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Small Choices, Big Blessings      Welcome to Mother's Backyard Buzz and #empathyforgrief Episode #13, where I want to focus on "Small Choices, Big Blessings." Each topic is all about "breaking the silent struggle" around grief.       My podcasts are based on my personal grief journey from my book: My Backyard Garden - A Memoir of How Love Conquers Grief. I share current insights into this life-changing journey called grief. Thanks for joining me, Debra Hester, as the author and your host of #empathyforgrief podcast. April Blessings      It's April! And April is Garden Month. Many people say gardening is one of the best ways to pass the time and lift your mood. I agree; no surprise that I'll rarely pass up an opportunity to talk about gardens because of my book, My Backyard Garden - A Memoir of How Love Conquers Grief. Speaking of my book, I'm reflecting on Chapter 1, "A Change of Planes," if you're following along.      Our lifestyle has changed so much due to COVID-19. I'm hoping #empathyforgrief podcasts helps those who are grieving the loss of a loved one and also those who may be grieving the loss of a lifestyle. I've learned that traumatic events are traumatic events, and I believe COVID-19 physical distancing and potential infection qualifies as a traumatic event for many. I've found that the effects of traumatic events sometimes come up later after the dust has settled.      I'm not saying the dust has settled, but I do feel as if we are at the beginning of this COVD-19 journey with more unknowns than knowns. I am moving forward with faith that things will get better, and those big blessings will emerge from some large and small choices that we have to make right now. I don't know when these big blessings are coming, but better and benefits are still my expectation. I hope you join me in that expectation. Past Time Choices      Most, if not all, of us, are doing something different now, and to make this adjustment, we had to experience and respond to some big choices. Now I'd like to encourage you to focus on some small decisions. There are small choices that produce big blessings as we wait for the big benefit we are all waiting on…COVID-19 under control or completely gone away from the headlines, and it impacts on our day-to-day. As Southwest Airlines use to say, we want to be "Free to move about the country."      In my book, My Backyard Garden, A Memoir of How Love Conquers Grief, I decided to become a Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards member. It was a small choice that paid off big when I had to suddenly change my airline tickets. I knew Southwest's plane routes, processes, and online system. So, I didn't worry about the outcome. That was a choice and a habit that was well worth investing in. We always have an opportunity to invest in the right decisions, but now more than ever.      I remember a statement that was posted on LinkedIn that said, "It is like the universe has sent us to our room." I agree, and I also believe and, as usual, ask you to think about with me, "how will we emerge from our room and be different and better." Moving Choices      I've worked remotely for several years, so this is not a massive change for me. Staying in the house is a monumental change for me, though, as it is for most people. I think back on when I first started working remotely. I created a space and a place to work that soon became a home office in the basement. After a while in the home office, I realized that I could really work anywhere in the house that had a door. So my next move was to the den, then to the kitchen, but that room had too much traffic, so I went to the dining room table. When the weather got better, I found myself on the porch. My point is that, now that you've made this initial adjustment, if you want to, don't stop. Move again and again, even in the house, until it feels right for you.      Sometimes the slightest movement at the right time becomes a small choice with a big blessing. I've found that big blessings don't necessarily mean size but meaning. It's a big blessing to me when I experience a new understanding. That understanding can be about myself, my world, or my life. With the gift of understanding comes peace, joy, and a feeling of contentment right where I am. I encourage you to seek it, feel it, and enjoy the blessing of understanding. Gardening Advice      Back to the garden theme, remember I can't leave it out. Gardening was recommended to me by my mother-in-law when I was going through a divorce. Starting a garden was the best advice for me at the time. Her recommendation was better than what the counselors or clergy told me. Talk about an unhappy time in my life is an understatement. I miscarried a baby and shortly afterward went through a divorce. My life was shattered. Like a broken mirror and the pieces of the mirror were falling off the wall on the floor, and I could only stand there and watch them shatter more and fall.      Gardening helped me refocus on a very tiny task. When we plant, we put a lot of effort into one small thing and take care of it in hopes that it grows into something bigger than it is. That hope in growth tends to bring some type of blessing with it. I couldn't afford large plants, so I went to Home Depot and chose small ones and worked on these little plants every day when I came home from work and on weekends.      They became tiny choices that returned big beautiful, colorful blessings. These blessings can in the form of my first bougainvillea plant, a honeysuckle vine on a trellis, and a hibiscus shrub. I can reflect back on the experience now and see those plants instead of the pain that I experienced during that traumatic life transition. Your Choice      Here we all are, making an unexpected transition in all aspects of our lives. We are transitioning the way we work, play, live, worship, eat, shop, socialize. And we had to make that adjustment fairly quickly with life-threatening consequences.      Loved ones, personally, I've committed to helping during this COVID-19 pandemic, in some way. I so appreciate the people who are working on the front line of all this. The doctors, nurses, first responders, truckers, mail carriers, package delivery, and sanitation workers. I know they are exceptional people who are blessing so many of us who are working from and staying at home.      How I help is by writing, producing, and sharing information online and on the radio as a way to supply our need to know and provide positive encouragement and messages. I feel like my contributions may be small, but I work to share them with much love and hopefulness that they will become great blessings to someone. I encourage you to share your gift too. It may be a small choice right there in the privacy of your home, but it will be a big blessing to those who experience it. Grateful      I want to thank you loved ones for listening to #empathyforgrief podcasts episode #13 about "Small Choices, Big Blessings." My podcasts are based on my book, My Backyard Garden - A Memoir of How Love Conquers Grief. My book is a quick read. It's meant to capture and share the reality of life and inspire reflection and conversation for those of us who are on this grief journey or know of someone who is.      This is Debra Hester, your host, where I pledge to continue to break the silent struggle with grief and loss. Remember: move forward with more empathy, less sympathy. If you found the podcast helpful, it's available free on Mother's Backyard Buzz blog at www.mothersbackyard.org and on iHeart, iTunes, Google Play, or from your favorite podcast provider.      #empathyforgrief podcasts are on FM radio with Force 3 Radio Network. Force 3 Radio streams online at www.force3radio.com airing the podcast now at 3pm CST during their all inspirational music Sundays.       I invite you to find out more about my mission at www.mothersbackyard.org. Join me next week when we continue with Chapter 1 - A Change of Planes in my book, My Backyard Garden, A Memoir of How Love Conquers Grief. And the buzz will be about "The Unspeakable." Peace & Blessings

Social media can feel intimidating but it certainly does not have to and I'm here to help you! In today's episode, I share with you my secrets to implementing a social media plan that will help you bring the right clients. You do not need to be a slave to social media nor do you need to feel frazzled and frustrated when trying to create content. It all ends today with these simple and easy to implement hacks and tips. Know what your customer needs | the people you are wanting to serve are real people with real needs Have a system to organize content | pen + paper, Google Sheets, Word Document - doesn't matter, whatever works for you ABC - Always Be Creating Skip imperfection | Let go of the fear of imperfection and become an advocate for action Engage daily | 5 minutes/day is GOLD! Find your place and be there every single day whether it's responding to DM's, commenting, sharing content, etc. Schedule content 1 day / week or month | batch scheduling will change your life Now I'd love to connect with you over on LinkedIn, so if we're not already connected there, please let's make it happen. And remember to tell me you came from the podcast! (LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatherheuman)  

This weeks guest is Steve Sims. Do you know anyone that’s worked with Sir Elton John or Elon Musk? Sent people down to see the wreck of the Titanic on the sea bed or closed museums in Florence for a private dinner party and then had Andre Bocelli serenade them while they eat their pasta? Well, you do now. Quoted as “The Real Life Wizard of Oz" by Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine, Steve Sims is a best selling Author with "BLUEFISHING - the art of making things happen”, sought-after consultant and a speaker at a variety of networks, groups and associations as well as the Pentagon and Harvard – twice!Links: website: https://www.stevedsims.com/ FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/stevedsims/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/stevedsims/Welcome back to the fuel your legacy podcast. Each week we expose the faulty foundational mindsets of the past and rebuild the newer, stronger foundation essential in creating your meaningful legacy. We've got a lot of work to do. So let's get started. As much as you like this podcast, I'm certain that you're going to love the book that I just released on Amazon if you will, your legacy, the nine pillars to build a meaningful legacy. I wrote this to share with you the experiences that I had while I was identifying my identity, how I began to create my meaningful legacy and how you can create yours. You're going to find this book on kindle amazon and as always on my website, Sam Knickerbocker. comWelcome back to fuel your legacy and today we have an incredible guest. It's cool the more people that I've had on the more notable people that I've been able to have on which is always exciting. So today, we have Steve Sims And he was here in Utah a few months ago speaking at a conference for, for some people who are looking to, to understand what he does, I'm excited to bring it on. Because understanding the ROI of relationships is, I think key and everything and there is so many of the most successful people that I know that I listened to that I associate with, say relationships are the new economy, right? That's the new currency is how well do you know somebody? So, Steve, he's a speaker and author. He's the founder of bluefish, direct founder of boot camp marketing, and it's your coach and real and he's been called so this is the best thing is when people title you as things because the titles other people give you end up being some of the most wonderful ways to market yourself because you just, it's just raw. So he's been called the real-life Wizard of Oz according to Forbes, and Entrepreneur Magazine so that I mean That's a that's quite a glowing compliment to be called The Wizard of Oz. What? What pen brought that on? Where'd you get your start? And what was your childhood like? And why are you doing what you're doing today?Wow. Um, first of all being called the villain like Wizard of Oz is a double-edged sword because let's be blunt, the Wizard of Oz was a fake.You kind of go, Oh, that's very nice. And then you go, Oh crap, and they called me a fake.So I like to take it on its face value that I am the guy that can less little get you through the journey. So I class myself as an educated man. But I don't believe the school had anything to do with that. I left. I left school at the age of 15 and ended up working on my father's construction site. And I didn't have any future didn't have any hopes didn't have any goals. We didn't live in a world of the internet where we were bombarded with what the other half was living with or what they had. So I grew up ignorant. And immune to all of the luxury and stuff like that. But as an entrepreneur, you don't become an entrepreneur, you are an entrepreneur. It's either your left-handed or your right hand is just, it's just one of those things. And I remember growing up, conflicted, disgruntled, dissatisfied, and all of those things that have everyone going, Oh, you've got a DD and oh, you can't focus and you can't concentrate. It wasn't the fact that I couldn't focus I couldn't concentrate. I wasn't being engaged. And nothing was excited me. Nothing was challenging me. And entrepreneurs, we need to be challenged. We come alive. When we're challenged. And as a bricklayer, I was being told this is what you do, and then you grow old and then you die. That was my life. And it didn't make sense to me. I left the building site, and not knowing what I wanted to do, but just know Do it but just knowing firmly that wasn't what it was. I ended up selling cakes on the back of lorries. I ended up being an insurance door to door salesman. And if anyone's ever seen me, can you imagine me knocking on your door an o'clock at night trying to sell you life insurance. It didn't go well. I ended up getting a job in Hong Kong by completely lying on a resume. I lasted 24 hours and I was fired.Now I was just trying anything to get to something that would challenge and excite me. And I found it in the funniest place. I ended up working on the door of a nightclub. And it was a great position. It was a great pedestal for me to watch the world I was able to watch humanity and to see how they handled themselves how they spoke to others how they interacted, you know, like bar staff is some of the best communicators in the world. You know, they'll talk to someone in a business suit, and then I talked to a group of girls are Guys completely differently within a split second you know they are very good at altering the way they communicate with the different people based on a split second assumption of your attitude, the way you dress how which you look out for you, all those kind of things as a doorman no one wants to talk to a doorman because they're there to punch you in the head. You know, no one wants to talk to him. But I was able to watch them and I would stand on the door of nightclubs and go, I want to be that person. I want to be that group. I want to have them as friends. And so then what I started doing was trying to find a way that they would talk to me as a person and not as a dormant and because I knew where all the parties were and all the best events where I started getting extra tickets and going up to my regulars going Hey guys, I know you like a good night. Did you notice a premiere going on on Friday? Are you going? Now we're not we don't know how to get in. Well, let me make a phone call. Maybe it again for viewing I started becoming this fixer. This, this guy that knew. And the only reason I did it was not that I was a social butterfly far from it was because I wanted to give the people I wanted to talk to a reason to talk to me. It was a Trojan horse. If I can talk to you about getting you into a private body, I can talk to you about what makes you successful, how you had things, why you change, and they always say you are the combination of the five people you hang around with. Well, it was fine. I was hanging around with five bikers. So that wasn't going to get me very far in life. So I had to change my circle when I did. It just started is that before you knew it, I went from getting people in the parties to throw in the parties myself to suddenly being associated with some of the biggest events in the world. From fashion weeks to Grammys to Kentucky Derby. Ferrari's Cavalier no classic Elton John's Oscar party, I became associated with the grandest most often Skylab fluent event on a planet, and therefore my clients were those people, all those people should I say? And then I started marketing them and branding their products you know, I know people coming to me going hey, I've got a company that sells lipsticks, you know, how would you do an advert? And I will I don't like your advert because you're marketing to the wrong people. And I suddenly start became a brand and so on for these companies. Two years ago, I got asked, Hey, would you release a book on the rich and famous people you deal with? And I said, Now I'd bet I'd be dead by cocktail hour. So then they came back to me this will okay. Would you buy a book on how fabric Live from London can now be working with Elon Musk and the Pope? And that made sense to me. So we released a book, not thinking it would be successful not put any marketing behind it. It didn't do well in the first couple of months and then it took off in the third and since then, I've been doing podcasts and speaking engagements all over the world. I consult for Entrepreneurs of all levels. I have an online course called Sims distillery that helps people learn how to communicate. And it's just grown and I've become my brand. So, from bricklayer to dealing with the meanest, most affluent people in the world to now being an author, speaker, and coach, it's a very interesting journey.Yeah, I love it. And so funny how different and different people come into their passion, different ways. And some people I had a guest on a little while ago who she found her passion, really through, it was something that it was her passion as at a young age, then she lost sight of it or she was dissuaded from it. And then she circled back to her passion. And I love one of the things you said, Well, actually, it's kind of a kind of both in hand in hand, you don't become an entrepreneur. You either are one of them or not ones, as a movie, and it's okay not to be an audience. corner, sometimes because I work in the entrepreneur world where I'm actively seeking out entrepreneurs. And, and so the assumption is by a lot of people that I just think everybody's an entrepreneur and everybody can do it. And I just want to work with everybody. And the reality is, I don't know what the percentage of entrepreneurs are, but it's not a high percentage of people who are entrepreneurs, there's a high percentage of them. There's a high percentage of people who are not entrepreneurs who liked the security, as the certainty, as the safety of working for an entrepreneur,and that's fine. That's fine. There's you know, we got three grades at the moment. And it's like me moaning at you because of your height. You know, you have no control over your height. Okay. So you either are an entrepreneur or you're not. There's a lot of one trip owners out there, they look at it and think, Oh, it's a sexy life. Yeah, I'm an entrepreneur, but they can't handle the two o'clock in the morning not being able to pay your bills on Friday or the fact that you all out on the front line, an entrepreneur is a guy that jumps off the cliff, and then builds a parachute on the way down. And there are phenomenal intrapreneurs I think every entre, we had a quick discussion on this before we went live. A good entrepreneur needs to surround himself with phenomenal intrapreneurs These are the people the love that life until the last bit where you're your next on the line, and that's fine. I'm surrounded by phenomenal intrapreneurs that are creative, driven, push it and help support me be on the front line. So I believe there are great entrepreneurs, but the one tripping is not too flaky and they fall by the wayside very quickly. And so how would you help somebody if they're sitting there listening to this and they're not sure who they are, what where they fall in that maybe just because of lack of experience, lack of Discovery a lot of people who listen to this they're their stay at home moms are people who have been basically sacrificed their life for for the love of their children or for other people. And so they've never really gained the experience or tried out the different positions, you could say. How would you help them kind of look at their life and say, Well, what about me? Where would I fit in these categories? Well, first of all, as an entrepreneur, you are mich broke, rich, broke, broke, rich, rich, rich, broke rich. It's a Helter Skelter over life. I don't think any entrepreneur, given the vision chart of how they're going to be over the next few years, whatever, optionally go, Oh, yeah, I like that. Because entrepreneurs will get laughed at spat at ridiculed Elon Musk musk. He said it to me ages ago. He said they laugh at you before they applaud. Now, if you're not the person that can stand being hated, ridiculed and laughed at the maybe you should be an on an entrepreneur. If you don't care, and you want to be challenged, maybe you're an entrepreneur. But it does come down to that final line of are you willing to take it on the shoulders, finances, because a lot of the times we've lost, we've lost as entrepreneurs money, and we've got it, we're up against it. And then all of a sudden, at like five o'clock on Friday, we're going to pay payroll, and we're running all of our credit cards to do that. We've all been through it. The life of an entrepreneur is not sexy. It's not something we chose is something we are.I love that I think that's so beautifully put. And if you go back and listen to it, and just ask yourself, hey, where do I fit, you know, it's okay. You might be as creative as, as eager to create in your life, different things, but maybe you don't have the wherewithal to have people ridicule us. That's something that I, I think I always had inside of me. But it for me, it took a while to expose that because of the social programming, that you should care about what other people think it took me a while to ultimately say no, I like in my heart. I don't care what you think about me. I'm going to do, what I feel confident doing and what I want to do, regardless of whether you think it's a good idea, anybody, right?Yeah, it gets really, it's very hard to run when you got someone sitting on your shoulders. And so careful about what you do, care about what you solve, care about what you do, but don't care about someone's naysaying opinion. you'll usually find that the person sitting in the corner going, Oh, look at Oh, he can't all watch it. That person's never going to be your client and let's be blunt, never amount to anything. Because people like to sit in the corner and tell you you can't do something because they don't want you proven the diamond Quit to do it themselves.Yeah, that is something that I completely agree with. And I tell people that I work with often had one, one woman a few months back who had asked me, and well, because she was thinking about working with me, she said, Well, I don't want to waste your time. And I saw her Look, I don't let people waste my time. Yeah,yeah, not exactly.twice on me. And if you rescheduled twice, you go in the hopper of people I might call once every six months. It's just not committed to their future yet, but you may be in the future like I don't allow people to waste my time. That's not how this game works. So I love that. So moving forward, something else that you said that I think people needs to understand. And I want to add some specificity here because this is I believe, key in this phrase, especially if you're listening to Gary Vaynerchuk. Or there's a lot of people I think Gary Vee is probably the highest one that says as often it's just you have to add value, you have to add value, you have to add value to others. People before you ask for value in return. And I think that that's true. to a point, right, just adding value, there's a lot of ways to add value in people's lives, right toilet papers valuable. Somebody guiding you a Walmarts valuable like there's a lot of value that you could add. But what love what you did, you added value with the intention that the value add was intentional too, as you said, a Trojan horse to get something out of it not that you expected or that you are going to do a tit for tat type expectation of something out of it. But you are very intentional with how you are adding value to whom you are adding value so that you could get around certain individuals. And please speak to that as to why that's so important that the intentional adding value rather than just random value addingyou got to be laser focus today because we're in a world of mass distraction. So you've got to be Short and sharp to the point while creating something that benefits you as well. Now, I agree with you about you've got to add value. I also agree with you that there are multiple different levels of value. But you've got to go to the value that gets as close as it possibly can to the core of the individual. So, you know, I've worked with very affluent people, very powerful people. Not always very famous people. So you can go to these people and you can say, Hey, I know you don't know me. Get that out of the way. That's always a good one to get out of the room straight away. I know we haven't met I know we haven't been introduced, but there's something that I would like to do with you. But before we get into that, I'm aware that you support this charity. I'm aware that you have got a new book coming out. I am aware that you're promoting your media brand. I'm aware that I've got an idea after looking over this, how I can help you get more reach, get more input, get more donations to get better. Marketing getting better, and show that you've paid attention to? Okay? You may well turn around and go all this and they may turn around and go, Well, actually, we've got a marketing team that just actually said that to me. And I've said about what and they've come back to me and they've gone, hey, we've done now I've gone right. That's, that's brilliant. But it shows that you focus and As the old saying goes, they won't care until you show you care. Now, in that conversation, if you dissect what I've just said, I've got out of the room that you don't know me. And when I say you don't know me, you may know my name. You don't know my credibility. You don't know my reputation and your right. reputation and credibility in today's counts. Okay, so I've got that you don't know me. You don't know me, you know my name, but you don't know me. I've also made it clear that I want something from you. If I say to you, I need a tip. 10 bucks. But before we discuss that I want to talk to you about you're going to know straight off the bat I need 10 bucks. So I like to get it out of the way that hey, I need something from you. I've got something I want us to do. But before we get into that, and then you go into the reason why you need to keep me in the conversation because I'm here to benefit you. If you go in with that, they know you need something. Why do they know that? Because you told him quite bluntly, I need something. So there's no, there's no sitting there going, what is this guy after? I've just told you I want something. And she allows the person and relaxes easy-going, Oh, well, he wants somebody to bang on a minute. He's bringing something to me first. And that is a good one to get out of it. So that's how I enter into every conversation, whether it be dealing with the Vatican, whether it be dealing with Richard Branson, I always say hey, I need something but before we get into that, I know you're doing XYZ and go into that route. I love that I love this to me. It's a simple four-step process.Making every conversation intro sample where you're building rapport credibility, and you're building that now. Don't fall on yours. And don't, don't be scared to fall on your face say get as big of the nose as possible. But on the other hand, do your research, right everythingis important.Yeah, every client that I meet with, I have them send out a fill out a form where I get all their social media links so that when I'm sitting down with them, before I meet with them, then I know what things we have in common, what things I can support them with and what things I can't, the things that I can't support them with, I'm probably not going to bring up in our conversation, because that would be like shooting yourself in the foot. To understand who you're talking to understand where you can add value. Don't take on somebody that you can't add value to just because you want to be around them. Be clear and make connections where possible. And too many people want to be the everyman everything guy It's just not. You're not supposed to be the everything guy. You're supposed to be good at what you do. Oh for me, you know, I've got a brilliant gardener that I speak to absolutely every single week about my garden, but I'm not going to have him do my taxes. It's not a problem to turn around and think this person is good for that, but not good for that. Yeah, exactly. I love it. So what would you say? When did you because I know it's a journey. And we kind of talked about this, but what was there an exact moment where the light bulb clicked. You're like, Man, this is what I want my legacy to be.Oh, I don't know if I even know what my legacy to be. And I have heard I've heard that question come up a few times before but I'm kind of in the fight and on the journey and enjoying the view. And I haven't. I have some very basic principles. I want to be crystal clear. I want to be in possible to be misunderstood. And I don't want people to be confused. Now, if that ends up being my legacy or ends up being sketched on my tombstone, I'm happy about that. But there's a lot of people that plan for things. And for a lot of people, they need to plan. But I plan to seconds after I've jumped off the step, and I find that I only become good when I get going. And everything that I have ever started a shit. I know the first time I do anything, the first time I do an interview, the first time I did a podcast, the first time I wrote a pushbike The first time I tried to do a business meeting, every single one of them was rubbish. But you need that rubbish to be yet golden. And I have learned that so if I wake up one morning and go, I'm going to do a podcast I'll do a podcast. It'll have a crappy already. We do have a bad signal, it has a terrible microphone. Everything I try I try differently. And so legacy wise, I don't know if I found my thing yet. I just know what I found is an elf. And I'm going to promote a good friend of mine called Joe polish. He openly talks about elf businesses easy, lucrative and fun. And if what you do can be those three things, those three things, keep doing it. I have had lucrative businesses. I've had lucrative projects, but they've been stressful and they ain't been fun. They made me a lot of money and I bought a new motorbike and I've had great fun doing about great finances doing them, but they ain't been fun. So I now try to find elf projects and elf businesses. And I would say now for the past three or four years with my brand coming out of bluefish did I'm in an elf momentum at the moment and I'm enjoying it. Where is it going? I don't know. But as long as itself I'm stayingwith it. Awesome. I love that I never heard that acronym but I think I will start asking myself what in my life is falls in that category? And what is health? Yeah, that stuff that doesn't for sure.Absolutely. Joe polish. You said some very intelligent things. He's also said some very stupid things because he's a weird individual. But yeah, he's given me some incredible nuggets which have helped my life.That's awesome. So now if you were to say there was like one story or one point in time where you decided to stop caring about naysayers? What was that one, that one moment where you're like, Okay, I just, I just don't care? Or I'm doing my thing.I listened to the worst person in the world and that was myself. And I went through a very, very dark month. My life I had been I was about eight years into being the man that can about eight years, I had some of the richest clients royalty caps in the industry, you know real power players around the world as clients send me hundreds of thousands of dollars so I just a night out or weekend away. And I woke up one day and I thought to myself, Oh my god, you know, I've got to change. I don't know why, but I just thought I had to. So I took all my earrings out and I covered my tattoos by wearing long shirts and you know, I thought to myself, Oh, I have to be a bit more pronounced. Now. I have to be a little bit more British. You know, just everything about me changed. I started wearing suits now anyone that knows me knows I'm on two wheels forever. And I bought a car. I bought a vintage Ferrari to try and impress you. I bought a $50,000 odham up watch. I went to Donna Monaco, and I throw a kickoff party in my suit with my Ferrari with my watch. And I came home, and I got the photographs of that event. And I realized this was the first event in my life that I hadn't shown up to this avatar of who I wanted to be had this pretend Steve Sims. And it depressed me and I got drunk and I was drunk for about three days. I didn't know what had happened and I realized that I had listened to all my subconscious all my inadequacies, all of my self-doubt. And I had become this shield, this persona, this alters ego. And luckily it was my wife that said, Look, people don't buy the suit and the car they've been buying this you for years, they've been sending you money as this quirky guy, the comm spell and anyone that's ever got an email from me knows I can't spell but it didn't stop me write a book. Don't focus on your inadequacies. Don't focus on your weaknesses. Because you end up with incredibly focused, targeted weaknesses. They don't get any better focus on your unicorn. So I realized that I sold the car immediately. I got rid of the suits. Funnily enough, this was in the late 90s. I wanted to keep the suits because they were nice suits. I put them in my cupboard. And it was about three years ago in Los Angeles, I gave them away to goodwill, and I'd never worn them. never worn them since that day, because I felt they were toxic. No, I like putting on a nice suit. But it was never those suits. He ended up going and buying different suits. So that was my dark time when I listened to my doubt, and my inadequacies, and since then it's a case of Hey, this is me. Now I've got an I know you're in Utah, but as far as La is concerned, it's a bit chilly and I've got off No shirt on, but there's a black t-shirt underneath and that's where I'm showing up as me every single day. If you don't like it, we can part ways and we'll all be fine but I am never going to use a single second of effort to be somebody I'm notso that was my tongue fineyeah i think that's often the hardest person to get hundred silence right you can get to the point where you tell everybody else to go screw themselves but being able to tell yourself to go screw yourself as you talk and lean into your uncertainties lean into your your your fears and you say look, I'm going for it regardless that sometimes it's the hardest thing to master as far as like financially going from the different areas. I mean, going from a bar bouncer having lost your job in different areas. How did you spend, how did you make that transition from from employment into employer or entrepreneur financially because I mean, you alluded to this to at the beginning where you're rich, you're broke, you're rich, you're broke, you're rich, broke, broke, broke, broke, broke rich. Like I understand that happens. And I think that's one of the bigger fears of people who are thinking about making the jump. And so how did you level that? How do you handle it with your wife? I don't know if you have kids, but like, how did you make that? an okay thing for them.I have to stop my bank account from becoming my barometer to react. And it took many years, but the thing that would happen was I would have a ton of cash in the bank, and I'd be like, oh, I don't need a try. I got loads of money. And the money goes quickly, especially when you've got a nice house and you know, you got payments and I do have kids, I have private schooling and before you know it that starts whittling down fast. And then you go crap, I got no money, and then you go and get into stressful deals and projects that you shouldn't have got into but you have done now because of the checkbook. So you're going from candlelight, you know, fire to beach fire to the beach. And it's, it's bad. And as I say, I was using my bank account to dictate me. And it was the tail that wags the dog. The smartest thing that happened to me was when I suddenly started realizing that I was pathetic at certain things, and an entrepreneur wants to be great at everything. The Smart entrepreneur realizes, you know, we're not, we're great at one or two things, but the rest of it, we may be adequate, or maybe really bad at, okay. So as an entrepreneur, I realized that my wife was detail-oriented, she would come to me and she'd be like, Well, look, I've looked at the spreadsheet, and I'm like, Well, I don't want to look at spreadsheets was the bottom line. Because that's how I vision things. So then we realized that I can steer the car, you know, I can be the big powerful engine that can make it go fast. But I need other people to help me. I need a good set of tires, I need a good set of brakes. I need a good steamer, you know, and I suddenly started finding those people. And I can go, Hey, we need to send this person a great brochure. Get someone to design the brochure, hey, record what you think will be great. And then get someone to write the copy to translate your vision into what someone else can meet. So, Claire, my wife became good at managing and handling me. And she was like, what, okay, and so what we came up with, we came up with the 10 grand credit card. Okay, which started in my late 30s, maybe 39. Oh, yeah, realtor. I hadn't quite hit 40 at the time. But she said, okay, you're gonna have three credit cards, because no matter where you travel in the world, Sometimes, you know, something can happen to a credit card, and it screws and or, you know, they try to send you a verification code. But of course, you're in a foreign country, so you're not getting it, you know. So we have three credit cards. And she said each one of those credit cards has got 10 grand because no matter where you are on a planet, if you've got 10 grand, you can get a couple of hotel nights and you can get a flight out of it. Or you can pay a hospital bill, you know, 10 grand is a great instant support number. Okay, so she said you got three credit cards for 10 grand,you add a bank account, and she kicked me out of the bank account, I could not go and see how much money I had in there. Now, this is what happens. You stop reacting to your tail. You start looking at someone and going okay, is this a project I want to accept? Is this a client I want to be doing and in focusing on the client and not focusing on the checkbook. You get to accept deals that make sense and don't motivate your bottom line. You start we at you reacting with your stomach in your head and not with your with the fear of how much money's in the bank. You take better deals. And when you take those better deals, you start solving the problems that the client has. And then he starts reaffirming the knock-on effect by stop looking at the bank account was monumental to me. And my wife would just say to me, oh, how's it going? What's your pipeline? Like? And she would talk to me in my language, you know, are you busy at the moment? Well, things are starting to get you to get a bit quiet. Oh, well, maybe there are some opportunities for you to use that time, which was code for the bank account that needs replenishing. But she wouldn't tell me that because then I don't get the wrong kind of deals. So a good entrepreneur needs good support around them. If you are good at designing things but crapper doing invoices and the first time I realized how bad I was at doing an invoice was when I undercharged someone by 10 grand. And I had to pay 10 grand for that trip. Okay, now, do I go to the client and go, Oh, I made a mistake? No, I just paid 10 grand to learn the course, that I should never do invoicing again. And that was the last time I ever did an invoice. I've never done an invoice soon. I have no idea how to get into QuickBooks. I still don't know the potent passcode to get into my bank account. I don't need to it's not what I specialize that it's not my unicorn.Oh, that's so cool. I've talked to one other person who was very similar. He did door to door sales. And he just said Look, when when I decided that I want to stop looking at my bank account and just as long as I'm making more transactions or whatever, I'm helping more people than everybody else. I know I'm making more than anybody else. And that's got to be enough. So Yeah, there's value in that for sure. So how could we if we wanted to get connected with you, or if we had a business that we want to do to help us with? How would we get in touch with you? How do we get in touch with your, your, your book? Your Sam, sorry, your sim distillery, how do we get in touch with some of these tools to help usgrow? What we did an online course that should give you the basics called Simmons distillery.com. There's one aim in Sims. Sims distillery.com is my 16 part course that hopefully will help you get the first steps if you don't want to jump into their bluefish in the art of making things happen, should give you permission to fail and dream bigger. If you want to get hold of me. I'm not hard. I'm at Steve de sims.com. But you can also find me on Instagram, Facebook, all of these places. We've even got a free Facebook community called an entrepreneur's advantage with Steve Sims. So there are loads of ways you can reach out to me if you feel as though you want me to answer help with your company. That's nice. But I would suggest you go through those other ways. First you look at the book, do that do your homework first, you may find by doing that, you actually discover other questions that you would have come up with other you come up with, you wouldn't come up with a view to jumped into me straight away, and I want you to be as productive, productive and as powerful as possible. So it's usually best to get the book, get the seems to Sylvie? And then can I get used to my mentality, you may find, I'm not your best choice, I may not be the best person and only you are going to decide that but you're not going to know they should go through the first steps.That is so true. I'm redoing a training system for a lot of my business partners and our leaders. We're talking about what should be in there. It's like it's all in there. If they come and ask me a question before they've done their research or something and I don't even know what they don't know. But I do know what I've already put out there so they haven't taken it down. of the free content that's already there. I like there's not a lot we can do for them. And so I love that you said it that way. Agree, go do those, those things that he's already prepared for you and if you like him, then reach out and get and get to know him a little bit better. So we're at the pretty much at the end here, but I have two more sections here. So the last one is a legacy on rap. Sorry, the first one is a legacy on rapid-fire. So I'm gonna ask you five questions, looking for one sentence answers to go through these and just kind of fast, fast fast. Are you ready for this?I'm ready.Okay. So what do you believe is holding you back from reaching the next level of your legacy today?dream bigger, but I never want to stop dreaming people hold themselves by not dreaming big enough. And as far as I'm concerned, the bigger the dream, the bigger the achievement.Agree. Awesome. So what next one is what is the hardest thing you've ever accomplished?What the story I told you getting over me You can be your biggest advocate you can be your biggest success your biggest asset but sometimes you can be your, your largest devil and your biggest delta. So try and kick that little monkey off your shoulder.Awesome. And then what do you think your greatest success to this point in your life has been?No carry? I have no care about you laughing at me when I fall over. Just stick around to see me get up again.Amen to that. And what would you say is one secret the wave has contributed most to your success.My dad is probably one of the biggest on educated men on the planet. big thick Irish bricklayer fella. And I remember as a kid, he put his hand on my shoulder one day, for no reason wasn't even looking at me. We were just walking down the street. And he said to me, son, no one ever drowned by falling in the water. They drowned by staying there. Now at the age of 14, I thought I'd swallow the fortune cookie or something I couldn't understand where the bloody hell this came from. But you know that is often stuck with me and now and then I fall over quite often and I go, right. It's my decision whether when I stay here and drown, or I get up so I would give him that credit.Awesome. And what are two or three books that you'd recommend to the fuel your legacy audienceblue fishing, the art of making things happen by me Steve Sims obvious one, Dr. Zeus because I find that they got a lot of stuff in there that people don't realize how powerful anything by Jay Abraham because all of his methodology and style, critique sales techniques from the 80s are actually more powerful and impactful today. And if I can give you the fourth one, anything that allows you to dream, anything that's kind of like science fiction, espionage, spy novels, john Grisham, anything that makes you kind of dream in your head That's good because the difference between us an AI is AI can't dream, create an action act, it can only deliver what you asked for. So start meeting things that make you dream and take you to a world beyond your imagination.That's so interesting. I've never heard anybody put it that way, the difference between us and AI because that's a, if you don't follow the technology that's coming up quick, big difference, like AI is going to be able to replace a large percentage of what humans are currently doing. And the question is, but what do we do with all that free time as you're right asked you an It looks like you have a little bit of free time. What are you going to do with that? And that's a real question to be asked. Millions of people are being put out of jobs daily, across the world because of artificial intelligence or some form of robotics. And if you're not thinking how can I then go create more value for the world and give back then you're going to be sitting there doing nothing? pretty quick.A great, greatyeah. So here's the last one. Question. It's my favorite question. I excited to hear your answer. I don't know what it's going to be. But we're going to pretend that you've died that you're dead. Okay. 210 But okay, no, no, it's 200 years from now, six generations from now. So your great, great, great, great, great-grandchildren are sitting around a table, and you have the opportunity to kind of listen in to the conversation that they're having about you, your life and your legacy. What would you want your great great great, great-grandchildren to be saying about you? 200 years from now.He lived by his standards and not others.Simple as that simple as that.And it doesn't need to be any more complicated. I love it. Thank you so much for your time, Steve. I'm just grateful and honored to have you here on the show. And if there's ever anything I can return the favor to you. I'd love to do so. Thanks. And love to if you ever back in Utah. I love to meet up with you.Hold to a panel. Thank you.Yep, no problem. We'll catch you guys next time on fuel your legacy.Thanks for joining us. What you heard today resonates with you please like, comment and share on social media tag me and if you do give me a shout out I'll give you a shout out on the next episode. Thanks to all those who've left a review. It helps spread the message of what it takes to build a legacy that lasts and we'll catch you next time on fuel your legacy.Connect more with your host Samuel Knickerbocker at:https://www.facebook.com/ssknickerbocker/?ref=profile_intro_cardhttps://www.instagram.com/ssknickerbocker/https://howmoneyworks.com/samuelknickerbockerIf this resonates with you and you would like to learn more please LIKE, COMMENT, & SHARE————————————————————————————————————Click The Link Bellow To Join My Legacy Builders Mastermindhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/254031831967014/Click here to check out my webinar as well!————————————————————————————————————Want to regain your financial confidence and begin building your legacy?In this ebook you will learn:- The 9 Pillars To Build A Legacy- Clarify you “why”- Create Daily Action Steps To Launch ForwardWant Sam’s FREE E-BOOK?Claim your access here! >>> Fuel Your Legacy: The 9 Pillars To Build A Legacy————————————————————————————————————

How comfortable are you with money and your relationship to money? In this episode, I talk about when my relationship to money took a turn for the worst and why it was destroying me from the inside out (not to mention my marriage). I read a bunch of books on women and money but nothing felt relevant or was getting to the root of the problem. It took me a while to figure out why. Now I'd like to offer what I learned with all of you! In my new class "Rewrite Your Money Story," I'll be teaching about: Uncovering the roots of your money story (and intergenerational trauma) Inner turmoil vs. external reality (overcoming scarcity mentality) Feminism, privilege, and shame (are you earning more or less than what’s expected?) The science of money, worth, and “playing small” (how to ask for what you want/negotiate a raise) Boundaries, people-pleasing, and spending/saving patterns Meditation and somatic exercises to ease money anxiety If now is the time to roll up your sleeves and get real with your money story, I would love to be your guide. We need more women like you standing in their power. It starts with money. Our root chakra. Our sense of security.

  Sleep is absolutely critical to being healthy. But do you know how to get your best sleep? Answering that question and SO much more is my dear friend and business partner, Matt Gallant. We start the show by talking about how he got interested in the topic of sleep. When he was in his mid-20s he wanted to do it all: he wanted to record an album, learn all about marketing, work out at the gym and he had a full-time job. So he decided he would cut back on sleep. And he took the resistance training approach by doing it in small increments. He shaved off 15 minutes at a time and thought his body would adjust if he did this gradually. He eventually got down to 5 hours of sleep and experienced some side effects when he did: he had to be pristine with the food he was eating and keeping himself hydrated or his body would completely crash. Matt also shares another story about his experiences with sleep that showed him it's the quality of sleep we get more so than the quantity. We explore that story, plus Matt’s best sleep hacks. At night, Matt recommends wearing glasses from True Dark or Swannies about 2 hours before bed to help your body block out any type of light that might keep you awake. He also recommends using a program called f.lux on your computer, which lessens the amount of blue light emitted by your computer. Iris is a similar program that Matt likes best. As far as actual sleep, you want to keep your bedroom cool at night (16-18 degrees C or 60-64 degrees Fahrenheit). But you also want to keep your mattress cool because otherwise your body heat gets trapped underneath you and you will sweat. The sweat will dehydrate you which leads to poorer sleep and waking up tired. Matt gives us his specific tech recommendations for greater sleep on today’s show before we dive into which supplements can enhance your sleep, and how they work plus the reason 15 minutes of meditation before bed can help you fall asleep faster. You’re going to hear those fascinating topics, and you’ll hear Matt explain why he’s not a fan of melatonin. Join us for this illuminating discussion on sleep. Resources: True Dark glasses Swannies glasses f.lux Iris chili pad Tim Ferriss The Ooler sleep pad EMF shielding tech Faraday cage Oura ring Dreem headband Delta sleeper EarthPulse Dream Tea from Anima Mundi Magnesium Breakthrough Read the Episode Transcript : Wade Lightheart: Good afternoon. Good morning and good evening. It's Wade T Lightheart at the Awesome Health Podcast and I got my good friend, buddy, business partner and co experimenter Matty G. How's it going today at the biOptimizers extreme lab? Matt Gallant: It's going great man. Always, you know, I always love talking about health with you and I think we're going to be sharing some more deep gold today. Wade Lightheart: So I'm excited about today's podcast because we're going to talk about something that we've been in I think a circuitous conversation for I think almost the entire time that we've known each other for around 20 years, certainly 15 very deep. And that is sleep. And for those who don't know the statistics and what's happening, sleep issues is one of the biggest issues in America today and is expanding worldwide. And there's a variety of reasons for that, why that is. We're gonna dive into that. If you're struggling for sleep, you definitely want to listen to this podcast because of all the people I've met in the health industry, I don't know anybody that has gone as deep in sleep is Matty G and we've had a lot of discussions about it's, I'm a guy that wants to sleep the the, you know, for years I was like, if I could just throw sleep away, I'd be, I'd be happy. Wade Lightheart: When we started out, Matt was like, no, you need us. Like he wanted to get as much sleep as possible. But now we've both come for circle on this where we're kind of in what is the optimal sleep amount? How do you get there? Why are we in trouble for sleeping? How important is sleep and where does sleep play as far as hormone optimization, brain functioning, recovery from training. What are the hacks? What are the tricks? What are the tips? And Matty G, if he doesn't know all of them, he knows everybody who does know all of them and he's probably tried more of them than anybody on the planet. So Matty G, Mr sleep, where are we going? What are we doing? How are we, what, what's happening today? Matt Gallant: I will start with the story of how I really started to understand the need for sleep and the importance of it. So at the time I was 25 years old, maybe 24, I was living in Moncton were Wade and I are from, and you know, I had the same mentality that you have. I'm like, you know what, I, I want to work like a hundred hours a week. I want to record an album, I want to learn marketing, I want to work, you know, literally 80 hours in the gym. I don't really have time for sleep. So, so again, like little, I was working 80 hours at the gym at a four 40 hour job, plus 40 hours of personal training clients. I'm recording a hard rock album in the studio and then I'm spending about 15 to 20 hours learning about marketing. So I did the math. It was like a hundred to 105 hours plus I was training twice a day. Matt Gallant: So in order to do all of that, I'm like, okay, I got it. I started cutting sleep. At the time I was probably sleeping, you know, normal seven hours. I'm like, okay, here's the plan. I'm going to start cutting my sleep by the 15 minutes slices and keep going down. My body will adapt. I was thinking like like resistance training and all adapt to the, to the stress, so you know things were going decently. When I got to about five hours, there's an interesting oxide effects that started happening. One of them was my hypersensitivity to water and food, so literally that's how I really got into water because if I was dehydrated like a micro amount, like I had to literally like be drinking water all the time. If I dehydrated even like a little bit, I immediately just kind of crash. Right? Same thing with food, it's like any food that my body wasn't really happy with. Matt Gallant: I would crash so I had to eat like flawlessly and be drinking water all the time. It otherwise it just crash. Then I kept going and then I finally crashed and burned at around like I think four hours or three hours and 45 minutes. You know, I, I just pulled the plug on the experiment and then I read a book called power sleep, which, you know, started educating myself about the need of it and the power of it and then kind of went the other way. It took me about two months to recover, you know, it was like nervous. It was pretty deep nervous system burnout and I was sleeping eight, nine hours now. So for the longest of time I was the kinda guy that, you know, needed eight, nine hours and whatnot and I didn't understand the quality of sleep is really what matters, which is what we're going to be talking about today. Matt Gallant: Not, you know, everybody's heard you gotta sleep eight in a seven to nine hours, which may be true for some of you, but I think in my opinion, the quality's really the key. So another story four and a half years ago, I, I crashed in a different way. I went on a big European tour for business, came back my testosterone at crashed an all time low and my body fat was at the highest that I've recorded it on a DEXA. And I realized right then that my S and I, and I've got an oura ring. So it was kind of like this, this convergence of all these events. And on the oura ring I was getting zero to 15 minutes of deep sleep at night. Like I was basically having no deep sleep. So that's when I realized that my sleep was garbage. Matt Gallant: You know, typically I would wake up at that time in the morning, I'd be really tired and you know, dehydrated. And even though was sleeping like eight and a half, nine hours, I felt like I've slept for, and of course the oura ring validated the, the the data, the experience. So that was the turning point and I realized, you know what, in terms of up leveling me as a human being, probably the number one thing, like the one thing that would improve my body fat composition, improve my brain, improved my ability as a, as a businessman improve myself in relationships was sleep. Like I realized right then it was a huge kind of revelation that if I slept better like every part of my life would improve and it has. So for me sleep is, you know, very close. It's hard to say which one is number one, a number two, but I'm going to make this bold statement. The top two things in my opinion you can do to buy, to biologically optimize yourself as a human being is high quality sleep and resistance training. I think those two, you know, in terms of improving across the board are the top two things. I'm just a lot of other things you can do, but if you sleep well, do resistance training, I think your quality of life, your health span and probably your lifespan will, will have a big impact. Wade Lightheart: You know that you make a couple of interesting observations with that conclusion. If you look with the advent of electricity and the advent of technology, particularly computers, digital screens, television and blue light, and the shifting of circadian rhythms, which is plays a big point in that this is the one area of humanity where we've have, I'd say civilization has throttled the endocrine system or the normal patterns. It's not normal for all this light to be present at night and over, you know, literally billions of years. Every creature is, is running on a circadian rhythm that is related to a light cycle, which there's a hormone cascade, there's an energy cascade, there's an awareness cap, there's this, there's just so many things that are tied to that. And so all of a sudden with the civilization, we've accelerated that curve. And then the other part of that is over the last, particularly the last hundred years and even more so, maybe the last 50 with, I would say with the beginning of the remote control in cars, we really don't push our physicalities that much. I mean, if you'll think back to the great statues in history, the Greeks and the Romans have these, you know, really idealistic bodybuilder type bodies. It's obvious that people were walking around looking like that to be the Wade Lightheart: Inspiration for those artists to develop those Herculean like qualities. And if you look at the population today, Herculean qualities is something that's only reserved for Olympic athletes, for professional athletes and the general population is anything but so based on all that what have you learned? What are the big, what are the things that mess people up first? Let's start there. What are the big don'ts or the things that people might not think of that are really affecting their quality of sleep and their quality of their life? Matt Gallant: I'm going to get into that, but I just want to answer the why first. It was really quick. No, why is sleep so critical? So first of all, let's look at it from a physical level. So your growth hormone, all you're, you're this, there's a whole prolactin cycle. That's where your GH gets released. Thus when most of your testosterone gets produced prolactin. Matt Gallant: Yeah. So it's this whole cascade that starts with the melatonin and then it triggers your prolactin is another hormone in the body. So, but what matters is the healing hormones though, the fat burning hormones, the muscle building hormones all getting released in that cycle. So if you're having no deep sleep or not enough, you're basically not producing these really powerful anabolic healing, anti aging hormones that you know we want. It's critical. So that's the first piece. The second thing, which gets produced typically during REM sleep, which is the end of your sleep cycle, the bulk of it is your neurotransmitters. So that's what allows you to feel good, to be happy for your brain, to function, for you to think that's when that happens. Then there's also memory consolidation. You know, when you're moving things from short term memory to long term memory, a lot of that also happens during the, the light sleep cycles as well as during your REM. Matt Gallant: So basically, and then let's talk about weight gain. You know, let's and grill in, all of these things get thrown out. So if you have a bad night's sleep, your hunger is going to be typically out of control. So the odds that you're going to snack and cheat, you know, your blood glucose is going to go up. So like literally if you, if you want to gain fat, like if your goal is to gain fat as easily as possible, if you have bad sleep, that's the formula. So, and I really feel that, you know, the weight gain, the fat gain epidemic that we have in around the world, a lot of it is being driven by poor sleep. And, and that's just again, just, it's just a physiological reality. So if we just look at all of these and pretty much every part of your body gets negatively affected, even your DNA. Matt Gallant: I read some recent research like a month ago where one night of bad sleep like four hours, you know, affected all of these epigenetics. So, eh, the, the consequences are extreme. Now let's the shift over to the fundamentals of how to maximize sleep quality. And it's really about eliminating the five sleep disturbances. If, if you just eliminate these disturbances, your sleep quality is going to transform. So the first one is light. You mentioned light. So let's just explain a little bit why light is so critical and there's so many components to light. We'll get deeper into it. But the big picture is as, as you said, that we're not programmed. Like I've got this massive light shining in my eye right now. Plus I've got two computer screens, plus I've got this other light. So I've got like four sources of blue light that are completely unnatural hitting my eyes. Matt Gallant: It's, and it's hitting my brain. So, and this is fine at this time of the day, but if I, let's say I had all of these things on and it's 11:00 PM, I'm going to be wired. And like I know I think a lot of night hours, you know, and, and I'm one of them right in the chronotype call them, call us wolves. We are hypersensitive I think to blue light more than other people cause I used to be able to like, you know, work on the computer till three, 4:00 AM and it's like I just wouldn't get tired. And I think this, the light is just stimulating my brain. So that is telling my brain that it's still daytime. Right. And like you were saying back in the day where it was candles or no, you know, just no light. As soon as it would get dark, our brains, it's like okay let's start shutting things down. Matt Gallant: Let's start priming the melatonin and then you'd get tired and go to bed, prolactin cycle, all of these things. So light is probably one of the biggest disturbances. Now let's talk about the basics, which is managing light during sleep. So you want your room like pitch, pitch black, dark as possible, you know, and if you're living in a city, it's even more important now for those of us. And I used to wear a sleep mask and then I found out that your skin has these photo receptors. In other words, when you're, when the light hits your skin, it will disrupt your melatonin production. So even having a mask, even those protecting your eyes and it does help, it's not going to be as good as a pitch black room. So that's light. Now that's not enough. We'll get back to light in a second and just want to cover the other four. Matt Gallant: So second is heat and this is very well researched. I mean I read that in power sleep back a long time ago. We sleep best in a cold room, especially our, it's important that our heads get. And then there can be heat disturbances where your is touching the mattress. And I'll talk about that in a second. The third one is blood flow restriction. That's another one. This is where a bad mattress comes to play because if you're lying on your side, like I'm a side sleeper. If you're a back sleeper, this is not as critical. But if you're a slide size sleeper and you have let's say wide shoulders and you don't have a good mattress, the blood flow gets trapped in your shoulder, in your arms, and then your body's going to toss and turn because your body knows, okay, there's not enough blood flow, it's time to move and you're going to move. Matt Gallant: So, and you can track that with a lot of these apps that'll tell you how many times you've tossed and turned. Fourth is noise, noise will disrupt your sleep. And you know, of course there's ways to mitigate that. And fifth is electrical magnetic disturbances. So wifi signal, cell phone signals, Bluetooth, all of these waves that are flying all over the place as we speak will disrupt your sleep. So what our goal is to, to use technology and tools to minimize the disturbances of those five things. The more we can do that, the better sleep gets. Wade Lightheart: You bring up something really important there about, I mean, there was really no way out of the technological advancement that's going in. Of course there's a lot of concerns with things like 5g being rolled out across the world and how that's going to have profound effects perhaps on our, on our biology. And there's a lot of people in the area that are concerned about it. Some people say it's unwarranted, some people say it's the worst thing for humanity coming. What are some of the things that you do specifically to mitigate these areas of your life? Like what, or like, okay, we've got the five main things. What can a person today go out and do in regards to that? And then we'll kind of get into some of the more advanced tax after that. So what are, what are the go-tos for, for Matty G. Matt Gallant: All right, so let's start with each one and I'll give you kind of my list of hacks. So let's start with light. Wade Lightheart: Get a pen and paper. Folks are gonna want it. You're going to want to write fast and furious cause Matt, by the way, Mat, how much money have you spent in total on your sleep systems? Matt Gallant: It's, it's around 30 grand. I mean, and I could add a couple of more devices on top of that movie, which would take people over 40 so, and you think it's one of the more valuable things that you've spent money on for sure. Right? Yeah. Like I, you know, if again, the way I look at it is if I'm 10% more effective, which, which I feel a more than 10%, but if I was 10% more effective, it's an incredible ROI. If my health span improves 10% or my lifespan improves. Like if I look at it from any of those three perspectives, it's a no brainer ROI. You know, people spend so much money on cars and these, these deep dish, the right appreciating assets where I think in this case it's like it's a compound health benefits. So your number one asset is health. Matt Gallant: And again, to me this and resistance training on the top two things. So speaking of lights, the first thing is let's talk when you wake up. Okay. So our bodies had these circadian rhythms. And one of the things that surprised me how effective it is is when you wake up, and this is a really huge travel tip to this, so we'll talk about how to reset your circadian rhythm when you travel. But this is the first thing that you do. So you wake up, you want to blast your eyes with blue light. Now you have two options. One, you can go outside and you know, go stare at the sun but get sun hitting your eyes. That's the natural organic way. And for those of us that live in, you know, one day or it's winter time and you don't want to do that. Matt Gallant: There's a device called re timer. It's not Australian company and he's these, it's kind of like these white glasses that literally blast your eyeballs with blue light. There's also the human charger, which are these EarPods like earbuds that blasts your brain with light. So the best time to use that is in the morning. Like, as soon as you wake up and let's say you want to start waking up earlier, if you wake up and okay, the first time's going to be tough, but if you wake up and blast yourself with light, like it's amazing how tired you get around, you know, 16 hours later. It's like, it tells your body this is the beginning of the day. So in terms of hacking your circadian rhythm, whether you're traveling or you want to just kind of start shifting your, your, your wake up time, I think it's incredible. It's very, very impactful. Matt Gallant: Now let's shift to the end of the night. So before you go to bed, probably around two hours is probably optimal. So as you want to go to bed until 11 was around 9:00 PM, you would put on blue light blockers. I'm a fan of the, the probably the most intense ones. The best ones is true dark. The, the red ones. This is a company that Dave Asprey's invested in great glasses. I mean, they're the most intense. The only thing is you're going to watch TV. It's like if they're so intense, it's hard to read. The more stylish ones, I would probably start the Swannies from James, my friend James Swanwick. And those are really good for like going out and you know, the block most of the pool. So that makes a big difference. That is, especially if you're using technology like TV or computers or your phone or your iPad, those will have an impact. Matt Gallant: Now if you're using your phone or your computer, you know, I use something called the, it's called, there's flux, which is really good, but I use a nuts by the way, is a, is a computer program that will actually change the screen color so you're not getting as much blue light. Yep. Now there's another one called Iris, which I think is better. It's a little more, a little more control and a little more aggressive. He's got all, all kinds of options. So I use that. So either flux or Iris and, and on your phone there's also built in like it'll start shifting and you can hack your phone where I'll show you what it looks like. So you see my phone, if I triple click, it becomes red. So this is more aggressive and, and you know, you can search on how to create tense in your phone and then you can control it with the home button. Matt Gallant: So those are all the things I do to, to manage, mitigate light in my room. I had double blackout curtains cause one was still literally the light coming here and there. I just put two layers of 'em and it solved the problem. So that's the light equation. Second is heat. You know, obviously if you're living in, if it's winter time in Canada, you don't need to worry too much, you know, it's going to be pretty chilly. But for those of us that are in summer or in hot climates, I live in Panama. You know, AC is mandatory, but that's not enough because going back to when I used to wake up tired, I was, I was sleeping in AC, I was losing around four to five pounds of water from going to bed to wake up. Like I would weigh myself for bed and wake myself. That's a lot. Wade Lightheart: I think a lot of people don't realize how dehydrated they can become sleeping. It's not, I mean, I watched that fluctuation as a way to monitor my own health to see how much water I lose in a particular leaving. For me, it's somewhere between two and three pounds is generally where I'm at from breathing. But if you go beyond that, I know that I've got some, there's some, there's some challenges. Matt Gallant: Well, you're going to wake up dehydrated if you're dehydrated, you're tired. Right? I mean, you know, you know any top water experts in the planet, he knows, he knows. He knows this as much or more than anyone else. I mean, you know, your brain, everything drops. You're dehydrated. So the answer is the chilly pad and you know, God blessed Tim Ferriss for talking about this on think it was you know, eight or tools of Titans is in that book. Matt Gallant: You gotta love Timmy. Yeah. Tim. Tim delivers the chilly pad is this machine and then they got a new version called the OOLER that they just released. So it's this machine that you put distilled water in it and it cools the water and then pushes the water in this thin layer, a thin mattress that you put underneath your bed sheets. So all that heat that would typically get trapped because again, the room can be 16 degrees Celsius, which this is pretty much what I sleep in. But you're still sweating where your body's touching the mattress, your body's trapping the heat, the chilly pad or the OOLER solves that issue cause it's getting, you know, you can control the temperature, you put it where you're comfortable and it'll prevent the sweat from happening. So now I'm losing like one to one and a half pounds of water while I'm sleeping. So that's a big reason why I'm not as dehydrate. Wade Lightheart: Quick, quick question on the chilling effect and it's power. Cause I, I grew up in as we both did in freezing cold new Brunswick. And when I was a kid, there used to be frost on my bed sheets on certain mornings and, and, and, and I, I can recall that the total label being frozen, going to the bathroom. So extreme cold. Is there an optimal level of cold? Like have they done research on, on how cold is optimal? Like is there a point where there's a benefit and a point where there's a liability? Do we know what that is? Are people doing Wim Hof sleeping? What's the, what's the deal? Matt Gallant: Um yeah, it's between you want your room to be between 16 and 18 degrees Celsius. That's, that's optimal. Cause your head needs to be above one degree core than the rest of your body. Matt Gallant: And it'll, it'll do that. So here's a trick too. Like I go in my room, I turn on my AC about four hours before I go to bed. So I walk in my bedroom, it's just super cold. Cause if, you know, if I go to bed and I turn on my AC at that point, I mean it, you know what I mean? It's gotta be still warm for about another hour. So if you want to fall asleep faster, that's one of the things now and another, does that change? Wade Lightheart: Just a quick question on that, cause that's the thing is important, but you live in Panama, which your base temperature on any given day is in the, in the high 20s or you know, low 25 celcius here with, with, yeah. With high humidity though as well on top of that. So if you're living in a colder climate, does that variance differ for people? Do we know, uh, is there any cause, is it the, is it the absolute temperature that's important? Or is it the variance from kind of your waking state energy? Matt Gallant: It's the absolute temperature. Now the difference is your metabolic rate, you know, and I'll give you an example. So I do a massive reef eat on Sundays, on Sundays. My body temperature is one to one and a half degrees hotter than if I'm fasting. Fasting like my second day of fasting. Like my body's dropped one degree. So second, you know, at that point probably go like more like 17 degrees or 18 degrees and I'll adjust chilly pad versus on spike day it's 16 degrees and I dropped my chilly pad down to like 14 cause otherwise to counteract that thermic effect. Correct. And you know, like men typically run a little hotter. You know, if you have a really fast metabolism, the more food you eat, women tend to run a little cooler. Matt Gallant: So there, there is those adjustments and that's the cool thing with the chilly pad. You know, if you're, if you're a couple you can get a couple versions so you can control her side and your side so you can adjust the temperature accordingly. But as far as what the research has shown, it's 16 to 18 degrees in the room regardless of where you're at is optimal temperature. Got it. One more thing too that I experimented with. It was kind of an accident. So I had these, these ice best, okay. There's these cool fat burning vests. You know, we'd be, we do a whole episode on, you know, we're in fat loss hack, so I was using it for fat loss. And, and you know, this is a well researched thing where you lose body heat with, you know, eater cryo or ice baths, but use these vests that you could wear that have you put them in the freezer and you put them on and it's really cold. Matt Gallant: So you know, you lose some body temperature. So when I use those, and I have even this cryo helmet that you also put in the freezer and it was recommended by our friend Katrine and you put these on. So when I was wearing these my deep sleep went up a pretty significant amount. So when I do that, I don't do it every night just cause you know, it's a little bit of a hassle. But when I do do it, my deep sleep goes up. It's almost like it's priming my body. It's like the, the, the temperature drop before bed would probably kicked start the prolactin cycle again. I don't know the exact science. All I can tell you is that the ring the data said, yeah, it's improving your deep sleep. Wade Lightheart: So, so what a cheap hack would be to take some bags of frozen peas and strap them together, a duct tape and kind of create a little helmet. Would that be the cheap, would that be the cheap, the cheap pack versus the cryo helmet Matt Gallant: And then the cool vest? Yeah, and I've seen what's interesting too, I've seen recently they did a research where like a hot bath also improved. So it seems that you're kind of, and that's more of a relaxation thing. So I think it's hitting different mechanisms like the heat. It's probably relaxing your nervous system. Wade Lightheart: Well also if you're doing a hot bath with magnesium as a big fashion term, we'll get into magnesium in an upcoming podcast. Cause I know we're going to go deep on that. But maybe the most important mineral to mankind is magnesium. So let's, but anyways, I'm diverting of course. Matt Gallant: So yeah, so that's the heat components. Next is the blood flow restriction. So that's really the mattress. Now I, I spent like months doing research on mattresses and the conclusion is you want up, especially if you're a side sleeper, you really want a memory foam because you want even weight distribution. Let me explain. If you have a hard mattress and you're a side sleeper and like let's say you have like wide shoulders or you're a woman wide hips, what's going to happen first of all is you're going to sleep like this, right? Cause I'm not going to sink in enough and it's going to tilt my body. So you're gonna have a spine curve which you don't want. And second of all, it's gonna really trap the blood in my shoulder. So it's a multitude of issues. Plus some people say that Springs are creating other sets of problems because of the waves and it's hitting this praying. Matt Gallant: So anyways, I'm not going to get too deep in the spring problems, but the point is you want to kind of sink in and how perfect with distribution. Now the rule of thumb is if you're, if you're really tall and you're light, then you don't need to sink in that much. If the heavier you are the diff, the softer you want your phone, right? So there's a company called Essentia, Canadian company. They're available in the States as well and they make a memory foam mattress out of a tree sap. Now you know there's other mattress companies like Tempur-Pedic but they're using oil based materials to make the mattress. And there's pretty significant offgassing that happens for petroleum based products is what you're meaning is petroleum base oil base. So for the first six to 12 months there's a pretty significant offgassing that happens, which you know, I wasn't interested in. Matt Gallant: Plus they tend to trap heat a little more. So that's why I went with Essentia. Now send you has all these different grades of softness or you can get a custom made mattress, which I did cost about 10 grand. And what's cool with the custom made is, you know, my wife got her side optimized for her shape and weight and I got mine optimized. So you know, personally, certainly improved and minded as well. So that's the blood flow component. Next is noise. Now you kind of have two options here. Either you go with white noise, which is what I do, which is not the best, but you know, if you're sleeping in a city, for example, I'm in Panama, you know, we'd notice how noisy you can get here. You know, it's the only alternative. So I had the AC running, I have an air purifier running and I had the chilly pad running. Matt Gallant: So it kind of creates this ocean of white noise, you know, cause all three of them, I mean kind of produce level of white noise and there's white noise machines that you can buy as well. And they do a good job of kind of hiding background noise, I think optimal. And when I go back to my parents' house, it's like there's no noise. And I think that makes a big difference. Right? Does ignore cars, there's no nothing, no technology earplugs can help a lot. I think your plugs have another set of benefits where you're hearing your breath and when you hear your breath, it has this calming, hypnotizing, a brain swelling effect. And we know that from meditation, just, you know, classic meditation, just focus on your breath and we have earplugs like you're hearing yourself breathe. And I think that that has a big impact on latency, which is how fast you fall asleep as well as cutting off the noise. Matt Gallant: So when I travel and I don't have all my gadgets, I, I'll, I'll use earplugs. And by the way, as far as the earplugs, my favorite ones, they're like almost like a wax based thing. So you don't put it inside the canal. Yeah, put, it's like a put that you put on top and you just smash it in again. That was another Tim Ferris. Not with a hammer by the way. You just, with your thumb, your thumb, you just kind of press it in and it does the same effect without kind of, sometimes you'll push the wax in or whatever and I don't like those, those old school cheap foam ones. So yeah, those, that's the noise component. Now electromagnetic disturbances is the last one. That your only option if you're living in technology is a fair day cage, which I, which I have one. So there's a website called less emf.com and they sell EMF shielding materials. Matt Gallant: So they have one that looks like a mosquito net. It looks pretty cool. It was a little worried when I bought it. I'm like, is this going to look really bad? But it looks like those, you know, African mosquito nets and it blocks, you know, all the waves from hitting, you know, hitting your body cause they're gonna I'm in a penthouse, you know, if I pull up my phone I think there's like 15 wifi I can find on my phone. So all of these are hitting me, you know, plus all the other waves that you know, self waves. And that said you got 5g coming. So sleeping in a Faraday cage cage, probably a smart move. Now for those of you that live out in the countryside and you can shut all your technology down in your house, I mean that would be the ultimate, you know, or if you're building a house from scratch. And when I, when I do build, you know, my next house or build the house, you, you can actually put all the shielding in the walls so you can actually build like a Faraday cage, you know, in the walls themselves. It's just absorbing all of the waves. Uwhich would probably be the, the ultimate. Wade Lightheart: That's great. I think that's really important of course. If you're living in a city and so for example, I spent a few months last year in Venice, California, which is like just an electromagnetic crazy zone. I think the leveraging technology yeah. Is really, really important. Or if you're, you're in a city, I think also there's just a subjecting to light light and noise is usually pretty significant. So putting in some of these little even little things is, is really key. So one of the things I think is important to reveal to people is what are the key components, cause I know you're a real data component. I think one of your stains is data shapes destinies. And you've literally tested all of the sleep technology. What are you using for data collection? What do you think of the best data collection devices about monitoring your sleep so that you get out of the realm of out of the realm of opinions and theories as you like to say? And where does someone get that or what should they look for for S for these types of things? Matt Gallant: Yeah, so probably the most popular one is the oura ring, which I'm wearing right now. So it's, it's a, you know, three to 400 bucks depending on which model you get. That's the one I started this journey with around four years ago. I bought it as soon as it came out. And you know, it's really, it was really good data. Now, about a year ago I bought was called dream D R E M and we'll get all this stuff in the show notes. Yeah. It's a headband that is measuring the EEG. So I used to wear the zeal. Kendra was a predecessor, like a great product way back in the day, right? Even in a business or whatever. Right. So the dream is kind of new version of it. And the thing is with sleep, like the oura ring, and I think they've done as good a job as you can using what I would call secondary metrics. So the primary metric would sleep is your brain waves, right? That's how you directly measure your, your sleep. Now the oura is using heart rate, heart rate variability, motion, body temperature. So those, what I mean by secondary metrics, the primary metric is your brainwaves. The dream measures all of the secondary plus the primary. So you, you know the oura. As much as I like it, it cannot match the accuracy of a dream in terms of the precise sleep cycles. Here's what I can tell you. The oura. And I, and I've talked to other people that have compared the data and actually look at sleep labs as well. Matt Gallant: The oura ring will actually be accurate at tracking the overall deep and REM. So let's say your overall combination of the two is four hours. Now the, the oral might say, okay, you had two and a half hours of REM and 90 minutes of deep. Okay. Now on the dream is going to also give you a say four hours of the two, but typically the oura is under measuring deep sleep and over measuring rep versus the dream. It will be more accurate on, on the, on the deep sleep. Now the one thing I love about the aura that you don't get from the dream is your readiness score. So your readiness score is basically how fried you are, is giving you a really good, accurate measurement of your nervous system. And you know, it's really powerful. I'll give you an example. Like recently my heart rate went up like 10 to 15 beats. Matt Gallant: My heart rate variability crashed and I knew there was something going on. So, you know, I, I hired Katrine who's one of the people we've worked with for health. And you know, I, I had had an infection, so I had had an issue that I had to deal with. So it's really good for that. It's good for measuring. If you're over-trained, you know, and you know, classically the two measure over training, if your heart rate goes up 10 beats per minute over three days you're over-trained that was the classic tool. But now with their, where the oura ring, we can really see, you know, a lot faster when that happens. And you can adjust your training accordingly. You know, just maybe take it easy. It doesn't mean you don't train, but you might not go do squats and dead lifts and sprints that day. Matt Gallant: You'll, you'll do more of an active recovery type of workout. So those are the tools to, to measure sleep. And you know, all the things that I've done have improved. Now don't forget things compounds. So you might do one thing and improves your deep sleep like 20%. You do another thing that's another 20%. No, you had 44%, you do another 20%. Now you know, you're, you're at 70 ish percent. So keeps compounding. And that's how, you know, an average now went from like zero to 15 minutes of deep to probably like 75 to 90 minutes. And then my REM is usually like two to three hours. So that's what I've found. Now I'd like to shift over and talk about other techs to improve and, and hack your sleep. So the first one is the nano V. The nano V is a machine that you put distilled water in it and hits the water with a very precise signal. Matt Gallant: You breathe that water in and it starts repairing your DNA. Okay. It's improving, scald the protein folding in your body. Now for sleep, what I've noticed is if I use it for like 90 minutes, my HRV will will go up significantly. It'll actually improve it by, you know, 15, 10 to 20 measurements on the HRV, which is pretty significant. So in terms of of restfulness and quality of sleep, it definitely makes an impact. Then I use what's called the Delta sleeper every night. You put this on your carotid artery, you can actually put it on your forehead as well, and it's sending the Delta pulse for like 20 minutes and it shuts off. So in terms of falling asleep or shifting you into Delta faster, it's a great little, you know, one else thing. And if you wake up during the night, you just hit the button and then you'll fall asleep faster. Matt Gallant: So I'm a big fan of the Delta sleeper. The next one is the earth pulse. So it's another PEMF device and you put these under your bed and you can control the, the frequency. So you gotta be careful. This thing is really potent, is very powerful. You know, when I first got it, like has like four built in programs and a level one program one and two completely wreck my sleep program. Three and four were great. So four is like just pure Delta and you know, three kind of brings you down and brings you back up and you gotta you know, you gotta control, you can control the, the strength of it, you know, for me, you know, I'm kind of a maximalist in nature and extremists. I started really high, but I found that, you know, dropping it to like 30 to 50% work better than like 80 to a hundred are going. Matt Gallant: It's a really strong, it creates a pretty strong field. So I like that. The vice, it's a good one. Then. what else do I use tech wise? That's pretty much it on the tech side. We can shift over to supplements unless you have any other thoughts. Let's, let's talk about supplements because I think you've kind of cracked the code on some powerful integrations around that. Okay. So first, you know, it's all about controlling brainwaves and your transmitters for the most part. So lavender oil pills are really powerful to increase alpha. So lavender oil and L-Theanine have been scientifically shown to increase alpha, which means that you're going to slow your brain waves down for those and listen to our other podcasts that when I just did around your nervous system. We talk a lot about this stuff and the issue is a lot of people are kind of stuck in beta and for the people that had a hard time falling asleep, that's what's going on. Your brain is just stuck in beta, which is a high fast brain wave and then it takes you a long time to shift it down. Wade Lightheart: For people are listening. That's like if you're the type of person that can't shut the brain off at night, the thoughts are still into this and that and the other thing, chances are that means you're, you're in a, in a, in a high beta state. Matt Gallant: Yeah. Your brain is kind of stuck there. Yeah. It's kind of like the beach ball of death that comes up on your computer just keeps spinning and spinning and you know, you can't get that, you know, that conversation in your head or that, that deadline that you have or that that conversation or relationship issue. Matt Gallant: Now you can hack that with meditation. I mean, which is a great pre bed ritual is you know, meditate for like 15-20 minutes, which slows your brain waves down. Then you go to bed. So that, that's a really good, good tip. But as far as supplements go, the lavender oil and the L-Theanine will both hack that and L-Theanine is probably one of my favorite supplements for sleep dosage wise. I would start at 200 milligrams and if, you know, I'll go up to like 600 sometimes. If I want a plane, I'll tell you about my plane stack. Right now it's 800 milligrams of L-Theanine and about 50 to a hundred milligrams of CBD. If it's legal where I am, I'll pass out like, you know, and you can dose a little bit of melatonin with that. I'll talk about melts on a second cause I'm not a huge fan of melatonin but that, you know, and I don't sleep easily on planes. Matt Gallant: I usually just pass out with that dose. Now typically though, it's more like two to 400 milligrams of both evening and around one or two Lavela oils. So if you're GABA deficient, GABA supplementation can be powerful. You can use, you know, GABA doesn't absorb that well, but it's an option. There is a Philippian route which also hits the GABA pathways. That is another option. And you know, I want to try injectable GABA so I'm, I'm the stream and the extreme optimizer here at BiOptimizers and I haven't tried it yet, but it is on my agenda to, to experiment with actually injecting GABA straight in. Cause when you take it orally, the absorption rate is really low. Wade Lightheart: I think for people just as a commentary,uif you're a coffee drinker, caffeine drinker, I think theming is a great, you're probably going to get even more benefits. It seems to be really works counter counter counter balances. The caffeine like L-Theanine is present in a lot of teas and not so much things like coffees or some of the more darker caffeinated and I'm a big tea fan. I'm going to get a topic about that one day. Umhe other thing is I think holy basil, if you're GABA deficient the L-Theanine, holy basil. Umhe Athenian holy basil combo is, is great to, to throw in there with, with your CBD. And a lot of people get a lot of power out of that. Matt Gallant: Yeah. yeah, I have not tried to obey as well. I'll, I'll add that to my experimentalists. Now. CBD works well the, for most people will disrupt your sleep. So, you know, personally Wade Lightheart: It'll make you dopey in a lot of cases, but not improve your sleep. And there's a difference there. It's kind of like if you're, and that, I think that's a difference between pharmaceutical sleeping, pharmaceutically enhanced sleeping, which you pass out and go out. But the quality of that sleep is often countering. And of course we w in on the extreme cases, I think it's Roseanne Barr, and when she kind of went on that crazy street, she was on a heavy tranquilizer called Ambien, which a lot of people use for sleeping, which has all sorts of serious negative consequences about what happens when you don't sleep properly. So I think that's the difference between chemicalized nation asleep, which is just looking at the sleep as an overall result as opposed to optimization sleep, which is what you're into by using elements that are natural and indigenous to our bodies and using those in a constructive optimized way. Matt Gallant: Yeah. Now I'm really excited about CBG and CBN. I actually ordered some, and this should be arriving any day cause for sleep. They're supposed to be even way more effective than CBD. So you know, we'll, we'll talk about in a future podcast. Haven't tried it, read the research. I'm excited we're come back. Some other things ashwagandha, a gram of that can work really well. One to two grams of reishi can work really well, but one of my favorites and you know, we are really excited and pumped to be releasing this product is two to four caps of Magnesium Breakthrough. So one to two grams of a blend of magnesium. So like the glycinate is a great one to help trigger sleep and improve sleep. The L-Threonate will actually be really good for your brain. So we have this seven magnesium blend that releasing very, very soon in the next couple of weeks. And you know, we've been experimenting with it. So two to four caps of that should move the needle on your sleep. Wade Lightheart: Especially well, especially if you're deficient. So you know, it's the most common mineral deficiency in the world and magnesium's responsible for 350 different known chemical reactions and it's one of the things that they put Epson salts for example, or actually magnesium salts in are used to calm and tone and magnesium is essential for relaxing muscle tissue both stride at muscle and smooth muscle has a very powerful effect. And if you're deficient in it and almost every North American is because it's a ratio between calcium and magnesium, magnesium is the control on a two to one ratio. You have two parts, calcium, one part magnesium. And we have a very high calcium, a component in her diet. And it's interesting, it's like when you have high calcium in your diet, it actually creates bone loss. It creates muscle cramping. It creates dis balances in the chemical processes. Wade Lightheart: And I've seen literally dozens and dozens of my clients who had trouble sleeping. We just add magnesium to their diet and that's it. All of a sudden, or people who suffer from cramping. And that's other big issues, particularly people get older in combination with dehydration. They cramp at night time. They wake up, they're very stiff because they're not only dehydrated but their D, magnesium and magnesium. And I used to use the word, so you want to not just, you don't want to be de magged, you want to be defragged. So the bottom line is, is a magnesium is super, super powerful for people. It's one of the reasons we've done so much research on. I mean, there's like 30 different types of magnesiums. We found the seven best, which we'll talk about in another podcast as you said. So I carry on with this Matt Gallant: Yes, we're ready. We're here the last 90 seconds. I'm gonna go rapid fire. There's a great tea called Dream Tea from a company called Anima Mundi. It's a blend of herbs, really big fan of that. Put your pajamas on. Ah, let me talk about melatonin really fast. Melatonin is a hormone folks like to me, I look at melatonin as seriously as I do testosterone, you know, and like in Canada for an example, like you can't, you can't buy that. And, and that's true for a lot of countries. So melatonin, I only use it when I travel. If I want to reset my circadian rhythm, that's the only time. And when you do you want to microdose like people will wreck their melatonin production by just going to crazy dosages. And what we found is that microdosing melatonin, if you go to use melatonin, like 0.3 milligrams is all you need is kinda like a little kickstart. Matt Gallant: And again, I'm not a fan of it. I only use it when I travel or when I want to reset my circadian rhythm. Otherwise I strongly recommend you stay away from it. Next thing is five HTP that hits the serotonin pathway that can have a positive impact on sleep. Some people. And the last thing I will share is a human growth hormone product or secretagogue you want to use before sleep. I have not experimented with these yet, but a lot of people report much improved deep sleep. I am planning on experimenting with a growth hormone, secretagogue very soon. Wade and I at BiOptimizers several years ago we did have a growth hormone releasing supplement. And I mean the, the dream, like it was affecting sleep. I didn't have the tools to measure it back then. But man, the visibility boost is a great product. It's insane. They shut the labs down. Unfortunately we couldn't find the sources of the, of the ingredients, so we had to stop it. But that, that was powerful. It was very interesting, very interesting product. So anyways, so I think that summarizes all the sleep things and again, you know, he, brain physiology is very unique and you need to experiment and find what works for you. And that's where the data comes in with the dream or the aura. So you know, you've got to try things one at a time and see what works. Wade Lightheart: So what we're going to do, folks is we're going to actually put this all together in a little book for you at the BiOptimizers sleep optimization handbook, which will be put together with all of these components, these hacks, we will be upgrading it, but you're going to be able to get a copy of that in the very near future. If we don't have it right here on the show notes, you'll be able to go to the BiOptimizers site. Check that out, download it as part of your biological optimization program. I want to thank you for joining us. Check out the show notes. Come back to the podcast, hit your comments, hit the likes. We love to hear that it helps us get the message out about biological optimization. I want to thank our guest today, the radical edge biological optimization maximization experimenter himself, fresh in the labs and Panama, Matty G. Thanks for being here and I'm delighted that you're coming onto the show more often because you're very knowledgeable in a course. A, if it's bleeding and it's the edge, you're there Matt Gallant: Awesome. A great, great fun. We'll be back soon talking about some more great stuff. So have a great day. Everybody.

Brett Cameron joins me today to share his theory of the hypnotic truth and finding your own niche, passion, and creativity. Brett explains how his wife inspired him to study hypnosis, how he builds rapport with clients, and the strategies and techniques he uses when giving his clients hypnotic homework. He shares why it is vital to provide clients with the ability to be part of their own change strategy. He also reveals how he finds clients and how he structures his multi-session programs. Brett is a Clinical Hypnotherapist and the founder of Cameron Hypnotics. He has been helping people with hypnosis for 13 years in Coffs Harbour, Sydney, and Newcastle. He is a coach, mentor, public speaker, and author as well as the Vice President of the Australian Hypnotherapists Association. Brett has a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Macquarie University and a Master Practitioner of NLP. “Stand in your truth. You have to get out of your own way to let your creativity and your natural skills shine through.” - Brett Cameron   How Brett's wife's use of hypnosis in dealing with motor neuron disease inspired him to learn about hypnosis. The importance of establishing rapport and using NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) techniques. How hypnosis can help people be more receptive to healing. Finding your niche in hypnosis. Releasing the emotion from traumatic events and changing the perspective of the past. The spinning wheel technique. Attracting clients through your website and the questions you need to ask during the first conversation. Why you should give clients hypnotic homework. Structuring packages of hypnosis sessions. Empowerment programs and telling looping stories. Using your personal experiences and finding your passion.   “Spinning Wheel” Technique Transcript:  “Close your eyes and take some deep breaths. Now imagining right there in the center of that feeling, right in the center of your chest where that feeling is, I want you to imagine there is a spinning wheel, and if there isn't one, I want you to put one there now. Imagine there is a spinning wheel right in the center of your chest, and I want you to speed it right up. Make it go really fast. When it's going really fast, I want you now to see that you have the ability to drag that wheel out from your chest. Now it's going to be a few inches in front of you. Do that now. Now you've got this wheel spinning like crazy in front of you. In a moment, I'll say the word flip. When I do, imagine you can flip the wheel over. Ready? One, two, three, flip. Now I want you to give that wheel a different color, a nice calm, tranquil color, something that just works perfectly for you. Now I'd like you to see you can bring that wheel back into your chest, back into the same spot. In a moment, I'm going to say the word break. When I do, imagine you have a beautiful big handbrake and you can slow that wheel down. Ready? One, two, three, break. Just slowing it down, slowing it down, slowing it down. Before it comes to a complete stop, you can open your eyes.”   Resources Mentioned:  HypnoThoughts Live Richard Nongard on Hypnosis Research You MUST Know About Hypnosis for the Management of Anticipatory Nausea and Vomiting David Kennedy School of Hypnosis Stephen Brooks British Hypnosis Research Skype Hypnosis: The Dave Elman Induction Modified The Spinning Wheel Technique transcript Connect with Brett Cameron: Cameron Hypnotics   Reserve your spot now for the 2020 ICBCH & HPTI Winter HypnoConference. 3-Days in Las Vegas featuring 35+ expert hypnosis speakers sharing the EXACT tools they use to create therapeutic success: https://hypnosistraininginstitute.org/product/2020-icbch-hpti-hypnosis-convention-full-three-day-registration/   Join us at the next ICBCH Train-the-Trainer event:  https://hypnotherapyboard.com/t3/   Get an all-access pass to Jason’s digital library to help you grow your hypnosis business: HypnoticBusinessSystems.com   Get instant access to Jason Linett’s entire hypnotherapeutic training library: HypnoticWorkers.com   If you enjoyed today’s episode, please send us your valuable feedback! WorkSmartHypnosis.com/itunes https://www.facebook.com/worksmarthypnosis/

                                                Major Points: Integrating the eight limbs into teaching asana to bring the fullness of yoga to everyone. (12:58) Media images of yoga will affect people’s decisions on whether to attend yoga classes. (4:22) How do we become more inclusive in yoga (32:23) Practicing yoga helps you become more discerning by making us pause and reflect between the stimulus and response of day to day life (7:56) 00:47                                     This is Changing the Face of Yoga and this is episode 113. I have an incredible guest today. Her name is Doctor Christiane Brems who is a certified psychologist from the American board of Professional Psychology. She is an RYT 500 yoga teacher, a certified yoga therapist and she received her Phd in clinical psychology from Oklahoma State University in 1987. She currently directs YogaX an innovative Yoga School Initiative in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. It provides yoga training, continuing education and services. Dr. Brem has been extremely interested in yoga all of her life and she's integrated it into her research for clinical work and also, has developed this program called YogaX. YogaX sounds like a really different kind of yoga teacher training. We're definitely going to go into that. It is the integration of science and spirituality in service of individual and communal health. It's work is grounded in modern neuroscience and psychology research as well as the ancient philosophy and psychology of Yoga. It is based on the fact that yoga is a lifestyle practice and has many health and mental health benefits. So thank you Christiane for coming on the podcast. It's amazing what you are doing there and I think it fits so well with what Changing the Face of Yoga is all about. So welcome. 02:42                                     Thank you. It's absolutely a pleasure to be here. I'm very excited. Thank you. 02:50                                     Is there anything you'd like to add to that introduction? I kind of zoomed through it because it's just incredible what you've done. I wanted to hit the highlights, but is there something that you would like to emphasize? 03:03                                     Well, maybe I'll just emphasize that YogaX really is a team effort. I happen to be the director of it at the moment, but our team includes 10 people and YogaX is really our collective brain child. And so I just want to acknowledge that I'm speaking for the group, not just for myself. We have been together for quite a while now. I think coming on seven years. So even though the Stanford initiative is very young, our team is pretty seasoned. 03:32                                     There are a couple of things I've picked up that I thought was really interesting. You said that you had done a study or seen a study, I'm not sure exactly. There really is a media bias against inclusiveness, shall we say in Yoga where you have to be young and white, probably economically safe. It isn't, in the west, very welcoming to other people. Did you do that media study or did you see it or what's the background of that? 04:22                                     Yeah, that's actually our own work. We did a review, a fairly thorough review of about 10 years worth of yoga journals, looking at all their images and articles, the graphics that go with advertisements in Yoga Journal. Obviously we were pretty successful in showing that there's a strong bias towards white, skinny, wealthy women in the images, not just in the advertisements, which was originally our hope. Also in the graphics that accompany the articles in Yoga Journal. So there's clear sexism, there's racism in the sense that there are not a lot of people of color. There are lots of images of white people. They're more images of women than men. And the interesting thing is when men are depicted, they are typically in teaching roles, whereas the women generally are more likely to be in the student role.                                                  There just a lot of really interesting things. We've published a couple of papers about this, but we also did a really interesting study where we took Yoga Journal images and we took some information about yoga. We created a control group and a treatment group and we invited people in to learn more about yoga and then at the end of this study asked them whether they might be inclined to try yoga. The treatment group was exposed to the yoga images whereas the control group was just exposed to information about yoga. Then both groups just got a little power point presentation about yoga and we ask them our questions. Being exposed to the images of Yoga Journal as opposed to just learning about yoga made men feel much less likely that they'd want to try yoga then if they just read something about yoga. And we thought that was really fascinating because it's sort of undergirds this premise, right? That if we show the wrong images then we disinvite or uninvite certain parts of our population from the practice. 06:36                                     Yes. I used to teach seniors and a lot of ads for senior yoga and stuff would have this very young girl, the typical yoga person. And I kept saying that's not a good idea; people need to see themselves to think I can try that. 06:57                                     Yeah. We need models. 07:40                                     Yeah. So I just thought that was interesting because it is a bit of a thing with me that I was really glad to hear that there was actual research to support what I've seen. So, I loved this. This came from your blog and it just totally got me, because I didn't ever think of it this way, but you said, that yoga is when we find the gap between stimulus and response. Yeah. I thought good grief. That is what we do. But it just seems like stimulus and response is so close. For Yoga to define that gap is kind of amazing. Can you kind of expand on that idea a bit? 07:56                                     Yeah. That to us is sort of the central practice, right? And even going all the way back to the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali's yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind. That's the second line in the yoga sutras - right now is the time for Yoga, which is sort of a call to mindfulness. And so even Patanjali argues if we can still the mind, then we can transform ourselves. And it's the same idea when you start looking at that gap between stimulus and response, you need to have a moment of quiet in the mind, right? You need to be able to take the stimulus and then have some discernment and some deliberate choice about how you will respond to that stimulus. And in our day to day life, that doesn't tend to be our habit, right? Our habit is more stimulus  and reaction,; there's no gap at all. And so in Yoga, we tried to cultivate is this pause, whether it's through breathing practices where we have a pause at the top and the bottom of the breath or whether it's through a physical practice where we pause to take a moment to tune in to the sensation in the body before we just sort of blow out our physical boundaries and limitations. It's all preparation for having that capacity when a stimulus reaches our nervous system to take a moment and make a deliberate choice about how we respond. So to me that has always been the very central part of the practice is this instilling of the capacity to pause. 09:41                                     I like that. Now I'd like to talk about, your teacher training because it sounds to me having been through two different sets of teacher training, that it's very, very different because it seems to have a real emphasis on community. . As well as, , learning all this stuff you got to learn. Sure. All that's in there too, but it's really, I wrote it down. It's fostering of community, encouragement of service and engagement, creation of accessibility and inclusion and I liked promotion of inspiration. The teacher training contributes to the student's personal and relational health. Relational health I don't , recall anything like that in any of my trainings or anyone else talking about that. And so could you kind of expand on that? What, what do you mean by relational health and how does the Yoga teacher training contribute to that? 11:10                                     It brings us right back to that gap between stimulus and response, right? So our relationships are often a reflection of our own capacity to self-monitor, to be compassionate, to be empathic and to understand what's happening in the other person before we react to whatever is happening in our relationship. In YogaX, in our group we have used yoga a lot in mental health care settings. And we have learned there that what happens with our clients as they do yoga because they increase the gap between stimulus and response. They become better partners in relationships. They bring us back anecdotes where their partners or spouses say, oh my gosh, you're so much more patient. Oh, you're less likely to fly off the handle. You haven't been as angry. You're easier to talk to. Bosses make comments to their employees about what changed for you? You're more patient, you're more thorough, your attention is better. There are really these reverberations into day to day life that enhance relationships. And we find that when we teach teachers, the same thing happens, right? We expect basically when we teach teachers that they too master this capacity to create a gap between stimulus and response. And that in that moment they become better people because they can make a choice about how they want to relate to the community in which they're learning and which they're grounded and in which they are responding. 12:58                                     You said that, and I thought this was excellent, really, that you do not emphasize the physical, but that all eight limbs of yoga get equal attention. I think that the physical, I hadn't actually put it in these words, but I think it's a beautiful way to say it does seem to get most of the attention both in the media and in the training that I took anyway. So how do you give equal time, in the training to all these eight limbs? 13:38                                     Yeah, that's a wonderful question because we are a yoga alliance registered school now and so we did have to comply with their criteria that they set for curriculum development. And of course, the alliance has an overly heavy emphasis on teaching asana. And so the way we make sure that we bring all eight limbs into our teaching is that bringing all of the limbs also into how we teach asana. And we do this also when we teach classes, not just when we teach teachers. When we do clinical work or research.                                                 Everything is infused for sure with Limbs one and two. That just is a background for everything. We really believe that you can’t do or teach asana without also being very clear about the first limb, the ethical practices. Otherwise you practice asana in a way that might be violent to yourself. We see this all the time when people get injured in yoga classes because they're pushing past their limitations or their boundaries and they get hurt, right? Because they're not practicing acceptance and a compassion or nonviolence toward their own body.                                                 We also really believe that in all physical practice you need to be truthful. You need to recognize when you need to use a prop or when you need to ask for help or when you need to say, this is a posture that's not accessible to me in this form. I need a modification. But we see people all the time when we offer them supports in asana, they reject it because the person next to them isn't using it. And so they're not being truthful to themselves. And so in the same way, when you infuse moderation, you infuse non-jealousy, you infuse joyfulness and non-stealing.                                                 Cover all of the first limb in everything you do in your physical practice, including your form, your movement, but also your breathing practices. And so this is a way to do that. The second limb can very naturally be infused in everything we do. We can practice with contentment, we can practice with discipline, but we can also practice with introspection and with a dedication to a greater purpose.                                                 So all of our classes always start with the setting of an intention and the presentation of a theme or the class. This will happen in our teacher training as well. That's a really beautiful way of bringing the second limb into everything you do and to always have in front of you. That realization that I'm not really on the map to enhance my body but to become a better human. Yeah. So I could go on for a whole hour talking about how we integrate that into everything we do. But that's sort of the basic premise that if you integrate them all the time, then it doesn't matter how much time we've used to any one because you're never just talking about one. 16:57                                     That makes sense to me. Towards the end of my teaching, I used to, have them set an intention, didn't tell them what it should be. But I thought it helped, again, to make it more personal for them so they would do what they needed to do, not what they thought they needed to do. 17:24                                     That's the beginning. And then we constantly come back to the theme of the class and we give lots of reminders for people to come back to their own intention. And to breathe it into their heart and then to breathe it into their community throughout the practice. Right? So that's the intention and the theme of the practice, whatever the theme of the day is, is never a lost during the time on the map. And then we asked people to take it with them when they leave the room. 17:54                                     Very, comprehensive. Yeah, that's a good idea. I didn't do that, but I think that's a really good idea. You say that what you're doing is, you are adding or supplementing the ancient yoga traditions with the current research in psychology, neuroscience, interpersonal neurobiology, cultural sensitivity, inclusivity and humility. Why is that important to take the modern with the ancient? 18:48                                     That's a wonderful question. It's addressed a little bit in my most recent blog about why do we practice yoga? And the point I'm making there is that the modern enhances the ancient and the ancient enhances the modern, right? The ancient comes to us. Well, it's a lot of wisdom and a lot of sort of subjective, qualitative, anecdotal evidence, that this practice really works. It transforms us as human beings. That helps us be agents for change and helps us transform our community, our society into something better.                                                 If you work in modern healthcare settings, however, if you say, I want to teach yoga to mental health clients or to people with cancer or to individuals who are coping with MS or Parkinson's, administrators will not be compelled when you say it's because it's in the yoga sutras. But if you can say, there's research that shows that when you practice yoga, you enhance people's resilience. You enhance their day to day functioning, their wellness, you optimize their autonomic control. You help people regulate their endocrine system and their immune function. You shape more adaptive, emotional, and behavioral responses. You down-regulate their reactivity, right? You make them more patient. All those things that we talked about earlier that happens in relationship.                                                 People start to listen to you and they say, wow, this would be really great for my clients because they do have immune issues or they do overreact or they need to be more resilient when they face stress, their executive function isn't quite what it be. Their memory could be better, their pain tolerance, could use some help and we now have research that shows that yoga can do all of this. I think that's the power of modern science and integrating it, For us, they stand side by side because it's amazing. You can look at the sutras and then say, and here is how we see that in modern neurobiology or in neuroscience or in psychology research. I find that just so inspiring and people love it. Our students love it when we talk about this in classes because it gives a language that bridges the philosophical and the medical, the soul and the science. 21:35                                     Yes. I've often thought that the sutures are a little difficult to understand, or was I understanding it correctly? I think you're right that it does give a bridge between the modern and the ancient with hopefully keeping the ancient wisdom intact. 22:00                                     Exactly right. We don't want to lose that wisdom because it is incredibly compelling. And to me, because the science is actually confirming that wisdom. To me, it just strengthens it, right? It allows it into the room now in a way. yeah, that's both subjective and objective, right? It's research based, but it's also experientially based and it just creates a beautiful whole. 22:29                                     Would you say and okay that you would give more weight to the experiential now that we have found that the research is supporting it. I felt that experiential was not very compelling until I heard all this other research and I thought just because it didn't have (we can go through all of the research protocols if we want) that (protocol) doesn't mean it wasn't, true. Or at least as true as we can think anything is true. So does it really give support to that kind of multiple decades and centuries of experiential learning? 23:29                                     Yes, I think it does. Most definitely. And modern research is starting to become more open-minded as well. So we don't just do clinical trials anymore. We don't just do sort of the really control, every variable kind of science anymore. We also use qualitative methods where we're talking to people, we do focus groups, we do interviews and we talk to people about their actually experience in the room. And to me that's a very powerful paradigm when you study yoga because you don't just say to people, okay, fill out this depression measure or this mindfulness measure, so we can track over time whether your depressive symptoms get better and whether your mindfulness is enhanced. I mean all of that is great, right? Because it gives us hard objective data.                                                 But we also at the end say and what else happened for you on a deep or subjective experiential level? And people will come up with things that you would have never thought about. Right. They got these amazing insights about themselves that you didn't find in your objective data, but their experience just sort of threw it to the foreground and that was the meaningful thing for them and then giving them a chance to talk about that just sort of blends with your hard, more scientific data. But it's entirely experiential and so to me, the two are utterly connected. We call this, in science we call this mixed methods. We use quantitative and qualitative data and I'm a big fan. I like to blend that sort of very objective data collection with the more subjective experiential piece and then bring both of those aspects together to really demonstrate that it's true in either paradigm. 25:26                                     That's excellent because I've always been concerned because yoga is so inclusive of all the things, the breathing and all eight limbs. How do you research that? You can research a part of it: you can research meditation, you can research breathing. But how do you bring that all together, Maybe that experiential, the subjective, the qualitative research may be the answer to that or at least partially an answer. 26:01                                     Yes, indeed. Indeed. 26:04                                     I was interested in the students that you've taught through YogaX, You have people with mental health and physical challenges, individuals and correctional settings, inpatient mental health settings, first responders and care providers. So you're looking at a really wide variety of people who are dealing with a wide variety of things. And is it kind of that yoga is so large, shall we say it can help people all in all of those areas? Or is, are each of those classes kind of tailored a bit to look at resilience or whatever is needed by possibly this class in front of you? 27:05                                     Yeah. Let me just say that our clinical work is what is pre-existing, right? So that is what happened in our group before we became YogaX where we were embedded in a comprehensive health care clinic. We did a lot of community outreach. Our first responder work was in the community, not in the clinic. and there are some basic premises that undergird our work, that are always present in everything we do. And with any population with who we do this work, right? We are always an Eight limbs based practice. And we are always very focused on the layers of self. 27:57                                     So looking at the five Koshas, body, breath, mind, intuitive wisdom and then ultimately joy, bliss or union, however you sort of want to translate the names of the Koshas. So in this work, they are always present, no matter which group we work with, we do however, adapt how we deliver the message to the group in front of us, right? And so, when we work with our mental health clients, we really work a lot through the body, the breath and the mind, really always in combination. And the more trauma we have in the room, the more careful we are to really work with body and breath, or body and energy and less so with kind of the more analytical, cognitive sort of strategies in the mind. Because the research is really clear that the contribution that yoga makes to help ameliorate traumatic experiences, is through the body and the breath.                                                 And then integrating that with work that happens in the mind that whole top down, bottom up integration. When some of our team members have worked with the police force for example, then breathing and, and thinking breathing and decision making is more in the foreground, right? And asana of course, because that group is drawn into yoga because of the physical demands. But bringing them into balance, right? Giving them the asana, talking about how that actually can help them down regulate their nervous system, how it can help them inspire that gap between response, right? If you are a police officer in the field and you have to make quick decisions all the time, if you can help get that gap long enough that the decision is more discerning, that's a wonderful, wonderful skill for them to have.                                                 But you're not going to use Sanskrit with every group like that and your tone will be much more matter of fact, you're going to use some humor. You'll adapt sort of to the cultural environment of that particular group. When you go into the prisons, which one of our team members did, she taught in a teacher training program in the prison and they taught an eight limbs practice, but they had to be much more discerning about how they practiced asana in prison, right? There were prison rules that they had to abide by - so no skin tight clothing, practice in sweats and you sort of, hide your female body if you're working with men. And so there are always adaptations that you need to make. But I think that's true no matter what, Any yoga class, a public class, anything you're always going to have people with different demand characteristics. And as a teacher, I think the more nimble you are in recognizing that and in responding to that need with appropriate modification and adaptation and suggestions, the more inclusive and inviting your practice. 31:42                                     I agree. I'd like to ask one last question. Your research showed that the media is not as inclusive as perhaps we'd like it to be. That yoga alliance has a great emphasis, has an emphasis, let's just say that on the physical as opposed to the other eight limbs. What is your suggestion to helping, us become more inclusive in yoga in the west. 32:23                                     Yeah. Well, one thing we really need to do is we need to become more inviting to underrepresented groups. Right. It's interesting that you ask this question because this is an ongoing conversation in our group, right? We are very dedicated to diversity and inclusiveness, but sometimes we hear from people, but you guys are all, yes white women. We're not. There are eight of us who are out of the 10 are white women. Some of us are young and some of us are older. We're not all white, but, and, and we grapple with this, right? How can we say that we are dedicated to inclusiveness and diversity when our own faces are often not perceived that way by other people.                                                 And so we have been making very deliberate attempts to figure out ways to become more inclusive. So for example, we're working now on a scholarship, a fund to draw people from underrepresented groups into our teacher training program so that they can participate without having to think about where the money will come from, right? But we also try to be inclusive and the images that we put on our website, we're not always successful with that because we, we don't want to use stock images. We want to use our own images. And so we have limitations there, but we also offer physical practices that honor all levels of skill, all levels of body capacity, all levels of emotional and psychological needs.                                                 We're really dedicated to making sure that when we demonstrate postures, we don't demonstrate the advanced. Oh, we demonstrate the beginner's pose, right? So that people have this sense of, yeah, I can do this. I work with a lot of seniors and they're always so excited when they can get into a warrior. It's a modified warrior, but I'm not going to say it's a modified warrior. It's a warrior pose. It's a beautiful expression. We can adapt and modify and so variety should make the practice accessible. We become gentler in how we teach asana. We bring the Eight limbs in. I like to say, , if somebody has the capacity to breathe, they have the capacity to do yoga. If they have the capacity to focus their mind, they can do the yoga. 35:23                                     It's a difficult problem. It really is. 35:28                                     It has to be a collective effort. And I really see this happening. I mean, if you just look at the accessible yoga website of Jivana Heyman. You interviewed him. They're fantastic. And the images that they can show and that's what we need to do. That's where we need to end up. But we also need to do better. We need to offer sliding fee scales. We need to draw people into the practice. 36:01                                     So I'll give you an opportunity here if there's something that you would like to say in a little more depth than we covered or if there's something that you would really like to share with the listeners that we haven't covered. please do so. 36:15                                     The one thing that maybe we haven't touched on as much as would it be necessary to truly reflect where we come from in YogaX is the culture of the Koshas. We really have a very strong commitment to working with the Koshas. We view the Koshas as a developmental model. And this is maybe our background in psychology. Most of us are a psychologist and the Koshas are really this beautiful ancient model of how we transform as human beings. Starting with as we come into the world being primarily focused on our body. And then as we relate to our caretakers, recognizing sort of our aspect of self. And then we began to acquire language and our mind comes on board and then we recognize we're in relationships and our wise, intuitive self has to come on board so that we can be compassionate toward others. And then ultimately we have to recognize that there is sort of this bigger connection. There's this bigger union, this very joyful interdependence. And that then brings us to maybe later in life when our existential imperative needs to become more important than our biological imperative.                                                 And this is something that I think is a lovely paradigm for Yoga students and for Yoga teachers to understand that even 2,500 years ago or whenever yoga first started to be transmitted, whether orally or in writing, there was already this wisdom that as people, as humans, we evolve. We have sort of a central capacity that's innate to develop toward an existential imperative. As long as our biological imperative is taken care of. If our survival is assured, if we have food, shelter, clothing, then then we can live to do amazing things. And so we talk about this quite a bit in yoga classes. It's a model for mental health. It's a model of resilience, it's a model for coping with illness. It's a model for enhancing relationships. so I just wanted to put a plug in for really working with the Koshas and recognizing them as this very beautiful developmental model that finds a lot of support in psychological research in terms of how we evolved through brain development and such to become more empathic and compassionate loving and kind as we get older. 39:09                                     Thank you so much, Christine, for coming on. I think you've given us some different ideas or how to think about some of these things. I really appreciate you taking the time and sharing your knowledge and wisdom with us. 39:52                                     Well, thank you, Stephanie, for including me. It was an absolute pleasure. It's, yeah, and I'm humbled by the invitation. 40:01                                     Thank you.                                                 Contact details:                                                 Website: www.yogaxu.com.                                                 Instagram and Facebook: yogaxteam   Changing the Face of Yoga – episode 113 ctfoy@yogalightness.com.au                                                

Learn three different ways to look at your relationship with Jesus that I experienced and discover some new truths to building a better walk with Jesus. Hey, everyone, this is Pastor Cindy saying thank you for coming to today's podcast, where we'll be talking about building a better relationship with the Jesus, we are continuously growing and learning more about our friends and family and getting closer and building a deeper relationship. So it only makes sense that we would do that with God too, and, and getting to know them better and continue building that relationship and learning more about him, knowing who we are to him, and who he is to us. And I've also discovered over the years that salvation is truly the greatest miracle. So it only makes sense that we would want to know more and grow in our relationship with Jesus, who is our Lord and Savior. One of the reasons I decided to do a series of episodes about salvation, is because, on July 17, 2019, I'm celebrating my 37th year of walking with Jesus. And I did some reflection and realized I could pretty much bring it into three different phases of my walk, and I want to share them with you. So I'm hoping as I share these three areas that some of them will be relatable to you, and maybe bring some understanding to your walk with God in three areas that I realized two of them, I did not have my understanding and perspective on who Jesus was and what he had done for me correctly. And then the last one is when I got my understanding correct about Jesus, and what he had done for me, and how everything changed after that. The first one that I want to talk about is the timeframe that I dealt with, probably 20 years, or more, which I'll call law. And I don't mean like the law of the United States are breaking the law here in the States, I'm talking biblical law. And in the Old Testament, it talks about there were 613 laws and the 10 commandments. But what happens is, when you are under that mindset of operating in the law, one way you can know, if you're dealing with that is if you always have this thought of doing good, get good, do bad, get bad from God. I don't know how many times I felt like if I let God down or did something wrong, he was going to strike lightning at me. And now it's just like, you know, I know how loving he is. And I knew he was loving back then. But I could even love him with all my heart. And I loved having a relationship with him. But it was just a struggle in how close I felt to him because I felt very distant from him. And that I found out was not on his end, that was all on my end because I had a misunderstanding. And that that was where the whole problem was, is I just had a misunderstanding of who God is. And didn't know how much he loved me. And it took me 19 years of my 37-year walk to really, really believe that he truly loved me just the way I was in all my mess. And once that happened, things started to change. But then I entered a new phase. The next phase is what I call the religious mindset. And in that one, it's you have to have this, do this, do this to become this, or do this and then do this again. But don't do this. To become this didn't keep me from loving God. I just thought this is the way it was. And I thought everybody did this. And now I'm happy to say that I entered the righteousness phase. I cried and cried. And yes, it was a happy cry, not a sad cry. I was so happy that I finally got it I finally understood righteousness. Yes, that one word made a big difference. In everything that how, I saw how I saw God, how I saw Jesus, how I saw myself and how he I kind of started seeing how he saw me. And it was so much better. So because it's so much better, I'd like to reiterate the differences between the three, law does good, get good, or do bad, get bad from God. religion says you need to achieve this, you need to do this, you need to do more. You need to do this again. But don't do this, to become this. And then God will bless you. Then righteousness says that you have already become because of what Jesus did on the cross. Religion gets you focused on your obedience, your actions, and your self. Righteousness gets you focused on Jesus and his obedience going to the cross to make us righteous. If we stay occupied, occupied on him by beholding him and what he did for us, things will change for the better. Now I'd like to read some of my favorite passages from the Bible that have really helped me. The first one is Colossians 1: 19 through 23. In the New Living Translation, for God in all His fullness was pleased to live in Christ. And through him, God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ blood on the cross. This includes you who were once far away from God, you were his enemies separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled us to himself through the death of Christ in His physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless, as you stand before him without a single fault. But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in don't drift away from the assurance you've received when you heard the good news. The good news has been preached all over the world. And I Paul had been appointed as God's servant to proclaim it. I love that verse. And it just says everything it says pretty much everything in a nutshell. But there are so many more verses that share about this. And so back 1500 years before Jesus came, God had, through Moses installed the law, the whole system of the law, and before that with Abraham, and before that there was like 2500 years, that was done with grace. But during the 1500 years of law, there was 613 laws and 10 commandments that were put in place by God for the Israel people. And in James 2:10, Paul, or James tells us that if you broke one of the laws, you broke them all, it was no different. So it basically was impossible to keep all the laws and not ever fail. And God did that with several intentions. But one of them was for people to realize that they would need a savior and that they couldn't do it on their own, and they couldn't perform and save themselves. And so that's why he would do that. So that when Jesus did come, they go Yeah, we want to save you because this is just too hard to do this on our own. During those 1500 years of law, if they sin, they had to make a sacrifice that with an animal, and the blood of that animal covered their sin, but it didn't remove the condemnation. And it didn't permanently remove, but it just covered it enough that it was in the way God said to do it. So because God said to do the sacrifice that way, he still continued to bless them after they made that sacrifice even though they had sinned. While Jesus in the book of Hebrews, it tells us that Jesus came and he only did it once he was on the cross once and shed his blood once. And not only did it do more than cover our sins, it removed them. And in Romans four, eight, it also tells us that the punishment was taken off of us because all the punishment was put on Jesus when he was on that cross, along with our sins along with everything that he did on the cross. So for Romans 4:8 tells us that sin is not imputed to us, only on Jesus. And then in Hebrews 8:12 and 10:17. It says that God's telling us that he does not remember our sin anymore, which is absolutely amazing. To me, I really struggled with that one for years when I heard that it just how could God forget my sin, I certainly remember it. Even though I had asked Jesus to forgive me. And he had forgiven me and cleansed me. But I still had that either law mentality or religious mentality that affected the way I received his love and the way I received his forgiveness. You know that that's a huge statement right there, to receive His love, but also to receive His forgiveness, to receive what he did on the cross. And that work that he took all of that punishment. He was beaten, he was crucified on the cross, all for us. About a year into the timeframe that I started realizing that I was walking in righteousness and not condemnation in law, right religion anymore. I was in my concordance. And I just love looking up words in the concordance because it makes verses come more alive and get a better understanding. And it really helps my mind to see what the verse is trying to say. And one day I decided to look up the word salvation, both in the Greek and in the Hebrew. And I was amazed at what salvation means. It actually means five different things. It means saved, made well delivered, prospered and protected. We receive all of that when we get saved and accepted Jesus as a relationship with Jesus. All of that is instantly ours in our spirit. I remember thinking before I found that out, that I knew that I had access to healing, and prosperity and protection because the Word of God told me, but again, I thought it was something I had to earn. It was something I thought I had to do this and do this to get to become that. And here the whole time, I already had it. And it was at my disposal whenever needed. And I just didn't know it. This is why I'd like to encourage you to really do what you can to really start studying about your identity in Christ, and that you're a child of God and you're loved by God, and that you have a great savior that did everything for you. He took all the punishment of our sin on his body, so that we can have direct access with God again, we have dominion again, we have authority. And it's just amazing all that Jesus did for us on the cross. And it's really fascinating once you get into the word and start studying it. So if you haven't done it before, I'd really encourage you to do it. It's just an awesome journey. Another story in the Bible that I'd like to share about is back in Genesis 15. And it was God and Abraham and God had asked him to take three animals and two birds and cut the three animals in half. And he wanted to make a blood covenant with Abraham. So that Abraham knew that the promise of a son and land a new Promised Land was going to be his. And so if you read Genesis 15, especially verse 17, it says that God Himself became a flaming torch. And as an oven that was smoking from heaven, and passed between the pieces of the animals by himself and did not have Abraham do it with him. Most customary, it was, well actually traditional that if there were two people making a blood covenant with the animals that way that both people walked through, to seal the agreement. But God Himself wanted to make this agreement and not involve Abraham, because he wanted to show Abraham that he himself was going to keep this promise. And didn't matter what Abraham did, that Abraham wouldn't be able to mess it up. And, you know, I kind of see that with Jesus, that when Jesus came in, he came on the cross. He also by shedding his blood, was making a blood covenant with us, by himself, and not making us a part of that covenant having to do the blood part of it as well. He did it all on his own. And I just want to read a couple of verses that, that show this, there's actually about four of them that are just really good that I feel like I want to share Matthew 26:28, for this is the blood that seals the New Covenant, it will be poured out for many for the complete forgiveness of sins. Mark 14:24, he said to them, Jesus said this to them. This is my blood, which seals the New Covenant poured out for many. Luke 22:20, after supper was over, he lifted up the cup again and said, This cup is my blood of the new covenant I make with you, and it will be poured out soon for all of you. And then in Hebrews 10:29, it says, How much more severely do you suppose a person deserves to be judged who has contempt for God's Son, and who's scorned the blood of the new covenant that made him holy, and who mocks the Spirit who gives us grace. And those were all read out of The Passion Translation. So like I said before, that blood covenant that Jesus sealed on the cross for us, gave us forgiveness of sins, made well delivered, prospered and protected. That's pretty amazing. And he also did it with himself as his father did with Abraham, so that we couldn't mess it up. Because they know that we're fickle, they know that we do change their minds, they know that you know, we would have trouble understanding this. And so they wanted to make it simple, and all on themselves to keep their promises to us. The other word I looked up when I was looking up salvation is I looked up Savior, and in the Greek, it means we need a savior. And we cannot do this without him. And it said that he was the deliver And the one saving, and the other part of the word that I forgot to tell you about salvation, it also says, the one being saved. So the Greek word for Savior is all about him being the one saving, and the Greek word for salvation is all about us being the one saved. And it goes even deeper. If you read Romans five, it talks about how there's a sin nature that came in. And when Adam and Eve fell, they caused sin nature to come in all of mankind. It's something we're born with. And it basically points to the fact that we're separated from God. But when we accept Jesus into our hearts, and start walking with a new relationship with Jesus, and salvation, then all of that changes, and we immediately have open access to God the Father again, and we have Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And they dwell inside of our spirit, and we're clean and we gained from the sin and all the penalty of sin, because Jesus took it all on his body. So I would encourage you to read Romans five, it's amazing, actually, the whole book of Romans is amazing. And maybe even start with chapters three and four, and then go into five and six. I mean, it's just, I don't know, I think three through chapter six are some of the most powerful in the whole Bible. Another scripture that I'd like to share is John 16, verses 7 through 12. And this is Jesus saying, nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away. For if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you. But if I depart, I will send him unto and when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness and of judgment of sin, because they believe this sorry, of sin, because they believe not on me. And of righteousness, because I go to my father, and you see me no more of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. And I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. That is amazing. In a nutshell, he's basically saying, he, if he goes, then he'll send the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit. And in that process, the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin. And the sin is not believing Jesus, and what Jesus was about to do on the cross. But the way I like to explain it is that the Holy Spirit will convict a person who doesn't know Jesus, to draw them unto wanting to know Jesus, and wanting to repent of their sin and give their life to Jesus. But it's not condemnation. The Holy Spirit's very gentle. And he comes and he's like a gentleman. And he comes to each individual and draws them unto Jesus and let them feel his love. And then gives them the choice Yes, or now to want to accept Jesus or not. And let's say the individual might be 30 years old. Well, that doesn't mean if the Holy Spirit came once that he's not going to ever come again. He does it for a whole lifetime. He will always draw a person to want a relationship with Jesus, no matter how many times they've said, No, or no matter how many times they disregarded the idea of Jesus and who Jesus is and what he did. It doesn't matter. God is love. And he will always draw us unto him and almost like, like wooing, I said to him, no matter what we say, because He created us he knew we were fickle, he knew that there'd be things we wouldn't understand. And so they just always are coming to us with that love, that they will never force themselves on us. They always want us to have that free choice Another scripture that I'd like to read is Romans 3:24 to 28, in the New Living Translation, yet God and His grace freely makes us right in His sight. He did this through Jesus Christ when He freed us from the penalty of our sins. God presented Jesus as a sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in the present time. God did this to demonstrate His righteousness, for he himself is fair, and just, and he makes sinners right in His sight when they believe in Jesus. Can we boast then that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith. So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law. I want to share a story that God laid on my heart the other night, while I was studying to put all these notes together, and he gave me a beautiful story, he says, What if I gave you a gift, gift of a white dress? And then he showed me that if it was a guy, he would give him a white suit, and beautiful material, it would be beautiful, and fancy and pretty. And you went to the park? Would it be hard to keep clean? Would you be wanting to maybe not sit on the park bench because you might get your brand new outfit from God dirty? Well, let's say you were walking along and somebody jumped in a big puddle and made a big stain on your pretty new white dress or white suit? Would you be able to clean it? Well, Jesus showed me that that stain was a representation of sin. And in 1 John 1:7, it says, if we walk in the light, as Jesus Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, who is God's Son cleanses us from all sin. And in the Greek, there's a Greek tense of the word cleanses. And that Greek tense says that it's continuously cleansing, present time, continuously cleansing. So God was showing me that my dress or your white suit, will always be able to stay clean, because of the blood of Jesus that is continuously cleansing us from all sin. And all we have to do is thank Jesus for whatever sin we did. And just thank him for cleansing us and forgiving us with his blood and dying on the cross for us. Instead of begging him or going into condemnation, because you sinned again, and you just feel like you're farther away from God, but you're not. And he's showing us that he's continuously cleansing us from all our sin, as we come to Him, and He wants us to draw closer to Him. And salvation is a gift from God. It says that Ephesians 2:8. And it's done as a gift so that we can't boast. Because if we were trying to earn our salvation, then we could boast that we did it in our own strength. But if it's a gift, you can't do that. And so that's why they gave it to us as a gift. It's a beautiful love story. Thank you for coming today and learning how to better our relationship with Jesus by learning the goodness of God and all that they did for us on the cross, and even learning from a few of my mistakes. If this message spoke to you, would you consider leaving a review and some stars so others can find this podcast? I hope this message stirred your faith to know how loved by God you are. And always you can always contact me at joyofreceivinglove@gmail.com if you have any questions, Have a great day!

In this interview Stephen Ashmead, MS, MBA, discusses mineral acid chelates and their functions. Listeners will understand the molecular characteristics and physiologic significance of chelated minerals. In addition to discussing mineral supplementation in general, Ashmead delves more deeply into the importance of magnesium and why magnesium chelate is the preferred form. About the Expert Stephen Ashmead, MS, MBA, is a senior fellow in research and development at Balchem Corporation. He has a master of science degree from the University of Utah in Nutrition Science and an MBA from Western Governors University. His area of specialty is in mineral amino acid chelates and their functions. About the Sponsor   Balchem is a supplier of Albion Minerals—highly effective nutritional mineral forms that can be easily absorbed by the human body. These special organic molecules are known as mineral amino acid chelates; they are used in nutraceutical supplements and food fortification to provide complete organic mineral nutrition, giving consumers the greatest chance to absorb minerals for their best biological advantage. Transcript Karolyn Gazella: Hello, I'm Karolyn Gazella, the publisher of the Natural Medicine Journal. Today our topic is addressing the challenge of mineral supplementation in clinical practice. My guest is mineral expert, Stephen Ashmead. Before we begin, I'd like to thank the sponsor of this interview, who is Albion Minerals. Stephen, thank you so much for joining me today. Stephen Ashmead: You're welcome. It's a pleasure to be here. Gazella: Well, let's begin with the basics. Now why has it become so important to consider a mineral supplementation in clinical practice? Can't patients get everything they need from food alone? Ashmead: In theory, yeah, you can get everything you need from food alone, but just our lifestyles, particularly here in the United States with our westernized diet, our agricultural practices. We typically don't consume enough of minerals and other micronutrients that we need in our diet, and so supplementation has become a way to deal with that. Gazella: Right. So what are some of the challenges that clinicians face when it comes to mineral supplementation? Ashmead: I think there are three main challenges that they face. The first one is just finding good formulations. There is a multitude of formulations that are out there that have micronutrients in it, and just trying to find the formulation that works the best for their patients or for their clients. That's challenge number one. Challenge number two is patient compliance. Some of the supplements, people don't want to take because it's too big. They're trying to swallow something that's too large. It causes gastric upset. They just don't feel it's working, so they just don't take it, or they have to take so many of them that it's difficult to do. I think patient compliance is challenge number two. Then challenge number three is just impact of other nutrients. A classic example of this is iron bioavailability can be upregulated or downregulated just based upon what you do, what you consume. For example, if you take your iron supplement in the morning with your coffee or tea, you're probably not going to get as much out of it as if you took it with a glass of orange juice. I think those are three main challenges that clinicians face in trying to get minerals and mineral supplementation in with patients and their clients. Gazella: Okay, so let's dig into these challenges. How do we overcome these challenges? Ashmead: I think it's a multistep, multifactorial approach. The first one, in terms of finding good formulations, there are a couple of databases that are out there in the industry that can be utilized to screen and see what's out there. One is by the government with Office of Dietary Supplements, although that one probably isn't as much up to date. The other one is a new effort by the Council for Responsible Nutrition, where they are asking the members of their organization to post up their labels, and creating a database of those dietary supplements. I think that helps, trying to find and trying to screen what those are before you can recommend them to your clients. The other one is just trying to find supplements that have a history in their track record of being both efficacious as well as tolerable for your clients. Then the third one, and probably almost as important, something that the clinicians can do themselves, is just educating their patients or clients on how to take these mineral supplements, how to incorporate them in the diet. Using our previous example, if they're prescribing an iron supplement, for whatever reason, or recommending an iron supplement for whatever reason, given them the education. Don't take this when you're drinking your coffee and your tea. You might look at what they do, and how their patients' lifestyle is, and make their recommendations based on that so they can get the most out of the supplements that they might be taking. Gazella: Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Now I'd like to talk about... It seems like all of these things revolve around the quality of the product and the efficacy of the product. We have done a lot of articles and such on mineral chelates. I'd like to have us delve a little bit more into mineral chelates. First let's start with the research. Tell us a little bit about the research regarding the safety and efficacy of mineral chelates. Ashmead: Sure. So there's been a lot of research that has been done both in clinical research as well as animal research, and even in agricultural research. There's been a lot of research done on how effective mineral chelates are. Albion has been doing research since 1965 on mineral chelates, and they have done safety studies. They've done tolerability studies. They've done bioavailability studies. They've done functional studies where bioavailability is a little hard to measure. They're just looking at the functional aspects on it. They've really done a lot of work just showing that these mineral chelates are safe, and an effective, and are very good sources of minerals. Gazella: Perfect. Before we dig in a little bit further, how do you define a mineral chelate? Ashmead: That's a good question. So a mineral chelate is a chemical structure. The chelate refers to a chemical structure, and what it is is there's a... I'm going to use a couple terms, and I'll explain what they mean. There is a term called the ligand, or ligand depending upon where you are in the country and what pronunciation you use. This is the entity that bonds to the mineral. When it bonds to the mineral it forms a ring structure. That ring structure is characterized by another term called heterocyclic. What that means is it just means that all the members of the ring, all the atoms in the ring, are not all the same. They're not all a carbon atom, or they're not all an oxygen, which makes sense. If you're trying to bind a mineral with something that's organic, then you're also going to be different than everything else anyway. It just makes sense. This is a chemical structure for a chelate, and that confers upon it some of the enhanced properties in terms of bioavailability, and safety, and tolerability. Gazella: Right, so that's where I want to go next. What makes these mineral chelates more effective? What are some of the factors that make a nutritionally functional chelate effective? Ashmead: That's a really good question because there are chelates out there that are very, very good chelators, but they're not really nutritionally functional. Some of our drugs are based upon chelates to be able to take metals out of the body if there's a toxic thing. They're not really designed to be bioavailable or nutritionally functional. They're designed to do something else. For a nutritionally functional chelate, I think there are a few things for consideration. First of all, in definition, is it's got to be a chelate. It's hard to have a nutritionally functional chelate if you really don't have a chelate to begin with. Second one is it's got to be relatively small in size. What that is, there's some literature out there. Some stay it needs to be less than 800 Daltons. Some say it needs to be less than 1,000 Daltons. I don't know where that exact number is, but what it needs to be is it needs to be small enough so the body doesn't have to digest it before it can actually utilize it. If the body has to digest before it gets utilized, then you lose some of the benefits of it being chelated if you've got it digested before it can be used. I think it also needs to have stability constants that are effective. What do I mean by effective? We want it to be bound up tight enough by the chelate that it helps protect it and still has those properties. At the same time, we don't want it to be bound so tight that the body actually can't utilize the metal once it gets absorbed. So where that is, it depends upon the ligand and the metal. It varies, but it's a real balancing act, just kind of hit a sweet spot between the two. Then the third thing, I think, is that your ligand, or the binding entity, really needs to be something that the body can use. I know that out in the literature there's a lot of talk about iron-EDTA chelates being utilized as good food fortificants, and EDTA chelates are really good chelators, but our body doesn't use EDTA. On the other side, amino acids, our body would use amino acids. It could utilize them in the energy cycle. It could use them for protein building depending upon the need of the body at that time. So that ligand, that binding entity, can also be used by the body. I think those four things are the things that really make up what a nutritionally functional chelate is. Gazella: Can you talk a little bit more about the absorption issue? Will a practitioner know that a chelated mineral is better absorbed in the body versus a non-chelated mineral? Ashmead: Yeah, there's certainly some research out there that would show that that is, but looking at a bottle of a mineral supplement, it's going to be really, really difficult to tell just because our labeling laws don't allow for that sort of information to be on there. There isn't enough information on those bottles to tell whether or not they've really got a chelate in there or not. Gazella: Interesting. Ashmead: It's interesting, yeah. Gazella: Yeah. Ashmead: Some of the things they need to do is, really, they need to look for a brand that has some trust and reliability built up and looking for indications that that brand in there. For example, with the Albion products, the Albion brand will be on the bottle. Companies such as ours and others who have built a brand are really protective of that brand to make sure, one, it's being used correctly, and two, that the product is actually in there. Gazella: Right. So Albion makes chelated minerals that are ingredients that are in dietary supplements, correct? Ashmead: Correct. Gazella: So when the practitioner looks at the supplement that they're using, it will say that it's an Albion ingredient? Ashmead: Yes. Gazella: Okay, I see. So that's one way- Ashmead: That's one way they can tell. Gazella: Yeah, because you were talking about the fact that there are true chelates, and there are so-called chelates, and the so-called chelates are not functional. They should be avoided, basically, is what you're saying? Ashmead: Correct. Gazella: Okay, perfect. Is there anything else practitioners should look for other than that brand on the label? Anything else that comes to mind, or is that the primary thing to look for? Ashmead: That's really the primary thing that they would look for because the label is going to tell them how much of the mineral is in there. It might list a source, but it doesn't have to list a source. They might be able to look at the ingredient list and see a source on there, but really looking for that brand name from an ingredient supplier who has built their reputation for an efficacious product, as Albion has done, is really the primary way that they can tell that they're getting a good product. Gazella: Okay, great. Now before I leave the topic of chelates I have one more question. You mentioned that Albion has been doing research since 1965. Can it be assumed that a lot of the research on chelated minerals actually features the Albion chelated minerals? Is that a fair statement? Ashmead: I would say that that is a fair statement. There is a lot of information out there. Albion has developed a lot of that information, developed a lot of the patents surrounding the chelated mineral products, not only for humans, but for animals and for plants as well. We have chelates for those entities as well. Gazella: Okay, perfect. I think that's why looking for that brand is so important, because you don't want to buy a product that's using borrowed science, or hasn't been studied in the scientific literature. I think that's important to our practitioners. I'd like to switch gears. I'd like to talk about magnesium, because magnesium plays such a significant role in the human body. What forms of magnesium are presently on the market for practitioners to choose from? Ashmead: Oh, goodness. There's a number of forms. Probably one of the most common ones is magnesium oxide. There's magnesium sulfate, magnesium citrate, lactate, magnesium phosphate. Albion provides a di-magnesium malate, a magnesium creatine... Excuse me, a magnesium creatine, and of course we supply amino acid chelates such as the magnesium bisglycinate chelate. Gazella: So that's why I wanted to ask that question, because what's the preferred form of magnesium, and why do you feel it's the best form to choose? Because there are a lot of different forms, so what's preferred, and why is it best? Ashmead: That's a loaded question because the other part of that is what is the intent? What are you trying to do with that magnesium? You're just trying to supply magnesium for supplementation? Then the next set of questions that have to be answered is, how is supplying that magnesium? Is it going to be in traditional capsule tablets? Is it going to be as a gummy? Is it going to be in a drink? I think the best magnesium that is selected depends upon some of those factors. For example, traditional capsules, tablets, they have finite volumes. Depending upon how much that manufacturer wants to put in magnesium, that affects a little bit of what are the sources that they might use when they have to cram so much ingredient within a finite volume. You really can't expand that volume because the capsule shell is what the capsule shell is. It doesn't get any bigger, so it depends. Overall, I'm going to lean towards a magnesium bisglycinate chelate just because I believe that it's the most effective, one of the most tolerable, and certainly has a good record of safety and good record of use. So I'm going to lean towards that, but there are mitigating factors that might dictate something else. Gazella: Okay, and you've mentioned the different delivery, capsules, tablets. Is the magnesium bisglycinate chelate... Can that be delivered across all of those vehicles, capsule, tablet, liquid, food, whatever? Ashmead: Yes, and I'm going to qualify that just a little bit. It has certain properties in it, particularly you mentioned food. Sometimes food vehicles, depending upon the food vehicle, because that is a hugely complex area. Just think about the food that you eat each day, and how a mineral will taste in each of those foods is very, very different because they're such complex entities. So it may work in some foods. It may not work in other foods. I'm going to say yes, but I'm going to qualify it as well. Gazella: Yeah, that sounds good. I think that's perfect. I'd like to talk a little bit about the technology associated with magnesium bisglycinate chelate. Now that technology has led to, according to what I've read, enhanced bioavailability, tolerability, and safety. Tell us more about that technology because it seems like that's pretty significant. Ashmead: Yes, it is. So to talk a little bit about that technology, let me just back up just a little bit. When you think about your food that you consume every day, there are minerals in there and other micronutrients. For the most part, we tolerate that food extremely well. Now I'm not talking about likes and dislikes because if you want to talk about that, I really don't tolerate liver and onions really well. Gazella: Me neither. Ashmead: But in terms of just tolerability in terms of GI distress and things of that nature, for the most part, we tolerate our foods very well, and they have those minerals in there. Why do we tolerate it well from the foods? It's because nature packages those minerals up, typically with proteins. It might be with some nutrients, but their typically packaged up. I mean, it's not in there as salts like are commonly available, that we talked about with oxides, and sulfates, and so on of that nature. What the mineral chelates, bisglycinate chelates, and amino acid chelates do is they try to mimic how nature does it. They give the protection to the minerals to keep them from binding with other foods. They try to keep them from that binding, minimizes the amount of GI irritation. When we do that, we're mimicking a little bit what nature does. I think that's why these amino acid chelates, and in our specific example here the magnesium bisglycinate chelate, that's why it is efficacious, safe, and tolerable. Gazella: What about the bioavailability issue? Is that correct, that it is more bioavailable? Ashmead: Typically, yes, they are more bioavailable. Bioavailability is another complex issue that is dependent upon the body's need at the time. It may be dependent upon environmental issues such as what else is in the gut that can decrease bioavailability, and it often can depend upon genetics. If we're missing some of the necessary proteins and other enzymes to be able to handle some of our foods, then that's going to impact it. But comparing apples to apples, everything the same across the board, then yes, it provides for more bioavailability. Gazella: So also comparing apples to apples, if I'm taking magnesium bisglycinate chelate, do I take the same amount as another form of magnesium? Is that apples to apples, or do I need to take less of the chelate? Ashmead: That's a really good question. That's an interesting discussion. When you look at our labeling laws, it doesn't differentiate between the form. It's based upon the elemental amount of that micronutrient in there. A lot of consumers and a lot of perhaps clinicians are just looking at that number, which is totally appropriate because it's based upon RDIs that have been established by government entities, and that's totally appropriate. The question I think that's probably a little bit more appropriate is do I want to have or do I want to take a full RDI equivalency, or am I supplementing my diet, and do with less because I know I'm getting some in my diet? I think that's probably a more appropriate question versus trying to match bioavailability because, as I said before, bioavailability is such a complex issue that is very individualized. It's hard to make that general statement for the entire population. Gazella: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Let's stay on the topic of tolerability just for a second. Now you mentioned GI irritation. Are there other symptoms of intolerability when it comes to magnesium, or is that the primary symptom of tolerability? Ashmead: So magnesium has a well known reputation for causing GI distress, and it's typically manifested as diarrhea or laxation. You could also have gas, kind of a bloating feeling. Those are the principle ones for that. Some people may have an upset stomach, some nausea, with it as well. Again, particularly magnesium, some people are a little bit more sensitive than others. Why? I don't know. It's hard to look at a person and say, "Oh yes, you're magnesium sensitive," and the person sitting next to them, "No, you're not." There's no really way to look at that and tell, but the typical GI distress factors with magnesium are going to be laxation and gas. Gazella: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It's good to know that the chelate form has better tolerability because I know in clinical practice our practitioners are running across that. Our practitioners are also very interested in research. I'd like to have you tell us a little bit more about the research specifically associated with magnesium bisglycinate chelate. Ashmead: Okay, sure. Yes. Let me just describe some maybe perhaps more recent studies that have been performed on it. There was a study that was presented in 2016 at Experimental Biology meetings, and it was using an in vitro model, so they were growing cell. In this particular case, the cell model being utilized was a Caco-2 cell model, which is a human intestinal epithelial cell. It's very perfect for studying absorption. What they did in this particular study is they created a monolayer of cells. They applied various magnesium sources on what we would consider the luminal side, so the inside of the intestine, and look for magnesium coming through on the basolateral side, or coming through the cell and being exported out. They compared several different magnesium sources. They found that magnesium bisglycinate was significantly greater absorbed through those cells than magnesium oxide and magnesium citrate. So there's one study showing that we've got better absorption. Another study that was done quite a number of years ago. Excuse me, sorry. This was done by a group out of Chicago. In this particular study, this was a human clinical trial, and they were looking at patients that had undergone ileal resection, so their intestinal system and absorption capabilities already been compromised through surgery. They were looking at whether or not the magnesium bisglycinate would help these patients out who are at risk for developing magnesium deficiency. This study is interesting because this is one of the few ones on literature where they used isotopes of magnesium, stable isotopes of magnesium, so they could definitively determine that when they drew blood, and looking for magnesium in the blood, that it was definitely coming from the supplement that they gave them. What they found is those with the highest need, or the lowest levels of magnesium, absorb the magnesium bisglycinate much more effective than the inorganic magnesium oxide that they were comparing against. The interesting thing too is as a secondary endpoint that they were looking at in this study was tolerability, and they had very good tolerability from the magnesium bisglycinate as compared to the magnesium oxide. So there's one study. Another study, and this one's really interesting. I like this study. I have four kids, and my wife has issues with cramping during pregnancy. There was a study that was done looking in pregnant women, and in the pregnant women, they were comparing the amount of leg cramps, particularly later in the pregnancy. They found that with the magnesium bisglycinate, not only did they have a significant reduction in the frequency of the leg cramps, but even when they did have leg cramps, and they asked them how intense those leg cramps were, there was a significant reduction in the intensity of leg cramps. So not only did they get fewer ones, but the ones they got were less intense than compared to those that were not getting the magnesium bisglycinate. Again, with that one there was really good tolerability. In fact, the patients preferred the magnesium bisglycinate over the other magnesium source because it was easier on their GI system. Then another study just looking at tolerability. There was a study that we conducted where subjects were given a placebo, 300, 450, or 600 milligrams of magnesium. So we're going above the RDI. They were given that on a per day basis, and they were comparing GI and fecal consistency scores going across those doses. What we found there is that there really wasn't a significant difference between gastrointestinal upset of 600 milligrams of magnesium bisglycinate as compared to a placebo. Again, in terms of fecal consistency, there wasn't a decline in fecal consistency either, so we didn't have the laxation effect that you would typically see with magnesium sources. So that's some highlights and some studies. Gazella: Yeah, I like the fact that the studies address these main issues of bioavailability and tolerability. The leg cramp study is awesome, and it's good that there's in vivo and human clinical trials. I think a lot of times our practitioners are definitely looking at those human trials when it comes to ingredients. So that's an important one as well. Ashmead: It is. I- Gazella: Oh, go ahead. Ashmead: I was just going to mention too that with human clinical trials, particularly with magnesium, it's hard to find good clinical markers of magnesium. The typical gold standard right now is 24 hour urinary collection, which is really difficult to do, particularly in a clinical setting. A lot of times you're going to be looking at the functional mechanisms or functional outcomes such as was done with the pregnant women. Sometimes to get that really nitty gritty absorption data, you have to go outside of the human clinical model into an in vitro model. Gazella: Okay. Now is there an average dosage? I know that you supply these ingredients to other manufacturers, so they determine how much they want to put in their formulation. Is the quantity of magnesium bisglycinate chelate, is it all over the board, or is there an average? Ashmead: That's a good question, and it's difficult for me to answer that. I guess there is a little bit all over the board depending upon whether it's in a magnesium dose by itself, if it's with other ingredients, and how much of those other ingredients, what they're trying to do. I will say that from an RDA, RDI standpoint, typically what we're required and what we need is right around 400 milligrams, depending upon the country you're in. It might be a little less, might be a little more, but right around 400 milligrams a day. Gazella: Perfect. Ashmead: So looking for a supplement as a supplement, I'd probably recommend base upon that and try not to exceed that if you're supplementing your diet. Gazella: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So as we mentioned, this is an ingredient that is found in products that are sold to healthcare professionals. Where can our listeners find the Albion chelated minerals, including this magnesium bisglycinate chelate that we've been talking about? Ashmead: That's a good question. There are multiple dietary supplement products out there that incorporate them in. There are a couple of ways that I would recommend looking for them, trying to find them. First one is through our website at www.albionminerals.com/human-nutrition, and we have there a tab called Products and a program called Gold Medallion. In that area you will find some manufacturers that incorporate and use our minerals. Another way that you can do it that's probably as easy and maybe more appropriate to our lifestyle is go to amazon.com, and you type in Albion chelated minerals in your search term. It will bring up a variety of mineral products that incorporate Albion mineral products, including magnesium bisglycinate. Gazella: Okay, that sounds good. I want our listeners to know that we are going to provide a link to albionminerals.com, so you can just click over and find the professional grade manufacturers who are incorporating these chelated minerals into their products. This has been a lot of great information. I would once again, of course, like to thank today's sponsor, Albion Minerals. And thank you, Stephen, for joining me and providing us with such great information today. Ashmead: You're welcome. It's been my pleasure. It really has been. Gazella: Great. Have a great day. Ashmead: Okay, thank you. You, too.

This podcast interview features integrative health expert Russell Jaffe, MD, PhD, CCN, who shares his philosophy about addressing men's health issues in clinical practice. Jaffe discusses hormonal balance, prostate health, gastrointestinal health, cardiovascular health, and inflammation. About the Expert Russell M. Jaffe, MD, PhD, is CEO and Chairman of PERQUE Integrative Health (PIH). He is considered one of the pioneers of integrative and regenerative medicine. Since inventing the world’s first single step amplified (ELISA) procedure in 1984, a process for measuring and monitoring all delayed allergies, Jaffe has continually sought new ways to help speed the transition from our current healthcare system’s symptom reactive model to a more functionally integrated, effective, and compassionate system. PIH is the outcome of years of Dr Jaffe’s scientific research. It brings to market 3 decades of rethinking safer, more effective, novel, and proprietary dietary supplements, supplement delivery systems, diagnostic testing, and validation studies. About the Sponsor PERQUE Integrative Health (PIH) is dedicated to speeding the transition from sickness care to healthful caring. Delivering novel, personalized health solutions, PIH gives physicians and their patients the tools needed to achieve sustained optimal wellness. Combining the best in functional, evidence-based testing with premium professional supplements and healthful lifestyle guides, PIH solutions deliver successful outcomes in even the toughest cases. If you are interested in delving more deeply into this and other integrative health topics, we invite you to join the PIH Academy. Transcript Karolyn Gazella: Hello, I'm Karolyn Gazella, the publisher of the Natural Medicine Journal. Thank you for joining me today. Our topic is men's health, and my guest is integrative health expert, Dr Russell Jaffe. Before we begin, I'd like to thank the sponsor of this topic, who is Perque Integrative Health. Dr Jaffe, thank you so much for joining me. Russell Jaffe, MD, PhD, CCN: Thanks for the invitation. Gazella: Well, before we dig into the specific health issues that men face, you believe in a philosophy first approach. I'm sorry, physiology first approach. What do you mean by- Jaffe: The philosophy is physiology. Gazella: Exactly. Jaffe: So, that was appropriate. Yeah- Gazella: So, what do you mean by that? Jaffe: Right. It's a high level, brief, 2 words, physiology first. What we mean is, physiology before pharmacology. We mean physiology first because it seeks an upstream assessment of the causes of risk or symptoms, in contrast to most conventional care today, even holistic or not, that remains rooted in downstream symptom management. Physiology first uses global evidence to reduce risks and prevent people from falling into the river of disease. Physiology first uses nature's nutrients in supplements, with enhanced uptake and chaperone delivery, for safer, more effective, essential replenishments, items we must take in since our body doesn't make them. Physiology first urges organic or biodynamic or locally grown sources of nutrient-dense whole foods, as minimally contaminated as possible. Physiology first focuses on underlying causes. For example, too little of essential needs being met, which are eating, drinking, thinking, doing—those are the 4 headline categories—rather than working back from symptom-reactive case management. And finally, physiology first uses predictive biomarkers interpreted to their best outcome goal values. Now, this is a paradigm shift for many colleagues but we now can impersonalize predicted, proactive, primary prevention practices, save individuals probably a million a year just by applying physiology first. Gazella: Yeah. Well, that's exciting so I'm glad that we went over that. Now in general, what should be on the radar of clinicians when it comes to addressing the special health needs of their male patients? Jaffe: Yes, and here again, now that we've kind of gotten the hundred thousand–foot level, we start and recommend colleagues start with self assessment. This includes transit time, urine pH after rest, hydration, and a sea-cleans as overall global self assessments, very inexpensive. The individual does much of it themselves, brings it to the expert who interprets it so that we get a snapshot of the metabolic or metabolon/microbiome, the digestion and metabolism. You interpret that to best outcome goal values. You use that to inform and inspire and motivate people to put it in effort for the 6 to 7 weeks that it takes to change a habit of daily living and you can add years to life, years of quality life and life to years. In people with chronic symptoms, well. Take a careful family history although family history is highly relevant if you have the same behavior and environmental factors. If you change your behavior, your habits, your environment, then your family history to a very large extent disappears into the midst of history. If there have been prior treatments and treatment failures, it's important to assess that. We use the predictive biomarkers to help people celebrate when they are at their best outcome goal value and take action when their risks increase. Now, men and women at all ages need activity, at least 45 minutes a day of walking or equivalent. Sitting is the new smoking. Weight-bearing exercise or cardio exercise 2 or 3 days a week and knowing about it or preaching about it is one thing. It's when you actually do it. I'm glad to tell you that I had just enough glimpse of the consequences of not doing that I do what I'm recommending. Now we want to teach men to prepare for sleep, achieve restorative sleep, using physiology before pharmacology, using salt and soda baths, Epsom salts and baking soda, plus or minus aroma oil, essential oil. The baking soda alkalinizes and relaxes muscles in the pores of the skin, and the Epsom salts, which is magnesium sulfate, allows the magnesium to come in and that's often very helpful. We recommend that teaching people, particularly men who have sleep issues, about abdominal breathing and active meditation and green dichromatic light, along with nature's sources of serotonin and melatonin, which is tryptophan. We ask about changes in urine stream flow and quality after urination. Is there any dribbling? How many times do they get up at night to urinate? And we make lifestyle suggestions tailored to the individual at their phase of life. We want to be proactive with prostate support nutrients, such as micellized soft gel that contains all of active saw palmetto, [inaudible 00:06:03], lycopene. Free lycopene, not just some ketchup. Hygeium, with 14 or 15% beta sitosterols. Urtica dioica, also known as stinging nettles. Zinc, in the picolinate form. And selenomethionine, selenium in the selenomethionine, healthier, safer form. And all of this micellized in pure pumpkin seed oil to enhance uptake in retention, to improve function. And we think people can be pleasantly surprised at how effective and synergistic the above prostate health support is, available in a single, easy-to-swallow soft gel. Ask about adult beverages. If they consume more than 5 a week, provide comprehensive liver support and recommend a glass of water above the four quarts or four liters a day that humans need to avoid marginal dehydration—1 or 2 or 3 percent dehydrated is a big stress on every organ in your body. So this is, again, at a headline level, how our comprehensive approach actually works. Gazella: Perfect. Now I'd like to kind of narrow our conversation and I want to stay on the prostate because you mentioned the prostate. So, what are the roles that testosterone plays when it comes to prostate health and men's health in general? Jaffe: Right. Both men and women need testosterone. They need a balance of free and bound testosterone. They need good and not bad testosterone. Now, what does that mean? Well, you can measure in saliva or in plasma. The free and the bound, free and total testosterone. You can measure the dihydrotestosterone. You don't want much of that, maybe zero. You can measure oxidized testosterone. You want zero of that. And you want to enhance the good T, the good testosterone and reduce the bad T based on testing results because testosterone is needed for brain and muscle and organ and joint and bowel renewal and many other functions beyond just being a male hormone. You want to enhance healthy testosterone production through healthy microbiome and metabolon functions, especially the family of the central antioxidants. Vitamins, minerals, and cofactors that along with good hydration optimize your healthy testosterone, which is one of the vitality factors in the body and minimize the bad testosterone that causes everything from hair loss to loss of erections. Gazella: Okay, perfect. So before we leave the prostate, remind us what the significance is of the PSA test. Jaffe: That's a very important question and I think we're finally, after half a century in laboratory medicine and I've been following the issue all of that time. The PSA test is a measure of prostate repair. So, the PSA goes up if you have prostatitis. For example, if you just sit in your car too long and hold your urine in too long. And the PSA goes up in some but not all prostate cancers, and you can fractionate the PSA, free and bound, and that usually but not always helps distinguish the prostatitis from the cancer risk. If you had concern about the prostate and about PSA levels and have a biopsy, after a single biopsy—often there are multiple biopsies—the future PSA has no interpretable value that I know of except for population, but we're talking about 1 man at a time. And so many review articles that I have seen in the last few years say do other tests of prostate health and don't even do the PSA because if you don't need the test, you wouldn't do the test. If it's a question, it's a gray zone, that's exactly what the test is not very sensitive or specific. Gazella: What about enlarged prostate? Jaffe: The first thing I would do and have recommended for many years for enlarged prostate is to take that combination of prostate vitality factors and we have had men whose prostate was double or triple than usual size come back to that of a 40-year-old by following for about 6 months a program that includes the supplements that I recommended just a few minutes ago, along with eating foods that the man can digest, assimilate, and eliminate without immune burden, and that means the lymphocyte response assay test that measures T and B cell function and that then says eat this and don't eat that, take the supplement and don't take that, follow this mental and physical plan because in the 80,000 cases that we put in our database, we've evolved a very personalized approach to, say, prostate size. Gazella: Okay, perfect. So, let's move on. What does it mean when a man wakes up with an erection or doesn't have an erection? Is that significant? Jaffe: Oh, absolutely. The headline is that every healthy man should wake up in the morning with an erection. In essence, it's the quality control check of the distinctive male. Too often and very commonly, when a man does not wake up with an erection, that's a sign that they have pregnenolone steal, that they have high stress cortisol levels and low DHEA, which is the antistress hormone, usually with low free healthy testosterone, often with a sluggish thyroid and an exhausted adrenal gland, due to lack of adequate intake of the essential antioxidants, minerals, cofactors that are necessary. In addition to prostate health nutrients, I would recommend checking the thyroid, TSH, 3T3, 3T4. That can be done on a blood spot or in many different ways. But you must, by my recommendation, get the 3T3, 3T4, TSH all at the same time, and the healthy range for TSH is .5 to 2.5, not above. The usual range has too many unwell people. (Usual lab range.) You want to check adrenal stress hormones, cortisol and DHEA at four times during one day. And at the same time, in the same saliva or plasma specimen, you can measure male and female hormones and their sources, their precursors to see if the body has learned a distress response that steals the healthy progesterone and pregnenolone and produces too much distress hormone cortisol and too little healthy male and female hormones. They come from the same source. You want to get both and in balance. Now in regard to male sexual performance, there are natural solutions to erectile dysfunction. The following vitamins, minerals, and amino acids work as a team to improve the quality and duration of erections B complex. One phrase is 'B complex is for boners'. Keep the urine sunshine yellow and feel the difference comprehensive B complex means. C, it is ascorbate vitamin C, always fully buffered, fully reduced and we recommend based on the C cleanse, taking that amount is associated with healthier and the more robust erections. Vitamin D is really a neuro hormone and it does a lot of things, including improving cell function and providing cell energy to sustain the generally sixfold increase in blood retention during an erection. Then magnesium choline citrate. Magnesium is essential for a lot of different things, including a healthy sexual function, and choline citrate at the same time, say 220 mg of magnesium solves and a teaspoon of choline citrate. That enhances the uptake dramatically. It enhances the retention because it is an alkalinizing, rather than an acidifying source. Most magnesium solves and magnesium products have very low bioavailability and are in the acid form, which makes the magnesium run out almost as soon as it comes in. And then last is L-citrulline and L-arginine, and these are 2 amino acids. They both enhance nitric oxide production inside cells, and when you take about a gram of L-citrulline and 500 mg of L-arginine 30 minutes before adult activities, most men notice the difference, especially men over 40. Foods that are rich in these amino acids include nuts, seeds, chickpeas, and other legumes, also known as garbanzos, and meats. Making an avocado and chickpea hummus with some mustard seeds or black and white sesame seeds added plus or minus some toasted pine nuts with fresh ground black peppers and your favored high-quality salt, that can blend into a nutritious, delicious, amorous and traditional food. Gazella: That's great and it sounds yummy as well. Jaffe: It is. It should be nutritious and delicious. Gazella: Exactly, exactly. Well, let's now move onto the gastrointestinal tract. What should practitioners focus here when it comes to their male patients? Jaffe: Well, in the 21st century it is a pretty fair assumption that the person sitting across a professional has mild digestion dysbiosis, some degree of atrophy known as enteropathy, a long transit time. Transit time should be 12 to 18 hours. We recommend doing that with charcoal. We have an online instruction if folks are interested because you want to assess what's called the microbiome, which is the digestive tract in its fullness, or the GNS, known as the gut nervous system, which is in constant conversation and communion with the reigning central nervous system. And so we recommend focusing on a full complement of personalized native antioxidant, minerals, and cofactors in their safer higher uptake forms based on the assessments and the predictive biomarker tests that we recommend. We want to pay attention to hydration because even a little bit 1, 2, 3% dehydrated puts a stress on every part of the body. We want to have prebiotics. That is unprocessed fiber from diet or supplements, 40 to 100 grams a day. That's what Dennis Burkitt taught me and the most knowledgeable nutritionists that I know recommend that much fiber a day. Probiotics, 40 to 100 billion healthy by a mixed bacteria, bugs. Then synbiotics, which is really recycled glutamine to energize and repair the lining of the digestive tract. Then you want to eat what you can digest, assimilate, and eliminate without immune burden. So, you've done some functional immunology testing like LRA, lymphocyte response assay. Take in no empty calories. You are sweet enough as you are. If you feed parasites and pathogens, fungi and yeast, they will grow. Improve the digestion, the microbiome and metabolon, the innate biological detoxification competencies and enhance your digestion by eating what you can digest, assimilate, and eliminate without activating your immune responses. We teach people to stop feeding the pathogens and they disappear as digestion improves, repairs improve, resilience is restored, and habits of daily living are improved. Then you want to look at the secretory IgA if you're concerned about the interface between digestion and the body. It's called SIgA, secretory IgA. You can measure that in saliva. There should be protected mucins so that if partially digestive materials get near the wall of the body, they don't become foreign invaders if you have healthy mucins and healthy secretory IgA. And there are other elected protected digestive functions that healthy people have that are lost when people lack the essential nutrients or the essential minerals when their cellular metabolism becomes acidic, when their body is reaching out, calling out, actually crying out for repair enhancement essentials, things you have to take in that you can't make in the body. So, we wanna taper or possibly discontinue medications that impair digestion. We want to use prebiotics, probiotics, and synbiotics, especially in people who have had antibiotics and other digestive-interfering medicines. We want to check transit time, should be 12 to 18 hours. When I have roast beets as a main part of my dinner, I expect to see red in the commode in the morning. But I can tell you after all these years when I see that red, my first thought is never, "Oh, I had beets last night" so that's why we use charcoal. Now, avoid fat-binding medications and supplements that reduce essential fat-soluble vitamin uptake. That's vitamins A, D, E and K. And you need bile from the liver to do that and for that you need phosphatidylcholine-rich foods and/or supplements, and we happen to micellize all of our soft gels with this PC, with this—not politically correct—phosphatidylcholine. Now, many men have atrophy of their intestinal lining because of stress and toxin exposure and it's the 21st century, and maybe less than perfect eating, breathing, and drinking. So, getting the essential needed nutrients restored may mean intensive supplementation for a few months, followed by maintenance supplementation for a long, healthy life, and I personally plan to be dancing at 120 and I would like you to join me. Gazella: That sounds perfect. So, you mentioned tests to assess the microbiome and you also mentioned secretory IgA. Are there other tests that you recommend in terms of assessing the microbiome? Jaffe: Right. So, the transit time we talked about, it's one of the self-assessments, 1 of the 4. Then this SIgA, the secretory IgA, in saliva or serum, with the comprehensive lymphocyte response assay, if there's any indication that the person has shifted from elected protected mode into survival mode, which means all the protective and repair functions are down regulated, that's called chronic illness to happen, or hormone tests that include cortisol and DHEA at 4 different time points, male and female hormones can be measured in their precursors on the same saliva specimen. You can use plasma if you wish. Adrenal and thyroid adaptogenic supplementation is recommended either based on clinical history or these test results. By all means include some way of determining how much ascorbate that person needs because ascorbate is the maternal antioxidant that sacrifices yourself that all others may be presode. And then the magnesium with enhanced uptake choline citrate. The choline helps build acetylcholine, an important neurotransmitter and neurochemical. It also helps build the choline-rich biosalts that are more soluble and help get the thicker bile out of the gallbladder and into the digestive tract, where that helps emulsify fat to be taken up into the body. And then based on the urine pH, we would adjust how many doses of the magnesium choline citrate you take. Do a regular hydration assessment and when in doubt, what I recommend is that you have a carafe of water in front of you and a glass. If the glass is full you drink it and if it's empty you fill it, and you just keep doing that. And personally my goal is to go to the bathroom at least every couple of hours and then I cut down the amount of liquid I take in after 7 or 8 PM so then I'm not overhydrated when I go to bed. But underhydration is a much more common and unappreciated problem. Monitor the breadth of our little chemicals, and this can give very interesting insights that are both diagnosis-specific of mild digestion dysbiosis enteropathies and so forth. But in addition that information often makes it very clear to the individual that this is true for them and not in general. And the last is a zinc taste test. Developed by Harry Henken, you drop a zinc solution on the tongue. The people who need zinc can't taste it. The people who say the zinc tastes strong have enough. And it's a pretty good one-dollar type assessment of a critical mineral and specifically for men, men need lots of minerals but especially zinc. You lose about 25 mg per every ejaculation. Gazella: Yeah, that's good. That makes a lot of sense. So, now it's time to discuss inflammation. Is inflammation really repair deficit and how does that change clinical practice? Remind us why that's such a big deal. Jaffe: Right. Well, we started with the physiology-first concept. Now I'm a doubly board-certified pathologist. I know the 5 aspects of inflammation. I know it's taught as a fire to be fought, something that has to be suppressed with anti-inflammatories. And now I pause and say: Anything that starts with 'anti' is using pharmacology before physiology. Inflammation is repair deficit. What my pathology colleagues see as inflammation is the cumulative lack of repair when your immune defense and repair system is doing too much defensive work because of foreign invaders from the breath or the skin or the gut, and if you enhance the innate immune system's ability to repair, your infrastructure is reborn, your bones get rebuilt, your joints are renewed, your mood is better. Your ability to get restorative sleep and meaningful relationships all are improved when you recognize that repair deficit is an opportunity. You use the hsCRP test as a predictive and validated biomarker. It's also an all-cause mortality, morbidity marker. The healthy goal value—and this is, again, where we have the reframing. I don't even look at the lab range because that includes too many unwell people. You know the goal value for this test, hsCRP, and it's less than 0.5. Ignore statistical lab ranges unless you're treating statistics, and knowing the best outcome goal value we add ascorbate based on the [inaudible 26:350, magnesium choline citrate based on the urine pH, and other similar kinds of monitoring so that the person gets more safely the forms that are more effective because of their enhanced uptake and retention and therefore the deficits get corrected more quickly. I mentioned hydration. I keep mentioning it only because every part of your body is healthier and more resilient and more able to repair when you take in healthy water, 4 liters a day or more of either mineral-rich, I happen to have well water but some mineral-rich water that's not contaminated and/or sparkling water. I happen to like Pellegrino but there's also Gerolsteiner and Apollinaris and actually every culture has a mineral-rich water known as a therapeutic or beneficial or health-promoting mineral water. So, you want to drink hard water, so water softeners are not recommended, at least not total home water softeners. If you want to soften the water in the pipes, I don't care, but your blood vessels are not pipes and now I care about the quality of the water that you take in. Gazella: Perfect. So, I love your perspective about looking at repair deficit as an opportunity. Are there other ways to kind of take advantage of that opportunity to reduce oxidative stress and reign in inflammation? Jaffe: Yes. And again, in a physiology-first point-of-view in regard to, say, blood fats. Cholesterol and triglycerides and blood fats and [inaudible 00:28:14]. If you keep the oxidation of those fats, if you keep oxidized cholesterol to zero, if you keep oxidized LDL to zero, because you're taking enough antioxidants and especially ascorbate. Now, the fat-related cardiovascular risks just went away. What remains is understanding your hemoglobin A1C, your hsCRP, your homocysteine, your LRA (lymphocyte response assay immune responses), your vitamin D, your first morning urine pH, your omega-3 index, and [inaudible 00:28:51]. Those are the eight predictive biomarker tests and we have online for folks to peruse and/or download or watch on YouTube discussions of why these eight predictive biomarkers cover all of that genetics, which is 92% of your lifetime quality of life and health. And yes, you can blame mom and dad for the other 8%, and yes transgenerational influences on RNA are a big scientific field but not yet ready to measure clinically. Live in the moment, do one thing at a time, practice gratitude and random acts of kindness, breathe abdominally for at least 5 minutes a day, and make enhance repair your practice and banish inflammation. Gazella: That's perfect. It's a very integrative approach that includes lifestyle as well. I'd like to end with heart disease because heart disease remains the leading cause of death for men in the United States. So, what do you recommend when it comes to protecting heart health for male patients? Jaffe: Yes, and as I think you know part of my primary research when I was in government service at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center was collaborating with the Heart Institute on animal models of heart disease. Now, Paul Dudley White in the 1930s was a famous cardiologist. He helped invent the electrocardiogram. He taught when I was a young student that in the 1930s at Mass General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts if they had 1 heart attack a year, they published the case. And yet 40 years after that, cardiovascular disease was the major killer of Western civilization. That's not a genetic change. It's too quick for genetics. A lot has to do with smoking and sitting, sedentary lifestyle, processing of foods, and all that goes with that. Jaffe: So, cardiovascular disease. If your heart attacks you, if you have a clog in a blood vessel, an artery, if you have a stroke, you didn't pay attention to the upstream warnings that you would know about if you did the self-assessment, if you did the predictive biomarker tests because these change. Your risk goes up dramatically decades before catastrophe. And if you change your consumption and attitude, if you change the environmental toxin exposures and by the way 80% of the toxins that people have in their body are of recent exposure, and you can dramatically reduce that by certain simple lifestyle changes. Include 1 to 300 mg a day of micellized CoQ10 in 100% rice-brand oil, and no glycose. No antifreeze in your CoQ10. Keep the 8 predictive biomarkers at their best outcome goal value and when they are, when those 8 tests are at their best outcome goal value, you have a 99% chance of living 10+ years, even if you're 100 at that point, and my main teacher Buntey was 110 when he passed and as I mentioned before I plan to be dancing at 120 by following this lifestyle, and I urge anyone who is willing and interested to join me. Gazella: That's perfect. Well, Dr Jaffe, we covered a lot today. Before I let you go, I'm just wondering if there's any final thoughts or anything else that you'd like to share with our listeners today. Jaffe: Yes. In essence, the physiology-first, the epigenetics is 92% of your life quality has to do with consumption, which you eat and drink and how you think and what you do. Now whatever season of your life is as a man, that may be different. When you're young and immortal, that's one thing. As soon as you're beyond young and immortal, be prudent. Cardiovascular disease starts in teenage years. Cancer risks goes up dramatically when your innate anti-cancer mechanism is turned down because you're eating foods that are causing too much defense burden in your immune defense and repair system. So, just follow through on this physiology-first approach looking at your individual needs for personalized health promotion and put pay to chronic ill health. Gazella: Perfect. Well, once again I'd like to thank today's sponsor, Perque Integrative Health, and Dr Jaffe I'd like to thank you for taking the time and sharing so much information with us today. Jaffe: Well, thanks for inviting me and for making it such an enjoyable time. I hope the listeners will take away much that will be of value, and it's my pleasure. Gazella: Well, thank you and I hope you have a great day. Jaffe: You the same, Karolyn. Always a pleasure. Gazella: Yes, it is. Bye-bye.

Books have played a critical roll in my Real Estate success since starting in 2015. I once had negative thoughts towards so-called "Self-Help" books, or those on Mindset, Business or Money & Finances. But once I actually allowed myself to read the first, I was hooked. As I've expressed before, that book was Rich Dad Poor Dad, and it changed the way I looked at both money and myself. Some time later I read Rich Dad's Cashflow Quadrant, and it changed the way I looked at my business and how my wife and I made our money as an employee and self-employed small business owner. I don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty certain my finally reading Rich Dad Poor Dad was a result of listening to the BiggerPockets Podcast, where at the end of each show they ask the guest for book recommendations - and almost every person mentioned this book... So I had to read it! And thus naturally, I started reading the other recommended books also. Now I'd like to return that favor by not only recommending books that I found valuable, but also providing details into WHY. On the [... and Landlord] Podcast Website at: https://www.andlandlord.com/books - you can get a listing of my favorite books that I feel every Real Estate Investor should read. But also I'll give some details of where I was along my journey when I encountered each book, what I took from it, and what it did for me - so that maybe you may benefit as well. In this episode of the [... and Landlord] Podcast, I focus on two... The 4-Hour Work Week & The Richest Man in Babylon.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." - Marianne Williamson I grew up thinking that a certain four letter word - starts with an F, ends with a K, with UC in the middle - was the worst possible word. You had to stay clear of that word. All the while I was trapped by another four letter word, something much more insidious, dark, and damaging than a swear word. I was trapped by fear. Fear has been a powerful force in my life, always present but popping up especially during stressful times. When I was younger my mom wrote out the Bible verse, II Timothy 1:7, on a 3x5 index card: God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and sound mind. I clung to this verse for years, carrying it in my pocket like a talisman. And although I've now lost the piece of paper, I've held onto it in my heart. The words brought me comfort but I only ever I understood them intellectually, I didn't feel them in my body. The only power I experienced was the power of fear and it was louder than anything else. Until I participated in a Breathwork session led by Tristan Montoya. As I explain in the podcast, after a series of prescribed breathing exercises lasting about 15 minutes I started to feel an electric-like current in my body. Starting in my chest, going down to my hips and up to my neck and the base of my chin. I have never experienced this feeling of power in my body. It was surreal and incredibly moving. Afterward I remembered that scripture my mom shared with me, that God had not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and sound mind. Now I'd actually experienced that feeling of power in my body. When I experienced the power in my body in the Breathwork session it wasn't about expelling fear. I didn't have to reject the fear or work against it. It simply could not exist where there was no room for it. Join me this episode as I get vulnerable about a deep personal struggle with fear, explore the teaching of some wise folks, and tell about my experience of when the words of an ancient book moved from intellectual belief to bodily knowing. In-depth shownotes, video, and other resources at Brad Toews.  

This is a replay best of episode of the podcast where we go back to  Episode 39 of the Final Surge Podcast and our talk with Team MPI head coach and co-founder Mark Sortino. Mark is a USA Triathlon Level III Coach, a certified USAT Race Director, and is the head coach of Team USA Paratriathlon. In addition to coaching, Mark is a 16-time Ironman finisher. Welcome to Episode 39 of the Final Surge Podcast where we talk to head coach and co-founder of TeamMPI, Mark Sortino. Mark is a Level III Triathlon coach and has been featured in publications such as USA Triathlon Magazine and Triathlete Magazine, and was a featured coach in Endurance Films TriMinds series. Team MPI has triathlon training plans available on Final Surge from the sprint distance through the Ironman.   How did you get your start in endurance athletics? How did you make the transition into triathlons? What lead to you starting Team MPI? Can you tell us about your group? How many coaches do you currently have on staff at Team MPI? You mentioned that you are using Final Surge in your training. How are you using it? We want to start out with some basic training and triathlon questions for those who are looking to do their first multisport event. For someone who is looking to get started with triathlons, maybe they are someone who has done a lot of running or swimming, what do you see as the most common mistakes made? You have a wide variety of training plans available on Final Surge, everything from the sprint distance up to Ironman training plans. Let's look at the basic first week for a beginner Olympic distance race plan. Before we talk about specifics, what type of base should a beginner have before they start training for their first triathlon? Week #1: The first day you have 30 minutes of swimming and 30 minutes of aerobic running with strides. The 30-minute swim workout is: 200 easy choice warmup mix   3x the following: (100 easy, :30 RI, 100 moderate, :30 RI, 100 fast, 1:00 RI) 100 easy choice cooldown mix     ***No paces to hit, just go with feel and intention. For someone who is coming in without a swim background, how important is it to use perceived exertion on the swim? After the swim, you have the 30 minutes of running. Should these be done back to back, does order matter, or should they be separate so you are recovered? Day two of Week #1 is a 30-minute active recovery swim and 30 minutes of bike base spinning. One thing I noticed on the swim is that on the second day you have:   150 warmup, build each 50 4 x 50 - alternate easy/fast up, then 4 x 100 alternating and again 4 x 50 alternating hard and easy.     For someone who is coming from a run background, we don't see a coach saying go hard two days in a row. How different is it training for the swim? Then the bike workout is 30 minutes of staying in zones 1-2. Is all of your biking done in heart rate zones versus training paces? On day three there is a Fartlek run:   10 minute EASY warm-up, building to Z2 15 minutes of fartlek where you have 4 sprints at any type of distance (for 20 sec, 1 minute, stop sign to stop sign), but make sure you recover before each one.     Why and how often are you incorporating fartlek work into your workouts? In week #1 you have some days that are just running or just biking, but every day of swimming has either a bike or run. Is this a normal pattern for your triathlon training? For the new triathlete, they get to the starting line on race day and they are looking at several hundred people ahead of them waiting to get into the water. How do you prepare them for what will likely be a much rougher swim than what they practiced? Now I'd like to look at an Ironman plan. An Ironman is going to be a lot of additional time in the water and on the roads. Looking at one of the weeks for your ironman training you have a total of 3.5 hours of running, 5.5 hours of biking and just under 2.5 hours swimming. Do you try to keep each week proportional to the amount of time they will actually be spending doing the event on race day or do you focus on what they may need the most help with? On days where you are doing either both swimming and running, swimming and biking or biking and running, is it important that you do them in the order you will be doing them on race day? Is that not important at all or should you switch it up? Over the last few years, there have been a lot of technical advancements that make it easier to train, such as the availability of power meters and testing your heart rate variability. How important are these tools to your coaching? Can you tell us how you are using HRV with your athletes to monitor the overall picture of what is going on with them? We all live with our Google calendar, our day planners and our family calendar hanging on the fridge, and they all have the same thing - 7 day weeks, which is what we seem to focus on for our normal training periods. You recently had a piece on your TeamMPI.com blog about changing the cycles up some. What do you recommend people consider when putting together a training cycle? Team MPI has training plans available on Final Surge from the sprint triathlon distance up to the Ironman distance. I will leave the links in the show notes to those plans, but if someone wanted to reach out to you about coaching or other questions how could they best reach you. mark@teammpi.com or coaches@teammpi.com The Final Surge... 5 questions in under 1 minute Favorite running book? - Born to Run Current trainers you are wearing? - Newton Favorite race? - Kona Favorite meal or recovery drink? - Shakeology and Energy Lab Armor Your favorite workout - Running: a hard trail run, Bike: short interval work, Swim: long repeats You can find Team MPI in the following places: Team MPI website Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube

What Everybody Ought to Know About Trust Hi, this is Steve Shallenberger, your host for the "Becoming Your Best" podcast series today. And today we're going to have the opportunity to talk about one of the very powerful principles of highly successful leaders. Yes, those that make a difference, that create a culture by design and not a culture by default. And this particular principle we're talking about today is building and maintaining trust. Trust is like a...it's like a reservoir. It takes a long time to build and once the reservoir is full, it brings life and beauty to all around. It can withstand droughts and earthquakes and setbacks and continue to provide this type of life and sustaining to the environment around. And if it's well-maintained and managed, it will provide an ultimate benefit to everything within its reach. And just like a reservoir, if there is a break in the dam, all of that good that took years to build, can be depleted in just a few short hours. And it takes a significant repair and replenishing of the water before that trust is high enough that people can count on it again. Well, think about trust just for a moment. When trust is high, it's much easier to solve even the most complex problems together with other people. But when trust is low, it's difficult to solve even the easiest of problems and including the fact you may not even want to be in the same room with the other person where there's this low trust. I'd like to invite you to think of someone with whom you have low trust. And just think for a moment, why is there a low level of trust with that person? What have they done that may have bankrupt the trust bank if you will, and so the trust meter is at empty? So just think about that for a few second. What are the events, what are the actions, that broke that trust? And I hope that you have somebody in mind specifically. And there may have been one time or it may have been a repeated set of actions and we're going to talk about something called the trust meter in a moment and you'll see how those actions either drive that trust meter down or push it up to full. Now on the converse, I want you to think of somebody with whom you have a high level of trust. Why is there such a high level of trust with that person? What does that person do that deserves such a high level of trust? And what are the things that you do? Well, as you keep those two different examples in mind, building and maintaining trust is a choice. And it is one of the principles of highly successful leaders. It's something that we do unilaterally really, it's better when you have two people or a team or a whole organization. In other words, when it becomes a total culture. And I've seen that in many instances and this is where you have very successful organizations on a sustained basis. However, let me ask another question. How many people does it take to build and maintain trust? Well, really it takes one person, doesn't it? So regardless of where trust is today, one person can make a difference by the choices and actions that they make to improve trust. It's really this unilateral choice that I was just talking about. Now I'd like to have in your mind's eye, have you think about a gas gauge. And imagine yourself driving through the desert, late at night, on a very cold kind of wintery night. And you look down and the gas gauge is at full. How do you feel? Well, yeah. You feel confident, you feel happy, you're not worrying about if you're gonna make it to the other end of the desert. Okay. You can enjoy the trip. It's far more pleasant if there's other people in the car, you can enjoy a nice conversation and you can focus on the things that really matter most. Now on the other hand, let's say that you look down to the gas gauge and it is showing empty. Now how do you feel? Well, now of course, there's apprehension, you're upset, you're wondering what's gonna happen, you certainly can't enjoy the trip, you're thinking of all the options, "What happens if I ran out of gas in the next 10 minutes? Here I am in this cold environment." Well, you get the feeling. Well, trust is just like that and we call this taking a...having a trust meter. And it's very much just like a gas gauge. And so, when that trust meter is on full, then that means that your relationships are strong, they feel good, they're solid. On the other hand, if that meter, the trust meter is what we call it, if it's at a quarter tank or going down or even at empty, think how that relationship feels. It's far different, isn't it? Well, this a powerful metaphor that you and I can use to measure levels of trust with family members, friends, fellow workers, a boss, direct reports, customers and clients and even competitors. And it is uncannily accurate. All you have to do is in your mind's eye is hold up this trust meter in front of you with the gauge that's free moving and it can move to full or empty. And now just hold it up to each relationship that you have. It might be a son or daughter. How does it look? It might be a spouse or a partner. Or any of these individuals that I just mentioned and pay close attention to where the needle's going. And then once you seen where that needle is, then the real question is what can you do to improve, build and maintain a high level of trust? What can you do to move that needle up to full? And I think this is really the set of questions of things that we can do. Here, for example, are a few example...and by the way, one of the great exercises that we have in our seminars is for people to...on the left-hand column is to list specific relationships that you may have in mind, similar to the ones that I just mentioned. So for example, it might be a spouse or a partner, specifically by name. A son or daughter, specifically by name. And a customer, perhaps someone that you work with, a brother or sister. And then, out to the right by each of those names, what are some specific actions that you can take to move that needle up, to get that trust needle up to full on every single relationship? That's really the objective. And this is what you can do unilaterally. And my experience has been, that as you do this to other people, they have a desire to want to do the same thing to you and what happens then you have this culture that starts building between people and teams and organizations and customers and clients. And it leads directly to excellence. It leads directly to moving the level of performance to a high level of performance. It is what creates the environment of going from good to better to best. And so, what are some things, examples of things that you could do? I'm just gonna list a few of those. Here are some specific, unilateral actions that you can take, that you can do to be the difference. Here's one. Be determined to be a world-class communicator. And so, you're working with other people especially if you're the leader. Paint the picture, paint the vision and confirm that they understand what you're trying to accomplish. Everyone appreciates this on projects or on where we're going as an organization. So that's one thing you can do. How about this one? I love this when we do this frequently. My partner and I, Dave Clark, as we're working with some of our key associates or key managers, we'll just be walking through the office and we'll stop and we'll say, "Well, how are things for," whoever it is. Let's say, Matt. "How are things for you, Matt?" Matt has the chance to just visit and...but then we're gonna go a little bit further. So what are Matt's goals for the next one to three years? In other words, "What do you want to accomplish, Matt? What's important to you?" And we just listen. And this is so engaging because as a leader, now that I know what Matt's thinking about, I'm in a position to help him reach his goals but I can also be better informed on how we can work together to create excellence. So imagine the impact that this would have. What does it do for trust, how does Matt feel, especially if we're really sincerely listening? Well, we're all better off. Here's another one of things that you could unilaterally do. This was one that came through on an email today from somebody that was working on their pre-week planning. I love it. They listed about 10 or 15 things on their pre-week planning that they could do that essentially equated to building and maintaining trust. That was the result. Here was one of them. Take a walk with my wife. Great. I think that's way cool. Think of all the things that can happen. And then just listen. Ask how are things going. Here's another thing you can do that unilaterally allows you to build and maintain trust. Take a client to lunch or call someone on their birthday or write a thank-you note. I thought you might appreciate this experience that I read about in the Washington Post. And by the way, I've been at this for a while and...but even though I've been working on leadership for a long time, I found that these principles apply at all levels. Whether you're millennials, next generation, these powerful principles are what allow us to be...to develop the skills of being great leaders ultimately. All right, well, here you go. Here's the experience. The "Washington Post" reported that just a couple of years ago, the Facebook founder and Chief Executive, Mark Zuckerberg challenged himself to write one thank you note each day. The young entrepreneur, who was just 19 when he established Facebook in 2004, had grown sensitive about his reputation for being critical of people and especially his employees. So he decided to make an effort to build and maintain trust by being more appreciative of those around him. And this started changing Mark's thinking and interchanging, interfacing with the people within his organization and started creating a higher level of trust. You know, Zuckerberg is not alone in seeing the value of this. There is a former CEO of Campbell's Soup Company, Douglas Conant. He told "Post" reporters that during his 10-year tenure with that major food brand, he's written at least 30,000 thank you notes to connect with employees. And Conant said that he takes at least an hour a day to write thank you notes to employees who have done well. And he recommends the practice to other top executives who tend to over-develop their critical muscles. And so, this is a way to bring balance. And this is exactly like the reservoir that we're talking about, building up the strong reserve so that people can have a healthy relationship and work in the crucible of challenges, day-in and day-out and freely give and take and...but there's ultimately a foundation there. Well, these are things that you and I can do. Pre-week planning, by the way, is a great tool to help you consistently build and maintain trust. I will never forget an experience that I had three or four years ago as I've been invited by someone to Washington D.C.'s National Prayer Breakfast. This is where the president, the majority of senators, congressmen, the legislative body, members of the Supreme Court are all invited to join leaders from around the nation to pray, to ask regardless of your party, for help to work on unity. This is a powerful experience and in conjunction with this, they also have workshops. And I will never forget as I noticed one of the workshops that was being conducted by an executive by Chick-fil-A. And it was on building relationships. Well, I thought this is interested because at the time, Chick-fil-A was having some challenges because they'd taken a stand on a number of social issues. And this has become a tense and awkward public battle. Many people were picketing various Chick-fil-A locations. So this executive, as I attended this workshop, arranged to sit down with some of the protesters. But he didn't have high hopes for a positive resolution. As a matter of fact, he had a lot of trepidation about what might take place. And as they sat down, the Chick-fil-A executive...all of a sudden it occurred to him rather than just getting into it, to ask one of the principles from the picketing group about his background. He said, "I'd love to hear how you became an advocate for this cause." And so, the fellow said...you know, the executive appeared sincere and so he did, he started responding. And the picketer said that he lost his father 16 years earlier when a drunk driver had killed him in an accident. And then he gave a brief history of his involvement in this cause. Well then, the Chick-fil-A executive said that he was grateful for the man taken a few minutes to share his story. And then the executive said that he too had lost his father to a drunk driver 30 years earlier. And sharing their backgrounds, the two potential adversaries had established a common ground which is where trust begins. And they made a significant progress regarding the issues at hand and agreed to work toward shared goals. This is what I am talking about in creating a culture that allows people to work together because the trust is a higher level of trust. So one of the things that you and I can do is ask people, "What is your story? What's your story?" And then, just listen. We do this frequently in our seminars. We'll have people be put into pairs and working groups and we'll say, "All right, share what a dream is that you have? Or something that really inspires you or something that you would like to accomplish. In other words, what's your story?" And inevitably, at the end of that short exercise, there's such a high energy in the room. Such a connect between people that they maintain the connection after the seminar. So mastering this principle of building and maintaining trust, will bring you greater peace and happiness personally. Especially as you unilaterally take the high ground when the difficult situations come into your life and you just say to yourself, "I will only do things that move the needle up." That takes discipline and willpower. But 100% of the time, every time, you will end up in a better place. It will build greater and stronger relationships. It will build your business and be responsible for millions of dollars of business in the things that you do. So may you find the internal power and peace that comes from unilaterally doing things that push the trust meter gauge towards full. And as you hold that trust meter up and assess your relationships, just fill it inside, you'll know where it's at, then you will make the right decisions to do the right things. And you will make a difference every single day to lift things to good, to make them better and best. This is Steve Shallenberger, your host today with "Becoming Your Best", Global Leadership. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Mike Paton has spent most of his life  learning from entrepreneurs.  Today, he spends all  his time giving back - as an Author, award-winning Speaker, certified EOS Implementer & the Visionary of EOS Worldwide.  Specifically, Paton helps entrepreneurs clarify, simplify and achieve their vision – by mastering the simple concepts and practical tools he’ll be sharing with us today.   I first met Mike Paton at a digital agency conference about three years ago where he was a featured speaker. Now I'd never heard of Mike before or the entrepreneurial operating system (EOS) that he was talking about, but one of the other agencies there had – and they were at least 10 times the size of most of the other agencies in the room,  so that got my attention!   In this session we did, Paton reviewed the main concepts of his the entrepreneurial operating system, and then had us work through a series of questions known as the vision traction organizer (or VTO), which had this group of creative entrepreneurs completely engaged. By the time I was on my flight home, I was already well into Mike's book, get a grip, that I had acquired a copy of  at the conference, and I was eager to begin implementing the entrepreneurial operating system EOS in my business   When I came onboard so young, which is the business I now Co-run with my wife, The first thing we did was the VTO exercise that Mike had us do at the conference. We also created an accountability chart, which Michael share more about in a moment, and implemented weekly meetings to review our scorecard.   Having had this Entrepreneurial Operating System system in place now for the past nearly 2 years, I can sincerely say that it has transformed the way we run our business. We are now proactive about solving problems and able to consistently monitor and grow the business with confidence and clarity.   6 Key Components of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS)   Entrepreneurs spend so much time in their optimistic futures that they’re in danger of not tending to the foundations. This is why most business owners aren’t getting everything they want from their business. This lack of fulfillment and progress exists to the extent that they have not fully implemented the 6 key components of the Entrepreneurial Operations system.   VisionGetting everyone in the organization aligned on where you’re going and how you plan to get there   PeopleGetting great people in the organization to help you achieve the vision   Datarunning the business on facts and figures rather than opinions and egos   IssuesGetting good at prioritizing and solving your issues as they arise and addressing core causes rather than just the symptoms   Processdo the most important things the right and best way, every time   TractionInstilling discipline and accountability everywhere in the organization   In what order should you implement the tools?   The first priority is to build the traction muscle   Accountability Chart Level 10 meeting pulse Scorecard - 5 to 15 leading indicators that are tracked on a weekly basis Rocks -  3- 7 of the company's 90 day priorities Then take on the VTO   The distinction between Visionaries and Integrators   The Visionary RoleVisionaries are inspiring and have tons of creative ideas - but don;t like to stay grounded. They live at the 30,000 ft level of the business  and don't like getting dragged into the details or having to deal with the rudimentary aspects of the business. They are great at big relationships, imagining what’s possible and breaking through barriers.   The Integrator Role Integrators love getting into the trenches, love listening to the 20 big ideas but then settling on the one or 2 that will move the business forward. They are the ones who are In the trenches executing on the vision every day and making what’s possible actually happen.   Know who you are One key to the EOS system is recognizing who you are at the core, and making sure you have someone in the organization who can complement either your Visionary or Integrator approach.

Friday, May 31, 2013 Fruitful in the Land of my Affliction GEN 41:51-52 ESV Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh. "For," he said, "God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house." The name of the second he called Ephraim, "For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction." ---------------------------------------------------------- Joseph has had it hard. He was singled out by his father as the most loved of 12 boys. That's gotta hurt! The whole robe thing is embarrassing. He's sent by his Father to effectively be a nark and check up on his brothers. That's not going to make you popular. Then God gives Joseph these dreams that no one wants to hear, not even his father. He's tossed in a deep hole and then sold to his cousins as a slave and in turn sold in Egypt. Joseph does well though until a sex crazed woman lies about him. And He's tossed into another pit, jail. And again he does well and even gets a big break with the cupbearer to Pharaoh, only to be forgotten for another two years. So when Joseph is 30 he has a huge life change and comes into fame and fortune! And he is railroaded into marrying the daughter of a false religion's leader. But Joseph makes the best of the situation and gets busy! Now he has two sons. Joseph's son's names are significant. In fact when the twelve tribes of Israel are named throughout all history you will not hear Joseph himself named. Instead you hear of Joseph's sons! Have you ever thought about the fact that built into the twelve tribes of Israel are two half Egyptian grandson's to the high priest of an Egyptian god? Sometimes we need another perspective. And nothing can quite give us a new vantage point like a newborn baby. All that a newborn encapsulates fills us with hope. They are needy, vulnerable, and full of possibility and still they are resilient and demanding. Joseph sees a new future when God blesses him with sons. And the blessing erases the past and provides for the future. Now I'd like to encourage each one of you to have sons! But I mean spiritual sons! You are not too old, too single, too afflicted to ask God to make your faith fruitful. What your church needs are new believers. What your family needs is someone who has newly come to trust Jesus. We need in the church today the hope that comes with people being born again. Wherever you are, whatever your state in life, I'm asking you to pray that God makes you fruitful! I'm asking that you hope for newborns in the kingdom of God. And I pray as they come you give them names, may be new names. In addition to brother or sister call them Hope! Name them Ephraim! As time goes on and God speaks of his people, he uses different tribes to refer to the whole or called them all Israel after Jacob's name change. When heartbroken over his people God's term of endearment in the book of Hosea is Ephraim. So an Egyptian boy whose grandfather was a very important religious leader for an Egyptian god and his other grandfather was a man who actually wrestled with the one true God of promise. Ephraim, the son of Joseph is a sign of fruitfulness that comes from affliction. Posted by William Bode at 5/31/2013 07:41:00 am

What use is an F-call? Recently I had a discussion with a Foundation Licensed amateur who told me that he'd had some limited success making contacts using 10 Watts, but that he longed to have more power to get out and make better contacts. While I understand the sentiment, I know from personal experience that it just isn't true. You don't need oodles of power to smack the audio against the receiver at the other end. What you need is propagation and you need a set-up that works. Now I'd be the first to admit that propagation is a bit of a mystery to me at the best of times, but my solution to that is to sit tight, listen and when lots of stations turn up at my door-step as it were - that is, I can hear lots of people calling - I've got a great chance at getting through. What was a little more baffling to me was that this amateur, as I said, an F-Call had not really found a way to discuss his issues with any other amateurs. He'd been pretty isolated and only in discussing the issue with other F-Calls did he start investigating further. I'd like to encourage you to ask around. Look who else is on air near you and talk to them about what you're seeing. The more people you talk to, the more you learn and the more you have a chance of getting to the magic point where you can get those elusive contacts on HF using your F-Call. As I've said in the past, and I'll continue to say, power is not the answer, what you do with what you have is what makes the difference. Low power operation does not need to be a frustrating exercise in futility, QRP stations are doing this all the time. Mostly it's a matter of attitude. Don't be shy. The amateurs around you who have their standard or advanced license needed to learn their craft too. I'm Onno, VK6FLAB