The Thinker's Apprentice

In this episode I bid farewell for a while for some much needed rest and recovery. I talk about what led me to this decision I then recap the entirety of the podcast to paint the big picture I was aiming for. Then I share some final wisdom. And then I bid farewell. Thanks for listening and thanks for all the support. Resist, Persist, and Persevere.

In this episode we talk about the goals we all tend to set for the new year, goals we often fail to achieve. We talk about what it takes to actually accomplish those goals. Topics include: I talk about New Year's resolutions in general terms and why they always fail. I talk about procrastination and how putting things off until tomorrow only leads to putting them off for an infinite amount of tomorrows.  I talk about planning and how it is the foundation of achieving any goal.  I also talk about knowing if a goal is truly important to you or not. Then we talk about understanding your WHY and understanding what barriers are standing in the way. I use a diet as an easy example to illustrate some common roadblocks. And for us to really go deep we do a journal entry and explore these 2 things. Then I introduce SMART goals, which most people are familiar with.  Then I go over some extraneous details. Finally we talk about how to deal with setbacks and mistakes, which are guaranteed to happen.  And in our Call-to-Action we put all this to work this year while we make our resolutions so that this year can be different than all the other years. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode we talk about taking extreme ownership over all aspects of your life. It's a quick one and we discuss: The attitudes people take towards the realities of life. I illustrate the 2 main ways people usually approach this. Where those attitudes ultimately take us. I introduce the book Extreme Ownership, by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, 2 retired Navy SEALs that talk about how the SEALs train to WIN. I talk about the 2 primary conclusions this book arrived at, which are: there are no bad teams, only bad leaders, and good leaders are people that take 100% ownership over everything in their lives. And I talk about how we can integrate that concept into our own lives to become habitual winners. I talk about the part of this we all struggle with the most, which is that there are many things that happen that truly aren't our faults. But that doesn't matter. Extreme ownership is a mindset and one that breeds success. I then take a quick detour and talk about blaming and victim mentality and why they will never ever get you anywhere in life.  And in this week's Call-to-Action I want you think about how you react to the things that happen to you. Do you blame and complain and make excuses? Or do you own it 100%, learn from your mistakes, and constantly get better? Because one way will keep you winning throughout your whole life and the other will get you absolutely nowhere. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice  

In this episode we discuss the tools of intelligence and how you can hone them to increase your own intelligence. Topics include: I open by defining intelligence and discussing how there are no more smarter people today than there ever were.  I talk about how things were different before the internet and how these days everybody thinks they're the smartest person in the room. I talk about how information does not equal knowledge and how education does not equal intelligence.  And then I introduce the tools of intelligence. These are tools you can develop within yourself to increase your own intelligence. And they are: logic, reason, rhetoric, critical thinking, skepticism, questioning, curiosity, and open-mindedness.  Then I dive deep into each of these and explain why it is so important. The secret to all of this is the ability to remove yourself from the equation. It's our emotions and egos that always stand in the way of our objectivity.  In this week's Call-to-Action we run one of our long standing beliefs through our filter of intelligence and apply all these tools to see if it still stands afterwards. 

In this episode we talk about Game Changers, the latest installment in the vegan propaganda film series. We discuss all sorts of issues with the film, from bad science, conjecture, and cherry-picked facts, to clever narrative tools meant to deceive and a completely one sided look at a subject. Topics include: We talk about all the conflicts of interest in the film. From a producer that's a vegan activist and owner of a vegan protein company, to the doctors, most of whom have built their careers around this ideology. We talk about the film's narrator and how all the footage of him "researching and recovering" are reenactments. He would also have you believe that ALL the research leads to veganism being the optimum diet for health and performance. This is beyond demonstrably false.  Then we talk about the problem with modern documentaries. We have this idea that documentaries are this objective look at a subject where all facts, science, and evidence are considered and a conclusion is drawn or left to the viewer to conclude. That's not what documentaries are today. This film was a one-sided, agenda driven propaganda film that presented only what fit into its narrative and omitted the rest. When only one side has a voice it becomes easy to make it seem like all the evidence supports that side. It doesn't. Much of the science I debunked came from Chris Kresser's website and I'll put two links at the bottom of this page if you want to check it out. I move through the claims of the film one at a time and give you a bigger picture. This includes the gladiator diet, ultra-runner Scott Jurek, and Patrick Baboumian. Then I talk about Arnold's role in the film, which is to say that you don't need animal protein to be big and strong... and yet all of his athletic accomplishments happened while he was consuming epic amounts of animal protein every day. But the film is trying to get you to associate being big and strong with veganism. It's a narrative tool. The same goes for the William's sisters, who sometimes kinda maybe vegan when its convenient... which means they're not vegan. Speaking of narrative tools, the film then introduces Damien Mander, an anti-poaching crusader in Africa. What does he have to do with veganism? Nothing. But his story will get you to associate saving elephants and rhinos with veganism.  This leads me to talk about how the vegan agenda has unfolded over the years. It started with ending the killing of animals. But we now know that the vegan diet is responsible for millions of animals deaths. So then the vegans went with the environmental argument. They said that meat is killing the planet and we need to stop eating meat to save ourselves. Well we know that livestock only accounts for 2% of the greenhouse gas emission and the real drivers are electricity and transportation. But the vegans aren't pushing to eliminate electricity or cars are they? And so now we are on our third iteration of why we all must go vegan: because it is "the optimum diet for health and performance."  At this point I really start dismantling the claims of the film. I talk about what they say, but I also talk about what they fail to say, which is a LOT. I talk about the omission, the cherry-picked data, the correlations, and the outright lies.  I talk about the claims of inflammation and cancer, the cloudy blood, the comparison of a peanut butter sandwich and 3oz of beef, the B12 claim, the hysterical claim that meat lobbies are the problem, and the even more hysterical claim that the brain can only run on glucose. Then I talk about the fact that our soil only has an estimated 60 years of harvests left. And then I close with some little tidbits you may find interesting. The main tidbit is that 84% of people ho go vegan quit within a year, many due to serious health complications. I also tell the story of Tim Scheiff, who was supposed to be in the film, but got edited out because he had to leave veganism after developing severe health complications. He tried very hard to stay vegan, but ultimately reintroduced animal products and his health recovered almost immediately. The vegan community viciously attacked him for putting his own health first. This is proof to me that veganism is not a diet, but an ideology. Within this framework of belief it is not acceptable to put your own health before the cause.  And finally I talk about the things you're missing in a vegan diet. This includes B12, collagen, zinc, iron, and omega 3's, not to mention bioavailable protein.  Ultimately I support anybodies right to eat how they want. I would even recommend the vegan diet over the standard American diet. But the propaganda has to end. Be a vegan if you want to, but stop trying to tell me that I'm a bad person because I'm not vegan. Stop telling people that meat is the cause of all our problems. Stop telling people that veganism is optimum diet for health and performance. Veganism is an ideology first and foremost. It is not concerned with the truth. It will try and convert you by any means necessary. Game Changers is simply one more example of this model.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice Chris Kresser Link 1 Chris Kresser Link 2

In this episode we talk about how to use the placebo effect to change the parts of ourselves that we don't like or that don't serve us. Topics include: An overview of the placebo effect and how it manifests belief into reality. We discuss how you can, indeed, use the placebo effect to change yourself. We talk about the default mode network (DMN) of you brain and how it creates your personality and your reality. And then we talk about just how it is possible to change this. And I reference 2 books to illustrate this and they are: You Are The Placebo, by Dr. Joe Dispenza and How To Change Your Mind, by Michael Pollan. Both books are excellent and I highly recommend them. *Just a quick note: I incorrectly called this book A Whole New Mind in the episode. My apologies. Then I introduce the concepts of neurorigidity and neuroplasticity, which are critical in understanding how to use the placebo effect to change your life.  We talk about our self-talk and how to change our story that we tell ourselves about who we are. And then we talk about mental rehearsal and visualization.  That leads us into our final two tactics to effect lasting change and they are gratitude and binaural beats. We attach gratitude with our new story because gratitude is a powerful emotion and it can convince your sub-conscious that what you want has already been achieved. And then we use binaural beats to put us into a theta brainwave state, which can bypass the analytical part of our brain and send the new story right into the sub-conscious. And in this week's Call-to-Action we follow all these steps to change something about ourselves that we don't like or that doesn't serve us.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode I introduce you to Stoicism and explain why it has endured for thousands of years and how it can serve as a valuable tool throughout your life. Topics include: I dispel some misconceptions about stoicism and philosophy. I explain how I found stoicism and how it improved my life. Then I define what it is before moving into the 3 primary disciplines of stoicism: the discipline of perception, the discipline of action, and the discipline of will. I dive deeper into each of these and explain why they're so important and how they interplay with each other in your life.  Throughout this we discuss some of the main ideas within stoicism, namely understanding what is and is not under our control and learning to accept what is not and how it is us that choose how to react and respond to anything that happens to us in life.  Then we talk a bit about ego as the stoics perceived it. That moves into a final thought on anxiety. Then I explain all the instances in my life where I lean on stoicism to assist me. Then in this week's Call-to-Action we make a list of all the things disturbing our peace of mind. And we go over that list one item at a time and figure out how much of it is actually under our control. And if we don't control it then we can either accept it or allow it to make us suffer. And how does that suffering make the situation any better or improve our lives in any way? It doesn't, so why choose to suffer?  You get better at seeing this and accepting things as they are the more you practice the 3 disciplines of stoicism.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode we talk about patience and how it's a superpower in this day and age. Topics include: We define patience and why it has no real value in today's day and age. We talk about the age of instant gratification and how it makes us unable to pursue difficult things.  And I give an example to show how this usually unfolds.  We talk about how patience can be a superpower when employed properly. I tell a story of how a lack of patience taught me a valuable lesson. As a mater of fact I tell two stories. Then I talk about cultivating patience with other people, perhaps one of the hardest things for any of us to cultivate. And I explain why it's more important than ever in this day and age.  I tell you the two ways that have helped me cultivate patience with other people the most. And in this week's Call-to-Action we take advantage of the multiple times per day this life allows you to apply patience. All it takes is practice. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode we discuss our relationships with ourselves and why it's the most important relationship in your life. Topics discussed include: We talk about the burdens that growth and self-development can place upon us if we're not careful. If we don't do things the right way then pursuing our own betterment could actually leave us worse off. The way forward is self-love, self-acceptance, and forgiveness. We talk about how our inner dialogue and self-talk can turn quite cruel and demeaning when we fail to live up to our standards or we make a mistake.  We talk about the right way to approach growth and self-development. And that starts with understanding that you're OK right now the way you are.  And we talk about why self-love is so important. And that's because the opposite is self-rejection, which is a horrible way to live. With self-rejection you are not only rejecting yourself, but you're rejecting reality, rejecting the truth of your existence. The mind can't reconcile this and so you suffer endlessly.  And we talk about how self-love, self-acceptance, and forgiveness are choices that we get to make multiple times every day. We talk about how to override those automatic negative thoughts until they eventually integrate into your sub-concours and then the positive thoughts become automatic.  And in this week's Call-to-Action we work on overriding our negative self-talk with positive thoughts, and we forgive ourselves for all of our past transgressions against ourselves.  And I talk a bit about why this is the only real choice we have, even if it takes many people a lifetime to realize.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this podcast we talk all about what it takes to achieve the blissful state of stillness within the mind, body, and soul. The episode draws heavily from the book, Stillness is the Key, by Ryan Holiday. I highly recommend it as I do with all his other books. Topics include: We start with a little experiment to test your ability to achieve stillness. Most of us will fail this experiment in short order. And I use that experiment to introduce the topic of stillness. I define stillness as it relates to your life. Then I talk about why it's so hard to come by in our modern world of receiving data and reacting to data nonstop. There's just too much input and noise to ever find stillness. This is also the reason that most of us don't really even know ourselves. How could we? We spend almost no time truly alone in solitude with our own thoughts. And when we do, we panic and look for any distraction. I also highlight that our modern way of living is completely external and outward facing. There's no real value placed on reflection and independent thought. This is a shame because it steals from us what we have to offer the world that is unique to us. In our external world we value and chase things that aren't of real importance and won't fill the hole inside of us like we think they will. Things like money, fame, prestige, things, and objects. We also like to take no responsibility for our lives and blame everything on some external factor and compete to see who's the biggest victim.  All of this creates chaos internally, chaos that we never address because we never take the time to just sit quietly with our own thoughts and address whatever rises to the surface.  And to achieve stillness we need to address this. We need to know ourselves. So I give us a way to do that effectively.  Then I give us a way to create a little more headspace. Our complete freedom is actually a curse if we don't apply discipline to it. Otherwise every single decision in your day is some massive deliberation that takes away from your mental resources. And lastly we need to disconnect. Disconnect from the external world, but also disconnect from our normal thought patterns. I'm not talking about going on a vacation or to a bar where our same thought patterns persist. I'm talking about pursuing hobbies for the sake of your enjoyment alone. Pursue something that fully engages your mind in a different way, that you enjoy doing, and that you have no attachment to the outcome. This is where the mind finds peace, rest, and solace. This is where you create stillness. You're not resting just because you're lying down, and you're not relaxing just because you're doing mindless activities like watching TV and scrolling social media. You need to put your mind at rest and hobbies are a great way to do that.  In this week's Call-to-Action I give you a path to experience stillness. The way to getting it under your command is long and arduous, but that doesn't mean you can't experience it. And my prescription for that is to get out in nature, by yourself, with no electronics, and just walk. Walk for as long as it takes for all those nagging thoughts to quiet or disappear. Walk until you can maintain one continuous thought effortlessly. Walk until you start noticing things you never noticed, hearing sounds you've never heard, but were always there. At this point you've found yourself a piece of stillness, a peace of mind that permeates your whole being. Find this feeling, experience it, and after you see what it has to offer, then go through the process of having stillness at your beck and call.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode we talk all about Imposter Syndrome, what it is, and how to overcome it. Topics include: What it is and how it presents. I list all the various symptoms you may feel if you're experiencing imposter syndrome. I tell a good long story about a decade of imposter syndrome that I dealt with. I use that story to highlight how this unfolds in real scenarios, of which I provided plenty of examples.  And I explain how it can show up in more than just the workplace. It shows up with new pursuits and endeavors, because before you can ever get good at anything, you have to be really bad at it first.  Then I go into the reality of what imposter syndrome is and where it comes from. It's a pattern of self-destructive thoughts that have no basis in or consideration of reality.  I explain how it's us that hold ourselves accountable to these impossible standards we make for ourselves. Standards that could never be met so we'll always fall short. And when everything we do is perceived as a failure then are we not failures ourselves? This gets at the heart of imposter syndrome. Then I explain how imposter syndrome can result in a chronic stress response, because you always have anxiety that the shoe is going to drop. This means you're always in fight-or-flight sympathetic nerve activation. The body can only keep that up for so long before things break down. Then we get into how to beat imposter syndrome and that starts with challenging your thoughts and reframing them. And I go over how exactly we do that.  And over time we use deliberate thought to override and reprogram automatic thought. Whether we believe it or not we reframe all our negative thoughts into neutral or positive one. And over time it gets internalized and our feelings change.  And in this weeks Call-to-Action we do exactly this. We write down our 5 most persistent thoughts that make us feel like imposters. Then for each of them we reframe them 3 different ways. I give some examples. And this is the way we overcome imposter syndrome.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode I talk about something I deeply care about and that's Nature. I share my thoughts, some stats, and some science. Topics include: How we lost the nature inside of us and how despite how much we pretend otherwise, we're still animals at the end of the day. I throw some shade at this modern world we've created and how much havoc it wreaks on us and our mental and physical health. And Nature is the place we can go to get away from it all. A place of solace that we've all but forgotten about.  Then I go into all the physiological and mental benefits of Nature, many of which have been scientifically documented.  Then I go into the fact that we're eliminating nature from our world. We see it as something in the way. Something with little value to us as consumers. Something that we don't have to nurture and care for. And this is a major problem. I run some depressing statistics about just how much we're destroying the world and it's alarming.  Then I talk about public lands and conservation in America and what a success it's been and just how rare that is globally.  I try and paint a picture of just what we've done to this earth in our short time here. Then I talk about some of the times that nature has completely awed me and how nature is the only thing that's ever left me in awe.  And then our Call-to-Action is just to get out there and experience nature and all it has to offer. Go hiking, fishing, camping, hunting, climbing, mountaineering, orienteering, kayaking, whatever. Just get out there and enjoy the natural world and all it has to offer. Our lives on the internet are not real. And then I leave you with a great quote from the father of conservation, Teddy Roosevelt. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode we talk all about how and why we get fat as well as how we burn fat most effectively. Topics include: Some general biology of the human body and how it works on a cellular level and how hormone signaling works. We get introduced to a few of the major metabolic hormones: insulin, cortisol, leptin, and glucagon. We go over each and discuss the role they play in either getting fat or getting skinny. Then we talk about the way people get fat in the first place. And to do this we use the Standard American Diet, which applies to the majority of Americans and first worlders. We talk about the glucose rollercoaster and never ending onslaught of insulin in our diets and how that ruins our health over time. We talk about why so many people fail to lose weight when they don't take their hormones in account. It's a recipe for failure.  Then we talk about how to get skinny and how to master your hormones for effortless weight management.  The way we do this is by become fat-adapted and reducing our daily carbohydrate intake.  We do this over a 3 week period in order to let our bodies adjust slowly so that we don't initiate an onslaught of stress hormones that will ultimately work against us.  And after 3 weeks we get to where we need to be to be effortlessly losing weight while feeling great. We master our hormones. Then I give you a couple of tips to help you out during the transition and after.  And then in this week's Call-to-Action we go through this 3 week adaptation period and become fat-adapted. In doing so we begin to master our own hormones and reclaim our health and fitness.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this podcast we talk about the 5 most pervasive myths in diet, health, and well-being. Topics include: Myth 1: Your body needs dietary carbohydrates Myth 2: Eating fat makes you fat Myth 3: Cholesterol is bad for your health Myth 4: Salt intake is the cause of high blood pressure Myth 5: Red meat is bad for your health. I also dive into the myth that red meat is bad for the environment as that one has been gaining tractions lately. How people are getting the health and body composition they want, reversing incurable illnesses, and more, all by going against the conventional wisdom. Then in this week's Call-to-Action I task the listeners with spreading the word. The world is in the midst of a health and obesity epidemic, and these myths share a lot of the blame. By spreading the truth about these falsehoods we can take the first step towards reclaiming the health that is the birthright of each and every one of us. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode we discuss the difference between perfection and excellence. Topics include: Perfectionism. We define it and explain what it is and how it plays out in your life. We discuss how ludicrous a concept perfection is and why I believe it's a mental illness.  We talk about the many negative effects perfectionism has on your life.  Then we talk about excellence. While excellence and perfection seem to be synonymous, they are actually opposites. Excellence is everything perfectionism would like to be. I explain why we should pursue excellence instead of perfection. I give a very common example of how perfectionism and excellence play out in the context of a diet. This highlights why the perfectionist often fails, while those seeking excellence often succeed. In this week's Call-to-Action we take a little questionnaire to see if we may have some tendencies of the perfectionist. And if we do we talk about how to shift into an excellence mindset.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

This podcast is all about creating a digital diet with our screen time and media consumption in order to maintain our physical and mental health. Topics include: A rant about Jersey Shore. How we're all addicted to screen time in one way or another.  How the media we consume affects who we are and how we think and behave, whether we want it to or not. How anything that you're exposed to excessively or repetitively will wire itself into your brain. Then I introduce the idea that screen time addiction (and we're all addicted) operates in the exact same way that narcotics operate. When you break it down to nuts and bolts it fits the bill of a drug.  I talk about the various rationalizations we make to justify our addictions. Then we get into what to do about it. We can't eliminate screen time entirely. We wouldn't even want to. It's fun and enjoyable and we shouldn't deprive ourselves. But there's a fine line between enjoying ourselves and being addicted. And the answer is a digital diet. We treat media like foods we consume, which all exist on a spectrum of good choices neutral choices, and bad choices. And you know instinctively which of your media choices falls where. And we treat it all like a diet. Limit junk food, fast occasionally, binge every now and again. Use the diet framework to manage your screen time. Then I address why this is necessary for your health. All the diet and exercise in the world won't keep you healthy if you have excessive screen time. There's just too many detrimental physical and mental effects.  Then we get into this week's Call-to-Action. This week we assess our digital diet and see where we can improve. Can we reduce junk food? Frequency of eating? Amount we consume at once? What positive steps can we take?  Then I challenge the listeners to go one entire day with zero screen time. No TV, no internet, no phone, no calls, no texts, no emails, nothing. See if you can do it. You'll learn more about your addiction in one day of abstinence than you would in a lifetime of rationalization. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode we revisit the first 3 episodes of this podcast, which create the foundation for achieving anything you want in this life. Topics include: The 3 pillars of achievement: the growth mindset, belief, and discipline We go over each of these, one at a time, and discuss their importance. We spend extra time on discipline, which I believe to be the most powerful thing any person could ever cultivate within themselves.  And that's it. In this week's Call-to-Action we do a self-assessment of those three traits and how well we've cultivated them within ourselves. We also break down a goal we failed to achieve through the lens of these 3 traits.  Finally I give you 2 sure ways to start cultivating discipline within yourself.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this week's episode I go over the first year of this podcast including what I learned, how I grew, where I failed, where I succeeded, and more. I also discuss what's in store for the next year. A few notable topics discussed include: How the concept of the podcast had to evolve during the year to include a more broad array of topics. My interactions with the weight loss community. How life circumstances led me to burnout and how I dealt with that. Why I have been really passionate about exploring the mental health epidemic lately. How I am still just an apprentice, and while I teach you I am also teaching myself. I touch on my goals...and yours. Then I explain why I steer clear of politics as much as I can. Then we talk about what's in store for the next year of the podcast. And in this week's Call-to-Action we reflect back on who we were a year ago and compare that to who we are now. Incremental progress is hard to see, but when you zoom out a larger picture emerges. Then we imagine ourselves a year from now and we use that image to set our goals and plans moving forward.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode we talk about cognitive distortions and the havoc they wreak on our lives. Topics discussed: Why I had to do this episode in the first place, which leads into me introducing the book The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. That book introduces us to cognitive distortions and the ways they are imposing themselves into our everyday lives. We define what a cognitive distortion is and we compare them to logical fallacies for a moment.  And then I introduce the 9 most common cognitive distortions that people deal with. They are: emotional reasoning, catastrophizing, overgeneralizing, dichotomous thinking, mind reading, labeling, negative filtering, discounting positive, and blaming.  We go into each one and I give several examples of how these distortions play out in real life. After going through this list it's no wonder we have a mental health crisis. Then we talk about how cognitive distortions like to work in tandem. They stack on top of each other quite well. And when you have multiple cognitive distortions going on at once then you can really find yourself in a bad place, mentally.  Then we talk about how to address these distortions. And let me be the first to say that the best way to address them is with professional help from a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist. But if they are minor or not impacting your life too badly then you can probably address them on your own. And that brings us to this weeks Call-to-Action. This week we challenge something we believe to be true because we feel it to be so. And we try to prove it true with evidence. We do this until we find one of our beliefs to not be true and we do this simply to prove that we should not accept our feelings as truths automatically and unconditionally. After we realize this it becomes easier to challenge our other distortions and reduce the mental volume across the board.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode we talk all about supplements. Topics include: My own initial thoughts on supplements and the countless ones that exist for just as many reasons. I also share a few instances where I don't think supplements are the answer. I talk about the big business of supplements, which has become a hundred billion dollar industry in America alone. Add to that the fact that there's very little regulation and you're left with the wild west. For every legit company there's probably ten just trying to make a quick buck. I talk about unlisted ingredients and adulteration due to low standards and poor quality control within the industry.  Then I talk about the 4 companies that will put a seal on a supplement. These seals, however, don't indicate anything about safety or efficacy. They are just ensuring that what's on the label is what's in the bottle. That's it. And you can find those seals here.  Then we talk about bioavailability. This is one of those things I never hear anybody mention, but many of the ingredients in common supplements are in forms your body can't even use. So you end up paying for expensive urine. Next I talk about how to make the right choices for you and how to source your supplements properly. This takes a bit of legwork, but if you're going to spend your money you should be sure you're getting something for it.  Then I talk about my top 4 supplements that everybody can benefit from. And I go into detail about them but they are a multivitamin, fish oil, vitamin D, and probiotics. And if you're going to add a 5th then I'd recommend a greens supplement. And then in this week's Call-to-Action I give you 6 rules/guidelines to supplements that should keep you from wasting your time and money.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode we talk all about sunlight and it's vital role in your health and longevity. Topics include: Our phobia of the sun and why it's completely wrong. The sun's role in our circadian rhythms and hormone cycles The sun's role in vitamin D production. Then we dive deep into what role vitamin D plays in your body, which is extensive, and how deficient we are as a society in vitamin D. I bust the persistent myths about the sun and it's role in cancer. We talk about the P53 gene and why it's so important to ensure it's doing its job to prevent cancer Then we talk about sunscreen and why it's not necessarily your ally in health.  Then we talk about how to get the proper amount of sun to ensure optimal vitamin D production. In this week's Call-to-Action we make a plan for getting the sun you need to optimize vitamin D levels, which will then optimize your health. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice Here's the link I promised to help understand possible toxicity and cancer risks associated with sunscreen. And here's the link to The Primal Blueprint, which was the source material for much of this podcast.

In this episode I give you a snapshot of the rules that govern my life and have you consider whether you could benefit from creating your own rules. Topics include: Why I had to create my own rules to govern my life for my own growth and benefit.  I also make the point that these are my own rules and are not meant to be yours. I talk about how some people live by a code according to their religion, the upbringing, and their own moral compass. This is perfectly ok as long as it works for you. Then I dive into my rules and unpack them and explain what they mean to me and how I apply them to my life.  That brings us to the rules: Resist, persist, and persevere always. Do unto others. Respect people's opinions and beliefs. Commit fully or not at all. Discover the wisdom in every experience. Never let other people's actions and reactions affect my own. I go pretty deep into a few of these and share some personal stories that illuminate why I needed to make a rule in the first place.  I go into why 3 of my 6 rules govern social interactions and I spend a good bit of time talking about the current state of our society. And that brings me to this week's Call-to-Action. This week we explore what rules, if any, govern our own lives and direct our actions. And we ask ourselves if creating some governing principles to live by can help us to become the people we want to become. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode we talk about how to unlearn what you think you know in order to make room to really learn what you'd like to know. Topics include:  The way in which we stubbornly hold on to all these things we think we know, that, if really examined and challenged them, would prove to be untrue. And these traps of ignorance only serve to hurt us int he long run. I give a prime example of a classic way this plays out every day using the myths that abound about saturated fat these days. I use this example to highlight how the conditioned mind can so strong that it can ignore overwhelming evidence and obvious data in order to keep pre-existing beliefs in tact.  The conditioned mind is created through years and years of repetition of what's right and wrong, good and evil, true and false. How we should think, act, dress, look, and the list goes on. Add to that the massive echo chambers that Social media creates and we fall into common traps of confirmation bias. So in order to keep learning and growing we need to learn how decondition our minds and learn how to unlearn all that false data we stubbornly hold on to. We then go over how the flaws in the human mind allow us to get caught in these traps and it goes like this: we use emotional reasoning to draw a conclusion, we FEEL like it's right, our ego tells us that we're right, and when we search the internet for supporting data we search to validate the conclusion we already made. This leads us to confirmation bias and cherry picking, both of which are logical fallacies that lead us to holding false beliefs. The next problem is that because of emotional reasoning we tend to get attached to the outcome. We want it to be what our emotions tell us is right. When we're attached to the outcome we can't actually learn because we're not looking for truth. We're looking for data that validates what we already think. All of this causes us to get stuck in our own ignorance. And so many people I hear preaching their gospel are preaching from a place of ignorance and refuse to challenge their own ideas and discover what the actual truth is. This is why we see so many people trying to silence their detractors these days, especially on college campuses. They refuse to debate them because they don't have intellectual arguments. They have emotional ones, which can be utterly dismantled by logic. Easier to silence the opposition than to have your core beliefs be proven untrue. This is a symptom of another problem, which is attaching your identity to ideas and beliefs that you haven't fully examined and challenged. And this leads to this week's Call-to-Action. This week we're going to take a longer look at the things we hold to be true and challenge them. This exercise involves you acting as the prosecution, the defendant, and the judge for each of your beliefs. As the prosecutor you must do everything possible to prove yourself wrong. As the defendant you must do everything possible to prove yourself right. And once all the arguments and counter-arguments are made, all the evidence is collected and presented then you must become the judge and decide what the truth actually is.  This is the essence of critical thinking. We're not after outcomes, we're seekers of truth. Do this exercise for everything you believe, especially if you're preaching this gospel to others. This exercise will catalyze extreme personal growth and development. Try it and see . Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this podcast we talk all about the process of learning and how it applies to everything. Topics include: How learning should go down way differently than it does in the classroom as well as how the classroom jaded most of us towards learning. We talk about the critical component of mindset and attitude whenever you seek to learn something new. This includes adopting the growth mindset, belief, and the beginner's mind. It also means knowing that in order to be good at anything, you first have to be really bad at it. This is an ego challenge and most of us don't respond well to it. I talk about that initial phase of learning we all go through, where everything is overwhelming, it feels like failure is a foregone conclusion, and insecurity and doubt make you question your decisions. I use that segment to segue into what I refer to as the three phases of learning. Phase 1 I just went over a bit. But most people quit during phase 1. Phase 2 is where things finally start making a bit of sense. Insecurity and doubt is replaced by momentum and enthusiasm and progress is rapid. Phase 3 is when all the knowledge and skills that welcome easily have been learned. Momentum and enthusiasm wear off and all that's left is disciplined practice. Phase 3 is where you acquire your 10k hours and pursue mastery.  To better explain this process I use the analogy of a puzzle. Then we go into research and choosing resources. Always go with the best. That leads us into deconstruction of the whatever it is you're learning. Identify the foundational concepts as this is generally what the whole subject is built off of. Focus your energy here. I go over some common mistakes of skipping the beginning and the foundational concepts. Then we talk about discipline and practice, more importantly, disciplined practice. At this point we've already set ourselves up for success and that's 3/4 of learning anything. Now if you put in the hours success becomes imminent. The final step is to find ways to get feedback so that you can make adjustments and not pursue your new subject in error. This is critical and should not be dismissed or overlooked. And once you think you really understand it, I recommend you try and teach it to someone else. There is no better litmus test than this in testing your own understanding of the subject. If you can't explain it coherently to someone else, then you don't really know it as well as you thought you did. And that brings us to this week's Call-to-Action. This week we're going to put this all to the test and learn that thing we've always wanted to learn or be good at. We all have something. It's time you get after it.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode we all all about modern medicine, but mostly we discuss some of the major problems with it that should concern us and make us think twice before relying on medicine to solve our problems. Topics include: The business of modern medicine. Why modern medicine will probably never cure you of what ails you. I give an example of a way in which many modern pharmaceutical companies operate. I talk about the way medicine is practiced these days and how critical concepts and ideas are overlooked as a matter of standards. I talk about the slow pace in which modern medicine adapts to the latest science. Then we jump into medications and the way modern medicine abuses the use of medicine. I explain a common way in which a minor issue becomes a dependency on multiple prescriptions with no end in sight.  I go into the misuse and abuse of antibiotics and how there are many infections showing up that are resistant to antibiotics. And that segues into my final gripe with modern medicine, which is the negligent attitude towards side effects. So many medicines we take have serious side effects and we just act like it isn't a big issue. Meanwhile some of these side effects are so serious they require additional medicine to treat. I offer my thoughts on a wholesome approach to health, which is based around diet, exercise, sleep, and stress management. I put the onus on you to take responsibility for your own health and to stop relying on doctors to solve your problems. And in this week's Call-to-Action we all evaluate any medicines we take, whether prescribed or over the counter. We ask ourselves if we really need to be taking it and if there's lifestyle changes we can make to solve our problem instead. We ask ourselves how many of these medicines are for life with no finish line? And we ask ourselves if this is what we want for ourselves?  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

This episode is all about self-talk and mainly negative self-talk. It's a topic that is very important and personal to me and I think the listeners will find great value in this episode. We start by defining self-talk as that voice in our heads that constantly talks to us. For some of us this voice can be very negative and even downright abusive. This voice has a major influence on how we experience our lives. And while this is something so many of us deal with, nobody ever talks about it, we never learn about it, and we mostly pretend it isn't a problem. But for many of us it's a big problem. We talk about the difference between us and that voice. We are not that voice, though most of us think we are. Then I tell you the truth: that voice is a liar and it lies to you all day long. But once you believe the lies they become the truth. And when this happens we reset ourselves. I discuss why the mind lies to us when it should have our best interests at heart. And I define that voice for what it is: our voice of knowledge, and that knowledge is contaminated by lies. We talk about where the self-rejection leads us and it's not a place you want to be. But we all have the power to change our self-talk We do this by challenging the voice of knowledge and catching it in its lies and proving it to be a liar. Then I reference the fact that we've known about this liar inside our heads for thousands of years. The Christian faith knew it, the Toltecs knew it, The Buddhists knew it, the Stoics knew it, and modern psychology knows it. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is rooted in this concept. Then we get into how to change the voice inside our heads, how to rewrite our story. It's a simple process, but it takes time and is easier said than done. And for this week's Call-to-Action we have 2 assignments. First, we start to challenge the voice in our head, we catch it red-handed and prove to ourselves that it is indeed a liar. And once we understand this the process becomes so much easier. The second part of this week's assignment is to talk about this, to raise awareness. If you are depressed or know someone that's depressed then I encourage you to reach out. There's too much shame and stigma around mental health issues and people are reluctant to admit to having problems and seeking help. We need to eliminate the stigmas and start having meaningful dialogue about this. 45,000 people in America commit suicide every year and the rate of child and teen suicide is the highest it's ever been in history. Aren't we living in the best times? Isn't this the best it's ever been? How is this possible. It's time for action and it's time for change. And that starts with all of us. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice References: The Voice of Knowledge, by don Miguel Ruiz The Coddling of the American Mind, by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff  

In this episode we talk all about chaos, which we've probably all encountered before and will certainly encounter again. Topics include: The inevitability of chaos showing up in our lives, whether we like it or not, whether we accept it or not. What chaos does to us and our lives. How we react to it, and the illusion of control we impose on our lives. I tell a few stories of my own chaos throughout my life. And I use those stories to explain the ways we can choose to navigate chaos and use it as a tool for growth and self-development. And then I explain what I gained from each of my stories of chaos and how it has shaped me as a person. And then I explain the most valuable lesson chaos has to offer. I talk about how easy it is to bath in the shadows of anger, resentment, jealousy, regret, and other damaging emotions or to choose to see the light and follow it's lead. Then we talk about post-traumatic growth. We go over the two truths we need to accept in order to engage in post-traumatic growth. And in this week's Call-to-Action we review the chaos we've experienced in our own lives and try to see how it has shaped us, what lessons we learned, and what lessons might still be lurking, waiting for us to uncover them. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode I answer the questions I get most often both podcast related and personal questions as well. There's really not much to put in the show notes.  For one answer I recommend two books. They are Mastery of Love, by don Miguel Ruiz, and The Wisdom of Insecurity, by Alan Watts. Both are tremendous books that have massive value to anyone who reads them.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode we break down all the most common terms you'll find on the foods you buy every single day. Most of them are marketing terms and have no meaning. There are a select few you should pay attention to, however.  We start with a few examples of how a marketing term can influence your purchase and even make you think you're making a healthy decision. We review how most of these terms are either unregulated or very loosely regulated. Then we talk about what a CAFO (concentrated/confined animal feeding/farming operation) is and why we should steer clear of them if our budget allows. Then we get into the terms. The most important distinction is USDA Certified Organic, which will be accompanied by a label that looks like this: The organic label carries strict regulations and enforcement and is the most trustworthy label around. Then we talk about non-GMO or GMO free. The issue, as I explain is not necessarily that the product has been modified, but the effects of that modification. For example, the most common modification is to make crops resistant to Round-Up, which contains glyphosate, proven to cause cancer. This glyphosate ends up in our foods and we barely know the long term effects of this chemical in your body. Grass-fed if the next distinction, but it exists on a spectrum. 100% grass-fed or grass-finished is what your looking for. If it simply says grass-fed then you have to exercise caution, as these animals may have been fed grains. Also, grass-fed does not indicate a lack of antibiotics or hormones in the animal product. That distinction lies with the USDA Certified Organic distinction. Pasture-raised is the next term. It is loosely regulated and I wouldn't let it influence my purchase.  Then we move on to chicken. When buying chicken and eggs you'll run across terms like cage-free, free-range, pasture-raise, vegetarian fed, and humanely raised. These all mean nothing as I explain in the episode. Then we move on to fish where the main distinctions are farm-raised and wild-caught. Most farm raised fish are objectionable due to the grains and synthetic ingredients they consume. I use the example of atlantic salmon, which does not have pink colored flesh. They add and ingredient to the fishmeal to change the color of the flesh to convince you that it is indeed a salmon like all the other wild salmon. Also farmed-fish are exposed to various toxins and it takes an average of 5 pounds of wild-caught fish to generate 1 pound of fresh fish. There are some exceptions, which I note in the episode. Also, avoid everything from Asia, no exceptions. All natural is unregulated by the FDA. All natural does not mean healthy. No artificial ingredients means that the compounds are naturally occurring in nature, but it does not mean they were synthetically recreated in a lab for cost efficiency purposes. Also not an indicator of a healthy choice. No sugar added. Does not mean that the product isn't high in sugars Local is loosely goosey. It could mean that the product was grown or raised within 400 miles of purchase or that it was grown in the same state. I go a bit deep into the locavore movement at this point, which will probably be a topic of a future episode. But it can be a cost-effective way to feed yourself and your family healthier foods. Then I run the list of terms that mean nothing meaningful and are solely on the packaging to influence your purchase. These terms include, but are not limited to: unprocessed, sugar-free, fat-free, superfood, fortified, made with real fruit, good source of omega 3, whole grain, whole wheat, multi-grain, and any other phrase that seems attention grabbing or buzzy. These are marketing phrases with no meaning and no regulation and indicate nothing as to the health of that food. Now I go into the buying guides for the various categories of foods and how you should apply your newly gained knowledge. We do purchasing strategies for: fruits and vegetables, meat and poultry (we touch on pork), eggs, fish, dairy, and nuts and seeds. I reduce the most important terms to 4: USDA Certified Organic, 100% grass-fed or grass-finished, non-GMO, and wild-caught. If you can only focus on 4, these are the 4. In this week's Call-to-Action I ask the listeners to look around the next time they shop and just see how manipulative the food industry is in trying to influence your purchases. Also I ask that you search online for cheaper ways to source your meat if you're comfortable buying in bulk and I touch on cow pooling (google it).  I encourage you to check out your local farmers market and chat them up. Smaller operations can't afford to get the USDA certification, but may still raise their crops and livestock that way. A simple conversation will give you the answers you seek. For eggs I ask you to ask around. Everybody knows somebody that knows somebody that grows chickens and sells eggs. Then I give some final advice on what to focus on if your budget is a concern.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

This episode is by listener request, and is all about screen time and its effects on us as individuals, as a culture, and its effects on developing minds. It was a highly relevant and valuable topic to dive into so I thank Charlie Mudd for the recommendation. Topics include: Our collective denial about our digital addictions (yes, all of us).  The ways in which we rationalize our addictions as "necessary." And if there's one thing humans are collectively amazing at it's rationalizing any behavior.  The fact that technology and the most popular apps are designed the same way sugary snacks and sodas are designed: by scientists and engineers that expertly exploit weaknesses in our minds and bodies to ensure we have a compulsion to stay on our devices. And since every listener at this point is telling themselves that, sure, other people are addicted, but not me, I throw out some data to support this conclusion. Then I move into the consequences of this behavior. Nothing we do in this life is without consequences, whether good or bad.  The first consequence is that we're losing our ability to be present. When we're not present, we're not living in reality. Instead we are living in the past or the future, both of which lead to mental health decline. Speaking of which, our next consequence is the rampant depression and anxiety our society is experiencing. Now I'm not going to pretend that our devices are the only cause for this, because there are myriad reasons, but our digital addictions are a major factor. And social media is like pouring gas on the fire. It does a wonderful job of forcing us to pretend our lives are more enviable than they really are and really just creating fictitious versions of ourselves in general. Also, social media does a top notch job at highlighting the vast inequities of life and rubbing them in your face. It's natural human behavior to compare ourselves and we're left feeling the full weight of this world's lack of justice and equity. And of course we have to address the fact that the internet has become a place where spitting pure hatred and vitriol is normal day-to-day behavior. Now I know that anybody that lashes out at people in that manner is very sick themselves, but people still take these attacks very personally. And to the developing mind that doesn't understand this it's no wonder why suicide rates in the 10-16 range are through the roof, which is nothing short of a tragedy. The next consequence is social interactions and connections. We're losing the ability to having meaningful interactions with our friends, families, and neighbors alike. Even when we get together it often ends up being just a group of people individually on their phones. We mistakenly think that social media and digital engagement is the same thing as genuine human connection and interaction and it's not even close. In our collective stupor we experience extreme feelings of loneliness and isolation, even when surrounded by friends and family. The next consequence is our attention spans, which have been utterly decimated. This has ushered us into the sensationalist click-bait world we live in now. And it's not just the tabloid style websites using this model. The "reputable" news agencies are adopting the same model because they are corporations concerned with clicks, traffic, and profits, not quality and valuable news reporting.  Then we talk about the dopamine model of instant gratification and how it's an ouroboros that results in us never getting anything meaningful accomplished in our lives.  The next consequence is our inability to sit still with our own thoughts. Our worlds have become entirely external and our phones have become self-soothing devices. The next consequence is hormone dysfunction and dysregulation. Constant phone use keeps you in an alert beta brainwave state, which keeps cortisol levels very high. Add to that the excessive amounts of blue light and our melatonin and circadian rhythms are extremely dysfunctional. This keeps us up way later than we would be and prevents restful and restorative sleep. The next consequence is the absolute onslaught of the worst news of a world of more than 7 billion people. This leaves us feeling hopeless and pessimistic about the future. Also, the availability of information leads us into echo chambers where we validate our pre-existing beliefs based on opinions and blogs and social media groups where facts and evidence are not important. We don't use the wealth of knowledge the internet has to learn new things or expose ourselves to new ideas. We use it to validate our flawed thinking. The next consequence is the physical changes these devices make to us. Studies are starting to show how the frontal lobe as well as our cognitive abilities are being impaired by constant screen time. We take a dive into how our digital addictions are being impressed upon our children from the time they are born. Children learn through imitation. If they see their parent always staring at a phone then they're going to become conditioned for digital addiction. And while we're scrolling our devices we're not engaging with our children and we're not present with them. And using a screen as an easy solution to pacify our children is lazy parenting that will ultimately hurt your child's long term development and social skills. In this week's CTA we evaluate our own screen time and the effects it's having on us and our children. How "necessary" is all your screen time? How much of it is just you rationalizing? How often do you look up from your phone just to see your child staring at you, wanting to engage and connect, but you're not there?  And think about what you're not doing while your mindlessly scrolling. Think of all the things you could be doing but aren't because you're stuck in the instant gratification black hole.  Now I understand that these devices are an integral component of our lives, but we need to raise our awareness of the effects they're having so that we can make efforts to mitigate the worst and most damaging effects.  Do a quick thought exercise: think of yourself on your deathbed. Do you think you'll regret not spending enough time scrolling social media or do you think you'll regret not spending enough quality time connecting with the ones you love the most?  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice Books Referenced: The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety, by Alan Watts. 

This episode comes by listener request and is all about relationships and support networks. Topics discussed include: What a support network is, what it consists of, and how your support networks can either help or hinder your goals. What a secondary support network is and how you can use one to hold you accountable and keep you on track when your primary network fails How your growth and self-development impacts the people you care about, both positively and negatively. Where friction arises in our relationships when one person decides to change themself fro the better. How your betterment reflects negatively on the people around you and how that can make them act out. What I expect from my support network. I provide a garden metaphor as a way to understand relationships, how they grow and how they wither and wilt. How we can never force the people we care about to change and they can never force us to change. At this point I introduce the book The Mastery of Love, by Don Miguel Ruiz. This is a must read! How to navigate spousal relationships when one person is pursuing change while the other is not.  Then I explain how most of us act out of fear in our relationships and in our lives in general. Our fear is what brings out the worst in ourselves and each other.  I tell a little story about myself and some struggles of the heart I had in my early 20's. In this week's Call-to-Action we evaluate our relationships and assess if we are tending our gardens and if the people we're in relationships with are tending their half of the garden. And one way or another we address it so that we can make the relationship better or move on to greener pastures.  We also ask ourselves if we act out of love or fear in our relationships.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

This episode is all about how you can go about choosing a diet that's right for you. We're all different and what's right for me may not be right for you. Topics include: Why there's no one diet that's best for everybody. 6 major questions to ask yourself before choosing any diet protocol or modality I talk about adaptation periods and compliance as it pertains to different diets.  Then we hop right into the various diets that you'll likely run across these days.The list I go over today includes: keto, primal, paleo, intermittent fasting, OMAD, carnivore, GAPS, vegetarian, vegan, high carb-low fat, the standard American diet, and cleanses. I go over each of these and give you a general overview, the pros and cons, and my overall opinion of the diet. Please note that different diets are used for different things and I view this from a weight loss and health and well-being perspective. So if I say a diet is not efficacious for weight loss, that doesn't mean it's a bad diet. I then talk about what to do if you cheat, slip-up, or make a mistake in your diet.  I throw some serious shade at the Standard American Diet, because it deserves it.  Then I talk about some concepts to consider when choosing a diet. Things like insulin management, insulin sensitivity, leptin and grehlin sensitivity, glucagon, HGH, and testosterone and how these hormones tend to be optimized in low carbohydrate diets.  Then I give you a final diet. It's a no frills approach for those of us that have low discipline, low willpower, who don't want to plan, or track calories, who missed the deadline to start a summer bod diet. There's only 3 rules and you will lose fat.  Then in this week's Call-to-Action we put this knowledge to work. We answer those 6 questions we talked about at the beginning of the episode and we figure out what diet is best for us.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this podcast we talk about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and how they relate to your journey of growth and self-development and how they may inform why you're not able to pursue that journey at this time. Topics include: A call to action to begin the podcast with me soliciting feedback from the listeners on what they like, what they don't like, what they want to hear more of and any questions they have for a future Q&A episode.  An introduction to Maslow's Hierarchy. What it is and why we care. I break down each of the 5 levels of the pyramid, one level at a time beginning at physiological needs, and then moving through safety needs, social belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. We spend some time discussing each level and how it pertains to your basic human needs. We spend some extra time on level 5 because it's unique in that it's not a human requirement and many people will never pursue self-actualization even if their level's 1-4 needs are met. I propose a basic concept of determining what your self-actualization would look like: If money and obligations weren't a factor then what would you be doing? That's the target of your self-actualization. And in this week's Call-to-Action we all take a long, hard look at our level 1-4 needs and determine if we are meeting the basic requirements for humans to survive. Because if our basic needs aren't being met then our pursuit of growth and self-development will not become a priority.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode we talk about failure and how to use it as a powerful tool for growth and self-development. Topics discussed include: The breakdown of my 2019 marathon goal. How I chose it, what the plan was, and where it went south. I mention David Goggins' book Can't Hurt Me, which I highly recommend to anybody that needs some inspiration or motivation.  I dive deeper into the execution of my marathon plan and explain the domino effect that resulted in 2 knee injuries.  I use this example to highlight the ways that failure can be used as a tool for growth.  I talk about things to avoid after a failure, mainly denial and rationalization. That segues into accepting and embracing failure, which means taking full ownership of your failure. Then we talk about how to do a post mortem on your failure in order to determine the "cause of death" of your goal so that you can learn from your mistakes and grow.  I talk about looking at failure as a fork in the road instead of the end of a road. This goes deep into the types of decisions that define who we are and who we become as individuals.  I explain why failure is a necessary and inevitable part of life if you hope to ever achieve anything meaningful.  Then in this week's Call-to-Action we all pull a failure out of our past and do a post mortem on it and determine what that failure taught us and how it continues to inform the decisions we make today. I use an example of my time as an EMT in the Coast Guard and some hard failures I experienced during that time and how they taught me a lesson that has stuck with me ever since.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode we talk about the MBTI-style personality testing and how it can be used as a tool of growth and self-development in all aspects of your lives. Topics discussed include: What the MBTI, or Meyers Briggs Type Indicator, is and what it tells us about ourselves. The 4 sets of 2 opposites that make up the 16 unique personality types. I go into introversion and extraversion, sensing and intuition, thinking and feeling, and judging and perceiving. Then we do a little guessing game to see if you can guess your personality type before you take the test. I dig into my own results and explain how I can use them to inform my future actions and decisions. I identified some of my blind spots that need work and I learned what types of work best suit my style.  I also had my wife do an MBTI and I explained where our 2 personality types would run into some troubles and how to work around them and how to maximize our strengths to improve our relationship.  I also explain how this podcast was affected and influenced by the various aspects of my personality.  So using my own results and life experiences I explained how I would use this tool to self-actualize. And then we moved on to this week's Call-to-Action. This week we take a personality assessment on 16personalities.com. It only takes about 12 minutes and the report it gives you (for free) is extremely valuable and actionable.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

This podcast is all about play and why it's crucial not just for kids, but for adults as well. Most of the podcast was derived from the book, Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, by Stuart Brown MD and Christopher Vaughn.   Topics include: Why we play at all. what is the purpose of play. The cognitive advantages of play. Why we stop playing as adults.  The 8 different play personalities. The 3 subtypes of social play: friendship and belonging, rough and tumble play, and celebratory and ritual play. I do a deep dive into the rough and tumble play and explain why it's important and why parents need to let it happen. Then we talk about how play is the lubrication that allows societies to function. And in this week's Call-to-Action we play. That's it. plain and simple. Play for the pure joy of it and have fun because you deserve to.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode we talk all about communication including: The origin of communication, or more specifically the impact of our learning how to communicate. How communication has enabled every achievement our species has ever accomplished since it's inception I define communication a few ways and give some examples of communication from a theoretical perspective I dig into the common statistics many of us have heard about communication as it pertains to words, tone, and non-verbal. Then we talk about how we have now removed the tone and body language and rely simply on the words with text messaging, social media, emails, etc. And then I talk about the extreme impact this is having on our society (hint: it's mostly negative) Then we move into echo chambers and how they create dogmas out of unsubstantiated beliefs. We move into the pure vitriol and venom that is spewed online every day as well as the way people generally try to make their case for the things they believe in (hint: it's mostly fallacious logic) Then we talk about silencing the opposition as opposed to debating your ideas versus theirs. And we also talk about some atrocities of the last hundred years that began in much the same way. We talk about moral arguments and drawing conclusions based on emotion and then trying to prove it right after you've already decided you believe it. I provide an example of much of what I'm talking about with our current political situation in America. And then I explain why we NEED both parties for the country to operate properly.  I debunk the myth of pure evil And then I talk about recreational outrage, and the type of people that engage in it.  And for our Call-to-Action this week I challenge the listeners to challenge one of their deepest held beliefs and try to prove it incorrect. Find the ways it is wrong. Then find someone on the opposite side of the argument and have a civil conversation and try to understand their point of view and how they arrived at it. You may be surprised to learn that they aren't evil or ignorant and that from their perspective things might even make sense. You might learn something.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

This episode was all about stress and all the ways it can silently ruin your health and well-being. Topics include: What stress is Good stress vs bad stress: eustress vs distress How the stress response is linked to inflammation  How the stress response works The 3 types of stress: physical, chemical, and psychological How your body deals with stress. The GAS or general adaptation syndrome and the 3 stages it goes through. We talked about how chronic stress leads to prolonged cortisol levels in the body and eventually leads to the exhaustion stage, which is where serious diseases start to show up.  We talk about how psychological stress has a tendency to be indefinite because those stressors can go unresolved for long periods of time. How stress affects working memory and leads to cognitive issues over time. How prolonged stress leads to antisocial behaviors and a propensity to misinterpret unclear social signals negatively as well as a tendency to lash out. We explore how this is affecting our youth. And in this week's Call-to-Action we take steps to control our stress. These include identifying the sources of your stress and taking steps to mitigate the ons that are within your control.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode we dive deep into inflammation, but more specifically chronic inflammation. Topics discussed: Acute inflammation and how that process works and why it's absolutely essential to life. Chronic Inflammation, also referred to as systemic inflammation or cellular inflammation. What is it and what diseases, disorders, and maladies is it starting to be connected to. We introduce some of the major players which are pro-inflammatory cytokines, the free radical chain reaction, and AA/EPA ratios. Insulin resistance may be one of the largest contributors, but we don't address that until later in the episode. Then we move into the various pathways that will lead you to be chronically inflamed and I give you 10 different pathways. You may not be affected by all of them, but I guarantee you are affected by at least a few of them. The 10 pathways I explain are: The free radical chain reaction  Polyunsaturated fatty acids AA/EPA ratio also referred to as Omega-6/Omega-3 ratio. Gluten Lectins Insulin resistance Excess body fat, more specifically excess visceral fat Cortisol Chronic exercise Insufficient/inadequate sleep Afterwards we talk about how 7 of those pathways are diet related and 3 are lifestyle related.  And in our Call-to-Action we talk about the best ways to reduce or eliminate sources of chronic inflammation. This includes a ceiling on daily carbohydrate intake, some foods to avoid, some foods to add, as well as some possible supplements that can help you combat your inflammation.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

This week's episode is all about exercise and how we can use it to optimize our genetic expression. Some things we discuss are:  Genetic expression and how our genes respond to environmental stimuli. Our sedentary lifestyles and the effect they have on our health. Why we age at an accelerated pace due to the mismanagement of our genes. The 3 exercise laws of The Primal Blueprint, by Mark Sisson, which are Move Frequently, Lift Heavy Things, and Sprint Once in a While. We dive deep into each of these laws and discuss how to apply them to your life to optimize your genetic expression. Chronic Cardio. We define what chronic cardio is and the myriad ways it's actually ruining your health. The Maffetone aerobic zone and how to do proper cardio. Mobility. We spend a good amount of time talking about this. So many long-term physiological issues are the result of poor mobility and it's not that hard to stay mobile.  In this week's Call-to-Action we put it all to work and create a new fitness plan that is the minimum input required for the maximum genetic expression. In this podcast we like to work smarter, not harder.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

In this episode we talk all about sleep including: How sleep is one of the first things we sacrifice in our hectic lives and how it's not just the quantity, but the quality of our sleep that we're compromising. We talk about the 4 stages of sleep and what's going on in each of them. Then we talk about how sleep cycles work as well as our circadian rhythms.  We talk about melatonin and the way it gets disrupted by all the artificial lights we're exposed to on a constant and relentless basis. And then we move into how we can actually improve our sleep and for references I use The Primal Blueprint, by Mark Sisson, and Sleep: The Myth of 8 Hours, The Power of Naps, and The New Plan to Recharge Your Body and Mind, By Nick Littlehales. We talk about the 90 minute cycle as well as the cycles per week approach to sleep. This includes altering our bedtimes to align with waking at the end of a cycle. We talk about naps, or Controlled Recovery Periods (CRP's) as Littlehales calls them. Next, we talk about a few other things that greatly impact your sleep quality: cell phones, your bedroom, your sleeping position, and your constant wake time. And in our call to action we put all this newly gained knowledge to work and we improve our sleep.  I close the podcast with a list of side effects from poor sleep quality and quality to really convince you that improving your sleep is a worthy task.  Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this information. And be sure to follow me on Instagram @ThinkersApprentice

This episode is all about health and nutrition. We tackle all kinds of things including: Buzz words in the food industry lie healthy, organic, non-GMO, gluten-free, cage-free, grass finished, no sugar added, low fat, fat-free. The source of our modern nutritional guidelines and our understanding of what is good and bad for us... and how it was all fabricated. The Standard American Diet (which should be called the Modern Affluence Diet) The diet of our ancestors, the hunter-gatherer nomadic tribes The main issues we face in health which are: insulin, phytates, lectin, gluten, and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA's) How insulin ensures that you stay fat and end up with chronic diseases, obesity, and metabolic syndrome How cholesterol, saturated fats, and salt get a bad rap that they don't deserve How we should all start looking at food as medicine and trying to get off of any medications that may be necessary.  Then I give you some advice for teaching your body to burn fat with a combination of intermittent fasting and carb restriction (not elimination) In this week's Call-to-Action we take a fresh look at the foods we put into our bodies and we start to calculate just how much carbohydrates we eat every day, how often we are ingesting anti-nutrients like phytates, lectin, gluten, and PUFA's. And then we work to reduce our intake of these ingredients. And then we teach our bodies to be metabolically flexible and be able to switch between using glucose or fat for energy using carb restriction and intermittent fasting.    *Much of this podcast was drawn from information found in The Primal Blueprint, by Mark Sisson.  Follow me on Instagram @thinkersapprentice Contact me with any questions Nick@thinkersapprentice.com

This episode is all about breathwork. In it we talk about: Our over stressed and over stimulated lives and the effects that has on our bodies and minds. The autonomic nervous system as well as two of its three sub-divisions, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). We talk about how most of us are always in SNS activation as a result of our lifestyles and our perceptions of threats, whether real or imaginary.  We talk about what constant SNS activation does to you and how its not a condition you want to spend much time in. We then talk about how to measure this using heart rate variability (HRV) and I suggest an app for you to use to take this measurement. We talk about the PNS and how much better it is to keep the PNS activated as much as possible.  Then we go into the breathing exercises that allow you to pull yourself out of SNS and put yourself into PNS in a matter of minutes. In our Call-To-Action we start taking dailyHRV measurements and doing the breathing exercises in order to learn to detect the signs of stress and be able to turn them off in an instant.  Thanks for listening. 

As we become more dependent on technology to solve our problems we are shifting away from self-reliance. We expect the lives we want to happen to us instead of making them happen for ourselves. Join me on this podcast where we train our minds to adapt and overcome any obstacle and achieve any goal. Each week we dive deep into a facet of growth and self-development and provide ways to incorporate them into your life. A better you starts with a better mind.

As we become more dependent on technology to solve our problems we are shifting away from self-reliance. We expect the lives we want to happen to us instead of making them happen for ourselves. Join me on this podcast where we train our minds to adapt and overcome any obstacle and achieve any goal. Each week we dive deep into a facet of growth and self-development and provide ways to incorporate them into your life. A better you starts with a better mind.

As we become more dependent on technology to solve our problems we are shifting away from self-reliance. We expect the lives we want to happen to us instead of making them happen for ourselves. Join me on this podcast where we train our minds to adapt and overcome any obstacle and achieve any goal. Each week we dive deep into a facet of growth and self-development and provide ways to incorporate them into your life. A better you starts with a better mind.

As we become more dependent on technology to solve our problems we are shifting away from self-reliance. We expect the lives we want to happen to us instead of making them happen for ourselves. Join me on this podcast where we train our minds to adapt and overcome any obstacle and achieve any goal. Each week we dive deep into a facet of growth and self-development and provide ways to incorporate them into your life. A better you starts with a better mind.

As we become more dependent on technology to solve our problems we are shifting away from self-reliance. We expect the lives we want to happen to us instead of making them happen for ourselves. Join me on this podcast where we train our minds to adapt and overcome any obstacle and achieve any goal. Each week we dive deep into a facet of growth and self-development and provide ways to incorporate them into your life. A better you starts with a better mind.

As we become more dependent on technology to solve our problems we are shifting away from self-reliance. We expect the lives we want to happen to us instead of making them happen for ourselves. Join me on this podcast where we train our minds to adapt and overcome any obstacle and achieve any goal. Each week we dive deep into a facet of growth and self-development and provide ways to incorporate them into your life. A better you starts with a better mind.

As we become more dependent on technology to solve our problems we are shifting away from self-reliance. We expect the lives we want to happen to us instead of making them happen for ourselves. Join me on this podcast where we train our minds to adapt and overcome any obstacle and achieve any goal. Each week we dive deep into a facet of growth and self-development and provide ways to incorporate them into your life. A better you starts with a better mind.

As we become more dependent on technology to solve our problems we are shifting away from self-reliance. We expect the lives we want to happen to us instead of making them happen for ourselves. Join me on this podcast where we train our minds to adapt and overcome any obstacle and achieve any goal. Each week we dive deep into a facet of growth and self-development and provide ways to incorporate them into your life. A better you starts with a better mind.