Practical Hacks For Making New Habits, Waging The War Against Alcohol, The Best Morning Routine Ever, Upgraded Overnight Oatmeal & Much More With Michael Chernow (Best of LIFE Network’s Experts!)

Ben Greenfield [00:00:00]: This Replay episode features Life Network expert Michael Chernow, entrepreneur, athlete and founder of Kreatures of Habit. We dig into his journey through addiction recovery, business, and how healthy habit shaped the man he is today. Plus, he reveals his entire Biohacks morning routine and the story behind his Viral Oatmeal Brand Meal. 1 Episode Resources [email protected] LNChernow as in life Network Chernow L N C H E R N O W let's go talk to Life Network in House expert Michael Chernow and learn more about all our Life Network featured experts@join lifenetwork.com well, I just finished a little bit of a change up from my usual breakfast, so I don't think it's any secret out there for anybody who listens to this podcast frequently that I tend to have this habit of consuming a raw liver smoothie many mornings of the week, which is like bone broth and little frozen raw liver bites Stevia. Sometimes I throw a little whey protein in there, a little cinnamon, a little salt, blend it all up and top it with stuff like cacao nibs and bee pollen and it's not half bad. I kind of like it. Most people think it sounds gross, but when I give it to friends, they think it tastes like chocolate ice cream. And then I occasionally take my sons out to like waffles and traditional breakfast once a week or so.

Ben Greenfield [00:01:29]: However, this morning I changed things up pretty dramatically. I did overnight oatmeal. Now this was not just like any old overnight oatmeal, this was this stuff that was actually sent to me by today's guest. So I'm looking at the label of it and I'll show you a video here if you're going to watch the video version of this podcast. But I'm holding Peanut Butter Banana Superfood meal made by this company called Creatures of Habit, spelled with a K because a C just won't do when you want to sound cool. So Creatures of Habit Peanut Butter Banana flavor and then on the back the label says Rolled Oats, Pea Protein, Roasted pumpkin seeds, Peanut flour, Organic Brown Flax Organic Banana Freeze dried powder, Organic Chia Seed, Himalayan Pink Salt Cocoa powder, an amylase blend which is like a bacteria and fungal amylase, almost like a digestive enzyme Monk Fruit Extract, a Bacillus subtilis, which is a probiotic and organic vegan vitamin D3, 350 calories, 32 grams of protein in this stuff. I've got six different flavors up in my pantry. Last night I took about a cup of Water.

Ben Greenfield [00:02:53]: And I emptied the packets of this peanut butter banana into a bowl along with the water. I covered that and I put it in the fridge. But because I'm an overachiever, I then did the same thing with apple cinnamon flavor and then did the same thing with the maple syrup flavor. I just got done sampling all three for breakfast. I have to admit, I cheated. I put a little dollop of yogurt on top of each other just because I like my gut healing yogurt that I make in the morning sometimes. And it was pretty amazing. Oatmeal.

Ben Greenfield [00:03:27]: I have to admit, it was right up there with the raw liver smoothie. I would say in terms of the enjoyment and the health factor and the satiation factor, I'm like full. And I obviously didn't eat all three packets because that would have been 1,000 calories, but I probably had about a quarter to a half of each packet. So 500 calories or so of oatmeal. And it's good. It's really good. So anyways, the reason I'm telling you all this is the guy who sent me this stuff is a guest on today's show. And I didn't even know that he made oatmeal when I invited him to be on the show.

Ben Greenfield [00:04:02]: That wasn't the purpose of doing the podcast. I imagine I could probably talk for an hour with somebody about overnight oatmeal. But the reason that I wanted to get this guy in the show is because I heard him interviewed on a podcast about daily routines and habits for optimizing not just health, but also personal productivity, connection to family and faith, fitness, and a whole lot of other topics. It was so intriguing that I reached out. I think it was the folks at HVMN who interviewed him, and I reached out to them and got a connection and got connected to this guy, Michael Chernow. C H E R N o W so I'm going to put all the shownotes and links to Michael, links to this oatmeal. Anything else we talk about if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com CherNow that's C H e r N o w But a quick intro to Michael. He's a serial entrepreneur.

Ben Greenfield [00:05:04]: He's a restaurateur, so he's owned and operated restaurants. He's a podcast host of a podcast called Creatures of Habit. Again, spells decay. And he studies up on a lot of this stuff. Wellness and fitness and nutrition and also entrepreneurship. As a guy who has a background in the restaurant industry, he has a great Deal of experience with running a business and also has been 17 years sober. And that's been a big part of his transformation as well. So he's got a really cool story.

Ben Greenfield [00:05:35]: I think you guys are going to get a big kick out of Michael. So, Michael, first, welcome to the show. Second, thank you for the oatmeal.

Michael Chernow [00:05:43]: Well, man, I don't even know what to say after an introduction like that. Thank you for having me. And I'm fired up that you enjoy the oatmeal. It's so funny. Before we went on live here, I asked you what you thought and you said, well, let me give you an in real life update. And I was like, oh. Because I know Ben is not afraid to say how he feels. And, man, I could have gone one of two ways, you know? But I'm really excited that you like it, dude.

Ben Greenfield [00:06:10]: Well, I'm picky. I'm a foodie, and you ever heard of that company, Magic Spoon Cereal? Sure, yeah, they do like a protein rich, gluten free, blah, blah, blah cereal. But they made it to simulate a lot of the old comfort food style cereals we had as kids, like peanut butter, Captain Crunch and Fruity Loops and Cocoa Puffs, etc. And they did a pretty good job nailing the flavor profile. I actually like that stuff every once in a while. Again, when I stray from my liver smoothie, I got the same impression from your stuff. It gives me the old Quaker oatmeal paper packet, empty it into some hot water and stick it in the microwave type of experience. But obviously, as people probably heard when I read the ingredient profile, way healthier.

Ben Greenfield [00:06:57]: And dude, it actually tastes really good.

Michael Chernow [00:07:00]: Thank you, man. You know, I'm sure we'll get there, but there's a really fun story of how creatures of habit came to be and specifically that product. I mean, that's all we sell, right? The only thing we sell right now is this instant and overnight oat product called Meal One. But it wasn't like I just came out of nowhere and just said, hey, I want to launch an oatmeal business. There's some real nuts and bolts to it that I'd love to get in with you.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:28]: Okay, yeah, I want to get into that too, because I got plenty more oatmeal. Now I got to consume. I hid it in the pantry because my sons love oatmeal and I had to make sure it didn't disappear before our podcast. Even though I think you sent me like 70 packets or so. But you never know. They're 14 years old and growing like weeds. So that's actually something that I wanted to ask you to kind of get things kicked off here. And we'll probably rabbit hole a little bit, but I would love to learn a little bit more about what Creatures of Habit is and how it came to exist, how you came to be so interested in habits and then form this company.

Michael Chernow [00:08:03]: Yeah, sure. Well, I'll start off by just, I'll kind of give you the story, the full on thing. I'll try to truncate it as much as possible. I grew up in New York City. For whatever reason, I have thought entrepreneurially from as early as I can remember. I always wanted to make stuff, create stuff, do shit and be out there. And I got a job in a restaurant when I was 12 years old. And I just kind of was like the first place that would really hire me as a 12 year old.

Ben Greenfield [00:08:40]: 12, I was going to say. Is that legal?

Michael Chernow [00:08:43]: Definitely illegal. 100% absolutely not legal. Actually the funny thing is that I was working at a place called Couch Potato Videos before that, right down the street. So I was delivering videos for Couch Potato. A friend of mine who was a year older was answering the phones in the delivery department at this restaurant right up the street and said, hey man, you're delivering videos. You should also come and deliver food at the restaurant. And so that's what I, that's what I did. And I fell in love with the world of restaurants.

Michael Chernow [00:09:14]: I literally, I walked into the restaurant, I felt there was something about that ability to connect with human beings, especially older human beings at scale for me that I really, I really fell in love with. And I worked in restaurants from that day that I got hired there until about two and a half years ago when I sold a bunch of equity at my last company, Seymour's in New York City. But getting there was, was a pretty, pretty awesome journey and very dark at some stages. And really now the majority of my life is far more positive. But I had a pretty rough and tumble home. My dad was a tough dude and we really had a hard time getting along. So I was looking to get out of that apartment as fast as I possibly could, as often as I possibly could. We lived in a very small one bedroom apartment with my mother, my sister, myself.

Michael Chernow [00:10:10]: It was like a 600 square foot apartment. It was tight, it was uncomfortable and I wanted out. That's how the restaurant business became such an awesome escape for me, because I was able to work at night, so I was in school during the day. I worked in the evening and, you know, I went home and went to sleep. And like many, you know, restaurant people do, when you work in the night, you kind of get exposed to the things that happen in the night. And I was a young kid working in restaurants, ultimately ended up working in nightclubs. And I really took advantage of the things that happened at night with, you know, I was, I was using drugs and drinking alcohol pretty heavily and intensely from 13 to 23. And it got to.

Ben Greenfield [00:10:52]: You started using drugs when you're 13 or alcohol or both.

Michael Chernow [00:10:55]: I started, I. The first time I used drugs, I was 12. I was smoking cigarettes in seventh grade. And then I got, and then I smoked weed. And then I started at 13, 14 years old. That's when things really started to take off for me in that way.

Ben Greenfield [00:11:11]: Wow.

Michael Chernow [00:11:11]: And it was ugly.

Ben Greenfield [00:11:13]: And by the way, that's a total foreign thought for me. I grew up like hyper, conservative, north Idaho, homeschooled Christian family. I remember the first time I tried a. I guess we would classify as a drug besides having some beer in college. And that was marijuana. You know how old I was when I tried marijuana for the first time?

Michael Chernow [00:11:38]: How old?

Ben Greenfield [00:11:40]: 32. And that was the very first time I'd used any type of substance besides an occasional drag on a cigarette at a party and a few beers. And so yeah, I can't imagine being 13 years old and having that kind of stuff going into the body.

Michael Chernow [00:11:57]: Well, I think growing up in New York City you're exposed to a lot. Growing up in New York City and then working in the restaurant or the nightlife business, you're exposed to an enormous amount. And the interesting thing about being a young person in that business is everybody wants to. Everybody thinks you're cute, right? Everybody's just like, oh, this cute kid, like, let's get him, you know. And, and so I remember the first time, the first time I smoked weed, I was, I was in probably the summer between sixth and seventh grade. I was at my friend Danny Nash's parents house in Long Island. She smoked weed already and we smoked weed for the first time or I smoked weed for the first time. I remember, I remember it like it was yesterday and I loved it.

Michael Chernow [00:12:40]: It was, you know, it was a, it was a, it was an ability for, it offered an ability for me to like, really just get out of my own head.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:48]: Yeah.

Michael Chernow [00:12:49]: And quite frankly, alcohol and drugs for me at that stage in my life were amazing. They really did help. They probably, I don't want to say they saved my life because who knows, you know, I Was definitely a depressed kid at that age. And that took me out of that depression. They really did help me stop blaming myself for the abuse that I got at home. And so I enjoyed drug and alcohol until I was about 18. And then it became way more of a obsession and something that I needed to do as opposed to something that I recreated.

Ben Greenfield [00:13:30]: Addiction, escapism, et cetera. Yeah, yeah. Not to derail your story too much, but I do remember like the first time I used marijuana. I was like, this is incredible. I was sitting on the couch, I was watching the fire burning in the fireplace and all of a sudden the fire was amazing. And I had all these creative thoughts spark. And I pick up the guitar and I was playing the guitar and just started engaging in hyper creativity for like two hours that evening. It wasn't like couch lock and Netflix.

Ben Greenfield [00:13:59]: And since that experience, over the years I've learned about the neurotoxicity and some of the reactive oxygen species leakage, particularly in neural tissue in the brain and decreasing hippocampal volume and memory loss and a whole host of factors that dictates that nowadays about the only time I'll use THC would be for a long haul plane flight where I need to fall asleep and don't want the constipation inducing diazepam or Valium or something like that. Or if I've had a significant injury and I don't want to use an opioid painkiller or something along those lines. And then occasionally microdosing for sex, which I think it actually is pretty good as a sex enhancing drug. But ultimately I don't want to glorify marijuana. Although when I first used it, I did find it incredible for creativity. I just don't like the brain cell killing trade off.

Michael Chernow [00:15:00]: Yeah. And I can honestly tell you that it 100% fried a bunch of my brain cells. But I think marijuana is probably the least of my brain cell frying problems over the years. I mean, I really, I got into all sorts of stuff and then, you know, in my late teens, early 20s is when things got really, really dark, really ugly. Not fun. I didn't. I was doing it because I was addicted. I overdosed.

Michael Chernow [00:15:30]: People were telling me, you know, you're such a great person, you're gonna die. Why are you doing this to yourself? I couldn't see the light. And then one day I was able to. And my boss at the time, I'd slept through work. It was a pretty bad night for me. I was ready to kill myself. Honestly. I think at that Point.

Michael Chernow [00:15:47]: And my boss at the time said, you know, you're fired. I love you, Mikey. I'd been working for him for three and a half years. And he said, I love you, but I'm not going to watch you kill yourself on my time, on my dime. I'm just not. You're going to die and everybody around you knows it. And it was really hard for me to. My job was like the last thing that I felt like I had.

Michael Chernow [00:16:10]: And I begged him for my job back. I was bartending for him at the time. And he said, look, kid, if you get sober today and you show up at the restaurant at 8 o' clock in the morning for the next 30 days and clean the restaurant with the porters, call me at 8am if you call me a minute later, you're fired. If you drink a single sip of alcohol, you're fired. If you do a single bump of coke or pill of anything, you're fired. And if I find out about it, I'm giving you a shot. And that's what I needed. I knew I needed it.

Michael Chernow [00:16:48]: I needed to get a kick in the ass from my, from my boss. And for whatever reason, that was the last day I drank and did drugs. I went to God, stepped into recovery, pretty hardcore. And this is where my story really begins. I knew that I had a superpower with people. People have been. My ability to connect with human beings is really, I think, at my core, probably my, you know, if we have to say we have superpower. My superpower is really connecting with humans.

Michael Chernow [00:17:16]: I really, really love doing it. It is what drives me. And it's the one thing that is.

Ben Greenfield [00:17:21]: Great, by the way, for the restaurant business. My, my mom owns a restaurant. She runs a coffee house and pub in Moscow, Idaho. And I mean, even before she, she began to own and operate a restaurant, she. I have always remembered her for being a hyper connector, right? A matchmaker. She would always get house. Dinner in the evening is always like the island of misfit toys. People from all over the community and kids and college students and old people and homeless people.

Ben Greenfield [00:17:50]: And she's always been very good at bringing people together. And that's what she does, is she hyper connects. And so now if I go visit her in Moscow, Idaho, she spends her entire day, she's like running around a restaurant greeting people, helping out employees, managing bands. And I mean, for somebody who connects and especially someone who's extroverted and doesn't get exhausted by connecting, it kind of is a perfect business to be in if you can Handle the stress.

Michael Chernow [00:18:15]: It really is. And it really is what drives me. I just love connecting with people. I really do. I really, really do. And lucky for me, because I love to connect with people. When I decided that I was going to get sober, I had no problem asking people to help me. I knew that it was something I needed to do.

Michael Chernow [00:18:41]: I literally did not see it before I made the decision, even though people were telling me that what was going on in my life was unacceptable and inappropriate and wrong and how can you possibly be doing this? Once I made the decision, it all became clear that I knew what I needed to do now. And so I asked for help. And I got a couple of guys who I was introduced to who were Muay Thai kickboxing competitors. And, you know, I also think that there was a fear for me in making the decision to get sober, that my life was just going to be lame, you know, that all sober people were just boring. I couldn't have been more wrong, because all people that are in recovery are actually the craziest of the crazy. You know, they're the ones that, like, really needed to change because they were so nuts. So I got introduced to these two guys, and the first thing they did was they dragged me into a Muay Thai kickboxing gym. When I was a little kid, I always wanted to be a ninja.

Michael Chernow [00:19:40]: That's the truth. I really. I watched that movie, the Last Dragon, with Bruce Leroy. Like, that just set my childhood up, man. I just wanted to be Bruce Leroy. That's. And I never thought that that would be a possibility for me, you know? And I'm not saying that I became a ninja, but I became a damn good Muay Thai practitioner. Like, very good.

Ben Greenfield [00:19:59]: Really?

Michael Chernow [00:19:59]: Oh, yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:20:00]: And so these guys and Muay Thais, I mean, that. That's tough. Like, I've done some. Some training for that, like, very, very amateur in Thailand, and then spent about two years doing MMA and strike training along with Muay Thai in a local gym here in Spokane. And it feels often like someone's taking a baseball bat, you know, to. To the sides of your humerus, to your shins. I mean, it's. It's a very impactful sport in often a disturbing and painful way.

Ben Greenfield [00:20:29]: Yes.

Michael Chernow [00:20:31]: But I have to be honest, I feel like that is exactly what I didn't know I needed at that time in my life. I was angry towards the end of my drinking and using days. I was getting into fights. I was not afraid to punch somebody in the face, which is terrible. But it's the truth. It's my truth. Right. You know, And I told these guys my story, and they said, all right, we're dragging you in here.

Michael Chernow [00:20:55]: So they dragged me into the Muay Thai kickboxing gym. The second day, I think I made the decision. And they said, look, man, we're going to teach you how to get back up here. We're going to kick your ass every day. We're going to teach you about integrity. We're going to teach you how to be a real adult. And if you do what we say, if you do what we ask you to do, the chances of you being happy and successful are far greater than if you choose to live the life that you've been living. So here's what we're going to ask you to do.

Michael Chernow [00:21:27]: Wake up early in the morning, as early as you can, hit your knees right away and ask God for help. Doesn't matter if you believe in God, if you don't believe in God, if you have a God that you think of when you say God or not, just get on your knees.

Ben Greenfield [00:21:42]: When you say hit your knees, you mean get. Yeah, get on your knees, drop to your knees. You don't literally strike your knees. This wasn't a Muay Thai tactic.

Michael Chernow [00:21:49]: No, no, no, no, no. This wasn't Muay Thai. This was. Yeah, like. Like, get out of bed, drop on the floor, get on your knees and ask for help. And they said, the reason why we're asking you to do that is not because we're forcing religion or God on you, but we're telling you that you have not been able to ask for help for the last 10 years because you've destroyed your life. And we want to get you in the habit of asking for help. So if you wake up and first thing you do is drop on your knees and ask God for help in a humble way, it'll get you into the habit of asking for help.

Michael Chernow [00:22:23]: And so ask for help, get up, splash water on your face, and go for a run. That run could be a block. That run could be two blocks. That run could be a mile, five miles, 10 miles, whatever you want that run to be. We just want you to get out and go for a run in the morning. First thing, as soon as you get back from that run, we want you to have a bowl of oatmeal. You've been feeding negativity into your body for the last 10, 11 years. We want to start feeding you positivity through healthy nutrition.

Michael Chernow [00:22:52]: That's easy. Easy. It was like the ticker there. So make yourself a big bowl of oatmeal, add whatever the hell you want to it. And then right after you have the oatmeal, you're going to meet us at this recovery meeting. We're going to meet there for an hour and we're going to go straight to the gym. We're going to kick your ass in Muay Thai. You're going to go home, you're going to make a chicken and broccoli salad, you're going to take a nap, you're going to go to work and then you're going to have chicken and broccoli for dinner and you're going to go to bed as you can and then you're going to rinse and repeat.

Michael Chernow [00:23:21]: If you can do that, that is what, what it will take to really change your life and create something that you would have, you could never imagine. And I, for whatever reason, believe these things.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:35]: So pray Run Gym and Bricken, that's what we used to call it in bodybuilding. It was broccoli and chicken and as few carbohydrates as possible and sometimes a little bit of salt and you just straight face, suck it down and pretend like you enjoy it every time.

Michael Chernow [00:23:53]: Pretty much. I mean that was pretty much it. And that's where my life and habits started. I did exactly what they told me to do. I became insanely passionate about Muay Thai. In 90 days of doing what they told me to do, I, I went from a, like bloated, red faced, fingers, fat finger, fat feet, person, hating myself, truly hating myself, to a shredded like beginning to develop self confidence, self care, self love, human being. And I trained Muay Thai for 12 years. I had a number of fights while I was training Muay Thai.

Michael Chernow [00:24:41]: You know, I went out to Thailand and trained out in Thailand. I also became very passionate about nutrition. So nutrition became a huge part of my life in terms of like really understanding, dissecting, learning about nutrition and how nutrition impacts my performance and then ultimately my aesthetic. Because I eventually graduated from Muay Thai into bodybuilding, which I became pro at as well.

Ben Greenfield [00:25:09]: So broccoli, chicken went on to serve you well.

Michael Chernow [00:25:12]: Yeah, I learned a lot from the broccoli and chicken. And you know what the funny thing is? So obviously we're going to learn why creatures of habits started with meal one as an oatmeal product. I think I just kind of spilled the beans there. But I still do have oatmeal as my first meal every single day. And for the most part, chicken and broccoli is my second Meal every single day. It's just I am a true, unadulterated creature of habit. If I find something that I like that works really well for me, I do it until I either get completely sick of it, which is rare, because if I find something that's awesome that I like, I kind of do it forever. It's kind of like, like candles, right? Like, I like, I'm a candle guy.

Michael Chernow [00:25:58]: I like to set up my environment. So every single day, the first thing I do when I get into my office, I light a candle. It's just what I do. It's just what I do.

Ben Greenfield [00:26:06]: Yeah. You know, it's like Groundhog Day. You know, a lot of people who follow habits and routines and display massive amounts of productivity and personal growth because of those habits and routines tend to, when you step back and look at their day to day habits, live a highly predictable lifestyle. Right. Without a great deal of complexity. And they even did research, you know, in, in nutrition, for example, the more predictable your meals are, the more consistent your meals are in terms of their macros and even the ingredients that you put into them, the more successful you are at your given goal for adopting a nutrition habit like weight loss or muscle gain or anything else. And when you talk about your daily routine, honestly, like I mentioned, I found out about your oatmeal later on, but the reason I want to get you on the show today was to go through a lot of these habits and routines that you've developed because they're impressive and I think they're going to help a lot of people. But yeah, reduced complexity, reduced decision making, fatigue, predictability of the daily routine, and not having to think about these things that become as automatic as brushing your teeth, it just, it lends so much more structure and productivity to your life.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:30]: And I would say that even though this wasn't really, in my vernacular prior to meeting you or starting this podcast, I would probably classify myself as a creature of habit also.

Michael Chernow [00:27:40]: I mean, I've been listening to your podcast for a while. I was really fired up when you reached out and I was like, ben and I, he's a quintessential creature of habit. And I think one of the greatest components or one of the greatest elements about being someone who can actually do what they say they're going to do is that you could kind of do anything. Doesn't mean that you're going to do it habitually. But once you, once you have the confidence of consistently doing something over and over and over again and seeing in most of these habits that we do on a regular basis. It's really more of a long term gratification kind of thing. It's like a, like a longevity or ultimate health or you know, like it takes years to build muscle, right? Like you, you know, unless you're like an early day body like that, like the first time you're lifting weights for the first year, maybe you can pack on some, some, some, some muscle for sure. 15 pounds of muscle maybe, but, but as a, as a medium or advanced body bodybuilder strength trainer, it's very hard to build muscle.

Michael Chernow [00:28:49]: So like the, the habit of like, of, of strength training and lifting weights, resistance training is like hey, like I want to, I want to put on five pounds of muscle. It's going to take me two years at this point, if not more. Right where I'm at my level of strength training and so that's where the habit is. So beautiful is that if you could just say, hey, like I'm not making like you know, week long goals. I'm saying, you know, I just started doing CrossFit so I decided to stop training, stop strength training in the form of bodybuilding. And I started doing CrossFit in September. I'm 42. I know, I know.

Michael Chernow [00:29:30]: There's no shot of me getting to the CrossFit Games in my age group now 40 to 44. Impossible. Won't happen. However, I am going to gun to get to the games when I'm 45. That's my goal. So I've got, I'm giving myself a strong three and a half years to get to the CrossFit Games at the bottom of the age group, 45 to 50. I think it's 45 to 49. So like, I just think that like, you know, when you live this kind of, when you live this lifestyle of habit, you're able to easily make decisions that are for some people like how can you possibly set a goal three to five years out? And I'm like, it's just what I've learned over the years to actually make sense and work right.

Michael Chernow [00:30:15]: Like you know, the short term gratification, the instant gratification gratification stuff is, is, is like flash in the pan from my experience. A lot of the things that I have, have, have a wealth of experience with that have been instantly gratifying are either not good for me, not good for the people around me or don't actually carry the weight that I'm looking for, you know?

Ben Greenfield [00:30:44]: Right, right, yeah, I agree. I mean what you're talking about, it Kind of makes me think of a few things. First of all, we tend to overestimate. You've probably heard this, and there's various ways to phrase it, what we can accomplish in a day and underestimate what we can accomplish in 10 years. I think that that's one of the key positive elements of habits, is that you develop these consistent things. You know, like I write 20 minutes a morning. I don't ever write like three or four hours on a weekend and then don't write the rest of the week. I work out consistently, you know, anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes a day and rarely do that.

Ben Greenfield [00:31:24]: I skipped five days in a row. So I'm going to have to do some massive workout on the weekends. I do, you know, intermittent fasting daily and a little bit of a detoxification cleanup on every Wednesday of the week rather than getting to January and having to just like full on juice fast detox for 30 days. And those little tiny habits, that isn't really a news flash for most people, but they add up and they stack over a long period of time to allow you to be massively successful over time. And then related to habits, I believe it was. Was it Mark Manson who I heard say this? I'm blanking on who said this. But basically it's this idea that when it comes to habits, if you miss a habit once, because I think a lot of people will beat themselves up if they actually do miss, I don't know, writing the 500 words in the morning or doing the gratitude journaling or having the oatmeal because they, I don't know, slept in and had eggs hollandaise at the diner or whatever, they tend to beat themselves up. But I like the way that I believe it was.

Ben Greenfield [00:32:29]: Mark phrases this. He says if you miss a habit once, it's a mistake, but if you miss a habit twice, it's a new habit. I mean, it's like my Duolingo Italian that I'm doing right now. I got 167 day streak. God bless the little streak freezes that are built into that app. Because if I miss a habit once, it's okay, it was a mistake. But yeah, if I miss a habit two days in a row, there's this little cognitive hum at the back of my mind. It's like, well, you missed it two days in a row.

Ben Greenfield [00:32:56]: Why go back? You broke your streak, bro. So, yeah, I think the consistency is key and allowing yourself to make those mistakes occasionally without letting them stack is also key. And then finally, and I want to get back to where we derailed your story from getting from the Muay Thai and the bodybuilding and where you wound up going to the restaurant industry after that. But you said I'm a quintessential creature of habit. We just have to make sure we spell quintessential KW to stay consistent with your moniker. So yeah, I'll take it. The quintessential kw. So anyways though, you were on the story of how you got into bodybuilding.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:33]: By the way, is that oatmeal that you're eating?

Michael Chernow [00:33:36]: No. Interestingly, at two o' clock every day I have a can of sardines.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:42]: That's right. Creature of habit, baby can of sardines.

Michael Chernow [00:33:45]: Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm doing it. But funny enough, I learned about why I should be having sardines through wild health. When I, when I got my wild health results back and did my consult over there, they were like, you're training really hard and you need to, you need to bump your, your omega 3. So we would suggest eating a can of sardines every day.

Ben Greenfield [00:34:06]: Yeah, that's good. The, the omega index I think is an underrated reporting that you'll get from a lot of tests that are decent blood work panels. But I think the reference range is a little bit low, like they'll give you a green light. Thumbs up if your omega index I think is like around 3%. But I did an interview, I forget the name of the couple that do a lot of omega research a couple of years ago. I'll hunt it down and put a link in the show notes. But they said for your omega index you should be looking at a percentage closer to about 7 to 8% for your omega index which is kind of reflective of your omega 3 saturation and your omega 3 to omega 6 ratios. And very few people can accomplish that without either A having a serving of like that smash style fish, right? Sardines, mackerel, anchovies, salmon or herring once a day along with all the oils and bones and skin and everything in the fish.

Ben Greenfield [00:34:56]: Or B supplementing with like slightly higher dose fish oil. You see most of the recommendations out there for 1 to 2 grams. A lot of people need closer to 4 to 6 grams to really get that omega index up. But there's a lot of research between that and lower risk of all cause mortality. So I think yeah, 7 to 8% is a good goal to shoot for.

Michael Chernow [00:35:17]: But I'm a fan.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:18]: I guess you take in a bite of sardines just derailed us from your Story. But that's okay.

Michael Chernow [00:35:21]: You know, I feel lucky that I genuinely love the flavor of sardines. Like I love. I didn't think I would, but I love it. Like I could eat it all day.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:35]: Yeah. The only sad part is there's such a convenient canned airplane food. But you really annoy people on the airplane with the sardines. That's the one place where I've kind of dialed back the starting consumption. But yeah, if you walk into my pantry, it's like, what's it called? Wild Planet Sardine City, Florida Shelf. Like all the tuna and the salmon and the sardine, they got canned chicken, everything. So, yeah. Anyways, though, so you got the bodybuilding.

Ben Greenfield [00:36:02]: Were you still in the restaurant industry during that time?

Michael Chernow [00:36:05]: Well, let me. So I got my job back at Frank Restaurant, where my boss really sort of kicked me in the ass and gave me this sort of motivation to change my life. And that's when I got into Muay Thai. And I stayed working at Frank until I was 28 years old. In that time, I obviously became very passionate about Muay Thai. Like I said, nutrition. I went back to school, I went to culinary school, the French Culinary Institute. I got my degree in culinary arts.

Michael Chernow [00:36:32]: I also, at the time I was there, Cornell has a very, very prominent, if not the most prominent, hotel and restaurant management program. And so they partnered with French Culinary and they put together like a really cool, truncated restaurant management program that I took. So I kind of piggybacked the restaurant management program at the tail end of my culinary arts. And I did two years in culinary. And then I said, you know what? Like, I had built this confidence, which I didn't have before, really, but because of the habits, because of the fitness, because of my dedication to nutrition, and because of the dedication to myself, that's ultimately what it came down to. Once I started to actually dedicate to myself, invest in myself, I began to love myself. Which ultimately gave me the confidence to say this. I'm going out to create my own business.

Michael Chernow [00:37:24]: And when I was 28 years old, I wrote a business plan. I put it in front of every single regular at Frank Restaurant. These guys and gals have watched me grow from like a 20 year old maniac kid into like a man, you know? And they 14 regulars of that restaurant wrote me a check to open up my first business.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:44]: Wow.

Michael Chernow [00:37:45]: And I opened up a restaurant called the Meatball Shop in the Lower east side of New York City. 38 seats was a phenomenon, man. It was an absolute grand slam home run, like insane restaurant. As I said, nutrition was a big thing for me. I worked at this amazing Italian restaurant. Everybody that came to that restaurant, whether they were, you know, the cool thing about the restaurant was that the food was pretty reasonable. It was like, you know, pasta dishes started at like 13 bucks and went to 22 bucks. And then entrees were like 18 bucks to 35 bucks.

Michael Chernow [00:38:16]: However, the wine list at this restaurant, there was over 500 bins of wine, 500 different wine options, and they were anywhere from $20 to $2500 in wine. So I was the king of selling people a $13 bottle bowl of pasta and a thirteen hundred dollar bottle of wine. That's just like I was. And that $13 bowl of pasta was called the rigatoni al ragu. It was a rigatoni pasta dish with meatballs and sausage and the best tomato sauce you've ever had in your life. And what I used to do late night, because I didn't want all that pasta, was I would order the rigatoni ragu sans the rigatoni. So they would give me a bowl of meatballs, sausage and tomato sauce. I'd get a side of broccoli, a side of spinach and a beet salad.

Michael Chernow [00:39:01]: And that was my like family meal.

Ben Greenfield [00:39:02]: Most nice little ketogenic, carnivore esque Italian, right?

Michael Chernow [00:39:06]: And they, people just started asking me like, what are you? What is that?

Ben Greenfield [00:39:09]: What are you eating? What is it?

Michael Chernow [00:39:10]: And then one day it just clicked and I said, this is a restaurant concept. I can make any protein into a meatball. I can make vegetable balls. I can make any, anything. People love meatballs. They just love meatballs. And so I started, you know, I, my, my childhood best friend, actually the guy who got me a job at the Cannell Cafe, which was ironically the vegan restaurant that I, when I was 12 years old, he and I became best friends and we opened up the meatball shop together. We started cooking meatballs for our friends at my apartment in Brooklyn.

Michael Chernow [00:39:43]: Every Sunday night we would cook meatballs. You cook a bunch of sides and, and that's how we developed a brand, the concept, and we opened it up and you know, the opening night, 250 people were online to eat there. And that line didn't stop. And it was insane. And within six months, we paid back our investors. We were cooking meatballs on Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon and Chelsea Hand. I mean, it was insane, man. It was just totally Good Morning America Today show.

Michael Chernow [00:40:10]: I mean, it was nuts. It was totally nuts.

Ben Greenfield [00:40:14]: I gotta ask, by the way, what's the best meatball in your opinion? Like, when you look at the different meat options out there, please don't say vegetables. But if there's a meatball that just clicked, what would that be for you?

Michael Chernow [00:40:28]: So it's very. It's a great question, and I think it's also got a really kind of fun story. I'm not a lamb guy. I kind of am way more now than I was then. Then I was not a lamb person. However, we made a Mediterranean lamb meatball that was done with lamb mint, a little bit of yogurt, and some spices, and we served it with a yogurt sauce. It could be the best meatball I've ever had in my life to this day, you know, and we have a great cookbook called the Meatball Shop Cookbook that has. Yeah, there's a.

Michael Chernow [00:41:01]: We. We've sold, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of copies of the cookbook. I mean, it's got all of our. Not all the recipes, but it's got a lot of our recipes. I think there's 35 meatball recipes in there and a bunch of sides.

Ben Greenfield [00:41:12]: Wow. I did not have a bunch of ground lamb from US Wellness Meats, so I know what I'm going to do with it when it shows up now.

Michael Chernow [00:41:19]: Awesome. And there's also a good. Really, really, really great. So I'm a massive bison person today. Like, the majority of the meat that I eat is. Is venison that I harvest myself and bison that I buy at a farm out of Montana. Excuse me, out of Idaho, called Glacier Grown, which I love. They're a great place.

Michael Chernow [00:41:40]: Anyway, so, so, so we have great bison balls in that book, but also the lamb. The Mediterranean lamb meatball. We got investment from. From. From some of the original investors, and we opened up five more of those restaurants. I got a crash course on what it meant to be a real business person. I understood. I mean, I had no choice.

Michael Chernow [00:41:58]: I had to learn on the job. But my role at the company was really the culture guru. I was a culture guy. I believed in culture. People came to the meatball shop at first because of the food, and then ultimately we developed this culture that was just sort of infectious and people wanted to be a part of it. We played awesome music at the restaurant, and it was in the thick of the Lower east side where it just became this. This place. And I'm so grateful for it.

Michael Chernow [00:42:29]: About four years in, I decided that I wanted to try and see if I had what it took to open up a second Restaurant concept. I became incredibly passionate about sustainable seafood. And I said to my partner Dan, hey, dude, like, you want to open up in Connecticut, I want to open up in la. Why don't you just take the brand and run with it? I'll stay on the sidelines as a brand, as a, as a board member. I'll obviously be here for what you need, you know, for, for, for whatever you guys need. But why don't you buy some of my equity so that I can go create another brand, which is ultimately what I feel like I'm really good at and I want to do. And so I. That's what we did.

Michael Chernow [00:43:03]: And I opened up Seymour's in 2015. Exact same thing happened. I was selling Seymour's with seafood. Seafood, Yeah. I wanted to sell underutilized, underappreciated fish to the New York market. Everybody thought I was totally insane. You know, they were like, who's gonna like, like bluefish, blackfish.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:23]: I was gonna say, what's an underappreciated fish?

Michael Chernow [00:43:26]: Blue fish, blackfish, redfish, hake, haddock, pollock, porgy.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:34]: Yeah, a lot of normally just use for like a broth or fish tacos or something like that.

Michael Chernow [00:43:40]: Yeah, fish tacos or fish and chips. I mean, the crazy thing about it is that from Montauk or from Maryland to Maine, really, there's a wealth of delicious species of fish. The seafood industry is very much like every industry. Marketing is what wins. And tuna, halibut, cod, salmon, lobster and crab have amazing marketing behind them. Unbelievable. They've won the marketing arena in seafood. All the other fish have lost the marketing arena.

Michael Chernow [00:44:14]: They don't have a good marketing plan behind them. And that's why they don't. They don't win. Another thing, why tuna and salmon happen to be like, essentially depleted or will be depleted if we continue to eat seafood the way we are is because they're fatty. And it takes a lot less time to portion out 20 pieces of fish from a larger fish than it does from a smaller white fish.

Ben Greenfield [00:44:41]: Poor yeast. Yeah, that makes sense. And they got great PR agents, the tuna and the salmon.

Michael Chernow [00:44:47]: They do. And so that's what I did. I opened up that restaurant. 2015, same thing happened, was super successful. I opened up five more of those. And in 2019, I said to my partner, who we knew that it was going to be a five year thing for me, I said, hey, why don't you buy some of my equity? I'm going to go out and create again. And that's when in November 2019, I sold a bunch of my equity at Seymour's and began the process for Creatures of Habit. Creatures of habit was initially going to be a restaurant.

Michael Chernow [00:45:15]: I did not think I was going directly into CPG or direct to consumer product. I built out this amazing business model where I was going to have this awesome restaurant. And I wasn't going to scale the restaurant model. I was going to use the restaurant as an incubator for products to then launch CPG from. Because a restaurant is an amazing test lab. Like, live test lab for product.

Ben Greenfield [00:45:41]: Yeah. And it seems to me that a lot of the more successful restaurants out there, in the same way that a comedian profits from merch, some comedians, they're making more money from merch than they are from tickets. A lot of solid restaurants are making money from packaged goods. Cpg, like you mentioned, cookbooks, media, et cetera, and goes above and beyond just sitting people at tables.

Michael Chernow [00:46:05]: That's right. So that was the plan. And then ultimately, we got hit with a global pandemic, and my whole entire world.

Ben Greenfield [00:46:16]: I don't remember this pandemic you speak of.

Michael Chernow [00:46:18]: Yeah, man. You know, it was a thing especially.

Ben Greenfield [00:46:22]: For the restaurant industry. Oh, dude.

Michael Chernow [00:46:25]: My world shattered. It literally shattered. I didn't know. You know, I didn't a. I didn't know if the meatball shop and Seymour's were going to make it through. And those, you know, those were insanely passionate about those businesses. Of course, I founded them. And then I wasn't going to invest a bunch of money into a new brick and mortar business.

Michael Chernow [00:46:43]: So I literally got posed with this. Your career is kind of over moment in my life. And that's when I took an opportunity to pack up our stuff in Brooklyn. We had a house about two and a half hours north of New York City that we bought in 2013 that we were using on the weekends to get out of the city. And. And I said to my wife, let's take the kids and let's. Let's. Let's go hunker down.

Michael Chernow [00:47:12]: And we did. And it was the best decision I've ever made in my life. We live up here now. It's unbelievable. And about three months into living up here, I took a little time. I hired an executive coach. I really wanted to sort of unpack some stuff, look at what I was really good at, what I was really passionate about. And I found out that I'm a creative entrepreneur, and a restaurant was a medium for me.

Ben Greenfield [00:47:39]: With a K. With a K. Yes.

Michael Chernow [00:47:42]: Creative.

Ben Greenfield [00:47:42]: With a K. Every time, brother.

Michael Chernow [00:47:44]: Yeah, man, I appreciate you for that. And she really helped me to see that I didn't eat a restaurant. So I was on a run. And it was almost all of my creative juices get flow on runs. I intentionally take long runs when I need to work things out. No music, no podcasts, just think. And it all came to me on a run. I was, I was on this run.

Michael Chernow [00:48:13]: I said, you know, I need to create something that's incredibly authentic to me, like I've always done. I want to do something in product so that I don't have to be confined to four walls anymore or a number of different four walls that I can work really anywhere. Holy shit. I've been eating this oatmeal every single morning for the last 18 years. I've added so much to it. It takes, it's like 14 different ingredients that I have in my house. It takes me 30 minutes to make. If I was able to come up with a way to package this into a pouch, I would definitely buy it.

Michael Chernow [00:48:47]: And I think I'd be able to help a bunch of people out, make their mornings way more convenient, way more healthy, give them 30 grams of protein to start their day. Because protein is the most undervalued macronutrient in the world, I think.

Ben Greenfield [00:48:59]: Oh yeah, there's 32 grams in this packet I'm holding right now. And yeah, you're right. Was it 14, 15 ingredients? And by the way, it's more difficult done than said this process. There's one guy, he's been a podcast guest of mine, I'm not going to say his name on this show, but he also has a smoothie that he loves. It's got like 30 different ingredients, all these anti aging compounds and NAD and creatine and collagen and everything. And he came to me a couple of years ago and asked me with my contacts and the raw ingredients and in the supplements industry if his smoothie could be turned into just like a package that he can not only sell to friends and customers, et cetera, but that would vastly reduce the complexity of his mornings because he could just open a package and dump it in. We spent like seven months with flavor profiling agents, people working on the texture, the processing, and this guy was very picky. It had to have the exact amount of foaminess and the right temperature and everything.

Ben Greenfield [00:49:54]: We hit wall after wall after wall trying to replicate this dude's morning smoothie and fire leg. And I was one of the test guys. I was getting all these packets sent to my house every week and nothing worked. It was like, dump this into the blender, put this amount of ice in this amount of water and blend. And this guy was super picky about it coming out. We never actually launched anything because of the difficulty in nailing the texture, the flavor, everything else. When you take a bunch of ingredients that you'd think you could just put into a packet and voila, there you have it. And it doesn't quite work that way, does it?

Michael Chernow [00:50:27]: Well, I'll tell you, it took me over a year and 65 different iterations to create this product. And it wasn't like I was able to go to the lab because the formula house that I was working with was in California and I was in upstate New York. So it was a very tedious process. And the thing that I think made it so difficult was I wanted versatility in meal one. I wanted you to be able to have it overnight, which is the way I suggest everybody have it. But I also wanted you to be able to have it on the fly with hot water. Water. You just pour hot water into it, you mix it, you let it steep for a minute or two and it's.

Michael Chernow [00:51:01]: And it's good. You can throw it in the microwave and then, and then lastly you can make a really delicious smoothie out of it very easily.

Ben Greenfield [00:51:07]: You just pour it into a blender. Yeah, by the way, I'm going to make my. Because I have like these three half eaten bowls of oatmeal leftover from this morning's experimentation with meal one tomorrow morning. My plan for those bowls is I'm just going to mix them up with the raw liver and make like a meal one raw liver smoothie, see how it turns out. So I might send you.

Michael Chernow [00:51:26]: Let me know how that goes, man.

Ben Greenfield [00:51:28]: About 10am Tomorrow morning and me, you know, heaving over a garbage can. But we'll see either way. So yeah, you got, you got even the smoothie component.

Michael Chernow [00:51:35]: So. Yeah, so, so it's, it's a super versatile thing. I launched, you know, I came up with a really. Brand is very important to me. And the only, the other thing that I want to just, just make a mention here is this, this business is, is a business that I feel most aligned. This product was pivotal for me in a massive transition in my life. It was a symbol of positivity for me that I needed, honestly. And not only have I been able to make a business out of this thing and I think a lot of people, I mean, I know a lot of people like it at this point, but it's also given me an opportunity to tell My story, man, you know, like it's never too late to change.

Michael Chernow [00:52:24]: It doesn't matter how far gone you are. I mean, I was, I was, I had OD'd two weeks before I got sober and I was dead. And I was able to come out of that and create this awesome life, man. I mean, I'm married to the woman of my dreams. I got my, you know, I met the, I met my wife in my first year of changing. We've been married for what, June will be 16 years. We're together 18 years. I've got two wonderful kids that I love more than anything on the planet.

Michael Chernow [00:52:59]: You know, they love me back, which is like, you know, I just never thought that would be a possibility, man. I just didn't, you know. And it is honestly all because I've been able to stick to habits. I mean, I really do believe that the decisions that we make on a day to day basis really do determine our success. And that doesn't mean monetarily it could and it probably, you know, after a while it can certainly. But really success is, in my opinion, it's how you feel, man. How do you feel? Right? Like you could be loaded to the gills and hate yourself. Is that success?

Ben Greenfield [00:53:30]: No, I don't think so. I would tack on that how you feel, how you make others feel, right? That's the deathbed moment. Like, did I love and was I loved? And yeah, I think that if you construct your life in such a way that you're maximizing your unique purpose to make maximum impact on this planet, whatever reason God has put you here and you're doing so in a spirit of loving other people, that love is going to come back to you. And honestly back to how you feel. Well, you might not be happy all the time, but you're at least going to feel fulfilled and pretty good most of the time. If you're loving and you're loved, that's 100%.

Michael Chernow [00:54:04]: I spent years looking for self love. I didn't know how to find it. I was stuck in my own way. And once I finally brought faith into my life in a real way and took some of the strain of the weight of the world off my shoulders and turned it over to my higher power and that, that's for me, it doesn't have to be for everybody, right? Like, you know, I do have a relationship with, with higher, with a higher power that, that I believe really does help me out. Really does, does look, look out for me if I, if I, if I offer myself and really look to be of service. And I've been able to create this life, man. And so I launched the business in August or early September of 2021. And it's kicking butt.

Michael Chernow [00:54:52]: We got some cool things coming down the pipe that I think you'd like. I'm gonna send you some of the new stuff that we got coming out.

Ben Greenfield [00:55:00]: Tell me Meatball oatmeal.

Michael Chernow [00:55:02]: It's meatball oatmeal, dude. How did you.

Ben Greenfield [00:55:05]: I'm in.

Michael Chernow [00:55:06]: But I guess this kind of leads me into, like, the morning routine stuff because.

Ben Greenfield [00:55:11]: Yeah, yeah, that's what I was going to ask. I mean, not only do I want to hear how you've woven faith into that, but, you know, with your, with your oatmeal queen spelled as a K, of course, kw. And your kids like how you're carving out time for family, too. Because when I heard some of your story, I felt like your routine could be super helpful for my listeners. So let's go through it.

Michael Chernow [00:55:34]: Again. I want to mention that this is not for everyone. My morning routine has taken years and years of trial and error to get to where it is today. And I also want to be clear, kind of touching on something that you said earlier. If you miss something, if you commit to doing something and you miss it, it's okay. If you miss it again, it's probably still okay. But if you get into the habit of missing it, that means that you're. You're not committed.

Michael Chernow [00:56:05]: Right. So I just want to, I want to, I want to say, if you like, I was just on vacation in Mexico. I didn't have access to all the, that I have at my house that I do every single day in my ideal world. And I didn't, I didn't beat myself up. I came home and I got right back to it because it's the lifestyle that I'm living. And I also want to say one last thing before I dive into the habit, into the morning routine. I kind of think of habits as three, three phase process. @ first, it's a chore.

Michael Chernow [00:56:34]: And that chore phase could be anywhere from two weeks to two months, depending on how hard this habit that you're trying to commit to is. Then it sort of graduates into, like a habit phase, which could be anywhere from a month to two years as a habit. Then, of course, once you get through this habit phase, it becomes part of your life. And it's like brushing your teeth.

Ben Greenfield [00:57:04]: Yeah. Yeah. I would probably throw one other thing in, and that's that we should have that big, giant red caution flag when we're talking about habits that sometimes they can cause what Napoleon Hill would define as a hypnotic trance, meaning that we can get so caught up, tied to and attached to our habits that they detract from us being able to serve other people and love other people. A perfect example of that would be for me and many of my followers and listeners because they originally discovered me through triathlon and in many cases, Ironman triathlon. And when you're preparing for an ironman, you develop this weekly routine of swimming on certain days, cycling on certain days, riding on certain days, core work and weight training on certain days, recovery days. And then you cross the finish line of your ironman and you did it and you're done. And you go back to your routine and you keep on exercising like a madman. Almost like you're addicted to swimming and biking and running.

Ben Greenfield [00:58:03]: I had like two years where I was like, I had to reprogram my brain. I'm not doing triathlons anymore. But hey, I got to go swim and Friday is my run day and Wednesday is my bike day. So understand that you do have to mentally be prepared for habits too. Adopt and change. I don't really like this phrase much, but I'm going to use it anyways when they're no longer serving you or more specifically, serving other people. So just because a habit is laudable, such as, say, exercise or a specific diet. Well, if your specific diet means you're not having dinner with the family, or your specific exercise routine means that you're neglecting faith or business or something else, then you may want to reconsider those habits.

Michael Chernow [00:58:41]: I could not agree more. I couldn't agree more. I think you said it perfectly. Don't allow your habits to inhibit you.

Ben Greenfield [00:58:49]: Right.

Michael Chernow [00:58:49]: Like positive habits should be positive for you and those around you. I've got a pretty structured, regimented evening routine, morning routine, and then I have a number of habits that I like to uphold throughout my day. My morning routine is I wake up at somewhere between 4:45 and 5:00am I've got an eight sleep mattress that warms me up starting at 4:45. And I'm typically eyes open by 4:46 to 4:58, something like that.

Ben Greenfield [00:59:22]: That warm water does a pretty good job. So I have the sleep me system. I don't really use the warm water function. I've thought about it though.

Michael Chernow [00:59:28]: Yeah, dude, I mean, without a doubt. And interestingly, I had the. Before that mattress, I had another one that didn't have that warm water function. And I still woke up because I, you know, I go to bed at the same time every night and I wake up. But I will say that that warm water function definitely is viable.

Ben Greenfield [00:59:53]: Yeah. Getting up that early. What time are you going to bed?

Michael Chernow [00:59:55]: Night before 9:30. Okay, 9:30.

Ben Greenfield [00:59:58]: So you're getting a decent amount of sleep. Are you doing any type of like nap or siesta later on in the day?

Michael Chernow [01:00:02]: I wish I could say I was. I'm not, I'm not. I'm getting. My sweet spot is seven hours. Typically that is my sweet spot. And on the weekends I actually give myself a little bit more time. So I will happily sleep until 6am so I'm getting that full 8. But anything north of 8 for me tends to make me a bit groggy.

Michael Chernow [01:00:22]: So seven and a half is like perfection. Perfection. 9:30 to five is like really, really good for me. And so what I do every single morning, first thing when I know that I'm awake is I flip back my sleep mask. I've got an amazing sleep mask that I love. I flip that mask back, I open my eyes, I look up at the ceiling and I smile from ear to ear. And it sounds cheesy, sounds corny.

Ben Greenfield [01:00:50]: I love it.

Michael Chernow [01:00:51]: I smile from ear to ear like shit eating grin. Pearly whites like this. If anybody's watching, you'll see how ridiculous this looks. But this is what my smile looks like in the morning.

Ben Greenfield [01:01:01]: Full blown.

Michael Chernow [01:01:04]: And I hold it for about 15, 20 seconds. I go right into gratitude immediately. I love my wife, I love my kids. I love my house. I'm so grateful for this bed. I love my truck. I love my work. I love being able to help people.

Michael Chernow [01:01:17]: I love when people help me. I live a great life. I'm so grateful for my life. I go right into this like gratitude, boom. Immediately. Why? Yeah, why do I do it? I do it because I, like most human beings, wake up with anxiety, wake up with the oh, damns. And I learned from a friend who actually came on my podcast a number of years ago that smiling first thing in the morning really does release serotonin and those good feeling hormones into the system immediately. And if you hold it specifically.

Ben Greenfield [01:01:53]: It.

Michael Chernow [01:01:53]: Really does bring you into this warm, cozy, comfy place and happy place.

Ben Greenfield [01:01:58]: And so I hope that smile action, action creates emotion. Action creates motivation. Right? It's the same reason that people will sometimes do power poses before they go step on stage. And the same reason that if you frown, it can literally decrease your spirits. And even if you aren't happy already, smiling can make you happy. It's a cool little loop. And then the gratitude thing, by the way, so many people talk about, but I don't think a lot of people intentionally do it. I've even gotten on this kick lately.

Ben Greenfield [01:02:30]: I do this with my son sometimes. Also, there's a few different breathwork apps that we use, but there's one called Other Shift and they have a 14 minute. It's kind of like two, three minutes of Wim Hof style breathing. And then you're dwelling upon something you're grateful for during the long exhale, and then you do that two more times. So you got three different things you're grateful for. Then you set an intention for the day and go on with your day. And you'd think, just thinking at some point, I don't know, before breakfast or whatever, what am I grateful for? Would work, but when it's like part of your routine and intentional and scheduled, makes a massive difference. I don't know why.

Ben Greenfield [01:03:02]: There's just something magical about it.

Michael Chernow [01:03:04]: It's been something that I've been doing for a while. I can honestly say it's the easiest habit that anybody listening to this podcast can implement that will make a massive impact on your life, period. I just, you know, like, I. It is so easy, it's uncomfortable. I'm going to be very clear here. It feels awkward. One of the coolest things about it, though, is that if you, if you become. If you open, if you're open to it and you try it, you actually give it a shot consistently.

Michael Chernow [01:03:32]: Try it for 30 days. The way I can promise you that you can, you will know it's working is when you're doing it, smile ear to ear, pearly whites for 10 seconds and then stop smiling and see how you feel. Try that right now, listening to this podcast, hold a smile for 10 seconds and then just stop smiling and feel the difference in the energy. It's crazy.

Ben Greenfield [01:04:01]: I'm doing it. Yeah.

Michael Chernow [01:04:03]: And now stop talking.

Ben Greenfield [01:04:06]: Okay. Yeah. You feel that little rush. The other cool thing about the gratefulness is you can use it as manifestation. I didn't do this, but I will do things like this often. I could have woken up this morning and during my gratitude practice said, I'm grateful that Michael and I had a fantastic conversation, or I'm grateful that Michael and I are going to have a fantastic conversation. You can be grateful for something that hasn't occurred yet and that also, you know, I'm not one of those magical. Speaking of Napoleon Hill, you know, the secret type of guys who face a Ferrari on my Bathroom window or something like that or my bathroom mirror.

Ben Greenfield [01:04:39]: But I do think there's power to using gratitude for manifestation also.

Michael Chernow [01:04:43]: Well, I'm going to get into that because that's part of my stuff. All right, so I do the smile. I do the smile first thing in the morning and I pop out of bed with intention. I do not like hang out there. You know, I am lying down when I'm smiling but as soon as I'm done smiling I pop up, I throw my feet down on the ground and I get out of bed with intention. And I'm like pretty fired up at this point because I'm stoked. Some mornings I get an out loud laugh because it's so ridiculous that I'm holding this smile. I kind of think about if somebody were to see me doing this, it'd be kind of be pretty freaking weird.

Michael Chernow [01:05:14]: And so it makes me almost laugh, which is even better if I can get a little out loud laugh. Now my wife doesn't wake up early. My wife doesn't do any of the stuff that I'm talking about now. So I have to kind of sneak out of our bedroom.

Ben Greenfield [01:05:24]: Same, same go, same boat. Yeah, I'm right there with you. She doesn't do anything. I do. And she's usually been to like.

Michael Chernow [01:05:30]: And when I try to convince you.

Ben Greenfield [01:05:31]: And I'm up at 4:30, I'm like.

Michael Chernow [01:05:33]: Babe, you know, she's like, you know, I mean the one thing that she does love is the blackout curtains. She loves the blackout curtains, she loves the white noise. And that's about it.

Ben Greenfield [01:05:43]: If I want my wife to adopt a habit, I go talk to one of my friends or her friends to tell her about this cool thing she should be doing. And then she starts doing it. She hears it from me or sees me doing it.

Michael Chernow [01:05:51]: It's not going to happen 100%. So I sneak out and I head down to the kitchen where I have a pre made jar of water with element. I love element tea. I used to do salt, pink salt and lemon juice. Now I just, I throw an element tea in there and I, and I pound that. It's about 24 ounces of water. First thing, room temp. And then I head into the bathroom.

Michael Chernow [01:06:18]: For years when I was competing in bodybuilding I would not drink water first. I would go step on the scale to check my daily weight dry. But now I'm not competing in bodybuilding so I don't do that anymore. I rarely step on the scale. I go into the bathroom, I take a piss and I splash Some cold water on my face, and then I hit my knees. I say my prayers. I've got a morning prayer that I've been saying for the better part of 18 years, if not a little longer. And that prayer consists of asking for nothing for myself.

Michael Chernow [01:06:51]: That prayer is asking for help and guidance. And I pray for everyone I love and everyone who I struggle with. And I want nothing but awesomeness for everyone in my life. And what I learned about doing that is, you know, resentment is really a shitty place. Resentment sucks. It's dark, it's ugly. And the only person that really is affected by a resentment is the person that's resentful. So somebody taught me early on that if I said people's names that I was beginning to develop a resentment towards in my morning prayers and asked my higher power God to bring awesomeness to their life, to bring positivity into their life, I was now incorporating that person's name in a positive, really, really intimate, positive way.

Michael Chernow [01:07:34]: And those resentments started to melt. And so I do that every morning now.

Ben Greenfield [01:07:39]: Yeah, I think, by the way, prayer is a habit. This is something that you see a lot coming from the Eastern Orthodox Church, who adopted this habit from a lot of the early Christian desert mothers and fathers. You'll see it in Catholicism, a little bit more too, than evangelical Christianity, but using something like the Jesus prayer, oh Lord Jesus God, or oh Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And they'll do that like 100 times during the day and often use a bracelet or necklace and slide the bead every time that that prayer is done. And even though I don't pray a prayer like that 100 times a day, I think that setting up your day and this is key for habits so that there are cues for prayer. So I have a prayer that I do every time I jump in the cold pool. I have a prayer that I do every time I finish up a breathwork session in the sauna. I have a book of puritan prayers on the coffee table in the living room.

Ben Greenfield [01:08:34]: And it's one prayer from that every day after family devotions. Always a prayer last thing when the head hits the pillow at night with my wife, One prayer before breakfast, one prayer before lunch, one prayer before dinner. And so structuring the day so that you have these brief prayer pauses. Because, honestly, I get guilted sometimes when some of my pastors, or, I don't know, whatever you want to call them, hyper spiritual friends talk about these like 30 to 40 minute prayer sessions that they do in the Morning I'm like, I do have some, like, prayer is great, but I have other things to do also. But doing like that, almost like doing mini workout snacks throughout the day. This idea of setting up your day, there are certain cues, the cold pool, the meal, the pillow, et cetera, that just call to you to pray, I think is a really, really cool way to maintain that connection to God throughout the full 12, 16 hours you're awake.

Michael Chernow [01:09:26]: I couldn't agree more. I mean, I certainly, you know, I use the serenity prayer and that came from recovery, but I use a serenity prayer multiple times a day in my head when necessary. After I do my prayer, my prayer typically is somewhere between three and five minutes, depending on how many people I'm praying for. And then I go right into push ups. So I'll do 50 pushups every morning, straight, full, chest to floor push ups. And then I go into my morning stretch practice, which is not long, but it's typically a blend of down dog, up dog, cat, cow, stretching out my shoulders. And I'll do that for about five to seven minutes. And at that point I'm prepping my red light panel.

Michael Chernow [01:10:13]: I go right into red light and I sit in front of the red light for 20 minutes and I alternate front of the body, back of the body every other day. And that's where I do my breath work.

Ben Greenfield [01:10:23]: You got to get the double panels, by the way, man. Saves time. I sandwich myself in between two of them. Now it's kind of funny, same thing for me, the stretching. I set my clock and I give myself, depending on how busy the morning is, either 10 or 15 minutes. And that's my free time to use foam roller, lacrosse ball stretch, yoga poses, anything to basically get the body put together at the beginning of the day. And usually I listen to my Bible reading during the time that I'm doing that. By the end of the week, I've typically amassed 75 to 90 minutes of deep tissue work and stretching.

Ben Greenfield [01:10:55]: Even if I don't get a massage or go to a yoga session, I think it's key. I wish more people would do the morning stretching, morning foam rolling thing.

Michael Chernow [01:11:02]: The coolest thing about what you just said, and also for me, is that I like to double task when I'm doing these things. So when I'm doing my red light, I'm doing breath work, right? I double it up. And so I'll do that for 20 minutes. And then I walk out of the guest bedroom where my red light panel is, and I start heading over to my sauna and I hop into the sauna. Sauna is an infrared sauna. I wish it got hotter than it does, but it sits at about 175 degrees. And I sit in there and that's where I get done my meditating and my reading. And so I will meditate for somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes on average every day.

Michael Chernow [01:11:50]: And then I try to read 10 pages of a book every morning. And then I hang over. So I don't know if you've ever done Rolfing, but I did like a pretty extensive.

Ben Greenfield [01:12:02]: Unfortunately, yes.

Michael Chernow [01:12:05]: This Rolfer that I worked with basically told me that I need to start. Like she said something to me that just stuck. She was like, you need to stack your bones. You don't stack your bones. When you stand up, your feet are wide and you have like a wide stance. You know, it's kind of like shoulder widths apart. Your feet should really be underneath your hips at all times. That is where your feet should be so that you're using your bones for what they were built for and not creating like weird muscle in places that are unnecessary.

Michael Chernow [01:12:39]: So she also told me that she wanted me to hang over my legs like rag doll style from for three minutes every single day. So once I'm done reading, I put my feet pretty close together about hips width apart, a little less than hips width ap. And then I just ragged all over my legs for three minutes. And that's when I start the negotiation of my cold plunge. That's where the negotiation starts to happen.

Ben Greenfield [01:13:03]: The resistance that's in. By the way, what time in the morning is that by this time? Just so folks are on track 30, something like that.

Michael Chernow [01:13:11]: No, this time is about. I'm in the sauna about 550. 555? Yeah, yeah, about. I'm getting into the cold plunge at 6:30 every morning.

Ben Greenfield [01:13:23]: Okay.

Michael Chernow [01:13:24]: And that was good, Ben. That was good, man.

Ben Greenfield [01:13:28]: I'm tracking together.

Michael Chernow [01:13:31]: Cold plunge with a K. Cold with a K. And so that's where the negotiation happens. It happens every morning. That's the truth, man. I'm still in the almost sure phase. And I've been cold plunging for a long time, but. But cold plunging no matter what.

Michael Chernow [01:13:47]: And maybe some people are just like super fired up to get into that cold water. I do it every day. I never allow the negative voice in my head that tells me definitely don't do this to win. I always fight that guy back. But I still negotiate. I still have the negotiation. I kind of find it comedic a little bit.

Ben Greenfield [01:14:05]: It never goes away. I've been doing the cold plunges for 10 years. The only time I don't have the cognitive resistance is if I've just finished a sauna session. Then the cold plunge is easy. But besides that. Now, granted, my cold plunge is either after my morning sauna session and, or in the afternoon as my, like, wake me up and get me going to last all the way through dinner type of quick excitatory event. But, yeah, the resistance never goes away. If the resistance went away ever, the cold plunge would probably quit being useful.

Michael Chernow [01:14:38]: Yeah, yeah. No, I think I really do love the. I love the negotiation. And I, you know, and I, and I, and I hop in there. I've evolved my cold plunge game over the years. You know, it went from a trough with ice to a chest freezer to now a tub that stays cold, that's got, like, circulation and the whole thing. And so it's made it so easy.

Ben Greenfield [01:15:06]: It's fancier and fancier.

Michael Chernow [01:15:08]: Yeah. And so I just open that bad boy up and I, and I, I do a little breath work, like, you know, like a 30 second sort of Wim Hof style breathwork sesh. And then I just pop in there and I, I dunk under and I sit in that thing up to my, up to my, my, my, my chin, and I hang out in the cold plunge for about four minutes on average. I'd say anywhere from three to five minutes. But I average out about four minutes. It's about 30 long, slow breaths. You know, it's weird. I've got this thing with my hands.

Michael Chernow [01:15:41]: My knuckles, and my hands always sort of seize up about a minute.

Ben Greenfield [01:15:46]: Is it like a Raynaud's thing or.

Michael Chernow [01:15:48]: Huh?

Ben Greenfield [01:15:49]: Is it like a Raynaud's thing?

Michael Chernow [01:15:51]: Yep, I've got Raynaud's.

Ben Greenfield [01:15:52]: Yeah.

Michael Chernow [01:15:53]: Yep.

Ben Greenfield [01:15:53]: Yeah. Have you tried sublingual nitric oxide tablets, by the way?

Michael Chernow [01:15:57]: No. Please tell me.

Ben Greenfield [01:16:00]: Dr. Nathan Bryant. I think his brand. I'll hunt him down. Link to him in the show notes. I think it's N101. You dissolve them under your mouth. They're kind of like Viagra, except it's nitric oxide.

Ben Greenfield [01:16:10]: You don't need a prescription for it. And the amount of blood flow you get from those can help out a ton with the vasoconstriction that can contribute to the Raynaud's.

Michael Chernow [01:16:20]: Yeah, I've got bad Raynaud's, unfortunately.

Ben Greenfield [01:16:22]: Yeah.

Michael Chernow [01:16:23]: So I get that at my 15th breath. My joints open up and it's easy breezy. From there. I've got to really power through the pain of my. Of My knuckles, in my feet, in my hands season up. And then I hang out in there. And then this is sort of the way I kind of cap off my morning routine. And I love this one.

Michael Chernow [01:16:47]: So I get out of the cold plunge. I feel like a bazillion dollars. I've really just stacked up a bunch of awesome things that I love doing that I really do believe make me feel great. And my family is still asleep, so I'm not like, sacrificing time with my wife and kids for this. I get out of the cold plunge and I walk over to the mirror, and I don't have, like a long list of affirmations that I don't tell myself that I'm going to be a billionaire. I don't tell myself I'm the best guy in the world. I don't tell myself that I'm something I'm not. I literally just walk over to the mirror, I look at myself in the eyes, really.

Michael Chernow [01:17:24]: I make, like, very, very strong eye contact with myself. I smile and I say, you're a good dude, Mike. You're a good dude. You're a good man, and you love your children, you love your wife, and they love you back. And you're going to have a great day. You're going to have a great day, man. That's it.

Ben Greenfield [01:17:42]: It's a little Stuart Smalleyesque dude, but I like it.

Michael Chernow [01:17:45]: Yeah. So I do that, and then I head out back into the house. That stuff all happens in my garage. I used to invert on my INV after the Cold Plunge. But, you know, I did it for a little while, it just didn't stick. And so I kind of invert on the weekends because I do really like the inversion table, but I don't do it on. On a daily anymore. And then I head back into the kitchen.

Michael Chernow [01:18:10]: If my kids and my wife are awake, I. I go right into family mode. And it's all about them for the next hour, an hour and a half. If they're still sleeping, I'll bust out my journal and I'll. And I'll do a quick journal entry. I do have an awesome journal practice that I love. I've made my own journal that I sell through Creatures of Habit. I really think it's a great journal.

Ben Greenfield [01:18:35]: What's your journal called?

Michael Chernow [01:18:36]: It's called the Habit Stacker. Creatures of Habit Journal. It's on the website.

Ben Greenfield [01:18:41]: We should trade journals. I did one called the Spiritual Disciplines Journal, but I'm constantly experimenting with new journals. I kind of got a sick of Mine after three years. Not that it's a bad journal, but I like to, I like to check out other journals as well.

Michael Chernow [01:18:54]: Yeah, I basically took like, I took like the greatest hits from all the journals that I've used over the years. The things that I actually, you know, like there's, I think that, that when you get these sort of prompt, promptive journals, there's some things that you just do and then there's other things that you just don't do. And so like I just started taking note of the things that I don't do and, and, and the things that I do do. I, you know, I just added to this journal and I made sure to not do the things that I don't do. And it really. The thing that I love most about my journal is, or just journaling in general is writing out my day. You know, if I can rely on my journal for my, my day as opposed to my phone, I'm in a much better place because every time I look at that thing, I'm distracted in 14 different ways. So it's a, it's a, it's a journal on a planner and it asks some really, you know, very relevant questions and then it gives you an opportunity to.

Michael Chernow [01:19:51]: Free flow. Free flow, right. So I'll do that either before the kids get up or if they do get up, if they're up or if they're getting up right when I get into the kitchen and the, and you know, and the, and the breakfast area, I will, I'll just hang with them and then I'll do journaling right when I get to my desk in the morning. And so I do that.

Ben Greenfield [01:20:12]: You've gotten a lot in before the family even. Even gets up.

Michael Chernow [01:20:15]: Oh yeah.

Ben Greenfield [01:20:16]: Now I should mention here I'm embarrassed because I just looked at the clock and I have like four minutes until I'm coming up on my hard stop. And we've gotten like into your like mid morning ish so far. So I sometimes do this with guests and I don't know how you would feel about this, but what would you think about recording the rest of your day? And I'll continue to put it in here, right here where I have to hop off pretty soon for my next show. But we could basically put your mid morning up to your evening routine in so we can keep going because I don't want to leave people hanging about the routine. But we just had such a fascinating discussion leading up to it that I also want to rush through it.

Michael Chernow [01:21:02]: Totally, dude. Let's do it.

Ben Greenfield [01:21:04]: Oh okay, Sweet. All right, so folks, if you're listening in, and I won't even edit this part out because honestly, I just want to be hyper transparent with everybody. I just did a really bad job watching the clock, and we were having such a fun discussion early on. We aren't getting into his afternoon routine quite yet. But you have some things that I know that I've heard you talk about before, Michael, such as when you shut down at the end of the day and how you structure that so that you're able to be a present family person during the day, some of your workplace habits, some of the things you do throughout the afternoon. So a. What I'll convince Michael to do for those of you listening in is he'll just record a little bit more audio for you guys to be able to go through the afternoon and evening routine. The other thing is this oatmeal.

Ben Greenfield [01:21:47]: I believe that Michael gave us a discount code on it that's like 20% or something so far. I really dig the peanut butter banana. But if you guys want the oatmeal, you go to the show [email protected] Chernow I highly recommend you do the overnight version because it's pretty amazing. If you have questions, comments, feedback from Michael or I, your own little routines or habits to add, go to BenGreenfieldLife.comChernow C H E R N O W and we'll put him in there. And I just, I'm fascinated with Michael and what he's up to. He's got a podcast called Creatures of Habit as well. So go to the comments section with a K K O M M and leave your feedback. And Michael, dude, I almost thought, well, let's just do a round two.

Ben Greenfield [01:22:35]: But I know that means we'll be booking in September and I want to get this. I want to get this out to people sooner than that. So let's just keep it rolling with you tacking a little solo so here on the end and we'll give people a fantastic show.

Michael Chernow [01:22:47]: My brother, I really appreciate you taking the time. This is awesome. Ben.

Ben Greenfield [01:22:52]: Oh, yeah, it's been great chat and we'll keep in touch for sure. I'm going to email you afterwards. I want to send you my spiritual disciplines journal and my cookbook, and I want to trade that for your journal and your meatball book. What do you think?

Michael Chernow [01:23:03]: That sounds like a good. That sounds like a good swap. I also want to try your protein bars, man. I want to try your protein bars.

Ben Greenfield [01:23:09]: Oh, yeah. Okay. I'll Hook you up. I know a guy. They would taste amazing chopped up and sprinkled over the oatmeal for a little crunch. Those Keon cream bars. Yeah, I'll get you. The new formulation just came out.

Ben Greenfield [01:23:21]: It's like a Rice Krispie upgrade, so you're gonna love it.

Michael Chernow [01:23:24]: Sweet.

Ben Greenfield [01:23:25]: All right, folks, Michael will keep going. Thanks for listening again. The show notes are at BenGreenfieldLife.com C H E R N O W All.

Michael Chernow [01:23:37]: Right, so this is Mike Chernell solo casting the rest of this episode. So we ended up with me walking back into the kitchen where either my kids and my wife are awake or just getting up, or if not, I do take that, whatever it is, five to 10 minutes to bust out my journal, light a candle, and get my journal entry in for the day. However, if my wife and kids are awake or about to get up because I can hear them upstairs, I will not do journaling. Then I will wait till I get to my office, and that's when I open up my journal. So let's just say wife and kids are up. I make my way in. I give my kids and my wife a hug and a kiss for the morning. I.

Michael Chernow [01:24:29]: At this point, I am, like, on fire. I'm so. I'm. I'm fired up with all the. That I just did most days. I mean, of course, there are some days, like, I'm a human being. We're just like. Even though I've just done a long list of awesome habits that are there to make me feel great, I can still be pretty, you know, bummed out or in a.

Michael Chernow [01:24:47]: In a shitty place. I'm human, right? Like, things happen. But most of the time, I'd say 85, 90% of the time, I'm fired up and ready to take on the day in, like, the best possible way. I love my family, with my kids. And that's when I walk over to my tea kettle and I put on some hot water, I grind my coffee beans, and I bust out my pour over coffee chemix maker thing. And I make my coffee. I roast my coffee nice and slow in my coffee. I put collagen peptides, and I put a little bit of MCT oil powder.

Michael Chernow [01:25:28]: And then I also put in this little packet of something from this company that I love called Mind Right. It's this coffee enhancer, this nootropic mind Right thing. I love it. I put it into my coffee pretty much every morning and I make myself a cup of coffee and I grab my coffee. I grab a little bit More water. And I sit down with the kids and the wife while they're having breakfast. I do intermittent fast most days and so I just hang with them. And it's all family time in the morning from 6:30 till about 8am where either I take my wife and kids, I take my kids to school, or my wife will take them.

Michael Chernow [01:26:03]: We switch on and off every other day. If she takes them, I right when they leave the house I bust out my computer and I will work from home for about an hour and a half. And that's my time to really just get done like major things that I know need to happen throughout the day, like for the day, right? Like that's like big emails that need to go out. Those are, you know, just, just really important things that I just have to, I have to make sure that I am either starting or getting done to kick kickstart the day. And then at about 9:25, I prep my stuff for the day and that is I bring out my overnight oats, my meal one from creatures of habit. I put that in my bag, I pull it out of the fridge, I throw it in my bag. I make all of my lunches the night before as well. So I bust out my, my lunch from the night before, I put that in my bag.

Michael Chernow [01:27:04]: I bring my can of sardines in my bag and I bring a. I love this, I love this slate milk stuff as my, as another snack that I have every day. Then I always typically have a meat stick of some sort in my bag and that's what I put in my bag. I put my workout stuff and I get in my truck and I leave to go to the gym. And I train CrossFit these days I'm training from 10am till about 11:15. And then right after I get done training CrossFit I hop back into my truck and I immediately eat my meal 1. I eat it in the truck almost every single morning. I love it, I crave it.

Michael Chernow [01:27:45]: I, it's, I'm, I, it is like the best thing to put into my body every single day to start my day nutritionally. So at about 11:20 is when I eat my first meal. It is always meal one. And the only time where I really have meal one before I work out is if I'm doing like a super heavy lifting day. I will eat meal one around 8 o' clock or 7:30, 8 o' clock in the morning at home if I know that I've got like a super duper heavy lifting day where I just want to have Those extra carbs in there to help me get through like a super heavy lift. But most days I am eating meal one as my first meal to break my fast at around 11:20, 11:30, at which point I drive right to the office. I'm at my office by 11:30 most days and that's when I, if I hadn't journaled in the morning, that's when I'll bust out my journal. I'll journal for about 10 minutes and then I have a block of time from 11:30 to 3:30 where I'm uninterrupted work time.

Michael Chernow [01:28:43]: And that is a block where it's like a four hour block of time where I am able to get done all the things that I need to get done that I write down in my journal. All my, my to do list. That's like where I'm knocking things off the list. And I try not to take meetings in that time. I really try to, to, to take my meetings for an hour and a half to two hours a day between 3:30 and 5:30. That is really the time block meeting time for me because I feel like meetings can really get in the way of getting things done. So I try to really limit my meetings for an hour and a half to an hour and a half a day, if any at all. Right.

Michael Chernow [01:29:23]: I do believe in communication. I think communication is so key and crucial to happiness and success. However, I do think that people tend to take way more meetings than are necessary. And so I try not to take as many meetings as I used to. So, so here I am, I'm at the desk, I am journaling and then I am, I'm cranking things off the to do list. That's really my time to crank things off the to do list. And you know, then I do that till 3:30. Then I typically have a few meetings between 3:30 and 5:30, at which point at 5:30 I.

Michael Chernow [01:29:56]: This is a very strong and hard boundary. I shut my computer. Doesn't matter what's going on, I shut my computer, I pack my bag, I clean. There's a, there's a habit that I want to share with you guys that I think is also really important. Something I forgot at first, but I'll share this one before I share the one that I just forgot. Every single day when I leave the office, I clean this room and my desk so it's immaculate. I want it to be spotless clean. And the reason why I do that is because I really do believe that environments impact how we feel.

Michael Chernow [01:30:38]: Our environments impact how we feel. So if I were to walk into my office every day and my desk was kind of a mess, it's going to make. It's going to make me feel a bit chaotic. It's going to make me feel a bit messy. And I don't want to feel messy. I want to be, like, organized and on top of my stuff. And so every single day I clean my desk. I've used that habit, I call it leave it the way you want to find it.

Michael Chernow [01:31:02]: I. I have, have parlayed that habit into every other area of my life. So I have a home gym. When I lift at home, when I work out at home, that gym, everything is put back perfectly. So the next time I walk into that gym, I am so happy that it's clean and neat and nice and I don't feel at all chaotic. I do the same thing with my bathroom. I do the same thing with my closet. You know, like, there's this, there's this thing where, where you know people's closets, right? Like, it takes 30 seconds, if not less, when you take your clothes off at night before you go to bed to like, fold up your pants or, you know, hang your T shirt or hang your hoodie.

Michael Chernow [01:31:43]: You know, you could also just throw it on the ground and like, create a mess in a pile, and that pile just grows. Or you can just take like the 20 seconds to fold up your stuff and put them away properly. So, you know, like I typically say, like, you open up someone's closet, you know what that closet looks like, tends to paint a picture of what's going on in that person's brain, that person's head. I like to just keep it. I really do like to set myself up for success in every possible way. So cleaning up after myself, doing the dishes while I'm cooking dinner, not like waiting till dinner's over to have a big stack, a pile of dishes. I kind of like, do the dishes while I'm cooking so that when I'm done with dinner, I don't have like a big pile of dishes to do. And, and so that's what I do at the office when I leave at 5:30, but also when I get to the office every morning at around 11:30, it is really important for me to set the environment.

Michael Chernow [01:32:37]: I, you know, I'm walking in, the room is clean, my desk is awesome. I light a candle and I put on some light music, put on some music that I'm really like, I'm stoked to listen to whether that's like super calm, you know, classical music or some like, like ambient or some trip hop or, you know, some days I want to fire it up a little bit and I'll listen to something a little bit more upbeat. But I, but I really do like to have music on in the background. I really love music and sometimes if I got major focused stuff to do, I do listen to 40 MHz, like bionic sounds or whatever that stuff is called. I like that stuff if I'm really in a need to focus. Additionally, you know, I always wear blue light blocking glasses when I work on the computer. You know, I, I, I, I try to, like I said, I try to optimize. So you know, any opportunity I get to like not mess with my circadian rhythm, not send any unnecessary signals to my brain.

Michael Chernow [01:33:34]: I try not to. So I do wear blue light blocking glasses pretty much all day when I'm staring at the computer and I get a bunch of work done at 5:30, I close the computer, I pack my bag, I get into my truck and I drive home. Now this is a relatively new habit that I've started probably about a nine months to a year ago. And it was basically I, I, Energy is a real thing. Energy is a real thing. And energy from work, even though I'm, I'm typically working alone by myself, you know, my whole entire company is remote. So everybody is like doing their own thing in different places around the country. There's still that energy, that intense energy of running a company, being a CEO of a company.

Michael Chernow [01:34:22]: And I don't want to bring that intense energy home to my wife and my kids. I just don't, I'm very, very cognizant of energy. And there was a day about a year ago where I was not doing what I'm about to tell you that I do now. And I walked into the house and I had my phone in my hand and my older son looked at me and was saying, dad, dad, you know, hey, can you help me? Like right away he wanted me to help him with something and I just had this intense energy and I said, hey dude, don't you. I just got home and it was just this energy that was like so unnecessary to bring into his life, bring into his world. I think we really overlook that. And he didn't like it. I saw it in his face.

Michael Chernow [01:35:09]: It was really like, I hope it wasn't, you know, like a traumatic situation for him. But he really didn't like it. He got really sad and it made me really sad and I couldn't believe that it. That, like, it was a little thing, but you don't realize how these little things can make big impacts at times in your life. Anyway, so what I started to do from that day forward was I would pull my truck into my driveway, and I wouldn't pull all the way up to the top of the driveway. I would stop halfway up, turn the car off. It's about 5,55. I turn the car off, I put my hands and my arms on my.

Michael Chernow [01:35:45]: On my quads, on my thighs. Sitting in my seat, I close my eyes, and I go through a breathwork exercise that is one of two things. It's either box breathing, where I'm breathing in through my nose for four seconds, holding the breath at the top for four seconds, out through my mouth for four seconds, and holding the breath at the bottom for four seconds. And I'll do that for 10, 20 rounds sometimes to really bring myself back to baseline. Or I'll do another breath exercise, which is a little bit more intense, which is a double inhale through my nose. Kind of looks like and sounds like this. So I'll fill my stomach up pretty, pretty quickly with air, and then once my stomach is filled up, I'll fire up another breath of air that'll. That'll go into my chest and sort of like, fill me up pretty quick.

Michael Chernow [01:36:31]: It's not like a long, slow bre. It's like a pretty intense breath. And then I will very, very, very slowly allow that breath to exhale. Sometimes 15, 20 seconds it'll take to exhale. But it sounds like this. You get the point. I will do that 10 times. Even that one time, me doing it right now, recording this, I've, like, felt something different.

Michael Chernow [01:37:05]: So it's very impactful. What does that do for me? That clearly, clearly separates and delineates the energy from work to the energy that I want to have with my family, which is pretty much baseline energy. The energy that I'm waking up with is like my baseline energy, right? Like, that's where I want to be. And that breath work really allows me to get there pretty quickly within, you know, three, four, or five minutes of. Of doing that breath work. So that by the time I am walking into my house, I'm in a totally different headspace than when I pulled into my driveway. And I do that every single day. And it gives me an opportunity to be way more present.

Michael Chernow [01:37:50]: I walk into the house, I put my phone into airplane mode. I put it face down on the kitchen counter, kind of like, tucked away in the corner, and I Don't think about or look at my phone for at least two hours. Most of the time, two and a half hours from 6 to 8:30 is all family. We sit down. My wife is like, my wife is European, she's Danish, she's hardcore. She's very structured. And at six o' clock every single day, Monday through Friday, she has cooked dinner. She's an amazing cook.

Michael Chernow [01:38:22]: And so I always look forward to like a cooked awesome meal waiting for, for, for the family to sit down and devour and enjoy together. And we pretty much sit down at the table as a family every single night. I can't remember the last time we didn't have dinner together at the dinner table. I can, I can't count on one hand the amount of times I had dinner with my family as a kid growing up. I literally can't count on one, on one hand the amount of times it happened. So this is like a new thing for me. Having dinner with the family every single night. It's so wonderful.

Michael Chernow [01:38:57]: I am so grateful that my wife brought that to my, into my life. And I mean, I'm so grateful for my wife for so many things. But really, that's such a special thing to sit down the dinner table and have dinner as a family every single night. And the food is always delicious. And what we do as a family every single night around the table is it always starts. My son Finn always sits on my left and, and I say, all right, guys, let me hear it. And we do rose, bud. We do Rose, Thorn, Bud and seed.

Michael Chernow [01:39:26]: Rose is one thing that you loved about your day. Thorn is one thing that you didn't love about your day. Bud is something that you're really looking forward to. And seed is something that you did to be of service and help someone else out today. And so we all go around the table and we tell our Rose, Thorn, Bud and Seed. And it's fun. It makes you, makes all of us think about our day, reflect on our day. I think that's the beauty of, of that tradition that churn out tradition is like, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a cool way to connect with the family, but it also really gives you an opportunity to, like, think back on your day, reflect on your day.

Michael Chernow [01:40:02]: How often are you doing that? Like, how often does awesome, do awesome things happen throughout your day and you just don't take the time to appreciate them? How often do things that are not awesome happen and you beat yourself up, up about them and instead of thinking about them In a proactive, positive way. Like, hey, that wasn't awesome. Like, that was something that happened. That wasn't awesome. I wonder how I can be better there as opposed to, like, I suck. And so, so we do that and then we have dinner. It's typically, you know, 30 to 40 minutes. We're eating dinner together and then after dinner we try to play a game.

Michael Chernow [01:40:37]: And we have this game that we really love. It's called the Animal game. My younger son, Dakota typically jumps on my wife's lap. My older son Finn jumps on my lap. And then we, you know, we go back and forth and we come up with an animal and the other person, the other team has to guess what the animal is by asking a whole bunch of questions. And it's just super fun. And we do that for a while and then sometimes we'll bust out some Yahtzee or we'll play some Monopoly. But we typically play games at the dinner table for, for about, you know, 30, 40ish minutes, at which point it's around 7, 7:05.

Michael Chernow [01:41:10]: And my wife and I go back and forth with the kids who, who puts them down. I love putting my kids down. You know, my wife gets more nights down because they really do love when she puts them. They're, you know, they're, they're their mom's boys. So, you know, but, but we, on average, we switch on and off every night. And, and so we put the boy, you know, when I put the boys down, I've got a pretty awesome nightly routine that I do with them that I love more than anything. Makes me emotional just talking about it. But we go upstairs, we brush teeth together.

Michael Chernow [01:41:46]: I, I, I, I make them compete against each other. They actually love it. But I basically, you know, it's like a, it's a, it's a toothbrush off. And I give them 60 seconds and I count from 60 down to one, and whoever brushes their teeth best is the winner. There's, it's always a tie. Every night. It's a tie always. But they still compete hard.

Michael Chernow [01:42:07]: They brush their teeth like animals. And it's really funny. I've actually taken some videos and posted about it because it's just so funny. I like, announce them and they walk into the bathroom as like wrestlers. It's really, it's great. Anybody looking for a way to get their kids excited about brushing their teeth, you should try it. We brush teeth, they both take a piss. And then I walk them into their, into their bedroom.

Michael Chernow [01:42:29]: They share a bedroom. And we get down on the Floor. We get super cozy and we. I read, I read to them for. I read two books or I read paragraphs. I mean, chapters of two books or two short books. And then, and then, you know, they give me a hug and a kiss and they crawl into their beds. And then we have the 13 things.

Michael Chernow [01:42:50]: And the 13 things are what. What I've been saying to my boys since they're born. Them, both of them, every night that I put them down. And they know them by heart and their values that I am super passionate about that I think really do have helped shape me as a man and a human. And I want to give them. To give it to them. So every night they. I say, all right guys, let me get them.

Michael Chernow [01:43:11]: And they'll go back to back. And the, the. The 13 things are always protect your brother. Ladies always go first. Squeeze an eyes. Remember people's names and squeeze and eyes is handshake. When you give somebody a handshake, you give them a nice squeeze and you make eye contact. So squeeze and eyes remember people's names.

Michael Chernow [01:43:29]: Lift up the toilet seat when you need to go to the bathroom and put the toilet seat back down when you're done. Always wash your hands. Look to the left when you're crossing the road. Look to the right when you're crossing the road. Highness always wins. Be kind to mommy when daddy's away. Always walk with courage and I love you. And Those are the 13 things that my boys and I say to each other every single night when I put them down.

Michael Chernow [01:43:50]: And then I say to them, hey, guys, you know you can be anything you want to be when you grow up and your dad's going to support you. You don't have to be the best at them, but you should try your best. And what's it going to take? And then they say back to me, courage. My younger son says, courage. Courage. Courage. My older son just says, courage. And then I say, what is courage, dudes? And they say, being scared and doing it anyway, as long as it's for the good.

Michael Chernow [01:44:17]: And then I say, all right, boys, I love you to death. I sing them two songs and the song that I always sing is Stand By Me. Every single night I sing Stand By Me. And then I hang out in there for about five minutes. I do some. Some PT stretches and exercises that I've been prescribed from my physical therapist for my lower back stuff while they're passing, passing out. And then I go downstairs and I make myself the smoothie that I have. Typically every night at around 8 o' clock, 7:45, 8 o'.

Michael Chernow [01:44:50]: Clock. It's a, it's a protein smoothie, sort of replaces any, any sweet thing that I want to indulge on. It's a really great smoothie. It's a, it's a bunch of ice, about a half a cup of frozen blueberries, 2 ounces of frozen cauliflower, a scoop of protein powder, a little bit of cinnamon, about a half a cup of almond milk and a cup of water. And I blend it in my blender and I eat it with a spoon. It comes out nice and thick. It's about 8 ounces of ice, so it's got a lot of ice in there. And then I eat that as the last thing I have for the day.

Michael Chernow [01:45:21]: And that's when I'm hanging out with my wife and we're either watching something on tv, typically watching a Netflix show for about an hour and a half and then we make our way up to the bedroom at 9:30. In the bed I've got my, my, my mattress topper that keeps my bed nice and cool. We've got blackout shades. I've got my sleep mask from Dream Recovery. They make the best sleep mask on the planet. It's this sleep silk sleep mask that I, that I absolutely love. Anyway, it's a great I, if you do not use a sleep mask, I highly recommend, like out of all the things I just said, mattress cover, blackout shades, like white noise, whatever, sleep mask is such a game changer. So I would highly recommend everybody use a sleep mask.

Michael Chernow [01:46:10]: Check out Dream Recovery. And, and so I got my sleep mask. You know, I say a little prayer right before bed and that prayer sounds like this, God, thanks so much for another awesome day. So sober. And that's it, really. And then I crawl into bed. I always listen to a audiobook or a podcast as I go to sleep, but typically an audiobook. I put one AirPod in and I set the timer for 15 minutes.

Michael Chernow [01:46:35]: I'm asleep in about 30 seconds. And that's my night. I'm typically asleep by 9:35 most nights. And there you have it. That's. That's my stuff. So I know that that was a little long winded, but I wanted to make sure I got everything over to you. This was so much fun.

Michael Chernow [01:46:53]: And Ben, I appreciate you. You're like a brother from another mother. I really do appreciate you. So thanks for having me on the show. And guys, check out meal one from Creatures of Habit. It would mean the world if you did that. I really appreciate it. And you could find me at Michael Chernow pretty much everywhere.

Michael Chernow [01:47:10]: Predominantly on Instagram. Instagram, But I'm also on TikTok.

Ben Greenfield [01:47:13]: Hit subscribe, leave a ranking, leave a review. If you got a little extra time, it means way more than you might think. Thank you so much.