 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. So the first time we met Luke was just you and I, Adam. We did an LA podcast, Extravaganza. We were all over the place, and we go into Luke's, first of all, cool guy. Very cool guy. Super cool guy, doesn't look anywhere near his age. Sorry, Luke, I don't actually know. I won't give away your age. Oh, he is very youthful. He's a very handsome, younger-looking dude. Well, we gave away his age on the show, 47. Yeah, I said it. Yeah, he looks a good 10 years younger than his age. He looks like 20 something. But anyway, we show up at his house. He's got a cool house, man. You can tell this dude's like fashion, right? Like the house is cool. He's got like pictures and paintings of like there's some naked women over here, but it's really artistic and great furniture and just great vibe. We go in there, he offers us some four-sigmatic mushroom drink and gives us some like some great water. I don't remember what was in the water. It was really nice. And we're sitting there and just had a great time. That was the time you choked. That's right. Remember that? Yeah, yeah, that was my first. You know what happened? Tell me again, because I vaguely remember. So this is, this is, and you know what, dude, I gotta give credit to Adam. Just. Fooled me. Totally fooled me. This is a tactic. This is actually like a tactic. Brilliant tactic. Out of it, right? So we're podcasting and it's, it's been, it's been a long day. Luke was the last podcast today and we were just going, having a great time and the conversation was getting kind of deep. And then Adam, I guess, so this is what it looked like to me. He's telling a story and then he starts coughing. Like, like, starts choking and he's, and he's like, give me some water. So I hand him the water and I just take over. And I'm like, well, you know, crisis averted. He was coughing a little bit, gave him some water. I took over, no big deal. Afterwards, he's like, dude, he goes, I lost my trade of thought, didn't know what I was going to say. So that's why I started coughing. So the cough was not real. But I swear, dude, it was the most real. I was so fooled. I said, I gave you my water. I'm like, here bro, drink my water. That's some ninja stuff. One of my next interviews, I'm going to use that as like an answer to a question because it's one of those behind the scenes things that if you've only been a mind pump listener for a long time, I may have heard you tell that story before or where that happened. Otherwise, you probably wouldn't know if you're just listening, right? If you're just listening to it, it does sound like that. No. It was the realest situation. This happens to me on a semi-regular basis where my mouth just does not keep up with my brain. You know what I'm saying? My brain is, I'm telling a story and I'm like really into it. It's like, whoo! It's like going, right? You're like mouth fatigue. And no, it's just, yeah. And then the mouth is like, oh shit, like the, oops, the brain got too far ahead. You know what I'm saying? The brain went like way down there and like, no, you're not there yet. So that happens to me too sometimes. And what I do is I just go where I was going. You know what I mean? So like, let's say I was gonna make a point about, like resistance. So there's just like pieces that are just missing. What? And you just move forward. People are just like, God, you go all over the place with your stories, but they're really good. And it's like, well, I'm just going where, like I forgot what I was gonna say initially. I'm just going over here. To your left. I'm turning right. I do know those straight up all the time. And she always looks back at me. She's just like, wait a second. What does that have to do with what we were first starting to talk about? I was like, nothing. I don't remember. I'm just going. I was initially talking about. Which is ironic that we're sharing this right now. And the, Luke is Luke's story. And it's kind of unique how he's done this whole thing. And his, as far as his podcast and his message. He's got a great podcast. He's got a great story. Yeah. So Luke's got a great story. And he's very, very open and honest. Crazy story. Yeah. Yeah. I don't even want to share some of it because I want people to listen to it because. Like it's unbelievable. Some of the stuff that he's gone through. I can't believe he made it out. And he became who he is today. It's just like fascinating. Well, I couldn't help but look at you guys when he was sharing childhood stories of him being eight and nine years old. Because I'm looking at you guys knowing that you guys have kids that age and thinking like, listen what this guy was doing at that level. I can't even fathom. Right. It was just like, I can't even comprehend this. Yeah. No, it's great. But you know, because it ended up okay, I can listen to it. You know what I mean? I can hear it because I'm looking at the guy as he's telling it. And he's a great guy. He looks healthy. He's got a successful podcast. He's had successful business. So I can, but man, crazy shit this guy's been through. Anyway, Luke's story has a podcast. It's a great podcast called the Life Stylist podcast. It's about optimizing your life, both mentally, spiritually, physically. So he has lots of like health hackers and stuff like biohackers on the road. And he doesn't come from like trying to be a guru about it. He introduces you to a lot of gurus and he's a very normal guy and admits that and doesn't try and sound like he's an expert. He shares his story. And he's like a cool guy. You know what I mean? Like you don't get a lot of people in the space that are like actually cool people that you would hang out with. So I was like, it's like, oh wow, this is a nice change of pace, bro. I'd be seen in public with you. His podcast, like I said, the Life Stylist podcast. You can find him online, LukeStory, that's S-T-O-R-E-Y.com and then Instagram at LukeStory. And oh, and also this is, I think this is gonna air on the 1st of April, which gives you, like, it's crunch time. Summer time's around the corner. Time to look awesome. This is when you take your shirt off and you show off your body. Oh yeah. And your midsection. So check this out. A lot of people don't know this, but we all, we have a program that is designed specifically to train your core, your midsections. It is, now I designed this program a long time ago and it was to build visible apps, to give you the bricks, to give you the six pack that shows even at higher body fat percentages. So it's a well-programmed, ab and core training program. It's called the NoBS six pack formula. We're gonna give that to you for free this month if you enroll in any bundle, any maps bundle. Now maps bundles takes several maps programs, combines them together and discounts them about 30% off or so. So if you get any bundle, we'll throw in the NoBS six pack formula absolutely for free and yes, you can combine all of them and that's this month only for more information on that and any other program just go to mindpumpmedia.com and without any further ado, here we are talking to Luke's story of the Lifestyle is podcast. Dude, I'm inspired by your studio though. This is awesome. This is like my- You can yell by noon though because then the real people- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the band gets here. My parents, then my parents come home. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. It took us a hot minute though to get here. We did, you know what? I was actually meaning to throw, remind me after this podcast, remind me to throw up a picture or have Taylor put a picture up on the mind pump page of the picture. I have quite a few pictures of the three of us and Doug's living room on a little table, you know, when we all first, when we first started doing this. That's dope, that's dope. Yeah, I have some of my YouTube videos when I didn't discover that you could use those mics and I crammed, I think it was like, who would I have in there? I was rich role and he came over and we're sitting like, it's like we're about to kiss in the fucking video, we're super, super close. And then I realized like, oh, I could just get different mics and move into living room and make a little set. How did you, that's one of the people I saw. I was talking off air with you about, you've had quite the lineup lately and how was your role, what was that like? Rich is awesome man, you know, it's funny. We, we's very even kill, right? Yeah, especially, I don't know how to say this. Fuck it, I'll just say it. Especially for someone who's on mind pump, I can say whatever you wanna say dude. Especially for someone who's on a plant-based diet and no offense, but a lot like over, I mean, I've been in the house scene for 21 years and over the years I've been around a lot of people that follow a different regimen and sometimes, not all the time, sometimes people that are on like the raw food thing are sort of on a different wavelength and be super hyper and kind of blood sugar crazy and not that grounded. But he's got his practice. So, you know, he is a spiritually oriented person. So he was super chill. Yeah, he was great. And what's awesome about Rich too is that he's an advocate for his way of eating and living but he doesn't shame other people. He's not dogmatic about it. That's what I really liked about him. Cause you can get, I mean, here's the thing. I mean, you've been in fitness as long as we have, you know, nutrition is right up there with politics and religion. I mean, I would venture to say that's the third worst thing to talk about like at the family dinner table because people get very, and now more than ever, being someone who's been doing this for a very long time, you know, it was kind of like that before but we've created so many of these fucking diets now. Now it's gotten crazy. It's like religions. It is a weird thing when you kind of identify who you are as a person based on the kind of fuel you put in your body. It's sort of like, you know, you think you're a car so you're like, I'm an unleaded. I'm a leaded. It's like, I don't even know. I'm my octane. Yeah, I just think about food as like what works for your body best. Cause I was a vegetarian for 10 years so I've been down that road and that should have almost killed me, you know but I don't walk around going, I'm a meter. Yeah, exactly. I'm a high fatter. You know, it's just like whatever. That's just like, not even relevant. I think especially when you talk about veganism, a large percentage of vegans are motivated to eat that way not because they're seeking better health but more so because they find it immoral or wrong to, you know, eat an animal. So for them, it really is a belief system. Right, right. It is kind of like a religion for them. Right, that's true. That's true. I guess that's why that's more prevalent when some people have that approach to be so dogmatic and also so in some cases, aggressively judgmental toward other people to learn on that. Exactly, if you thought you were like, every time you ate, you know, so your friend ate something, you thought they were killing something that you believed to be, you know on the same, you know, plain as humans or whatever, you would be dogmatic about it. And they're putting barbecue sauce on it, right? Yeah. Right, right. It's gonna put it up. I did an interview with Diana Rogers who has got a podcast called Sustainable Dish and she's really cool because she's a dietitian and a farmer. She's got a farm in Massachusetts and we had a great talk about all of this stuff and, you know, the morality of eating meat or not eating meat because I was a vegetarian because A, this back in like the late 90s, I think that I went into that and I didn't know there was an alternative to factory farm meat, but I knew that that was bad as I started to go down the rabbit hole and then there was also the moral things, like, dude, I don't wanna kill an animal. But we were talking about it and it's like, if you, even if you just, if you grew an acre of kale, in order to do that, you gotta kill thousands of animals and creatures of all kinds, lizards, birds, rodents, snakes, you know, like, so it's like, there's kind of no way to eat any sort of diet without killing things. No, I think, I think. It's interesting just to look at it from that perspective. You gotta realize, like, you know, that's just how it works. Food comes from something that's alive, even plants. Plants are alive, too. So if you go down that rabbit hole, like, what are you gonna eat? What are we gonna eat, soylent? And if you've ever tried to grow food, have you guys ever had like an urban garden or tried to grow food? I've attempted, it's not easy. You know why it's hard? Cause you're at war with all the other animals and creatures that wanna eat your shit. We're not the only ones that like fucking spinach. Yeah, right. You know, so even if like, I'm like, fuck this, I'm going plant-based and I'm gonna grow my own food. I'm gonna have to kill a bunch of creatures just to grow my food because they're gonna come take it. I tried to have an urban garden in Hollywood and these fucking raccoons, man. Every night I'd come and all my shit would be gone and then finally I set up, oh my God, it's funny. I set up like a laptop in the window and then put the camera on that I could, that was like my, you know, my like, what do you call it, like security camera? Cause I couldn't figure out what it was. And then it caught, I was like, oh, it's a raccoon. So I set up this little trap where there was a trip wire. If they got into my little veggie, you know, planter, that it would have this trip wire and then I put all this powdered cayenne pepper on a little board that would flip it and flip in his face. Oh my God. I'm totally nuts. Did it work? Yeah, it worked dude. Oh shit. And I was like, cause I don't want to poison it. I'm not going to go out there with my 22 and shoot it. I mean, you know- Instead of using- He's 18. Yeah. You made him spicy. Yeah, exactly. For later on. Funny shit, but that's when I realized I was like, oh man, if you try to grow anything, you're actually at war with the animal kingdom. Cause they're hungry too. Just like you are. Luke, you said you've been doing this for 20 years? No, you said? You know, I got into health and fitness and meditation, spirituality, all that stuff really committed 21 years ago cause I was a encourageable drug addict living in Hollywood. And that's when the world kind of came crashing down on me and I was sort of forced at first to learn how to cleanse and just live a clean lifestyle in all ways and also to adopt different spiritual practices and yoga and all of that stuff. But even before that, it's funny, I was thinking about this the other day. Even when I was like smoking crack all night and running around the streets of Hollywood, still every day I would go get like a big green juice and I was doing superfoods. I'd always take huge pills, like handfuls of vitamins and stuff like that. And my friends would always clown at me like, okay dude, you're addicted to heroin. You're addicted to heroin. You're a crackhead. You smoke two packs of cigarettes a day. But you take your multivitamins. Yeah, you're full on fucking alcoholic. You're drunk off your ass every damn night. And then why do you bother doing this stuff? But I knew it was like, well, I know I'm killing myself, I'm not that delusional. And so I thought, well, I'll just add all this stuff in. So for about the last five years before I really hit bottom and became fully committed to this, I was also sort of learning about health and stuff weirdly enough. What was the impetus, what was the final impetus? Did you say force? They got forced into this. No, fuck that, go back even further. I wanna know what led you to even get addicted to all those things, like what? Well, it's a pretty classic case. When I was a kid, I experienced a lot of trauma. I mean, parents were divorced when I was three. Was sexually abused by a babysitter when I was around five or six. Right after that, I immediately started getting kicked out of school. I started lighting fires, reading porno magazines, hitting kids in the head with the fucking two by four. I was just, I went nuts after. Angry kid. Yeah, after I had that experience and I didn't tell anyone. Of course, this is like 1975 or something. There wasn't therapy and shit like that now. If your kid starts acting out, there'd be an indication that he had experienced some trauma or something. So I just held it in and just, I had to find a way to medicate because I felt so much shame and guilt and just I didn't know how to like compute what had happened to me. And that was like kind of when things got set off and then that same babysitter, I don't know if I tried it. Was it a slow process or did you like start off with, oh, ever occasionally doing this? Cause it was kind of- No, it was right away. It was like full on. That one babysitter, I don't remember if I smoked it or not, but the first time I saw weed, I was like five or six and I remember what a bong looked like. There was like bong hits happening. I don't remember if I had any, but I do remember having my first drink when I was about six. Damn. And also like attempting to have sex with little girls in the neighborhood. I didn't know how to like follow through, but we'd get naked and getting bed like grown ups. I mean, I was like, I had a really weird childhood. But as far as the drug thing, probably when I was maybe eight or nine, I grew up in Northern California in the 70s. And what happened in the Bay Area? Oh, well, fuck, we're in the Bay Area. I don't have to explain it to you guys. We're in San Jose. I totally forgot. We're in this dark room. Like I don't know where we are at the end. You're in the cube. Yeah. And after the summer of love, all the hippies from the hate kind of migrated up north into Sonoma and Mendocino and they were all into drugs. And so the culture that I grew up in, in Sebastopol and Santa Rosa and up there, there's just everyone grew weed. I remember just rummaging through, everyone's parents shit when they would leave the house, you go into the mattress, you go into the closet. So I mean, we would find huge bricks of hash. We'd find like literally like a half pound of coke, like fresh off the boat. My mom's boyfriend was a drug dealer. I mean, just copious amounts of drugs were available. And so you combine the availability and just the trauma and the dysfunction in my family and in my home. And I love my parents. We all have since been forgiven, but you know, there were issues there. And there's a lot of, there's, dude in my, like my mom's boyfriend was a dealer and he eventually went to prison and he got busted. He dealt to the Hell's Angels and that was like the scene. It was like bikers. And then in my little neighborhood was bikers and what we used to call low riders. Now you call them chullos. They didn't used to have shaved heads. They had like long hair with the hair net, you know. And riding low riders and you know, that was the scene. So I would steal drugs from him and then sell them to the gangs. And how old are you at this point in your life? Are you young? By that, well, I started smoking weed, like on the reg and drinking and stuff, probably eight or nine. And then by the- Holy shit. Dude, that is so young. It is, it's weird. Cause when I see a kid now, like homies of mine have kids that are that age. And I'm like, oh my God. Imagine that kid like, you know, snorting coke. It's like what? Even smoking weed or getting drunk is like weird. But by the time all the gnarly shit started happening it was like 12 or 13. And that's when I was in the neighborhood with, you know, there's a lot of gangs and just really nasty shit going on. And yeah, I used to, funny others, funny. It's funny now at the time it'd be kind of tragic, but my mom's boyfriend, the dealer that eventually got busted, I mean, he used to go get the coke in Badega Bay, like off the boat from Columbia. Holy shit. Yeah, so it's good coke, I gotta say. It was not- Like holding that. Yeah, at least my first, and you know what's funny? Cause I did like really good like flaking- You turned you into a Coke snob? Yeah, totally. I mean, then when I moved to LA in 89, I was like, whatever you guys, that's not coke. You know, I was in the rock and roll scene and people were like, dude, you want some blow. I was like, what the fuck is this? No, this has been stepped on like 500 times. But, you know, he used to run guns too, so. Wow. Yeah, this is like, so I'm like 12 years old and I'm not trying to glamorize this, you know, or be sensational, it's just, it's interesting now because my life is so different and the arc of the story is phenomenal as what's happened to me and how happy and successful I am in so many ways. But there was this closet in my mom's room and he used to store all the guns in there, you know? And when he would leave, I would like raid the house and I'd go in there and he had Uzzies and shit. And I'd go in. What? Yeah, I'd go in and I even know how to use guns, you know? My dad was a gun guy, like hunter and like legit gun guy, not a criminal gun guy, legal guns, you know? So I kind of got it. You pulled the trigger, you checked the thing to, you know? But yeah, I'd go on the backyard with the Uzzies. That, that, that, that, that. Oh my God. And it's like in suburbia. That's what's so weird. My mom still lives in that house and I'm going, how the fuck did the FBI not show up or something? You know, it's bizarre. And then I'd do other shit like this one kid, Jerry, that I hated and we had train tracks behind the house. And I don't know why I hated him. Jerry Ferry used to call him. My mom grounded me cause it was like homophobic to say that. But Jerry had walked behind the house. I hated that fucker. So I would, I would like point a gun over the fence and be like, yo, hey motherfucker. And then I would like firecrackers like behind the fence. Oh my God. Just to see his ass like run down the train tracks. And he think I was like that, that, that, that, you know? Oh my God. This is how I grew up. And then eventually so anyway, to fast forward the story, cause we go on all day with crazy shit like that, but eventually I got arrested for breaking and entering. I used to like rob houses. That's how I- How old were you when you got arrested? 13, I think. Yeah. I used to just case, I used to just case out the neighborhood for the druggies. If they had long hair and shit, I would break into their house and steal their dope basically. So how old's your son right now? He's 12. Fuck you. My daughter's eight. Can you say eight or nine? I can't even imagine. Eight, yeah. It's crazy, yeah. My daughter doesn't even watch movies with the F word in them. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's crazy. Good for you, dude. Wow, it's just insane. Yeah. Yeah, you grew up really fast. Yeah, but the good news is, you know, so I got arrested, I get sent away to this cult boarding school in Idaho where, I mean- Now this was just like state mandated? Yeah, yeah, because I was shipped out to live with my dad in Aspen, Colorado and cause I was too, my mom just couldn't handle me and she had her own problems to deal with in that area as well. And so, yeah, they shipped me out to live with dad. I immediately get busted, breaking into a house. The people came home when I was inside the house. Oh, my God. I was doing a fucking home invasion and the people came and I was like, oh, hey, how are you? Nice to meet you. And I've tried to run and they caught me. And then so I got sent away to this really bizarre school in Northern Idaho where I was sequestered for two years and that was great because that kind of put the brakes on my whole trajectory. So it was a good thing. It was, it was weird. And a lot of people I think were traumatized by the things that happened at that school, quote unquote, because there was really no school. It was like therapy. But I got out of there and at least- What were some of the rumors about that school? I don't know anything. I mean, it was called Rocky Mountain Academy. Put it this way, the alumni of Rocky Mountain Academy have Facebook groups that are like survivors of Rocky Mountain Academy. Not like students of or graduates. Is it a lot like, have you seen the movie Sleepers? No, I haven't. Oh, shit. Okay, you won't get, you won't get to reference it. I gotta see that now. Well, yeah, well, it's about, and I think it's based off a true story and it's like a boys, it's a boys home and all the guards and all the employees were totally molesting all the boys that were going to school there. Oh, shit. Thankfully, it wasn't like that. It was more like unqualified armchair therapists that were like ex hippies that were into personal development and stuff like that. So what was controversial about it is some of their punishment methods would be like, you'd have to go out and like work on the hill by yourself in the snow and build a trail for 10 hours and you're like 15 years old. And they'd have group therapy sessions that were called raps where you would have to confess all of your shameful deeds and you being molested and all the weird shit you've done sexually and all that kind of stuff. And then in front of a whole group of your peers and you'd be screamed at and yelled at and a lot of crying and just weird stuff. So it was hardcore. Yeah, like sleep deprivation. They had these things called profits that were these like between two and maybe four or five day intensives where they'd keep you up all night and make you drink coffee and nudge you if you fall asleep and do all of this brainwashing type stuff. But the brainwashing was good. It was like to teach you how to love yourself and be a good person and stuff like that. You know, it wasn't like trying to get them brainwash you to believe in a leader or something. Is that what really kick started you in the back? Oh, wow. Yeah, so when I got out of there. It's not impactful for you. Yeah, when I got out of there, I, you know, I wasn't a little hessher. You know, I was a total stoner, a little hessher had long hair, wore Aussie shirt every day. When I got out of there, I wore like pink polo shirts and had my hair part on the side. Oh, wow. You know, I was like, I was reformed. And then I know after that. How long was it? Two years. Oh, okay. Yeah, 14 to 16. Oh, shit. So for two years, you're kind of going through all that. Yeah, dude, a lot. That's intense. A lot of, you know, just constant therapy, like five day a week, massive therapy sessions. And it turned me around, but here's the problem. They didn't have unfortunately like addiction recovery integrated into that. It was just like, well, using's bad. You shouldn't do that because it creates all these problems. So when I got out, I was like, cool. I'm going to stay away from that shit. Stay away from the bad kids when they threw me back in a public high school in a small ass town in Basalt, Colorado, outside of Aspen. So I kind of knew that, but I didn't know that I had that gene, you know, that dope fiend gene. And so like, I remember my 17th birthday, my friend's like, dude, just take a hit. Just take a hit. And they were all smoking weed. And I was like, I don't do that. And I was holding out on willpower. And dude, you said, did it happen all at once? This is when I really saw the power of whatever this thing is that I have is I took like a couple of hits off a joint and got so fucking high because it had been two years since I got high. I was laying on the floor hallucinating, just fucking living the dream. And from that moment on, I immediately started doing acid in high school and snorting coke and just, you know, we'd go skiing in Aspen and take fucking acid and just like, just madness from day one. All in high school. Yeah. My first acid trip was I came on in Home Ec and like, here's how you work a Tupperware set and it's all melting and shit. You know. Oh my God. Who knows? So fast forward a couple of years, I finally make it to Hollywood. That was the dream, man. I wanted to go like hang out with guns and roses and like be in the, you know, the late 80s like Hollywood rock scene. What was the goal when you went over there? Did you have a job in mind or are you just like, I'm going to Hollywood? I wanted to be around musicians and I wanted to be able to do drugs without my parents fucking my high up. Wow. And so I moved to Hollywood. Were you super attached to music? And then were you? Yeah, music was my savior. I mean, that was like my, the healthy outlet, you know, like the first time I heard Jimi Hendrix, dude, it was at my uncle's house on vinyl and my mom used to clean his house in exchange for him babysitting me. And I'll never forget the first time I heard like purple haze on fucking vinyl and she would be vacuuming the house. So at the other end of the house, so she'd let me turn it up all the way. And it was just like, oh my God, that was my first spiritual experience really. Wow. In a healthy sense. So I knew that I wanted to be a rock star but I didn't know how to play anything. So I moved to Hollywood within two weeks. I was doing heroin, maybe like six months. I'm smoking crack. Whoa. Yeah, but I was living the dream because I was hanging out with all these rock stars and kids, you know, like dudes that were on the posters in my, you know, room when I was in high school. I mean, it's like, I immediately just fell into like the coolest rock scene. I was hanging out with my heroes and then they taught me how to play bass and I started playing in bands and had a really great time. Just slaying much ass and just living the dream. I had my fake ID, I was 19. So I got into every club and everyone kind of took me under their wing because I was the new kid in town and I was a sweet kid and I had been reformed in that boarding school. So I didn't, you know, I didn't steal anymore. I didn't do like fucked up shit. I just wanted to get high in peace and like be left alone, you know, and just party. So that, the school was effective anyway but to the point is it's a long and probably interesting story but there's so much positive stuff on the other side of that. When I was 26, the pivotal moment was Sal is that I just got to this point where the self-hatred and the shame and the self-loathing got to be so extreme that there was no amount of drugs that could kill it anymore. You know what I'm saying? It's like, I would be to the point of almost an overdose but I couldn't get that euphoric relief or even that numbness that I was always looking for. So you literally lost the good part of the drug. Yeah, yeah, cause I don't think, I'm not like a sober person who thinks drugs are bad. Like you guys are like, oh, we smoke weed. I'm like, great, I wish I could smoke weed. I would if I could. You have a really cool attitude for someone who's been through everything that you've been through with it. Well, dude, I mean, it's live and let live, you know? And I'm being totally honest. If I could smoke weed here and there and not end up a heroin addict again, I would. Weeds, great. It's not the poison, it's the dose. That's the thing. I mean, this morning I took like one-tenth of a gram of psilocybin. Like, I'm not gonna get high. I'm 21 years sober, dude. I know when I'm crossing a fucking line and when I'm not. So I'm definitely not a dogmatic or judgmental sober. I mean, how could I judge someone who's like using drugs, dude? That was like, at first half of my life. That's a lot of self-awareness though. When did that really start to happen for you? Cause that was one of the things when Sal and I came down. One of the things I really, really liked about you was you're one of the most authentic people that I've had the opportunity to meet. And we've met a lot of people, man. And you could just sense that when you meet somebody who's just, you've obviously been extremely vulnerable and put yourself out there. Where did that come from? Where did you start to become so introspective? When did you start? Well, because my, you know, I'm not being dramatic, but my life was on the line in a very real sense. When I was 26, that's when I kind of had this spiritual awakening, which is like, everything I say, I'm like, and that's another story and that's another story. But there are so many sort of through lines. But I think in order for any human being to overcome adversity, you really put in a position where you have to face the truth about yourself. And that's, you know, literally the first step in getting over any addiction is admitting to yourself that you have a problem. And so that was that first moment of self-honesty and self-awareness was like, I can't beat this thing. Cause I tried, I tried to moderate. Like, I'll just stay off the hard stuff. You know, if I could just smoke weed, I'll be cool. I tried that for years. And then if I would smoke weed, it's like, well, I got one beer, I have one beer and then I have 20 beers. And then I'm like, this is boring. Let's snort some Coke. Cool. Someone's got a line. I do a couple of lines. I'm like, this is boring. Let's smoke some Coke, smoke some Coke. I'm like, wow, I'm fucking my heart's beating out of my chest. We better get some heroin. And then that goes that cycle, you know? So the first self-awareness is like, wow, I'm like seriously an addict and there's no moderating. There's no controlling. And then that kind of was the first requirement was then to start looking deeper. Well, why do I do drugs? Like, why do I need to be high all the time? Why can't I sit in a room with guys like you and just hang out? Why do I have to be fucked up to go to the grocery store? You know what I mean? It's like, I literally was so uncomfortable and had so much self-hatred and self-loathing and just I felt so awkward in my skin that I had to start looking deeper. What is that? Oh, it's the trauma when I was a kid. It's the way that my mind works that I'm perpetually in fight or flight. I'm always in fear. I have so much anger and hostility and rage buried inside. So I had to start to really look inwardly through meditation and different spiritual practices and just addiction recovery in general in order at first just to survive. And then I started to realize like, wow, I actually don't need any of those crutches anymore over the years I started to really use that. So I appreciate the highest compliment I think anyone could give. Someone is like, they're real. You don't have to like me, but I would rather be respected than liked, you know what I mean? And if someone's real, you might go, guy's a douche, I don't believe with anything he said. You know, I don't believe in anything that he believes in. He's on a different path, whatever, but like, hey, he's real at least. Right, right. You know, and that's what I appreciate in people too is that real. Did you have a book or a mentor or something that pivotal time in your life was there something that you were consuming that made you like really absorb all that and kind of change your ways? Well, the very first part of that, and it's, you know, it's delicate because of the nature of the principle of anonymity, but I just, I'll just say that I got really involved in addiction recovery. You know, I went to a treatment center and when you go to a treatment center, they send you out of there and like, if you want to keep this 28 days that you have, you need to go to meetings and like do the whole recovery thing. And so I proceeded to do that. So my gateway into, you know, the life that I'm living now has been learning spiritual principles, dude. One of them being self honesty and self awareness. That's a spiritual truth. It's a universal truth. And so I started surrounding myself with other sober people and building and becoming part of a community that supported my spiritual growth. Cause soon after I got sober, I realized like, oh shit, unfortunately, the drugs weren't what the problem was. I'm the problem. Wherever I go, there I am. Cause I have a mind that constantly tortures me. I mean, the idea, back in the day, the idea of being present, like being able to have a conversation with you, look you in the eye and stay here without my mind, kidnapping me and taking me into some future Armageddon or some past pain or trauma or something is like totally impossible. What do you think about today, like kids today with technology and things like that and that ability to be able to do that. I think it's harder today than it even was back when we were young. Sure. And I have a rough upbringing too. And so I can totally connect to a lot of your story. But what do you think about the kids today with all these things that we're constantly attached to with these fake dopamine rushes that we're getting all the time? What do you think, how challenging it is for them to become completely present? Man, it's one of the things, I don't have kids, I'm 47 and I was always pretty afraid of having kids, I think just because I was so self-centered, to be honest. I was just like, I don't wanna have my schedule interrupted. I'm very spontaneous. I just kind of live on the fly. So I don't have kids myself, but I think I would probably like to at some point if the circumstances kind of dictated that and everything fell into place naturally. And I think about that like, dude, just coming up in the 70s and 80s was challenging with all of the negative influence. But just the fact that your 10-year-old boy can open up his iPhone and watch like freaking gang bangs in two seconds. It's like, dude, shit, if I would have been turned loose with an iPhone when I was a kid, who knows if I ever would have pulled my head out of that thing. So it is challenging. I think as a parent, man, and I'm no expert on the subject, but wow, you gotta really instill in that kid that love and that connection, that human connection. And I think also God, how important it would be to build some sort of sense of community around that kid. Because I think a lot of the neurosis we have as a society, whether it manifests in addictions or just general craziness, is really a lack of human connection. You know what I'm saying? We've evolved to hang in tribes of 40, 50 people for our entire life. Get hugs all day long, get human touch, look in people's eyes, that human connection, I feel is really what we've lost. And so, man, it's a challenging thing as a parent. You gotta really foster that. And I think that'd be easier to do in a smaller town, quite frankly. I mean, I think if I had kids, I probably wouldn't live in the middle of Hollywood like I do, at least get on the outskirts, like have a little more of a tight-knit community that's not so overwhelming. But yeah, the screen time is difficult for me. I'm like, oh my God. That's how I feel, I feel the same way. I can't imagine what it's like for a young teenage boy or girl. Like it's gotta be crazy. How hard was the transition into you starting to date sober? Like, so if you did this rockstar lifestyle, banging all these girls and doing all this coke and living with all these rock stars, then all of a sudden I'm sober, you gotta probably learn yourself off. What was that like? That is so awesome, bro. No one has ever asked me that question. And you know what? I'll be honest, it was terrifying, dude. I remember the first girl that I attempted to have sex with when I was sober. Cause I hadn't, I had actually never had sex sober. The first time I did it, you know where the place was when I lost my Virginia for the first time? San Jose, California. Right here, full circle, yeah. Yeah, you know, and it's funny and I won't, I used to name her name and then I'm like, whoa, she's still around. I actually looked her up on Facebook and I was like, hey, what's up? She, she lives somewhere around here still. And I was like, sorry I ghosted. Kind of a pattern. So what? So the first time I tried to have sex, it was like, dude, it was like that thing in high school, is it gonna work? Is it gonna happen? Am I gonna do my thing too fast? Oh, you started having those thoughts. Oh my God, yeah. And you're how old at that point? Dude, 26 years old. Right. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was terrifying cause I started boning when I was 16 and 86. So I had 10 years of solid. It was just by reusing boning. I love it. You could have figured that out. Yeah, that's a great term. I had 10 years of solid bone time and it was, but I was all anesthetized. You know what I mean? Like I was either, I was, I was definitely always on weed at least, even if it was like in the, in the, you know, like a wake-up bone, I would always, first thing I did right when I wake up is like bong hits, like just immediately before I even take a piss. So I probably have never even had sex, you know, at that point sober at all, really. Maybe I woke up one day and hadn't taken a bong hit and, you know, slipped it in. So it was terrifying, dude. And, you know, that's one of the things I realized it was again, it's like, oh wow, the drugs and alcohol is not my problem. The problem is I feel like shit about myself. And I'm like, I have no self-worth. I mean, my self-worth was like, a friend of mine used to say lower than whale shit. You know, that's as low as you can go, you know? That's a new one for me. And I was just, I would do what it was, is I just, I was so caught up in my head I had no connection to my body, no connection to my heart. I hadn't started doing yoga yet and getting embodied and like understanding how to harness that energy and control that energy. So how many dates and relationships did you fuck up along the way here? Oh my God, dude. I mean, I think I'm still a fucking mom, you know? I'm, you know what's funny right now as we sit and record this, I've taken a break from sex and dating, I'm nine months celibate. And even like yesterday I was in Whole Foods and I saw this smoking girl in line. And I was like, oh, now is when I go up and talk to that girl and like say what's up. And I was like, oh yeah, no, I'm not doing that right now. I'm taking a decided break just to really regroup. But, you know, my early relationships were very, very flawed, dude, because I didn't, I know one modeled for me how to do that. My parents hated each other, you know? And there was, all I ever heard from my mom is like, men are bad. And all I ever heard from my dad is like women are trying to take your money, you know? So it's like, I had no semblance of a healthy family life to model. So my early relationships were, you know, very, they just, you know, it would always, you'd get past the honeymoon phase after, you know, three months, six months, nine months. And then they would kind of disintegrate. But I also wasn't that interested in having a relationship. I just wanted to have fun. And once I learned how to get out of my head and I started actually building some self-esteem and learning how to be more authentic and real and communicate with women and date and things like that. And just, I got out of that fear state. Then I started to have fun. I was like this sort of late reburthing in my 30s where I went out and just smashed and had a great time. It was very real. And I think a lot of the time had a lot of integrity about what I was doing, like, cool, going to date. Hey, listen, I'm not the guy that's gonna settle down. I'm the guy you have fun with. Are you down? They're cool, they're down. And that's kind of the way I lived. But what I'm learning now is really what was going on my whole life is I was really terrified of intimacy. I was terrified of being abandoned again. You know, my parents sent me away when I was 14, dude. I never knew that was abandonment. That shit hurt. I mean, I can feel it in my heart now, just remembering them dropping me off at that school and being like, peace. You don't have parents anymore, you know? Even my mom shipping me away at 13. She's like, bye, I can't handle you. And she gave me up. And isn't that crazy how something like that how it just cements a pathway in your brain? Oh, dude. It's forever that it's there. Yeah. And so now, you know, in my adult relationships in my 40s, I mean, there's this certain point of intimacy that I get to. And I'm like, uh, my heart's becoming open and vulnerable and it's really scary. And that's why I'm taking a break now is to really examine where I am in my life. Now that I'm at a point where, wow, I really would like the experience of, you know, companionship. Yeah, companionship and closeness and trust and loyalty and a real thing. And I've had some of those. I mean, I've had a few great relationships in the past few years. You know, they ended for whatever reason, but most of them not tragically, just kind of like, ah, this is not working anymore and we're cool, you know? What do you learn from these relationships? I think the most meaningful lesson that I've learned is kind of what I was just describing. You know, I'm up here in San Jose with my business partner, Lauren, and we own a fashion school together and we were together for five years. And that was, I think, my happiest and healthiest relationship. It's definitely flawed in many ways, but that's the first time I really opened my heart. And even like, you know, as an adult, told someone that I love them and shit. I mean, that's how twisted I was, dude. I was very, we'd call it psychological terms or therapeutic terms is a love avoidant. And I even use sex as a way of avoiding intimacy, like, cool. As long as I have a few girls that I'm kind of seeing and I'm honest with them and open with them, I don't feel like I'm out of integrity with that. It's like a way for me to have certain needs met, but not really to be vulnerable and open to getting hurt. So at any given time, if any one of them was like, I'm done with you, I'd be like, next, okay, I don't care. Because my heart wasn't, I hadn't let them in. So what I learned in that main relationship with Lauren, and thankfully we're still great friends, you know, we came up here together to this Tony Robbins thing. It's awesome. We've done a lot of work just to maintain our business relationship and our friendship. But I really learned how unavailable I was, dude. It's just like, I had so much unconscious fear about being left, about being abandoned, about being betrayed, about being hurt and just being open and being vulnerable and willing to take those arrows. And so since that ended, which was, I don't know, four years ago or something like that, I've had a couple attempts at intimate relationships in which I really opened my heart. But I wasn't wise, I think, in the way that I approached the relationship. So the first lesson is, wow, I've been very closed off and I'm really withholding from myself a really rich experience in life, which is allowing myself to deeply love someone and allow someone to deeply love me and to be totally seen. You know, like you said, wow, you're authentic. Yeah, I am, I'm real. But I'm only gonna let you into a certain point because it gets too scary when you really, really see the real me. And I've done that a couple of times, but I think the error there and the second huge lesson is for me, and this is my own story, I don't proselytize or tell other people how to do it, but the way I enter relationships is, cool, you look attractive, let's fuck around a little bit, see if we have chemistry, cool, we have chemistry. Let's have sex right away. And if the sex is good, let's build on that. You know, the foundation has always been physical. And that might work for some people, but that has not panned out for me in the kind of relationship that I want that has stability because what happens for me is when my hormones are all fired up and that honeymoon period's happening and you're having sex five times a day and it's like, you're in that, the newness of it. It's a drug. Yeah, and what happens is it's like, I'm fucking Stevie Wonder in the new relationship, bro. I can't see shit. In other words, I don't see the person's character. I don't see their past trauma. And if they've dealt with it, daddy issues, family issues, abandonment issues, addiction issues, psychosis issues, whatever, you know? And I don't know. I think that's something that I'm looking forward to when I kind of, you know, get back on the horse, so to speak. It's like, wow, I really am very committed to approaching relationship in a different way. Or meet someone, go old school, man, date for a while, really get to know them to see if we are kind of at the same place in life and have the same values. I think that's the important thing for me now. It's funny how you're going like old school, you know what I mean? Like old school conservative, you know? Yeah. I mean, I think there's a reason why those principles are there and they've lasted, you know, the test of time. We're in a very sex positive culture now and I bought into that. I was like, oh, fuck being monogamous. Dude, I've had like open relationships and all kinds of shit, man. I've been to orgies and everything you can imagine trying to figure out how you do this sex and intimacy and relationship thing and none of it has really been satisfactory in the long run. It hasn't been what I really want. Do you think there's a bit of a crisis going on right now with that? Where you see people reverting back to those values because it's so sex positive now? There probably is a rubber band whiplash effect going on. I mean, it's hard for me to see, you know, collectively, but definitely subjectively in my own life and what's weird is all my homies that are, what are you guys like in your 30s, late 30s, mid 30s? Yeah, all my friends are, I don't think I have, I have a couple of friends my age that are late 40s, maybe approaching 50, but most of my homies are kind of like eight, 10 years younger than me for whatever reason. Maybe I'm immature. We're on the same wavelength. And I really am in many ways. But we're all on the same page. Like, dude, one of my friends is getting engaged. I mean, he was intimate fairly quickly, but she's a solid girl and it was a parent. She had good values, a good family. She was not a flusy, you know what I'm saying? She's a quality, not that flusies aren't a quality person, but let's just say she was on the same page in terms of her values, you know? But like three of my other buddies, they've met girls, they waited, they're taking it slow, they're really getting to know them. It's like, we're all, we've talked about it, but everyone's sort of on the same wavelength. It's really interesting. So this is shit my dad's been telling me for 30 years. There's wisdom in that, you know? Yeah, every time, every time like, you know, oh, dad, call him whining, crying about the breakup. He's like, I told you, dude, you're thinking with your lower brain. You're gonna get, you get it. Same thing's gonna happen every time. Like, no, this one's different, dad. You don't understand. It's like, oh, there you go. You're celibate, but you're still open to meeting someone. Not right now. Okay, not right now. So you're off everything. Yeah, until, until... Well, what if it happens? What if you meet someone and it's like, boom. Well, I don't get numbers. I don't engage. I don't flirt. It's not gonna happen. It's not because I'm closed my heart or something like that. It's because I'm doing a lot of inner work. Like you said, the introspection. I'm, dude, I'm looking at my patterns and I'm really taking time to learn how to be comfortable with myself. I've been historically very lonely, dude. I mean, I could be around people sometimes, but I still feel alone and afraid. I'm just being straight up. So I sit at home and I'm like, this is uncomfortable. Where's my phone? Let me text a girl. I'm gonna get a girl over here. And it's like, it's not, even if I'm honest with that girl, quote unquote, and like, hey, this is what it is. It's still pretty empty. And that's not what they really want. They might be like, oh yeah, cool. I'm sex positive. I'm a single young girl. I can do what the fuck I want. Go hook up with this guy. Dude, I really don't think that's what anyone really is looking for in the long run because it's such a temporary thing, you know? It's like scratching an itch. And then what if the mosquito bite was gone? You know what I'm saying? There's no itch to scratch. What if I'm contented with being comfortable in solitude and I don't feel lonely or afraid or, you know, my problems are overwhelming me. It's like, I really wanna build a foundation within myself and when I feel ready to put myself back on the market, so to speak, I'll really feel like I need to know that I have the self worth, that I'm comfortable being alone so that I don't become needy and throw my standards out the window or lose my values or my integrity because I'm lonely and needy or horny or whatever. It's like I really wanna be a man that can stand on my own two feet and feel like I'm fucking cool with or without. Now let me make a decision from that place of power rather than horny-ness, loneliness, et cetera. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. Did you come up with your own strategy? Is this your own strategy or is this something that you've read or? I mean, I think it's just, I talk to guys who are doing it right. My dad, you know, I mean, he's on his third marriage but it's a good one, man. They have a good relationship. They really love one another. They communicate so well. They have so much respect for one another. He cherishes her so much. She respects him so much. My mentor, Jeff Kober, who's a meditation teacher and an actor in LA, I don't know, he's been married maybe as long as my dad, 15 years or something. They're very happy, very stable. So I talked to the elders, man. I'm like, how are you doing it? Cause whatever you got going looks really good about now. Cause it used to be, here's the other thing too. I was so afraid of like losing my freedom, bro. And I would be in long-term relationships and just straight up from the first date be like, okay, cool. So it seems like we're getting along. Just so you know, I'm not down with monogamy. I'm not going to marry you ever. I'm not going to have kids ever. How's that sound? And they're like, cool, I'll explore that. And then after a while they're like, oh yeah, no, this isn't working for me. You know, there's not a lot of women that aren't very narcissistic or insecure. They're going to go along with that for the long haul. So I'm looking at those guys going, wow, man. Dude, I've been afraid to commit and settle down cause I'm like afraid of losing my freedom. But what does that freedom really get you? It's like, so you bust a nut here and there. It's like, what the fuck is that? Like how meaningful is that after a while? Whereas those moments of true connection and intimacy I've had in the past couple of years, there've been a few occasions where I'm like, whoa, this is way more valuable than what I think I'm like giving up. It's a trade-off, but it's a worthwhile. It's a much deeper level of, you know, connection. And it's worth it. When you find it, it's totally worth it. But to get it, you have to really love yourself first. Is that what you're learning to do? Yeah, exactly dude, exactly. I mean, I think in many ways, and God, this is so, you know, it's weird to say hopefully. To talk about this stuff, you implicate certain people that you've been with. You know, so it's like, you kind of have to skirt around a little bit, but I think because of my own insecurities and my own fears of commitment and things like that, there have been times when I've sold myself short, you know, because my view of myself, my self-valuation has been skewed. And it's also due to the fact that it's skewed because I'm always looking on what I need to work on next. I meet people and they're like, oh my God, dude, you have so much wisdom and experience and you're so awesome, like what? Yeah, but I can't put my phone down. I'm just looking at my phone addiction and that's how I'm basing my level of development because I'm always looking at the pile of coal yet to be shoveled, not the 400 fucking piles of coal that I've already shoveled in the past however many years, you see what I mean? So it's interesting because I always feel like, oh man, shit, I got, you know, here's the next thing I need to work on. And the next thing now is really examining my relationship to sex, intimacy, marriage, kids, family, all that. Go through this whole process. Have you found like, this is part of your purpose now as far as like conveying like what you've gone through and now trying to figure out who you are and how you can sort of pass it on to other people? Yeah, dude, I learned that early on. You know, when I first got sober, it was like put your own seatbelt on, put your own oxygen mask on, like save your own ass. Number one, to thine own self be true. So whatever it took for me to just not die was priority number one. But in short order, as I started to become a little more stable, I realized like, ah, the only thing that allows me to keep this consciousness that I'm building, you know, my spiritual consciousness, the only thing that allows me to keep that alive and growing and thriving is when I act as a conduit and I'm able to transmit my experiences and my knowledge to other people and to really be of service in a meaningful way. And that's why all addiction recovery, like what happens at the top of the pyramid when you've kind of arrived, oh, guess what? Now your ass is gonna help other people because you've been a selfish motherfucker your whole life. You know, and really like in any, I think in almost all psychological pathology and addiction at the root of it is just narcissism's extreme selfishness and self-centeredness. And it's because of that survival mechanism, you know, that we all have those instincts have just taken over and it gets down to that core like me, me, me, me. So yeah, and everything that I go through and it's a great question because this is how I'm able to not only survive, but actually really sort of enjoy adversity now, like going through a breakup, having a career issue. It's painful, it sucks. There's times every couple of years where I go through this huge upheaval. But dude, I know that in there are nuggets of wisdom and experience that are really valuable for me to be able to help other people to go through. And so I guess, you know, it's probably why a lot of my friends are younger, you know, I don't want to say like, oh, I'm the leader of the group or something. It's kind of weird, but I am older and I am sort of the guy that a lot of my buddies go to with shit like this. You've been through a lot, dude. I have. You've been through a lot. I have, I've been through a lot of shit. And also there's things that I learned from them. I mean, my friend James that's engaged now, I'm like, how do you do it? Like, you guys don't fight, whoa, you know, it's like, I give him tips and he gives me tips. So it's a two-way thing, but I mean, dude, if there was like one takeaway, how do you have a happy, meaningful life? It's like, you got to serve, man. And that's what's so great about having my podcast is I'm sure you guys know is all I really do now is produce content that educates and inspires people to achieve more well-being, you know, a more peaceful mind, a spiritual connection, whatever that looks like for people. Was that the main motivation? Was that the main motivation for the podcast? Yeah, dude, I just, I have so much to share and I'm also just, I'm so committed to learning more and growing more myself. So the podcast is like- What a great medium for both of those, right? Yeah, dude, it's also just like I game the system and I get to talk to some of the most brilliant people on the planet that would maybe never talk to me if there wasn't a microphone between us, you know? So it's like, I started to realize early on, I was like, oh shit, when you have a show, you can get access to really brilliant people. And so now I get to sit down with people. And when I think that's why my show has been successful is because I only have people on that I'm really, really interested in learning from. Like you guys, when you guys came on my show, it's like, you know, your people reached out, hey, these guys are gonna be in LA, they wanna do shows. Like let me check them out. I was like, oh, these guys have something I wanna know about. Like fitness has not been my area of expertise in my life, so let's talk about that and get the real deal. And we had a great show and I learned to shitload from you guys. I could have gone off, oh, I need to get testosterone I used to shoot HGH in my belly. You guys are like, I was like, oh, okay. So, you know, whatever, ketosis, whatever shit we talked about, I'm literally asking you guys questions because I want to know the answer. And so that passion that I have to learn and to grow translates to the audience. And they get, you know, there's a certain magnetism to passion. So yeah. Oh, absolutely. And you know, we've said this so many times on the show. Podcasting is so therapeutic. I went through some of the most difficult times in my life when we started Mind Pump. I went through a divorce after a 15-year marriage and being on the podcast is a big reason why I was able to, I guess, process through all that. And so my question to you is, do you find that same therapeutic value from podcasting yourself? Do you get that kind of value from it? Do you get the therapy from talking to these guests and being able to share your story? Or listening to your own story back? You know, like a lot of times I'll do an episode and I go back and I'm like, I hear myself say something and I'm like, do you really believe that? Is that how you feel? And like question what I'm saying, I think it's great for that. Have you felt that? Absolutely, dude. I mean, I'm not just interviewing the people, I'm a student. And I really apply what they talk about. Like one of the, in terms of relationships, one guest that's been on twice that I've learned so much from is John Gray, the author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. All right. And you know, I remember that seeing that book around, I was maybe a teenager or something. I was like, yeah, it's for old people. I was like, yeah, whatever. I mean, I never had any reason to read it. Dude, I mean, I've learned so much from him. It has been like a therapy session because I'm asking questions that are relevant to my life. I'm never like, oh, I wonder what the audience wants to hear. Let me play to them, like play to the crowd kind of thing. I'm like, that never works. When you play music, you got to play the set that you want to play that you feel. You can't play the set that you, oh, they want, you got to throw in a couple of hits, but it's like, you know, who was that that said, oh, man. Oh, David Bowie goes back to that thing. David Bowie, there was an interview with him shortly before he died and it said, you know, if you could change anything you've done in your career, what would it be? And he said, immediately, he said, playing to the audience, you know, those shows where I played or put on an album according to what the market wanted or what the fans wanted rather than like what I felt and what I was passionate about, you know? So that's how the interviews are. Stay authentic, man. Yeah, that's how the interviews are to me, is like when I sit down and formulate my questions, it's like when I interviewed you guys, like, well, what do I really want to know? If I could sit down with these guys with no microphones and I want to extrapolate all the knowledge you guys have put together in all the years you've been doing this and fitness and wellness and all the stuff you're up to, like what do I really want to know? So it is like a therapy session and a lesson for me first and foremost. Have you recorded any podcast where afterwards you listen to it and you go, oh, shit, like I sound like that. What did I say there? And were you kind of revealed things to yourself after the fact? I think so, yeah. I mean, I listen to every one of my shows because I'm always looking to improve. One of the things I've been working on, for example, is not swearing so much. Your guys' show, you guys seem to swear a lot. I'm like, cool, I'm gonna cut loose. I'll probably like double swear in this, but in my delivery and learning how to be concise and not say, um, you know, like all that shit, filler words to really get better at the delivery. So I do listen back to them and also interviews I do, I listen back to for the same reason. And it is interesting to watch. Yeah, if I can step back. Oh, you're already way sharper since the last time we've seen you. Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So maybe it's the psilocybin. I'll be like laughing. Well, you got a lot of shows under your belt now. I do, I do. I don't know how many you had at that point when we got linked up the first time. Yeah, how long you been on air now? It'll be two years, June 6th. Oh, yeah, yeah. For us, I think the big, it was like after a year, there was a huge growth spurt in our talent or I guess our ability. And then it was like this, after the second year, there was another big growth spurt where I just noticed we're so much better. Are you noticing that with yourself or you just go through these periods where you're like, well, I'm way better? I think so. And I also take the feedback that I get if any of it is ever critical. Of course, most people that are gonna take the time to reach out and be like, you're awesome, don't change the thing. Someone doesn't like it. They're just like, what is this shit? And they just probably turned it off. They're not gonna be motivated to critique you. Can you share some of those criticisms? Yeah, I always get the same one. What? Which is probably relevant even here today because you asked me a question, I go on for 45 minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get excited, I was like. It works with mind pump because I catch who you're doing that and I just interrupt you. Yeah, that's good. I got you, I got your back. That's good. Yeah, the negative criticism I've gotten has been that I interrupt my guests too much and that I talk too much about myself and I don't like let them just rant. Cause I'll often relate a question to a story in my own life. So if I was interviewing you guys. It's cause how you learn. Yeah, if I was interviewing you guys about something fitness related, I'd be like, hey guys, I can't really do bench presses anymore cause I've lost mobility in my left shoulder. I have like, I don't know, do you think it's a torn ligament or da, da, da? What would you recommend about this? Because this what happens to me, me, me, me. And I might like have a 30 second question that tells a story about how I injured my shoulder in high school or some shit. But that's my way of asking the question. You know what I mean? So that's something that I'm working on improving is being more concise in the questions and really allowing the guests some breathing room. But here's what people don't fucking understand. You people that have criticized me. What the fuckers is that, is that, and you guys I'm sure have noticed this, sometimes with some guests, their energy's low and they're not experts at being interviewed and it's like you really gotta pull teeth. You have to keep priming them the whole time. Yeah. And so the audience doesn't know like what's going on with me. I'm like, oh, this is really boring. Shit. And so I add my energy and my personality and charisma to the mix to try and like bring it out of them and just to make the show. Which is probably a pretty good strategy because we all have had guests like that before. It's a lot harder than people think. It reminds me of when people watch like a fight, UFC fight and they're like, just punch him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What the fuck? It's a lot harder than you think it is, man. That's hilarious, dude, yeah. And we have each other to rely on. So if we have a guest that's a shit guest, we'll just start talking to each other. We'll start talking to ourselves. Yeah, we'll just start talking, because we've got that down because there's three of us, but being solo, that's a lot of pressure and that's all your only option is that. Like, I could tell a story, you know what I'm saying? Who's been your most difficult guest? Well, I can't say that. Okay, we'll tell us. Just try not to say it, man. So, you know what it is sometimes is, the ones that are, I think, more like that are just personalities that are interviewed that are very knowledgeable and have a lot of wisdom, but they're sort of just introverted people or they're very scientific and they can write an amazing white paper on XYZ, biohacking technology or whatever, but they're not necessarily a public speaker. They just happen to be the spokesperson for their company because they've invented some device or whatever. They're the only go-to and I wanna learn about that one niche product or something like that, you know? So... Well, I'll flip it then. Who's been your best guest? Or your favorite besides us? Let's see, yeah. Number one, Mind Pump, let me see. God, you know, since I cover sort of the physical and metaphysical, I'm gonna have some great minds that are more in the health space and then I have some that are more in the spiritual or psychological. I mean, honestly, I think John Gray is still, I already mentioned him, but he's been on twice, as I said, and he's one of my favorites just because he's an older guy and he's just so knowledgeable about so many things. I mean, you can go down any rabbit hole with homie and he just like, it's never ending supply of knowledge and he just got a really good heart. He's just a really sweet kind person and is also very intelligent. He's also very humble, you know? It's cool when you meet someone who has a vast well of wisdom, but also doesn't take themselves too seriously. I find that to be a really attractive quality. Let me see, who else has been, God, there's been so many rad ones, dude. I think on the more spiritual level, one of my favorites was my teacher, Jeff Kober. We did a really long like two hour episode and you know, he's been meditating for 30 freaking years or something like that. He's just on another level, but he's also again, very relatable and is able to describe some pretty esoteric concepts and ideas in a way where you're like, oh, I get that. I can do that. And that one was very meaningful to me. Also just because he's been really helpful, he taught me how to meditate in a new way like six years ago, Vedic meditation and that was really good. I have one actually, I'll give one more. I have one coming out next Tuesday actually with Daniel Vitalis, he's a friend of mine and he's been on the show two other times but in this particular episode, we did a three hour, and this is gonna sound crazy, we did a three hour interview all about water. What? Yeah, just all about water. All of the different options for drinking water, bathing water, what water is, what it does, filters, spring water, the whole like water kind of the whole topic. I mean, three hours isn't even enough to talk about something so weird and mysterious. We just kind of take water for, oh yeah, give me a glass of water. Not all water is created equal and we don't even really scientifically kind of know what it is. There's this fourth phase of water, for example. Yeah, give us a little sneak peek. Well, you know, basically what fourth phase of water is called exclusion zone water. I don't know if it was discovered by, but there's a guy named Gerald Pollock who wrote a book called The Fourth Phase of Water and we know about gas, solid and liquid water. There's a fourth phase which is gel water. It's really trippy. I have a device called a NanoV, actually it's in my car, I drive around with it and it makes this fourth phase of water and you inhale it, it's another, oh my, what the fuck are you doing with it? Are you smoking water? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well that's the thing, dude, I gave up drugs and everyone's always like, do you realize you're addicted to all this biohacking shit? I'm like, yeah, obviously. That's a good question. Do you find yourself trading one for the other? Yeah, absolutely, I do, but I think the thing that lets me get away with that is the fact that I am self aware about it and I see that I have attachments to all of this shit. I mean, if you see my hotel room, dude, it's like, I mean, it's ridiculous. The amount of gear I have in there and just all this shit just to be the best me that I can be today showing up for this and the Tony Robbins thing, there's a bunch of shit that I carry around and use. So yeah, I think that I have substituted that to a degree. What was the first part of your question? I don't even remember. Well, Luke, I wanted to ask you, do you still get moments in your life where you almost feel triggered to want to go back and do drugs and have you been able to pinpoint what those triggers are? Oh man, I alluded to this earlier, I mentioned that I had this spiritual experience when I was 26 and it's true. The day I checked into rehab, I was totally hammered when I went in there, I was in Sebasta, pull up in Sonoma County a couple hours from here and the next morning I woke up and I started, I didn't know what else to do. This is the only information I was given in terms of tools at that time to just survive that first few days. And they said, well, you do this thing, it's called prayer. I was like, what the fuck is that? Pray, that's what, can you guys give me some Dilaudid or something? I'm not interested in prayer, do you have another solution? Because I'm in withdrawal, you know? But I did, man, I was so desperate that I was like, ah, this is so stupid, oh my God, I can't believe I'm fucking doing this. And I was like, get at the foot of the bed, put my hands together, get my knees. Oh shit, that's crazy that you actually went all the way down to your knees praying. I only had seen it in the movies. I mean, that's like, what did you experience when you did that? What I experienced, dude, is what I'm experiencing right now from that moment until now is the presence of God in my life. Did you feel it? Did you see something? What was it? No, unfortunately, there wasn't a rad thing, like the windows blew open and the curtains, you know what I mean? Like trees on fire. Yeah, trees on fire. Luke, this is God, you're good to go, you're sober. No, you know. I got you, buddy. Yeah, what happened was, man, that I just, the craving, you know, to your question, the constant nagging, just like, oh my God, it's like, if anyone has not been addicted to drugs, it's almost like, it's like when you're hungry, you know, when you are really, really hungry or you're, you know, imagine being out in the desert and you haven't had water for two days. It's just like, oh my God, give me anything. My soul is on fire, you know, and there was that constant nagging and that just went away. Whoa. It just was gone and it's never come back. That's why I don't trip. I mean, I don't, none of my friends were like smoke weed all the time. They're not drunk. I mean, I'm not around people that are hammered and like doing hard drugs and stuff like that, but I never once have been triggered. I got played in bands for 15 years after I was sober. I've been on tour. I was going to ask you about that, being around music and your association with that and having like spiritual kind of moments with that. Like how hard has that been? Not at all, dude. Not at all because it's funny. These mic stands, like right in the middle of your face, I'm like, okay, I could have eye contact if I turned sideways. No, you know, man, because I think some people that end up sobering up aren't ready yet and that's why they go back and forth, back and forth. And some of them never get it. I mean, the history books are full of prominent people who just couldn't get it. Like Scott Weiland, you know, Stone Tone Weilas, fucking dude, just couldn't get it. It's dead, you know, and there's so many of those. I think for me, I always knew that eventually I was gonna quit that shit, you know? It was just, I had to wait until I was really, really, really ready and when I was finally ready, I was ready. And so, you know, when I started playing in bands and stuff, when I was first sober, it's just not an option. I just know what happens when I touch that shit. It's a very repeatable experiment. And I described the cascade of tragedy before. What happens? Oh, I smoke a little weed, then this, then that, then that. It's like literally like setting up some fucking dominoes and you think you're hitting the first one down, but you know that train of dominoes that goes across the room, you know eventually it's gonna hit that last one down. My last domino was down, bro, and it's just, I'm done. Have you helped anybody else become sober? Oh yeah, tons, man, tons. I mean, that's my life blood, dude. That's the thing that matters, yeah. What kind of advice? Maybe we have someone listening right now that's, you know, you might be striking a chord. And I hope so, I hope we are. Yeah. What kind of advice could you give somebody? Well, I think first you gotta define, you know, when you're addicted and when you're just a heavy user. I mean, I know people that drink quite a bit here and there, they do drugs occasionally and like they control it, it doesn't control them. And they can do that their whole life. And then some people are in control for a while and then the tables turn and that shit has you. So to me, defining addiction would be something that continually has, you know, negative consequences and you literally in and of yourself don't have the power to stop. So if someone finds themself in that situation where they're losing relationships and family and, you know, their health and their vocation and things like that, I mean, if your life's falling apart, I think the number one thing that worked for me was just getting help, professional help, dude. Cause I tried to do it my own little way. Like I said, all right, this week I'm just going to smoke weed. You know, it's like, okay, that lasts about four hours, you know, and then someone wants to want a beer. I'm like, yeah, it'll be fine, you know. It's really getting some help, whatever that looks like. You know, for me, it was just a clear cut decision. Check myself in somewhere, be sequestered away from society and temptation for, for, you know, 28 days and that gave me a little head start. Then I could ease back into society. Yeah, maybe in the first couple of months I wasn't going to bars or hanging, you know, going to a concert where people are blazing weed. Like I was, I removed myself to a degree, but because I had that support system in that community and I got really involved in recovery, you know, I think that's what got me. So it's like professional help and also just, you know, honestly just go into meetings and kind of doing that thing. I think some people have a hard time with that because they have preconceived ideas about it. But I'll tell you what, dude, addiction looks like a physical problem, but it's really a spiritual problem. There's a hole in your soul, man, that you're trying to fill. And so whether that looks like religion, you know, yogic practices, meditation, 12 step recovery groups, however, but I've never personally, let me think if this is really true. Yeah, I can't recall in 21 years, anyone that's a bona fide addict, not someone that like kind of got a little squirrely for a while and then reeled it back in, but someone who's like ride or die. I've never seen someone recover on their own unaided will, on their own resources. They've always had to have some sort of spiritual framework of living because it's about the core. It's about what, the reason that I feel so uncomfortable that I need other shit to make me feel comfortable. So yeah, at first you gotta get rid of the symptom. The symptom would be I drink too much, okay? But what's the cause? The cause is I hate myself. The cause is I still hate other people. I resent my uncle or whatever. It's that shit that tears you up inside or just being constantly full of anxiety and depression and all of those things. It's like the self-medicating. Well, your saying is resonating so strongly because being in fitness for as long as we have, we don't deal with addiction with drugs, but we deal a lot with food addiction. Oh, sure. Addiction to lifestyles that also have terrible consequences, people who end up with heart disease or diabetes or severe obesity, which also can be very crippling. Maybe not so acutely, but over time can be quite terrible. And what you're saying resonates because it's almost like people are like, oh, if I just lose weight, I'll be happy, but you gotta be happy first or at least feel that peace before. And then that's what causes the weight loss. So that's what causes the addiction to dissipate or at least give you the strength to deal with the addiction. And so it's funny what you're saying is, I mean, when you're talking about drugs, it's so acute, right? It's so like in food is so accepted, but it's very similar. You're feeling something and you need to fill that hole with something else. Otherwise, it's always gonna feel empty. Exactly, dude. That's the thing. It's a symptom, so overeating. I mean, here's the thing too. When I quit doing drugs and this goes back to am I addicted to biohacking and supplements and all this shit? It's like, yeah, but it's good for you. So it's easy to excuse, but dude, when I got sober, I mean, I went ham on porn and cigarettes. Dude, I used to go to 7-Eleven every night and get two pints of Haagen-Dazs and just sit there. I mean, I'm a thin guy and I've never been obese, thankfully, but I mean, I should be, by the way that I used food and sugar like you mentioned dopamine, like any, we didn't have cell phones back when I got sober or maybe they had just come out, but definitely they didn't do what they do now. So I used everything, got addicted to everything else and then over the years have had to learn how to stop all those things, but it's not even about quitting the behavior. Like you say, it's addressing the underlying issues and the behavior sort of stops. Just over the years for me, pornography, for example, which I fucking love. I wish I could do it all the time. It's amazing, feels really good, it's exciting, but over the years, but over the years, it's just like, oh man, I don't like the feeling that I get from it. The next day or afterward, it's sort of like, I feel depleted and kind of weird and I can't look the girl in the eyes that working at Starbucks, it doesn't resonate with me anymore. And so that's sort of fallen out of my, well now it is completely out of my life, but it just gradually sort of fell away, the addictive propensity toward that thing. Not because I was like, I need to quit porn and then I'll be okay. It's more like, I've done things to be okay and then porn just kind of falls away. It doesn't resonate with me anymore. Same with smoking cigarettes or really abusing sugar or food or anything like that. How are you handling the cell phone addiction? How's that going? That's a challenge for me, dude. I'll be totally honest, man. I am on that thing a lot more than I would like to be. It's easy to justify because you have a business revolver. That's the thing. People are like, dude, just get rid of social media. It's like, well, I mean, I could, I probably could still pay my bills by not having an Instagram, but I don't, I think what I do is so personal too. It's not like a brand. Like say I own a gym, I could hire a social media person and they could like, you know, show the workouts and highlight clients and shit like that. But like my brand is my lifestyle and everything that I do on the way over here today. Hey, I'm headed to Mind Pump. This is what we're gonna be up to. It's like, there's no way for someone else to really do my social media for me. So it's like, do I let it go? And it's very much like food. It's one of those things like food addiction, sex addiction, social media addiction, device addiction. It's tricky because it's not black or white. You can't stop eating and it's probably not. There's no cold turkey with food. Yeah. We call it, what do they say? Like, you know, it's like, you gotta ride the tiger. You know what I'm saying? It's like sex addiction. I mean, I think I've behaved definitely sexually in my life in ways that are very addictive. I've done things that I don't really wanna do just cause I'm compelled to do it. And later on, I'm like, oh God, why did I do that? This isn't really in alignment with my values or whatever. But I'm not gonna not have sex forever. And I'm not gonna not have an Instagram account. Like I gotta have it. But that I think is probably the most, aside from all the health shit that I do to be honest, but sorry, social media, Instagram. Like I really only need to post one thing a day, maybe a couple of stories. But whenever I see my phone, I'm like, refresh, refresh, refresh. You know? And it's like, why the fuck am I doing that? It's annoying. But I literally can't stop right now. Did you know that Instagram releases your likes to you with an algorithm? So it's not literally like how you get it. So for example, like let's say a picture of yours averages 300 likes a picture or something and you post it up and then 20 minutes go by and you're curious. And so you pick your phone back up and boom, 50 likes already. And then you put it back down. Let's say between the time you put it back down 20 minutes goes by and you want to pick it up again. You get 50 likes again. They feed you 25 likes and they hold that other 25 so they can drip it to you every time you refresh and come back. They're training you to do that. Damn. And those bastards are all from this area. Yeah. And we're in the epicenter of that shit. And they don't let their kids fucking play on that shit. Right. I've heard that. Yeah. They put all kinds of crazy restrictions. Oh, I've limited my kids on devices because the way I view technology today is the same way that I view processed foods when we were kids. When we were kids, processed foods started getting really popular and there really were no, nobody really governed it for kids. So like for breakfast you have your ego waffle and for lunch you had your sandwich with your processed whatever and your snacks and whatever. And now we're seeing this obesity epidemic. So now people are like, oh no, you gotta feed your kids differently. It's gonna be like that with tech. Nobody knows yet. Like everybody's like, they give the iPad to their kid. They leave them in the corner and we're gonna see in about 15 to 20 years. I call it the iPad nanny. Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, here's the other thing about the devices, bro. It's not even the psychological implications but the fucking blue light and the EMFs. Like when I see a kid sitting there with an iPad, I'm like, dude, it's like Wi-Fi to the dome. If you had an EMF, I mean even in this studio, if you had an EMF meter, not to get tinfoil hat, but there's science to back up the fact that it affects your biology negatively. If you ran an EMF meter in here, it's like the shit is on fire with EMF, you know. And every device, I mean, even having this right here, having my phone a foot away and having it two feet away is like a 200% decrease in the amount of EMF. So I'm like, God, when are we gonna figure out how to make signals that carry information and data that actually don't hurt you? Once the market has pressure because we start to see the actual results of the negative. Right. Then it'll start to. Yeah, it's like Apple eventually put in their little fake ass blue light filter which doesn't hardly do anything but it's better than nothing, you know. It does limit a certain. Oh, have you heard it doesn't do very much? I mean. That fucks me up. Don't tell me that. No, it's good. I was feeling good about myself for making sure I had that turned on as soon as the sun goes down. No, it's good, dude. It's good. I can show you a hack on your phone that'll make it all red. Oh, really? Yeah, it's cool. It's inaccessibility. It's really hard to get to and every time I try to show someone I forget but one of these days I'm gonna make a post and like so I can just point people to it. No, the night shift is, it's an improvement, it's better than nothing but with blue light and I've interviewed a lot of super geeky PhD people on this topic specifically, you know, the wavelength of light that the sun produces is a vast spectrum of light, you know, from infrared, invisible to purple to red, green, yellow, every color of the rainbow is inherent to natural sunlight, right? And at different times of day, there's different spectrums of that light. So what they've done is they've cut out the gnarliest really negative, the deleterious blue light like the lights in your studio lights are here. Those are like a totally unnatural wavelength, the blue light that the sun never produces. The sun's never just pure, pure blue like that. There's always a little bit of violet, you know, or red or something like that to offset it. So the night shift is decent but here's the difference is that you're still gonna have your melatonin production decreased even with night shift because there still is a bit of blue and a bit of green. It's just not gonna hurt your eyes or totally shut down your melatonin like that pure blue light. Yeah, so it's cool, at least Apple acknowledged like, oh, this is a problem. We're gonna take a step and the new phones do have the capacity to turn off the blue light 100% and literally make it red, which is the spectrum of, you know, fire obviously. We've talked a little bit about this on the show but we should dive deeper because this is pretty fascinating. What are some of the biggest changes you've made in your life based on an interview that you've done with your show? Like, have you interviewed someone like, oh, shit, I need to change this thing. The blue light thing has been huge. Yeah, interviewing a guy named Dr. Jack Cruz specifically. He's a neurosurgeon, I mean, he's a brain surgeon. If you're gonna talk to someone, make sure they've got some credentials, you know, before you start, you know, turn off all your lights at night. But he's a guy that's, I mean, he's very extreme into light and the damages of that and Wi-Fi. So I made subtle changes like, oh, cool, I'll use night shift. And he's like, yeah, bro, that's not gonna cut it. So he's one that's had a huge impact where, you know, it's almost, to me, equal to the food you eat is like how your lighting is. Wow, that big of an impact you said. Yeah, it's huge, man, because it affects your circadian rhythm and your hormones and your neurotransmitters. And then those have a cascade effect on your mitochondria and your metabolism and everything. So it's really crazy. For me, I'm just like an earth child hippie dude, right? So I just think about, okay, what makes sense biologically? I sort of have a Paleolithic approach to everything, not just food, but well, let me think, have a Paleo approach to lighting. Okay, we've evolved at least a couple hundred thousand years, if not say two million years to, you know, rise and wake with the sun. We follow the sun. I mean, all of the ancient cultures, everything they build, every structure is all about the sun. It's all about astrology, right? About what, 100 years ago, whenever 125 years ago when the incandescent light bulb was invented. Thank God, now we can make sun at night. And so that was great. But we have not evolved to have sun at night. Our eyes send messages to our brain and our whole biology that indicate what's going on in the environment and what time it is. So if you were in here at midnight under these blue studio lights, your brain thinks it's noon. That fucks you up. I mean, that's just the bottom line. We've evolved to be in front of a fire after the sun goes down. Maybe there's moonlight that's bright. It's a reflection of the sun. There's a little blue light there. There's stars. But for the most part, once it gets dark, sends a signal to our body, start making melatonin. I've got these red glasses. They're douchey as fuck. But they're, I mean, they're just... I love that you would call yourself out on that. Yeah, that's awesome. You are not gonna get laid in these glasses. But you'll sleep like a beast. And they cut out all the blue and all the green. And it's crazy when you put those things on and then at night and then you take them off. You're like, oh my God. You really notice all the green and blue spectrums of light. But that's really, we've evolved at night to only see a little fire and it starts to wind down. What's crazy is the minute you put those glasses on, you stop producing cortisol and you immediately start producing melatonin. And then if you took them off and looked at the blue light again, you get a cortisol spike. I mean, this is science. It's not shit. In my house, we turn the lights off and go by candlelight. Oh, that's amazing. So I did that because I have my kids with me half time. And I noticed that they'd have a tough time going to sleep or whatever. Obviously because of our podcast, we talk about all these different things. So we did an experiment and we started turning off the lights and going by candlelight and my kids go, they go to bed right at bedtime, like they wanna go to bed. They sleep really well. And then I started sleeping even better even though I thought I had good sleep before. So what makes a huge impact? That's cool. It makes a massive impact. Kids are a good experiment for something like that because they're just inherently more natural I think because their biology has been in the environment fewer years. So you can see effects like that whereas we have adaptation. You and I, we've been adapting this shit for 30, whatever, 40 something years of when it gets dark, oh, you have the ability to flip the light switch. And so we have kind of adapted, but it's a negative adaptation. It's not a positive adaptation to learn how to be unnatural. Well, so I don't, I'm on the candle thing unlock what I did in my place and this might be useful. If you go on Amazon, you can search for red or amber bulbs. And I prefer incandescent bulbs. If you can find them, they're a little hard to find because the legality of it, environmental issues and energy usage and shit like that. LEDs use less energy. That's why they phased out incandescent, the old school bulbs. But anyway, what I do is in my house, I have like one whole set of lighting at night that's the night lighting. It's all amber and red. And then there's other switches that turn on the bright, normal, like blue full spectrum lights. So I just know if I go in the bathroom, I only hit the bottom switch cause that's the amber vanity lights. And I'd never hit that other one at night. That's this bright, super bright light. So that's how big Gretel has this house. I know, I know. That's what I'm thinking right now. Wonder's house was, cause we're in there at night and it's all red. And I'm like, this is weird. Yeah. But you know, what's crazy dude is you get used to it. It's, I've been doing that for years now and people come over and they come in and they're like, wow, it feels really good. There's really good energy or it's a good vibe. And you know, maybe it's cause I meditate a lot in there or some shit. But what they don't realize, it's no, I've hacked the lighting. So their biology is going, this is what night is supposed to look and feel like. It feels like fire, you know? Relaxing. Yeah, dude. Cause it's, I mean, you stop producing cortisol, right? Unless, you know, somebody tries to whack you or something. You can produce it without light, but it's, it stops producing it. And then what's crazy is if in my house, I accidentally hit one of those other switches and I'm like, oh my God, you know, I'm melting. Like a vampire. Yeah, dude, it's so bright. You're like, holy shit, you really get used to it. I got a question for you, Luke, cause you, you've been meditating as part of your spiritual practice for a long time now, right? Yeah, 20, 20 something years, sure. So can we maybe give some tips to our audience about meditation for someone, you know, just getting into it? How long should they, what does it look like? What are some good practices? When's the best time to meditate? You know? Oh yeah, for sure, dude. I mean, oh God, if you like said, yeah, what's the number one hack? You know, if someone is not religious or spiritual and they don't want to get too woo woo and they're not going to go live in a cave or something like, dude, I don't think any human being can really achieve a high degree of stability and mental health in this world without taking that time for yourself to meditate, however that looks. In terms of a lifestyle practice, I mean, honestly, and I'm not even shitting you guys, if you right now offered me a billion dollars cash, a room this size, full of cash, no strings attached, and you said, but you can never meditate ever again for the rest of your life, I would not even fucking hesitate to turn it down. Wow, really? Oh, dude, there's just, there's nothing, it's invaluable. Is that because it's opened so many doors for you? Yeah, it's just the sweetest moment of my day. I meditated this morning for 30 minutes right before I came here. It's like that has become just, oh, I just value it so highly because that's the time that I use to really get in touch with who and what I really am beyond the sensations of the body, the cravings of the body, the chatter of the mind, the emotions, the feelings, the memories, the anticipation of the future, all the thinking and feeling. What does that space look like? Well, what it is is that there's a gap of separation between who I am, which is a soul, it's not like you have a soul, you are a soul. And then so are you, and so are you, and so are you. Some people just have varying degrees of awareness and connection to what and who they really are. This is just my world view. Someone might disagree and say, no, we are just a piece of meat with a computer inside our skull, and that's one point of view, which, hey, maybe it's right, I don't know. For me, what makes life work and be meaningful is to identify that I'm not this body, I'm not these thoughts, I'm not these emotions, and meditation is a means by which to practice. And that's why it's called a practice. It's like practicing piano, practicing guitar. Because it's hard at first. Yeah, but I'm gonna give you some practical tips too. Yes, please. You know, for sure, but just to create the context as, well, why would I bother taking those tips? That space looks like that I live a lot of my waking hours with an awareness that I'm the one watching all of the phenomena of my personality, of my ego, of my feelings, of pain, of pleasure, of all that, that there's an awareness that's sort of outside of that, watching it all take place. And so as I sit here and have a conversation with you guys, there's me, my personality, but there's also an awareness of this fucking loot guy sitting here talking. It's hard to explain, but does that make sense? It's like- Yeah, yeah, it's, you know, they call it the witness and things like that, but at a certain stage, it's almost like there's no separation between all of it. It's not even like, oh, I'm over here kind of watching from above in this room, having some outer body experience and there's a soul, me and a body, me and a personality, me and you and you. It all becomes one thing where the observer and the thing being observed are just part of the same phenomenon. I mean, it's a little out there, you know, I admit, but that's what it's like for me subjectively. So yesterday, when I was driving up here, for example, just to give you a benefit of meditation, I fucking put in the wrong, share it in four points. I didn't know there was two, I just put in ways when I left, I was like, I got four points, San Jose click and I was fucking them on my way. And then we, we, I accidentally got off the freeway right around here by the Tony Robbins Center, you know, whatever SAP shit down the street. And I was like, oh, there's the thing. And I was like, wait, the fucking ways is taking us another 15 minutes up the highway here toward the airport one. And then I, and I said to my partner, I was like, oh, this is right when we got here. I was like, oh, this is sick. We got no traffic the whole way. This is dope. Totally jinxed us. Then I take the wrong exit and we're just like in this traffic. And I got super irritated and pissed off because I hate being, two things I hate, being lost and backtracking. I can't stand like, you know, when you run errands, I just have this OCD thing. I have to do it in order. I can't like go north, then go back south, then go north again. That fucking drives me nuts. That's a thing from living in LA. That's a LA person thing because when you live in LA, that's a huge mistake. That could be a four hour mistake. So what that looks like, you know, to your question, what does that gap look like? It's not some, you know, mystical play, although there are mystical experiences too. Like this morning, dude, I went into this deep space of just empty black space where there was no thoughts. And I was just, I would touch on it just periodically during my meditation. And it's literally like you're in outer space and there's just absolute stillness and quiet. And there's not even to me, there's no anything else. It's just a oneness feeling. And those are those sweet glimpses. How does that work in daily life? I get super pissed off like, oh God, damn it. And I got irritated like a human would. I've got, I still have an animal body that gets frustrated. I'm trapped in the car for five and a half hours. But because of all these years of meditation, I was actually able to see, oh, look, you're getting all pissy and irritable now. Look at you, Luke. I'm watching myself, meh, meh, meh, meh. And then I just was able to let it go and not have my whole night ruined and be a dick to my partner and like, you know, be grumpy when a chick in the hotel and like have a big fucking drama queen. I was just like, oh, okay. Now is me playing irritated game. Okay, mm-hmm, okay, breathe a little bit, breathe. And then it was just all over, you know? Dude, something like that used to happen to me. And it would take me over for a few, it would like cascade thoughts and feelings of negativity for days or weeks. I mean, just I'd get triggered and I couldn't get out of those emotions of being pissed. I could not stop being pissed. And then you start attracting more shit, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. You create a magnetism. So practical advice. I meditated for years by like doing guided meditations or just trying to learn myself. And, you know, now we have more resources. You have an app called Headspace, which is great. You know, I think they're like 10 or 15 minutes. I've done it a few times. It actually sit around with the homies sometimes. You're like, yo, you guys wanna meditate? And the guys that have been trained like I have, we do our practice. And the other guys will do like a headspace thing. Have you tried Brain FM yet? No, I haven't. Oh, you gotta try them out. Cool, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very similar type of app. But we really like the guys from over there. They got, they have a meditation app on there also. Awesome, man. Oh, it puts you in the space like it's really weird. That's dope. Like five, 10 minutes into it and you're like in that space. Yeah. So, you know, we're lucky now. So I think someone who's more entry level is like, oh, meditating is boring or it irritates me or I can't make my mind quiet. That just means you need to. Yeah, apps like that are useful. But I think what's really been profound for me and why I said there's like, there's no amount of money or anything you could give me. I mean, you can like make a deal with the devil and you know, have anything I want if I just give up meditation. I won't. I practiced something called Vedic meditation which I learned from Jeff Kober about six years ago. And that is an actual practice. So there's a way that you do it. And then there's a certain period of time. You do it 20 minutes a day. I cheat a little and went 30, which you're not really supposed to. But you know, it's a tradition. Shit comes from the Himalayas 12,000 years ago or whatever, right? It's a lineage that's been passed down, but you do it twice a day for 20 minutes. And when I learned that, I was like, oh, this is what meditation is, you know, because you have a way that you start it and you have a way that you end it and there's something you do during it. And it's a mantra based meditation. It comes from the same lineage as TM, transcendental meditation. The difference between Vedic and TM, to my understanding is that TM is sort of like a company. It's an organization that trademarked no pun intended, a formula of meditation, teaching, you pay for it. It's a whole thing. And there's nothing wrong with that. It works for a lot of people. The Vedic thing is a tradition and you do pay for it. You pay your teacher. It's a sliding scale kind of honor based system of payment, but you pay your teacher and then you go through like four days of training and then you have that practice and your mantra for the rest of your life. And the mantra meditation to me is really powerful because it settles the mind down because the mind always wants to do something and you can't stop the mind. I think that's what frustrates people with meditation is they think, oh, if you meditate, it's supposed to be quiet. No, meditation is when you let your mind do whatever the fuck your mind wants to do. It's like trying to stop your heart from beating. You can good luck with that. It's like trying to stop a pit bull from swinging on a tire or whatever. It's like, dude, the mind is there to compute and figure shit out. It's just that it overtakes us and takes control of us. And a lot of us have the experience that we are the mind. We get so hypnotized by our thoughts, oftentimes negative thoughts that you think that's all you are and you lose the perspective that, no, I'm a soul who's embodied in this physical meat suit that has a computer inside my head that wants to run my fucking life. And what the mantra does is it tells your mind, hey, look over here, right over here. Watch this, watch this. And you repeat this mantra. Say it, you're not supposed to share your mantra tradition, but let's just say it's ohm. Oh, I thought that was a mantra. Psst. Yo, dummy, look over here. No, like your mantra would be just say like ohm, right? So the way it looks inside when subjectively, when you're practicing Vedic or TM is like, listeners probably can't even hear that, but the idea- Whispering ohm. The idea is it's very, very subtle with the least amount of effort possible is you just gently, very subtly in the recesses of your mind, repeat that mantra. And then you'll start thinking about oh shit, did I feed the cats? Oh shit, what about that parking ticket? And it's okay, it's okay, mind, it's all right, mind. You don't fight the mind, you just come back to the mantra gently with the least amount of exertion possible. What happens is your mind kind of, just kind of like trails off doing that thing and the way, this is just the way I look at it, it sort of distracts the mind and then you're able to dip into that transcendent space as you describe, you're able to get through through these apps and stuff where you're like, oh, whoa, it's quiet down here. It's almost like you're under, deep underwater or in space. And you're just like, and then it'll get quiet. And then the mind's like, oh shit, I'm late for mind pump, what time is it? You know, it's happened to me this morning, I was, I looked at the clock a couple of times and I'm like, oh, am I going too far out there? I'm still in the world, you know, there's microphones, there's an event, there's shit I gotta do. Is the morning the best time to meditate? Do you recommend that? Dude, I meditate, first thing in the morning, I don't have caffeine, and I love my bulletproof coffee and shit. I don't have caffeine before I meditate, no matter what. If I'm taking any sort of new tropics, which I do a lot, I don't do those before I meditate. Only thing I did today is I took my little micro dose of psilocybin before I meditated. I don't know if that helped, maybe that's why I went into that dope space, I know. I think so. But yeah, I don't, and I don't check email or anything. I do check my texts right when I wake up just to see, I'm like, oh shit, am I in the wrong day or something? Cause I'm kind of out there sometimes with scheduling. So I check my texts, I might, I'll admit, I might like refresh Instagram, no, not might. Actually I do that every day. But I definitely don't open my emails or do anything that gets my mind very active. Cause an email will be like, okay, you booked the gig, you got the check, it'll be something good and that gets me fired up. It'll be like, hey, you were supposed to do this thing. What the fuck? And I'm like, ah, and I get in that. So I don't engage with the world. I don't talk to people. Anyone that ever comes and crashes at my house, you know, in the spare room or, you know, girlfriend's days or whatever, they know. Don't talk to me before I meditate. I'm a total dick, you know. So that's how I set the foundation. And then I, you know, I, I infuse in there some prayer and I'll probably read something inspirational, listen to some spiritual audio book or, you know, something on personal development, a podcast or something inspiring. Then I interface with the world. I think it's smart cause it sets your intention or your energy for the whole day. That's why I, if I do do it, I like to do it in the morning because it kind of sets the stage for everything else. Ah dude, gotta man. I honestly, I don't think, I don't see how anyone would survive. Maybe just cause I'm more nuts than some. If I don't meditate, I'm bummed, dude. I'll know it all day. I'm like, oh yeah. I just think people don't know what they, they don't know, you know what I mean? So they just don't realize what they're missing and when they start to do it, I had a client sell it to me once and he told me, cause for me it was so hard cause, you know, it felt like a waste of time. I was like, oh, you know, 30 minutes an hour. Like I got, I got so many things to do. And he says, no, no, you do this for 30 minutes. You'll get an hour back in productivity. Oh, that's so true. Which sold it to me. And then I went about it the wrong way cause I thought you had to meditate really hard. So I'm like, I'm gonna meditate the fuck out of this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is the opposite of why. I'm gonna crush this meditation. Yeah, which is the complete opposite. Well, you know what? I find the afternoon one for me, which is, you know, I won't say I do 100% of the time. I'm probably, probably about 80% of my days like get that afternoon one between like five and seven somewhere in there, another 20 minutes. And the afternoon one, see the morning one is sort of just processing everything that's been jarred loose in your subconscious when you're sleeping. And you're, you're sort of off-gassing, you know, whatever needs to be sort of dispelled. You allow the mind just to kind of like let the air out of the tires, so to speak. And the morning one is that sort of release and setting the foundation. But the second one is you've already done the morning one. The second one, you've only got any stresses that you've accumulated for that day that you're releasing. And those usually kind of dissipate in the first few minutes. And then you've got a good 15 minutes after that where you're really dipping down into that still spot. Yeah, the afternoon one for me is, it's, you know, and the discipline is coming and go with that. It's like, in the beginning of the first two years I always did the afternoon one. Then I stopped for like a year. I was like, eh, too busy. I get in a flow state at five o'clock. I'm crushing a project. It's like, ah, God, I can't stop and meditate right now. This is lame. Now I happen to be back in a phase where I'm doing it. I'm like, oh dude, the afternoon one is really, really sweet. Very cool. What's in store for you in the future, for your podcast in the future? Like what are your goals moving ahead? For the Lifestyleist podcast, which is called the Lifestyleist because it's about bringing together all these bits and pieces of a lifestyle, you know, from the physical health stuff to the metaphysical and the spiritual stuff. So, you know, what the goal has been and continues to be is to take sort of esoteric out there spiritual ideas and practices, bring those guests on and present their teachings in a way that's relatable and applicable to just everyday people. And then taking ideas from health or biohacking and the same thing, you know, going to the super geeks in biohacking and like translating their message and their practices into something that people can actually just start doing that day. So that's been the goal and continues to be. But since I live in LA and I come out of the entertainment industry, you know, I was a part of the story we didn't talk about was I was a fashion stylist for 17 years and which means I dressed celebrities and musicians and stuff like that for my job, weird job. But that's what I did and it was fun and all that. But I see the, I'm not really into it. Like I don't watch award shows. I'm like, I don't do anything Hollywood. I'm out at the hot springs, like putting mud all over myself and shit. I don't live like the Hollywood, I'm not into the Hollywood scene, nothing against that is just not my thing. But I was able to see the power of influence in that world. So in terms of goals for my show is I'd really like to get more prominent people in the arts, musicians, actors, celebrities, things like that. But not because they're famous and I don't wanna talk to them about their new album, their new movie, I don't give a shit about that. Everyone else can talk to them about that on entertainment tonight or whatever. I wanna ask ones that meditate, that have a great fitness regimen, that are into yoga, that are into biohacking, that are into the lifestyle because I know so many celebrities are into that stuff or just recovery, you know, guys like Slash been sober 12 years, like how's that work, dude? Steven Tyler, another one of my guest goals, you know that I worked with when I was first sober when I was first an assistant stylist. I'd like to talk to those people that really have influence and reach. And I think that's because in my life, Steven Tyler, for example, when I was first sober I got hired by Aerosmith Stylist and I was like my first job when I was sober and they were all sober. And that was really inspiring to me because they weren't fucking dorks, you know? When I got sober, I was like, oh my God, I'm a loser now. Meanwhile, I'd been like a total loser, you know? I'm down in the gutter, like looking at someone with a job, like look at these losers, you know? And I'm like panhandling, shitting my pants on Hollywood Boulevard, literally. But it's another story. It's another podcast. Yeah, it's another podcast. But when I met him, I was like, oh my God, dude, like this guy's cool as shit. That's Steven Tyler. And he's like, yeah, bro, having no duels. I was like, whoa, this is cool. And that really influenced me. I was like, wow, they still make great music. They're still famous. They have all this money. They're having fun, traveling around the world. And they just don't happen to be strung out on drugs. This is awesome. So I think there's a lot of power in that voice. There's so much influence that celebrity has. How many artists do you think need the drugs to make their sound? Well, here's the thing, man. Being somebody who's around it, appreciates music. I think it's the opposite. See, when I was a kid and I looked at Jimi Hendrix or Keith Richards, that Keith Richards is like my main idol still. He's my all time favorite musician. But when I was a kid, I thought what made Keith Keith was the drugs. No, Keith was a badass musician when he was a fucking teenager before he ever tried drugs. Hendrix was a badass musician before he ever took LSD. See what I'm saying? It wasn't the LSD that made Hendrix Hendrix. It might have augmented his creativity, sure. But eventually what happens with any artist that crossed that line of addiction is it actually ends up killing the creative flow. It kills the creative energy because it cuts them off from their spirit. When you get addicted to drugs, you lose touch with spirit. And spirit is where all creative ideas come from. Whether you're Nikola Tesla to Einstein to Steven Hawke, what's his name, Hawking. Yeah, I mean like I think inspiration comes from, the ethers from the universe so to speak and drugs give you an access point to a certain point but then it turns on you. So this is a very, I think a really common misconception with music. Oh man, when I got sober, I was like, dude, how am I gonna write songs? It's like, oh my God, I was so much more successful and creative when I was sober and a lot of musicians say that. Keith Richards even. I mean, he still drinks his little red cup of vodka and Mountain Dew or whatever. But he claims he doesn't do coke anymore. He definitely quit heroin like in the late 70s. So he's made plenty of good music, not having the assistance of that. Not saying there's anything wrong with that either. It's cool, man. No, I just thought you'd be a great guy to ask that question. Because you've obviously been around a lot of these people firsthand. There is that perspective that these guys and girls have these incredible albums when they're spun out on drugs. And so a lot of people connect that to, oh, maybe it's because of the drugs that they've... It's probably in spite of. I think it's that they have talent and then maybe the drugs at different points give them access to it. But I always think, man, can you imagine what Kurt Cobain could be doing now? Could you imagine Jerry Garcia now? I mean, you go on and on and on. All the really talented, beautifully gifted people that have died at the hands of addiction because they couldn't get help, wouldn't get help. Imagine what they could have done. Imagine if Hendricks was alive now. Clapton, another great example. Clapton, sober for 30 fucking years or something. That guy's had a pretty good career. No problem writing, it's still slain. So it's like, oh man, you just wonder. But there obviously has been... Here's the thing on the other side of that, like the pro drug thing is look at Beatles, early 60s pre-LSD, and then look at Sergeant Peppers. Whoa. So would they have made Sergeant Peppers if they never dosed? Probably not. So there is that side of it, but then again, how sustainable is that? Tools are just that, they're tools and they can be used for many different things and some of them are extremely destructive and some of them might be productive, knowing the difference between the two. I think it's important. Well said, yeah. And it also did, like I said earlier, some of us are just born with that addictive gene that propensity toward being controlled by substances. And some of us can dabble. I mean, I'm sort of jealous of people that are like, oh, once a year I go to Burning Man and just cut them, not that I would want to go to Burning Man personally, but let's just say someone who's like a weekend warrior and they still can hold it down and be a good dad and like have their shit together, be a CEO. And then they go party and then come back to reality. I'm like, God, how do you do that? Because I'm just, it's in my DNA. No, what you said about addiction and then just regular use, I think was, it's very, very smart because millions of Americans, every day drink alcohol, but we don't have millions and millions of alcoholics. So there's definitely a big difference between the two. It's use and abuse. It's weird, dude. I think there's two contributing factors. One is trauma in life. Big time. And the other though, cause I've met a lot of sober people that were horribly addicted, that like had Beaver, Cleaver, really healthy, great upbringing, plenty of love and they're still just junkies like me. So trauma, but the other thing is, dude, there's just honestly something in our wiring and our DNA, like some people have the addictive gene and some don't. I have two brothers, Cody, who's a big fitness dude. I think I told you guys about him. Shout out to Story Fitness in LA. He's like me, can't touch anything or just he ends up in jail in 24 hours or less. And then my other brother, Andy, dude, I could be like, Andy, I'll give you a thousand bucks right now to take a bong hit. He's like, ew, like how, why? I don't like that feeling or he'll drink like half a beer and let it sit in there. I'm like, bro, you still have half a beer. I'm watching his beer more than him. And you know what I'm saying? I used to be his roommate and we'd have like a six pack of corona in the fridge. And obviously I'm not drinking it but we had it there for guests, whatever. And then one day he cracked one open. He's like, oh, God, this reeks. I'm like, what happened? He goes, oh, it went bad. I didn't even know beer could go bad because mine only lasted for like a couple hours, you know? And then I'd ask him like, you know, football game of beyond or something. I'm like, hey, you're gonna have a couple beers, Andy? He's like, nah, I go, oh, do you have to work tomorrow? He's like, no, I go, why don't you like get wasted? He's like, why? I don't, it doesn't do anything for me. It just makes me foggy the next day. And I don't, in other words, it's not like the nectar of the God's damn. Whereas for me, when I was drinking, it's like the clouds part. I was like, oh my God, I'm in ecstasy. I'm in heaven. All my problems are gone. It just, it did something magical for me that it doesn't do for a regular person. Excellent. Man, you're a very fascinating guy. Very, very fascinating. Thank you. Really enjoyed talking to you. Yeah, yeah. It was a good time for sure, man. Definitely, yeah. Dude, I really appreciate you guys having me on. When I reached out, I was like, oh, how to be in San Jose. I really appreciate you taking the time. I love sharing some of the stuff that I've discovered. Well, we enjoyed the time with you when we went down to LA. We meet people and if they strike a chord with us or whatever, you were one of those people. Like Adam said, you're very authentic and we appreciate that. So you're doing good things, man. Thanks, dude. Appreciate you coming on. Right on you too, guys. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at minepumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maps Anabolic, Maps Performance, and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at minepumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.