October 8, 2020

From Podcast: https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcast/lifestyle-podcasts/dr-matt-cook/

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:01:37] Podcast Sponsor

[00:03:50] Guests Introduction

[00:07:20] Ben And Matt Stories

[00:13:01] About This Podcast

[00:17:39] Question 1: What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why?

[00:25:46] Question 2: What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)?

[00:31:04] How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?

[00:39:03] Question 4: If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it – metaphorically speaking, getting a message out to millions or billions – what would it say and why?

[00:42:27 ] Podcast Sponsors

[00:44:43]  cont. Question 4

[00:50:00] Question 5: What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made?

[00:55:56] Question 6: What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?

[01:04:05] Question 7: In the last five years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life?

[01:09:22] Question 8: What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student about to enter the “real world?” What advice should they ignore?

[01:18:16] Question 9: What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?

[01:27:36] Question 10: In the last five years, what have you become better at saying no to (distractions, invitations, etc.)?

[01:33:06] Question 11: When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, or have lost your focus temporarily, what do you do?

[01:39:44] Closing the Podcast

[01:42:05] End of Podcast

Ben:  On this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Be happy, be nice, just smile. I promise it'll change your life.

Jessa:  These are all spiritual beings like all these people, and you never actually just meet an ordinary person. They're all very–like I said, they're spiritual beings and everyone's important. Everybody needs some kind of interaction that lifts them up, builds them up.

Ben:  Why are you letting the absence of the ability to be able to step foot into a sterilized treadmill laden dumbbell rack, equipped health club, keep you from staying fit?

Matt:  So, then we'll all look back 100 years from now and go, “Man, that was like the greatest thing ever. And remember before 2020 how much everything sucked?

Ben:  Health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show.

Alright. I had the pleasure today of speaking with a multiple time repeat podcast guest. I'm going to keep him a secret. This is his sixth appearance on the show. This was a very unique episode though because it was pretty much us getting interviewed by my wife and someone who works with him, who you'll also meet during the episode. Her name is Barb, and we had a ton of fun with this. Very informal, casual, yet educational Q&A episode I recorded at my kitchen table.

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Hey, you guys. We're actually recording. This podcast episode has begun. How's everybody's date going, by the way? Before I introduce each of you.

Barb:  Amazing.

Matt:  Yeah. This is pretty amazing.

Jessa:  Super.

Barb:  Yeah. The sun is out, red lights.

Jessa:  A little crisp in the air. Fall's coming.

Ben:  Matt? Dr. Matthew Cook, welcome to the podcast.

Matt:  It's awesome.

Ben:  What have you done to optimize your day thus far up here at the Greenfield compound?

Matt:  It is the best. I woke up and I did the BioCharger for 20 minutes while standing on the PEMF machine. And then, I did red light and the NanoVi.

Ben:  Sexy.

Matt:  Did a cold plunge, did a yogurt routine, I can't speak, ended [00:04:47] _____, and then we did a workout, I did a whole bunch of peptides, I did some other injections, drank several amazing cups of coffee.

Ben:  Did you poop yet? Because that's a lot of stuff to do without pooping yet.

Matt:  I pooped three times.

Ben:  Okay, good. I'm just checking.

Jessa:  What [00:05:09] _____.

Ben:  We'd make sure that we don't have to stop this podcast.

Matt:  I was like [00:05:14] _____.

Jessa:  Now that it's 3:00 in the afternoon.

Ben:  If you get a little bit of–and I'll be adjusting levels a little bit here as we go, [00:05:23] _____ popping on the mic. If you get a little turtle head poking out from all that [00:05:29] _____ that you've been doing all morning, just let me know, and I can press pause on today's show. So, of course, we're here with Dr. Matthew Cook, who has come up once again from BioReset Medical in San Jose to join, not just me. So, we had another rollicking podcast episode, which may be the least scientific episode we've ever recorded. But we are about to be put into the hot seat by a couple of hotties. We also have Barb of BioReset Medical. Barb, how would you describe yourself to people?

Barb:  I'm the person that tries to make sure everything's working and everybody's happy, whatever that takes.

Ben:  Whatever that takes. So, you keep things running down there at your guys' regenerative medicine facility in San Jose, where actually, Jessa and I went. We were going to record this podcast, actually. When Jessa and I visited San Jose, we are going to do exactly what you, the listener, are about to hear in which Jessa and Barb put Matt and I in the hot seat with a wide variety of questions. But we did not because we decided to do better things, particularly a kind of like a miniature retreat getaway plant medicine journey, which was actually really nice, but it resulted in us not being able to podcast together, and instead, sitting cross-legged on the living room floor for eight hours, having an amazing conversation, which was also good. And then, we have Jessa, mother of twin boys, keeper of the Greenfield household.

Jessa:  That's right. I hold the keys.

Ben:  Matriarch, queen, holder of the keys. You look lovely this morning, honey.

Jessa:  You shall not pass, unless you come through me.

Ben:  Babe, how many BioCharger sessions have you done this morning?

Jessa:  I have done none.

Ben:  Any laser lights?

Jessa:  Nothing.

Ben:  Now, we did all just get injected. Matt, what'd you just inject us with, dude?

Matt:  Oh, that was a Cerebrolysin.

Ben:  And what Cerebrolysin do?

Matt:  So, it's a peptide that has a whole–it's a combination of a variety of different peptides. It's actually from pig brain.

Jessa:  Awesome.

Ben:  Sustainably harvested big brains.

Jessa:  You know, I've actually butchered a pig. You want to know the size of a brain of a pig?

Ben:  How big?

Jessa:  Not even a quarter cup.

Ben:  Did you know that the size of your brain does not dictate your intelligence though?

Jessa:  Well, I'm just telling you that theirs is like a quarter of that.

Ben:  They did autopsy Einstein's brain and it did have a larger than normal amount of gray matter. So, it is possible that size does dictate intelligence to a certain extent, but pigs are not stupid animals, neither are sheep. I used to think sheep were stupid.

Jessa:  They are kind of stupid. I grew up around them.

Ben:  Jessa and I [00:08:11] _____ bow hunting for sheep in Hawaii.

Jessa:  Well, domesticated sheep are not smart.

Ben:  No, but the wild sheep are. They're very smart.

Jessa:  They are their own breed.

Ben:  Oh, they have their own sentinels set up and they camouflage themselves better than a freaking elk, and they can see it coming like 500 yards away and they set up in these different formations to escape intelligently as you approach. I've hunted wild sheep for five days in a row and been unsuccessful before. They're smart.

Jessa:  Back to you, Matt.

Matt:  I'll explain here. Barb is still a little traumatized from this, but when I bought my farm, we had sheep and sheep goats. They were like a cross between a sheep and a goat.

Barb:  Like they could jump across like a creek.

Matt:  They could jump across, yeah.

Barb:  A sheep can't do that, no.

Matt:  And then, which we were super pumped about, and then a lion came down and killed —

Jessa:  Oh, a mountain lion did?

Matt:  Yeah.

Jessa:  Oh.

Matt:  But it was like dead. And so, I was like, “Not going to let that go to waste.”

Jessa:  So, you ate?

Matt:  Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, then I cut the head off, and then I literally roasted the entire head all day.

Jessa:  I'm surprised the mountain lion didn't take it.

Ben:  Did you harvest the Cerebrolysin? I was just [00:09:24] _____.

Matt:  Yeah. And then, that was the single–like I roasted it with herbs and stuff like that all day long.

Jessa:  Was it good?

Matt:  And then, you've had like cheek.

Jessa:  Yeah.

Matt:  And basically, what you do is you would take the cheek out and then we would dip the cheek in the brain, and it was roasted, and it was still the greatest meal that I've ever had in my life.

Ben:  There are certain things that tend to be surprisingly good, like when we were down at your house and we took the bone marrow bones and made what's called butter of the gods, where I smoked the bone marrow for about an hour at about 200 degrees. And then, for the last 10 minutes, covered it with grass-fed butter, and a little salt and thyme, and rosemary, and then we put those on top of burgers and had bone marrow on top of burgers, which is kind of like–it's kind of like cheek on top of brain.

Matt:  It's so good.

Ben:  These are the turkeys and cranberries of the wild animal kingdom that nobody's talking about. But anyways, back to Cerebrolysin.

Jessa:  Yeah, and pig brain.

Ben:  What's Cerebrolysin from pig brain going to do for us?

Matt:  Well, so some people use it to improve neurological or brain performance. I have quite a few people who I've been taken care of that have dementia and stuff like that, and people will–yeah, I just got a text from somebody that said, “Oh, my wife has been enjoying herself more. Her memory has been a little bit better thinking more clearly.” And so, there's a lot of evolving protocols of taking care of people to fix bigger problems. The other thing that's interesting is is that I injected it for you in and around where the nerves are, where you pulled your muscle.

Ben:  Where I pulled my muscles doing my pull-ups this morning.

Matt:  And so, interestingly, a lot of times if you can just calm the nerves down and fix them, and it seems to be really great for nerves. I'll use it for hydrodissection. So, I'll put it around nerves. And so, I'm cautiously excited to see how you feel after the podcast.

Ben:  I feel great, but probably because I'm smoking a pipe at 10:00 am in the morning. This is really good–

Jessa:  Prior to everything else, like laundry.

Ben:  I got Cerebrolysin and nicotine. And then, I made you guys a bone broth smoothie, which that's one of my favorite smoothies. I use the Ancient Nutrition bone broth, and then I, for the liquid, use the Kettle & Fire bone broth liquid. So, it's got bone broth powder and bone broth liquid. And you do that all over ice, and then you add–what I put in this morning's smoothie was colostrum, sea salt, stevia, cinnamon, and then you blend that all up–oh, and a little bit of cacao, that's right, because we know cacao is a wonderful, wonderful herb, especially for a little morning blood flow.

Jessa:  It's a bean.

Ben:  A bean, sorry. And so, a high [00:12:24] _____ containing bean that everyone's going to be concerned about now.

Matt:  This is the truth and reconciliation committee [00:12:31] _____.

Ben:  That's right.

Jessa:  There's more fact-checking.

Ben:  Then you blend it all up, and then we put things like coconut flakes, and dark chocolate, and some frozen berries, and you just choose the toppings that you desire. So, yeah. We had a good morning between Cerebrolysin, a workout, all the little contraptions, little bone broth smoothie. And now, now we're about to jump into a podcast. Yeah, and Jessa has done nothing.

Jessa:  I just basically made half of dinner.

Ben:  Drinking a cup of coffee. Okay. So, here's the deal. And I'm going to put all the shownotes, as well as the previous five podcast episodes I've done with Dr. Cook on everything from SIBO to nerve hydrodissection to ketamine. We've talked about so many things. And I'll link to all those previous podcast episodes if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/mattandben. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com/mattandben, because today, Matt and Ben, speaking about myself in the third person again, narcissistically–

Matt:  Well done.

Ben:  We're going to get put in the hot seat. And what we have done is we have very selectively chosen, I mean stolen, 11 questions that Tim Ferriss actually came up with and used for his book “Tool of Titans,” and also, tends to ask many of his podcast guests quite frequently when he interviews them. Tim is a friend of mine, so I'm sure he's not going to get too litigious over me stealing some of his questions, but we thought we were going to come up with all of our own questions for Jessa and Barb to ask Matt and I. And then, we thought, “You know what, Tim's already figured out some of the best questions to get, just decent life advice from people.” And so, Matt and I have actually not really reviewed these questions aside from just finding them on Tim's website and texting them to you, guys. But we are ready to get to get put in the hot seat. And so, you ladies can just fire away with whatever you'd like to ask.

Matt:  But can I say one thing?

Ben:  Mm-hmm.

Matt:  I want to say, like honestly, literally from the bottom of my heart, thank you to Tim Ferriss, because it was so amazing that when I first found–I hadn't meet him really personally, but I did my RKC certification with him. And so, then he was podcasting. And so, then I saw him there. He gave a little talk. And so, then I started listening to his podcast then. This is like years and years ago. And that was the first time that I basically heard about podcasting and what was happening. And then, I took it to all my surgeon friends and we all started listening to it like we would.

Ben:  To Tim's podcast?

Matt:  To Tim's podcast, and I feel like it fundamentally changed my life, and I saw that there was like a way to become self-expressed and actualize and live your life. And I fundamentally think that he was like the single person who put me on this path more than anybody else. Thank you, Tim.

Ben:  Wow. Alright, Tim.

Jessa:  Tim, if you're listening.

Ben:  There you go.

Jessa:  That's a nice compliment.

Ben:  Actually, Tim's book “4-Hour Workweek” was a book that actually–

Jessa:  Yeah. Remember when you read that.

Ben:  It changed a lot of the way around my business when I realized how much could be outsourced. I hired my first virtual assistant. I began to think more about the things that I do well versus the things that I didn't need to be doing, like say, mowing my lawn. And yeah, that actually changed life quite a bit.

Jessa:  And Ben's not good at mowing lawn.

Matt:  Oh, my god, me neither.

Ben:  I figured this out when I was a kid.

Jessa:  There's like Mohawks in the lawn.

Barb:  Your lawn is beautiful, by the way.

Jessa:  He doesn't mow it.

Ben:  If there are certain things that you don't really have a great passion for doing and you just decide, “I'm not going to do this well,” then you're not going to be asked to do that task very often in the future, like loading the dishwasher or washing the car. So, yeah. Even me and my brothers figured that out at an early age. If we did a kind of shitty job washing the car when mom or dad asked us to, then they would come out and finish the job and they would just figure out other things for us to do aside from washing the car.

Jessa:  My mom would stand out there and watch us do it until we did it the right way.

Barb:  I think men are more likely to do that, do something poorly so you don't get asked to do it again thing.

Ben:  Yeah.

Jessa:  My mom wouldn't let that lie.

Barb:  Just kind of life experience.

Ben:  Not that I endorse that way.

Jessa:  She'd make you wash it one, two, maybe three times.

Ben:  Shirking one's responsibility. Alright, who wants to go with question number one. I'm out of butane on my pipe torch. Matt, can you reach that lighter that's right there by you? I can't without unplugging my microphone, but you're within distance of the torch that I can use. Alright.

Barb:  I feel a little like I'm in a “Lord of Rings” scene here, [00:17:09] _____. It's pretty awesome.

Ben:  Sure, yeah.

Matt:  It's the most hilarious pipe I've ever seen.

Jessa:  I love the smell of it. It's great.

Matt:  [00:17:16] _____.

Ben:  It was gifted to me by my plant medicine facilitator, and apparently, it's a very special pipe that is like a limited edition, long stem pipe, and he gave me some of his wonderful organic tobacco. You guys smell that?

Barb:  Yeah.

Matt:  That smells good.

Barb:  Like it's a homeopathic dose of [00:17:35] _____.

Matt:  Yeah. I only want the homeopathic dose, but it's delicious.

Ben:  Yeah. Alright, what's question number one? Let's do this.

Jessa:  Alright. Barb, I'll let you start.

Barb:  Okay. So, Ben, what is the book or books you've given most as a gift? And why?

Ben:  I would say one of them is a wonderful treatise of both the rational and the irrational decisions that human beings tend to make and how those can affect the way we communicate with them. It's called “Poor Charlie's Almanack” written by Charlie Munger, who is Warren Buffett's partner at Berkshire Hathaway. It's a book just chock-full of wisdom about the way that people think. So, that one, I've gifted multiple times, “Poor Charlie's Almanack.” And if I could name one other that I think I have probably given away quite a bit recently, or at least gotten for people quite a bit recently–gosh, there's a lot of them, but one that comes to mind, I'm blanking on the actual title of. And so–

Jessa:  We can take it to Matt while you remember.

Ben:  Take it to Matt. And I'm going to remember the title of this book because–yeah, or that I'll look it up, but Matt, why don't you go? But I'm going to go with “Poor Charlie's Almanack” for now, and then I'll tell you the other book momentarily. But Matt, what's yours?

Matt:  There's this book and it's called “The Brothers K.” And it's a story of an Americana, of an American family. It references the Russian book with a similar title, but it's the tapestry of an American family that goes through multiple generations, and I connected super deeply to many of the characters. And I think it touches on themes of family, and difficulty, and challenge, and transcendence. It's a sweet and powerful read.

Ben:  And that one's called “The Brothers K”?

Matt:  Yeah.

Ben:  “The Brothers K.”

Matt:  David James Duncan.

Ben:  Okay. Got it. You know, I can't find this other book that I was thinking of, but I can tell you another one that I tend to recommend to people quite often is–a lot of people ask me about my faith. And an author who I really like named C. S. Lewis, he has a book called “Mere Christianity,” which is just like a basic really good overview of hope, and Christianity, and Jesus, and just this idea that it is possible that despite me getting a lot of flak for this belief that the planet was created by a giant magical god fairy in the sky, and how cool and magical a world that we live in based on that. So, I would say “Mere Christianity,” and then also “Poor Charlie's Almanack” would be the two books that I've gifted most–

Jessa:  Which I've never even seen that book in our house.

Ben:  “Mere Christianity”?

Jessa:  No, no. “Poor Charlie's Almanack.” I don't even know this book. Maybe you'll get one for Christmas, perhaps.

Ben:  Jessa reads, what, like maybe–

Jessa:  I'm a visual.

Ben:  Yeah. Very–

Jessa:  I don't read very much.

Ben:  Very little.

Jessa:  I'll listen, but I don't read often.

Ben:  Yeah. I literally read, or for a while, read almost a book every day and have a massive library downstairs. And I rarely give Jessa books to read just because–

Jessa:  To be totally honest and truthful, I didn't finish a book until probably my mid-30s.

Matt:  Now–

Ben:  Do you want to share with people why that is?

Jessa:  Well, that because I'm dyslexic and reading is an absolute chore.

Ben:  Yeah.

Matt:  Really?

Jessa:  Yes.

Ben:  Well, Jessa sees words as shapes.

Barb:  She's a visual–

Jessa:  I'm a very [00:21:36] _____.

Ben:  She's an amazing visual graphic artist, but she sees words as shapes. So, the word like “the” is not T-H-E, it's as this shape. Isn't that interesting?

Jessa:  Yeah.

Matt:  How is it for you to read now? What's your experience of that?

Jessa:  I feel like–I was talking to Barb the other day. Once I introduced a lot of fats into my diet, it really helped me quite a bit. And then, also, reading to my children, because there's no judgment with your kids, it actually really boosted my confidence in reading, especially aloud, and then that carries over into just reading for yourself. So, when you have the confidence, you're not thinking about, “Am I doing this correctly?” You're actually listening and understanding what the book says, where for most of my life, it was like, “Am I reading this correctly? Are people judging me by the way I read?” You're more concerned about the outward appearance than the actual words and what they mean.

Matt:  And there's like an interesting part about people who are dyslexic seem to be more successful, at least a percentage of them. And why do you think that that might be–well, like what was your–because it's really interesting to think of you with that background and from some of our conversations because I think of you as a very successful person.

Jessa:  Thank you. I think a lot of it is you have to be adaptable because most of the world functions in this certain way of reading and comprehension and whatnot, and you don't. And so, you have to figure out how to survive in that situation. So, for me, especially as a survivalist mentality, especially because I was in a school that was a reader-based school, surviving was really challenging, and you get very creative on how to do that and you become super adaptable.

Matt:  Bring the thunder.

Ben:  Epic. I say.

Barb:  Well done.

Jessa:  Yeah. That was [00:23:46] _____.

Barb:  Super powerful.

Ben:  That accent is only funny if you actually see me smoking my pipe. Alright, what's our next question, ladies?

Barb:  Okay. Before, I want to finish this up because I love the fact that you named a C. S. Lewis book, and I just want to call that out. He's an amazing theologian and amazing writer who, from his faith and from his understanding, wrote for his children to explain to them these complicated concepts, and he wrote “The Chronicles of Narnia,” which is–

Jessa:  Which is a great–

Barb:  I have given that set of books.

Ben:  I love “The Chronicles of Narnia.”

Barb:  And my oldest sister gave those books to me and it was a huge gift. And so, if you're looking for something to buy–

Jessa:  Also, he's writing a–

Ben:  You've read his science fiction series?

Jessa:  I've started it.

Ben:  “Space Trilogy”? It's amazing.

Jessa:  But he has a really great book on mourning, like people who have lost. And I can't recall the name of it, but it's come up a couple of times in the last couple of months that had just really helped people if they've lost somebody.

Ben:  We'll hunt it down and put it in the shownotes.

Jessa:  Yeah. It's a really–

Ben:  Yeah. So, we'll put all the books at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/mattandben. I'll link to that C. S. Lewis book on mourning, too.

Matt:  I love Narnia with every ounce of my being, and Aslan, and all the characters. And your kids have a little bit of that vibe of being–it's like they're on a spiritual magical journey, which is just super cool to watch them going through that. And that series, I thought, was so good because it starts with them as in different stages of being young and you watch them as they're maturing both spiritually, and then in their physical and life–

Jessa:  Yeah. They go from not battling to battling.

Matt:  And they go from being children to being kings and queens.

Jessa:  Mm-hmm, yeah.

Ben:  You know, last night, we were saying we're going to be in trouble if the first question we get into were going to be a half-hour into the podcast, but–

Jessa:  Are we half-hour in already?

Ben:  Yeah.

Jessa:  Okay.

Ben:  So, we should make sure we don't rabbit hole too much.

Jessa:  Okay. Yeah. It's just so fun.

Ben:  I know. It's fun to converse as well. Alright. What's the next question?

Jessa:  Okay. Number two. Ben, what purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months or in recent memory? My readers love specifics like brand and models, where you found it, et cetera.

Ben:  I would say something I use almost every day when I'm walking. It's a breath control device that trains you to engage in carbon dioxide retention while you walk, and it resists your exhale so that you're forced to take these deep long inhales through your nose. And then, as you exhale, because your exhale is resisted, you retain carbon dioxide, which helps to offset oxygen delivery into muscle tissue, helps to increase your nitric oxide consumption or production, and it leaves you feeling, after you've been on a walk while using this thing, as though you're in like this deep meditative state, because we know now from books like James Nestor's book “Breath,” and I interviewed him about this, that carbon dioxide inhalation is now being used for things like PTSD and stress control. And while it's often vilified as like this acidic waste molecule that's bad for the body, it's actually an incredible molecule. It does a lot for you if you can retain, especially high levels of carbon dioxide and high levels of oxygen simultaneously.

So, this little device, I got it from a breathwork practitioner, Anders Olsson, and it's called a Relaxator. I have it in my fanny pack over here, tiny little thing, it hangs around your neck like a necklace. And when you're on a walk, you can just put it in your mouth and you walk as you normally do, but all you're doing is breathing through your nose and taking these long resisted exhales. I want to say it's probably like a $20, $30 device, but I use it all the time when I'm walking, and I absolutely love it. It trains me to do like deep diaphragmatic breathing, CO2 retention. So, I'm going to say my Relaxator.

Matt:  Nice.

Jessa:  Very nice. How about you, Matt?

Matt:  Okay.

Jessa:  What have you got?

Matt:  I'm going to break the rules and I'm going to say something that costs $365.

Jessa:  What? That is–

Matt:  But here's the thing.

Jessa:  Okay.

Matt:  This is in California, and so–

Jessa:  So, $100 is like $300.

Ben:  And we don't have any listeners in California.

Jessa:  Here in Eastern Washington, $100 is like $100.

Matt:  But I think it's probably going to be so worth it and it's going to save you hundreds and hundreds of dollars per year because …

Jessa:  So, it pays for itself.

Matt: –I bought the seventh generation detergent-free, chemical-free washing detergent for years and years and years.

Ben:  Is this the thing that cleans your washing machine ozone?

Matt:  Yes.

Jessa:  Yes.

Matt:  And so, it's an ozone generator that goes in before–water comes in and then it gets ozonated, and then it goes into your washing machine. And if you've got mold in your clothes or mold in anything in your house, you can put it in there, and then you wash it on cold water without any detergent, and it gets it super clean, and there's no smell of mold or toxins or anything like that.

Ben:  What's it called again?

Matt:  What's it called, Barb?

Barb:  It's the Pure O3 oxygen generator for your laundry.

Ben:  Pure O3.

Jessa:  We're getting that. That's coming in the middle for us.

Barb:  Yeah. You've got one in the mail.

Jessa:  Yeah.

Ben:  I think we have one and it got delayed. So, it's supposed to get here a few weeks ago.

Jessa:  Well, that's fine because the washer is not here yet either.

Ben:  Okay.

Matt:  It's amazing.

Barb:  Yeah. It's amazing.

Ben:  Okay. So, especially if you're concerned about–is mold do you think a pretty big issue in washers, Matt? You're an expert in mold remediation and cleaning up in the body.

Matt:  It's so big in front-loading washing machines, and I had it embarrassingly before I really knew about this, and three washing machines in a row in like different places that I lived. And then, I moved the house that–like you guys, I moved into that house and it had a washer and dryer, and it was full of mold on the inside. And so, then the first thing before I moved in was I got rid of the front loader. I always tell people to do that. And then, put in the top loader, and then put the ozone thing in between.

Jessa:  That's what I have coming to me.

Matt:  You're going to love it.

Jessa:  My mind's going to be blown.

Matt:  I'm going to give you a money-back guarantee on that.

Jessa:  Take a domestic goddess to a whole new level.

Barb:  Yeah, absolutely, because what you notice is that if you use a towel three or four days in a row and it still smells perfect like it just came out of the dryer, that means you got all the stuff out.

Jessa:  Okay.

Barb:  And so–

Jessa:  I can't wait for this.

Matt:  And I'm going to tell you I was going to change–

Jessa:  Because that's not what's happening in my house right now.

Matt:  So what happens is because the towels, I used to have to over dry them to get any of that mold smell. And so, the towels that you guys have out, sometimes I would notice the ones by the cold plunge will have a little bit of mold smell. That's going to go away.

Jessa:  Perfect.

Matt:  It's going to be amazing.

Jessa:  I can't wait.

Matt:  Yeah.

Jessa:  I can't wait.

Matt:  It's going to be amazing.

Jessa:  Okay. I guess I'll let you suggest that one even though it's more than 100.

Matt:  Okay. I apologize.

Ben:  We'll roll with it.

Barb:  Alright. Are we ready to move on?

Jessa:  To you, Barb.

Ben:  Let's do it, let's do it.

Barb:  Okay. Alright. Hey, Ben.

Ben:  Alright.

Barb:  This one's about failure.

Ben:  I love that.

Barb:  How is a failure or a parent failure set you up for later success?

Ben:  I like that question because as you guys experienced last night, our family does self-examination every evening, where we go around and we ask each other what good have I done this day and what could I have done better this day. And like I was saying last night, it forces you to press rewind on your day, review your day, which in and of itself is a wonderful way to just analyze how you lived, whether or not you wasted your life, so to speak, or whether you actually rose the occasion and lived out your life's purpose that day. But part of it, too, when you're asking yourself, “What could I have done better?” you're looking at your failures and what you've learned from your failures.

Jessa:  Which are a reality for [00:31:52] _____.

Ben:  There are many, of course, but I would say a failure that set me up for the success, the thing that comes to mind right now, and it might be fresh on my mind because I just finished writing an article about this, I'm doing these Sunday articles right now that are a little bit more spiritual or self-improvement based, is the fact that I've recognized my propensity to engage in transactional relationships quite a bit. Meaning, especially for me as someone who runs a digital company, works online, works with a lot of virtual assistants, even works with my clients in many cases via text and text messages, and emails, and Voxers, very little personal, what would be called transformative relationships. Meaning, there was a time when I ran gyms and personal training studios where there were hugs, and there were handshakes, and there were high-fives, and you'd see your clients in the gym, but then you'd also see them out at a Friday night party, or you'd be with your co-workers at a health club, but then also be out to lunch with them during the day, or spending time with them in real face-to-face personable flesh and blood interactions that went beyond just the mere, often strict and business-like interactions that tend to be what are largely transactional reactions, which allow you to treat someone with less human connection and as more of a means to an end.

In my case, it's very easy to, for example, shoot off an email and be curt business-like, and even somewhat rude. For example, one example I wrote about in this article that I was writing was–I'll write to my social media manager and just be like, “You spelled workout wrong. It's two words work plus out. Thanks.” Whereas if I was with them and they were sitting right across from me, and I was looking them in the eye, I would phrase it far differently. I would be more nice, I would be more personable, there might be a compliment sandwich worked in, and I would be getting to know them as a person in what would be called the transformational relationship.

And what I've found myself doing over the past couple of weeks, as I've realized this and as I've been writing the article, is I have been treating relationships more transformationally, thinking of people as true human souls, who I may be going on to live with for the rest of eternity, not as these almost like stepping stones for me to get an article published, or to put some money in the bank, or essentially in the article I wrote, I described it as a propensity to treat people like coin-operated monkeys. You put the coin in, they do their little dance with their symbols and their hat, you say thank you, you walk away, and that's it, you've got what you needed from that person. And I think that that realization for me has really helped me begin to connect with people on a more deep and meaningful level, looking people in the eye, caring, asking about their day, and going beyond just the mere transactional into the transformational. So, that's what I would say is a failure, the ability to treat relationships transactionally that I think is leading to a success, which is the ability to treat relationships transformationally.

Matt:  That's a good one.

Jessa:  That's a good one.

Matt:  It's a really good one.

Jessa:  Yeah. What have you got, Matt?

Barb:  And I think that was particularly relevant for what's happening right now in the world, right?

Jessa:  Absolutely.

Barb:  And so, I think so much of interaction during shelter in place and just during the sort of limited interaction that we're having with people. Things do tend to get more transactional. And I've noticed, what I think is happening is that people are flocking more to social media because that feels more like social, but that's also got a lot of downside as we know because it's got a really addictive dopamine thrill and desensitization situation.

Jessa:  But in the same breath, I think when you haven't seen people and then you finally get to see them, it's like, “Oh my gosh, I finally get to see it.”

Barb:  It's so great.

Jessa:  Yeah. It feels like soulful rather than what you've been like trapped in your house.

Ben:  Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Jessa:  Yeah. For sure, it does, absolutely.

Ben:  Familiarity breeds contempt, yeah, which is why you and I have such a hard relationship, babe.

Jessa:  I know.

Ben:  Barely around each other all the freaking time.

Jessa:  Shelter in place is killing me.

Matt:  That was a great shelter in place, so it's like you have two choices. First, you can stay at home with your wife and kids for the next four months or–

Jessa:  Or is this like pick your own adventure kind of thing?

Matt:  And then, [00:36:41] _____, “I'll take choice number two.”

Jessa:  He's like, “I don't even need to hear it.”

Matt:  I got the choice number two.

Ben:  What's your failure, Matt?

Barb:  Hey, Matt, do you have a favorite failure?

Matt:  Well, so I think I'm going to dovetail on your answer, Ben. I think that I'm a fundamentally transformational relationship person. And people will sell you a little bit of a bill of goods, and then often you'll buy it, and I'm susceptible. I love sales, and so I'm somewhat susceptible to buying. And so, because I wanted to be like an expedition doctor and kayak and go on big rock climbing things, I went into anesthesia, which was the field that has the least transformational ability to connect with patients and–

Jessa:  Because they're asleep.

Matt:  They're asleep. And so, I did it to facilitate a goal, but it was literally, like probably the worst thing for me to do from a perspective that–like I deeply love people. And so, then extricating yourself from that is difficult, but then, fortunately, in the process of doing that, I learned literally everything that I needed to learn to do what I do now. And interestingly, what I'm doing fundamentally is having transformational relationships with people who have big problems, be that mental-emotional, spiritual, addiction, autoimmune, Lyme, cancer, dementia, they're dying, wanting to do peak living.

And then, it's almost like we're transformationally relating, and then I'm like healing at the same time in some way that's parallel to them, which is super, super amazing to go through. And I think fundamentally, my pain that I had was that I wasn't going to be able to do it, like you hope that you're going to be able to do that as a doctor. And then, I saw it slipping away, and I really thought I might not make it, like I might not be able to be who I wanted to be. And I fundamentally believe it like–and if my life is like being here hanging out with you guys doing smoothies and working out, I mean, it's like I feel like I barely made it, but I made it and I feel so great about it.

Jessa:  That's my next question because I'm like, it's nice to be able to pour yourself into people and participate with them, but do you feel like sometimes you have to limit that to a point, otherwise–

Ben:  Jessa, you can't stray from the scripts. You can only ask scripted questions.

Jessa:  Well, because overextending yourself or emotionally involving yourself so deeply that it's like exhausting. And I think what you're saying is beautiful, but I, like for myself, I'm one of those people who will invest in a lot of people and give emotionally. And you do have to limit yourself to a point, not to like a point of being cold, but like you can't overextend yourself where you're no longer there for the people like your immediate family or something like that.

Matt:  So, the trip about that one is interesting. So, I've been basically working for like 12 or 14 hours a day for 20 years.

Jessa:  Yeah.

Matt:  So, my endurance and my ability to do that is really high, and yet you're 100% right. And I think the trajectory for me is to work like an hour a day less, and then two hours a day and three hours a day less, and pouring more and more of yoga and meditation and sort of internal work in to balance that. And we've always done that, and it's like a dance, but right now, what happens is my energy is basically good. But then as soon as I start doing it, as soon as I get my vibe, which I get sometime around like 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning, I basically get more energy as that it goes on. So, at 10 o'clock, I have way more energy than I had at like noon. And basically, there's something happens that's so inspirational when I start to see people get better. It doesn't wear me down anymore. It's kind of like what you said, Ben, I'm so ecstatic. It's like I have an idea that it's going to be amazing, and then when it turns out that it actually is, it's more ecstasy for me than anything else that I can experience on Earth.

Ben:  Yeah. It is interesting being down at your office and seeing you just float from room to room typically while singing some cheesy country music lyrics with a big goofy smile on your face. But yeah, it's a little bit of like an infectious joy that you carry from room to room. And I could see how that would almost like kind of fuel you still having energy throughout the day just by spreading positive energy and having it bounce back at you from the patients that you're working with. It is kind of a cool experience.

Matt:  And that is only all of that, all of that is just something that is just allowing me to walk around and sing goofy country music songs. It's all just a–

Ben:  It's a good reason to become a doctor.

Matt:  Exactly.

Ben:  Yeah.

Barb:  Alright. Well, I won't ask my other question because we're going to go long. So, I'll just, yeah, leave that.

Ben:  Well, I want to interrupt this episode to hook you up with, how about two pounds of free grass-fed, grass-finished beef from my friends at ButcherBox, who are now, they weren't for very long time, but they are now taking on new customers at butcherbox.com/ben. They got five different box options and you get to choose exactly what you want from grass-fed, grass-finished beef, like I mentioned, but also free-range organic chicken, heritage-breed pork, which is wonderful if you've never had that and have only really had like the white dry pork, wild-caught seafood, they have it all. The average cost comes down to less than $6 per meal. You can cancel anytime you want with no penalty, free shipping right to your doorstep. And did I mention, right now, they are allowing you to reserve your spot at butcherbox.com/ben and they're giving you two pounds of free ground beef in every Butcherbox order. Ground beef for life is back, baby. So, butcherbox.com/ben.

While you're out there shopping on the internets for healthy foods, I should also tell you about this cool website that's basically like Whole Foods met Costco and had a baby. They've got organic and essential groceries, clean, beauty, safe supplements, non-toxic home, supplies, ethical meat, sustainable seafood, clean wine. They let you filter your searches by keto, paleo, gluten-free, vegan, non-GMO, Fair Trade Certified, BPA-free, if you travel and you want healthy snacks that are guilt-free and not laden with sugar and vegetable oils, they've got all the kale chips, and the dark chocolate, and the different kind of nuts on there, sprouted raw, you name it. It's an online membership-based market on a mission to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone, and it's called Thrive Market. It has tons of stuff on there you're not going to find on Amazon. Because it's a membership-based website, the prices are dirt cheap. You can get a 12-month membership for under $5 a month. So, I'm going to give you a little discount code here. You go to thrivemarket.com/ben. It's not actually a code, just a URL, thrivemarket.com/ben. Choose from a one-month membership to a one-year membership, get up to $20 in shopping credit at thrivemarket.com/ben.

Jessa:  If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it, metaphorically speaking, getting a message out to millions or billions, what would it say and why? It could be a few words or a paragraph.

Ben:  Okay. You know what, we're on our walk last night along the river and–

Jessa:  We kind of did this already.

Ben:  I thought of something that because I'm sure very few people saw that Instagram live, it's still floating around in my head and I still think it's just a great song and a great quote, and I think people should listen to this song. I would say normally, if we were in normal circumstances when they're driving to work in the morning, but maybe like when you wake up in the morning before you just start interacting with people for the next few days, listen to this song, and it is a song by the Black Eyed Peas. It's called “Be Nice,” and the chorus just basically goes like this, and I would totally put this on a billboard, “Be happy, be nice, just smile. I promise it'll change your life.”

Jessa:  Never heard that song.

Ben:  Never heard that song?

Barb:  Now you have.

Jessa:  I don't think so, but maybe the way you're singing isn't familiar to me.

Matt:  And we're going to do a big shout out to Snoop Dogg because he sings on that track, too.

Ben:  It's a great song.

Jessa:  And I like him.

Ben:  So, NBC has a show called “Songland,” and I love, and it's especially relevant to Matt and I because one of the things we're working on this weekend is a lot of singing and songwriting because we have a band called Rocky Roots, at rockyrootsmusic.com, shout out. And an artist came in to the Songland studios for this show on NBC where singer/songwriters come and present their tunes. And the lead singer for the Black Eyed Peas, I forget his name.

Matt:  Will.i.am.

Ben:  Yeah, will.i.am. He was one of the judges and he chose this song, and then turned it into an actual Black Eyed Peas song, and that's where the song came from, was the NBC show, “Songland.” But yeah, that's what I'd put on the billboard, “Be happy, be nice, just smile. I promise it'll change your life.”

Jessa:  I'm pretty stuck in the '90s.

Ben:  I'll play it for you later on tonight, babe.

Jessa:  Okay.

Ben:  Yeah. We'll dig it.

Jessa:  Yeah. I'm not up to date on the new stuff.

Ben:  How about you, Matt?

Matt:  Can you give a shout out to that kid that plays guitar that you played for us yesterday?

Ben:  Oh, yeah, the other kid. I was down at Mikey D's from the Beastie Boys. Shout out, Mikey. I was on it in Malibu hanging out with him and his boys, Skyler and Davis, and this cat named Marcus King came by, who was recording the Rick Rubin studio. And Marcus King's from Nashville. Oh my gosh, look him up on Spotify. One of the funniest things was Rick was listening to Marcus play, and the dude rips out guitar licks like Jimi Hendrix, and Rick Rubin goes, “Yeah. That's big boy guitar playing.” For 22-year-old kids, you have Marcus King, shout out. He's got some good tunes. We should listen to some of those during tonight's burger party that we're doing. And we'll put on some Marcus King.

Matt:  Can you ask me my question again?

Jessa:  Sure. If you had a billboard and you wanted to put anything on it and get your message up to millions and billions of people, what would it be?

Matt:  I would say it's going to be amazing, but this is my idea.

Jessa:  Okay.

Matt:  It's been so crazy with COVID. And so, then there's like trying to figure out what's happening. And transitioning from the state that we're in into the state that we're going, and often when big pandemics and crazy things happen, all kinds of evolution and science and technology and opportunity kind of come. And I think that that's going to happen from a functional medicine perspective, from a science perspective, from a wellness perspective, and this is an opportunity for all of us to take our health to a deeper and greater level. And I've done that for myself and it's been absolutely the most amazing four months of my clinical practice. And so, I'm super pumped. And there's so much fear in driving around. And so, I'd like to have billboard that's all over that said, “It's going to be amazing,” and start to program that into our consciousness.

Ben:  It is going to be amazing. That's your catchphrase. I've made it [00:49:29] _____.

Jessa:  T-shirts and mugs, and hoodies, and beanies you can buy them–right here. It's going to be amazing.

Ben:  BioReset Medical, it's going to be amazing.

Jessa:  Get them today.

Matt:  No. So, you made me that t-shirt.

Ben:  I keep having to turn Jessa's sound out because she shouts–

Jessa:  I come from a loud family [00:49:46] _____.

Ben:  I know you do, trust me, we're noticing.

Matt:  I wore that t-shirt to work, and then some people saw me wearing it, and so then they made me caps that say, “It's going to be amazing.” It sounds like [00:49:58] _____.

Barb:  It's viral. Okay. Okay. So, Ben?

Ben:  Yes.

Barb:  You're a savvy investor. What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you've ever made? And that could be an investment of money, or energy, or time.

Ben:  I did invest $10,000 in a startup cannabis enterprise in Canada that I was prepared to liquidate at about two and a half million a few months ago, and then COVID hit, and the stock crashed. So, right now if I sold it, I think I'd get about 10k out of it.

Barb:  Wow!

Jessa:  No money lost.

Ben:  No money gain, no money lost, so it's all on paper. I would say one of the best or most worthwhile investments that I have ever made was where we are at right now. I used to come up to this very 10-acre plot. A couple of times I came up here and I hunted white-tailed deer, and it was just this blank slate piece of land off the side of the road in Spokane, Washington. I made the landowner an offer that if I was able to find water, which is really funny because I actually hired what's called a well witcher, where they walk around with a douser, and actually, they find exactly where water is supposedly passing through the underground springs. And he walked around the land with me and he put his foot down and he said, “Drill here.” And we drilled, and voila, we had water.

And I told the landowner that I wanted to be able to ease a driveway in. And if I could get power in from the local municipal power, even though we eventually added solar so we could be off-grid, that I would buy the land. So, I did. I bought 10 acres for about $90,000, which is a pretty good deal. And then, we have spent the past six years just gradually building it into the Greenfield estate. We built a home, and then we built a little pool house, we built a guest house, we built for chipmunk tree fort and put an obstacle course in, and the goat and the chicken barn. And the house of course doesn't kick off income. The houses depreciate. But just having this oasis, especially during the past 100 days during the COVID lockdown, being locked down on 10 acres of luscious land with vegetables, and goats, and chickens, and hiking, and sunshine, and trees, and nature, and plant foraging, I am so happy when I'm at home. And I think this is probably one of the best investments I've ever made.

I know so many people under the nomadic, don't tie yourself down with the home. There's the guy who, “I will teach you to be rich,” Ramit Sethi, who writes it all. “You don't want to own a home. It ties you down. It's just a chore all the time and you want to be nimble, and you want to be mobile.” I disagree. I think that a home is a castle, it's a safe haven, it's an oasis. So, I'm going to go with this little piece of land and home in Spokane. I think it's the best investment I've ever made for just overall happiness.

Jessa:  It is a magical place, and I want to thank YouTube for creating this here and allowing other people to experience it. It's totally awesome.

Ben:  We love to share it. We love sharing good food and good times at the Greenfield house.

Matt:  And it's so awesome to see it like evolving.

Ben:  Yeah.

Matt:  You guys didn't have the guest house.

Ben:  No. I mean, Jessa and I will probably die here holding hands in bed someday. It's a vision. I mean, God willing at least at this point. I don't plan on moving.

Matt:  Yeah. In 3030.

Ben:  Yeah, that's right. 260 years old with all that Cerebrolysin and pig brain, yeah.

Barb:  Yes. Anti-aging, Matt.

Ben:  How about you, Matt?

Matt:  My greatest investment, for the most part, I just about went to like a meeting to teach, or learn, or meditate, or do yoga, like we basically went to meetings, traveled three to four weekends a month for the last 10 years. And now, it's harder to do that because we're not traveling. So, to me, I'm so grateful that I did that, and my primary investment has just been in knowledge and education. And even currently, like I'm building this platform, a functional medicine education platform, basically, that's going to go live in an introductory limited way in the next month or two. And so, I'm just continuing to double down on an introspective journey of education and learning.

Jessa:  That's interesting because I actually knew you were going to say that.

Matt:  Oh, really?

Jessa:  Yeah. I don't know why.

Matt:  Cool.

Barb:  Déjà vu.

Jessa:  It was. That was weird.

Ben:  Yeah. I mean, books you [00:55:08] _____ about–I mean, that's the unwritten rule in the Greenfield house is if River and Terran want a new LEGO set or a Nerf gun or anything like that, they can use their hard-earned money to buy that. But books are pretty much a no questions asked. We will purchase them because book–I mean, I could have said that book library downstairs with hundreds and hundreds of books on religion, and philosophy, and science, and nature, and health, that also I would say is–

Jessa:  And Captain Underpants.

Ben:  And Captain Underpants, of course. I think that's upstairs in the boys' bedroom. But my book collection I would say is a pretty decent investment as well. Yeah, for sure. Knowledge, wisdom, yes.

Jessa:  Okay. Alright. Well, on to the next question. What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?

Ben:  This is a tricky one. An unusual habit or absurd thing that I love. I guess I could say a weekly coffee enema. That's a real treat. I don't know if this is an unusual habit or an absurd thing, but as a guy with a background in Ironman and obstacle course racing, I used to run a lot. When I was racing, I was still considered like a minimalist runner. I'd run like 30, 40 miles a week, which for Ironman is not considered a ton of mileage. But now, not a day goes by that I don't walk for a good five to seven miles. Like out in the sunshine when it's deep, dark winter, I'll throw on my headlamp and my boots and go walk in the snow. But for the past two years, I've adopted a walking habit in which I take all my phone calls when I'm walking, I do a lot of my deep thinking and meditating when I'm walking, I do, like I mentioned earlier, my breathwork when I'm walking.

I used to think that when I'd see people just walking on the side of the road that it was a waste of time. Why aren't they running or getting fit? And now that I've begun walking regularly a ton–so I probably take 15 to 20,000 steps a day, and I love, I love to walk. It's where I do a lot of my thinking, it's where I make all my important phone calls, it's where I'll listen to audiobooks at four times speed sometimes because I just find when I'm walking, I absorb material better. And I literally not a day goes by where–if I don't go for a walk, I feel as though I'm missing out on part of my day now. So, yeah. I mean, I walk ruthlessly every single day and it's just–I don't even enjoy–my running now consists of me going down checking the mail and running back up the driveway occasionally. That's about it. Or maybe when we're playing tennis with the boys. But yeah, I would say walking a lot, a lot.

Barb:  Ruthless walking. I like that.

Matt:  Ruthless walking.

Barb:  Dominating.

Ben:  Now, speaking of which, I want to hear Matt's reply, but I also have to pee like a racehorse. So, Matt, why don't you reply? I'm going to go take a quick pee, and Matt, you keep all the people entertained with your response for your absurd thing and I'll be right back.

Matt:  And it's going to involve being ruthless and dominating.

Barb:  Okay.

Jessa:  Of course, because you strike me as that.

Matt:  Ruthless dominator. Yeah, exactly. Totally. The soft hand. The soft hand of wisdom. I would say that my absurd behavior is that probably almost like him walking. Almost every minute that I'm not working out or working or eating, I'm walking around with a guitar in my house, playing along to music that's playing on the sound system, and singing at the top of my lungs.

Jessa:  I can totally see that.

Matt:  I spend tons and tons of time playing along with people. And I've gotten to the point where I just pick the guitar up and then I'll figure out the song. And I was having dinner with Barb the other night and it was amazing because I hadn't heard John Prine died. And there's the song, the “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness.”

Jessa:  Oh, yeah.

Matt:  Remember that song came on, and I just picked it up and I nailed it, which was fun because I hadn't played that song in 10 years. And so, it's been super amazing. And then, interestingly, and this is just a crazy story, Ben, you're not going to believe this, but I've been doing hydrodissection where I put fluid. And I've actually used Cerebrolysin, but I've also used a bunch of other peptides and a bunch of other products. And I basically did vagus nerve hydrodissection and I hydrodissected all of the muscles underneath my jaw and my pterygoids. And then, the nerves that go to my vocal cords and my–

Jessa:  I was going to say, do you sing better now?

Matt:  My singing voice is like–

Barb:  Yes. Amazing.

Matt:  And it was amazing because there's all of these songs that I used to sing, but I couldn't sing them right, like I couldn't get, and especially like Jackson Browne and Elton John and people whose vocal register is just–

Barb:  Your higher range has got little–

Matt:  A little higher than. And then, I noticed now–

Jessa:  There are like a lot of singing stars coming to your place now for the same thing.

Matt:  Probably.

Jessa:  Yeah.

Matt:  What we're doing with that is probably the most interesting thing that we're doing.

Ben:  Just so everybody knows, I'm back. The Cerebrolysin had kept the pee–

Jessa:  Well, this is about Matt right now.

Ben:  Sorry.

Jessa:  Honey.

Matt:  No, it's bad.

Ben:  Just so everybody knows, my bladder is good to go. Alright, sorry.

Matt:  [01:01:01] ____.

Jessa:  Back to you, Matt.

Ben:  Sorry.

Matt:  I was just stalling for time. We were praying you were going to get back here, Ben.

Barb:  No. And I think that actually, Matt was talking about doing these hydrodissections of all the muscles that interact with the voice and with the fifth chakra and with self-expression. And I've been doing some of those as well and it's very interesting because that impacts your perception and your cognition. And I see your clarity coming out of that as well, and the fact that music and singing particularly does something different to your brain. And during COVID, you've done that more because you're not at a restaurant at a business dinner, you're at home with your guitar singing.

Matt:  Yeah. I'm singing for like two or three hours every day because before, I was entertaining. I was doing business entertaining seven days a week.

Jessa:  Sure.

Matt:  And now, I'm pretending that I'm a rock star seven days a week. But it's interesting that you say that, Barb, because I feel like, even when I look at you, I have a sense of, also with you, I feel–and I don't know if this is COVID or everything that we're doing, but I feel like an order of magnitude more present than I did six months ago.

Jessa:  Yeah.

Barb:  Oh, absolutely.

Jessa:  I think so. Even with interactions that I have with just the store clerk, honestly, to me, it's like I've had, especially during COVID, this just realization that these are all spiritual beings, like all these people, and you never actually just meet an ordinary person. They're all very, like I said, they're spiritual beings and everyone's important. Everybody needs some kind of interaction that lifts them up, builds them up. And I think that was a total sidetrack. But I do know what you mean.

Matt:  No. That's a good sidetrack.

Jessa:  Yeah.

Matt:  That's a good sidetrack. Keep going on now.

Jessa:  No. We're not just people. That's basically what I'm saying. Everyone is like this very amazing spiritual being and everybody needs to feel that encouragement. I think it's so important, so important.

Barb:  I agree, and I think that's the–as even just when you're interacting with people with a mask on, if you make a contact, it's eye contact, which is the deepest kind of sort of spiritual contact and the expression Namaste. And from yoga, that's what that's about, like I see you as a spiritual being. I acknowledge myself and you as a spiritual being. It's so totally different kind of interaction than a transactional interaction of, “I'm going to write you an email and now I'm done with you.”

Jessa:  Yeah. I'm not really crazy about the mask, but since people are masked up, it's almost like you have to be overly expressive to actually be felt.

Ben:  I've gotten amazing at using my eyebrow muscles.

Jessa:  You still can't do the one eyebrow. We'd love to be able to do that, but I can't do it. Anyways, you have to be overly expressive.

Barb:  Yes.

Jessa:  And it has to be super thoughtful, which I think is actually sometimes pretty good, like a good thing. Anyways, next. We should probably move on.

Barb:  Ben, looking at past over the last five years and just think about what one new belief behavior or habit has most improved your life.

Ben:  Over the past five years? Well, look, I want to say a regular meditation practice, but I feel as though 95% of people would give a reply like that that meditation has changed their lives when they adopted it. But specifically, the flavor of meditation and journaling that we've adopted as a family, just over the past, we just finished a 30-day gong in which we challenged each other to do 5 to 10-minute meditation as a family in the morning out on the patio combined with journaling in the morning. And the journaling in the morning consists of two questions, “What am I grateful for? And who can I pray for, or help, or serve this day?” And then, in the evening, we all gather as a family before bed as you guys join with us doing last night. And we do our self-examination, “What good have I done this day and what could I have done better this day?” And then, finally, “What is one way that I lived my life's purpose today?”

Those four questions, gratitude, service, self-examination, and purpose, when paired with checking in in the morning with the meditation and the breathwork, I've really, really enjoyed that a lot, and I feel as though it's been a really nice bookend for the day, so much so that I'm actually working on a new journal. For a while, I had something called the Christian Gratitude Journal, which is three questions, “What am I grateful for? Who can I pray for help or serve this day? And what truth did I discover in my reading today?” And I'm going to stop producing that journal and I'm going to start producing what I call the spiritual discipline's journal, which is the four questions that I've just described, “What am I grateful for? Who can I help? What could have I done this day and what could have I done better? And what is one way that I lived on my life's purpose today?” And I would say that although I'm one of those guys who is always adopting new habits, new routines, new rituals, that's one that really comes to mind.

Barb:  Awesome.

Matt:  That's amazing. It's so interesting to go through that with you last night because it's super fun goofing around, singing songs, and stuff like that. And then, we went and played some songs with the kids and did that. And I didn't say anything, but you were talking about failures and I was thinking about how humbling the practice of medicine is on the way up here. And then, I was meditating on that, and then to get up and then go meditate on the porch this morning, and to marinate that in with the whole workout that we did, and I was like I chose my parents. And then, my sister called me right before we did this, shout out to Jenny Cook, and she was like, “You have to buy dinner for mom and dad tonight.” I was like, “Okay.” It was like service. It's super cool. What you guys are doing with that is just totally the greatest.

Ben:  How about you? Last five years, new belief. new behavior, or a new habit?

Matt:  Okay. So, I'm going to go into a–

Ben:  And we know you haven't ejaculated or masturbated for a decade, so you can't say that.

Matt:  Oh, I'm holding it in, holding it in. Brahmacharya. Yeah, that's not probably one of my main belief systems.

Barb:  He's like, “I don't hold to that at all.”

Matt:  It's interesting because I had a belief system that was much more dogmatic around yoga of like, you just have to work your way through your practice, and that you could be in pain. I would use yoga poses and to work through things. And so, I would work through in a fairly sustained wear where I might have pain for a month or two and work my way through it. And then, I basically just started injecting peptides and stuff and just basically fixing things and not having to do that. And so, I guess my belief system is that we're going to be able to keep ourselves fundamentally relatively close to this age for a super long time by harnessing the best tools and techniques and strategies of what is going to double in quality every two years just like Moore's Law. So, then we are going to look forward to a golden age of health and medicine. And so, maybe coronavirus is just ushering this in. So, then we'll all look back 100 years from now and go, “Man, that was like the greatest thing ever.” Remember before 2020 how much everything sucked?

Ben:  I wouldn't be surprised.

Barb:  Yeah. Let's hold that.

Ben:  This is definitely a historical moment, and I don't think we're just saying that out of narcissism.

Jessa:  Oh, it's definitely a historical moment for sure. A lot of potential.

Ben:  There's a shift.

Jessa:  Alright. On that, next. Are you boys ready?

Ben:  We're ready.

Jessa:  Okay. What advice would you give to a smart driven college student about to enter into the real world? What advice should they ignore?

Ben:  Why'd you go to college, you idiot?

Jessa:  I wanted to be an engineer to build a bridge.

Ben:  So, if they have indeed gone to college for legitimate reasons such as they need demonstrable evidence that they have engaged in coursework that allows them to do something that may harm someone if they didn't actually pass-fail such as building a bridge, being an engineer, being a physician, being an astronaut, et cetera, I certainly do think there are some things that rigorous demonstrable coursework is necessary for. And I also of course believe that if you're going to college for the social experiment–

Jessa:  Well, and this is the real world.

Ben:  Generalized education, et cetera, that you should travel around the world for a year and you'll get a lot better education than going to college. However, I would say that the advice that I would give would be to, if at all possible, because I still feel as though mentorship and apprenticeship and practical hands-on learning is underemphasized or sometimes completely neglected in a college setting, that my advice would be to, for whatever career that you want to embark upon, you find one of the best people that you can who is practicing that craft, that skill, and you figure out a way to shadow them, to follow them, to learn from them, to be mentored by them, or to in some way see what they do on a daily basis.

And of course, I think that that's an indispensable experience, whether or not you're going to college. But let's say that you graduate with a degree in, let's just use something very simple and realistic like I did, say, physical education, right? Well, I just went straight into operating gyms, and personal training studios, and working at health clubs when, if I could go back, I would have found one of the best of the best, like Charles Poliquin, the Strength Sensei, or Pavel Tsatsouline, the kettlebell instructor. Yeah, Charles was a friend of yours, Matt.

Matt:  I love Charles.

Ben:  Yeah. May he rest in peace. Or Pavel, or let's say if we were talking about something like endurance, maybe a Lance Armstrong, or a Mark Allen, or a Dave Scott, and just basically hound those people, their assistants, the people close to them, figure out a way to where you can actually go in and follow them, and see what they do, and learn from the greatest of the great. The goats, so to speak, a new term that we taught our children last night. And what I would do is find whoever's doing what you want to do in a very good way and figure out tooth, claw, and nail how you can get yourself tucked under the wing of that person and just be a fly in the wall or shadow them for a good several months, just to really get exposed to how what you've learned in a formal setting can be applied in a real world boots on the ground setting.

And you asked about advice that should be ignored. I would say–I don't know a lot of advice that college students are being given these days, but just general life advice that I see floating around out there, I would say that probably one of the things that I was personally advised to do was to really get my hands dirty, get into the business, learn what I was doing inside and out, whether it was programming webpages or designing PHP scripts, or writing newsletters, or doing research for clients. And I would, I'm going to use this word again, ruthlessly outsource as much as you can to focus on what Gary Keller, who has a book by the same title, which is excellent, would say crushing your one thing. Don't worry about putting yourself into a situation where you need to learn every single aspect of what it is that your business involves, instead just focus on the one thing.

And like for me now, I don't know how to log into my own website. I don't know how to fix anything. I don't know how to send out a freaking email to my audio. I don't even know how to do any of that stuff. I have no clue how to do it. And there was a time when that would have driven me absolutely nuts because I'm supposed to know how to run every little aspect of my business, and now I've largely extracted myself from all of that so I can focus on what I really, really want to do, read, write, learn, teach, create. And so, I'm living at my highest purpose because I'm not trying to do it all. So, I'd say those are the two main things. I get practical hands-on experience from someone who's doing it quite well, and then focus on doing what you do best, crush that one thing, outsource everything else.

Jessa:  Okay.

Matt:  A good one. Okay. I'm going to dovetail on what you said because I think there's two sort of genres and categories.

Ben:  How come you're going to dovetail, not piggyback?

Matt:  I was going to dovetail to creep up, and then I was going to jump on top and piggyback on the second half.

Ben:  Piggytail and doveback.

Matt:  I was going to piggyback on the second half a bit, which is going to be amazing. So, some of the people you talked about like the goats, like I think yourself, and Tim, and Charles Poliquin, are people who are fundamentally very self-expressed, and they expressed and created almost like a reality distortion field around them. And I think that's what I told Barb. I go, “It's almost like we're in a reality distortion field here where COVID doesn't exist. It's the greatest.” And so, that is like on the one hand of one potential pathway of life. And, then this other pathway in life is this more didactic, more traditional college experience of, I have several boxes here, and figure out which one of those boxes you want to be in and live in for the rest of your life. And I think that there's a hybrid model for the kids out there, which is to play in any or all of those boxes and try to pick what you're truly passionate about because what I now believe is if you really want to do it, you can do anything. And then, living in that and getting curated with all of the latest and greatest of tech and science, and art, and a modern perspective on traditional culture and religion. And then, in parallel to that, then finding these people that are outside of the box, finding a Ben, finding a Pavel, finding these people who are the mavericks, who are creating the reality that is going to be all of our future reality. And then marinating that, and then take that, and then do something amazing with it that defines your life and changes basically the potential possibility for all of the people around you.

Ben:  I like that.

Jessa:  Love it.

Barb:  Yeah. You totally jumped up on the back of the pig there.

Matt:  I jumped right on the back of the pig, and then I was like riding the pig.

Jessa:  No pigs [01:17:25] _____.

Ben:  Did you ever see the “Black Mirror's” TV episode about the pig? It was one of the very first. And I'm not much of a TV guy, but everybody's told me, “You got to watch ‘Black Mirror'.” So, finally, I said, “Okay. What episode should I watch if I'm going to watch a ‘Black Mirror'?” I believe it's a Netflix series. And so, I watched it and it was basically about a guy who–it's hard to explain, but it basically involves making love to a pig.

Jessa:  Oh, sorry, I can't get into that.

Matt:  Easy, easy.

Ben:  Between pig brains piggybacking and making love to pigs. Pigs seem to be a prevailing theme in today's episode.

Barb:  Okay.

Ben:  Yeah.

Barb:  I think it's time to move on to the next question.

Jessa:  Yeah, for that.

Ben:  We're getting a little long in the tooth, so we'll rapid-fire on these. We've got three questions to go, so let's do it.

Barb:  This isn't a great question.

Ben:  Okay.

Barb:  Ben, what are bad recommendations you hear in your profession and area of expertise? Because there's a lot of junk out there.

Ben:  How much time you got? I'm going to limit myself to one, and I would say that it would be that exercising is the best way to get fit, when in fact, if you are, as I mentioned earlier, engaged in low-level physical activity all day long, lots of walking, lots of de-stressing, a really nice cold bout in the morning and another cold bout in the evening, a regular sauna practice, and doing a little bit of manual labor, lifting heavy stuff every once in a while, and playing some sports. Some of the fittest people I know from a pure health standpoint, who I know are going to live a long time, are not necessarily the people who are the two-hour-long gym rats because I know a lot of those kind of people, they're inflamed, they're sick, they're overtrained.

I mean, for me personally now, perfect day of exercise for me is about 30 to 40 minutes of some kind of just like hard grind like kettlebell or something like that, and then lots of walking, a little bit of cold, a little bit of heat, some kind of sport. And if you would ask me 10 years ago, it would have been like go to the gym hour or two a day, get a long bike ride, or at lunchtime, hardcore slog in on the treadmill or on the road, or like long swims and just exercise, exercise, exercise. And now, I think brief bouts of like some high-intensity interval training, a little bit of kettlebells, and then just lots of movement, lots of hot, lots of cold, lots of time in nature, I think that's the way to go.

So, I'm getting, especially since I've even stepped into a gym for the past, what, like almost 110 days, I'm realizing how much people associate gyms and health clubs, et cetera, with fitness when in fact, you don't need any of that to not only be healthy, but also to be fit and strong. And it still shocks me how many people are like, “I can't wait for COVID to end so I can finally get fit because I'm putting on so much weight during this.” And I'm like, “You looked outside, you've got rocks, you've got some shoes, you got the sunshine, you got miles and miles of roads you can go walking on, you have rivers, you have lakes, you have oceans. Why are you letting the absence of the ability to be able to step foot into a sterilized treadmill laden dumbbell rack, equipped health club keep you from staying fit?” So, yeah. It would basically be that you'd need a gym, or a health club, or a formal exercise program to stay fit.

Jessa:  Which nobody needed like 125 years ago.

Barb:  It's old school, yeah.

Jessa:  Unless you were an Olympian or a gymnast.

Ben:  A gladiator–

Jessa:  Yeah.

Ben:  Yeah.

Jessa:  Oh, I look at people like my dad. He worked in the farm and he's in great shape for his age, and never went to a gym.

Ben:  How about you, Matt?

Matt:  I'm going to nail it totally on this one.

Jessa:  Nailed it.

Matt:  No, I didn't nail it yet, but I'm going to nail it.

Jessa:  You're going to? I'm anticipating.

Matt:  What I'm going to do is I'm going to turn it around, and I'm going to seed my time to Barb and Jessa, and let you guys answer this question because I want to hear what you guys have to say.

Ben:  Alright. He's donating his time.

Jessa:  I do not like the advice people give, like if you want to be happy, just think happy or you just make yourself happy. Like you know that, where you just–I don't know if manifest is the word or–do you know what I mean where it's just mind over emotion?

Ben:  You mean the quote that a man can be happy no matter circumstances, like that?

Jessa:  No, no, no. It's just more of like–

Barb:  You can will yourself to be happy.

Jessa:  Yeah. Will yourself into this emotion.

Barb:  This more power-based belief system–

Jessa:  Yeah. And I was like, there is I guess some truth to that, but I think you have to really wrestle through that.

Barb:  Do the work.

Jessa:  Yes. Do the work.

Barb:  You have to deal with the shadow.

Jessa:  Exactly. And so, when you see–I hate it when I see mems where it's like that kind of thing, or you're just going to will yourself into some kind of emotion. I don't think that's true, and I think that puts actually a huge amount of pressure to be in an emotional state that maybe you're not ready to be in, and that you need to go, like you said, go through the work and deal with the demon inside that is bringing or having that negative emotion and really labeling it, and understanding it, and confessing it for me as a Christian confessing it, and then turning away. I feel like there's a whole process. It's not just like, “I'm going to be joyful because I'm going to will myself into joy.” And I'm like, “No.”

Barb:  And where you are in that process is exactly where you're supposed to be because what it is is the journey, and that life is a journey. I think there is this expectation of just like, put a bunch of positive at–I'm a big believer in affirmations, right, because you need to retrain your brain out of different kinds of patterns and that's what gratitude meditations are about, and journaling, and everything else. But the fact is it is always a journey and it's layers, and we're complex beings with a lot of history that we take in genetically and through everything that's happened to us in pre-verbal states, all the early deep brain conditioning, and you don't unravel that just by thinking that you should just be happy.

Jessa:  Yeah. I mean, perfect example is that like Ben came back from California. I had two days where I was just in this major funk, and I told him, I was like, “I don't really even know why.” And eventually, I was able to label it, and then I now can understand it, and then I confessed it, and then I turned away from it. But it was a whole process. It wasn't just like I'm in a depressed state and now I'm just choosing to be joyful. I don't like that advice. I think it's not real, and I think it's–yeah, we live in a world where we want instant results and that is not a reality in my opinion.

Ben:  Good one.

Matt:  Good job.

Barb:  Yeah. And I see that a lot in the medical practice because we deal with a lot of people who have had chronic conditions, chronic pain, chronic illness, Lyme disease, post-COVID, all the things that happen in people's life. And there's a guilt associated with when they're asked, “How you're doing?” They want to say, “Oh, I'm doing great,” but you can see they're really not doing great. And it's okay to share that with people because it's how you process it, and you get through that sort of imposter syndrome because we've all been programmed to just always pretend. And as somebody who grew up with what was called chronic illness as a type 1 diabetic and as a double organ transplant, I view this as just chronic health, and everybody's dealing with stuff. But I really like to share that with people because it gives a richness to their ability to be like, “Oh, yeah. I got stuff, too.” Like, everybody's got stuff.

Jessa:  Well, it's an indication for them to actually acknowledge it and know that it's there. Right, because a lot of people don't even want to acknowledge, like, “Yes, I'm dealing with depression.” Like, I'm not sure why. And then, actually run through the process, or, “Yes, I have this chronic illness. I don't really like to talk about it or even name it, or anything like that. I just want you to give me the shot and just deal with it.” It's like nobody wants to actually go through the process.

Barb:  Well, there's accountability associated with that, too, and I think one of the things that we've lost in our culture, particularly in the sort of influencer culture and the cancer culture, everything moves so quickly that the ability to not judge and particularly not judge yourself and be wherever you are and then continue to move along that process is something that we sort of lost as we got into this very transactional and quick-moving media culture. And maybe part of what's happening now is we're having a chance to back off from that a little bit, yeah.

Jessa:  Yeah.

Ben:  Good ones.

Matt:  Good one. Good job. Nice guys.

Ben:  So much for rapid-fire.

Matt:  Thank you for helping me.

Jessa:  Yes, sorry. I like to talk.

Barb:  Yes. And I want to go deep. Okay. Are we bypassing you, Matt, or are we going to come back to you?

Matt:  No. I seated my time for you.

Barb:  They seated.

Jessa:  Okay.

Matt:  I want to echo what you said because, for me, I felt like I couldn't say anything ever for almost all my life. So, I was just kind of holding that in. So, I relate to how you felt because I was just if I felt bad, I would just hold it in and I would wonder if it would go away. I felt like I would wonder for like months or something like that. And now, if something happens, I just say, I was like, “Oh, blah, blah, blah.” And then, it never seems to last more than like 10 minutes because I can just process through it. And so, I think that that's an amazing thing for you that you said.

Jessa:  Barb, you got the next one?

Barb:  Oh, yeah.

Jessa:  Yeah.

Barb:  In the last five years, what have you become better at saying no to invitations, distractions, et cetera? What new realizations have helped?

Ben:  That's easy. This is fresh in my mind because I just got invited down to compete in this kind of like hardcore masochistic manly man event in Texas with shooting, and swimming, and hauling heavy loads, and I am still struggling with the transition from being an athlete into being what I know is my bigger calling in terms of impact and fulfillment, and that is being a mentor, being a spiritual leader, being a motivator, or being someone who doesn't necessarily inspire people by going out on the field of battle and competing, which let's face it, I'm not going to be doing anyways when I'm 80. And my acceleration to a body that will feel like I'm 80 is only going to be vastly increased by my participation in these type of events I've been doing for the past 20 years, and I've identified myself with.

I've gotten invited to so many swim-run competitions and random screwed up versions of triathlons, and obstacle course races, and heavy man lifting, and strong man–all this stuff, and I have had to learn that most of the time, my pulling towards a lot of those activities is based on ego, based on the fact that I've identified myself as an athlete for so long that it was really hard for me for a long time to just say, “No. I can't make it.” And this last event, it's like I look at it and look at all the events that they're going to be doing like, “Oh, yeah. I could totally win this. I'm going to totally go there and clean up.” And I'm like, “But you know what, that's two days of travel, flight, Texas, two days of sitting around, shooting the shit with a bunch of guys, lifting stuff, exercising, not really necessarily creating meaningful shit for people, or doing what I know is going to be my true calling, or even being around to raise up my boys, or be with them, or take them out in the wilderness or down to the river, or out in the forest.” And so, I've had to begin to learn to say no to athletic events that I get invited to that I'm realizing are more simply things I'm tempted to do to feel my ego versus things that are going to help me to fulfill my impact in the world.

Jessa:  I can totally resonate that.

Ben:  Yeah.

Barb:  Awesome.

Ben:  Yeah. So, hanging up the athlete identity and replacing it with the man, mentor, leader, father, king.

Jessa:  It took me two years to actually fully given to that because it was a huge part of my identity as well.

Ben:  Yeah. So, that was it.

Jessa:  I get it.

Matt:  How do you feel now, Jessa?

Barb:  Transformation.

Jessa:  How I feel now about it? I feel like I've already proved myself and I don't need to prove myself anymore.

Matt:  That's a good one.

Jessa:  That's basically it.

Barb:  Yeah.

Jessa:  It's in a very simplified version. It took me two years to get to that.

Barb:  Oh, that was quick though. Most people don't get there, yeah.

Ben:  How about you, Matt?

Matt:  For me, it's a little similar. We're saying no to a lot of travel now, and I'm trying to say no to almost anything other than like exercise, meditation, yoga, movement, mobility, medicine, and just doing that. And I feel like we're going to–that investment's probably going to do more towards improving what we can do for other people. And, so saying no to travel and being on the road and saying yes to our version of that introspection is I'm incredibly excited about.

Jessa:  Cool. That's awesome. Okay.

Ben:  Yes. I agree with the no to travel. That's been amazing.

Jessa:  It has been amazing [01:31:34] _____.

Matt:  So great.

Barb:  Food is so much better.

Jessa:  I know.

Matt:  I used to come home and it'd be interesting because a lot of times, what I would do is I would work as I can, especially in the older days. I would work and fly and meet like a baseball team, like take a red-eye Thursday night and then work, and it was interesting. And so, then I would basically just stay up all night Thursday night and then work all the way 'til Sunday night. We would do that and go to medical conferences and stuff like that. And so, come home just dying. And then, a lot of the stuff that I learned was just to–I would come home and inject myself with NAD and stuff like that. And then, next thing you know, we could almost make it like it didn't happen and it'd be almost perfect. But that was like we were a little road weary. And so, then realizing the possibility of doing that we're all way more connected than ever and–

Barb:  And it's more sustainable. I mean, I think what we've realized is that we had a lot of shortcuts and biohacking is great, and do a little nicotine, and do a little NAD, and do a little peptide. But what you really need is you need to be grounded and you need to be connected to the source, and taking care of yourself, and taking care of the people around you.

Jessa:  And connected to your people.

Barb:  Yeah.

Jessa:  It's like your community.

Ben:  Yeah.

Jessa:  Yeah. Okay. Question, the last, final, grand finale question.

Ben:  That'll be a good one.

Jessa:  When you feel overwhelmed, or unfocused, or have lost your focus temporarily, what do you do? If helpful, what questions do you ask yourself?

Ben:  This is hard for me, and this is going to sound like an asshole reply, but I don't really lose my focus barely ever. I've just never had a problem being focused. I would say about the only time when I lose focus is if I overstimulate my body, like too much caffeine, or too much nicotine, or something that just gets you a little jittery. And even then, if I take a few deep centering breaths through the nose, out through the mouth, just like we do before dinner each night just to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, it brings me right back into focus very quickly. And even when I wake up in the morning and I've got like 20 different things to do, I'll stop here right at the kitchen table and I'll stand and look at that window, like 5:30 a.m. where I'm like, “Which thing do I start with?” I'll just take like three deep centering breaths. I've always, even as a kid, been able to focus in the middle of complete chaos on a book, or a project, or a task. So, I think some of it might be nature and just built into me by my personality, and just being able to block things out. But I would say as silly as it may seem, I'm going to roll with what I actually do, and that's deep centering breaths that brings me right back into focus. So, I wish I had a sexy reply, but that's really all I do.

Barb:  Ben, that's the perfect reply because I think that the main reason why people lose focus, and I can speak for myself and just having watched other people, is underlying anxiety, right, whatever that is. It could be a physical kind of inflammatory situation, it could be emotional, anxiety about things that have happened. And mental are just reflecting the general anxiety of the society right now. But your breath, so related to the emotional and mental body, and just letting yourself do that, and that goes back to all the old spiritual practices, right? You're quiet with your breath. So, it's a simple thing, but we forget how powerful that is, and just being able to do that. I mean, I noticed that because I used to have a really bad claustrophobia, which I've gotten rid of, but even when I'd have that anxiety attack like stuck on an airplane in the middle seat, I would be like, “Okay. I got no choice here but to breathe. That's all I got.” And then, I would get through it, because you always have your breath.

Jessa:  Yeah. I developed that when I used to run track and field in cross country because there is an anxiety when you're on the track running and controlling your breath. I mean, that can make or break your run or your race. And if your breath is erratic and out of control and full of anxiety, you're generally going to take. So, you have to learn how to just totally settle yourself in the midst of something really hard. Yeah. That's a great one. What about you, Matt? What'd you got?

Matt:  Alright. So, this one–

Ben:  Pigs.

Matt:  This one pigs.

Jessa:  The hooves. Have I told you about the hooves?

Matt:  What I've got is a dovetail, and then we're going to sneak up on the hooves, like grab a hold of the hooves.

Jessa:  I prefer the tail.

Matt:  And then, I climb to the tail, and then I piggyback. And that's basically what I'm actually going to do with this answer, which is awesome.

Jessa:  It's going to be amazing.

Matt:  Amazing. So, this is an interesting one for people that are practitioners or people out there. I only started to be able to do this basically in the last 6 to 12 months. And what would happen is, and what happened–I take care of a lot of people with PTSD with everything, from sexual trauma to a lot of war and crazy stuff. And I'll be in some genre of conversation that feels kind of like this and everything is great, and then all of a sudden, the cataclysmic event will come out. And then, when that does, it's somewhat overwhelming and distracting and hard to deal with. And then, what I noticed is is that there would be, like I would feel like I wanted to cry. And I realized that I had for most of my life, whenever I felt that way, I felt I wasn't safe, and then I would just shut down.

And so, then I think that in a lot of those interactions, I would have just shut down. And so, then time would go, and then I would come back into my body. And then, for this last year, basically, what I'll do is I'll just sit with people and I'll look at them and I'll breathe. And often, I'll feel like I want to cry, and often even they'll feel like they want to cry, but I'll keep breathing, and then I'll talk to them like this, and I'll feel the emotion inside me. And often, it's like real intense, but then what happens is now that we're talking, and I'll tell them that I'm feeling really emotional also, and then I'll start to feel that emotion move within me. And then, basically, at that point, I'll always come up with an amazing idea that's either funny, or whimsical, or thoughtful. And then, that then, now then we'll start naturally engaging in that. And then, next thing I know, we were in this overwhelming difficult place. And now all of a sudden, everybody's laughing, it's kind of funny. And so, then being able to be, I guess, awake and aware and connected in that space is maybe my favorite thing because that emotion, when it comes, it's so overwhelming and yet then once you can process it and deal with it, then I'm left with such an extraordinary sense of hope and optimism about life that these horrible things can happen that we can transcend.

Barb:  And heal.

Jessa:  Yeah.

Matt:  And heal, yeah.

Ben:  I like it. I like it. Wow! Well, we covered a lot of territory over the course of 11 questions.

Jessa:  Yeah. With these questions [01:39:52] _____ questions from Tim.

Ben:  Of course. For those of you listening in, if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/mattandben, M-A-T-T-A-N-D-B-E-N.

Jessa:  I really think it should be Jessa and Barb.

Ben:  I know, I know.

Matt:  Do you guys have any–

Jessa:  I'd be totally honest.

Ben:  Someday.

Matt:  Do you guys want to weigh in? Do you guys have any final thoughts?

Jessa:  I feel like I've contributed. I'm good. I'm satisfied.

Barb:  Yeah. I feel very complete with the interaction because I feel like that we all brought different things, but came back to the breath, and came back to the community, and came back to connection, and joy, and appreciation, and celebration of life.

Ben:  Yeah. Well, if you guys are listening and you do have your own thoughts, comments, questions, feedback, if you want to reply with your own replies, which would be great if you have your own replies to any of these 11 questions, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/mattandben. Leave your questions, leave your comments, leave your feedback. I'll link to all the previous podcast episodes I've done with Dr. Cook, which are a little bit more medical and sciencey based. This one was a little more kind of lifestyle advice, playful based. Leave your comments over there because we love to read them, we love your feedback. And in the meantime, I will also put links to everything we talked about, all our favorite books and our lovely toys, and everything that we discussed. So, that's like all again at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/mattandben.

So, Matt and Barb, thank you so much for coming all the way up from San Jose, chilling on our pad. We're going to have an amazing hike today. We're going to have some people over, make burgers, do sauna, do ice, and we'll have another wonderful evening.

Jessa:  We're going to make it hard to leave.

Ben:  Yeah, that's right.

Barb:  You always do.

Ben:  In the meantime, for those all of you listening in, have a magical week. We hope that this has been helpful to you. That's why we do this to serve you, to make your life better, and to give us an excuse to drink two extra cups of coffee sitting around the kitchen table.

Matt:  Amen.

Ben:  I'm Ben Greenfield along with Matt Cook, Barb, and Jessa signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com. Have an amazing week.

Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the shownotes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com, along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful “Ben Recommends” page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormone, sleep, digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please, also, know that all the links, all the promo codes, that I mentioned during this and every episode, helped to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. When you listen in, be sure to use the links in the shownotes, use the promo codes that I generate, because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.

 

 

He's back! Not only is one of my most popular guests of all time, Dr. Matt Cook, back on today's show, but he is joined by the CEO of BioReset Medical, Barb Branaman, along with my wife Jessa Greenfield…

…both of whom put Matt and I in the hot seat with a host of questions inspired by Tim Ferriss' Tools Of Titans.

Dr. Cook, MD is a regenerative medicine specialist and the president of BioReset Medical in Campbell, CA. He graduated from the University of Washington School of Medicine in 1997 and completed his residency in anesthesiology at the University of California San Francisco in 2001. He is a board-certified anesthesiologist with over 20 years of experience in medical practice. Currently, Dr. Cook is the president of California Anesthesia and medical director of the National Surgery Center in Los Gatos, CA. Dr. Cook also sits on the scientific advisory board of several high profile medical companies including VMDOC, FREMedica, & Vasper Systems. His early career as an anesthesiologist and medical director of an outpatient surgery center that specializes in sports medicine and orthopedic procedures provided invaluable training in the skills that are needed to become a leader in the emerging fields of musculoskeletal ultrasound imaging and nerve hydrodissection.

Dr. Matt Cook previously appeared on the podcast episodes…

• Kiss Gas & Bloating Goodbye With Dr. Matt Cook: The Complete Done-For-You Guide To Eliminating SIBO Once & For All (Along With Sex, Trauma, PTSD, Ozone Dialysis & More!).
• Everything You Need To Know For Antivirus & Immune System Enhancement: A Special One-Two Podcast Episode With Dr. Matt Cook, Dr. Matt Dawson, & Dr. Michael Mallin.
• Killing Mold & Mycotoxins For Good, The Craziest IVs You Can Get For Energy, Fixing Knees & Back Without Surgery & Much More With Dr. Matt Cook.
• What You Didn’t Know About CBD & THC, Fixing Lyme Disease, The Full Body Blood Change Reboot, Peptides 101, Hyperthermia & Much More!
• Immortal Cells, Biohacking Pain, Killing Lyme, Stem Cell Confusion, How Ketamine Works & Much More With Dr. Matt Cook.

During this discussion, you'll discover:

-Ben and Matt recall hunting stories…7:20

• Cerebrolysin peptide Matt gave Ben, Jessa, and Barb
• Pigs and sheep are surprisingly smart; the size of the brain doesn't determine intelligence
• Butter of the Gods: bone marrow, salt, thyme, rosemary
• Cerebrolysin taken to improve neurological performance
• Calm nerves for hydrodissection and recovering from injury
• Bone broth smoothie:
  • Ancient Nutrition powder and Kettle and Fire liquid
  • Colostrum, sea salt, cinnamon, cacao

-Question 1: What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why?…17:30

• Ben: Poor Charlie's Almanac by Charles T. Munger and Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• Matt: The Brothers K by David James Duncan
• Jessa is dyslexic so not a big reader
  • Introducing fats into the diet
  • Read for children (no judgment)
• Dyslexic people tend to be more successful in life
• Books by C.S. Lewis:
  • Mere Christianity
  • Chronicles of Narnia
  • A Grief Observed

-Question 2: What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)?…25:45

• Ben: Relaxator breath control device
  • CO₂ used for PTSD
• Matt: Pure O3 Ozone generator for the washing machine
• Breath by James Nestor
• Anders Olsson, author of Conscious Breathing

-Question 3: How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?…31:00

• Ben: transactional and not transformational relationships with clients, employees, etc.
  • The antisocial qualities of social media
  • Absence makes the heart grow fonder; familiarity breeds contempt
• Matt: Went into anesthesia as a profession; found himself detached from his patients socially and emotionally
• Work one hour a day less
• Yoga and meditation to find the proper balance between work and joy in life
• Ecstasy in seeing an idea come to fruition

-Question 4: If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it – metaphorically speaking, getting a message out to millions or billions – what would it say and why?…38:53

• Ben: “Be Nice” by The Black Eyed Peas
  • NBC show “Songland“
  • Rocky Roots (Ben and Matt's band)
  • Marcus King on Spotify
• Matt: “It's gonna be amazing…”
  • Transitioning into the future state of being
  • Opportunity to take our health to a greater level

-Question 5: What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made?…49:50

• Ben: The land and home where his family currently lives
  • Book collection is a close second
• Matt: Knowledge and education
  • Functional medicine education platform (going live soon)

-Question 6: What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?…56:00

• Ben: Walk in the sunshine 5-7 miles (ruthless walking)
• Matt: Play and sing along with music at full volume
  • Hydrodissection has helped with vocal cords, clarity in the voice

-Question 7: In the last five years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life?…1:04:05

• Ben: Meditation and journaling as a family
  • In the morning:
    • What am I grateful for?
    • Who can I pray for or serve today?
  • In the evening:
    • Self-examination in the evening?
    • How did I fulfill my life's purpose today?
  • Spiritual Disciplines Journal (coming soon)
• Matt: Letting go of dogma, injecting peptides
  • We'll be able to keep ourselves young by harnessing tools and techniques that double in quality every 2 years

-Question 8: What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student about to enter the “real world?” What advice should they ignore?…1:09:15

• Ben: For whatever career you want to pursue, find the best in that field and shadow, be mentored by them
  • Don't try to do everything
  • The One Thing by Gary Keller
• Matt: Don't put yourself in a box for life

-Question 9: What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?…1:18:15

• Ben: Exercising is the best way to get fit
  • Low-level physical activity
  • Destressing
  • Cold practice in the morning
  • The fittest people are not constantly in the gym
• Jessa: The thought that you can “will” yourself into a particular frame of mind or emotional state without doing the work to get into that state
• Barb: The ability to not judge, particularly yourself, is lost in the current culture in which we live

-Question 10: In the last five years, what have you become better at saying no to (distractions, invitations, etc.)?…1:27:30

• Ben: Competitive events
  • Transitioning from an athlete to a greater calling into being a mentor, spiritual leader, motivator, etc.
  • Gratifying ego vs. fulfilling life's purpose
• Matt: Travel all over the world
  • Yes to gratitude, meditation, introspection

-Question 11: When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, or have lost your focus temporarily, what do you do?…1:33:00

• Ben: Deep, centering breaths; in through the nose, out through the mouth
  • Underlying anxiety is the cause of loss of focus for many
• Matt: Sit with people, deep breathing, talk with them, share and embrace the emotions moving inside
  • A funny or whimsical idea often comes and leads to engaging conversation
  • The ability to be aware of both the struggle and the relief is so freeing

-And much more!

Resources from this episode:

– BGF podcasts with Dr. Matt Cook:

• Kiss Gas & Bloating Goodbye With Dr. Matt Cook: The Complete Done-For-You Guide To Eliminating SIBO Once & For All (Along With Sex, Trauma, PTSD, Ozone Dialysis & More!).
• Everything You Need To Know For Antivirus & Immune System Enhancement: A Special One-Two Podcast Episode With Dr. Matt Cook, Dr. Matt Dawson, & Dr. Michael Mallin.
• Killing Mold & Mycotoxins For Good, The Craziest IVs You Can Get For Energy, Fixing Knees & Back Without Surgery & Much More With Dr. Matt Cook.
• What You Didn’t Know About CBD & THC, Fixing Lyme Disease, The Full Body Blood Change Reboot, Peptides 101, Hyperthermia & Much More!
• Immortal Cells, Biohacking Pain, Killing Lyme, Stem Cell Confusion, How Ketamine Works & Much More With Dr. Matt Cook.

– Books:

• Tools Of Titans by Tim Ferriss
• Poor Charlie's Almanac by Charles T. Munger
• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• The Brothers K by David James Duncan
• Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
• A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis
• Breath by James Nestor
• Conscious Breathing by Anders Olsson
• The One Thing by Gary Keller

– Other resources:

• Butter of the Gods:
  • Bone Marrow From US Wellness Meats (use code BEN to save 15%)
  • Sea salt
  • Thyme
  • Rosemary
• Bone broth smoothie:
  • Ancient Nutrition powder
  • Kettle and Fire liquid
  • Colostrum
  • Sea salt
  • Cinnamon
  • Cacao
• Christian Gratitude Journal
• Relaxator
• Pure O3 Ozone generator
• Rocky Roots (Ben and Matt's band)
• “Be Nice” by The Black Eyed Peas
• “Songland” show on NBC
• Marcus King on Spotify

Episode sponsors:

–Kion Decaf Coffee: Carefully selected and roasted for taste, purity, high antioxidants, and health. BGF listeners receive a 10% discount when you use discount code BEN10.

–Organifi Gold Pumpkin Spice: A new take on an ancient secret: Pain-soothing herbs, incredible antioxidants, and phytonutrients all in one delicious, soothing “Golden Milk” nighttime tea! Receive a 20% discount on your entire order when you use discount code BENG20.

–Butcher Box: Delivers healthy 100% grass-fed and finished beef, free-range organic chicken, and heritage breed pork directly to your door on a monthly basis. All their products are humanely raised and NEVER given antibiotics or hormones.

–Thrive Market: Organic brands you love, for less. Your favorite organic food and products. Fast and free shipping to your doorstep. Receive a gift card worth up to $20 when you begin a new membership.