 Are you ready if you needed to defend yourself? The starting point of resilience is you want to be there. Dr. Itai, how are you? I'm good thanks for having me on, Chris. Absolutely my pleasure. How is Jerusalem? Well, it depends on what period you're asking. If you look back a couple of weeks ago, we had here a small conflict going on here in Israel. It was rockets from Gaza and a lot of domestic terrorism that took place. I just landed from the United States, I believe it was the 18th of May. I got called in urgently by the military for about 20 days to be involved in some of the activities. For now, it's relaxed until the next time. Yes, we'll come on and talk about that because it's such a beautiful part of the world. I love the desert and wonderful people I've met travelling through the deserts of the world. But before we do that, we've got to say a big thank you. Bear with me here. Giorge Hussar. There we go. That's my best Romanian accent friends at home if you're wondering. Giorge came on the podcast the other day. What a wonderful gentleman. He is a Krav Magam master. And at the end of the podcast with Giorge, he said, Chris, I have somebody that you should really meet. And he's put me in touch with Dr. Gill. And ite or ite? Ite. Sorry, I did ask you this the other day. I just my small brain. Well, small body as well. So, yes. Another Krav Magam master, but even like more of a master, Israeli special forces commander, doctor. And of course you now, well, not now, but you're also successful in business. And again, we'll come and talk about that. Can we take your military service? First, is that okay? Yeah, we can talk about some of the stuff. I'm not sure I can discuss everything, but yeah, let's go. Let's not get off. We don't want to get ourselves in trouble with Mossad. They will find you. That's the thing, you know, that they always do. I'm pretty sure they found me already. Have you seen my podcast? Yes. So I'm guessing you joined the military as military service. Was that originally correct? Everybody here in Israel has to serve mandatory at age two. And there's different branches in the IDF. So for example, in general, we have what we call the Air Force. Anything in the sky belongs to the Air Force. Anything in the ocean belongs to the Navy. And anything on the ground belongs to the ground forces. Okay? Yeah. Now in the ground forces, you have so many different things. So you can have artillery, the armory, tanks and so on. And then you have like the British, American or other neighbor countries around us that they have military. It's like paratroopers and different types of inventories. And then there's probably smaller sections of what they call the elite, tier one. And what we refer here is to the special forces or commandos. And then those are already different sections. So for example, during wars or conflicts, you know, if I go back into the 80s and then a little bit later on Lebanon, where I participated in the conflict in Lebanon, June 1982. I wasn't living on for about two and a half years, I believe. And I'm not the only one, so it doesn't make me anything special. So just to make the audience understand the structure. And then what we call IBW in between war, there's preparation. You know, there's the same wish for peace, prepare for battle. So usually we have the foreign and domestic sections. Usually domestically, it's really soldiers protect the borders at some different levels. Okay? Because we're surrounded. We want to look at the map, they can understand the structure. And then you have what we call the elite, the commandos that even during peace times, so-called peace times, there's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes that not everything I could explain, but there's a lot of prevention taking place or analyzing or collecting intelligence or seizing and capturing high-risk individuals involved in terrorism against Israelis or the neighbor countries as well that are in the coalition. So for example, the British, the Americans, the Australian, Israel are very well connected in the ties of collecting and sharing certain intelligence information. So that's another scope inside the ground forces. And then of course inside you talk about, you know, intelligence, you can talk about cyber, you can talk about satellites, you can talk about, oh, Air Force does intelligence reconnaissance and so on. So it's a pretty interesting structure. I have a few similar nations, allies have similar structures, plus, minus. And I think it's a, we're small, but very efficient, I would say. There's no Mickey Mouse and goofing around. If a job needs to get done, it will be done. That's pretty much it. Yes. So you've been a special forces commander. And now from our previous conversations, do I understand rightly your part? I've been watching the, is it Fowder? Fowder, correct. Fowder. Gosh. So basically it's, it's for friends at home. This is a drama, a TV drama that has been made about the undercover special forces teams that literally go what we would call 14 in or the British. We have, we all, we call them great teams. Yeah, you guys call them great teams. Americans will sell ghosts. We call them great. So yeah, I was involved in the reserves as in one of those sections where I was for probably 20 years. They're a part of commandos, commando regiment like your essayist, but they're a small section inside the commandos that speak languages in different dialects. And yeah, they're one unique bunch of people. You'll walk into the guy, bump into the guy in the street. You'll never know. You'll never say. Really special breed of men. And I had the honor to be involved in some serious training for these guys for many, many years. So what I call combat at zero, God forbid, it will be exposed and, you know, possibly taken by force. We cannot allow that to happen. So they have to be very skilled in language, body language, hand to hand combat weapons, improvising, escape and evade and the whole package. And it's, it's not an easy job, very high stress. And language school is a long journey as well. So, yeah, that's just one of the things that I was involved in. I will mention that for those who saw, we discussed the BBC Channel Hell Week that I was involved in in 2015 for a reduced selection. And so I was also elite councillor warfare team. That is the number one team in the country that takes care of all the problems that no one wants to talk about. Also a very elite group of guys. Very physically and mentally demanding job, not for everybody. You know, when people say God created all men equal, I disagree. If they were all equal, they will all be SAS and SPS and Israeli special forces. So, you know, talking later on about will, desire, winter mentality, resilience and so on, we'll discuss that later. But that's pretty much what my career was involved around. So I'm still active with the government and the reserves. I've been called in frequently and trying to continue it as much as I can on training, mentoring the younger generation. And pretty much that's it. That's what I do. Yes. And you do it. Many of your country persons do it because you have national service, which is something we don't have over here. Let's just say security is taken incredibly seriously in your part of the world. Well, we have another alternative, you know. I mean, if you think about historically, Israel has been under attack since the establishment of Israel and even before 1948. There were ups and downs and rough moments of terrorism. You know, so... Yes, 1948. And there hasn't been much peace since, has there? Correct. So, again, we look at the map and see who we are surrounded with. And we had our tough challenges. And me, of course, I was born much later. So I know stories from family and members and, you know, what you learn in history. And I will say that during my service and things that I was already aware of is like the Yom Kippur War, 1973, that I was already a youngster. You know, the Six Day War was probably five years old. So it doesn't really, you know, I just know from history, but we had some very, very interesting events that later on took place that I think that, first of all, for the most Israelis and, of course, me as a youngster, I started to understand that I think one of the things that I was young enough, but still educated enough to understand was the Munich terrorist attack at the Olympic Games, where Israeli athletes were taken hostage and it went real bad and all of them were killed. And it was a catastrophe. And I remember at the time, Golda Mayer was Prime Minister of Israel. And, you know, after the Holocaust of millions of Jews being, you know, killed, I would say that Golda Mayer understood that if we don't take care of our own business, we're not going to make it. And I think that that was probably, in my opinion, was a game changer in that point. Israel did offer the Germans back in the day, if I recall correctly, to have some intervention team, Israeli teams come in and take care of it. But the Germans said no other military force will come on our German soil. So that was a big catastrophe for the state of Israel, also because of the morale and ego, I would say, that the Germans didn't deal with it properly at the time. Only later on, many years later on, they built their counter-terror team, GFG9, that by the way, today is in very good relationship with the Israeli counter-terror team, Yamam, where I served, and there's joint programs. But going back historically back, some years later on, then you had the antenna, where Air France aircraft was hijacked, landed in Uganda. My direct boss, Major General Ali Khran, was a young lieutenant back in the day, and they had probably 72 hours to plan the most daring mission land in a foreign country with very little preparation. They actually built a mock-up similar to the airport and stormed it, hundreds and hundreds of repetitions to get the drill done right. And it was considered a one-way ticket. Like if we are not able to save 103 hostages by deploying Israeli commandos, it's all or nothing. We all know who dares win, right? So I think me being brought up in those type of environments, maybe had an effect on the way I view life. Mentioned that I was involved in martial arts from a very young age, so I was accustomed to full contact and lots of judo and martial arts back in the day, since I'm five years old. So I thought that was also a God-given thing that I had when I joined the military. I was a very gifted athlete, and that helped me a lot to overcome a lot of physical stress and demands that you need to be in one of these top teams. You know, it is very easy to give up, very easy to give up. And being strong, being strong physically is a bonus, but it's not necessarily the main product. So I would say, I would say in very general, us having this discussion about those periods, by childhood up to the military, joining the service of AJ team like everybody else, being able to qualify to go into commandos, later on from commandos transfer and go through other selection and other very rigorous training to the Cal State War 13. I would say that's probably environment, influence, things that come from family from home, the way you're brought up, because you can come from a broken home and still be successful. There was many great examples like that, that people came from real bad homes and were brought up roughly, but it made them resilient. It's the way each individual copes with, you know, problems and deals with it. And if they want to change their life, there's many options. Military would be, in my opinion, one of the best ways to take teenagers and our generation and straighten them out, because I think we have become a very soft society and that's something we can talk later on. But I would say overall, Israel is a very resilient nation, so my daughter served in the military and my son, Tom, a special forces sniper. And like, where does this come from? Probably from family and probably understanding the political situation that Israel is in. Hopefully doing the right thing to protect future generations and having a stable and hopefully a happier life. And pretty much that's it. That's my angle on that specific topic. How have you coped then with, I mean, I'm guessing you've seen a lot of bloodshed because there is a lot of bloodshed over there. How do you keep your mental health up? Well, I will honestly say that as you're going now into things that are actually my academic specialty is performance under pressure and resilience. I talk about this a lot in the service when I train recruits, younger and older ones that are already in the service. The word performance under stress is really interesting because so for example, job description, what do you want a military member to be able to do? So for example, complete difference scope. Let's talk about a paramedic. A paramedic is supposed to be able to reach an injured individual car accident or whatever, knife attack, gunshots and analyze as fast as possible the source of the injury and apply a life-saving technique or skill, block bleeding. If it's a lot more serious, guts are all over. Maybe someone's burned from a fire, the smell, brain fluids all over, lots of blood. Will that individual that went through the training to qualify as a paramedic and an ambulance and you guys have plenty of those in the UK or a military medic or a trauma doctor in the military or the ER, what type of skills do they need to possess on top of doing the technical ability of applying a tourniquet on a serious bleed-out? What kind of mental ability do they need to possess to actually do that, remain calm, make decisions, not freak out, not panic and like, oh my God, oh my God, what do I do? I cannot perform. And even later on, will they have, after many, many cases like this, will they struggle with some type of similarities to the beginning of exposure to PTSD even at the minor level? I am assuming, I'm assuming, firefighters that are breaching cars every day and car collisions, cutting lives with the jaws of life and rescuing babies or families and they will see so many dead people and they're underpaid and not respected enough and I love these guys. They'll jump into fires to save families at any given time even though they're underpaid and they deserve more respect. I think medics, paramedics, ambulance drivers, policemen that will do a life-saving thing they also know some basic medical skills. What I'm saying is that job description, that that person wants to do that job but you want to be there, that's the first question. Did he want to do that? Do you want to be a firefighter or jump into a fire? You do understand the consequences. You can't say you didn't know. It's like a lion that wants to hunt. Of course it needs to be careful from the horns when it's hunting. It can die. It's a calculated risk. But what mental ability does a person need to be able to do that? So setting measurements in place who can and who cannot is one of the things that I deal with. Yes, everyone that wants to apply to SAS or SPS or any other similar forces around the world, Navy SEALs, Delta Rangers, et cetera, Israeli commandos, everybody needs to go through some type of screening and filtering. First of all, to see here and here are they okay? So we have some type of barometer or scale to say. We have someone that is, I would say, relatively a solid individual doesn't crack down easy. Strong individual, strong will above average. That when he's wet, when he's cold, when he's tired, when he's hungry, when he has to march with heavy loads on his backpack for many, many miles in all terrains, it can be in the desert in Israel because we train in the desert. So for people who don't know what it means to march navigating the desert 20 to 30 miles with a backpack, they don't understand nothing about paint and not showering for days and for weeks and then the sand and the dust and the hot temperatures that are another enemy. And oh, they're going into the water environment. The water environment you're with all the time, it's cold, it's freezing. You don't get to choose the temperatures as well. If you're in the mountains, we have your lots of mountains in the Galilee area and Lebanon and so I operated in mountain areas and when you're uphill and you need to carry heavy loads but someone has to do it. So I'm looking for people that say, I want to do that. I'm willing to do it. I will give it my best shot. Not everybody passes, but the starting point of resilience is if you want to be there, you're willing to take a calculated risk or understand, oh, I can be seriously disabled in combat. And by the way, there's accidents in training. We all know this, you know. And there's shinsplants. You can break bones in your feet. You can have more back problems that most airborne people have. You jumped, you'll know. You can have knee problems, orthopedic problems of any kind and medical issues that later on when you're older start to pop up. Eh, are we crazy people? I don't know, but somebody's got to do it. So, you know, I was still born in a generation where I thought, well, first of all, it's mandatory, but yeah, I do not see myself being behind the desk pushing fences. So just like you, you were a royal parade. You know, when I mean, what makes someone want to do that, you know, when navigating the mountains with heavy loads when it's really freezing temperatures, you know, plus three Celsius or rain, you don't get to choose the day. You still got to do it. And those are the things that we're looking in the human puzzle. People that can cope and adapt to different environments with a snap of the fingers. Oh, desert, bam, no problem. Water, we're on a boat, no problem. You're in the mountains, no problem. Making shelter, no problem. Not eating kitchen food for long terms, being away from home for long terms. That brotherhood, that unity being among men, the guy on the left, the guy on the right, he will do whatever it takes to protect you as a team member. That is something that most people that have not served, lack of understanding the trust, the loyalty. And by the way, if you did see the BBC show, I read a very interesting drill that where you have to do all these assignments, dragging a tire, burpees, push-ups, running, climbing, jumping, whatever task it is, physical task. But what the participants do not know, there is a hidden camera recording them. And after the assignment is completed, we ask the individuals, have you completed all assignments to full completion? And all of them swear under the mother's grave that, oh, yes, I did all the pull-ups. I did all the burpees, I did all the push-ups. And when you look at the video, a certain percentage of the population that did not know they're being recorded and you discovered they cheated. Now, when you do that kind of measurement and you expose them to the truth, oh, you cheated. So is that an indication that, oh, with a blink of a finger and a blink of an eye, like, oh, I can cheat on my teammates if things go wrong. I'll save my skin first. So I cannot train trust and loyalty. And I think that is one of the main measurements. And that goes later on into the business world, business life. How do people become really successful in business? When your word is a solid word, you say, I will do it, you do. And you do perform. Here you go, a military application that can become into the business world and make, by the way, relationships, children, finance, money, health. So many things we can, you know, we can go anywhere. It's like an octopus. Yes, it's interesting. The world is changing. And you see this reflected in the way people are. You can make an awful lot of money now. Just it seems like being really rubbish at what you do, garbage. Yes, people can be... I think youth and society is being brainwashed by things that actually damage your IQ. And the ability to make a decision is lacking. Education in school is not as it used to be. And by the way, I shared with you a video, and if you want to share it later on with the audience, La Sierra High School from the 1960s, where if you look where we are 50-plus years ago and where we are now with youth in high schools, we're JFK, the president of the United States. That was assassin. He believed in having a strong and mental resilient society based on performance. If you push students to be athletic and they're happy in their body, they feel good. They eat clean food, and we can talk about the relation between nutrition and being happy and healthy. So, if you go back into the 1960s, and if you go back into the 1960s, you'll be able to have a very strong society. So, if we go back into the 1960s, possibly his plan was that during the Cold War with Russia, if you needed to have a million young guys called in to join the Marines to go to war with the Russians, I am assuming with the level of fitness that you witnessed in the video, it would be much easier for them versus young people today that are completely overweight. Many of the boys have nipples like women. It's something to do with the food and hormones, but definitely something to do with family because I have kids, and all my kids are very athletic. We eat very clean food, and their performance is very high. I think their self-esteem is high. They're not bullied because they look really good and very athletic, so there's no reason. You see what I'm saying? So, the starting point is much better. Now, where does that come from? It comes from home, education, parenting. So, we can take on a different spectrum in another family that, you know, the father beats up the mother. They do a lot of alcohol or some type of drugs. And the kids eat shit, junk, fast food. I think that's probably one of the purposes of society to make people poisoned and stupid. Believe it or not, it's just a personal opinion. And my conspiracy theories, you know, I analyze information as it is. If I'm looking 56 years ago where we were and where are we now, instead of evolving, we're going down. There's a lot more hate instead of love. I don't know. So, that's something that we need to look into very closely with our brain and with our heart. Yes. Life is a massive conspiracy. Until you work it out, you don't see it. But when you work it out, then it's omnipresent. It's everywhere. Correct. So, we're in very challenging times right now in deep waters. Yeah. I'll stay away from politics, but I have my opinions about what's going on. Well, let's not talk about medical stuff if you know what I'm saying. But you have only got to look out the window to see how easily led the majority of people are. And it's because they've never been allowed to evolve their thinking. You're saying the exact word critical thinking. People were not educated and indoctrinated to think and solve problems. Have an opinion. Listen to both sides and make a choice. Even if you make a choice that I disagree with, it doesn't mean that I'm right and you're wrong. It's a choice. It's like you like a certain food and I like a certain food. And so on and so on. But again, at least look at the data and analyze it with an open mind and an open heart. And that's what I'm saying. And do the right thing for you. That's it. The other one that's a very good yard stick or meter stick for life is like follow the money. Follow the money. Who stands to gain from making you do certain behaviors? Who's making the money off it? It's not rocket science. Let me ask you a real simple question. And if the audience is going to see this, why is organic food 10 times more expensive than regular food on the shelf? So if you want to go and get a fast food burgers from any brand versus getting fresh grinded meat, grass fed, non-GMO, no hormones, no steroids, no whatever chemicals in it, it would cost you a fortune. And even then when they would sell it to you, you wouldn't even know if it's, you know, if you want free range organic eggs from chicken. I'm saying it is there, but it's there for the people that can afford it. Now, if we didn't give any chemicals to all the plants and vegetables and didn't spray them with whatever, you know, toxins to keep away the pesticides, right? I mean, there are technologies to grow veggies and that it would be very difficult for, you know, hydroponic, right? Everybody, I mean, that follows a little bit, knows. And it doesn't really need any chemicals to be sprayed on it. I'm assuming that if it was done by large scale, through the industry, we could help a lot of people with medical problems to feel healthier and better, perform better, to be more clear in their brain, to do more sports. And I just think when you say follow the money, we both know that the money is directed to keep most people weak, sick, depending on something that was not a God given. And that bothers me. That bothers me a lot. By the way, that's in our house. For example, in our household here, we do not have any sweet drinks of any kind. There's no Coca-Cola. There's no junk food of any kind. We eat very, very clean as much as possible. We try to get organic. There's complete days where me and my wife and the children were vegetarian and then two, three times a week, that's a protein from animal. Fish, red meat, chicken. And then there's a lot of fasting as well, just cleaning the body. Shut your mouth. Most people need to snack and nibble on nonstop because the taste buds and the demand of sugar to the brain spikes the insulin and so on and so on. So again, now we're glitching into nutrition health benefits to raise performance. And that's another thing, by the way, that I discuss a lot with high performance people. Do you want to perform better? Change your lifestyle. How many people want to perform better? Are they willing to change the lifestyle? It's so easy to tell people what to do, but if you're a role model, and that's why I wake up every morning very early and do my fitness routine in the gym and the house. I have a small gym. Every day I wake up, so when my kids see me, they say, he's a role model. I don't brag about it, but I just, they see me every day doing pull-ups. Every day I'm doing squats. Every day I do push-ups. Every day I do explosive sprinting and thumbtip of physical activity and martial arts and hand-to-hand combat. I'm a very physical guy through my age. And a regular good day, I can do 10 sets of 10 of pull-ups. Most young people will not be able to do that. So I'm not saying I'm a world-class level athlete by any means. I'm just saying for a regular white guy, I try to keep here and here strong. That's it. Yes. If my son, if he gets up and he doesn't make the bed, he gets told to go back and do it. Well, I think also the generation today of the young children is, they believe they're entitled. So dealing with some of the things that I discussed in my research and academic papers is that negative results are very, very good for us. So failure is an amazing ally, an amazing empowering tool. You must fail in order to succeed later on. There is no all the time success. You know, you were interviewing George, and he traded with me, and he's one of my top instructors, and I will say that we go full-on hand-to-hand combat against a rubber knife. Well, you think when George stabs me or I stab him or we do drills full-on, I manage to block and defend all the time successfully? No. But undersarms, say, full-on attack with some type of simulated pipe or baton, full-on, two against one. You know, multiple attackers, they try to beat you down to the ground and drag you into a van or something. Home invasion, rape. We don't always get it right. We need to fail so many times in order to possibly raise the bar to reach some type of success. Isn't it the same way in the military? We always get it right. We always hit all targets where we're shooting with a rifle or a gun. The answer is no. But, bouncing back and coping with frustration to turn failure into success, that is the most resilient sense of skill a person needs to train himself. You can help someone in coaching, but it's self-training. You need to say, I want to do this. I need to do this to save my soul. I want to be happier. It's nothing to do with money, by the way. It has nothing to do with money. I mean, you can have all the money in the world, but if you're not healthy, I mean, look at Steve Jones. He had more than everybody else, but he still had cancer and died. So, like I said, you've got to train yourself. You've got to push yourself to the limit. Every day set a higher bar and a better standard for you as a role model if you decide to have a family, for the children, for all your friends around you, that you can, instead of dragging people down, push them up, be a motivational inspiration, even at a very small scale. Not everybody is like a legend speaking on YouTube with millions of followers, like, but in your own small circles, can you do miracles? Can you save someone's life? Can you help them to be more successful? Can you help them to be healthier and happier? And I mentioned Steve Jones had a lot of money, but he died from being sick. Cancer. We're surrounded with invisible enemies all the time, cancers, diseases, and so on. This thing that we're in our control, I mean, it doesn't mean we're immune from everything. Do you want to know the crazy thing? Yeah. People in this country, we've been lied to so much from birth that all the medicals and stuff and biologists just been hidden from everybody. So people here still think, like cancer is something that, like, you might get it. Maybe you don't, but, you know, it's real bad luck. It's not bad luck. It's nutrition and vaccines. Yes. But again, I'm not a medical doctor, so anyone listening to me, for them it may be nonsense. I'm not an authority on this, but just from the reading that I do, speaking to medical experts, that's the information. And with my brain, I wish to analyze the night. I asked myself, how is it possible so many people in the population are having these type of problems? Yeah. So just logic. Connect the dots. Yeah, we don't even have to talk about the, that word, because even back from there, if you eat a nutritious alkaline-based diet, you don't get it. I haven't been ill. I always say 17 years, but I think it's 18 years now. Not a single cough or a cold. There's been times when I've gone back to like the junk food. When I say junk food, I don't mean like McDonald's. I mean what people eat in this country, which is like a steak and chips and egg and chips or fish and chips or meat and potatoes, it has to be meat every night, every night, and all this refined carbohydrate or carbohydrate. It's not just that. It's the oil that a French fries are fried and high temperatures they become chemicals and toxins. So of course, nanograms and the digestion go into the bloodstream and later on diseases, blood clots, whatever heart attacks and everyone wants to blame proteins and fat. Actually good fats are pretty good. I eat lots of plenty of fats every day. Avocados and nuts, that's a great source of fat. You can do that all week. Yeah. It's just so funny though that I eat avocado every day. We have avocados here every day in the house. We all go to the food market by big, beautiful avocados. Every day I have one full avocado. Yeah, and this walking around with a bucket of coffee all morning, which has become... it's a toxic poison and yet it's been sold to us it's like this in heart. Do you know I don't even have teal cap, any caffeine now? Well, I have espresso but I don't overdo it. I don't abuse it. Coffee will have some benefits as an antioxidant, some claim but I just love a good coffee but with no milk. So milk changes everything. The dairy, the way the dairy is produced. Not the milk itself from the cow but the way it's produced. Listen, I wouldn't criticize anyone for having one coffee or one tea a day or even two, right? I've done that, not so much the coffee because I really think it's bad for you but here's the thing. I'm moving away from it now because what I found is when you get off it, whoa, your mood is so much better and so I don't want to go back to basically poison in myself. Okay, interesting. Have you also noticed if you eat less, you feel better? Listen, I am telling you, I do, like this week alone, this week alone and last week, I think I did almost for one week, I did one meal a day with a 24 hour fast in between. So I had between one and two o'clock one meal, a very big bowl of salad, all the greens and veggies you can imagine, and avocados, nuts inside, four or five boiled eggs, mackerels or sardines in olive oil or organic. And then that would be one meal, probably 2,000 calories with everything until the next day and I did that for a week and body mass is not changed. So my BMI is not changed. I feel very strong and energetic. Digestion is very good and I feel very light because one meal a day and if you think about, you know, primordial hunters, you know, they didn't always manage to catch every day whatever they wanted as hunters throwing the spear or sitting in a trap room. And we're just used to having oh, I'm going to go into the grocery to get a bag of potato chips, potatoes and whatever, open it in front of TV, sitting in the office, snacking on it. Man, that's how society is structured. They want you to be like that, not like what we're talking about. Now, a lot of people say to me, how do you have the will power to do it? And I said, well, I'm military trained. Now, what came before the egg or the chicken? Yeah, fascinating. Because all my... So where does that resilience come from? That will to be, hey, man, I just want to hang out with my kids as long as possible. Is that too much to ask? I hopefully, if God gives me, you know, to be 95 years old, maybe 100 and still my brain functioning without alzheimer's and I feel where I can see, you know, 30, 40 years from now, kids, grandkids, do amazing things achieve amazing goals and just be happy. It's not even about money. I think it's a lot about community who you hang around with, strong supporting environment and not just the individual. Yeah. And, you know, we were both military, so the team is everything without a team. You can't do nothing. And it's the same in the business. It's the same in the family. I tell my wife and the kids, we're a team. There's chores in the house, cleaning, vacuuming, throwing the garbage, doing whatever normal family does, you know, it needs to be done. Everybody's a part of the team. That's it. I'll tell you something else. Okay. I'm hoping people can learn from this conversation. Well, they can learn from it. People write to me a lot and say, wow, you know, thank you so much. I didn't know that or I didn't know this or just to believe in people because paradise is for everybody. It's not just for a few. It's for everyone, but the trouble is, it's so simple to get there. But we've been told it's so complicated because it's all about money and power and material goods. And because people focus on that and think it's about job, career, 30,000 pounds a year, a car, two cars, three cars, two houses, one holiday. And it's nothing to do with that. Very simple stuff you can do from getting out of bed in the morning until 11 o'clock in the morning. That little window is five, maybe four things you do. That's it. Bang, it's that simple. So people will learn from this, but another thing because I know you exercise, if you don't exercise and get out and move about like a hunter-gatherer would have moved around for maybe a million years. You can't tell how your body's performing. What I mean by that is, when I run in the morning, if I've eaten too much the night before, my stomach is oh, it feels like lead. Like it's doing this where I'm still digesting food from the night before, which is just insane. And that tells me then don't eat so much the night before, leave a space before you sleep, get it digested, have a nice rest. Maybe you can make your last meal at five o'clock. So there's a 12, 14-hour gap between that last meal and that last meal. Until you wake up in the morning and go early in the morning for a jog. So, if you did a window of four or five hours, so if you had a very late breakfast what I would already call, many people would call a lunch one. So for example today, my meal, my first meal since yesterday that was one o'clock is going to be today about one o'clock, 24 hours. I had one meal yesterday, 24 hours, but that's not all the time. I do cycles because the body thinks you're starving yet and it won't lose body fat. For those who do want to lose body fat, okay? Me, I'm already pretty low on body fat, but I will say this, training the body to adapt different sessions of meals, not having the same routine all the time is important. So for example, having a small window, have if you want chicken, salad, avocado, put something with nutrition something that counts. Quality calories, not calories from donuts that give zero quality fuel to the body. So if you want to treat your body like a Ferrari in the form weapons, tactics, shooting, being sharp in the brain, making decisions, the nutrition impacts the brain the way we think. The second meal would be in a window of four to five hours max. So if it was one, the last meal's got to be around five or six max, red line. Then you have enough hours to digest all that food. But if you do, you wake up in the morning coffee with sugar. You had some cookies next to it. You already broke the fast. Two hours later because you've had something with sugar, your brain craves for more sugar, so it spikes insulin. Oh, I need something else. I'll snack on something. So a lot of people have three meals a day, but they also snack in between. So the body never actually goes into starvation, ketosis. So you're always hungry because you didn't train the body. Can you stay near the microphone doctor? Yeah. Okay. So I'm saying you need to get the body into ketosis so you're now starting to burn fat instead of sugars. And that's how people, if they wish to improve their performance and their body, you see God gave us this amazing machine that if you treat it well and you put real good fuel into it and give it real good service, it will reward you with great health. The brain you're just going to perform so better. And when we're hungry we get upset easily because and that's when you get upset easily, you get into disputes with the kids, with the wife, you argue, you raise your voice, you're less calculated. People don't know this, but it's related to sugars in carbs, real bad carbs, of course. There's great carbs. If you have sweet potato once a week, that is. You have carbs from veggies. Great, but they're natural. They're not made in a factory. So if God made it, eat it. If God didn't make it, don't touch it. That's what I tell people. They ask me, I'm not a nutritionist, I'm just saying what I do and it works for me. So I would say that I think that those lines, if God made it, eat it and if he didn't, don't touch it would be probably the number one line for every average civilian that wants to do something that he can improve himself. If you can pick it from a tree fresh and eat it, go ahead and do it. Again, don't overdo it. You can't have 20 avocados a day and two pounds of nuts every day that way. It's way too much calories for the body. But behave normal around food too. Don't let food control your happiness. You control the food. That's what people need to understand. Don't overdo it. Yeah, when I when I ran the length of the United Kingdom and that's amazing by itself, that's a wow, wow achievement. Amazing. Amazing stamina. But do you want to know the worst thing about it? Well, other than breaking my leg which was what I'd say to my son. That was a bit of a challenge but we overcame it. The worst thing about it because I was in paradise. I was just in my element. Absolutely loved what I was doing. But the worst thing was trying to find vegetables. Whoa, in this country you can buy junk food every service station every, we call it petrol garage, every corner everyone and by junk food you know I'm including sandwiches and stuff like this refined white bread with meat in the middle and it was a big thing for me because I know when you go into that world you have to come out of paradise to be there and I had to come down off this beautiful beautiful place I mean it was okay sometimes you can live that way for a bit. Well, we did in the military didn't we? I know you've done it a lot longer than I have but yeah but the irony and the reason I mention it is I think most people would be surprised to know I'd much rather eat vegetables than anything else and I can run a thousand miles I do complete cycles of veggies but you do need protein to sustain muscle mass so it needs to come from some type of source of eggs or chicken or fish. Yeah sorry I should I should explain or I probably don't make much sense. When I started that run I was actually like 99% plant based and I had been for about six months but in my life I just try to have more vegetables on the plate than anything else that's it and then I can have an egg then I can have tuna maybe a bit of chicken just not a lot because it makes me feel so I get like a hangover now if I eat too much like factory meat and yeah I think it's funny isn't it how food is so much to do with our mood and yet you're never There's a lot of scientific research to say that food controls moods being positive, being negative it's the boost of insulin up and down, up and down, up and down different spikes so and we feel cravings and when we feel the cravings and we don't get it it's almost like a cocaine addiction to sugars and the brain needs it to demand it right now so if not you get very aggressive you start shaking possibly I can go for days without food I've done fast like two, three days easy just water, not a problem just clean the body it's okay to train the body how to do it, it will make you feel so amazing, I even get to do the best workouts when I'm hungry my strength is so good when I'm hungry because that's probably one of the things a god given that when you were need to go on a hunt you know the early man, he needs to go on a hunt he didn't catch every day and he needs to be sharp and set an ambush to whatever gazelle or animal out there and throw the spear I'm assuming he failed when he threw the spear as well right and by the way talking about performance and talking about hand to hand combat earlier you know if you look at the ancient Greeks and great philosophers the ancient Greek days they had pancreasian, you ever heard of the word pancreasian the first hand to hand combat officially that was like I think 658 BC in the first Olympic games what we call submission wrestling today back in the day that was an event in those old Olympics they were elite elite athlete, boxers, strikers if you go into research later on pancreasian ancient Greek you'll see old pottery from 3000 years ago 2500 years ago of things you see in MMA today leg locks and chokes and escapes and throws and punches and you say they nourished from a very young age that day because they needed young kids to grow up to be warriors you know Spartans people know it from the movies but many many people in ancient Greece believed back in the day and the philosophers believed that you can only win war if you're educated and trained heart and if you're not you're going to lose and that was nothing changed we are today you know you're not trained and you cannot fight you cannot protect yourselves so a lot of people can't protect themselves today because they lack skill if they depend on the police to come and save them when something happens it's already too late probably and that's another tool to empower yourself hand to hand combat some source of self defense the Israeli Krav Maga let's talk about that then but before we do it I can we people are going to hate me if I don't ask you about some special forces or some grays incidents or some action I mean so for friends at home I've been watching this series that the doctor recommended it's a powder which if I understand right kind of likes me to fuck up or like it's all gone wrong and it's about these gray teams so these intelligence teams undercover yeah, commandos but it's equally as important about the guys that come in to rescue them if they get compromised there's lots of shooting a lot of danger we're talking some serious people are involved in this world it's a multi-billion dollar issue with Air Force have drones in the sky that monitor operations guys on the ground that are dressed as locals in vans and trucks that during the second circle so God forbid one of the team members was exposed or someone pulled on him a gun or tried to interrogate him or they're going to be killed or captured what we cannot allow at any cost and if you don't if you how can we say if you don't look Arabic you wear a burqa for example take a guy like me white skin right so I would be dressed as a Muslim woman with full workout so you can't see my face and I would be with some type of object on my body that makes me appear to look pregnant and underneath that casing that's under the fabric I would have my weapons or whatever and so I would be on the ground with some of the teams back in our days and if things go wrong you're supposed to intervene so you're there on the ground there's no it's not a helicopter is coming an extraction point 5 miles in the mountains it doesn't work like that you have to have people on the ground it's 10 seconds for contact 15 seconds and things can go back so pretty much that's it so there's a lot of money resources involved in getting the job done safely, quietly you don't always know a lot of deception and instead of getting into a fight why not make the guy want to be involved in something he doesn't know so there's a lot of science behind what the guys do so it's an exciting thing I would say the movie what you're seeing in the television show Fouda in this case is a glimpse into the life of what these guys do of course it's a movie it's not everything is exactly accurate on purpose because of censorship but it gives a good idea and the guys obviously a lot of the time they don't have the opportunity to carry a weapon because they're trying to pretend to say be a waiter in a restaurant or this they can't physically they can go inside the mosque go under and ease it do all the prayers just like a local so it's part of the but for you guys or the guys that come in to get them out or I guess sometimes they do carry weapons if they're on a different mission do you get a choice what pistol you carry or is it regulation well the military has its own standards so there's quite a few things I don't want to really go into that but some of them will have silence so a lot of stuff needs to be done very quietly and it's concealed in certain places very smartly so I don't want to expose that too because in the culture there's a lot of hugging and embracing so when they hug you they actually chop you down to see if you're carrying anything and they will not find it what about have you lost many operatives have many been there's been losses there's been losses I'm afraid that the teams that I worked with there's been losses not too many but there has been losses yeah and usually it's very low key it's not something that's huge publicity because it's not you need to understand it's not regular warfare what does it mean it's not infantry there's artillery and tanks and there's shrapnel this is all very surgical it's a real small circle and a very direct action against a certain radical person involved in terrorism so that's pretty much how it's done it's not there's no noise it's really really quiet it may take the planet months a year to get a job done tracking monitoring and following so technology is involved in signal intelligence where the intercept phone calls so it gets pretty it's pretty high tip with low tech you actually need so if you found the guy still someone needs to deal with it so tracing tracking is one skill dealing with it is another skill so actually at the end of the day you need someone to put their hands on the bad guy what about my mind's kind of going all over the place here because I've been in I've been in Israel and Palestine twice now I've been in Jerusalem twice what I would say it's quite easy to get smoke in your part of the world cigarettes are pretty much anywhere in the world you know where to go cigarettes are in grocery stores is that legal in the military though or do you tell people not to smoke weed any kind of drugs in the military is not permitted so weed any kind is not permitted so you know there's people that probably do it now I'm separating it not to offend anyone there is what's it called cannabis cannabis yeah cannabis for medical purposes so that's not it's different but for those who want to smoke does it affect anyone personally does it harm anyone is it considered a real drug there's a lot of arguments about to make it legal I'm not involved in it I don't even smoke regular cigarettes I just don't tolerate the smell of any kind so if someone wants to do that it's business not mine is the smoking legal in Israel I'm going to guess it's not I think it's not they're trying to legalize it in the parliament if you have a certain amount in your house it's going to be legal versus you're having bags in all its marketing purposes and dealing so that would make it complicated yeah that's the only issue I think that comes any other drugs I think are completely legal hmm and let's talk about the Krav Maga then so from my chat with George he was he was trying to explain it to me he said where is with some martial arts or some forms of fighting you might have a different technique for each different attack he said Krav Maga is more like it streamlines it down so you have maybe like five techniques so there's one technique might cover five different five different he did explain it he did explain it correct so the idea is that the way I view Krav Maga first of all it's a form of self-defense hand-drawn combat it's the known or the accepted style here among what we call military law enforcement and even private schools and private people do Krav MMA it's not I go for a single leg, double leg judo, lift, throw, takedown all over great sports there are additional applications for the Krav it will help you but in reality and this is one of the things that I do lectures about performance and I call it combat at zero you see the first line of defense would be first of all observation did you see there's a problem so let's say you and I have a verbal confrontation and I walked up to you and said the F word in your face and I was with my hands in your face very aggressively you would have a red light say hey this guy has a problem with me I need to get ready but then during this verbal confrontation no physical yet suddenly I reached with my hand into my pocket of my jeans and you didn't pay attention to that now I'm telling you you're not going to get money I'm assuming if you put his hand in his pocket he may be maybe I'm wrong but maybe he's pulling out an object a screwdriver a sharp blade some type of brass knuckles and he's going to whack you time reaction will drop to near zero because you're so close proximity to the event if you didn't read the first line of defense observation body language intention because I don't know any style of martial art that can teach you to defend the thing you don't see so if someone attacks me from behind with a metal pipe and smashes me on the skull I'll get smashed it is what it is if someone stabs me from behind I'll get stabbed if I didn't see it now if someone shouted from behind hey you it was an indication based on or visual or sound or touch three major senses you must apply visual defense so if I didn't see the problem oh wow that's bad if I didn't hear the problem wow bigger problem if it touched me and it was a blade it's already too late makes sense what I'm trying to say when I'm breaking it down so the crowd is supposed to be real stupid and simple a small group of sets of skills that solve many different types of attacks from many different angles does it mean we're always successful the answer is no but the idea is under stress that's my research I have several videos on youtube where people claim to be masters and experts they fail when we pressure test them full on full on attack rubber knife or gun designs different attacks and they just oh I didn't know it's going to be this aggressive they were not coached and trained under real extreme environments where me I bring so I have videos on youtube that are more than 20 years old where I built like a kill house cqb so there's a maze with rooms left and right and there's corridors there's one person in one room two people in another room when you go through the maze you know it's a drill but there's an unknown part where you do not know who's going to attack you from where and suddenly in a confined space someone jumps on you and attacks you and wow you're overwhelmed suddenly you're attacked 3-4 steps oh I didn't know I didn't see the reason is this builds up character in resilience we want students to understand failure is part of the process there is no 100% success in the movies yes in real life no so when you look at a movie of some type of very gifted actor that knows how to do amazing movements of martial arts and he dodges knives and guns and blades and bullets of course that picture I was involved a little bit in movies and of course it's all choreographed 5 attackers attacking me in a movie is choreographed in real life can you really defend yourself from 5 attackers it's a fierce challenge and the price may be very heavy if they have edged weapons they will probably get you you will get seriously cut or stabbed or even die can you minimize damage that's the goal so honest on the table with no flash no being you know with a big ego it is what it is if we like it we don't now one thing that being in the military trains someone's mindset will never possess I had someone ask me a long time ago what is more difficult being an MMA fighter or being in the special forces and I said well when the top athlete goes into the ring and his match is about I don't know 5 rounds of 3 minutes or 5 minutes a total let's say 30 minutes of whatever it drinks he needs to have to do that job description block, punch, throw, kick, grapple wow I said the military member will never have the liberty to tap out when things go bad so if you are a gifted athlete and we see many of them in the UFC or different organizations they always have the liberty to tap out I think if someone is in the Royal Marines or a SPS or a power trooper if he was deployed and he went into conflict and combat you can't tell the bad guy hey give me a minute I need to breathe I need to change my magazine I have a job and I have a belt function give me a second I need to run to that cover and so and so now suddenly grenade, shrapnel, explosives wanting your friend as an MPT hey give me a second I need to take care of it you need to drag that individual injured guy inside you know some type of compound or house barricade him, put a tourniquet still your friends are taking shots from the outside and so on and so on the main thing is I think military the way I do it not everybody needs to agree with me is such a great contributor to the powerful mindset if you know how to apply it for civilian life it sets the barometer scale straight I even published an article about it if your barometer of happiness you know calibrated what do I mean by this we have a measurement that's called Richter scale for an earthquake we have a measurement scale to measure hurricane or tornado it's called Fujita but we don't have a measurement to measure stress so when people say to me honestly they come to me and they say to me oh man I had a real bad day I didn't get any smileys and likes on my phone wifi without all day I couldn't get any message and I was really depressed like excuse me fuck you what do you mean you had a bad day you didn't get messages you know it's like are you shitting me so where I come from where I come from I don't even be a factor it is what it is so I'm trying to train people in my circles or help them to understand you're looking at the big picture wrong the whole message of what life is all about is wrong if you're complaining and blaming other people it doesn't solve a problem stop blaming people and take care of shit get your shit together you first of all before you blame others you get better and again it goes back to nutrition training here and here being happy oh what came again the end of the chicken which one is first and that's the million dollar you know puzzle that people need to figure out for themselves we or me as a trainer mentor high level practitioner and combat military all the flashy things that I am so called done and I'm not looking for any prestige or ego but I would say made me the person I am and possibly people that are in my circles are saying you know what it's worth listening to that guy because he knows what he's talking he did walk the walk he did do interesting things and I'm very humble about it I'm very honored that I've done what I've done and I can inspire people to learn with me he also served in the Romanian army don't forget he also came from a regime where it was the Ceausesco period you know so and he's a hard guy George it would be pretty difficult to kick his ass he's a very physical man and so the idea the message is simple take control you got to be in control military team I think love, compassion embracing, hugging being kind saying nice words when was the last time people said to their wife, girlfriend children I love you hug them I think that costs zero if that goes away boosts the immunity too when you're happy your immunity is high if you're depressed your immunity is low so we all know this but are people applying it yes that's my message for everybody my friend there is a message to be sent out there it's been a brilliant message I don't want to end though before asking you about um this this university accreditation that you run protect academy, protect college and feel free yes I will try to elaborate and explain what's the idea all about so in my company I also have an academic section, protect academy on the website it appears protect college um we have academic recognition from the department of education of the united states from the state of Maine it means we are legally permitted to give academic qualifications for achievements for or certificates or qualifications you can call it diploma um that are recognized in different fields so what I have done I have done something really interesting and a lot of people really love this kind of work where both are a fact there is very little regulation in many many countries worldwide about who can train or teach whatever so for example if someone claims to be a real high level practitioner in some style of martial arts he claims, doesn't mean it's true he claims he knows very little or knows nothing but there is no regulation to prevent him from renting a space in the UK bringing some dumbbells clubbells from gymnasium punching bags and start advertising and claim I am a specialist in kung fu, monkey ninja crap and the average person doesn't know quality he may be a very smooth talker and maybe even look good he shakes his armpits and you know oh I am a tough guy, he has lots of tattoos and he opens a school so those who really possess a real good skill are in competition with someone who knows nothing so if you look at systems that exist in the market like there is stars for cars that when they do crash tests from one star to five stars they do a crash test there is Michelin star for chefs there is trip advisor for restaurants but there is no academic recognition for people for their sweat, blood and high level achievements if they do possess one so what protect academy does is that if someone does have a great skill it can be yoga, pilates, golf it can be martial arts it can be any type of fitness nutrition, strength it can be military, it can be security it can be defense, counter-terrorism there are two sections, one for center of excellence for sports and martial arts center of excellence for security, defense and counter-terrorism so if someone is a graduate of the military or an enforcement and he wants to have some qualification in security he works close protection or someone who specializes in canine do you know that the world of canine handling dogs or training dogs there is no academic qualification for that if you are a powerlifter there is no academic qualification to say you are an excellent trainer in powerlifting so the guy who is a powerlifter he knows how to do the routines and the drills but he doesn't have a paper to prove it and put it on the wall now all of us honestly love to have a diploma or a qualification to say to claim, legally I am recognized by whoever like something like trip advisor or Michelin stars for chefs it's called Michelin because that's what they called it there's different standards in the market some hotels have five stars some hotels have one star, there's a standard but for martial arts and sports there is no real measurement to say who is and who isn't I bump into so many people that are way below average that claim to be masters and they're not but they claim they're masters so I don't want to shame anybody but I'm saying what we do is that people need to send one video for free for free, zero and if they can view the certain assignments about movement, biomechanics and muscle groups and explain the movement they were told so let's say if someone wants to demonstrate yoga or pilates I will have someone who is a specialist in yoga or pilates to look at the sets of skills they claim they have and say thumbs up, thumbs down this guy, wow, we can accept him so we only accept people that are we would believe that would pass all the exams so we don't take people's money then they start and they say no, no, you're not good enough I took someone's money, we don't do that it's exactly the opposite we only take people that we know very high chances they will start and finish now if they quit in the middle it's their problem, not mine I provided a service but we only take people that can really demonstrate unique skills so if someone says I'm a specialist on firearms and he knows how to hold the gun demonstrate to me all the safety things about a firearm and so and so and so if someone says to me I'm a specialist in counter-terrorism and defense show me how you make a plan for a football event where Boris Johnson is going to be coming to the opening and get you in charge of security, explain to me now if he doesn't know how to break it down set up security different circles and the perimeters and where to position people he probably is not a specialist on doing security so standing at a door in a nightclub okay, that's a skill body language, looking at people taking out wrong people not getting involved in any physical confrontation that will take you to prison because there's a lot of laws about how much force is right force and so on but I'll say protect academy is one amazing product every guy that respects himself and he thinks he's or a female that are really good at whatever they do from the field of anything to do with sports or martial arts flash security, defense, counter-terrorism, military law enforcement handling dogs for example rock climbing rock climbing, there's rock climbing instructors they're not regulated by nobody there's an association, there's an affiliation but it's not an academic diploma yeah and this can be done by sending you videos all the way, you don't need to travel anywhere save the money sorry friends at home we've got some recording issue and itai has lost his audio so we're gonna finish there anyway so just to summarize this is a wonderful opportunity if you have a skill that you want to have academically recognized if you want to get a diploma recognized by the University of Maine about the University of Maine no no not the University of Maine no okay explain sorry protect academy is licensed under the Department of Education of the state of Maine ah yes sorry that's what I meant what I mean is officially accredited correct okay right we're gonna end there itai it's been great chatting thank you so much we're gonna chat again because I'm sure we can have many many chats and projects for our friends at home massive love to you all please look out to yourselves if you can like and subscribe that's gonna help us and we'll see you next time thank you