 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump, mind pump, with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Would you guys think of that interview we just did with Aubrey? Oh, man, that was the first 30, man, or 40. I felt like I had a really tough time breaking through. Now, this is the second time that we've interviewed him. And the first time, that was a little over a year, well, a year and a half ago, almost, when we came down here last time. And we all didn't really know each other, so I felt like we had, what, 200 less episodes under our belt or more, no, more than that. We were only at, if that was over a year ago, that were 400, almost 400 less episodes. So we were really just kind of finding ourself in our way when we interview. Plus the first time, let's be honest, this was when, you know, Mind Pump started to take off a little bit on it, was a company that all of us, we re-respected. We saw what they were trying to do. They were trying to bring all these different modalities and things together, and so it was kind of like, oh, shit, you know, we're gonna go hang out at all. There's a lot of things that we have in common. Although we're a lot different, there's a lot of things that we do have in common. There's some hype leading up to it for sure. Yeah. Yeah, fuck, I remember how excited you guys were to come out the first time. I remember having to talk to everyone down, like, relax, you guys, you never know. Let's see what it looks like when we get out there. But anyways, the first time that we interviewed, I wasn't really happy with how I interviewed, but this time, I mean, I really felt like I was bringing my A-game as far as- You had to, dude. I wanted to get into, there was stuff that I had thought about last time that we talked, and I'm like, I really wanna get in some deep stuff with Aubrey, because I think that he articulates himself really, really well. Well, to give us credit, it's very hard because we love to kind of hang out ahead of time, right? We like to kind of get on that level where we can have a conversation with somebody going into the podcast, and we just haven't been able to have that yet. So there was that wall ahead of time, even going in. One of the hardest parts about interviewing people on a podcast is when people sit down and they know they're being recorded, there's this front, there's this like, this is, I'm gonna say what I need to say, I'm gonna say what I'm supposed to say, I'm not gonna get too deep. Yeah, all the answers are calculated. Yeah, and we had this experience with, we've had this before, I mean, what's his name? Dave Asprey was like that when we interviewed him. It was like, it felt like canned answers. It felt like he was running a commercial and it was hard to break through and it was over the phone, so it was impossible to break through. Right, right. And it felt like that for the first 30 to 45 minutes with Aubrey. Well, I pride us on the ability to break through that. I think for the most part, although every once in a while, and Dave Asprey's an example of an interview, which great guy also, but I just felt like we didn't get beyond the surface, I felt that way for the first 30 minutes or so. It was kind of, it was a commercial for his book, which sounds very interesting, but it sounded like that, right? And then, Adam just started getting a little frustrated and then we had some real conversations. They got better. Yeah, I like what Adam was trying to do. Well, I finally had a zero fucks attitude about it. I was like, you know what, if I'm not gonna get to fucking some deeper answers here, I'm just gonna start interrupting him. So this is that interrupting skill, right? It's one of those like, how do you change the dynamic or the energy of the podcast? Yeah, it's like when you ask somebody like, hey man, in the last year, tell us something that really challenged you about, and then the answer would be like, well, everything's challenging and the world is challenging. It's like, no, fucker, tell me what you know, and you gotta break through. And so what you're gonna hear in this podcast is really two podcasts. The first 30 to 45 minutes is surface stuff, interesting stuff, still some very interesting stuff. We get to talk about Aubrey's book that'll be coming out. And I believe April, if I'm not mistaken, May or April coming up this year. And then the second half, we start to really talk about the, you know, Aubrey himself, the man, like get a little deeper, talk about the challenges, talk about the challenges with running a mega company, the challenges with hiring and firing people. He actually talked about how he cries when he fires. Man, it was really tough getting some of these answers out too, because I mean, I know what it's like to operate something of our size, which is getting to become a large company, nowhere near what on it is right now. So I, and I know all the stress that we deal with and all the moving parts and the challenges. And we talk about all the time about when we go back and look back at the year and we say, these are our biggest mistakes. These are the things that we did really well going forward this year. And so I was trying to get that out for, because I'm, I want to know, like I want to know what it's like to, I don't have 200 employees. Like I don't know what it's like to run 200, to build something that has 200 employees right now. So I want- It's valuable information. Right, so I want to know that what was going through. And so I was getting, you could hear me trying to- Well, I want, I want another interview. I want an interview in our house at Mime Pump, because you know, it's an interesting vibe when you go to audit. It's very different. I've been in parts of major companies. I've been in corporate facilities. Well, do you know what- And it's just a very different vibe. It's, I don't know how to explain it. It's, it's just very different. And I want to get deeper. Do you think it's that? Or do you think that when we are in our studio, we have more of our zero fucks mentality? Oh, no, no, no. It's like, you're in our- Yeah, of course. Where we're in somebody else's house. So there's this kind of respect- Well, no, no, I agree with that. That's not what I'm referencing. Yes, 100% I agree with that. But what I mean by the different vibe is, I want to get deeper into the vibe at audit. Like I want to talk to Aubrey about it because, you know, he calls himself, you know, or maybe someone else called him, you know, warrior poet. He likes philosophy. He likes speaking in these, you know, kinds of ways. And so it almost feels like some of it, the vibe isn't so much people work for him. It's almost like they follow him. I don't know how to explain it. And I want to get deeper into that because it's very fascinating to me. And so I want a third interview where we can dive into that feel, that vibe of this kind of, you know, where you've got these followers who you also employ, which may be why it's so difficult for him to fire people. Like you'll hear in this episode that he talks about. So this is an interesting episode. He's an interesting individual, you know, greatest, great, showed us, excuse me, great hospitality. Oh yeah, no. But I want a part three. I want to get deeper. I want a part three. And mind pump. Yeah, and mind pump. And you'll hear, you're going to hear a shift in this podcast. It's very interesting. Very interesting podcast. We had a good time with it. So yeah, without any further ado, you know, you can find him by the way, AubreyMarcus.com. He has his own podcast, the Aubrey Marcus podcast. And of course, he's the owner and leader of On It. So without any further ado, here we are talking to Aubrey Marcus of On It. You guys are going to like this one. Enjoy. Well, shit, I guess we put this book in front of us. Tell us a little bit about it. I have no idea what's in here, but I'm looking at the title, Own the Day. So I'm assuming this is about, well it says optimizing practices for waking, working, learning, eating, training, playing, sleeping and sex. That's a lot of stuff. That's a lot of stuff. That's what a good day looks like. That's what I have all that shit in my day. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things I realized is that everybody has these transformational programs. These plans are like 40 days to this, 90 days to astronaut, and it just focuses on one thing. And when you get myopic like that, it's a lot of times other things fall out of balance. So to really make changes, you know, it's kind of the principle that On It has, total human optimization. To really make a change, you need to work all the interconnected things. You know, if you wake up right, you're going to be more likely to work out. If you work out, you're going to be more likely to have sex. If you have sex, you're going to be more likely to sleep, everything kind of works in conjunction. So instead of worrying about some 40 day program for this or 30 day program, I'm just saying, look, here's what one truly optimized day feels like. Just one day. That's the basic unit of measurement. That's the circadian rhythm that's waking up, going to sleep. One day is the basic unit by which we navigate life. Let's get one of those fuckers right and then go from there. Now, was this tough for you to write? Was this difficult thing to put together? Hell yeah. Hell yeah. What was hard about it? Well, a lot of things were hard about it. For one, it was my first book. It's over 100,000 words and really going at that length and continuing like keeping the same tone, keeping the same consistency. And then there's over like 350 references in there and clinical studies and then breaking it to make sure I'm citing and researching and scouring all of the PubMed for all of the supporting evidence for everything. And honestly, I learned a lot. You start to shake yourself free of some things that this one person who you respected told you 10 years ago and you've been regurgitating, at least internally. And then you go look at the science and you're like, oh, okay, I was wrong about that and you hone your game. So it's really actually sharpened my knowledge base and skill set and a lot of these. One thing I learned, I'd manage large teams and gyms and work with people. I noticed that I learned faster when I teach. Did you experience this as you were writing this book? Did you find that trying to put it down on paper, trying to teach it forced you to? Now, I asked you earlier how long it took you to write the book and you said your whole life. But I mean, literally from when you started writing it till when it was finished, how long did that take you? That was about 18 months. It's about a year and a half. Now, was it hard because I can imagine somebody who values themselves or identifies a little bit with growth, right? Changing, being self-aware. You weren't the same person at the end of the book as I'm assuming as you were in the beginning. It's true. Was that difficult because you want to go back and change it and then, oh, I'm different now. Yeah, I rewrote it seven times. Like literally, I kept rewriting it because and I would go back, it was crazy. I would go back and I'd be like, did a child write this? Like I was evolving so much as a writer and I was like, my voice was getting so much better and my knowledge was evolving. And I would literally look back and be like, this is dog shit. What areas did you see that the most in? I think, you know, I mean, the book goes through every different section of the day, you know, from what you do in the morning to dealing with the hormetic stressors, right? You know, in your morning routine, the hot and cold and the breakfast and all these. I really just found that my writing style and also the interplay of how I, you know, how I wove the clinical trials in and how I made everything consistent, that was really the hard part. And there was always good ideas. You know, I always had good ideas and I always could get poetic. You know, I've been a good writer. I've been writing that way. If anybody's followed my Instagram posts or Facebook posts, like I know how to convey a message, but how to really create a narrative and still keep it, you know, keep it light, keep it informative, not get bogged down in unnecessary details, find unique ways to explain complex topics like the difference between the fluffy load, you know, LDL particles and the very dense LDL particles and why one's good and one's bad and make that something that people can consume and not be like, what the hell was that gobbledygook? Who are your teachers? Cause now you're teaching here, but who are your teachers to help you? Cause if we go back now, you said, you took your whole life to write this book. Let's talk about that for a second. Start us off in the beginning, like how did, what does that process look like? Who are your teachers and how did you learn some of the things that you felt compelled now to put in a book so that you can communicate it to other people? Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, so many teachers. I feel like everybody's my teacher. You know, I don't look at anyone in particular as this is my guru. Everybody has something to teach and that's the beauty of what we have here and on it. Like a lot of the people you'll see in those books are a lot of the top athletes that we work with, Duncan Keith, Jonathan Taves, T.J. Dillishaw and you'll meet Bodhi Miller in there, Joe Rogan. And then you'll also meet the other, you know, kind of experts in their field, Mark Sisson, Ben Greenfield. You know, these people that I've, Rhonda Patrick, people who I've learned, you know, distinct bodies of knowledge from and then people who I've learned who've just put amazing things into practice. And of course, myself, you know, the things that I've tried when I've failed, when I've succeeded. And then there's, of course, the whole research component, you know, all these things that something will pop up on the PubMed and be like, oh wow, you know, this is some, this is some shit that we got to talk about. Yeah, but who are your first like mentors? Like can you name people you're like, oh, this person right here really took me to this level and then. Or paradigm shattering moments in your life. Like, and who gave those to you? Yeah, I wish I could just tell you that, like this is my mentor, this is the moment, it's an accumulation, you know, it's an incremental process. And I can't identify there was this one time and this one, but there's key relationships. You know, I met Bodie Miller and a Vegas party trip and all of a sudden, you know, we became best friends and I learned an immense amount from that dude. So I could track it back to that one moment when we met, but it was an incremental amount of learning from that guy, same with Rogan, same with a lot of these different individuals. A key member of the book, you know, Ben Greenfield was a huge ally in creating this book. He's one of the guys who actually puts all of this shit into practice, like Kyle Kingsbury, he was also really helpful. He came on later. And there's only been a handful of people that I feel like I've truly met that like completely lived their whole life. They live it, yeah. And that, to me, I think that's where. They're on a crazy level, but you believe them because they actually apply it. Oh, dude, we went to his house and within 30 minutes, I had a light up, you know, looked like a small dildo up my nose. We had red lights shining on our balls. I had something on my head and he's talking about all the different things that we're doing to optimize ourselves. And, you know, these are all fascinating, interesting, probably have small effects on people, but when you're someone like Ben who optimizes everything makes a difference because he. Well, he's handled the big rocks already, right? The guy's a dressed sleep. He's addressed a lot of things in his life that we talk about, I think nutrition, exercise. Like I feel like he's done a really good job there. So it makes sense to add all these additional things to optimize. And I think he does an incredible job at it. You also met Paul Check recently. What was that experience like? Yeah, another one of those genuine masters who's put, you know, a lot. Like this book covers the full gamut of things. Like one of the things I talk about in the book is the best time to have a drink. You know, it's not trying to say to set some impossible ideal that you're supposed to live in this perfect image of you never have sugar. You never have a drink. You never do this. It's realistic. It says when is the right time? What you can do to mitigate the stress. And Paul's one of those guys as well. He lives a fully robust life. He can outlift me and Kyle and the gym. Dude, how did he blow your mind with that? Still is ages, man. That's crazy. I mean, he's just, he's the accumulation of a lifetime of these incredible choices and this journey. And he's found his own way and he has his own lexicon and his way of explaining it. You know, he's one of the walking masters on the earth. And so, fuck yeah. It's amazing to meet somebody like that. Yeah, he's probably the clearest embodiment of like, I guess total wellness that I've ever met but very confident in it. So he's not trying to put it in your face. You just kind of is that way and we were pretty blown away by him. But what drives you? Like what is your motivation behind doing all of this? I mean, obviously you have a successful business. So someone could say, oh, he just wants to be successful in business. But I don't get that impression. I don't get that impression that you're looking at your business like I'm trying to maximize profits necessarily. It has a different feel to it. What is your driver? What is the thing that drives you to, you know, spend a year and a half writing this book and doing all the, you know, running this company and doing all these different things. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things is, you know this book is the manual that I wish I had. You know, I mean, I've had a very blessed life and I feel count myself very fortunate but I've had a lot of internal struggles that have driven me, you know, and from, you know, from the outside looking in those are often hard to see, but, you know, issues where I've been depressed or been anxious or been, you know, despondent because I hated my job and been apathetic because I thought the world wasn't, you know, the world wasn't fair and all of these things and gotten, you know, sick a lot, had my immune system run down, built imbalances in my body. I've had all of these things happen to me and I didn't have something that addressed all of these things from someone who I could really, you know, identify with, someone who was real, someone who like did the same things that I did, like had a drink, had sex and worked out and wanted to be healthy and had a spiritual life and liked to meditate. And I think so this is a bit of me just putting together something for all those other me's out there in the universe, all those people who could really benefit for something like this and that's what drives you, that's what drives me ultimately, you know what I mean? It's once you transcend the ego level of the video game which is like, look at me, I'm successful and that makes me feel good. That doesn't actually do anything in the long run. So you transcend that and then it's just about what's the impact you can make? Like how many have you struggled with that? Cause I know I feel like you're a very creative and philosophical guy and then there's like this CEO personality and I feel like you're so unique. I've met a lot of CEOs in my life and not a lot of them have that real creative philosophical side that I feel like you have. They're not as chill and relaxed as it is. Yeah, do you ever create conflict for you or inner struggle of I've got this multimillion dollar empire that I'm building, growing and running and at the same time too, I have this passion for creative, the creative side of me. Do you struggle with that? Yeah, every day. I mean, that's the grindstone. That's the point of resistance by which I sharpen my skills. I have to use all these skills in the book and you look at someone like Ben and it looks like he's got it all together but I guarantee anybody who's that driven and does that they do it first out of necessity because they have challenging factors about their personality, about their nature, about what's going on with them and those are some challenging factors with me. I overthink things. I overanalyze. I get stressed out really easily. I sleep generally very poorly. So all of these factors force me to improve and force me into a better way. I think it's one thing I like about your Instagram is that you will show vulnerability and I'll tell you why I like that. I think when somebody who's following someone on social media or listening to what they're saying many times they come across as like they have it all. They're perfect or whatever which makes it hard to connect to them many times because they don't seem real but you tend to share that you have challenges and vulnerabilities and I think that makes you more real or more approachable where someone says, hey, I can be like that person. Can you, you talked about some of your challenges. Can you talk about some of your biggest challenges either coming up or recently that you've had to overcome or that have pushed you into the person you are now? You know, a lot of them surround, you know, I talked about some of the physical ones, right, like I've battled with depression and battled with anxiety. I've battled all different forms of kind of fear manifesting, you know, fear of letting others down, fear of letting myself down, fear all of these. When did you have the depression? What did you do? How did you handle that? That's a big one. That's a big one. And then that one came from really having, you know, this feeling like I had a mission in life and I wasn't fulfilling that mission. I wasn't actually doing what I was here on the planet to do. Which was probably driven by an insecurity from that goes further back, right? Yeah, but it was also, you know, in some part it was true. I wasn't doing it. I was working in a job that I didn't, you know, that I wasn't happy with and I wasn't actually doing, I was trying to do the things but I wasn't actually succeeding in any particular way. But what was missing was the timeframe, the perspective that where I was fine for the time that I was there and I would one day get there. What I was missing was faith. Instead I was looking at right now like, I know I can do more. I know I have more to give but I wasn't trusting that if I stay the course, if I stay the path like that. When was that, was that before on it? That was the period before on it. That was really probably the hardest, you know, the hardest emotional period for me. But I talk about a moment in this book where even working in that, you know, job that I hated, I switched my mentality and I realized like, okay, I'm doing this just to scratch it together with enough money so that I can start the company that I really want, which is on it. And so that mental framework actually drew me out because instead of just being like, here I am doing this thing I hate when really I know I have something much more I could do, I was like, here I am doing this thing I hate so I can get the money so I can do the fucking thing I love. And as soon as I made that mental switch, then, you know, all of that negative stagnant energy kind of formed into this positive motivational energy and I was able to start this company which ultimately would create the channel that I could release, you know, what I felt. How many years ago was that? So that was seven years ago. How long did that period, how long did it last before you made that mental switch? Like, how long did you have to? I mean, so I was pretty unhappy from probably, it was about four or five years, four years, so from 26, right out of college, 24 to 26, I was still pretty excited and then, you know, some bad shit in business happened and I got terminated even though I'd done a good job and it was just really dark time for me and that kind of kicked off this, you know, the world doesn't reward, you know, success and hard work, the world punishes it and I got real- You felt that? I felt that and I felt, and that put, and I was like, I know I'm here for more and I would use like things in my head like I was 26 at the time. I was like, fucking Alexander, the great conquer the known world at 25, these dot com people have millions of dollars and here I am doing fuck all, just got fired, I have no plans, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing and I know I should be doing more but I wasn't so I would go back and I'd live, you know, looking in the mirror and in the rear view, looking at my life, where did I fuck up? How did I go wrong? Did I go to the wrong school? Did I make the wrong choices? Am I partying too much? Like what have I done wrong? Instead of just saying like, it's all right, man, learn the lesson, stay the course, focus on the internal process, get better and something will change. What was the impetus that finally switched that off for you? Because that is a very difficult space to leave because when you're in it, especially if you're in it for you said four or five years, when you're in there, it starts to become all you know and that's just it affects your relationships, probably surround yourself with people that strengthen that belief that you have in yourself. Yeah, like, you know, if you feel that's what you are, you start to attract people that kind of strengthen that because your ego wants to strengthen this belief and was there an impetus? What was it that caused you to make that switch? I think there was always that drum beat, you know and there was always the other counter side to that that I could hear in the quiet when I got still enough and that was a drum beat of you're gonna do it. It's gonna happen. And I think a variety of different practices where I learned to get still enough to actually like listen to that drum beat and then have a few little ticks of momentum go my way, like meeting Bodhi on that party trip. I mean, I met him at one of my darkest times where I really felt like I didn't have a friend that I could fully connect with that like fully met me, you know, where I was. And obviously he was almost like a little bit of an older brother, you know, in that regard. So it was even, he's even better because I got to learn more from him but we were still like friends, like real meaty friends that... Did you lack that as a kid? As a kid, were you popular? Did you have a lot of friends or were you like in high school? In terms of acquaintances, I was, you know, a great basketball player and, you know, had honors in the state and whatever. So as an athlete and, you know, someone who liked to be social and party, you know, I had a lot of acquaintances and through college, I was social chair of my fraternity. Like it wasn't like I wasn't surrounded by people but having someone who on that level of consciousness really felt like saw me and saw beyond the superficial. I didn't really have that type of friend. And then, you know, I met Bodhi and part of that was, you know, also me being ready to meet somebody like that, like reading the books, doing interesting things, going on my plant medicine journeys, being the type of person that I could meet Bodhi Miller, who's lived an extraordinary life and gone through extraordinary experiences from being young himself and, you know, doing all the crazy things that he's done. Being the type of person that could meet that guy and have us both look at each other and be like, yo, like we're homies. Like we haven't met yet but I can tell that we're friends. You see like the guy that if you just were ready to strangle someone at work today, you're frustrated like he's when you call and kind of vent to and kind of keeps you even, or like, you know, he's got four kids and seven dogs and four cats and do you know what a burden like that is? We actually don't get to stay in touch. There was a period where that was my dude. Now it's probably Kyle, you know, or one of these other friends. And I've been so fortunate now that I've met many, many, many more people who are like-minded. And that's, you know, when you put out your message consistently and loud enough you'll attract like-minded people and you'll run into more of those like-minded people. That same experience happened with Kyle at Paleo, you know, like we go through and we're just bouncing around, meet 200 people that day and then Kyle comes up. It's like, oh, shit, we're brothers. Now we're meeting though. That's awesome. And then, you know, so that type of experience happens and you just start to add to this feeling of being part of a real tribe. And that's the biggest support system you can have is feeling part of a tribe. Do you operate with that kind of a mentality where you feel something, it's a gut feeling, boom, we're gonna do this? After I mind fuck myself for like days, hours. Just questioning. I wish, I wish I go back and forth, back and forth, weighing this, weighing that, premeditating the worst case scenario over and over again, imagining what I said, how I said it. You know, I used to even do that with friends and stuff. Like, man, if I screwed up a goodbye handshake fist bump, I mean, I would obsess over that. Oh, wow. Oh, man. Look, guys, never gonna talk to me again. I fucked up that fist bump. Like haunted, you know, like, I just had that kind of obsessive side. And of course, next time, like, you know, and it would pass, but I would torture myself for two hours over a flubbed handshake, you know, like that was gonna fucking matter, you know? And I can count a million incidences like that where just my obsessive mind got in control, which is probably why I've been obsessed with ways to quiet the mind, because my mind's a motherfucker. Is that how you got into more, like, spiritual practices or, like, do you consider, do you have any of that in your book, by the way, or? You know, we went light on it. We went with some mindfulness practices that I think are really important and tried to fit those into, you know, an optimized day and certain things, like the Wim Hof breathing, we go into that, which is certainly a really powerful state shift. I go into a practice that I learned from the books by Tom Brown Jr., who is this Native American trained tracker, and he has a mindfulness that's really quick. It's called the wide peripheral gaze where you, everybody can try it now, if you like, as long as you're not... Driving? Yeah. Close your eyes and do it driving, but you have to have some practice first. So you leave your eyes open and you just focus on expanding the amount of visual input that you can possibly get through your eyes. So you're seeing everything in the corners of your eyes, you're tracking all movement, but focusing on nothing. And you just allow yourself to focus on nothing and absorb absolutely everything. And it actually works on the opposite way that a sensory deprivation tank would. Like sensory deprivation restricts all the information from your brain, so that part of your brain goes to sleep. In this case, it overloads your brain with bits of information coming in from your eyes that it's not used to seeing. So you're part of it, but you're not interacting with it. So that part of your mind gets distracted and it's like the fidget spinner for that part of your mind who likes to focus on things and then you get to relax and still. Yeah, there's a lot of information that we simply do not perceive. So when you even let in a fraction more, it can be extremely overwhelming and even terrifying for some people, even just to perceive just a tiny bit more. It's funny when we do videos for YouTube or we do sales videos and we gotta read scripts and I'm doing this video. If I'm just in the moment doing what I'm doing, I don't screw up, I keep going, it's no problem, very natural. The second I start to listen to myself talk, that self analysis, the second I split myself into me and then this other me that's watching me, I fuck up and I feel like that's the root of a lot of people's or at least, maybe even people like yourself, that's the root of a lot of some of these issues like anxiety, you mentioned anxiety. Was that something that you experienced during this period of depression or was that something you constantly challenge or feel like it's challenging? I think that's been a more constant ghost that's haunted me. I think that's stress, anxiety, that fear of something happening that I haven't, I haven't tracked. And I think that's something that it's been a harder demon to slay in a lot of ways because with the depression, I really think the moment you start taking the focus off yourself and focusing on the impact you're having for other people and just relying on doing your best, like a lot of that starts to lift. But the anxiety when, especially when you have a company like this and have expectations and attachments and desires, I wanna succeed, I wanna be healthy, I want all these things and my mind has the tendency to explore all the ways that that could get screwed up, then that's a more challenging thing to deal with. But with that challenge comes ways to make adaptations. That's what I wanna talk to you a lot about that because I think it's super fascinating sitting down here with you and seeing what you've built here and what you've been a part of and responsible for a lot of. What is it like running something this big with this many employees? And it almost feels like, I know it's seven years, so probably for you it feels like it took forever or a major grind. But it almost seems like overnight that you guys became exploded and huge and you guys are obviously one of the most dominant fitness companies out there in the space. What is that like for you managing all those people and what do you struggle with the most? I think I struggle with the expectation of what I want to happen and what is happening. Because that's where the torture lies. If I was able to really just, it's also where some of the vision and the motivation lies. So it's a bit of a double edged sword. But I can look at where we are and we've been growing every year. Actually had some record growth compared to the last four years this past year. And I can look back and from that perspective, just see all the things I fucked up. And so I can look at that and be like, man, on it is blowing it. Share some of those, dude. That's what I want to hear. You share some of the things that you've openly fucked up. I don't want to blow it. It's similar to the way that I looked back at my old writing when I was writing this book and said, man, did the child write that? Like this is dog shit. My as I evolve and as my understandings evolve for everything from packaging choices, like we were really rocking that packaging. Like you got to be fucking kidding me. That's not even legible. Like what kind of, how did I let that slide? Or like, the way that we're marketing a page. Like that was our, that was how we describe that thing. That's juvenile. Like how did we, and I think as your ignorance, hopefully is on an ever-arching dissipation to a certain degree, at least in certain areas of business and marketing and supplement knowledge and product knowledge and movement and self-discovery. All the things that I'm attempting to grow at constantly as that knowledge expands, you can look back from a different perspective and see all the things you would have done different in the ways you could improve. So, there's not a lot of particular, I mean that packaging is one example. We revamped our packaging over this last year and in the process, or when I see one of the old things, I will literally look at it like, man, we suck. You know, like, good thing we got our shit together. I feel like that's such a surface answer, though. I feel like you've got to have some stuff because people, bro, are way more difficult. You can't bullshit me and tell me that packaging has been your biggest fucking headache in the last year. Because I know that if you're running with a hundred or some employees, somebody you've wanted to launch out this fucking window, someone you- You're just throwing your buddy under us. Right, right. It'd be way too nice. This is my pump, bro. What the fuck you want right now? Tell us about John. Tell me about that kid that you fucking about threw out the door the other day, bro. I know there's way more stress than that where you're at. Well, man, I've had all kinds of crazy shit. I've had people accuse me of wild, outlandish things, making sexual advances, you know. I saw that. Oh, shit. We saw that on Instagram. We saw it get pulled down really quick, too. Yeah, let's not mention his name. Right, right, we'll give you any light, but I did see that. A male, a male employee who worked in the fitness, in the fitness area, hadn't seen him for two years, had hardly any interaction. Obviously bitter about something not going his way. Something, I mean, it wasn't even my department. So I like, I didn't even like, I had almost zero interaction, comes out of the blue and saying that I'm ruining his life. And the reason I'm ruining his life is because he refused to have sex with me. And I go, What the fuck? Reading that. Huh? You're like, that's not true. We had lots of sex. I didn't even flirt with you, bro. I did that. I'm from, you know, like just out of the blue. You're not even my type. I wouldn't fuck you, bro. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, bro. He said something about some cult or something. I feel like a seven. He went, he went, he went on. I can do way better than you. He went way, way on. And it was like one of those things, you know, my mind obsessively worries about it. I've been expressing that. Never in a billion years would I have imagined this. So then it just like recalibrates my level of fear instantly. Oh yeah. It's like, wow, some impossible shit out of the fucking ether and asteroid that was hidden behind another thing and just boom reveals itself into orbit and strikes. It's like, that can fucking happen. You know, now, so now that was a choice. And it's actually like almost a straw that broke fears back to a certain degree. Cause I realized like I couldn't possibly see all the things that could fuck this up. That affected you like that. It almost affected me very positively, ultimately. At first it was like, this is fucking horrendous. And then it was like, this is a super blessing because this is so random and so, you know, initially shocking that I can't respond to fear the same way I used to. I have to surrender not only my expectations of success, but my expectations of my identity and my reputation. Like I don't actually have control of anything. And I have to just be more okay with that. And I think I can really mark that as like a really key point that happened this last year of something very beneficial that came from something that was at first just shocking and terrible. Yeah, you have to make friends with something I've learned, even with anxiety, just you got to make friends with what's happening. You know, fighting it almost adds another layer, you know, to things. And if I'm anxious about being anxious or I'm worried about something that's happening and I'm worried about being worried and what's gonna happen just makes things so much worse and so much harder to manage that it can become unmanageable, especially when you become a target, which if you grow and do everything you wanna do, you also become a target, right? There's a lot, people can get popular fucking with you, which has gotta fuck with you a lot by itself, right? I'm sure there's a bit of the motivation there, yeah. You guys have a ton of revenue streams coming in here what do you think you guys are doing really well? And then what do you think you're not doing really well that you could do better? Obviously we can always do better on everything. What are you doing? What are you kicking ass at? What do you suck at? I think we're really doing a good job at making the, you know, kind of like-minded people stoked. You know, if like you're generally into being a little bit better tomorrow than you are today, if you're generally into some level of fitness, some level of optimization, some level of, you know, finding that kind of motivational drive, probably slightly interested in MMA, you know, slightly interested in mainstream sports. Like our demographic is tight and those people are stoked. And I think that's the best thing that we've done. We've created something that people emotionally feel positive about. We put out a lot of positive information, a lot of videos that have nothing to do with any of our products, articles that have nothing to do with any of our products, things that make people feel a certain way and feel motivated to live a little better, be a little happier, you know, enjoy life a little bit more. And that's what we've done well. What we haven't done well is cater to people who aren't paying attention to that, who aren't our natural demographic, too. You know, our female demographic is too small. Our demographic of people over 40 is too small. You know, we really need to translate on it, because on it's for everybody. It's not for a certain type of people, but we haven't translated that to the other, you know, demographics, the other types of people out there to make this a real worldwide universal movement rather than, you know, a strong niche movement for a certain type of person. And that's the goal. Let's talk about the female demographic. Why do you think that you're not connecting with them like you could be? And how would you connect with them better? I think it's not that the females that follow us aren't stoked, like they are. And I think part of the issue is, is that we're not getting in front of enough eyeballs. Our influencers, the podcast hosts are male largely because podcast hosts in general are male. That's been our biggest channel, you know, and podcast listeners skew dramatically male. And our MMA fighters, we have some female MMA fighters, but even the female MMA fighters, you look at their demographics and they're more and more male followers. They're male, more male than us. And everybody we have is, you know, as male followers. Whether it's an athlete, they have mostly male followers. Whether it's a good looking influencer who's an athlete or somebody else, or, you know, so they're still have male followers. I actually honestly don't know who females follow other than cats. Like I don't, I can't, everybody in our audience, everybody in our audience, you know, has largely male followers that represent some of our demographic. Get a fucking cat, dude. I know, right here. Get a resident cat. What about more specific, like, you know, when you look at your Facebook, your YouTube, the podcast you have going like, you know, what have you learned about that? Cause I feel like that's a big part of our business. I feel like we're continuing to learn. There's things I look back and I go, fuck, I wish I would have done that differently. We're still not doing really well in these areas. We're doing better here. When you look at all these different top of the funnels for you guys' business, which ones do you feel are, sounds like the podcast is really successful, but what about everything else? Well, the podcast is successful in that the content is really good. And the people who listen to the podcast really, it makes a dramatic impact in their lives. And that's both my podcast, Aubrey Marcus podcast, the On It podcast, the Kyle runs, like both of those, you know, the listeners are fucking stoked. And that's what we've done a good job in. But again, it's that outreach. Like, how do you get listed on the iTunes listings for something? I don't know. What's the algorithm? I don't know. I just keep putting out good content. Nobody knows, nobody knows, you know? And so some people, some people it seems like they've consistently cracked that code and get that benefit of being exposed. And some people don't. And I don't really understand enough yet to really understand why. Do you put a lot of energy towards researching that and figuring that out? Or do you rely on somebody else? And that, yeah. And that's part of the thing. It's, we're doing so many things that it's like, it's rare that I can really be a laser like I did with this book where I can really hone in on one thing. I'm generally a lantern. I'm like, if I'm a grow light and my attention is what causes things to grow, I'm rising as high as I can in the air and casting a big light. And only every once in a while do I get to turn into a flashlight and then really focus on one thing, like on the day, which is probably. A flashlight. Yeah. I spent my days focusing on one of those. But like this, this is probably why, you know, when I've signed these books and described like all the right there, like, hey man, you know, I hope you enjoy this book. It's probably the best thing I've ever done because this is the thing that I've been able to focus on the most probably ever. I mean, on it is an amalgamation of many, many things. Like this book is tangible and you can hold it in your hand. This is like your perfect archetypal day. And that's pretty much sums up. That's it. This is absolutely how to live the very best day as a human being you can possibly live. What if you put this book out and it doesn't do well? That's a beast, right? I mean, I had a, you know, I'm publishing through Harper and they have high expectations for the book. Everybody who reads it has high expectations for the book. Oh, you went through a publisher, so this is not self-published? No, you know, that's going through Harper. There is a little more pressure with that. Oh, hell yeah. Oh, hell yeah. And everybody, you know, everybody has really high expectations and I don't know if the book's gonna sell. I know the book's good. And that's, so when I obsess and I worry, then that's what I panic about. And that's how, is the book gonna sell? How are we gonna get it out there? You know, a bookstore is gonna buy it, blah, blah, blah. And then when I relax and I, you know, actually feel okay is when I say, you know what, I did the very best I could with this book. I never took a shortcut. I never didn't do another rewrite when I could have done another rewrite. I never didn't go down that rabbit hole because there was, you know, I was too lazy to chase it. You know, I didn't cut it short on one of those bleary-eyed nights where I had to make a deadline so the whole thing worked. You know, I know that I did the best I could and I just try to focus on that and not get blown away by the expectation. Did you actually chip away at this yourself or did you have a ghostwriter help out? I had somebody who was helping me out. Niels Parker was awesome and he was really like a mentor in the process and helped a lot with structure and helped me kind of turn what I was used to writing which was shorter form into longer form. But this is me, man. This is my voice throughout it. I would say 90% my original writing and you know, he was great at kind of connecting some dots, putting the connective tissue but I put all the organs in this body. You know, I made my outline was 140,000 words or something like that. And then he helped me kind of condense it into a tighter 100,000 words. But again, after everything he wrote, I combed through rewrite, change words. I literally, I knew I was going to speak this book. I mean, I'm gonna narrate this book and I wanted to make sure every damn thing in there sounded like me because when I would read it to myself and it sounded like him, let's say you put in a paragraph connective tissue. And if I heard his voice in that paragraph when I was reading it, it just felt gross. Like, cause I'm a writer, you know, like some people who aren't writers, of course, hire a writer, it's gonna be a better book but I'm a writer. Like I've been a writer my whole life. I've been writer since I was two years old, sitting on my grandma's lap making her type out stories. You know, like this is what part of what I'm here on this planet to do. So I had to make sure that everything here was soaked to the bone. Now what if the opposite, I know Sal challenged you and what if it sucks? What if it blows up? And this feeds a passion of yours and it really dominates. I might distract now from you. Do you ever think about that struggle you may have with? No, writing wins. Oh, writing wins. No, that's a no brainer. Writing wins. I know that this is- Burn this place up or what? Pass over to Kyle? No, that's scary. No, that's okay, I'm just kidding bro. I love you. That's probably the best option actually. I would just love to see what this office look like if Kyle got his hands on it. Grashing Sam on the knees and wins. You know, I'd do it inside of Kyle and I'd do it. Oh, he's a good friend of ours, right? Yeah, we go way back. For sure, for sure. A closet full of Speedos. Yeah. You know, ultimately, yeah, ultimately I think there's a natural transition that's gonna happen where I'm going to be more and more a writer. I already know the next four books that I'm gonna write and I know that I'm going to write those and that is the priority above everything. That's just what I'm here to do. Ultimately, I've always known that, but I've also known that I wanted to build a platform and I wanted to create something and I wanted to also be a leader of a movement like this and to start out as a writer with no platform is a really hard thing to do. But this is me actually, I have a course called Go For Your Win. This is me going for my win. So would you consider selling this? That's an interesting question. I think you raise a baby, would you consider letting another parent raise it? Well, if that parent felt like it had the same values and ideas and kind of character that you had, then you could consider first, probably be like, ah, I don't know about moving in, but eventually, yeah, eventually on it will reach a maturity level where somebody else could be the custodian of that. I don't see that I'm a necessary part. I need to establish it, create enough momentum and then make sure that the people who follow in my way carry that torch and carry it forward in an honorable way. So I wouldn't say that it's out of the question. That's interesting that you say that instead of it being valued at a certain amount, which is the typical CEO answer. I feel like, well, once I get it valued at a certain point, then it makes sense for me to sell it. Yeah, you know. You care more about who's going to take it and raise it from there. Of course. I'm at kind of, I'm very close to that level of wealth where I'm very comfortable with what I have. I mean, I'm still striving for more. I like money. I like the energy that it provides. I like the freedom that it provides. I like being able to do stuff, help people out that I love. I have a charity cause that I'm super passionate about right now and I love being able to do stuff like that and I love enjoying my life, you know? But the evaluation that on it already is and the evaluation that it will be, that difference is a very small gap in happiness even though it's a very big number in zeros. And so, I'm already there to a certain degree. So the most important thing for me is to leave that continued positive legacy and get to a place where I'm really comfortable and can really do kind of what I believe I'm here to do which is write books and be, you know, do podcasts. A lot of times I'll tell people that, you know, it's important for us to love our ideas, but not marry them. Do you feel like part of that too is maybe driven from insecurities that you feel like who cares if someone else takes this thing? Sure, you've left your mark. You've already did something amazing and beautiful. You've changed a bunch of lives. You, if this is really your passion is moving forward in the book area. What does it really fucking matter who comes behind you and in reality, nobody's gonna do it the same way that you would do it. So yeah, I mean, I think I just, you know, this has been, this is a big part of people's lives. On it is a big part of people's lives. I want it to continue to be that thing that when you leave for a little while, you know, like, you know, when you go, you have a restaurant that you love and you go out of town and you come back and there's new management. It's just like, oh, food just kind of sucks here now and the atmosphere is not the same. And it's just like, man, that's a bummer. That was one of my favorite parts about this city. Like I don't want on it to ever be that experience. Is it inevitable though? Like no one's gonna come. That's tough. Let's be honest. I mean, it's a monster to keep it running this way. It's a monster to keep everyone on the same vision. You're already a very unique type of CEO as it is. Stepping away and thinking that some other guy or girl is gonna come in that and keep that exact same vision going. You're almost setting yourself up for some stress later down. Maybe, but then I meet somebody like we just met and made a partnership with Exos. And that's one of the top sports that form these companies. I meet somebody like Mark Verstegen. And I look at him and if he was like, yeah, man, I'll take over on it and just give us a year of transition and whatever that aligned. And I'm not making a pitch for that or trying to make that happen. That's not even part of the fucking plan. But I'm saying that guy of that caliber, of that quality, of that character, yeah, he would take on it and it would be a little bit more Mark than it is Aubrey. But it would still be fucking dope. What attributes? He's a dope human being. What attributes would you want in the better version of yourself? So if you were to leave this and we're getting a better version of Aubrey coming in behind us, what attributes would you want him to have? I mean, it's just a consistent application of love for the people inside the company. Well, that's you, bro. That's already you. Come on, you're such a big lover. But everybody has their own flavor. Yeah. Everybody has their own flavor that way. This place doesn't need more love. You don't need love, bro. Huh? He can feel me. He's about to crack a whip maybe. Yeah. Throw some people out the window. Lots of love, yeah. But that's the thing that would have to be the unifying fact. And then all the other intricacies of that would come with whoever that new person was. Like Mark's a natural coach. I'm more of like a motivator. And Mark's like a coach. So he would be coaching people more. And it would have this more like, it would just change to a different... More of a passion for leadership maybe. Yeah. He enjoys that part more. You know, like I inspired like, I'm more, like I said, like a motivational speaker. Like I can deliver the game time, you know, speech, so can Mark. But I just feel like he's more of a coach and I'm more of like a motivator. And he would, so he, like even when we're in a workout, you know, like the way that he encouraged everybody around him when we were in this group workout, like, come on man, you got that. Like I'd rather give a speech before the whole team to the whole, you know, about why it's important to motivate. Not sit there during every rep and say, come on, give it your best. You got this. You know, that's just not me. It's not my flavor. Yeah, yeah. But that's his flavor. And so he'd be able to add that flavor in his knowledge base and everything else. So I, but, but he loves people. And that's his way of expressing the love. I have my way of expressing the love. How do you, how would you rate yourself like on a one to 10, as far as like the crucial conversations, the one on one, the hard conversations, letting somebody go or motivating somebody to do a job better. It's probably what I'm best at, you know, that and then, you know, product. Cause you're such a lover. Product conception. Well, I connect with people. I see people, you know, and I think it's, if you're in any of those situations and you don't, and you shut yourself off, which is a tendency, you want to do that because then it hurts, it hurts less because you stop those mirror neurons from firing so you don't feel their pain. Like when I'm letting someone go that's contributed a lot and they start to get emotional, I start to get emotional. I'm there with them. Like I'm not pretending that I'm going to shield myself from this and be all sociable. Have you ever cried firing so much? Fuck yeah. Almost every, almost every key fire that I've had. I did, you know, I had to, we made a transition in the company and we let a couple of people go the same day. And I cried every one of those fucking meetings, like back to like, am I going to fucking get emotional again? But it's out of gratitude. It's like, thank you for what you've contributed. And when people see that, you know, it's just, it's just you being real. It's not you sugarcoating things. It's not, wasn't me having this agenda and playing this out and being all corpus like, man, thank you for being this. We're going this way. You know, your skill set doesn't fit with where we're going, but I love you and I appreciate you. And when they get emotional and scared, like I feel that with them. And that's, I think, you know, a big key. Now, because you feel like that, do you find that you hold on to people for too long? I have. I have, you know, I really try to see the best in people. And that is a great strategy for bringing out someone's best. Like if you look at someone and all you see is their worst, you're going to call forward their worst. But if you look at someone and you see their best, you'll call forward their best. And I've successfully called forward people's bests who were alcoholics, you know, angry, upset, depressed, you know, like bad employees, but I saw something in them that was talented and seeing them flourish into some of the greatest allies and the greatest contributors that on its hat. And part of that was me, when everybody else was saying, this dude's a fucking alcoholic. Like he's a degenerate. We got to get rid of him. And I'd be like, no, no, like, let me try to call that side I've seen forward. And then there's been other cases where I've really tried to call that forward. And, you know, it hasn't worked. And then at that point you have to respond. But yeah, so sometimes it's led to holding on to people a little too long. I think the biggest problem with holding on to people a little too long is knowing what I should do, but just kicking it down the curb, you know? I would say like, if I'd stopped doing that, if I just did what I knew I needed to do. I would rip the Band-Aid off. That's a tough one. You just kind of say, oh, well, just wait another. He's kind of holding it. You just wait another couple of months. And then you make the switch and you go and it's like, oh shit, look what was under that rock. It was fucking scorpions and snakes and it was all rotten underneath there. And I didn't even see it because he was showing this pretty rock to me. You know, even though I kind of knew it. So making those moves that I knew I should have done earlier, that's a big lesson. What do your critics say about you? What are some of the biggest criticism that you hear? My critics are everywhere. Well, what do you think your most misunderstood then? I don't know, man. I mean, it's kind of spread out, you know? I think it's kind of spread out. I mean, I think I get a little bit of everything. There's not one thing that constantly I get hit with. There's some people like, oh, man, you don't even drink ayahuasca. You're just saying that because it's trendy and you're all about the money, bro. Really? Like, oh, I'll get those. There's a whole group of people who really, we're really convinced. Spiritual righteousness. Just fake, that I just faked drinking ayahuasca because it was a good score. Talking about sliding down vines of thorns, getting my balls ripped off and my visions and like all these things because it was like some big Machiavelli employee. But that's the way, that was the lens they saw the world in. Everybody had an angle. This must be my angle. It's not just some dude talking about his stories and the things that happened to him. It was me playing a role and a character for a particular, you know, action in a particular way. So risky strategy if that was the case. This is a ballsy way. It's a real roundabout way to go. Real roundabout way to get there. But, you know, I mean, so you'll hear, I've heard literally everything. And I know that the ones that kind of sting a little, I have some insecurities around. I remember, you know, somebody called me out for like not being funny. And I'm like, really hurt. You're like, that really hurt my feelings. That really hurt. And I was like, oh, I'm insecure about not having a good enough sense of humor. And I think part of that was I have incredibly funny friends. Like, you know, all these comedian friends who are fucking hilarious. Oh, shit. If you compare yourselves to professional comedians. Yeah, and I wasn't even consciously doing it. But like that one stung where someone can say, you're a fucking idiot, bro. And I'll just kind of smile and be like, I love you too. You know, but that one person at that one time who was like, you know, attacked my sense of humor. I was like, ouch. And then that's a good sign that I need to do a little cleanup work around some insecurity. Now with the plant medicines, you do see there definitely is because they've got deep roots, no pun intended. It's very old ancient traditions. And you seem to now have over the past, I don't know, five years or so, this kind of pop culture surrounding it where you do get a lot of people who are doing the tourism or they call it the psychedelic tourism where they're going and they're doing these different things. How do you feel about that? Like the Eagle Scout badge for spirituality. How do you feel about all that? I mean, I don't have any experience with heavy psychedelics, but from the research that I've read, especially from some of the research coming from the maps association, powerful, extremely powerful stuff. How do you feel about the tourism and the pop culture around it, making it cool and all that? Well, I mean, I think you're never gonna get a totally pure movement, nor are you gonna get totally pure motivation, nor, I mean. Are people gonna get hurt? Yeah. People are gonna get helped. And like there's gonna be collateral help and collateral damage, and the collateral help is gonna far outweigh the collateral damage. Like nothing is going to be perfect. And I think that's this idea. Like we understand that there's been like 1,000 deaths from acetaminophen, which is Tylenol in the last 10 years or something like that. Like 1,000 people have died from that. And we don't even talk about it. It's like, oh, Tylenol overdosed. There goes another one. Whatever, Tylenol is good. So we have this acceptable amount of, like people are gonna die. Like 50,000, 60,000 wrong prescription deaths or like crazy numbers. I don't have that number off the top of my head, but crazy numbers of these deaths. That's one of the leading causes of death, is our prescription drugs. Yeah. And so that's happening. And we have that as like this acceptable loss. Like meh, okay. But then one person dies or gets hurt doing ayahuasca. It goes worldwide in news because it's scary and dangerous. And ayahuasca is this big danger. Sure, it has risks. It has an MAOI component, which when mixed with other psychiatric meds, when administered improperly, can definitely be dangerous. Like this is psychic surgery and you have to have a clean tools and a clean instrument and a clean body, to a certain degree, in order for it to be effective. And that's why they have this practice called dieta where you clean up your diet, you tell your shaman or whoever's administering it, all the things that you've taken for any interactions. You have to approach it properly. But we also have to understand there's going to be people who get hurt. But there's also gonna be a hell of a lot of people who get helped. And I think you really gotta have a more utilitarian approach instead of this draconian black and white. If one person gets hurt, then ban the whole fucking thing. Well, for me, the biggest problem is I think is not, it really is preposterous that we, the powers that be, government, whatever, believes that they actually own your body and your mind. They own your consciousness. You can't do what you want to yourself if you hurt no one else. Even if you do hurt yourself, who are you to tell me what I can do to my own, I own my body. And I find that absolutely frightening. It's a scary concept, but we've been with it for so long. I think we've just accepted it. Why do you think Western societies don't place any value on that kind of medicine? I think where a lot of times people will go into this conspiracy theory. It's a conspiracy to keep us down, to keep us capitalist, to keep us in the machine and keep us dumb. And that's why we put Florida in the water. It's to dull the pineal gland. Maybe, maybe it's this big Machiavellian plan. And I think when you see that lens, so there's the same people who are saying, yeah, I'll be just never even taken on a watch. Just talking about it to sell alpha brain, bro. You can see the world in that way. Or you can just say, people push away the things that they're scared of. And if you're operating as your ego, and you really wanna stay in charge and stay afraid and stay in your small self, you're gonna push away the things that might show you that reflection of who you really are. You're gonna push away the things that might rip that mask off your face and expose your true self. And those are overwhelmingly psychedelics. Those are the things that in some cases, quite violently, will pull off your perceptions about who you really are and how you've lived your life. Well, see, but there is a real conspiracy against psychedelics. We know this. We know for a fact that the counterculture was targeted by the Nixon administration and they couldn't throw these kids in jail for exercising free speech. So they picked the drugs that they used the most and made them schedule one. So they're, because leading up into that point, there was a shit ton of research. People don't realize that. There was a lot of research in things like psilocybin and LSD and it was good research and then it was gone. So there, I mean, there really is a conspiracy. There was at least, you know, there certainly was. And erasing that or reversing that's very difficult. And the momentum, yeah. And the momentum that's created, I think we're creatures of momentum. It's hard to reverse ingrained patterns, you know. Well, look how long it took marijuana, Jesus. Yeah. It's hardly as harmless as it is. I know, right? It's just, it's still only barely making its way back. And weird things can happen that can, you know, slow down progress for decades. You know, there was a study that came out in the 80s conveniently on MDMA, which is what MAPS is doing a lot of the research on about to go into phase three. Especially for PTSD. Yeah. And the results came back that it created holes in the brain. Worldwide news came out, new study. MDMA creates holes in the brain. Well, that sounds fucking scary. Yeah. A few years later, there's a retraction. Whoops, we weren't studying MDMA. We were studying methamphetamines. Sorry about that. You know where that was printed? In the fucking fine print. Of course. In the fine print. So still to this day, when you're talking about, you know, I'm hosting a charity dinner for MAPS now because they're doing amazing work on PTSD, curing two out of three treatment resistant veterans with PTSD in phase two FDA approved clinical trials. Dude, it's a trip when you read the studies on how effective. I mean, what they're starting to understand is that we're all hardwired to have mystical experiences. There's a part of the brain that you can actually stimulate to create this meaningful mystical experience. And when you have that feeling, whatever realization you have, even though it may be a realization, like if you're a smoker, right? And you've been smoking for 20 years and you know smoking's bad for me, it's bad for me, it's bad for me. Then you have this mystical experience that creates this feeling of intense meaning and intense importance. And you think to yourself, I shouldn't be smoking. Now it's cemented. Now you make lasting change. And that's, they think part of the reason why these substances can be so effective. But I think the reverse can be true also. I think if someone goes in wrong, you may cause, you know, more problems. But I think they're advocating for, you know, actual therapy with these substances. It's not just the substance, it's the substance used in a therapeutic context. And that's a really important distinction to make. It's not just taking, you know, taking 200 milligrams at a rave and then your PTSD is cured. You know, it doesn't work like that. Oh, that might get more. It's three sessions with, you know, with therapists who know how to lead you through into the state, into the places where you can start to heal that trauma, like shining lights on those dark places inside your psyche and allowing you to explore those with a sense of love and peace and security and also focus, which allows you to go into the details, bring them to the light and actually heal them. But one thing I just want to circle back on is, so I'm saying, so I have, I'm hosting this charity and I'm very outspoken about the benefits that MAPS has shown for MDMA, but I'll still talk to someone who was around in the 80s and they're like, MDMA that puts holes in your brain. And I go, oh, actually that was a different compound. That was methamphetamines that did that. That's Adderall. But yeah, exactly. But that one, so that one little thing that kind of ripped around the news cycle that never got repaired made a huge impact on everybody who was voting, people in the FD, people who have that kind of gut reaction. It's fucking easy to scare people. It's really easy. If I wrote an article that got any traction at all that said, you know, this many kids get strangled every year from seatbelts, there's gonna be a lot of fucking people who are gonna stop putting seatbelts on their kids. Because it's really, really easy to scare people and it's almost impossible to unscare them. Once people are scared, like you could tell them, hey, that article was wrong, too late. Everybody's freaked out now. Right, it's already planted that there's the association has been drawn that that thing causes holes in the brain and it's hard to unwork. And that's why it's taken maps so many years to get the studies approved and allow themselves to actually work with the medicine and medicinal context. And you know, but when that thing is legal, I mean, I really think the world starts to shift because we all carry trauma. You know, trauma is the source of fear. It's like where we're physically holding fear in our psyche and in our body. And if we start to heal that, we start to heal the fear. Maybe, you know, our neighbors or the other political party or the other race or the other individuals across from us don't seem so scary. So we don't have to hate them so we can actually start to help them. So we don't need to hoard our money because no one's after it. You know, we're actually safe and secure and everything can start to shift. And I think, you know, I really look at these psychedelic medicines as a major thing that can impact the future. You seem like a guy that probably shares a lot of your success and your money. Are you like that with your friends? Do you? I try to, man. You know, I definitely don't hoard it. You know, like people, I don't even have a savings account. You know, like the bank will look at me like, you don't like a new banker will come in and be like, you don't have a savings account. You can make 2% AP out. Well, like, yeah, I don't have any savings. Talk about why that's unique. That's weird. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think it's a bad hat. I think it's a bad hat. You're like, I don't recommend this. I've never, I've never had that. And I think for me, it's, you know, money is energy and I have so much energy I want to use that the idea of like keeping, you know, keeping a hoard, like I also am not the type of guy that has, you know, 100 AA batteries in my drawer, ready to go just in case. And I was like, where's a fucking double AA batteries? Everybody has one of those friends. Where's those fucking AA batteries? You know, like I wish I had some. Like if I have energy, I want to use it. I want to create more energy with it. I want to, you know, spend it. I want to, you know, help somebody with it. So it just doesn't stick around. Fortunately, I've been, you know, pretty good at attracting more of that energy. So everything cycles really fast. I'm like an economist's dream, I guess. Do you think that attracts people that sometimes maybe take advantage of you? Sure, sure. And there's, you know, there's certain, there's certain is a weird level of entitlement that can happen where, you know, you give something and then it's granted. And then if you don't give the same amount or you don't give more, it's like, like give them an inch, they want a mile, right? Yeah, there is, there are those psychological factors. That would seem like a tough thing to deal with, especially if you got like you. Sure, it is. But you know, I try not to, like the people around me actually get really pissed about that. Like the people who- They got your back. The people who got my back, you know, they're like, they're ready to kill somebody like that, ungrateful, you know, ingrate piece of shit. I can't believe he's doing, I was like, no, it's all right, man. Let's just give it to him, you know, and I'll tend to even still in those situations lean towards a clean generosity. Set the boundary, say, okay, man, you know, I'm good with that, but, you know, this is the end, I wish you the best. And then when I make my, when I make my boundary, you know, I don't go back on my boundary, you know, it's not something that I am comfortable saying no, but it'll always, I tend to breathe that away with as much kindness and seeing that, you know, it's just a way, money can do a funny thing to people. When you want just some good objective advice or criticism, who do you turn to? I think the people at large, like the internet's beautiful for that. Oh man. Don't trust that fucking troll that I know. YouTube's a motherfuckery. I wonder you're anxious. I don't trust it. I don't trust it. I don't trust it. You're buying noodles in there. It's hard, but, you know, you start to develop, like you said, trends and the things that, the things that sting, the things that sting are probably things that I need to clean either internally or that there's some, there's an issue there. Like there's something that isn't quite right. And if they say something and it hurts, then that's an opportunity to do it because, you know, there's obviously my homies, you know, I really love it when my homies can keep me in check and we try to have that relationship. I never want to be so aloof or so looked at as like I need to be protected in a bubble. And part of that is never responding in that manner. Whereas if someone says something, you get all mad or you get offended. So making sure that you don't create this aura of, you know, don't tell me no or don't come up with a contrary idea. You got to actually go out of your way. If you're in power, you got to go out of your way to reward the counter opinion. Be like, yo, I really appreciate you standing up and expressing that. You were dead fucking wrong and I totally disagree, but that was rad. Like that was awesome. Like I respect you so much more for that. And I think that's a key part, but probably the thing that keeps me most in check is just the people's. The people's. What was the last thing that has been said to you that triggered you and something and revealed something for you? Don't give me some label bullshit either. Give me some deeper breath. Someone told me I was too hardworking. Yeah. No, I think. All right. And if I'm being honest, the last thing that kind of twinged me a little bit is I think I was talking about, I'm coming out with some clothes through on it and it's the Aubrey Marks collection. I'm dope clothes working with the designer in Italy and stuff that I would love to wear. And streetwear type. Yeah, streetwear type stuff. And someone, you know, someone gets on there and it's like, you're just all about the money, bro. You're going to sell some more fucking shit. You capitalist pieces, blah, blah, blah. I don't think he said those words, but you're just like everything you do is all about the money, money, money, money, money, money, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I got kind of mad. I was like, man, fuck you. Like, what are you talking about? Like, you know, I am an entrepreneur. I do create things that I love. And hopefully, and I wanted to like defend myself. And then I just realized like, all right, man, it's okay. You know, maybe sometimes I do convince myself that I'm more altruistic and it doesn't matter about the money than I really am. So maybe there is some part of me that is more about the money that I'm willing to admit because that hurt a little bit. And so I got- Can I see you? You gotta kind of be a little bit. Yeah, man, of course. Of course, you know, and that's, but the fact that it hurt meant that I was in some way out of alignment with the truth, which is a, yeah, I do like when people buy my shit. You know, it feels good to make money. Here's the bottom fucking line, man. In a market economy, if you produce something that people like, they will buy it and you'll make money. And that's just the result of it. That's the bottom fucking line. Because if you make your clothes and they suck and nobody buys them, you fucking lose all that money. Nobody talks about it. That is the most hilarious. If anybody ever says that to me, I will fucking laugh. And that's the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life. No one talks about the trickle down effect too of how many people probably got employed because you were successful too. No one talks about the 175 or 200 employees working around here. Hey man, I don't care. Unless you're like crony capitalism and you getting favors from politicians and doing weird shit. Like if you're making hundreds of millions of dollars, it's because you made a lot of people happy and you gave a lot of people what they want. That's the bottom line. It's so fucking weird that that is somehow a bad thing. And what I've actually found is the people who run in the more spiritual circles, they actually have the most unhealthy relationship with one another. Big time, big time. And when they get around and when you have an unhealthy relationship with money, when you get around it, you get real weird. You get real grabby. You get real finicky. And these people who are like loving fucking butterflies when you see them in their practice, you start talking money. I grew up in that household. Your fucking monster just came out there. Money is the root of all evil myths. It's really unfortunate because a video that changed my life years ago, I watched Milton Friedman, The Pencil. Have you seen that video? The Pencil? I love Milton Friedman. Okay, so he talks about, he lifts up a pencil and he talks about all the pieces of the pencil, where they came from, who made them and from all over the world. There's people that specialize in making the eraser. There's people that make the wood. There's people that paint the wood. There's all these different materials. And he said, there's only one force in the world that can bring all these people together to work together to give a fraction of their time to produce this product and literally voluntarily work together. And that's the free market. It is literally the, it is the force for peace, which is hilarious when people, you know, rail against it. There are things that are corrupt, but when things are free and things are done voluntarily, if you wanna talk about real peace and people working together, that's it right there. And if you're doing it the right way and what I mean by the right way is you're not making deals with politicians and creating laws to limit competition and do all that other shit. When you do anything the right way and you become successful, it's cause you fucking did a bunch of shit that people liked and you made a bunch of people happy. And guess what that makes you? An awesome guy. It doesn't make you a fucking asshole. It's really crazy. And you know, I think where the other half of the equation where you see the spiritual side or the spiritual people really mess up is they, the philosophy of the West is based on the concept of the individual that each person is born with these rights that were given to them, bestowed upon them by their creator or some people will say they're inalienable or just your right to speak, your right to protect yourself and all these things that we have in our, in our bill of rights. And when people talk about individualism, spiritual people feel like that's selfish. You can't just think of yourself. You gotta think of everyone else, but that's false because if you look at the world, you look at the environment, you look at the community, you are a microcosm of that. Your environment is a microcosm of the environment. And when you take care of you and you do a good job of it, and I mean, really take care of yourself. Not like, you know, some people think taking care of yourself means, oh, you just, you know, you just have fun all the time. And no, I mean, how would you take care of a child? Would you give them what they wanted all the time? Oh, you'd ruin them. You want to challenge them sometimes. Sometimes you want to make them learn. Sometimes you give them what they want. And that's what I mean. When you take care of yourself, if everybody did that, now we've got, that's what, that's where peace comes from. It's like that Jordan Peters, that's what creates the ecosystem. Clean your room, clean your room theory, right? Absolutely, absolutely. And so I think, and the problem is the spiritual side got hijacked by these terrible, fundamentally flawed philosophies of collectivism where everybody's a group and so everybody is the same. And if they're not the same, then that's something's wrong. And it doesn't, they don't value the individual, they value the group. And it's who's more marginalized and who's more victimized, which is impossible. How the hell can you decide what that is? Yeah, the ego plays, the ego changes the rules of the game so that it can be superior. The ego is only interested in superiority based upon comparison to something else. Like it doesn't have a real sense of what it is and it's real sense of self-satisfaction or real sense of being real in any sense. It only knows itself via comparison. So if you only know yourself via comparison, you're going to try and be superior to others in some way and it's always hungry for that. So it'll change the rules accordingly. So if you're poor, or if you don't have money and but you're wealthy in something else, maybe you're wealthy in, at least can appear to be wealthy in spirituality or can appear to be wealthy in even your lack of wealth, then you can flip the rules and be like, oh, money's evil. Those people with money are evil. Those people like us were poor. We're the ones who have real character and soul. So you just change the rules, change the rules. And that creates this thing where you start to create more and more divisions where everybody who is different than you in a certain way is for some reason, you know, inferior to you. So you're creating more and more and more. And the irony of all of that is a smallest of all minorities, the most vulnerable of all minorities is the individual. That's all it starts off with one person. So it's not a group, it's one person. And the other part of the irony of that is you can only compare two things when you know everything. Nobody knows nearly about as much about you as you do. You know everything about all your dark thoughts, you know all the shitty stuff you've done, you know how terrible of a person you are, you know how awesome of a person you can be. You know everything you've gone through. You know very little about even the closest person to you in comparison. How could you possibly compare yourself to somebody else? That's impossible. The only person you could ever compare yourself to is you yesterday. And that's it. And it really, I think that is the root of a lot of the problems that we have. And we focus on just that right there, then everything's not a problem. And you start to see things a little bit differently. Cause it's hard to say that that rich guy over there who has everything is better off than me. Cause I don't know if he had a shitty childhood or his wife's cheating on him or you know, shit went down or maybe he didn't grow as much cause he wasn't challenged like I was. I grew up in a single family household and I was poor but I learned a lot from that. And he's had everything given to him. And so he's immature in comparison. We don't know any of that shit. So that stuff really blows my mind. Aubrey, where do you think you have made the most growth in the last year or two? And I know you're a growth minded person. So you've had probably growth in all areas and aspects but I don't want that generic answer from you. I want like, where have you battled the most and where have you overcame the most in the last year or two? Fear, you know, I think fear is the one, it's the one virus. It manifests in a lot of different symptoms and we can talk about these symptoms and you can chase them down. But the illness is fear. And I don't mean self-preservation. Whenever I say fear, fear's good, bro. What, how are you gonna run from a tiger? That's self-preservation. I'm calling it something else. Just like when I say I love fucking cupcakes, it's not the same saying as I love my deceased grandmother or my fucking fiancee. Like same word, love, but totally different meaning. You're not trying to have sex with a cupcake. Well maybe you are, but it's different. You're a dead grandmother. Yeah. Wow. Damn. Damn. That was a bad comparison. Yeah, that was a really bad one. Adam goes all in. That was sound, bro. You took it to another level though. Capital F fear, that's where I've made the fucking headway. And I think that's, like I said, that moment where I lost control of my reputation and identity. There was something that I was completely false that I could have completely had no chance to prevent. And it was really up to the world whether they believed this guy or not. And fortunately, he's a kook, so they didn't believe him. But in dealing with those challenges, you make steps. It forces you to make steps. And I think I'm a less scared guy than I was a year ago. And that's probably the biggest progress I've made. You're talking about that same thing that we talked about earlier? Yeah, that thing. Bro, that and a bunch of things. I feel like that was tiny. It was different. It was different in that. Like I feel like it popped up and then disappeared. It was, it was so random. It was, but it was the nature of it. It was the nature of the fact that it was completely outside of the purview of what I thought was possible. Like even a, even a car wreck, even if I'm running in every type of injury that could happen, I've thought about all these things. Like, oh, well, this injury could happen. This thing could happen. I could fail in this way. Like I've thought about a lot of different ways that I could get fucked up. I didn't think about that way. And it just, for whatever reason, that was one of the things that was a major catalyst. And there's been others too. There's been, you know, friends that I've had that, you know, are no longer friends inexplicably. And, you know, for things that are out of my control, there's been more things that were out of my control and surprising that have happened that have forced me to deal with fear in a different way. Instead of using my mind to prevent it, surrendering to a greater faith that whatever happens, I'll learn from it, I'll be okay. And I think that's probably the biggest, biggest improvement. Do you find yourself moving on from a lot of relationships like you're tight five, keep evolving and changing because you kind of have that attitude or it's just like a little bit. But, you know, I try to bring the family with me. You know, like that's, and some people, you know, some people step off and kind of go spiraling their own way and some people come back. Sometimes you need to go on your own little journey and then you'll reconnect later in the path. And it's important to separate. And some people it's just kind of ride or die and we're moving together and we're growing together. And some people who just are too stubborn and they kind of stick and don't want to take the ride and, you know, we'll always welcome them if they want to hustle and catch up. But, you know, we're not in resonance anymore. Do you subscribe to that idea of that, you know, we're like a net average of the five people we spend the most time with? No. No. Why not? It depends. I mean, I think there's a lot of roles. I think if you're a natural teacher, you may spend time with a lot of people that you're teaching, you know, and you may recharge with your teachers who you don't get time to as much time to spend with. You know, fuck, I'd love to spend a shitload of time with Paul Check. He's super busy. I'm super busy. We live in different states. So I don't get to. So I get to go spend time with him and that interaction has a disproportionate amount effect on me than spending a whole bunch of time with, you know, because I spend probably 50 hours a week with people in the office. I'm not the average of them like that. And even though the time amount that I've spent with them is way higher, the impact amount of that one weekend with Paul, you know, is dramatically different. So I don't think it's about time, but I think if you look at the whole spectrum of who you're around and those significant people in your life, I think you could kind of get close to that theory. I just think time is the wrong metric to use. Right. Sometimes you're being so unselfish that you're giving more than you're, you know, doing that. Cause maybe what if, what if that's your Achilles heel? That what if you were able to spend time with five of their Paul checks all the time and you spend less time speaking and leading and mentoring others. Get more recharged. Yeah. Or do you think it would accelerate you more and you ever thought of it like that? Yeah, I have and I've longed for that. You know, there's times where I'm like, man, I just had long for that. But that's not what I, it's not what I currently signed up for. You know, it's just, it's just like fantasy. You know, like, I mean, I've certainly, you know, I've certainly contemplated what that would look like. Man, if all I had to do was write and learn from people and grow, like, man, I would move so fast. That'd be your dream. But then again, I wouldn't have the, I wouldn't have these random challenges that are really honing who I am. Like maybe actually that would slow me down, you know, because it wouldn't, I wouldn't have the stress to butt up against. I would think that I was progressing, but then when some little trivial thing happened, I'd be like, whoa, you know, whereas now like I'm dealing, I'm in the shit. You know, I'm getting really battle tested by a lot of external friction and forces that are trying to, you know, kind of pull apart the center. And that's maybe forcing me to be closer to the center. So there's a lot of different ways to look at it. But certainly in my fantasies, there's a much quieter sound that's surrounding the chaos. Are you starting to get tired? Sometimes I'm exhausted. Sometimes I'm like a newborn full of energy and ready for new experience. It varies. You know, I actually was writing about that today. I just read your post, you just said that exactly. Yeah, like sometimes I really feel like, fuck, I'm tired. I just, I'm just really tired. And other times it's just like, hell yeah, I'm ready to go, we're just getting started. We're just fucking getting started. And, you know, so I feel all the spectrum. I don't shield myself from the different things. Do you have rituals that you put in place when you know, like my girl and I, we've learned to figure that out about our relationship and us when we, because we're both very motivated and both entrepreneurs and workaholics almost. And I say almost, cause I still think we have a pretty good balance when we start to notice that we're becoming workaholics that we take ourselves away, somewhere quiet kind of phones go away and we're there for three or four days and that helps me recharge and reset. Do you have something like that that you have in place that like, hey, this is, it's time for me to get away? That's usually not as big and dramatic. It's usually a matter of, all right, I need to get a good workout. You know, like Whitney, my fiance, she'll, she'll be like, I'll be pacing around and blah, blah, blah. And she'll go, she's learned to just be like, go swim some laps. Like if she asks me like, what's wrong, I will spin her ears into a fucking, you know, pancake batter. But if she's like, go take a swim, like just go fucking, just go to the garage, hit the bag, like come back and like hit, you know, after you're done hitting the bag, then talk to me and then I come back and like, yeah, I got nothing to talk about. I'm good. What are we having for dinner? You know, like, or take a, take an ice bath or take a heat bath or do some breathing or, you know, actually one of the things that Kyle got me onto was tobacco and really using that intentionally. So I'll put- We talked about his addiction yesterday on that. I'll put a snooze, which is like a, you know, a Swedish form of tobacco that's really clean. I'll put a snooze in and it'll shift my state and shift my perspective and all. Tobacco has been used for a long time. People don't know that. I actually write about it in the books, probably one of the only health books that has a section and it's called Performance Enhancing Plants. And one of the three plants I talk about is a conscientious use of tobacco in the right way, which is basically don't ever fucking smoke a cigarette because there's way better ways to get to your tobacco. Yeah, nicotine is a, is a new tropic. It's an addictive new tropic, but it is a new tropic. It's actually one of the more effective new tropics when they- Going back to your partner, what are some of the things that she has taught you about yourself? Well, it's not just my partner, but it's the fact that we're, we've been attempting this open relationship and I would, you know- You say attempting. Dare to say now that we've been, we've succeeding, we're succeeding. You know, I wouldn't say we've succeeded because there's always shit that comes up, but that has been a hell of a process, you know, to completely flip. I remember, you know, it's crazy to think about, again, you look back at yourself like a kid. I remember if, you know, my fiance then, his name is Caitlyn, if Caitlyn would, you know, dress too provocatively or like, you know, do something in a party that seemed too provocative, I'd be like, ah, put your sweater back on, you're in your bra, you know, like something like that, you know, like in this really kind of protective kind of male, you're my girl, nobody gets to see you, but me and I wasn't that bad, you know, I wasn't like, but I had some of that in me still to now being in a fully open relationship, like it's two completely different paradigms and different people. And I've had to work out a lot of insecurities and a lot of patterns and a lot of programming to get there. And there's been some fucking dark, challenging times, but- Who's more likely out of the two of you to say, let's fuck this open relationship thing. Let's go back to just you and I. Who's more likely to say it out of the two of you? Neither of us now, at the start. Get the fuck out of here. One of you has to be more likely to have- You gotta have at least one. And not anymore. Wow. Well, I was the one who was leading the, I was the one who was sure that there was no fucking possible way that I would ever choose a monogamy as a relationship again. I understood love in a way that, yeah, I could actually not be with somebody and be fine, but I would just not be being with someone in an open relationship. I could not be with someone my whole life, but I'd still have an open relationship. It's the only thing that abided by my understanding of love, which is love does not get to be possessed. Love does not get to decide, oh, you're worthy of love. I can share that with you, but not you. That's the most sacred thing. What's more sacred than your love? You make your consciousness, your love, these things. The government shouldn't control, your partner shouldn't control. And that's a real fundamental belief that I had about that. And of course the bodies, I mean, these are these pleasure monkey machines. Why is it okay to get a massage from one person but not a massage on your generals? It just didn't fucking make any sense to me. So that idea led the way. And then the pain of actually putting that into practice and dealing with my jealousies and my insecurities and all that followed, but I was unwavering. And she was very skeptical, but loved me and was willing to take the ride. And so I definitely led the path and then now we're both sure that this is the way that makes sense because we've yielded the benefit. We've enjoyed other people. We've enjoyed the connection and the enjoyment of the other person being free. I mean, I wish I was one of those people that had a fantasy about my fiance being with somebody else. I don't, I really don't like it. But that's also allowed me to respect her more and have that excitement that you have with someone who isn't just your partner who you know you control and they're only with you because they're abiding by the rules, the relationship. She's free to be with whoever she wants. And it really aligns our communication and it aligns the honesty and just how much we love each other because we don't resent each other anymore. We're not preventing each other from doing anything. We're free. Now is communication an important factor of that? It has to be impeccable. Okay, so I was gonna say, is it different, would it be different if she was with someone and you didn't know and she was having a relationship with someone versus, hey, I like this other person, I wanna have this relationship and then I tell you about it? Yeah, it's- Cause I feel like you have to make rules. Honesty has to be impeccable. So you have to, and you can, obviously you don't have to talk about the details. You can decide what level of detail that you want, but the communication is forced to be at 100 because everything is permitted. So if you don't tell your partner something where everything is permitted, you're a fucking asshole. Something's going on. There's like some, like there's no reason not to communicate fully and there'll be mistakes. There'll be old patterns like, oh, they get sad, especially at the start because even if you tell the truth, even though it's permitted, your partner might get sad and so you might wanna shield that from them because they'll get sad, but you have to break yourself of that habit. You have to really commit to this and say, I'm going to openly express, even if it has temporary emotional consequences, and force yourself to communicate impeccably and that's one of the benefits. That's an important tool, even if you're not in an open relationship. Well, that's the most important tool. That's the key regardless. Yeah, and you have to, and I think the decision to open up your bodies and your emotional connection to other people is I think some people are gonna want to do that. Some people are not gonna wanna do that. It's not for everybody, but the idea that you should restrict your other person from expressing their attraction or admitting their attraction to other people, that's crazy. That would be like owning a restaurant and having your home, he's like getting mad at them anytime they said they liked another restaurant. You're like, fucking crazy. Like what, you like Chinese food? What the fuck? That's insane. We're human beings, we're gonna find other people attractive, we're gonna find other things attractive. Whether you have the rules and the agreement to act on those is fine, but I think bringing in the future, at least having that communication and understanding that people are gonna be attracted to other people is just being human. I'm glad you said it's, for some people it's good and for some people it isn't because statistically speaking, it's when couples engage in that, it's higher chances of them breaking up, it's challenging, obviously. It's gonna be one of the most challenging things I think a couple can do, but at the end of the day, the root is the same, just be honest. That's it, that's the root. Whether you're monogamous or you're in an open relationship, that's the key. I mean, you wanna be with somebody who sees you, all of you, all your shitty parts, all your good parts, all of you, that's the reason for this kind of bond, is to really be seen and to really see. And to force, that's what you want with your friends. You don't want a friend who's hiding shit from you, you don't want a gay friend who you don't know is gay. Like the fuck that, that's a bullshit friendship. You wanna be able to be there with them. If she's watching somebody on TV and he's killing it and like, I want her to be able to be excited and me not go, oh my God, you're excited to chanting Tatum's doing that dance. It hurts, it hurts, because I can't move like that. And you know, he can move like that, but I can, you're attracted. Maybe you wanna be with someone that dances like that. And that was, I was old me, you know. If someone I saw was like watching that and got excited like, well, well, well, he's, well, I get all flustered. Now I'd be like, fuck yeah, he's fucking killing it. Not my flavor, but I'm glad you're enjoying it. I find this fascinating, because it's so different, right? So when you decide you wanna be with someone else, do they typically look like your partner or is it always someone that looks different? Or does that even, does it even matter? I would think if you have Chinese food at a whole time, or eventually you would want some Mexican food, you want a hot dog every now and then, right? It tends to be 31 flavors out there. Just because you got a flavor in yawn at home the whole time doesn't mean you don't want a fucking ball dog every now and then. Right, am I right? I mean, a ball dog might be a different thing, but that's a real show, that I'm saying. Yeah, man, 100%. I mean, it's the variety, I mean, people are inherently very different. It's hard to find two people who are alike anyways. I mean, that's very, you know, if you're talking hair color, like the spectrum of people with brown hair. I mean, come on, man. How often does the other sex partners actually become attractive? Because you guys are both very attractive people, both intelligent, very successful, fit. You got all these great qualities. Hey, thanks, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's... I'm sorry about your partner, but... You know, how many, how often do you guys get these other relationships, though, and they fall in love with you guys and... They get both of us? Yeah. Or just with one of you. I mean, does it get weird? Yeah, I mean, you have to manage expectations on all sides, and that's a challenge for everybody. And I think communication with all the other partners is absolutely essential as well. You can't play this game like, yeah, you know, things with my primary, you know, they're not going so good, but maybe we'll be that one day and blah, blah, blah. You start playing that game. Yeah, maybe it'll work for a moment, but then you're setting yourself up for a hell of a lot of pain later. You got to be truly righteous and truly impeccable with your communication across the board and be willing to lose partners. I recently lost a partner because I was ruthless and impeccable with the boundaries of how often I was going to see her and what I could provide. You know, I was like, no, this is the deal. I'm this busy. I'm, you know, Whitney is my primary. I'm seeing this person and this is what I have to offer. Is that something that's interesting? She's like, no, I would want more. And I was like, I'd love to promise you money. And it was in that same night, you know, and if I would have just lied, you know, it would have been boom, check it out. But that lie would have then led to a whole bunch of emotional turbulence. It's like the guys who whisper, I love you when they're here the first night. Yeah, man. You just can't fucking do that. You can't do that. You just met her. He's trying to love you when you're here the first night. Yeah, come on. Totally. It's the same shit. It's the same shit. But this thing just, it just really forces that impeccability because you're carrying the truth and the mantle for you and your partner. You know, your partner's doing you a great service in allowing you this freedom. And, you know, how dare you go. So are there no boundaries then? I mean, is there like, can't fuck my workers, right? People that work for me, they wouldn't be okay, right? I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that's not going to just hung out. We're going to go share a steak together. Let's create some boundaries here. This is the second time you made a run at this. I know. You pretended like you wasn't including you, but we know the real truth. No, honestly, there's, the more boundaries you create, the more opportunity there is for resentment. So we've learned that, yeah, at first, no, this person's banned, this person's forbidden. No, you can't see that person, but that just feeds this worm of resentment. And unless you see something that you want to alert the person is unsafe, like this person's playing this emotional manipulation game, you got to watch out for that. Like that's a dangerous pattern that I can see that you might not see. Be aware of that pattern. Like that's an important thing. That's cool you guys can have that conversation. Oh, totally. And we've had to have that conversation before. And we both rejected it and both accepted it and been like, yeah, you're right. That was that. Like I like your dude, but I can tell by the way he's lingering. Well, here's what he's doing here by doing it and it's causing you to react in a certain way. Like there's been those moments and I think you have to have each other's back. Just like a real friend would have your back. Like if your girl was pulling moves on your homie and doing weird manipulative shit, you'd be like, yo, watch that girl. She's doing some, she's being manipulative. It's the same way that you would treat that, but ultimately you wouldn't forbid your homie from seeing her because then you'd be like, fuck you, man. And so it's the same thing. It's kind of like helping each other see things. And the only hard rules are you just don't break the sexual safety boundaries. Like that is a, that's a hard rule. Like you don't fuck around with that. It's impeccability or nothing because it's not just you that this will affect. And so it actually, whereas in the adultery model, you're doing it quiet and hushed and you never communicate about it. And people think, oh, well, what about sexual safety? I think it's a lot worse in those cases because then you can't talk about it. If you had an unsafe experience, let's say something does happen. Let's say I do have an unsafe experience. That's, I shouldn't have done that. I fucked up, but I can go back and be like, yo, I had an unsafe experience. It was just in the moment I got caught up. And it was like, we got to wait and, you know, we got to wait or I got to use the condom until I get tested again. And, you know, we've had to have those moments too where we fucked up. But it was like, it's super challenging. It's like, come on, man. I was like, I already fucked everybody. You can't just fucking be smart about it. Yeah, yeah. So you can get caught up in that. And but you have to remind yourself, like if you do that too bad and another time someone, they screw up and then they don't feel comfortable talking to you, then you're setting yourself up for a problem because then you might just blast right through Chlamydia. You know, like, you don't even know, right? So you have to allow that boundary and allow the flexibility for truth and human mistakes to come out and communicate. Thanks, honey. I wanted lobster, not crabs. God. What kind of guys that would challenge your ego the most that she would be with, like, what are the... Is there a type where you're like, oh, fuck. There's been lots of types. Like anything that's different challenges the ego. Oh, see, I would think something more like me would bother me more. No, I mean, it's the things that people are better. When someone's better than me at something, well, actually everything's challenging, to be honest, because there's people who are better than you, right? And then those people challenge you because you think, oh, maybe she likes that trait and I don't have that trait. So that's what she's really into and that's who she likes the most. And it's because I need to be more like that. That's not true. You got to keep reminding yourself that your partner loves you for you. Your own unique combination of flavors. That's why she likes you. She likes the dish. Like your hot dog shouldn't try to be a filet mignon. It should just be the best fucking hot dog it is. And if you're a hot dog, fucking rock hot dog. That's what your girl likes. Don't try to be steak, you're non-steak. And so knowing who you are and not trying to chase those other things, that's challenging. Have you caught yourself doing that? Oh, of course. Or like, should you see a guy who's like, Tammy's more athletic than me and also you step up your gamel. She's you're hooping out of nowhere again. You bring the ball out. This is getting personal. Like one of her first lovers was a guy who trained in the on-it gym and happened to be the guy who owned the record for the farthest anybody could throw the medicine ball over the back of their head. Which, by the way, you own the record now? I tried. I tried. God damn, if I didn't try to make that my specialty. And he had this amazing technique. He would throw it and he would go all the way to the ground. He would like throw it and then he would spin and like hit the fucking grass and the ball would, he literally like had the record by like two yards over like anybody else. And I had one of the top scores in that too. But I would look at his name and that little line on the board and just see and be like, this is mother fucker. It's 11 o'clock in the night, Aubrey's in there doing all the top scores. Yeah, totally. And I was like doing that over and over again, again and again. And sure, I've caught myself in a bunch of those different fucking negative loops. I've also caught myself in a, he's not good enough. He's not good. He's not good enough. And that one was actually more devious than the, he's too good. That's a game your ego plays on. Because the other one, at least it got me in there throwing balls. It got me like, it was, there was an action to it. There was a, there was a positive driving force of like, man, he is a little fucking stronger than me. I'm going to step up my mother fucking game. And that at least feels good and has some positivity, even though it's rooted in dark, dark pain. Well, you can still wrap it around. I got in shape. I got better, straight, stronger. But if it's someone who you feel like isn't worthy and you're kind of judging them, then it's just like, I can't believe it. That guy, you know, and that's, that's your also your ego, you know, working in another way, trying to make yourself important for your attributes and not seeing that guy, like a steak is not better than a hot dog. Just because it costs more as these actresses served in this restaurant, you know, everybody's its own unique thing. You can't judge somebody for what they want to eat. And when you're at the ballpark and it's the fucking fifth inning and you've had a couple of beers, the fucking hot dog is the move. If someone rolled out, you know, a fucking T-Bone, you're like, this is awkward. I don't want this now. I want hot dog now ballpark. And then I'll go home to my, you know, Ruth's Chris and we'll fucking hang out. Like you just can't judge it that way. You can't say that this is a substitute. This is, you know, something that's supplementing, you know, your love life. And so that supplement can come in any variety in any form. Are there rules like how often you have, you can be with another lover or how often you have to be with your primary? And I'll ask that. I would imagine you can't supersede your. That's right. Yeah. There's no rules necessarily, but there's understandings. Like respect. Cause rules, yeah, cause rules, rules again lead to resentment, but it'll, you know, you kind of have a feel for what's pushing the boundary too much. What actually doesn't make sense. Cause me and Whitney are primary partners. So if it like, if something is really challenging that, then we have to take a look at that agreement. Like are we, do we really want to be primary partners or do we want to pivot? And we've both had those conversations with other people. Like, and we've both painfully said to the other, and actually prematurely to be honest in both cases, painfully and prematurely said, hey, you know, if you'd rather her be the primary, if you'd rather him be the primary, you know, I'm okay with that puppy dog, cute puppy dog face and broken heart. But, you know, at least forcing ourselves to acknowledge that there may come a time where that happens, maybe temporarily, maybe permanently, but you would want to address it. It wouldn't just be one of these things that kind of all of a sudden it's two days a week, then it's three days a week, and then it's five days a week with the other person, but we're still primary. Fuck that, I want to be the starter. Yeah. Like we could play his basketball game all day, you could suck people in, but I'm past the ball, I'm running for it. And that's part of an agreement and understanding. And if that goes out of alignment, you really need to take a look at it. You think there'll ever be a time when you guys are gonna, you know, be older and sitting down and you're like, yeah, I'm tired of doing this. Let's just hang out with me and you forever. There may, no, because it's getting easier. So there may be a time where we're not as sexually driven, but like the jealousy is getting less, the enjoyment of the other people with that is getting, you know, is getting more. How long have you been in an open relationship together? Like three and a half years. Oh, okay. Yeah, so it's progressing in a way where the downside is getting diminished and the upside is getting heightened, we're getting. So I don't foresee a reason that we would, but I could foresee long stretches where maybe neither of us have a lover. And we just, it just nothing hasn't, nothing's quite manifested that makes sense. That's worth the energy to really pursue. But I don't think the rules would ever change. Have either of you been like annoying one of the other and told the other one like, hey, go fucking call Steve. I'm getting tired of your fucking attitude. They're like that. Have him take your ass out to dinner. That's like a sitcom, you know where it's like. That's what I envisioned it as. I was in a life where like all just tired of each other. The thing about this is it really keeps things very fresh. You know, like I've never, I've never been this passionately into someone. I've been with Whitney three years, three years monogamously, three and a half years now non-monogamously. And like it's still like electric and exciting. And I think that's because of the rule shift. Cause at year three, we actually split up of after three years of monogamy, we split up. And it was, it was kind of dull to be honest at the end of that. Like we were just in that routine. We both owned each other's sexuality. We were both a little bored, you know. And, and that was the time where, yeah, you know, it was felt like get out of here. And so we ended up splitting up. But with this thing, it just kind of keeps things more interesting. I know there's probably a lot of people that are irritated by hearing me compare it to hot dogs and flaming on. But it's true. Like, I mean, if you have been eating flaming on every single day, every now and then the hot dog's great. And there's nothing better than having hot dogs for like a week and then coming back to that amazing flavor. And it probably makes you appreciate. He sets the palette. Right, right. Pallet refresher. Hey, baby, it's just a pallet refresher. Don't worry. I love your flavor the best. Good deal. It's like, like being in a perfume store. You need to smell coffee every now and then, you know. So what are you doing to promote this book now? You said it's coming out in April. It's coming out April 17th. April, so you're doing the rounds, trying to go on the podcast and go out and speak and stuff and pump it out. Excellent, man. Full court, full court press. I mean, I really, I really believe in it. I think, as I said, I think it's one of the best things I've ever done, if not the best thing I've ever done. Very cool, very cool. All this steak and hot dog talk, bro. I'm gonna go have dinner. Yeah, man. Let's go eat. Excellent, brother. Thanks for coming on, man. I appreciate it. Yeah, perfect. That was amazing. That was great. All right, check it out. 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