The Ways I Took Control of My Health and How You Can Too | The Captain's Lifestyle Podcast

So why do you continue to work out if you haven't noticed any measurable differences in business? Well, I don't work out for business. I think a lot about being 90 to 100. I think about who am I going to be at that point. Gary Vee today is trying to put out good into the world and has a big platform. Well, me at 90 to 100, I can be on some Yoda [ __ ] and if I can hang for another 10 more years, I can leave more positive deposits. And if I have to do [ __ ] Bulgarian split squats to be there, then [ __ ] it. I'm going to do it. So, for this episode, let's discuss your health and wellness habits cuz I know that is something that you're big on. Yes. And a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners is this is something that they're severely lacking. Yes. And I was the far majority of my career. Yeah. So, I work with a lot of guys. They've done very well for themselves in business. Yes. But they are burning themselves out because they are prioritizing the business over their own personal health and happiness. So how did you first come to that realization? I wasn't burning myself out. I was sleeping plenty. Like I think the big misnomers about me is that I'm so passion high energy that I think people don't realize how many things come to me naturally on the health and wellness front. Sleep. I've always been a six, seven, eight hour guy. Um, anxiety and pressure. Like I sleep like a baby. Like literally, lights out. Um, but I was doing nothing on eating and working out. And at 38, um, about 35, I started being like, wait a minute, like I'm like a little I'm not a little. I'm like, there's some real fluff here. Got some love. So, I started playing a little bit with like exercising for the first time in my life. Probably around 32, actually. Going back to Matt. Matt, if you're out there, hit me up, brother. I miss you. Guy lived local. Basketball dude, treadmill first time. I mean, I had done nothing. Like, I was one of the back to sports cards in high school. I was a very rare breed. Almost everybody I knew outside of like seven or 10 other dudes like at least hit the weight room at some point in high school because they played a high school sport. Like, I played tennis, so like we didn't have to do that. Like I just never did anything. I never benched. Like I genuinely did nothing. So at 32 is like the first time I kind of hit the gym was super hard. It was like super sporadic. I did very little. Like I got hot for like two months and then sure enough like nothing. Then my career started really taking off at 34 and 34 to 38 just so much travel. Like it was just not in the cards. It didn't come natural to me. I didn't eat well. I didn't work out at all. So at 38, even when I look at the content now, I'm like, [ __ ] Like, it was really starting to go down a direction that was super obvious to me. Even though my grandfather on my mom's side, who I'm more similar to, passed young, I got to see, even though there was not a lot of photos of him in Russia, I got to see like, and look, he had a very tough life. He had spent 10 years in jail around anti-semitism in Eastern Europe. But like even with all that said, the body type and then my uncle, my mom's brother who I'm I think I have more body type similarities to, he on the other hand has really taken care of himself and like Uncle Joseph at like 70 too looks like a [ __ ] like looks great. I'm like wait a minute like that makes more sense for me to go down that path. So I just started having realizations that this isn't good. like just a very logical practical convo like you're having right now of like I'm not prioritizing this. This does not come natural to me. Oh my god, I'm giving really good advice to people about business that's based on like very basic principles and I can't take that in health and wellness like get in the gym and eat properly and like good things will happen. And so I kind of started selling myself on this. put out a Facebook fan page post of like, I need someone. This guy John won. He worked me out for a while. That was an okay run at like 35, 36, 37. Like I almost got there. I got in the gym a little bit more. He was a fun character. He had like a business and like so it was like fun for me a little bit to talk to him. It was like almost like I was consulting while I was working out. It was fun. Then again, just it wasn't a real commitment. He then uh introduced me to a kid Mike Vicanti. Mike who has stuck and more people know that are in my world. He was my trainer for six months and I worked out like six times in six months. I canceled like 47 times like and so why? Because I just wasn't you know and you know this either you're in or you're out. There is no half pregnant. No. Not on business, not on health and wellness, not on anything. Like you're just either in or you're out. It's just binary. And so I was half like [clears throat] I was trying but it came so not natural. I didn't like it. 6 months later after like lally gagging with him for a couple months and then

not talking to him for three months. I called him. I said, "Mike, on my 40th birthday, I was on a pl I told him a story. I was on a plane. I remember it like yesterday. I'm literally in the first row because I remember the feet didn't have right head on the thing, tired. Flew into Dallas flying back, you know. And I'm just like on my 40th birthday I'm going for it. I'm 38 and a half. I'm talking like seven at 38 and a half and I'm going to spend the next year and a half getting myself mentally in to commit to this thing. By the time the plane is in the air because it's on the ground by the time it just like lifts off. Not like you had already committed. I've already committed to 39. Yeah. I'm like what the [ __ ] am I waiting to 40 for? By the time I land, I text Mike, "Do you have a moment to talk? " I go, Mike. And I figured it out from that Dallas flight home that what makes me professionally is I love being a leader. I like delivering for Andrew and Dustin J. Like them. What I what was making me not win health and wellness was I'm not good challenging myself for myself doing it for myself. So, I figured this thing out where I was like, if I can be held accountable to a babysitter, if I don't let Mike down, if I'm doing it for Mike, maybe this will work. So, this hypothesis that if I did it for someone else, it would work. And I finally got to the financial place where I could hire somebody full-time to follow me around. I wanted to be suffocated. So, I called Mike. I said, "Mike, you're my last trainer. Like do you know somebody who's like a little younger than you who is at that point in their life like you know 19 22 24 year old dude who can just like [ __ ] live with me travel with me. That was pretty loud. Um you know like do something like that. And he said what about me? And I said are you there? Cuz he was you know Mike was like 25 or seven at the time. I just he had all these clients and an online business and I wasn't sure he could. He's like I can do it. We talked it through. A couple weeks later, he started and from that day to this day, besides a three-year period where his friend Jordan did it, Mike has been my full-time trainer. He moved to Minnesota full-time during CO and so we do it virtually now, which is a little more of a challenge for me. Like he flies in occasionally and we do it and I'm like, there's a little bit of a difference. And so I've been thinking through that lately. He doesn't travel with me as much. But since I was 38 and a half uh and now I just I turned 47. So 9 years um I've been doing it and it's completely changed my life. Soft Jordan changed my soft tissue part of my life. So that fixed my back. Um my strength is dramatically higher. Um my eating habits are much stronger. I continue to be more and more educated with that in my life. And so I'm uh I'm really happy I did it. How does the strength aspect of it and your back feeling better and everything that goes along with consistent workouts, how has that shown up for you in the business world? Like what's the difference between and I say that with like a funny answer because I don't like making things up. I believe that it has helped so many of my friends. The amount of friends that say to me cuz when I did it, a lot of my friends who were like in better shape than me were like, "Fuck this. You're getting better than me. like I'm going to do it too. Like Mike Lazero, big shout out. Like a lot of my friends like took up on it. And for a lot of them, it did impact it. I don't know if I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt. I'm sure there's some impacts because I would like to not dismiss it, but I want to be unbelievably transparent. I don't have any extra energy than I did before. [clears throat] I don't. Interesting. I think it might be healthier energy, right? Like I might be like I drank a lot of soda and I drink none now. So like I assume that caffeine and that sugar was driving me. Now I'd like to think that it's more healthy dynamics. But it hasn't shown up that way. It's shown up in fun ways. My son gets tired at a sporting event and wanted me to carry him from the seat to the parking lot. Carrying him while I've got a bag of like stuff from the ball game. I didn't have the strength even when he was a much littleer kid to carry him the whole way. Whereas, you know, I remember I mean bring up this story because it's very vivid to me. Like four or five years ago, I went like the whole way and I was like, "Oh my god, this is nice to have this strength. " Because it's also a sweet moment. Like when you're a dad, your son sleeping on your shoulder late night at a game is like the cutest thing ever. Something like I am almost emotional talking about it right now. It's a memory I'll take to the grave. If I didn't have the strength to carry him, it would have been a memory I wanted to forget because I would have been holding his hand while he was like snickering and complaining and walking. And so, um, like at the airport, like s like the silliest [ __ ] strength, right? Like

uh, having my luggage while I can help like an elderly lady. And like I think about this stuff cuz I lived without strength for so long. Like having a little more. And then like things I think about like what if god forbid one day in my life I have to actually use my strength to stay alive like I'm falling off a cliff or something. I'm like it'll be cool if I can last six minutes instead of one minute. Maybe in that five minutes somebody will save me. Like I think about that [ __ ] Yeah, me too. It makes you harder to kill. It's literally more resilient. And I don't think it is silly strength like the thing with your kid or you know putting stuff up in the uh overhead compartment for an elderly woman. These are things that a lot of people don't think about and it's just general quality of life improvement and especially as a father. I don't know personally but I imagine this is an extremely important thing as you mentioned you were getting emotional if you weren't able to carry your son or be there for him like to carry him or support him that I imagine that would wear on you as a father if you're not able to you know play with them or whatever. I think that's right. I think like, you know, I genuinely like how it shows up in the little moments. Um, and look, for me, the soft tissue thing, the fascia thing, like the quality of life, there's the biggest delta. Some of those are just very nice, altruistic, emotional moments, the actual quality of life of like my back not hurting me or being discomfort is like real. Mhm. And it's probably though I talk about sleeping well like now literally sitting here like you know like my quality of sleep has been better the last six years because I'm not like adjusting to like you know discomfort. Mhm. And like not having the occasional one time a year where my back would go out has been really nice. So why do you continue to work out if you haven't noticed any measurable differences in business? like why do you still do it so consistently? Well, I don't work out for business. I work out because I believe that 70 to 90. You know, Mike once said something about the correlation of leg strength and longevity of life. Absolutely. And like, you know, I don't like take Mike's word for it. I'm like, is this some propaganda? He's [ __ ] with me because I these Bulgarian [ __ ] things are just the worst [ __ ] thing in my life. Bulgarian split squats. These Bulgarian Everyone's Bulgarian split squats make me want I did two days ago and like I wanted to like legitimately like kill the world. Like they're just so hard. And now like you know they were hard when I had to do body weight back in the day. Now this fucker's got me like carrying real weights with them too. So like you know so I looked into it and it's like really interesting. You start realizing like a lot of people if they go to a cane or wheelchair like it really [ __ ] you up. And if you're at 90 and you can still be walking versus those alternatives, like that matters. And I'm also just very practical. Modern medicine, like when I look at everybody here, I'm like, look at how awesome we all have it. Everyone here has a real shot to be 100. That was not the case 30 years ago. I would everybody was going to be 85, 92. And so like I don't know like very frankly I think a lot about being 90 to 100. I think about who am I going to be at that point? How much wisdom can I like I always think about like Gary Vee today is trying to put out good into the world and has a big platform. Well, me at 90 to 100, I can be on some Yoda [ __ ] and if I can hang for another 10 more years, I can leave more positive deposits and if I have to do [ __ ] Bulgarian split squats to be there, then [ __ ] it. I'm going to do it. I really think that's like literally exactly how my brain thinks about it. Absolutely. Another one of the biggest correlators to quality of life as you age is your ability to get up off the ground. Correct. Cuz you know if you fall a lot of elderly people are just kind of stuck there. So being able to get on the floor like a and then emotional stuff like like I don't know if I live 90 to 100 does that mean I get to see my granddaughter get married versus not like I don't know like you know it's really funny. I think everyone will associate with this. We all grow up in a way where when you're 17 you're just not over worried about being 34. You're like not worried about 34 year old headaches. And then you get to 34 or 25 and you're like, "Oh, fuck. " Like here I am. Like right now it's easy for me not to overthink 90. But like in a blink I'm gonna be there. And like when you get there then you do start worrying about it. And so like if I have to put in the logical work and then like my friends are like, "Yeah, but you might, you know, like when they're like just gorging on food and wine and they're like, "I'm not. " And they're like, "Yeah, but you can get hit by a tree. " I'm like, "Yes, I love when people use like mathematical things that are like virtually impossible like as a counterpoint like anything you can control if you can make it better why wouldn't you consider it and for me working out is the hardest thing to this day almost a decade later I do not want to do it does not come natural to me it's

you know I have such envy for people I'm making assumption just because you're in such great shape I always feel like for those people it's kind of like business for me comes natural. Everything's easy. I'll always be great at it because I've always been and I always will be. But like, you know, I have a lot of envy and I don't in my heart, but I have envy for people that like literally like love it. Can't wait to go. Like for me, that's not my reality, but it's so damn important. I fight for it. Love it. What was the So why hire somebody in person to travel with you and train you in person? I was self-aware enough to know that like I would hide like there was there's this incredible story that Jordan and Mike talk about where I discovered that I could put my big toe against my kitchen against my bathroom counter to lower the scale weight. [snorts] And you would do that consciously to so like I also weigh myself every day and I take a picture and I send it to Mike and Jordan and it's like been kept me in check. It's huge for me. One day by accident like I like slipped in the bathroom or something and it was an accident. I like slipped in the bathroom for a second like oh like you know like kind of the scary [ __ ] like there was some water there. It kicked the scale a little bit. I didn't really realize it, you know, like showered, went on the scale and the scale was very close to like the bottom of my sink and just somehow I'm like on it like somehow it like grazed it and I could see that it kind of moved for a second. I'm like I'm like literally just never dawned on me and I was like wait a minute and so like I pushed it a little more and I saw the scale went down and so I started like nothing happened. I sent the I did it the normal day, but the next day I remember this very vividly like six years ago. I like had a big dinner and I believe I because I actually just discovered this thing on a scale and sure enough the next morning I was like up more than I'd like to be and I kicked it a little and then so this went on for like two weeks and like it completely allowed me to go up like three actual pounds like [snorts] actually not kind of like you know scale weight and I felt it because at this point in my life I'd shredded. I went from like 188 to 157 to like 168, but like that 157 to 168 came with like 5 lbs of muscle. And I was like, whoa, this is different. Like [clears throat] you start learning, right? I'm like, oh, I can be like at this weight, but look different. I'm like look way, you know, like it's really cool when you learn like muscle can enter your body and like reform you and it how much it hits the scale and you just start learning when you don't know anything. for all the people who are listening right now that don't know anything yet, you'll be on this journey. So, I really felt it. I was like, "This sucks. " Like, "This doesn't feel as good. " And so, I it just this really funny joke we always have cuz I was like came downstairs real sad. They were both there, I think, if I recall it properly or just one of them and they zoomed the other one in. I can't remember or FaceTimed, but I was like, [clears throat] "Guys, I've lost my way. " Like it was like real tail between the leg. Like I lost my leg. I was like they're like what happened? I'm like I figured this thing out and this and it's like so it's like you know I guess that was a very long- winded way to tell you why I hired somebody full-time. I knew that I was going to try everything and anything to not do this. It's that bad. Like it's that hard for me. Yeah. It's like I'm sitting here right this second telling you how hard it is. And if you told me nine years later after going through this journey that it would be this hard, I might have not believed you. I would have said ah at some point it would have clicked in. It's a fight every day. It's just it's also like be I always want I actually want to make everyone who's listening this make it more selfish. Like forget about something as ideological as integrity which I think is such a noble thing to fight for. It's just going to not be good. Like there's just like a much more kind of like basic like let me make this very basic for you. If you're lying to yourself about anything, it will be bad. Like nothing good will happen in a relationship in like you know so many kids come up to me like Gary Vee you're going to buy the Jets. I'm Broncos. Like literally my brain every time not to like you know like a lot of times I'm just like man I hope that kid doesn't believe that or if he does then he's serious about it. Correct. I mean, normally when I see it, my great hope is that they're like locked in and obsessed and for 40 years I'm going to do it. But like in reality, 99. 9% of the time it's very obvious to me immediately that it's someone who's tricking themselves. I'm going to be a billionaire. And I'm like why? And this and like there's just like a lot I see it a lot. I'm going to be a rapper. I'm going to be a professional athlete. Well, you know why a lot of people do that? I'm sure you know this is we get a increase in dopamine when we say we're going to do something. So a lot of people will say something

like that. They get that feeling and then the pursuit of it is it doesn't matter anymore because they've already felt what it feels like and so they just keep saying these things. I'm going to dot dot. The danger of the short-term high in our society is a real issue. Mhm. Um, and I know exactly why people do it. Uh, people also genuinely are grounded in insecurity and believe they can trick people into believing things. Um, this is a very big thing amongst people in my opinion when I'm watching people navigate. They're trying to paint a picture about themselves to others because they value others opinions of them. And so they posture, they peacock and um and I think that's a vulnerability unfortunately when it's not grounded in actual belief. Yeah. So let's talk about eating habits. I know you love blueberries. Yes. You mentioned that on our last episode. I do. Um what else do you do to I've gotten eat properly? You know, I've gotten very hot on something recently. I've definitely my carb my bad carb intake is down and I'm really feel it which I'm really excited about. I kind of decided in August after going through a period of 100 days where I wasn't at my best, which is okay. Like I think a big thing for a lot of people is they beat themselves. They go great for six months, they have like one bad week and they're like ah see it's like it's okay. Like you can get back on, right? So I went through like a summer where it was just a lot of travel, you know, after COVID, you know, I got to travel a little bit and it just wasn't as tight as I wanted it to be. And like then I had one week at my parents house with the family where it really fell off the wagon because my parents like just go old school Eastern European just a lot of garbage and like and that's an excuse I can navigate around it. But like I was at the tail end of like a bad 100 day cycle. It was midsummer. We were in the best time family. just like hit what I would call my rock bottom of my eating habits and like really felt shitty about it and then just kind of serendipitously watched like a keto propaganda documentary and I understood what I was watching but I took certain elements of it for myself and I kind of created my own like food triangle of like I'm going to go dramatically more protein because I like it. I have a real it comes unnatural to me but I have a very good gift on the other side. I like everything. So like I like English peas and asparagus and cauliflower the same way I like sugar and a burger and like a shake like equally. So I have this real gift where I like it all. So I was like [ __ ] it. I love clean protein. I love vegetables. Like I can like shift this a little bit. And I've been on it since August and here we are you know like three four months in. And like you know I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. I I'm my carb intake is down. That's huge because I like a good muffin or thing of that nature. I also try to eat clean more and more. So, you know, grass-finished. Absolutely. Not just grass-fed. Glad you mentioned that. Yeah. So, I'm I'm pretty educated in some of that stuff. Like, you know, my girlfriend Mona is very educated in it. So, like natural flavors I look out for. Like I've really become educated on what the government allows food companies in America to do. And so it's not only about calorie count. It's the it's really now at this point in my life like organ meats and things of that nature. I've gotten very educated. And I'm just fighting to be good about it as often as possible. I'm very relieved that you mentioned that because that's something that a lot of people, at least in my experience, they don't understand. A lot of people still focused on calories. It's the next level. Yeah. The next level that our entire society is going to go into quality is the quality of the product. Uh that comes along with finances. So I think a lot about for now. Correct. And so like I think entrepreneurs are going to get in there and try to like build good businesses based on these trends which will drive down cost. So it's gonna be fun to watch. But like yeah, like I definitely am really deep on that and I think any style of eating, veganism, keto, things of that nature, anything that goes too extreme is missing the point. So I'm trying to be very thoughtful of like being purple, like the whole red like you know like I think a lot about that. So, you know, I think I'm taking different little things from different kind of trends and knowledge bases, but eating clean, like, you know, glass, like even glass over plastic for water, like clean is definitely a part of my regimen. I'm not, you know, just for full transparency, I'm like also very capable of like just grabbing a Jolly Rancher and eating it, whereas like I know that is

uncomfortably not clean. But I definitely think that I would be in the category of a clean eater now 80% of the time, which is insanely exciting for me because to even just have the knowledge of going to a restaurant and asking if the beef is grass-finished, that's just like profound knowledge base that I didn't have walking around 5 years ago. And so I'm really excited about what that will mean for my longevity. Yeah. Speaking of the knowledge, where are you learning all this stuff? Mona. Okay. like she's very deep into this. So, she's propaganding me 24/7, but I'm genuinely, you know, curious about it and I get into these Google, you know, YouTube documentary. And then I'm also very good at knowing if someone's pushing something, so I'm able to take a little step back, right? Like, you know, I I just am very common senseoriented. like you know when I look at um the personalities on the internet I'm always trying to understand like hey what's their objective like what's their financial goals and I don't begrudge it you know but I'm also not going to be like look if I just eat this I'm going to look like that when there's very clear indications that there's chemically enhancement going along with maybe some good behaviors. Yeah. That's why my brand is the captain's lifestyle cuz I was a CrossFit coach for a while. People would come to me asking, "Hey, I've been go coming to the gym for a year now. Why am I not seeing the difference? " I would say, "Well, how's your sleep? How is your stress levels? How is your diet? " And their answers would always be the same. You know, I'm lucky if I sleep 6 hours. Stress is high because of relationship, work, whatever. Diet is pretty good. And so, they're thinking that they can spend one hour in the gym and offset the other 23 hours of a bad lifestyle. Not to mention, and you know this, the other thing is a lot of people don't know what they're doing in the gym for an hour. Yeah. Like I'm like shocked. Back to education. I got very fortunate with Mike and Jordan. These are real dudes. They do it the right way. Everybody get a personal trainer, you know? Yeah. It's a big difference when you do it the right way versus the way you want to do it. Like my neck tried to do everything at first. Yeah. I just didn't have any strength. So like everything was like the neck was doing all the [ __ ] like my push-ups for me, right? And so like when you learn how to like do it and just like you know this like dudes are competitive and like do a lot of things for optics. So like the amount of and the momentum they use and you're like not doing the right thing either. And then there's also just like body type like you know like I definitely for a lot of people listening like I have a smaller frame and like smaller natural like I've done so much of the right stuff. What I didn't do co taught me a big one. I for the first time was able to really go in on a lot of work in the gym, protein. Like I was so obsessed with weight that I could have a huge lift day and then fast. And so then what would happen was I wasn't getting the muscle benefit in COVID because I just had the time. I was like, you know what, [ __ ] it. I have the time. Let me like see it. That was by far the biggest muscle gain I've ever had. So, you know, I've definitely been in better behavior of muscle gain of like, okay, if I'm gonna hit it, I'm gonna, you know, I don't care about what this scale is going to say today, even if I was bad yesterday. Like, I'm gonna hit the protein hard after this. Um, but some people, you're just never going to look like certain. Like, I talk about this with entrepreneurship all the time. Like, like people are like, Gary, I want to be like you. I'm like, I you're not going to be like you. Correct. I was like, I was selling stuff at five. I've only done this. I'm 40 years in only doing this. I was a natural talent only doing this. Like you're 29 and you were a good student, worked at a company and you're starting your first business. It's going to be a gap. Same for me. Like I'm not going to look like other people that maybe put in the same amount of work with me because they've been genetically predisposed to get different outcomes of the same work. That's okay. Just maximize you. So, what would your advice be to somebody who is looking at outside sources like people or they want to grow? Keeping up with the Joneses is the number one way to be an unhappy person. There we go. Like keeping like nobody else's physique, nobody else's bank account, nobody else's girl, nobody else's guy, nobody else's trips, nobody else's car, nobody else's follow count, blue check mark. Like it's never going to work out. go into your cocoon. A lot of times I make pretend I was part of the University of Miami football team with the Rock and like I have to do the whole team's watching. Like I really have to do this stuff with my head and like I like that stuff and I want people to kind of almost live their life that way. Like do not live for anybody outside. Live for yourself. Play within your own cocoon. Create your own scenarios with yourself for yourself and very good outcomes will happen. Let's talk on this mindset for a little bit because this is my number two or maybe number one performance hack

is the story that you're telling yourself in your head% cuz when most people go to the gym or do anything hard for that matter they what if the bad stuff what if I can't do it what if I fail what if I embarrass myself in front of all these people I like to play the game what if the good stuff what if I could go for a minute longer do three more reps s what would it mean about me if I was able to accomplish this thing comma I love that it's very beautiful what about the concept of if you go to a public gym and you're only doing 15s and somebody snarks at you what about actually feeling bad for that person like to me the thought that somebody would try to hurt your feelings when you're in the gym just means they're deeply insecure deeply Yeah. You know, and so like I think we as a society need to start feeling bad for people that try to make us feel bad. Like actually feel bad for them. Well, it's your whole brand empathy. I believe in it. I genuinely have compassion for people that are trying to hurt me. Yeah. I like have never reacted to the negativity thrown at me in anything other than compassion. Never. No. Like like cuz for me, I had to go through I had to understand cuz I used to be that person. I would I got fortunate. Let's remember I'm 47. I didn't start living my public life until I was like 34. So many more people, all of you are growing up with it now. So I'm sure if I was 18 and started doing the Gary Vee thing that I was back then, yeah, I was probably a less strong mentally supernova. Though I was still me, I would have probably done wellish, but I would have succumbed. [clears throat] I would have definitely had insecurities around like who the [ __ ] knows my zit or you know, there would have been [ __ ] right? I can definitely I can relate to that. For me, I got fortunate when this all went down. I was like on the other side of the hill by then. So, I'm curious about the organ meats. Do you actually consume the organ meats or do you take a supplement? I actually consume that. Really? Okay. Which organs? I'll eat everything like liver. Like I'll eat anything. Like I'm very into like livers and brains and hearts. I'm being serious. Like cow tongue. Like I'm very into weird [ __ ] We should have brought some raw liver. Yeah. Like liver is the easy one for me. Like liver is super easy. Like I I like you know this is less healthy but like I'm like a fuagra like sea urchent you know sweet bread. I'm like very weird. What's the weirdest thing you've consumed? I think I've had baboon penis. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I just did that for the clip. Um but I would like I'm like so weird like I have I don'tve like there's that Dorian fruit or something that like kills people. Yeah. Is that the super smelly one? Yeah, I like ate that when I was in Asia on like CNN. Like they were like, "We hear you. " I'm like I'm very strange with my tolerance. Like I saw this lady like licking like a like an escalator or something. You saw that one too? And I was like embarrassed where my brain went. Like I was like I do that like like it's just like I'm very not germed. I'm like whatever the most germaphobe like oh Howie Mandel I think right is like super like I'm the reverse like which allows me to eat all textures all theories nothing scares me like I also grew up in an Eastern European household uh Soviet where like cow tongue is a big delicatessant and it's like the big ass tongue like it's not like the little part the whole [ __ ] things there I would cut the [ __ ] out of that and eat it with horseradish like liver was like a constant. My mom would do liver all the time. Like Yeah, that's good. Yeah, it's really good. Especially now, like now like I'm really like really excited that I think veganism, keto, this that. Like I feel like everyone's going to the middle. Like I hope so. I really feel it. I like really that's what I do for a living. I watch trends. Well, that was my favorite part of our last episode. You making the difference between everybody's so blue and red and we need to come together to form purple. I want it. I want it for society. Definitely politically, but I think we're even seeing it in health and wellness. I think everyone's like, "Hey, this very alpha male movement. Hey, this maybe more female energy movement, like everyone's kind of it's coming in and I'm really excited about it. " That's my logo. It's the yin-yang coming in. I love that. That's exactly right. Each of these spokes stands for a different um most important pillar of health. And once you understand how to properly steer I love that about you, brother. I think that's a really good stance. And I think that is going to be the answer to the quiz for the world. Whoever can get to the middle in a sustainable way forever will be the happiest. And so, uh, I think sometimes you get to the middle through extremes on both sides. Like I'm incredibly fiercely competitive. I'm very alpha. You know, I call Vayner Media the honey

empire. Like empire is not a soft word. I'm trying to build an empire, but I want to do it with honey over vinegar. And so I think sometimes you can get to the middle through extremes, which is okay. Yeah. Um but actually probably realistic and self-aware. Um but yeah, I'm really excited about health and wellness finding its middle ground. Um and I hope people get more and more educated because it's like nice to live longer and happier. So we've talked about diet, talked about exercise. Those are the two things most people are familiar with. What about sleep? Let's talk about your sleep habits. Oh man, I sleep my normal is 11 or 12 to 7 at this point. For the last I would argue for the last 6 years I've been in the 12 to7 game. Now does that I mean I'm going to Qatar tonight. Like who the hell knows what my sleeping pattern in the next 48 hours is going to be. Do you have anybody who helps optimize like jet lag? Do you have like a high performance coach or anything? No. You know, on that front, I haven't gotten to that place. You know what I can tell you is this. I am, if someone asked me like, "What's driving you for all the stuff you put out in the world? " I feel an enormous amount of guilt for how little anxiety I have. I don't know how else to say it. I in my true purple, it is a mixture of guilt and gratitude, but it's like tough to talk about publicly when you know how many of the 8 billion people on Earth don't have that. I'm so simple in real life that I struggle to be anxious. And what I mean by that is nothing bothers me except the occasional popup of fear that someone I love is going to get sick or die soon. And then when that happens, everything else is just way too manageable. And I feel like the reason I'm talking about this is I have to believe the fact that I sleep like a [ __ ] baby. And I mean like really like the second I lay down it's good night Charlie. Like I do not sit there and think about like anything. anything. Yeah. It's you know like why do you think that is? Cuz I don't have anxiety. I know. But why? Because I think I keep life incredibly uncomfortably simple. How so? I don't care about anything except like 20 people's health. like genuinely actually for real nothing. I mean, I understand. I'm just trying to convey for the listeners cuz like I'll give you a great example. I think it would even people that kind of know me well, knock them to their soul when we hang out in heaven and I show them how much I cared about my professional career. Nothing. Yeah. I have like almost That was my favorite part of your book. like one of the first sentences in there like once you truly understand how unimportant business is then you can get good 100% brother thank you for calling that out I have almost none of my self-esteem wrapped up in my professional accomplishments if I'm on the other side of consuming me unless I'm like five years in and really listened to all the words I don't see how one could get to that conclusion but it's True. It's all just a game. It's all simple. It's all slow for me. It's all easy. I love people. People can't hurt me. I'm not trickable. I believe in my intuition. My emotional intelligence is off the charts. When people try to hurt me, I'm not mad at them. I have compassion for them. It's just all [ __ ] simple and quiet. It really is that simple. Now what even compounds that is I have a heavy dose of humility in that because I realize that is the work of my DNA and my parenting and my environment all of which have nothing to do with me. So on top of everything I just said, when you also then say these things and you come from a place of humility, like one of the reasons I passionately talk about what I talk about when it comes to me is I think I'm giving roses to my parents. When I talk about me in this setting, I don't feel anything good about it. I feel good that my parents get to hear it and they should feel good about it. They're the creators of when I talk in any context about myself, that's me giving roses to Sasha and Tamara Vaynerchuk, not to me. They built this. My mom built this. My dad built this for real. Now, there was circumstance like but like they decided to come to America so they even get the credit for

that. I mean like they get a lot of this. And so like for me, I do have pride in the way I've built my companies. Like when I look at Vayner Media, I'm like, I did this. Of course, they my team, but like [ __ ] I did this. But when I talk about me, that's what makes me laugh about people like kind of like ego or like I'm like which is insecurity, but like I don't know like Michael Jordan, let's talk about it. Is that for Michael Jordan or is that for his parents? like like you know like I really think about this [ __ ] like I think the person that is can talk about like their kids can talk about their businesses their output into society but you know like it gets hard to like when I think about my lack of anxiety I'm like man that was a son of a [ __ ] master class of how to build a human being my mom gave me affirmation of confidence on the best things held me accountable to things that didn't matter school, but didn't have my validation wrapped up in it. You know how challenging it is to punish your child for bad grades. Make them realize you just can't [ __ ] navigate life and do whatever. There's ramifications for certain things when you're supposed to be doing them. But don't have an ounce of your self-esteem wrapped up in your DNFS. That's [ __ ] hard. Sneak something in before we get out of here. All right. Free speech. Is it being suppressed? I don't think so. No. No. All right, we'll leave it. Gary B, thank you, sir. Pleasure. Appreciate it.