something about no You don't it's so true even it my way I live my life Which you know I'm always giving advice to people different things even I do a lot of things because I think I should and this oppressive force You talked about guys most of them are boogie men. We've made up in our mind There's these confines and restrictions of the way we end up living What if you could just go back to what are we started with there? Which no, you don't you could do whatever you want now You may choose not to base on morals, ethics, ethics, etc, etc But you could do anything you want I'll give you an example, but I just want to tell you this because it goes to your work I don't know if anyone's ever experienced it was the most bizarre thing I'm gonna be 50 years old, I'm a grown man I've built a really nice life, right and my dad passed away two weeks ago and It's just gonna sound ridiculous. There's a lot of beautiful things that happened in his passing One of the things that started to occur to me however the last few weeks This is so strange is my willingness to now start to try and do things that I wasn't willing to do when my dad was alive Out of some bizarre judgment He might have that I would do it that he didn't even really have but that I made up because he existed on the earth somehow It's that makes it's crazy, but I'm like I can do that now They're unrelated completely but somehow this relationship with parents this relationship with other people our relationship with our belief systems Are that oppressive force that causes us to not live on our own terms?
Isn't that crazy? It is and it's ubiquitous. It's everywhere. We all experience it and so yeah I mean the invitation to the people listening is try and catch yourself You know catch yourself every time you have that should or should not or have or have to or and really make that make that word mean something If you actually literally have to in some crazy situation You know which is actually hard to actually come up with when you say that I mean there's things that obviously you will do you know and it's not really even a something that's up for debate This is something you will do because of who you are etc But pretty much everything you know is your choice to do it and when you start to reclaim that and then That's step one and then step two is to start to expand what your choices actually are and like can you I mentioned the placebo effect earlier Can you actively choose to harness the placebo effect for your own benefit?
Well if you follow dr. Jota spends his work a hundred percent you can and so what does that mean that means you can start actively using your mind To heal your body to get yourself in a prime optimal state you can make that choice and then you have to realize Oh, why am I not choosing that? Why am I not choosing to do that? Is it because I want to suffer for some reason?
Maybe it's because I think I deserve to suffer and you start to expose everything that's in the mind You know an interesting thing as well There was a palliative care nurse and her name was brony where and you can look this up and she interviewed Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who are passing on her deathbed and the number one deathbed regret was I wish I would have let myself be happier So they in the moment of death understood that their happiness was a choice And they didn't let themselves like that language is really important Not I wish it would have been happier like that was something that happened externally. It's I wish I would have let myself be happier So they recognize it's a choice. Oh, really? Dude, I just look at can you see my hairless arms with the goosebumps on there?
Yeah, man. Yeah, I gotta tell you something really I'm almost gonna cry right now, but I won't I just finished being interviewed an hour ago and I was talking to be asking about my dad's passing and my dad by the way It was a beautiful my best friend beautiful man and had all the things a rich man would have not money But a loving family a loving wife really passed in his own home, but it's interesting. I can't believe you just said that They let themselves be happier. Just got interviewed an hour ago.
So it's right about 45 minutes ago. I uttered this sentence bro I said I wish my dad would have let himself be happier I just said this an hour ago, bro. And you're so right about that. What if you just let yourself be happier?
If you just did it's it's such a powerful thing. It's such a simple thing that we create these confines on ourselves and they become as dr Joe talks about our very familiar part of our body this congruency between our thoughts and the way we move your body and I just Hope everyone that's getting exposed. It's particularly about the time of year they're listening to it You know, you're gonna be going into a new year You know, you could give yourself permission to be a new you to think new thoughts to not have to do things and allow what obry is telling you to really sink in To actually just let yourself be happier. It's just a permission thing.
It's it's it's remarkable that you just said that brother I can't I get over that those are the way you word it is too. How about one thing that you do On the breathing side. I'm like I'm trying to split hairs and I'm like how can I grow? How can I improve?
I like the way that I train I like my nutrition, you know, I I like the things I'm working on in my mind and the different things that I'm doing we'll go to the mind in a little bit too But one thing I've sort of become obsessed with and very aware of is how central breathing is overall to our wellness our mindset our belief systems It's a way something you do that's something related to breathing because I've heard you talk about this It's something that most people wouldn't know about or aren't doing on a regular basis I love that question and I can't wait to dive in I want to take one moment to share something because we mentioned let myself be happier and there's a lot of ways to do that But I had I had a really beautiful answer when I asked, you know, a 50 year zen buddhist How like the secret to happiness and he said I said well, how do you how do you you know? How do you get yourself to be happy? And he says he thinks about it for a moment He says you just smile and then you see how far it spreads And I was like oh, yeah Yeah, and like that it can be that simple like bend the corners of your mouth into a smile and just see how far it goes That's awesome, you know, just like one little thing like that and then when you don't want to do that That's where you got to get curious like okay now that you've known that and you're like you don't want to do it I don't want to smile well, then you're choosing to be sad and then why why are you choosing to suffer? Why and that's where I think it really gets interesting to start looking in and diving deeper And it's a big part of the next book that I'm writing which is a challenging book It's called master your mind But those questions are at like the central core is this because I recognize how much choice we have And then asking that question okay now why if we know that we're capable of doing this Why aren't we and not without judgment, you know, I'm not saying oh you should you should but being really curious as to why So anyways, I just wanted to share that before you do it I'm gonna steal something from your book Give me one reason that is a why for most people that they won't let they choose to be sad and one allow them So let's give us one I think one of the biggest reasons is fear of hope Because here's what happens when you have here's when you're here's what happens when you're afraid of hope So hope means that you have to identify that something's wrong with your current state And because then why would you want something else to happen unless there's something wrong?
So that's one of the things that's challenging about hope then you have to acknowledge that it's possible But it's not a guarantee right because otherwise you just know something's gonna happen You don't have any hope either So when you know that you want something but you don't know if it's gonna happen You're setting yourself up for a potential disappointment So if you allow yourself to be happy Then you're setting yourself up for the potential slap in the face and disappointment If that happiness doesn't last and if this method doesn't work So a lot of times we're afraid to give ourselves the possibility because we're afraid oh don't get too happy Because if you do you know that next thing's gonna be common and then you're gonna be disappointed So we're constantly protecting ourselves from that potential disappointment by actually giving us Giving ourselves the same suffering that we're trying to protect ourselves against. It's really madness. Whoa Whoa I've never heard that said like that before and I do it Of course I do too Yeah, I've done it. Yeah.
Wow. Wow So one of the things I've worked on at least in my question what stays in this topic too is I'm big on state change I'm just big on that You know and for me obviously moving my body's been at the key that I was asking you this earlier But I want to give you a chance to answer because what you just said so powerful You know I didn't want to move off of that But like everything I've seen with you from stuff I've seen you doing with Jesse and Wim Hof and the Is it the holy atrophic breathing from saying that? Yeah, yeah Yeah, so speak to that a little because I think it's a life-changing thing I've been working on my breathing in different ways for about six months now Different methods and I've landed on a few that I like I'd love your thoughts on it Because I think it's just one of these things we take for granted that we don't do correctly or well There's really three different levels now. There's lots of yogic type of breaths They call it pranayama and this is a practice.
It's been in the yogic tradition for thousands of years I don't really lean that far that way where it's like through this nostril and out this nostril counting these seconds I've never found that to be that productive for me But what I found is there's three levels of breath work that are incredibly productive and I'm in the season of my life right now Where this is the most productive practice that I can engage in so the first basic level is six deep breaths And there's a Japanese study that I talk about my book on the day And it's actually something that I do every time I give a talk about on the day or if I feel the audience is restless Six deep breaths was proven in clinical research to actually alter and create state change not four not five Like everybody says the colloquial way is ah take a deep breath Well, that might not do anything, but six will so you take six deep breaths. You're gonna lower your blood pressure You're gonna create a state change from just that so that's the very basic so at any given point 60 breaths that's all it is and once again if you're not willing to do that Let's say you're angry or let's say you're agitated and you don't want to do it Be curious as to why you don't want to do it because it's going to work nose nose breaths nasal breaths mouth breaths doesn't matter You know Wim Hof, I think I love the way Wim Hof says it he says, you know, it doesn't matter which hole just get it in You know like whatever whichever way you want to do it Now there's some benefits to nitric oxide production if you're breathing through your nose So there's some you know physical performance elements that come through nose breathing that I think are worth paying attention to But for what we're talking about it's really about oxygen load So either either your nose or your mouth both are gonna work But you know might as well benefit from the nitric oxide production Which is great for mood just great for performance across the board So if you can breathe through your nose especially on the 60s ones go for it The next level is the Wim Hof breath Now this is somewhere between a full-on shamanic ceremonial level of breathing and you know the 60 breaths So you're gonna want to take 30 to 50 breaths and you'll actually start to feel an even deeper physiological change Perhaps some tingles in your fingers perhaps your you know your face will get a little flush temperature regulation will change And this is kind of the start of a deeper breathwork practice It's great for cold exposure You know if you're gonna go in to have a cold plunge practice, which is phenomenal It's great to do this before And you can actually start to enter in and kind of open up the the Tupperware lid on some emotions that you might have Even even from just doing the Wim Hof breath Even potentially start to get different ideas thoughts visions that might come through So that's a great you know kind of second stop really Wim Hof has a great app He's got the Wim Hof method app. He's got a new book out I just interviewed him on my podcast and lots of ways that you can learn the Wim Hof method But it's pretty simple all the way in And then let it all out but without the force on the exhale you're not trying to go You know, you just take it all in belly chest head And just let it fall right out of you and that's that's basically the Wim Hof method Now the final you know the final place that you can take breath is a full-on visionary experience And it's just like something you'd experience with a plant medicine But there's no plants. It's just your breath and for that you're gonna want to breathe in that same Wim Hof method deep You know rapid breaths, you know, not not super fast But deep breaths as fast as you can take them in for Probably about six to 12 minutes, you know, depending and you're gonna have a lot of state change Your hands might start to curl up And you're really going to be getting into your somatic body and getting into the places where you're storing some trauma storing some emotions And i'll tell you know, sometimes i'll go into that and it'll be just a beautiful kind of blissful experience I have like five breathing playlists on my Spotify and it's always epic music and then beautiful music But anyways, you go into that And you breathe for about you know, call it about eight minutes on the median and then you go into a breath hold And this is also a part of the Wim Hof practice and there's two ways you can do it You can breathe you can hold your breath at the top Which is going to create even more oxygen So if it's one of my favorite ways to do it is to hold my breath at the top And there's also a way to hold your breath at the bottom and that's not the absolute absence of air It's kind of like the bottom but not where you're pushing the last gasp of air out of your body Now the advantage of holding your breath at the bottom is it's going to trigger an adrenaline dump That's actually going to wash away cortisol And so it's going to be less about the visionary space that you're going to be in the release of emotions But it's going to have some physiological benefits and Wim Hof, you know Has done the research and done the study to show that holding your breath on the exhale is similar to bungee jumping as far as the Wow And adrenaline and norepinephrine norepinephrine dump that you're going to have which is an antagonist to the cortisol So if you're stressed, it's going to be really interesting and people think of adrenaline like, you know, a stress hormone It's not it's different, you know, it has a different function.
It's cortisol That's the stress hormone and the adrenaline and norepinephrine combo is actually going to lower that So anyways for the Wim Hof, you may choose to hold your breath on the inhale or on the exhale Either one will work but for the shamanic breath or the holotropic breath, holotropic comes from a particular school by dr Stanislav Groff, but I just call it shamanic breath because it kind of canvases the whole topic I like to hold it on the inhale and you hold for as long as you can and in that space and typically have a playlist where that's like The beautiful song and then you have some like kind of warrior songs some fiery songs while you're breathing and then you break into that and you hold your breath And you know, I'm really surprised how many times that I have something that I can't even name I don't even know what it is, but I'll just start sobbing just start sobbing You know, not like the few tears that come from an inspirational movie or you know a touching moment But like sobs that are shaking my body and I just let them I just let them go and I don't even as I said like there's no I'm not crying because I'm thinking of my grandma who passed or I'm thinking of you know something I'm not thinking about anything It's just there it's like stored in my body and I'm just taking the lid off and it's just releasing it And sometimes it does get accompanied with a vision some clarity some insight, but a lot of times it's just moving some stuck energy That's in my body. So that practice for me and I'll do three rounds of that So it'll end up being about 30 40 minutes and um, it's it's the best practice that I can do right now You know in the season that I'm in for whatever reason it's just after I'm done with that I mean I feel phenomenal. That's beautiful brother. The one thing I love about you is like you go deep once you're into something You don't dabble.
Mm. You know, I mean, I observe this about you go deep. You become an expert You become very knowledgeable and what I've noticed about you. I think this is a lesson to take from Aubrey I think it's your level of humility that makes you such a good student Very rarely that someone's achieved what you've achieved Influences what you influence the people you've come in contact with you've maintained a level of humility where you still want to learn It's really rare it affects entrepreneurs once they start to climb too high it affects people in all areas of their life I just really admire that about you brother and you were saying um, you know the season of your life I I mean I have one of the best people in the world on my show.
I got to ask you this This is a different season for a lot of people with what's going on with covid and the business is being shut down and you know Be not moving maybe quite as much not leaving their home quite as much in some areas And as people are hearing this that may even be more pronounced throughout the winter for the next month or two I'm curious as to any thoughts you have that are specific to this exact time right now for people's wellness Optimizing their mindset their their mental health in general There anything that you would say that's different about this time that you'd recommend to people that's a practice or a thought That you know could really serve them through this time to optimize the time actually thrive and not struggle so much and suffer Now you're probably getting the messages. I guess I've never had so many messages people that at least feel like they're experiencing suffering right now Yeah, there's a there's a lot to point to for one You know, we have to be really mindful of the state of fear that we're in because fear shuts down our executive function process We're not going to be thinking clearly when we're afraid So if you have that type of fear in your system, not only is you know, your neuro chemistry going to be altered Your hormone state's going to be altered and your immune function is going to be actually, you know Absolutely through the floor. You know the moment that you're in that fear state You're putting yourself in the worst position possible So understanding that you have to be able to manage and work through your fear and a lot of that fear goes back to the fear of death So really, you know reckoning with your own mortality You know getting to that place where you know You've made peace with your death in some way and whatever whatever way that you can do that Now of course the plant medicines have been a huge ally for me in my own quest with that But we have to address fear because fear is a universal, you know, pressure on the human organism It's going to cause us to make bad decisions and it's also going to cause us to be way way less healthy So be mindful of the state of fear that you're in be aware of everything that's going on But you don't have to engage with that level of chronic fear The next thing is, you know, there's some really powerful research coming out now about vitamin D Yes, so getting sun supplementing with vitamin D This is incredibly important also the correlation between people having challenges with covid and their obesity state and their metabolic health This is a great time to double down and pay attention to your metabolic health start an intermittent fasting practice You know start shifting your macronutrient profile from, you know, heavy carbs and fried, you know, fried foods and omega-6 Into something that's a little more keto a little more carnivore whatever you want to go But try and support your metabolic health in a really productive way And then the other thing to really pay attention to is right If you look at, you know, the number one predictor of early all-cause mortality It's not cigarettes and it's not cancer and it's not obesity. It's loneliness Literally loneliness is the number one predictor of early mortality human beings.
We are social creatures We thrive in community and thrive in family and so All of this advice telling us to stay as far away from people as possible It will kill us. It literally will kill us. So be mindful that this is not just one virus We're dealing with a lot of different factors here and we cannot have a cure that's worse than the cause, you know So whatever your own beliefs and whatever precautions you want to take that's fine But understand that you have to feel connected you have to have that human connection It's just wired in to who we are as human beings and you can look at all of the clinical research to back this up, you know, about loneliness It's incredibly important that we stay connected like both physically and emotionally connected to people during this time because in any hardship You can read Sebastian Jungers book tribe, right? Like the reason why even when the bombs were falling on London from the Nazi blitzkrieg people found a deep sense of happiness and satisfaction during that period Because they were all pulling together they were all huddled close They if someone had a sandwich then their neighbor had half a sandwich and that sense of community was what allowed them to thrive through that So be really careful with your isolation practices because that's just going to drive you in a direction.
That's, you know, quite dangerous What did you believe when you were young that you no longer believe now? Even a few years ago something you held to be really true that you know, I just don't hold that belief anymore I think I believed that Yeah, everything's gonna pretty much stay the same, you know, like everything's gonna be some variation of the same and we're gonna live in this kind of Lifetime of not being in any extremes. It's really interesting because you know, I'm about to turn 40 But we've had some conflicts you could call them wars, but they've been so far away from us Like it's not like the Vietnam war then of course before then there was the world wars and these big things We haven't had a big thing like that happen. Of course there was 9-11 and that was incredibly tragic and heartbreaking But it was so fast and there hasn't really been anything that's really shaken up the status quo So it allows you to be a little bit selfish and a little bit kind of and also kind of a little lazy in some degree because you're really just like All right, well, I want to be successful and I want to put out these messages and I want to do this thing and I want to You know serve people but there's no desperate need because things are all gonna be kind of the same And I think this year it's it's really come to my attention that oh no Maybe not, you know, maybe things all of a sudden won't be the same and there may be a bell that's wrong out there In the world that says okay, you know warriors of the light step forward because now is the time And I've felt that and I felt that and the bell still it's ringing but it's a little bit faint But just hearing that and knowing like oh there may be a time where I may have to sacrifice everything To step forward and give everything I got to the world because the world really needs it And that's something that's that's something that's come online for sure.
That's not a minor thing that's come up I mean that's absolutely wonderful man and I by the way, I think you're called to do that You're one of those people and um, let me get the last thing I want to ask you like this has really been an emotional interview for me Like just be candid with you brother when you said that about life and allowing yourself to enjoy it It's just stunning to me that this like this was meant to be um, but let's go to the average person watching this for a minute They spent this you know 45 minutes to an hour with us. They learned a whole lot I mean obviously things they've never heard before as well, but they're sitting there and they're going hey man Like I love that you've got so much to offer my let seems like he's got something to offer You know what, but I don't you know, I don't know that I have anything to offer I don't know that I matter I don't know that I have anything to bring to the table I think there's a Epidemic almost in our culture in our world today of people feeling really invisible I just really do and I think I've seen you talk about this a little bit Just like you're so eloquent to speaking to someone's purpose someone's soul someone's meaning their value What would you say to someone it's the holidays man that loneliness thing is really wearing its head up right now I'm invisible. I'm lonely. I don't have anything to offer to the world What would you say to someone feeling those things which I think a lot of people are?
We all have medicine for the world we all do and every single one of us And I think we can get caught in a trap of comparing, you know, some external metric about the size of that medicine You know and then say oh, what what is what am I doing that matters? I remember I'll give an example I fell in this trap and I was you know, I've done my podcast for eight nine years now and around year three You know, my podcast was just kind of stuck at about 20,000 downloads Every show and I couldn't get it to grow and I couldn't get it go anywhere And I just kind of was like, you know, and I'm friends with Joe Rogan and his show is getting millions upon millions And then you know and I'm looking at this and friends with Lewis Howes and his shows growing and I'm friends with all of Tim Ferris And his show and I'm I'm thinking like, what's my little show with 20,000 people and then I had a friend of mine go What the fuck is wrong with you? Have you ever been to a basketball game? Okay, so we have more than that listening to your podcast and you're gonna lose you know, you're gonna lose faith in that and I was like Oh, yeah, but even me so what I'm the point of that is is that Even I was measuring my own worth based upon some other standard that made me feel like what I was doing And you can bring that all the way down to the individual Your medicine if you're serving just that one person in your family or your partner or that random stranger than instead of that, you know Negative encounter that you have you have a positive encounter you have something that's plenty.
That's just as good There's no there's no external metric to value your own worth like you being who you are. Nobody else can be that You're an instrument in the symphony of the divine and you just got to play it You got to play whatever, you know, you could be the piccolo or you could be the tuba It doesn't fucking matter. It's just an instrument, you know, you're an instrument I'm an instrument every single person is an instrument some have different amplifications, but it doesn't matter We're just playing our instrument and we all have to play our instrument to play the symphony of God We have to so, you know, that's the only way that it's gonna play So, you know, just stay away from all of these external metrics and external validations because it's a slippery slope And you think like, oh, well if I was reaching a thousand people, then it would matter No, it won't because then you look at the person with five thousand Then when you have to five thousand you get to get to 50 and then when you get to 50 you'll need to get five million It won't work like it won't work. You won't find satisfaction from that You only get satisfaction from playing your instrument serving your medicine no matter who it reaches That's awesome.
I gotta gotta tell you just gotta say obviously it was supposed to be on for me to Today you guys and you got the list but I have that tendency to and I just want to share this last thing about it You're pointing and I'm gonna thank you, bro because you're so awesome Um, my dad when he passed my dad was sober like 34 years My dad's a simple man And you know, I am blessed like you are to reach lots of people with my messages and You would think it's all the scale My dad didn't want us uneral guys and so what my dad did have though is about a couple weeks after he passed away His local AA group said we're gonna meet at a park and just honor your dad And so and I didn't really want to go to be honest with you I don't know who these people are because it's an anonymous organization and I didn't think my dad would like it But turns out me my whole family my mom all the grandchildren the children all go to this thing And then people started getting up one by one and my dad's name was Ed Mylet Aubrey But just in his small way, you know, the first man got said I've known Ed Mylet 32 and a half years and he saved my life and it was at a simple breakfast Next guy gets up. I served 10 years, you know, you know, jacked up dude, tatted up totally different guy Ed Mylet changed my life You walked across a meeting and just introduced himself and said hey, I'm here if you need any help Small little gestures like that and it occurred to me That my dad lived a great life and he mattered And he didn't just matter to our family and it was small things that may seem small better huge in the souls and the spirits of other people's lives Exactly what Aubrey just said and so don't discount what Aubrey just told you You make a difference for one person in your classroom if you're a school teacher or one person walks by you at the grocery store You give them a smile or a hello and at rough time or you just see them when they need to be seen You are making a difference in the world and changing it so you couldn't be more right bro So eloquent I love today and you're coming back. Hell yeah, man. Let's go.
I love today, too Man, this is just the beginning. Yeah, it really is man. We covered a lot of things today You guys follow Aubrey. We'll put his instagram up on the youtube here He's got programs that you can take a look at this guy's got a group of tribe that he's built It's remarkable.
We didn't even get into the entrepreneur stuff, but he's built an amazing company There's just a depth of reservoir of information with this man. That's very unique and I'm really proud that I've had you on bro Thank you for today. It was amazing, man It's a real honor and I look forward to way more of this we'll have to do a show on my show too I'd love that brother. Hey, everybody max out to me to drill instagram I make a comment make if I make a post every day make a comment first two minutes You're in a drawing.
You're coach by me. Meet my guest go on the jet go to events get gear If you miss the first two minutes just make a comment every day and reply to people's comments I'm there to engage with you. Aubrey Marcus has been on this show because of the hundreds of dms I've received from you guys over the last year saying please get him on and so that's why I want to connect with you God bless you all max out This is the end my shot