 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. Kyle is a, he's a great dude, very self-aware, confident, intelligent dude, interesting history. We always have a good time talking to the guy. You know, we first met Kyle, how long ago was it that we met Kyle? Two years ago. Was it about two years ago? He came into our studio. He introduced us through our boy Justin Brink. That's right. And we had a great time with him. And we, you know, immediately hit it off with him, invited him to come with us to Paleo FX. And, you know, it's funny because Kyle kind of represents that mentality where, you know, you just don't, don't worry about, you know, the things you can't control in life and try to control the things you can. And so he seems really calm and relaxed when things seem to be difficult for him, but it always seems to work out. And now he's this, you know, he's the, what is he? The director of human optimization at Onnit through these series of events that introduced him to, you know, Aubrey Marcus who is the CEO of the company. And he, you know, he's doing a great job over there. We really enjoy meeting with this guy that he showed us tremendous hospitality here at Austin. And we had a great conversation in this podcast where we interviewed him. Now you can find Kyle on the Onnit podcast. He actually hosts the Onnit podcast. We also talked a lot about the, he brought it up first and then our sponsor Brain FM. So, and we haven't talked about Brain FM on our show in a long time. And I don't know if a lot of people know where to go find that. Oh yeah, that's a product that we all actually used it last night I put on. Yeah, I use it on the flight over here. I use it all the time, man. So we're not really necessarily sponsored by Brain FM, but we are, we do have our affiliate with them. And if you want to get or try out some of the products, you go to brain.fm forward slash mind pump. In fact, I believe you get a discount if you use that code. So again, Kyle Kingsbury, you can find them on Instagram and Twitter at King, Kingsboo, K-I-N-G-S-B-U. You can find the Onnit Twitter and Instagram page is at onnit and of course, onnit.com. So without any further ado here, we are interviewing our good friend, Kyle Kingsbury. Hey, you know it's a special day today. Did you guys know this? No. It's a special day today, Justin. Oh, no, it's not. This guy was not even gonna say anything, man. You weren't even gonna tell everybody it's your birthday? No, I'm not gonna tell you. Oh my God, bro. We missed the birthday tickles that we were supposed to do the morning. We wake you up in the morning, I'll cuddle you with your, you know. I was expecting like, you know, special pancakes. Yeah. God damn it. Happy birthday, buddy. How old are you turning today? 38, man. 38. I'm the old ass son. Fucking old, dude. You didn't get him a good coffee. You guys bought him a fucking Starbucks because it was free. That's what he wanted. You got him a fucking free cold brew. What do you make us feel like a dick, dude? Birthday tickles tonight, dude, for sure. The birthday tickles and jiggles. Birthday jiggles and tickles. Shit. Real quick. I'll have you sing to me later. So what's up, Kyle? What's up? How you doing, brother? I'm doing fucking phenomenal. I want to hear about your adventure here on it. I mean, it's been a short period since you've been here and you're just fucking crushing it, man. It's been a five month rocket ship ride. It's been absolutely phenomenal. When I, before I took the job, I didn't know what to expect. I was like, man, all right, cool. I'll get to hosting on a podcast. That's something I'm cool with. It's in my wheelhouse. They're like, well, we want you to work on product development. I'm like, all right, cool. I know supplements. They're like, hey, we're working on food. We want you to help develop keto recipes and shit like that. So it's like, fuck yeah, man, I'm in. And then we want you to continue to learn shit. And I'm into bio hacks and all the weird stuff like Greenfield. So really been diving deeper and going down that rabbit hole. And then as I was joking with or complaining with you guys earlier, there's a lot of fucking trolls out there in the world that they won't matter how much science supports it. They're going to be like, look at this fucking clown. He's going to zap his brain. Now, before we get into it, because I do want to get in, I think that's absolutely hilarious. You're very self aware guys, super, super confident. And you're one of these people that lives and correct me if I'm wrong, you live kind of by this life philosophy where you do your best and then you just the universe kind of provides and things happen for you. And it just works out that way. And you're very comfortable with that. And you exemplify that. We hung out with you. I think it was at Paleo FX and you were with Brain FM at the time. Some stuff happened. And then, I mean, it's like it all kind of worked out for you. It's almost like your philosophy fucking works. And you're an example of that. Like you, you're Aubrey and then boom, now you're working it on. That's all worked out for you. You uprooted and moved out of state. And then it wasn't even a month later before you were moving again, right? Well, we, yeah, we moved to Vegas when I was going to be podcasting and then with Brain FM as the sponsor. And we were there for four months, and it was funny because I had met Aubrey. You guys let me be due on the couch. You provided a space for me. So thank you very much gentlemen in a very, very indirect way, but very direct at the same time. We like you, bro. It wasn't a favor's job here. It wasn't a favor. I like your company. So yeah, man, I had it. We had a fucking boy there for a minute. I was the full boy. Yeah. I was the full boy. That's right. That's right. You interrupted our podcast. You're a little like boy shorts. I vividly remember. I told him the fucking greatest interruption I've ever had. I told Aubrey that yesterday. I like, he goes, he goes, whoa, what does that say about you? If you weren't comfortable, I said, no, we can't podcast. No, we didn't skip a beat. We were just fine with it. You guys just kept rolling. I recognized it. I was like, yeah, I'm in. It's a good deal. But yeah, you know, it's, it's one of those things where it's never like, oh, I have complete faith and trust that everything will work out all the fucking time. Nobody does. There's always question marks, you know? And I kept getting this feeling from Brain FM that they didn't quite realize how long it takes to grow a podcast. You know, and we don't need to go into them too much because I have nothing but gratitude for them. And in the end, they provided finances for me to learn how to podcast. And I was able to return the favor by, you know, getting them on different shows, got them on Greenfields, got them on yours, helped the world understand that they have a phenomenal product that works. I still fucking use their products. They're good. It's excellent. But you know, I got canned in the airport on a flight to Austin to fucking interview with Aubrey. Bro, this is a great, that's what I'm saying. It's such a crazy story. And I, right then, I didn't, I had, I had nothing saved. I had put all my money into the podcast. We just got a Prius so I could drive to places like Ben Greenfields and Spokane, a thousand miles each direction. I'm listening to Audible and fucking podcast the whole way, driving out to LA, shit like that. You know, I bought a new computer for work and I didn't have money saved to have a fucking U-Haul to get me back to my mom's garage. You know what I'm saying? So at that point, I realized like, hey, you know, who knows if this on a single pan out? I don't know how it's gonna work out. So without trying to figure out every fucking variable, which inevitably leads you only to worry and panic. It's like the only option I have is to meditate. So I fucking meditated hard, hardcore meditation for four hours on that flight with brain FM, ironically. And when I got off the plane, I felt fucking better than I had before I got the news. Wow. And I was floating, man. I felt fucking great, hit it off with aub and you know, picked his brain on what the job would entail. It was more, far more than I ever could go for. So he just straight offered a job the very first time you guys met. He had offered me the potential to work for on it prior to me coming out there. And then as I wanted to start, you know. Is that when you guys met at Paleo? Is that when that started? Yeah, we hit it off at Paleo, but you know, there's a lot of other people around that kind of stuff. We ended up sharing, there's nothing random, no random events. We shared a flight back to Vegas from Austin, where it was me, him and John Wolf and the three of us sat next to each other and really hit it off. We talked about, you know, diet, nutrition, health and wellness, ketogenic diet, the pros and cons, all the different types of strength training, mixed martial arts, plant medicines, like ayahuasca and psilocybin and just went down the rabbit hole on fucking everything. And it was funny because he had mentioned, you know, hey, I've been looking for a guy like you to have it on it. And it almost seemed like, yeah, sure, you know. But as he explained it, you know, with really working on his book on the day that's coming out April 17th, like he would spend 16 hours in the fucking hole at his house, not even answering his phone, not looking at it. And at that time, there's nobody yet on it who kind of understands all the pieces. And it doesn't mean I'm an expert in everything, but I do understand a lot of what's going on there from the training standpoint to the food that we're integrating into it and the supplementation and social media aspect and the marketing aspect. So really there was a prime fit for me, you know? And we hit it off. Obviously I fucking love the guy. I've been a fan of his for years. And he was like, you know, explaining the job. And I'm like, this sounds better than I ever could have hoped for. And it is, it truly is. But he asked, you know, when could you start? And I just started cracking up. And I was like, man, you never guess what just happened. And he was like, fuck dude, you're right. I never would have fucking guessed it. I couldn't tell if my life depended on it that something that serious had just happened to you. Because I wasn't showing it. And it wasn't that I was hiding it. I truly wasn't bodying. Truly let go of it. The go with the flow, man. Something good will happen. And I can just relax and trust in it and know like whatever's. It will reveal itself. Yeah, it's really just this concept of, if it's in my control, then I'll work on it. If it's out of my control, then I have to let go and surrender to it and just be fucking me. And if I can do that. That's the attitude that I'm talking about that you exemplify so well. I still remember that night, dude. Do you remember we were on, you went, you guys went separate ways, right? That's what you walked over. You said goodbye to us. You said, I'm gonna go see if I can sit next to Aubrey. I'm gonna go talk to Aubrey. You knuckled me and then you headed over there and then you guys were taking off. I think that's where you guys were taking off to LA. To Vegas. You were going to Vegas. We were all leaving from Paleo FX. Yeah, you saw me in my giant pink unicorn sweater. Yes. I was like, who's this fucking giant pink unicorn sweater? No, but I mean, that's that for a lot. And you tell the story. There's a story that Eckhart Tolle tells in New Earth, the, is that so story? And I've heard you repeat that. It's one of my all time favorites. If you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit of that with our audience, because I feel like that's your philosophy. If you really, I swear to God, you exemplify and it cracks me up because you're so calm about it. Well, you know, I don't know this verbatim. I've listened to this book 12 times now on Audible and I suggest to people to read it actually rather than listen to it. He has a very monotone, soft, like he'll lull you to sleep if you're not used to it. But, you know, he says that he talks about the great Zen master, the is that so guy, you know? And this, the towns people come running up to him and they're like, hey, so-and-so, so-and-so. Your son, he fell off a horse and he broke his leg. It's terrible. He can't walk now. They broke his leg. It's terrible. And he's like, is that so? And so he sees the kid and then the kid's in the hospital, he's got a thing on his leg. And then the next day, the army shows up, the military and they're like, okay, we're drafting your son. He's going to war where he inevitably will die. But now he can't go because his leg's broken. So everybody's like, oh, this is amazing. He couldn't go to war. It's a miracle. It's a miracle, yeah, is that so? And it just goes on and on. And this is always his take, is that so? Because we don't know what's gonna happen in the now. We only know what happens in hindsight, how that worked out, right? And so many, so often in our lives when we're in the shit of something and we're like, this fucking sucks. I hate it. You look back on that and stress is the stimulus for growth. The challenges we have or what help us move on to become better people and without those things, we're not gonna fucking level up. If we lived in a fucking utopia, like Aubrey says, how shitty would this game be if there were no challenges, if there were no stressors, if we just fucking partied and fucked all day and ate and there was unlimited psychedelics and there wasn't a down regulation so you could be high all day every day, you know, there's no growth there, right? And the beauty of life is there's no limit to the amount of stressors we get. They're always gonna come at us from every fucking angle, there's always something new and it doesn't matter where you're at. You know, you could have $10 million in the bank, the stock market's gonna crash, you're gonna lose money in your investments, like there's always gonna be panic somewhere. It's how you react and how you deal with that in the moment that allows you to have peace on the day to day because it's always shifting. Now you're the, you know, you have a family, wife and son, beautiful family and you're the breadwinner, right? You're the sole provider and you're going through these transitions, you're going from, you know, pro MMA fighter to, you know, this next job, but you believe in yourself but then you lose that one, you go do something else and that changes and you've had to move a couple of times now to where you're in this position now where I think you're in a position that you deserve to be in that kind of realizes your talent. But during this period of time, and I know what it's like to be, I was married for 15 years, I know how challenging it could be when you have a partner that doesn't firmly and almost blindly just believe in you. It's very difficult when you go through those challenges. What is that like for you and your wife? How is she in terms of supporting you in that particular way? Is that challenging or is she kind of like, I trust, I believe in you? Well, there's no doubt it's been stressful. I mean, just moving alone is one of the great stressors and to move twice in one year with a two and a half year old, also one of fucking life's great stressors, right? And according to everyone, maybe you guys can clue me in, Justin and Sal. Everyone I've talked to, unfortunately says that three is worse than two. It really is, so. Three's the worst. So we got that confirmation, brother. We got that going for us, coming up real quick. Bear turns three in May. It's been a hell of a ride looking back on 2017, but the truth is at every step of the way Tosh has had trust and faith that it'll work out. And even when it was hard and maybe harder for her at times, because she is full-time mom, she has to deal with, in Vegas we had, that's where she's from. We had her family there in California. That's where I'm from. We had my family there here in Austin. We don't have family. So there's a loss to that. And we tried like urban sitter and we fucking hire like a chick with five stars across the board. And she was horrible. She fucking bounced out hella quick. She's like, okay, bye and left. And then Bear wouldn't talk to us. He was violent for four fucking hours. Violent. And I've never seen him like that. Now it's like people that are family. Dude, it's tough, man. It's really tough. So, but looking at all that shit, is it worth it? Yeah. Has it panned out? Fuck yeah. And are we in a great spot right now? Like, there's no question, you know? And with all that, things take time with anything. And we've met some other great families out here. We've become really close with Alex Rubchinsky and his wife, Sarah. They have a little daughter named Ari, who's really close to Bear, who absolutely loves him. And you know, Cal and Peyton, I met doing these vitamin IV pushes with Lance Armstrong and Tim Ferriss. Name drop. Name drop. And those are just dope shit though. You know, like that's the kind of stuff that I get to do it on it. We have some of the greatest athletes and thought leaders of all time coming through the doors. And Aubrey is like, Kyle, you're gonna sit with these guys and do this cause I'm busy. You know, and it's like, and it's dope that he has the confidence in me to be the front man for on it, but then also to help build those relationships with these people. And then from there, you know, we met John Cowhan, who's a phenomenal guy, has an amazing family and three kids and lives here in Austin and Bear absolutely loves them. So are we getting to network and meet other families and people? Cause you guys know with kids, I got plenty of friends that don't have kids and they're amazing friends. It doesn't disqualify you like, oh, you don't have kids yet. I'm not gonna hang with Adam. It's like, that's not the case at all. But when it comes to inviting people to do stuff or this and that, it's different when you have kids and the parents, the other parents fucking know that. So it's refreshing when you do have some family friends that can act like that and say like, hey man, you know, without you asking, why don't you drop Bear off and go on a date? You know, shit like that, like that's special to have that in a place where we don't have any blood relatives and family. And so like everything- I feel like you attract that though. Yeah, everything we've needed has been provided. It takes a little longer for some shit to come to fruition. It'll all develop, yeah. But yeah, that's really what it boils down to is like just to know like, hey, if these are things that we need in life, we'll find a way to attract those into our life. And it's not, ooh, the secret, this guy's gonna fucking sit and meditate on it and he's gonna show up, ping. But in some way, in some way it is that. In some way it is something I focus on. I'll focus on this thing and we will fucking navigate to find it, you know? And that's been the case through and through time and time and again, and I firmly believe in it. There's a lot of work that you're doing behind all that too, though I believe too, with all your personal growth and you read a lot, you're a smart guy, you're great with relationships and people. Like that takes effort and people don't realize that sometimes. I think it's a lost art. I think it's so important with building your network is, sometimes I think it could be even more important than what people think about. And when you get a guy like you with all this stuff looks like it's just unfolding, it's like, no, there's a lot of shit that you're doing behind the scenes. No, I love your attitude towards it too. Like that whole time period, it was like a training grounds, you know? Like being able to interview and like hone in on your craft and do all that stuff, you know, with brain FM and then having that all kind of like go away. But guess what? Now, you know, you have those skills. You have that skill set all nice and polished going into this new job. Yeah, and it's a funny thing, you know? Because with when I first met Aubrey, you know, he's talking about that. I was like, this is, it's going to be hard to pull me from Vegas. We got family here, brain FM paid me well and I made my own fucking schedule. That's the most important thing. I chose when I wanted to work. I could do five podcasts in a week and not do shit for a month. Just be dad, just travel, just have fun. So now working a nine to five and this is no typical nine to five. I get to fucking hit the sauna. I get to meditate on site. I get to go outside and use the organic tobacco. Paul check hooked us up with. I get to fucking walk 20 yards from my desk to the Jiu-Jitsu mats and roll each day. I get to do all this shit, play with all the tools, the mace, the kettlebell, the fucking barbell. It's all there and I could do that. Not only am I allowed to do it, I'm encouraged to do it. Every employee on it is encouraged to work out, encouraged to take time for themselves. They do copay on fucking massages on site where they pay half the goddamn massage and I can get a massage on the clock half off. It's not a regular job by any means, but to bear he doesn't understand. My son has no fucking clue. I say, daddy has to go to work and I go to give him a kiss and dude kicks me in the face to shove me out the door like, fuck you, dad. Don't you leave me. So there has been a learning curve there but going back to what you were saying Adam, possibly the greatest thing, the thing I'm most or one of the things I'm most appreciative about my job now is I get paid to read. I get paid to fucking learn and on it pays $5,200 a year for every employee to continue education. So I'll be doing check holistic life coach level two and three and four when they develop it. I'll be working on every employee gets that. Every fucking employee gets that man. They have one of the best benefits packages ever and it's not like I have anything that this is my first real job. Lord knows the UFC wasn't hooking up fucking benefits packages. We're the first ever combat sport to involve insurance and it happens to be injury insurance. I get a staff infection. I'm paying out of pocket for antibiotics. Fucking cocksuckers, but going back to seeing focusing on the light. No, no, you know, they buy all my books. I'm fucking reading books nonstop. I'm trying to get to Ben Greenfield level where I can read seven books a week but that's just damn near impossible. I don't understand how that guy reads seven books a week with two twin boys. He started when he was like two. He's a fucking savage. It really is. He's on another level, bro. He really is on another level. I feel like you have to trade something for that. I mean, there's a certain amount of normalness that you trade for. He speed reads and yeah, he's a different, he's carved out of a different cut of cloth than I am. But it is really fantastic that when we have a guest on, I think that's one of the differentiators between, like Rogan has five, you know, you guys do five shows a week, that kind of shit, but you're also really plugged in. It's your full-time thing. Rogan stretched in other places with comedy, with travel, with all that kind of shit. So he doesn't get to do a ton of prep on his guys. You might hear him on a podcast, that kind of thing, we go all these traveling, but I get to read a guy's whole fucking book before I interview him. That's cool. Like that makes the questions a little bit better. Of course. You know, I know the material. I know what they're about. If they're not an author, I can listen to them on other shows or I can dig deeper, you know, deeper. Like we get fighters and shit sometimes that I've, you know, I'm a fight fan, but I don't know every fucking fighter. So we've got Andrew Craig at on it, who runs like all of our sponsorship through athletes, who's also a high-level fighter, Brand Belt and Jiu-Jitsu, fought in the UFC, and that guy will give me the lowdown. So I have good questions that stimulate great conversation. And you look at a guy like Kevin Ross, you know, Kevin, I knew I was a fan of as a fighter. I had no idea the depth of that guy. He's one of our best podcasts and it was all on fucking tackling fear. And that's the shit I want. I don't wanna interview a fighter that's gonna tell me about his next fight and how important it is he wins the belt and all. Yeah, man, same, same. Everybody that's in that fucking game wants that, right? Tell me some shit that you went through. Tell me what fucking got you here. Tell me the mental practices you have when you're in the cage. That's the shit that fascinates me now. And it's been cool because one way or another, we keep attracting that to us. And the show has really changed, you know? And when I first got there, I wanted to, you know, what's the way you build a show? You're a guest on other shows, right? But at that time, I didn't want people to backlog Orlando, you know, all, you know, all up for Orlando, forgetting where it is, but I didn't want them to go through the old podcast. I want them to go through my podcast. And now we've got, you know. They can hear you. We've got fucking 20 of them. It's a new voice. It's top tier guests like Ben Greenfield, Rob Wolfe, all my fucking favorites. Mine pumps soon. Mine pumps coming on this shit today, boys. So what did you, so when you, We'll be your top. We're gonna be your top. There had been a point where you probably read a five star review or somebody DM'd you or emailed you or got feedback. When was that turning point when you knew like you were on the right track and really making a difference? And like you felt it from the listeners and people that are paying attention. Well, people write us more. I don't, you know, we get five star reviews and shit like that. And I always, obviously we encourage that. So I'm not saying please don't write us a review. Please write us a review. It helps a lot. But it's when people just write like on Instagram or Facebook and on it, you know, and they're like, man, the new guy hosting the on it podcast is fucking inspiring. Oh, yeah. Do you remember when that for that first? When that shit started trickling in, it was like, fuck, yeah, man, we're on the right track. We're doing good things. And I'm happy that it's seen and felt from the other side the way I hope it is, you know, because I really listen to these podcasts. It's something you guys taught me. Listen to your podcasts, see if you're, you know, if you're doing anything wrong, what can be improved upon? And one of the best compliments that I've received was allowing guests to talk. That was fucking huge because so many, so many times like we all fucking bro out, we're together. And I don't give a fuck if we're talking over each other. We're fucking, we're all friends. But if I have, you know, Rob Wolfon and I'm asking him a question about the importance of the carb test and what some genetic differences may be, you know, things like that. And then he starts talking and I ask him a three part, how many times do you get interviewed? Somebody asks you a loaded question, A, B and C and you're halfway through B and they're like, well, hold on, let me tell you right now. You know, and you're like, I can fucking forgot about C and even let me finish B. You know, so I think people really appreciate that. The allowing the expert to have their space to talk and, you know, just like you guys know, there's a certain flow to conversation. There's an art to that. There's an art to the ability to be able to just to have this conversation, ask really good questions, but then also not sound canned either. Like you sat here and wrote all these questions out. We're not Barbara Walters. Yeah, and you're not jumping from all of a sudden you're asking me about my childhood and then also you take me to like bodybuilding and I'm like, whoa, wait a second dude. You're just giving me all emotional and deep and you just shifted gears. That's how people talk in real life. It's not. And I think the audience feels that when you hear people that interview that way. And I think the natural flow of conversation is just it's more entertaining to listen to. It feels more real. I mean, every time when we get an interview I feel like I'm always, I'm asking the questions that I want to know. I want to get to know you. You know, I want to get to know you. I'm sitting across from somebody and like this is the type of things I would ask this person if I'm thinking about him being a friend and hanging out with him. Like I want to know his values, what he's like, you know, the type of personality is this someone who would want to be, I want to be friends with. I'm thinking about all that shit. The hardest interviews are when you're interviewing a guest, you're trying to have a good conversation. We had a tough one with Dave Asprey. And yesterday, yesterday interviewing Aubrey was a difficult one. When you interview people, sometimes you can feel or it feels like they're putting on like, this is who I am. And I need to say these particular things. Dave Asprey was like that the entire time. Like he would not go deeper than one inch below the surface. And it was very like, here's the answer. Here's the answer. Here's the answer. Yesterday was difficult. Aubrey started like that for about 40 minutes where he was talking about his book and it's very much like, and then we were like, well, let's have a deeper conversation. Let's have fun with this. And we broke after about 40 minutes or so, you were there, you listened to the whole thing. After about 40 minutes, we got into that. And that's a very difficult thing to do sometimes with a guest who's coming over there and they're like, they know what they want to say. They know what they're supposed to say. And they're good at it. And they're good at it. And so you ask him questions like, Yeah, tell me the biggest challenge you've had in the last year. And then the answer was something like, well, everything's challenging and life is challenging. Like, what does that fucking mean? Like, tell me what happened. I want to hear your story. Yeah, yeah. Very detailed. Have you had situations like that where you're trying to pull from people and it's just like, you hit a wall? Yeah, and thankfully it's just been, yeah, I don't want to name names, you know, but there's been a couple of instances like that where it just seemed like I was lobbing people underhand softballs and they were hitting into the infield, you know? And then that I was conscientious enough to know like, okay, I can speak a bit more on this podcast. There are things where maybe if I wanted them to elaborate on a subject and they didn't, then I could jump in and it's safe to do that because I'm not overstepping, I'm not speaking over them, but I can piggyback on their thoughts. And in the end, there's, you know, a nodding and yeah, man, that's exactly what I was saying. Right? So in any conversation when you're sitting down with somebody, you know, oftentimes you'll repeat what they said back to them in a way that helps, you know, them know that you're listening and that you understand what they're saying, right? And if you do that in a different way for podcast, because it's not like you guys are gonna be like, right, Kyle, so you're saying you moved twice to the last year, that's fascinating. It doesn't work that way on a podcast, right? But you can elaborate on the challenging, you know, the challenging aspects of that and different things that you guys have gone through. And then it makes sense for the listener. Well, here's something about you that I'm gonna let you know that I've observed is that you have an ability and very few people have this ability. And I think we have that ability to a little bit of extent, Adam in particular has this ability where you can get away with saying whatever the fuck you want. Very few people can do this. Like it would be difficult for you, and that's just because your energy and how you present yourself, you can pretty much say whatever you want. And I don't think anybody would really get upset or angry, I think they'd laugh about it. And so use that to your advantage. You can ask whatever you want to me. I know this about you, there's an energy. Not everybody can do this. Some people would do this to me and I'd be, I'd put a wall right up. But you have that ability. Well, you can say something. I'd be like, well, fuck it. Tell me about your first gay experience. Exactly. Exactly. And you have to answer. You have to answer. There's no beating around it. There's no beating around the bush. I like how you assume it's your first gay experience. Well, my God, there's so many. I forgot the first one. That's the intelligent wording, right? That doesn't give you an hour. Well, talk about what you said. I think for the listeners that may not understand this but you said how you were giving softball pitches, like, I know what you meant, but explain to the audience what you mean by that. Like, what are you doing when you give a softball pitch question to somebody? Well, let's say I have a guy who's going to talk about a specific type of diet. And, you know, the easy question, or the easy question, especially when I've read something and this didn't happen with Rob Wolf, but let's use Rob as an example. Rob was fucking one of the best interviews I've ever had, but he was one of our favorites too. Absolutely amazing. Like he's a guy I'd have on. Bro, any doctor that says fuck in the same sentence as like, he's deplicitous cock face. Yeah, he said deplicitous cock face. In the same sense, it's like some medical term, bro. It's like, he's not a doctor, but he is fucking, he's smart as well, for sure. He fucking cools what he is. I would have him on four times a year. That's how dope he is, right? And he's so, he's a guy. Is Rob not a PhD? He's, no, I don't believe he is. He's on the cutting edge of shit though, right? Dude, I thought he was a PhD. Well, I have to look it up. Yeah, that's interesting. I don't know, maybe Doug can look that up while we're on here. Yeah, Doug, pull that shit up, like, I'm Jamie on The Rogan Show. If he's not, he's a brilliant fucking man. He's a brilliant man, no matter what. But the point is, if I was to say, Rob, tell me a bit about this carb test, why might it be important? And he goes into the differences genetically between people, how there's science that showed hummus, which is high in fat and fiber and protein, typically would be something that we know from a macronutrient standpoint, slows down carbohydrate absorption and wouldn't spike insulin, but it did. It didn't greater than 50% of the people who ate hummus. They spiked blood sugar like fucking white rice does, hummus did, right? So in that thing, if I give him that nice little easy pitch and he doesn't take it into detail, and I know there's that story behind it, and I know that there's things from the books or from other podcasts that he's done, that's a disappointment, you know, because I want more. And the fucking people listening deserve more, right? So and sometimes it's not necessarily the person doesn't have it in them to say it or they don't want to say it, it's just that they forget or they're on the spot or maybe they're not used to podcasting, right? So I've had that issue more with fighters than I have with any expert in a particular field, but- Fighters are in particular can be difficult to interview because they're athletes in general. It's just, it may not have the experience. That's what it is, that's all. Now, there was an interview that you gave, and I think it was on Aubrey's show, where I was listening to it and there was video of it, and I really appreciated this because this is not easy for people to do, especially a guy, especially an ex-MMA guy, you cried, you cried on a podcast with Aubrey, you got very open. Vulnerable. Yeah, you were very vulnerable, very open. Would you mind going into that a little bit? Yeah, that was right after we came back from Burning Man. This is my first burn, and I was only there for three days with my wife, and there was a few, it's very, it's a powerful place. It's funny, because it's like this giant adult playground, and you deal with the elements, and there's one of these lessons you get in a deep psychedelic space is you see the polarity of things and how one doesn't exist without the other. Another thing, you don't have to do psychedelics to understand, this is in a new earth with Eckhart Toll, but there is no fat without thin, there's no tall without short. All these things exist on the same fucking line, and you begin to see them both as one and appreciate all of it together. And in Burning Man, it's extremely hot during the day, extremely cold at night. You got fucking alkaline dust, and it can burn your fingers and your feet, that's how alkaline it is. So you know on the scale of pH, super alkaline or super acidic, it doesn't matter, it'll fuck you up. And so you're dealing with all this stuff, and it's madness. It's like Mad Max meets EDM meets all the drugs, and there's balance in that too. Like if I go so hard at night, I'm really gonna hurt when it's a fucking hundred degrees tomorrow, and I'm dehydrated, and I don't want that. So you have to be mindful of what's tomorrow look like, and you're there every day. Whether you're there for nine days or three days like we were, you have to be mindful of that. But the thing that really ripped me open was one of the reasons I wanted to go to Burning Man. I had heard Duncan Trussell talk about this after he went for his first time. They have this place called the Temple. And in the Temple, it's everything from dog leashes to cat leashes or collars to photos of dead loved ones. Sometimes it's an outfit that they wore, and there's writing. Is this like, are there like tributes to things that they've lost? Yeah man, the whole time you put it there and they fucking burn the Temple down and you let it go. You let it go, right? That's powerful, yeah. And so. Man, yeah, it still gets me, right? When I talk about it, it fucking pulls me right back in there. But yeah, the one that got Whitney, Ambri's fiance, was she just saw a wedding dress. That was it. There was no fucking writing. He didn't know if it was a divorce or if his wife died, like she didn't know, but it just fucking, her being engaged just ripped her wide open. And for me, when I was walking through, everyone's crying, people were meditating. It's a powerful fucking energy. There's times where, and you talk about energy, people are gonna say, blah, blah, blah, blah, but there's no doubt. There are certain people you hang with, I'll use this example and I'll make it quick, but certain people you hang with that are pessimistic, they always drag you down and you're like, man, I don't like fucking hanging with that guy, I always feel like shit after. And there's somebody else, like when I see you guys where like you guys fucking always make me laugh, you always make me feel good, and there's a certain energy when I'm around you that I fucking gravitate towards. I'm attracted to that, right? So the energy of this room is pain, it's sadness, it's letting go, it's difficulty in letting go. That's why people travel to this place to leave this thing behind to burn. And I, having Bear as a young child at that point, I think he had just turned two maybe. You know, I saw dads holding their fucking young kid in their arms that were dead. Oh, sure. They're fucking, their kid was the same age as Bear. Oh, stuff. You know, and that just poured me open and it ripped me open for weeks after. It wasn't like, oh, I experienced that, I cried and then I moved on. That fucking stuck with me. I mean, it's still there right now, you know, because it's, not only does it touch you, but it touches you in a place that's, it's really, it's really fucking deep, man. It's really deep and you, to, you know, some people get that when, when, just from hearing people talk about it and I got it, I fucking cried listening to Duncan talk about this place. So when I was there, it was fucking Niagara Falls. It was fucking powerful. And anytime I spoke about that after weeks after that, you know, I would really open up and cry and let it out. And what was great, what I talked with Aubrey about was for some time prior to that event, I felt like I had emotional constipation. Every time I felt like I was gonna cry, nothing would come out. Like, I don't know if I was stuck being a man or not being open to the experience. I've cried plenty of times before. I've done a lot of self-work on that, on being open to experience. All the things that it means to be human rather than male, just to be a fucking human. It's important to be able to cry. And that experience really opened me up. I mean, I'd seen really sad scenes, gripping scenes in a movie and nothing. And I'm like, there's no one around me to see me cry. It's safe, we're okay. You can let it out. You just felt stuck. Nothing. Yeah, I felt fucking constipated. And after that, like anything, like we're watching the end of Storks and I fucking cry. How many men do you think struggle with this? How many men do you think? I mean, I- I think it's massive. It's something we're conditioned to and women have their own conditioning. There's no doubt about it. We all go through our own conditioning and it's something that I've spoken about before, but the first time I read the four agreements with Don Miguel Ruiz and he was talking about all these agreements that we live by. And in the introduction, he's talking about the domestication of man. And he goes into it further and further about how we're fucking a domesticated animal. And I'm like, bitch, what happened to this guy to make him think that pessimistically about the world? And the more I've read it, I'm like, he's a thousand percent correct. He's 1000% correct. It's not just the agreement like, you know, he is another great example. Like if you're a kid, this young girl is singing and dancing and she's being really loud and mom's had a terrible day and she's a single mom and she's there with her child and she's like, we are just be quiet and yells at her or says like, you know, you don't even have a good voice. Boom, that fucking child agrees. I don't have a pretty voice and never sings again. And every time it's brought up to them, they don't even know why at a certain point because they forgot, but they agreed to it, right? So that's powerful to think like, how much programming do I have, you know? And I know Aubrey spoke a great deal about this when he was on your show. Anytime something is a stick for me, like, man, that really bothers me. I need to dive a little deeper. Let me unpack that, like Rob Wolf says, let me unpack this and see what's behind it. And I may not find a memory from my childhood where my parents said something that they shouldn't, you know, unknowingly. It may not be that. It may be a coach, it may be a teacher, it may be anything down the road where this affected me in a way that changed me going forward. And if I can shed some light on that and see it from new angles and have a different perspective, then maybe I can change going forward. Maybe I can be a different and better person and get more out of life after that. That's awesome. What challenges do you like that now? Man, you know, work has been a challenge because right when I first got here, I wanted to hit the ground running. Obviously, there was some, there was a lingering sense of scarcity after, you know, getting canned the way that I did with no severance. And it was like, like fear, like, yeah, back against the wall, I gotta make this work. Let's hit the ground running. I wanna prove to everyone what I know. I wanna prove to everyone how hard I can work and I wanna do it all, all things go, go, go. And in that process, you know, I was still working out and lifting weights, but, you know, to use Paul check and Mike Salemi's terms, I wasn't working in. I was doing no meditation practices, no Qi Gong or Tai Chi and things that have really been amazing tools in my life to help me reset stress. And I think psychedelics are incredible, but that's not something I do every day. You know, those are, those experiences are few and far between. And when they happen, they're powerful and lasting, but that can't, that's not my daily. And that shouldn't be anyone's daily routine, right? How do I affect my consciousness sober? How do I affect this daily waking consciousness in a way where I can manage stress safely and I don't feel like I need to get blasted on alcohol or, you know, load the bong to forget. You know, and I love cannabis, but the point is like those are tools that need to be used correctly. You know, they would, it's easy to say like, don't drink when you're sad, drink when you're happy. Like that's a fair rule of thumb, right? And that wasn't an issue for me, but stress would build quite a bit because all I was doing for me was working out. I was adding a physical stressor to the stress of a new job, working like a madman. And I was taking no time for myself. And, you know, we went, Aubrey, Aubrey hooked up a trip for Tasha and I and Bear to go out to Spirit Ranch in Sedona, which is his consciousness getaway. Oh, you've been out there. It's fucking incredible. Bro, tell me, tell me about the ranch. So I met Purangi out there. It was a guy just interviewed in this fucking beautiful and amazing woman, Anahata, who I'll be working with on some different, some different things. We went through a consciousness relationship workshop and I'm like, cool, man, I'm here with my wife. We'll level up together. It had nothing to do with her. She was like, tell me, tell me who your greatest teacher has been. And so everyone thinks, you know, for a minute and she's like, okay, think of that. Now, now your greatest teacher is not just the person who's taught you the most good. It's the person who's taught you the most bad, the most everything. This is usually a parent or it's usually a sibling. It's somebody you've spent the most amount of time with and maybe they've showed you the best way to live, but they've also showed you all the things you don't want to do with your kids, all the things you don't want to do in life, all the ways you don't want to treat people. And for me, I knew, I'm not going to say who, but I knew this person immediately because of that. And I spent hours on this, you know, working through it and shit like that. And, you know, we had so many great things. And Sonona has a, it's this fucking special place, man, it really is, but I was meditating there and you do it detox. We're on all your vegan for six days. You do a colonic, you, it's all liquid, it's all liquid diet, soups and blended soups and shit like that. So it really are fucking pulling shit out of your body and there's no caffeine. Now, this is the first time. Oh, and you're a caffeine monster. I'm a monster. I was doing, I'd split a pot with my wife and have two more fucking nice coffees over there. Occasionally I'd have a half modafinil. Like if I knew I had a lot of work and I wanted to read a lot and digest and really record the information, half a modafinil for sure, that's the move. And anytime I would schedule in, what I realized there was anytime I would schedule in meditation, my baseline level was jacked up like 10 notches. So here I am at 20, trying to come back down to zero and I can only get to 10, you know, from the amount of caffeine and even on the days I wasn't using modafinil, that was the fucking case because modafinil wasn't an everyday thing, but there was so much peace when I meditated at Sedona, I fucking cried. I was like, I haven't felt this peace in a long ass time. And I knew immediately what it was. And so now there are days like, you know, if we're grinding and I got you guys in town today, I'm a guest on your show, you're coming on on its show. I'm an interview Raphael Lovato Jr. later as well. That's three podcasts, gotta be on point. But even still, I'm not gonna come close to the amount of fucking caffeine that I used to ingest, right? And after that it was amazing because one cup of coffee from that break was like, fucking, I'm a rocket ship right now, right? It reset my receptors and I really can get a lot from a little, but that taught me not only was I not achieving the level of peace and stillness, which is the goal of meditation that I had hoped because of the caffeine, but, you know, if I scheduled it in, it was like, let me just add this to my schedule. It wasn't a daily practice, like let me see if I can fit this in for 15 minutes here because I don't have anything going on. Now it's totally different. Now I do fucking Tai Chi every day. I take my shoes off, I go outside to go grounding, I got my shirt off in the cold or the hot. I'll do standing breath work, you know, the Qigong practices that Paul Check has taught, you know, how to eat, move and be healthy at the end of his book zone exercises, all that shit. And it's a reset for me, but it's daily. It's daily, just like Kelly Storette says, you know, you wouldn't brush your teeth once a week, don't fucking do your mobility once a week. It's a daily practice, right? And that's what my meditation is. It's not all the time that I'll sit quietly in a dark room. I do employ that as a tactic, but quite often it's at least getting outside, being in nature and working on breath because breath work is one of the great tools. It's one of the simplest tools. It's always like one of the ones I teach people first, like just actually try to breathe for it. Like pay attention to the way you breathe for just- Focus on it. Five minutes. Really five minutes. But that's such a hard thing sometimes to communicate because everybody's like, well, I do breathe. What are you talking about? I breathe every day, I'm breathing right now. Like what do you mean breathe? Part of the reason why it's so difficult is because of that. Because we breathe, we don't know. It's hard to teach something to someone that they haven't felt in a long time. If you were born with one eye so shut, and I keep telling you, yo man, if you just take those threads out, like you'll see out of two eyes, if you haven't experienced it, you're like, what the fuck are you talking about? I can see perfectly because you have one eye open. Until I pull the threads out and then you open the other eye and now you see everything you've missed. People for so long go in these patterns of breathing, which by the way, breathing involves lots of muscles, which develop their own recruitment patterns. No different than if you sit a long time at a desk every single day, or if you walk a particular way, you develop this recruitment pattern. That becomes your default pattern. And in order to change a default pattern, you have to first become conscious that it exists. Then you have to consciously change it, which means you have to work on it. And you have to work on it long enough to make it your new default. So it actually takes work and in the beginning part of that work, you don't notice a difference until it starts to become a default. So it's a very difficult thing to sell to somebody who's like, I breathe all the time, man. What are you talking about? I have no problem. Even a guy like you, Kyle, who's so self-aware, it took you going away, eliminating all these stimulants for you to feel the difference, to feel like, oh shit, this is what I'm missing and now I can work towards it. Very, very difficult thing to do. So in Sedona, is this like a big group of you guys or just a handful? Yeah, it was a big group. It was the first time that we opened it up to non-on-it employees. So we had some of the on-it legends that came out. There was three guys, absolutely phenomenal people. And you know what's funny? Because when we got there, we did a medicine wheel where we talked about a lot of the teachings of Native American culture. And I'm fascinated by this stuff. I've worked with Native Americans out in California before, many times, some of the Lakota Sun dancers. And it really, I think there's a lot of knowledge there that needs to be translated, especially into the West. And I try to embody it as much as possible and really just, I have a fascination with it as with a lot of things that I'm into. But I wasn't sure how everyone else was gonna take this. Like, well, getting a little weird here, talking about the buffalo and shit like that. And then I realized like, oh, you know, something I learned in an ayahuasca ceremonies, I don't control anyone else's experience. I only control mine. And that's a parallel to fucking the real world. I don't control your guys' experience. I do control mine, right? So I let that go. They'll have their own experience. And maybe not surprisingly, by the end of it, everyone thought it was one of the most transformative experiences of their life. Fucking blew people out of the water. It felt like ayahuasca level ceremony. I have more notes from that six-day trip. Was it set up like seminars, Tom? And give me like walking in. I envision this like, we get there, we get there. And right when you get there, Pirangi takes us out back and he puts us through a musical instruction. Your body's an instrument. And he teaches us how to play our body. You know, how to play fucking different, you know, three, five. You just walk there and you get to do leg guitar on walks. Okay, so I meant. So this is, is this for, is this for anybody or do you have to be an on an employee to be able to go? Well, that's what I said. This is the first time they open it up and not on an employee. And I think that skin flute. And then, you know, down the road, it will be open to people that just hear about it, you know, via the advertising and whatnot. So it will be open to everyone. And that's the goal. The goal is, how can we give people a transformative consciousness, altering experience, mind altering experience that's spiritual in a way and transformative, that's not illegal, right? Because that's the big issue here, is that all these plants are still illegal and it's a big fucking commitment to go to the Amazon. It's something I've said many times, like, hey man, it's one thing to spend 1200 bucks on a plane ticket to Peru. It's another thing to take two and a half weeks off work and to fucking pay for your room, your food and all the medicine. It's a lot, man. It's a lot to ask for. Even if you have the money, like, and I used Aubrey as an example when I was interviewing Pirangi, like, Aubrey, Aubrey, it's no money. It's not a problem for Aubrey to do that financially. But to take two and a half weeks off work. That's the part that's hard. That's a fucking issue, right? So it's, how do we make these things accessible to the masses, you know? And then something is funny, because I was kind of a snob, but let me just take you through it real quick. We get there, we do the musical stuff and that's just to open people up. It's to get them out of their fucking shell. Now, are you looking around? Do you see some people like, what the fuck are we doing? Or has everybody bought in right away? Did you get a beep? No, fuck no, dude. People are fucking super reserved, super reserved. You got a beat box, you know? And I'm like, we do. We do. Put your dorky right here. Fuck it. These are all some weird ass sound for everyone. But, you know, by the end of it, we were having fun and it loosened us up. Then we had dinner, you know, some fucking bland soup and now the soup was great. But each day we had something for us. So we, you know, on a hot to taught the consciousness relationship workshop, you know, we had a sound healing with Perangi which was fucking incredible. Dude plays every instrument. He's got electronic board up there and he loops them in one after another. And like you laying down with an eye mask on and full blown visionary state with no substance. Oh yeah. No bullshit. Like I was seeing all kinds of shit. And then I even like, I pulled my eye mask up to look at him like, is this motherfucker playing all these? He was doing every fucking instrument, like 20 different instruments and layering them in. Was that day one, day two? What is this? No, this was like day two. I don't know, it's hard, but there's six days there. We had something for us every day. We went up, we went hiking and meditated at an ancient native spot that's actually off trail. I don't know if I should say that online. Or, you know... Is this in like a canyon? Like what's the landscape look like? Spirit Ranch is, you know, it's not far from downtown Sedona, but it's very, it's all like gravel roads to get there. It takes like another 20 minutes to get there from the main road. And it's very secluded. It's by Bear Mountain, my man Bear. And, you know, it's a giant ranch. You know, there's tons of space where the only fucking house there, it's secluded. And then we go to different places, you know, like the trails we go to start off, you know, fairly touristy. And then by the time you get to the space you're going to, you're there all alone. So... How do they set up? How's the sleeping arrangement set up? Is it a bunch of... It's a giant house. There's plenty of beds. They're gonna work on getting some yurts and different things for even more people to be able to stay there. They've built an Nipi in Lakota or a Temas call. The sweat lodge, Native American sweat lodge they have back there. That's for level three. So they have the curriculum for three levels. And level three is the initiation process. So you go through the sweat and you do that and you come out on the other side. But, I mean, I had visionary states multiple times, you know, working with Anahata on her light bed. And this is again gonna sound woo-woo-woo, but Ben Greenfield's big on this. NASA did a three-year study on pulsed electromagnetic fields frequencies. And this Biomats, two fucking grand, it really works. I've laid on one before. You could feel the energy of it, but, you know, a lot of negative ions and it's pulsing at the energy of the earth. Same magnetic frequency, right? But I've never had body work done on that. So Perang Yemi massage on his fucking Biomat and he hits the fucking singing bowl and it's straight liftoff. Like I was seeing all sorts of shit again without substance. So why is this important? Well, it's important for people to have altered states. It's important for people to tap into something deeper than themselves. And to see around the corner, you know, a term they use is, where's your blind spot? Everyone has a fucking blind spot. What am I not seeing that's there? Within me and without, right? What's inside that I don't see and what's outside of my relationships that I don't see? So you're never gonna get rid of your blind spot, but how far can we widen this back so that we can see further? We can see further into ourselves. We can see further into each other and really understand what's going on in our lives because that level of awareness is what grants us peace. That level of awareness makes things understandable in a way that aren't previously. Now this sounds like it's really deep and it can like scare some people. Is there anybody who gets up and says, I can't do this and they leave because it's just too heavy for them? And they feel like it's this colt like thing that they're going through? No, it's so guided. That's the thing, man. And it doesn't, it sounds coltish right now, but I promise you, if you go to that, it's something where you're taken by the hand through everything. And it's like- So nobody leaves, nobody gets weirded out. Fuck no, man. Oh wow, fuck no. People need time to themselves and there's plenty of that. You have plenty of downtime. Okay. But the kicker was- To work it out, right? You could just saw something weird. You experienced maybe somewhere that you got like four hours of downtime. And you get time to talk about it. That's the other thing is it's not like, you got this experience and then, all right guys, it's bedtime. You know, like, no, like let's talk about our experiences and people have emotional breakdowns, they open up and you really share something. Like you go through it. I went through it with, obviously my wife was there, but another on an employee, Ian, and a couple other on an employees and I feel fucking like, that's my brother, man. Like that's something like just the same as if we had gone to the Amazon together. Like we went through some shit and I know some darkness from his past and he knows some darkness from my past, right? And there's real value in the relationships that you have with people when they are vulnerable and they tell you what's underneath the surface. It's not just, yeah man, today's going good. It's like, no, I know how you grew up. I know the shit you've been through. I know that. I know you a little bit more than I did before. Right. But what we finished on how to put us through shaman-jellic breath work, which is a lot like holotropic breathing by Santa's love grove. And it's funny cause I've done Wim Hof breathing. I felt my fucking hands curl in. I've seen different colors, chakra energy, whatever you want to fucking call it. I've seen different colors in my visionary field, but never have visions from it. So it was a little snobby when I got there. I was like, I don't think this is going to compare to fucking a heroic dose of psilocybin or going to the Amazon. But I mean full fucking body. Like I was shaking, like vibrating uncontrollably from this breath work. And seeing all sorts of shit. Like just fucking, one of the most powerful visions that I had, which was on confidence was, you go to a space, you go into outer space and you say, well, I went into outer space and I saw a table of the elders, you know? And this is something they talk about in Native American culture. And the elders will tell you something. They have a message. So this is a guided vision. But it was clear as fucking day and with my eyes closed, clear as day. And the elders simply pointed to my seat and said, take your seat at the table. That's gangster. It's like some mafiosa shit right there. Fucking yes I will, sir. You're a wise guy now. Yes I will, I've been waiting for this moment. Kiss the fucking thing. Kiss my ring. No, but it was like, like you're fucking welcome. You have a seat at the table with us. Like you can be an authority on shit. You know, and that's something I talked with you guys about in the past. Like man, everything I talk about is something somebody else is an expert in. You're like, no, you're a maven. Was that a challenge for you before? Where you felt like you were an imposter or you felt like you weren't just as good? No, no, no. It's just like, well, anything that I talk about and this is still the case, but anything I talk about, it's not my fucking, it's not, I didn't do all the research. Yeah, but you know, it's funny, intermittent fasting. I didn't do all the research on everybody. Exactly, exactly. Everybody as humans, we just continue to build on other people's information. And that's how we evolve and we get smarter and we get better. And that's half the reason we do this is the sharing of wisdom. Right. You acknowledge it all the time, I mean, which is important too. But yeah, I mean, we all build off of everybody else's knowledge. That's how we grow. Yeah, so that would, but also just like feeling, I guess, like that I can, that I can speak among the elders that I'm there. And that's something Paul Chek said. He said, dude, you're a fucking elder now. You own that, you know? And that was really powerful for me too, coming from a man like Paul Chek who I hold in the highest regard. But yeah, it was powerful. And there was many things like that, you know, that they just layered into that. And there wasn't a person that left that experience that didn't say that was one of the coolest experiences of my life. Wow. Yeah, altering your state of consciousness is so transformative. And I'm not talking about taking psychedelics, although that's a very fast and effective way of doing it, I'm sure. It's really just about forcing yourself to be really here at the moment. And one of the easiest things you could do if you're listening and you're like, I want to experience that is eliminate distractions. That's the easiest thing you can do. If you fast and you eliminate all distractions and you're alone or you're somewhere where there's really nothing else to do, watch what happens. Give yourself a few days. I mean, if you can give yourself a few days without distracting, eliminate caffeine, eliminate food, eliminate all these different things, watch where your mind goes. Now the problem is people are scared. Well, they're scared of doing that. They don't want to talk. We've never been in a time that's this difficult. We've never been in a time when it's that difficult to detach. Oh, you're super. We are so plugged into everything right now that it's never been this challenging. I think that, I mean, I've just, I watched my own evolution with my phone. Like it's crazy to think that just 15 years ago, none of us even used that. Like I didn't need my, where now like you get this feeling of almost anxiety if you walk out the door and it's not in your pocket. It's like, what the fuck, bro? And I consider myself a very aware person. So to see that happen to me and notice that, wow, how that could sneak up on you. I think that's everybody else, man. So many people are so, so detached that they haven't separated and had a perspective of like, what fucking, what is it like if I actually just stop and actually think about my breath? That's why I think the breathing thing is the first thing that I try to teach. Right, because you can't. So if you can't sit down for fucking one minute and just fucking get your breathing. You need to get some meditation. Dude, you're not ready for sitting down and meditating or doing any fucking crazy chance. You can't even fucking breathe yet. I'm like, that's like step one is just become aware of your own breathing. For me, that was like game changer. I was like, absolute game changer. Yeah. And it's simple things. It's very simple. It's very small, simple things. Like when I, you know, really kind of figured out that if I didn't, shouldn't drink water while I was eating my food. Oh, that was a big one. That was a huge, that was Paul Check. Paul Check said that, talked about that. And I thought to myself, holy fuck, every time I eat, I have to drink water because I literally have to wash it down because I've conditioned myself to treat food like, it's a supplement, like wash it down, get the protein, get the fat. And I didn't even realize that I was doing this. So when I eliminated water and I had to focus on chewing, I had achieved a new level of awareness. It was so stupid. It was stupid because it was so simple. I don't mean stupid like it's dumb, stupid to me because I thought in order to become more aware, I had to do all these complicated things when in reality it was just, don't drink water, chew your food. That sounds like a child, right? Like you tell your kid, sit down and chew your food. And here I am, I'm doing it and I'm like explosion of ideas and understanding what's going on with my food. And holy shit, I need to chew my food more than three times. This is crazy. It's those little things that make, you know, that big of a difference. Now you're in, is this your first like, I'm putting quotation marks here, corporate type job that you've ever had? Oh, no job. This is the first nine to five I've ever had in my life. You know, I got out of college, I specifically didn't want, it's one of the most depressing times of my life when I got done with football. And I talked about this in the solo podcast that I did with on it, I think it's episode 12. But I don't need to go dive down into that too much, but basically I quit going to school my senior year after football. I did not want to fucking have a desk job. I feared what that meant. I saw how my parents were with that lifestyle. I didn't want that for me. And I really loved being a fucking athlete. So I just started training in mixed martial arts after a year of heavy drug use and not the good ones. And MMA gave me something new to go for, you know? And then it wasn't long after that, I got my first fight, one and under 30 seconds. Well, my second fight in under 30 seconds and I was hooked. Like, all right, now let's start training and let's make this real. And that really gave me focus and drive and purpose again. And it also kept me out of the desk job. But, you know, that could only go so far. You know, there'd only be one champion in each division, you know, and considering the fact that I still had to live in my mom's garage while I was a fucking professional athlete. Which is driving crazy. And working another job at the titty bar. It's like, I don't need this anymore. It's too taxing. I'm taking permanent, hopefully just semi-permanent brain damage from these interactions, from these fights. And so... No, nothing. You gotta tell me, what percentage do you think of fighters experience that right now? Like, is it, how common is it? Are you... No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, like the struggling, being a professional athlete for the UFC, struggling to get by while you're fucking training your ass off to be the best. What percentage would you say? Maybe 10% of the fighters make enough money to where they don't need to worry about shit. Probably another 20% make enough to get by. And then I would say the bottom 60, 70% are more than half. Yeah, I would say more than half of struggling. Because if you think about it, there's so many new guys, there's so many smaller shows on Fox Sports One and Straight to Fight Pass. Those guys are making shit. They're making fucking eight and eight. Eight grand to show up, eight grand to win. You get hurt in a fight. It's your only fight that year. You're telling me fucking 16 grand is gonna support you and your family. I don't give a shit if you live in Bangladesh. That's not fucking working out for you, right? There was times where I had Fight of the Night, 40 grand bonus, but on top of 10 and 10, means I got 60 grand. I'm paying 10% to coaches, 10% to management. That's $48,000 before I pay the IRS to last me a year. That's less than a teacher makes. And then let me go back on that. A lot of people are always saying fighters should make more than teachers do. Teachers get more, yeah, we all just fucking get more money, no doubt. But the thing is, maybe there's not that much money in teaching from the government. There's a fuck ton of money in the UFC. It's just what they dole out. It's known now they give 15% or less of the total revenue to fighters. Whereas you compare to boxing, 80% to the boxers. Strike force you to give 70% to the fighters. The NFL, PA went on strike in 2007 to get 55%, 45% to the owners, 55% to the players, right? So comparatively, it's a fucking joke, dude. It's not to the money's not there. It's fucking there. They're just fucking whore, you know. It's less than five times with almost every other fighters. Under 15%, even on a fucking card where Conor McGregor's getting seven figures guaranteed. Here's the problem. The problem with it is you've got the supply and demand. You've got an endless supply of fucking kids willing to fucking die in the ring or the cage for nothing. So they don't have to, you know what I mean? They got all these kids who were really fucking, you fight for nothing, let's do this. And so it makes it difficult. Well, we'll see. We got a class action lawsuit going. We'll see how that pans out. Fighting for me, I learned a lot from it. I have a lot of gratitude for it. It helped me change in many ways. You talk about how I got here in the position right now, in the day that I'm in and on it, there's no doubt that fighting was the catalyst for that. Because knowing I was gonna get punched in the face made me wanna learn more. I have to learn more. Every time I sit down, and I love video games, but every time I sit down and play a video game, that's time I could have spent doing mobility. That's time I could have been in an ice bath or get a massage or fucking reading more to learn more about diet, nutrition, and supplementation any way I can get an edge. So let me ask you a question because you're talking about how you used to fight. And I have, I imagine that you have to activate or tap into a alternative operating system to get into a cage and to, you know. Beat another man. To hurt another man physically. And I know it's an agreement, it's voluntary and there's a lot of beauty in that there is because it's competition, it's pure. There's rules, it's not like we're fighting to kill each other, but you are kind of fighting to kill each other in a way, right? That operating system, is that something that you feel like you could tap into now that you've changed so much or do you feel like tapping into that now would hurt too much or would change too much? Are you too much of a lover now? There was a really strong sense in my last fight that I would never fight again. And I knew once I had that feeling like, oh, this is it. Let's fucking, let's still try to win. Let's do everything I can. Cause I'm in the fight when I realize it. Was that like, I don't want to do this anymore feeling? Yeah, it was, it was, this is not important. And I'm getting fucking elbowed in the face underneath a fucking savage. That's a hell of a time to do this. Pat Cummins. And this isn't important. And I'm like, well, am I gonna get, am I gonna fucking lay here and get knocked out? And it was like, no, get the fuck up. And then I kept getting up. And, you know, it's funny we mentioned that. Talking about world records. That was the most takedowns ever. And Pat Cummins says the record for the most takedowns ever. The lightweight fight was my final fight with him. But that means that I got the most stand-ups back to the feet ever in a lightweight fight. Which is actually something to be, that's pretty fucking cool. He could not have that record without me getting back to my feet. No one's ever been knocked down as many times in the UFC that got back up. That's kind of a cool record, bro. That's brilliant. I think I could sell that as pretty cool. So, you know, when the time came, it was like, amen, this ain't a sport to be 500 in. This ain't a sport to win, one lose one. You know, there's too much damage. I'm not making enough money. And, you know, it was, when it came time to move on, I was okay with it. It wasn't like when I, when football ended, it was kind of like, what do I do now? You know, when fighting ended, I knew I had passions. I knew there was things that I was interested in. And I just kept that up. You know, I was still working on the weekends at the bar, bartending and bouncing. And not the greatest environment, but there was beauty in that. And I was able to read and learn so much more and have passion in that and continue to work out and continue to train in jiu-jitsu and compete in jiu-jitsu on occasion. And from there, it just felt like it was just a matter of time before things would start to work out. And, you know, going on the Joe Rogan show was at the time, it just seemed like a fun deal. You know, it was like, hey, I got nothing to promote. A lot of people go on his show when they have a book launch or they've got a website. They want to send people to, I didn't have any of that. There was no promotion. Was he curious because you had gone through Keto as an athlete? Yeah, you know, we were buddies and I was bullshitting with him right after he had, he had a few Keto guys on, but he just had Mark Sisson on. And I was reading Primal Endurance and fucking loved that book. And so, you know, he said, all right, it looks like I'm gonna try to go full Keto on the podcast. So like a day later, I wrote him on Twitter like, hey man, if you're gonna do this, it's something I've been doing for a couple of years now. Here are the common pitfalls. You know, don't have your protein too high. And it's don't worry about muscle loss because it's anti-catabolic and just went down the basic macros and obviously you gotta keep your cruciferous veggies and your fiber high because you want to feed the good bacteria. You want to feed all the guys that are really the regulatory police as our buddy Dr. Michael Ruscio calls. Those guys need to be fed too, right? So given him the ins and outs and he was like, fuck, why don't you just come on the show and I'm like, I'm fucking driving down whenever you want, man. He's like, I got time Thursday at one. Two days later, I drove down and that hit and then it was funny that the very next week I drove down to LA again, got fucking Chelsea Handler baked on her show and put her through a workout. She was already starting to just pop up and I was involved with some pro cannabis stuff and I don't know how the Netflix producers got a hold of me but shit started popping up and even though I had nothing to promote or anything like that, I just kept learning and kept grinding and then it was like, Joe encouraged me to start a podcast and I asked how hard it was and I'll, I don't know. And then, all right, man, this is something I want to do. And it wasn't long after that when the former CEO of Brent FM hit me up and said, hey, we want, we want to start a podcast, we want you to host it and we'll pay you full time to do it. And it was like, bam, now I can fucking do this. And it ended up being because I was talking about plant medicines and the things that had really transformed my life, they didn't want to have that attached to their company. And at the time I was fucking heated but in hindsight, yeah, man, it makes perfect sense. I get it, dude. You want to back everything by science with your company. You don't want anything that could be non-scientific. Or too controversial. Or too controversial, even though science supports it. Now it's still illegal. And so I got it, you know? And that allowed me to start my own podcast with them as a sponsor, which really was beautiful because then I didn't have a muzzle. I could talk about whatever the fuck I wanted. I get whatever guests I wanted. And, you know, originally we had been interviewing other tech guys and shit and it wasn't really my wheelhouse, you know? Now it was my wheelhouse, you know? And so we, it really did facilitate a space to learn and not to worry about finances and to continue to grow and to master the craft. And by no means, it's still a work in progress. I'm not a fucking master by any means but I got a lot better in that time period. And then, you know, when I met Aubrey, I didn't need a fucking job. It wasn't like, hey buddy, I love you. Will you hire me? It was just like, no man, I just want to get to know you. You know, I'm a fucking fan. I've heard him on Rogans, talking about plant medicines. There's a lot I want to talk to that guy about. And AlphaBrain is one of my favorite fucking Neutropics. Sorry for the plug boys, but it is, you know? Like if I take Modafinil or even some of the Rassetams and I jump off, if I go on Rassetams or AlphaGPC, they fucking work. But when I jump off, I feel- I don't like the Rassetams. I don't like the Rassetams. We've always talked really good about the AlphaBrain. I mean, AlphaBrain is the shit, dude. I feel it drops. There's a reason why it's the staple supplement for on a man. Yeah, man. And it's not to go down on that supplement hole. It's just to say that there were things that I wanted to talk to him about to tell him, I appreciate him. I appreciate what he's done. And I fucking love the stuff. And you know, what was cool is that game recognized game. Like we're on that flight and John Wolf's the fucking master trainer on it. And there wasn't like all of us were fucking learning from one another. It was like the Knights of the Round Table. Everyone had a voice. Everyone had to see the table like the elders. And we got to really fucking learn from each other and realize, fuck man, these guys have so much knowledge. And that's what I was thinking about them. And they were thinking about that about me. And now we have this fucking really tight, cohesive unit and on it that's going onward and upward. The podcast is gonna be fucking, it's already in a space where it's infinitely better where it was before. Yes, I agree. I agree. I think you're killing it. Yeah, man. And it's a fun, it's a fun, it's a really fun spot to be in. And now since Sedona, I have balance back in my life. More importantly than anything, I have a daily practice for working in. I have a daily practice for stress management. And those are the tools that maybe I knew about. And like, I use this quote all the time for Bruce Lee. It's not enough to know we must do. So I knew this shit. I read fucking Paul Checks book 10 years ago, but I wasn't doing it every day. Now I'll do it, you know, like you can say like, oh, I know how to bench squat and deadlifts, but you know, you don't build up the courage to go when you're supposed to go. Isn't that a big difference, man? We're funny creatures like that. Like we know better. It's like, yeah, I know that, but until you actually go through it, it's like, you don't actually subscribe to it until there's. There's knowing and then there's knowing and real knowing is in your body. There's the mind knowing. Like I know I should do that, but when you experience something, that's when your body knows it. The knowledge through the body is embodiment. And Paul Checks talked about this quite a bit on the show where you can read every book on earth, but unless you digest, process, and then embody that knowledge, you're the fucking, you're the smartest guy in the middle room. You're just quoting shit. Living in your head all the time is insanity. It will drive you to insanity. Living in your head and your body, that's balance. And you know what's funny about that when you look at the scientific literature, and this always trips me out, the receptor, the serotonin receptors in the stomach or the gut and in the heart, extremely high. You have several brains in your body, several organs in your body that respond to feelings. And what trips me out about that is for thousands of years, nobody knew this, but they would refer to things like your gut and your heart. Like I feel this in my heart. Listen to your heart, trust your gut. How, and it's funny because they respond differently to different stimulus, they feel different. And learning to listen to all of those is what gives you balance. But Western society's strength is that it's very good in the head space. It's better than any other society in the world in its head space. That's what Western medicine is, what science is, the scientific method. But at its fault is it's ignored the other aspects of knowing which is in the gut and in the heart. And so that's why you see dysfunction. That's why you always see dysfunction. You can see dysfunction, it looks different in different ways, but in Western societies, all being in the head leads to, it can lead to mental issues. It can lead to stresses when they shouldn't be there where you have all your needs met, you got water, food, shelter, and why the fuck am I anxious and stressed out and depressed all the time? Like what the hell's going on? I'm not taking care of my gut and I feel terrible and I don't listen to my heart and I feel terrible, but yet I know all these things and what's going on. Totally different experience. Yeah, we, and not to fucking go down the ayahuasca rabbit hole again, but there was a shaman that I had worked with who told me when the storm comes, monkeys don't climb to the tree top. It's too fucking windy, it's too unstable. They go down, they go down to the roots where it's strong. That's where they're safe. But what do we do as humans? When the shit hits the fan and there's chaos all around us, we try to fucking think our way out of it. We go up to the fucking tree top, right? So we have to return to our center. We have to bring that back down and to put that in a practical terms for people that are like, ah, what the fuck does that mean? I'm not going down to my anus. I'm not gonna fucking bring my headspace there. It's my fucking chode. But to return to our heart, to feel what we're going through and if we can sit with that in a float tank or in a quiet dark room or out in nature with the fucking birds chirping and nothing on, I listen to Audible, I listen to podcasts, but there's a time to disconnect from that too, right? To be alone, to truly be alone and in our own skin and then to feel what's going on inside, that sheds light on it and then that gives us ideas so we can return to the tree top and figure it out. But if we just try to fucking think our way out of the chaos, it'll never fucking happen. Good luck, it ain't gonna happen. So two questions here. Do you feel like you have a higher purpose? And if you do, what is that? What drew me to, you know, the higher purpose, man, that's, there's a couple of things I want to talk about with that. Well, bro, you sit at the table, man. Of course, I'm at the table, guys. Don't forget what I told you. Don't forget the vision. Don't forget the vision. Sure, but that's different than like. It is, it is, it is. So the purpose of the podcast was something that I heard Dr. Chris Ryan talk about. It's 50% selfish. I want to meet great people like you and become fucking friends. I want fucking awesome, sure, friends. And I want to learn what you guys have to know, which is a lot. I want to learn what Rob Wolf has to know. And then to share that wisdom with the world. That's the other 50. How do I give that in a conversation format to people? So we all learn together, right? That's just on the podcast. That's my purpose there, something I've really been drawn to. And deeper than that is the continued self-growth and self-mastery that's never ending. There is no fucking finish. There is no final level. It'll never end. It won't end in this lifetime. It'll continue on to the next. And that's okay. But it's to rock that path where I am continually trying to better myself. I'm continually trying to be the best person I can be. And in doing that, I'll be the best dad. I'll be the best lover, the best husband. I'll be the best son, the best brother. And that makes not only me get more out of life. It improves my quality of life, but it improves all the relationships I have with everyone around me. And if I do that, that in a small way makes the world a better place. Be the change you wish to see in the world. Beautiful. And that's to embody that. That's probably the most important thing I think anyone can work towards. Absolutely. Well, you're gonna blow up our ego a little bit, but we recognize what you have to offer, your greatness way back when we first met you. You guys discovered me. We felt, well, we felt it. We felt it. We talked about it. It felt really good. We liked you. And you don't meet a lot of people where right away you meet them and you have to be open in order to do this. Because if you're not a confident, open individual and you meet someone else who's got that inside of them, it can feel threatening. It can feel like a little ego competition. And I think that's a huge mistake. And we're all, we all pride ourselves in being kind of that way. And we identified that in you right away. We felt it. And we're like, fuck this dude. He's got some greatness in him. And I know that's gonna make our egos feel good, but when Anna brought you on board, the first comment, I think I was, I went on Aubrey's page and I said, that's the fucking smartest decision I've seen you guys. I mean, not that you guys have made bad decisions or anything, but I think you guys made a brilliant decision bringing Kyle on board. So I think, well, I speak for everybody. We're fucking, it's awesome to see this brother. We're very proud. And proud of you, dude. We're happy to see Anna make a decision like that. And I know you and wherever you're gonna go, you're gonna kick ass, but they, I don't know if they really know, maybe they do, but I don't know if they really know how awesome of a decision that was. So it's fucking awesome to see you doing this, brother. Hell yeah. Thank you guys, man. Much love to you guys. Always a good time with you, dude. And thanks for coming on the show, man. Check it out. Mind Pump has an app now. We now offer an app that you can download our show on. You can do special searches and the app will be progressing. There's gonna be more stuff on it. It's totally free. Go to the app store, download it, look it up. It's Mind Pump Media. Also, if you go to our YouTube channel, we have a free workout. It's a 30 day workout. This month, we take you through, we progress you all the way through. And at the end of it, we tell you where to go from there. Just go to YouTube, subscribe to our channel, Mind Pump TV. 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 mindpumpmedia.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. 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