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- [00:00]
A
Support comes from Calm. Calm is the number one app for sleep and meditation for a reason. Works for me, it'll work for you. Why? You gotta have tools to help you live the life you want to live. It can't be all go all the time. Not only is that not reasonable, it's just not effective. Downtime matters. Slowing your brain, quieting your mind, setting yourself up for success in rest and recovery. That's what we're really expanding our understanding about most. And that's where calm comes in. Guided meditations. Why? It's like training for your brain to get rid of the toxicity. It helps build focus, build habits. Taking better care of yourself. Sleep stories to help you sleep, meditations music calm has over 2 million 5 star reviews and can help you stress less, sleep more, live better, calm your mind, change your life. Calm has an exclusive offer just for listeners of our show. You can get 40% off a calm premium subscription. If you want, go to calm.com C A L M.com Cuomo that's a great value. 40% off. C-A-L-M.com Cuomo 40 off. Unlimited access to comms Library. All right. And please tell comm you heard about them from me. One of the good things about social media is when someone shares something because it matters to them and it winds up blowing up for the right reasons. Imagine putting out what you believed were your 55 rules for life, and it wound up going viral to the tune of almost 10 million people wanting to read about it. And just changed how you were viewed and changed what your life was about. And it was for good reason. I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. You know, I care a lot about wellness. I care a lot about personal performance, but really it's about philosophy and wisdom. And there's a name that you don't know that you will after this podcast, and you'll be happy for it. His name is Kevin Dahlstrom. And what's beautiful about Kevin is that he's really not that different than any of the rest of us. It's just that he does what he says, he practices what he preaches. Right? Unlike the rest of us. Right. Me included. Where it's easy to say, but it's hard to do. He turns 55, recognizes that he's living his life the way he wants to and shares what that means. And he puts out 55 lessons for life, and it goes viral. I see it, I decide I want to get to know this guy better. I want to understand how did he Come up with these five things because it's great. From finance to fitness to how you deal with friendships and your kids and, you know, personal philosophy, it's everything that matters to each and all of us. And it turns out out he is actually the brain and the business mind behind Bolt Health, which is this really fast growing, innovative set of solutions for what really keeps you young.
- [03:20]
B
Right.
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A
Which isn't just what you do, it's what's inside you, your hormone balance. So it wound up being quite an education on life, but also how to be your best self inside and out. Say hello to Kevin. Hey Kevin, thank you for joining us.
- [03:43]
B
Hey Chris, happy to be here. Good to meet you.
- [03:46]
A
So were you surprised that I asked you to come on?
- [03:51]
B
I was and I wasn't. I mean, I had this post on X that went crazy viral. Like 8 million people saw it. And when that happens, crazy things happen. I mean, I had a few interesting people reach out to me, including like some low key celebrities that reached out to me in the dms. And so the best part about that whole thing is when I can show it to my teenage daughters and they finally think dad is cool for once.
- [04:17]
A
Yeah, it disappears fast though with the kids. So the post is from I was actually you posted it on my wedding anniversary, but right before Thanksgiving. And it says today I turned 55. We are both the the same age. I'm the fittest, sharpest and happiest I've ever been. If I'm an outlier, it's not because I'm built different or discovered a secret formula. The truth is far less glamorous. It's a million tiny choices compounded over decades. Here are 55 of them. So I start reading these tips, right? And I'm like, oh, I hope this guy doesn't become one of these rich and successful virtue signalers like I love when Scott Galloway says, only a rich guy tells you to follow your passion. Anybody who cares about you tells you to follow what gets you paid. And I was so pleasantly surprised that these are among the 55 best ideas for people to live a better life. And I had to talk to you about it. 1 Did you know of this list and was it part of an intellectual construct you had in place or did you develop it just to meet your age and stage of being 55? Where does the wisdom come from?
- [05:38]
B
Yeah, well, I think for a really long time I've considered myself a student of what it takes to build a great life. You know, my, my, the quick version of my story is I'm one of those guys who went all the way up the corporate ladder, made it to the top, realized that I was miserable. I was playing the role of some other guy who wasn't me. And so I rebooted in 2018. And I've been on this quest to understand, like, what is it that builds a great life? You know, I learned the hard way that money isn't enough. And so what is it? And so what's funny is this list was a culmination of actually many years of work. Because when I had an observation or an idea, I would just write it down in the notes app on my phone. And then I knew that my 55 year birthday was coming up and so I was like, I ought to just compile these. And it turns out I had like 52, it turns out. So I added three more and posted it and the rest is history.
- [06:32]
A
Really, the idea of money's not enough. That is absolutely the case because anybody who ever has any kind of health or kid issue immediately realizes it doesn't matter what you have because you're going to lose what you want to hold on to most. But it can hit wrong for people. Yeah. For guys like you, for Cuomo and Dahlstrom. Yeah. Money's not enough because you have it. For the rest of us, that's the main pursuit. What are people who are reasonably thinking that missing?
- [07:06]
B
Well, first of all, let's be clear, being poor sucks even worse than any of. But the fact is that there are many, many wealthy guys, especially in corporate America, but also in entertainment, who they have lots and lots of money, but they're fundamentally not happy. And the converse is there's lots of people I know who don't have a ton of money but have incredible lives. And what really opened my eyes to it was I'm a rock climber. And so 25 years ago, I stumbled into a rock climbing gym, kind of discovered a passion and more importantly discovered this community where the measure of success wasn't money. These were people who, yes, we all have to pay the bills. So they had jobs and they were making money, but they were building what I call multi dimensional lives where you have a job, where you do your work, but that's only part of your life. You're investing in your family, your hobbies, in fitness and health and lots of other things.
- [08:00]
A
Bolt Health. Where does Bolt Health come from? And why did it wind up being the culmination of what you wanted to be about in terms of doing well and doing good?
- [08:13]
B
Wow. Thank you for asking that. I Was hoping you would. So, you know, I was fortunate enough to essentially be retired for the past couple of years, but I even, you know, a life out of leisure is a life of misery. Also is like, I believe humans need challenging work. We need to tackle hard problems. And as good as it gets, in my opinion, is doing work that aligns with your personal passions and interests. And I've been a health and fitness enthusiast my whole life. And so Bolt Health is very specifically focused on men's health and even more specifically on men's hormonal health. You know, the fundamental problem out there is that doesn't get talked about actually a lot is men's hormone levels have plummeted, in particular testosterone, in the past 20 years. They're like 50% of what the average level was 25 years ago. And it's quite alarming. I call it a silent epidemic. I'm 55. A couple years ago, I'd watched my hormone levels, and testosterone in particular kind of trends down pretty sharply after the age of 45. I did everything I could to restore it naturally. I did all the right things, and I started having symptoms, and they weren't getting better. And so I tried what's now called testosterone replacement therapy. And it was like a light switch being turned on. It changed my life, to be honest. And furthermore, I realized that there's a lot of myth and misinformation out there about this stuff. And at Bolt, we pioneered what we call a microdosing protocol. Very low levels, just to restore physiologic levels. And it's a game changer. And so I. I'm super passionate. I was the first customer, and I'm super passionate about it.
- [09:59]
A
Just personally, do you believe a couple things? One, testosterone, all right, The. The problem is the stigma, and people don't understand that. Trt, or dealing with what your body needs to get you into the range of normal, is different than walking around with twice that amount, because it allows you to recover and train in a way so that you can walk around like an NFL lineman. So say you're on trt, people be like, oh, well, that's why you can climb those rocks. You're cheating. What do you. What is the. What do people need to understand about what the hormones mean and what is use versus abuse?
- [10:40]
B
Yeah, I mean, look, I just want to feel great. That's. It's really simple for me. And what you brought up is a really important point, because all of the myths and misinformation I talked about come from the bodybuilding era. Bodybuilders abuse these drugs, these hormones. So you said twice the level? No, bodybuilders often take 20 to 25 times the restorative physiologic level. And that's why they're so big and so jacked. That's not healthy. They also stack it with other hormones. What we're talking about and what we do at Bolt is restore levels to, say, the top third of the normal lab range. And what guys find is it's about health. It's not about getting jacked. The biggest benefits that I found that many of our customers find are actually cognitive. Guys notice as they get older, their brains aren't working as well, they get brain fog. The biggest benefit I noticed was it was like that movie Limitless. You remember that?
- [11:38]
A
I wish. Yes.
- [11:40]
B
It lights your brain on fire and I just can think so much faster, so much more clearly. I don't get sick anymore. Workouts are better. Recovery is better. I'm more present for my family. Those are the types of comments that I love getting from our customers. Because at least what we do at Bolt, because we operate at very low doses, it's not at all about getting jacked. I mean, yeah, it does make it easier to put on muscle, which is the number one predictor of longevity, but there's so many other benefits. And the other piece I'd say is a lot of the misdemeansture information out there, like it causes heart disease, it raises risk of cancer. Those have been definitively proven wrong. In just the past few years, there's been large scale studies funded by the government that definitively proved that basically all cause mortality for guys who correct their testosterone levels into the normal range are lower. They're less likely to die.
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A
The key is within the normal range.
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B
Yes.
- [12:36]
A
Americans, especially in men, American men, more is better. So what you will see is if you're walking around with a Testosterone level of 12 or 1500, yeah, maybe everything else in the body is growing faster too, because of that, and you'll start to have complications. Within the normal range is the key. Support comes from Juvanon. Do you know, Juvenon, if there's one thing that you're gonna do for yourself this holiday, let this be it. A lot of men are running on empty. We got low energy, we got low stamina, we got low drive. And is it aging? Yeah, a little bit. But not as much as you may be thinking. You haven't simply lost it. You've stopped supporting the systems that keep you strong and unstoppable. That's why Juvenon's new maximum male system is the ultimate two step combo. You get the alpha gold male plus blood flow seven and you put them together. Together they're going to flip your internal power switch back on. You got to be putting the right things into your system if you want your system to do you right. Alpha gold male helps your body self activate. More energy, more strength, more testosterone support. Better workouts, better sleep. That calm, confident drive that you always want to feel.
- [14:05]
B
Right.
- [14:05]
A
Yeah, that. Then you get the blood flow. Seven seals the deal. Boosts nitric oxide. Look it up. The molecule opens up your blood vessels so circulation improves everywhere. More oxygen to your brain, more oxygen to the big head, more oxygen to the little head, more nutrients to your muscles and yes, way better performance where it really counts. Guys who use the combo keep saying the same thing. I feel sharper, stronger. I feel like me again. My best self. All the things that you want to say. All right. Now here's the good news. You want to try it? I'm going to make it even easier. Okay. The holidays are a great time to start something new. Great gift giving idea, but you can get 30% off your order today. Okay. So I want you to try it. 30% off is a great enticement. The maximum mail system. Head over to bloodflow7.com Cuomo be sure to use my discount code today. Get the discount and get better.
- [15:14]
C
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- [15:43]
A
On me as a needle averse supplement averse guy. But I am into performance. I'm not really into longevity. I was just making this point in a different episode where I was saying I don't want to live to be 100. I want to perform as long as I can at the level that I'm. Which is almost the minimum standard of what is acceptable for me as it is. So what would you do for someone like me and what would it require?
- [16:11]
B
Well, first of all, amen. I am the same as you. I want to perform at a high level as long as possible. I feel like I'm hanging on by a thread sometimes. But at 55, I'm still performing at a really high level. And it brings me a lot of satisfaction. I'm a passionate rock climber. I live in Boulder, Colorado. I'm looking out my window at rocks right now. I want to continue doing that as long as possible. The goal for me is the same. It's not to live forever. I will say so. I'll give you the short answer and it's just the truth. There are many ways to raise your testosterone level. There's oral pills you can take, and I won't get into the details. The bottom line is if you want the most effective protocol, it does involve injections. But here's the good news. One thing that's changed in the past few years is testosterone replacement used to mean these, these big ass needles that you had to stick into your butt, into the muscle and you know, once or twice a week. The modern protocol uses insulin needles. So subcutaneously in the fat typically of the belly or the upper thigh. The needle is this big. You can barely see it, it's so small. It's similar to what is being used for like the new GLP1 medications for.
- [17:18]
A
It's like an EpiPen.
- [17:20]
B
Yes, exactly. And it's, it's painless. You're injecting two drops of medication every morning, first thing. It's so easy. And we have guys all the time who are, you know, they just don't want to inject themselves and they're scared once they do it. Once they're like, oh, why was I so worried about this? It's absolutely nothing. It's so easy. It's easy to travel with. It's so easy.
- [17:41]
A
That's what I'm doing instead of a statin. So. My father died of a very complicated and unusual heart disease that I don't have, at least not genetically. But I do have genetically bad blood work of like triglycerides and stuff. Although I actually, I don't believe in cholesterol as causative the way some do. I also eat a shit ton of meat and high cholesterol foods. So I'm not surprised that I have high cholesterol, but my heart health itself is really good. Anyway, they wanted me to go on a statin. The insurance company that I'm using, you know, in my business you have a lot of insurance because God forbid something happens when I'm over in Gaza or whatever. So they put me on the statin. I didn't want to take the pill.
- [18:31]
B
Every day.
- [18:32]
A
Because like I said, I kind of suck with supplements. You know, I do athletic greens because it's just one scoop in the morning. I don't have to worry about it. But the pen that I'm taking for this drug called repatha is an EpiPen. And when they told me it was going to be a needle, I was like, no, no, no, I can't do it. And they were like, no, you can do it, you can do it. It's pussy proof. So I literally just push it into my thigh every two weeks and it's controlling that. And this is the same thing. But is that enough? Is it a pen every day? Is it able to be applied per week or every other week? Or does it have to be daily?
- [19:06]
B
Yeah, well, first of all, you're my brother from another mother. I have a feeling we're aligned on a lot of what we're talking about, because literally just finished, before I jumped on this podcast, I had a rib eye and that was my lunch. And the cholesterol hoax, don't get me started on that. So good on you for going down a different path. The reason you want to do the shots every day, even though it is slightly less convenient, is because the old outdated method for testosterone was to give a big shot of testosterone once a week. And what that causes is wild swings in your levels. And that leads to all kinds of side effects. What we see with microdosing is you get the better results on half the dose with very rare. Do we see any sort of side effects. And what I'd say is, Look, I've spent 30 years studying health and longevity. I've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. I've done all the things, including some very wacky things that I'm not going to talk about today. But I've been there, done that. And the truth is that for guys our age who are starting to see a decline in performance and their levels are low, their testosterone is the big gun. It's 80% of the longevity routine. At Bolt, we also offer peptides depending on customers needs. We use even like ED meds like Cialis, but in very low doses, not for erectile dysfunction, although it helps with that. But there's new studies that have come out that indicate that it's incredibly good for heart health. One recent study showed patients on low dose cialis saw a 23% reduction in cardiac events. And so there's all these things happening at the frontier of medicine that mainstream medicine is 20 years behind on. And so our medical team, we're rigorous about looking at the studies and choosing the therapies that are proven to work. Testosterone's the big gun. But there are also other things.
- [21:04]
A
Is it all subcutaneous in the epipens or are there pills involved?
- [21:08]
B
Some is pills. And by the way, I forgot to mention so along my health journey like 10 years ago I was like this Brian Johnson guy where I took like 50 to 100 supplements a day. And what I realized is most of that stuff is just garbage. Guess how many supplements I take now? Zero. I take my daily testosterone. I eat a shit ton of meat. Like you said. I try to eat a super healthy diet. I feel better now than I did in my 20s. Most of the therapies we offer are either a daily injection using the tiny needles like the pens, or some of them are oral like the ED meds in low dose are oral. You take every morning.
- [21:48]
A
Do you take all of them?
- [21:50]
B
No, I actually personally only take testosterone. Microdosing. It's all I've needed. I've dabbled with some of the other things like I'm really interested in particular in some of the peptides like BPC157 for injury recovery. In fact, a friend of mine just reached out this morning. He's an elite level rock climber and he injured his knee yesterday and he's going to do a course of BPC 157, a two week course and we're going to see how that works for him.
- [22:23]
A
And Doug. Here we have the Limu emu in its natural habitat helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
- [22:39]
B
Uh, limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.
- [22:41]
A
Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. Liberty Savings. Very unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts just for people. First of all, what we're talking about is male centric because we're both males, but this is a female thing also. And hormones, peptides, testosterone, estrogen, all of these things are part of the aging process for women every bit as much as men, if not more so so more so.
- [23:17]
B
Let me just add in Chris, if you don't mind the women for a bunch of bad reasons. Women have been told for years that hormones for menopause are a bad thing. Not only was that wrong, many doctors have referred to that as the biggest travesty in medicine. Hormones are even more important for women to get them balanced. I cannot wait Bolt is launching at the beginning of next year. We're launching Bolt for Women, and it's going to be a game changer as well.
- [23:51]
A
So my wife owns a company called Purist P U R I S T. She is an integrative nutritionist, and you should check her out. And she is all into this and different wellness practices and things that are conventional, unconventional, and I believe in it. I also think that, you know, we make so many terrible choices and that everybody's okay with that. But when you make choices like this, people believe it's controversial. But I was laughing to myself when I was watching you hold your hands up for people. I want to show people the difference between a guy like me and a guy like this guy. Look at. First of all, he's got huge mitts, but look at the. The thickness of his fingers.
- [24:40]
B
Well, also look at the crookedness of.
- [24:42]
A
Yeah, because it gets you. But then, you know, rock climbing. So my son is one of you. He is on the other end of the hormone curve, but he is about to be 20, and he is just a beast of strength to weight ratio. He's a big calisthenics guy. He loves climbing. He's working on his little fingerboards all the time. And I'll tell you why it's worth thinking about. Let's say you never want to climb, okay? But you're a guy and you go to the gym, or you're a woman and you go to the gym. Grip strength goes. And the more you can do, it doesn't go for guys like Dahlstrom, because if you're in the rock climbing, you're going to have a handshake and forearms like a Java man, period. Because you don't. You don't have any choice. I don't care how well you use your legs if you're bouldering or whatever, but grip strength is one of the main indicators of overall strength, right?
- [25:42]
B
Yes. It's one of the top three measures in terms of correlation with longevity. By the way, send your son to Boulder and I'll put him on some amazing stuff here.
- [25:56]
A
So we go out there, we do the family trips. It's always tougher when they get older. Now the kids are 22, about to be 20, and they're actually one month after the other one's about to be 16, one's about to be 20, one's about to be 23. So it's tough to get them all to go to the same place. But we have been to Boulder several times, and my wife has taken him out There in the summertime. And he loves to climb, he loves all the adventure sports. He's one of those. He was never a team sports guy, but like calisthenics now. I mean, the stuff that this guy can do, it is frightening to me to watch. But it's strength to weight ratio very different than me. So what I'm trying to do now is scale down mass, but my body knows its size. So I played it like 240 and my body knows that and it will go back to that weight. It's just not great body composition because now my nipples are like 5 inches lower than they used to be. So I'm trying to bring down the mass and get the hormones right. I have low normal testosterone, but it is low and I have left it alone because I'm afraid of making it too high and having other things grow and getting prostate cancer or something like that. But I've been doing my research and talking to my endocrinologist and he turned me on to you and said, look at this guy. This guy is your age and stage and he's physical. And I am a volunteer firefighter and I do a lot of self defense training and stuff like that. Like those are my, those are my passions and they are really. You got to be on your hormone game. You can't just be in the gym.
- [27:42]
B
Yeah, the strength to weight ratio is everything. Staying lean is everything. I believe it or not, for a rock climber, I'm absurdly large. I have 195 pounds. I'm six three.
- [27:53]
A
That is big.
- [27:54]
B
I'll tell you though, Chris, I just two days ago hit my PR on bench press. I just, I did 225 four times, which for me, a skinny guy. I'm a skinny guy. So if you saw my arms and how long they are.
- [28:07]
A
Yeah, but also it's like the most use. I know, I know guys are crazy about it, but it is so useless for what you do in life and what you're using. Like, you know, there's so many things that are more important. But look, I mean, you are a great testament to functional longevity. And look, I'm talking to him a lot about the Kev, a lot about this stuff because I care about it. But if you look at the list of the 55 things, if you have a positive thought about someone, don't keep it to yourself. Share it immediately. Encouragement defies the laws of physics. When you give energy, you also receive it. So true. And then he goes right into the practical. Like shows shoes with a big toe. Box. And I just think that it's. It's such a great, balanced understanding that I'm not surprised it went big, but you got to be kind of surprised about how big it went. And what do you make of that? It's literally over 8 million people looked at your post.
- [29:05]
B
Yeah, Like, I'm the overnight success, 10 years in the making. I mean, I started writing on. On Twitter during the lockdown phase of COVID like, in 2019. And I've kind of like, I. My mantra for everything in life is like, I build brick by brick. And so, you know, I. I like writing. It's. I post almost every day. And if you do that, though, it sort of becomes inevitable. I always felt like it was sort of inevitable that one of my posts at some point would take off. I didn't expect 8 million people would view it and then I'd get like. One of the direct DMs I got was from a guy who's like a complete hero of mine, a Wall street tycoon. He DMed me and he said, amazing list. If you're ever in New York, let's grab lunch. And I'm like, I will be in New York. I'll make it happen. And so that's super cool. I'll tell you a funny story, and you've obviously had this happen much more than me, but like, micro celebrity, the coolest thing that ever happened as a result of my online writing. I was in the Dallas Fort Worth airport one time with my family and this guy, you know, I'm nobody, and this guy comes up to me and asks if he could do a selfie with me. And my two teenage girls were like, what the hell is happening? So I'll treasure that moment forever. But you know, it's micro celebrity, right?
- [30:21]
D
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- [30:55]
A
Well, look, you want resonance, but fame is kind of useless, you know? I mean, getting the word out about what you're doing with Bolt Health, that's good. It being about how people decide to judge you is never worth it, no matter what comes along with it. But you know this, because these are a lot. I mean, it's built into probably 10 of your 55 rules, which is, you know, kind of. I love the one where you say, look into minimalism. It's not what you think. And certainly fame and self perspective and how you see yourself comes into minimalism as well. What does that word mean to you as a practice?
- [31:42]
B
Yeah. So people think minimalism is about denying yourself of pleasure. Right. Like living like a monk. And it's actually the opposite. It's. It's removing everything that you don't give a shit about so that you can gorge on the stuff you do give a shit about. And so that was a. When we. When my family kind of rebooted back in 2018, when we rebuilt our life in Boulder, it was a much simpler life. Just the things that we wanted and none of the things that we didn't. And, look, I'm a simple creature. I'm not Elon Musk. I'm not trying to, you know, make humankind interplanetary. I just want to climb rocks and hang out with my friends and feel good and eat good food and travel and. Right in my little. My little nerdy corner of the online world.
- [32:27]
A
And Boulder, Colorado. Where did you grow up and why did you choose there?
- [32:32]
B
I grew up in a small town in Texas. I literally. My first job was bagging groceries at $3 an hour at Safeway. I'm the son. I have a crazy backstory, by the way, which we won't get into, but. But I'm the son of a literal cotton picker and a physics professor. So my dad was a physics professor. He was traveling through South Texas on some academic work and met my mom, who was a cotton picker in South Texas, randomly. They got engaged two days later, and they were married for their entire life. So, crazy story.
- [33:08]
A
Why did they get engaged so fast? What was it? What did they. How did they explain it?
- [33:12]
B
Well, my dad went to a dance hall. This was in the sticks of South Texas, because he was bored. And it was a literal, like, saw her. My mom was beautiful. Or is beautiful. She's still alive. And he saw her across the room. And literally. And she, I think, saw an opportunity to just get the hell out of, you know, the cotton fields. And somehow it worked. And, you know, we had a crazy upbringing because of that, but a gift in a lot of ways. Just very unusual upbringing.
- [33:45]
A
What do they say? Women are loved for what they are. Men are loved for what they do.
- [33:50]
B
Yeah. I think my mom Saw a ticket. Here's this guy who's pretty smart, he's going places. And what's funny is my wife and my relationship is not super dissimilar from that. My wife's been a homemaker our entire marriage, never wanted to be anything else. And she, you know, I'm the provider. We're pretty traditional, which isn't super popular these days, but it works for us.
- [34:14]
A
Yeah, I mean, you know, look, I. I think it's coming back. You hear this expression, trad wife. I mean, look, we're so young as a culture. I mean, so much of what you lay out in your 55 points is such timeless wisdom. And, you know, what we see in this culture all the time is just growing pains, you know, I mean, even with social media and our binary politics. And, you know, I just was doing a piece about how the word of the is rage bait. And I like how you address it within your points, within your. Your kind of personal philosophy of animus and animosity, and you treat it almost as an environmental condition that you got to be aware of, like bad air.
- [34:58]
B
Right? Yeah. I mean, I'm a huge believer in the power of positive energy. And. And the problem is it cuts both ways. Like negative energy. You're hurting yourself more than anybody when you're putting out negative energy. And of course, we can disagree. I mean, I was telling somebody the other day, like, when I was growing up, my parents would have people over for dinner who had completely different political views, and we would have a great discussion, and we would leave and hug and be friends. And for some reason, that. That doesn't happen anymore. It's become too personal. And, yeah, it's. It's difficult.
- [35:32]
A
Well, the reason it doesn't happen anymore is that our politics has become a sport more than a philosophical pursuit. It's. It's Cowboys and Giants now. So there is no. I want to hear why you like the Cowboys. It's. The Cowboys suck. They're evil. And I don't want to hear anything about that. And I don't care that the Giants are terrible on nine different levels because they're my team. Once you make politics, that. And it's no longer about coming together or progress, it's just about advantage and zero sum. This is where you get. And then you add to it social media, where it's like the inverse of your lifestyle, where you're with people as much as you can be, and here you're in a silo, and who's going to talk to Kevin the way they'll talk about Kevin if he's not around. You know, it's a big difference. And that's our world is talking about people, not to them.
- [36:25]
B
I had a high school teacher in small town Texas who told me one time that it's hard to hate someone up close. And I think that's very true. Like on online, it's really easy to be a troll and to hate somebody when you're face to face, it's harder. And by the way, I've seen a bunch of clips of you over the years. I think you actually do a really good job of trying at least to be that middle ground. There's not many people who honestly even try to do that and I'm sure you catch a lot of heat for that. But kudos for at least trying.
- [36:57]
A
I just, look, I mean it's, it's not even a close call to me about what matters more. I know that it is not as convenient a growth strategy. I know that what I should do is pick a side and attack the other side all the time. And I'll have my, you know, I mean, my following is enough as it is for me. But I get it that that's the growth strategy. It's just not the kind of growth I want because I know that it's fundamentally wrong. And of course the paradox is, is that being in the media at all means that I'm on the wrong side of everything for most people. So it doesn't matter that I'm trying to do it what I see as the right way because I'm part of the problem no matter what it is. But as you say in several of your points, to thine own self be true, I gotta have my own standard and my own sense of recognition about it. And I gotta let go of all the other things that I don't control and the opinions that I don't control. So what are you gonna do with the 55 points? You're thinking about putting it into a book. You're thinking about making it into 155. You think about distilling it into five.
- [37:57]
B
Yeah. So I absolutely want to write a book, if for no other reason than just for myself. Luckily, I've got sort of a built in following and some of them are super fans who are who've been asking me. So I am going to write a book. It's going to be much, much deeper than just the 55 points, but that'll be part of it. The biggest challenge for me is, you know, you know how this goes. Like Like, I've got two daughters in college. I've got this young business. I've got a wife. I rock climb. I just gotta find, like, find the time to actually get it done. It's easy to meet, to write short posts and post them on X every day. A book. I've tried to, like, dive in, like on vacations and stuff. It's a daunting task.
- [38:43]
A
It is big. You need a plan. You need a plan, you need an outline. You have to really work on that part of it it for a while and be collaborative about it. Partnerships are like the new writing. I mean, not so much with fiction, but certainly with self help, which has always been one of my favorite categories. I'm a huge self, you know, I read everything. It doesn't mean, you know, everything is practice. Right. All the wisdom is easy. It's easy to get it. How they package it is, you know, is what the persuasion is, but it's. It's how you practice it that matters. And it gets really simple. It's just hard. It's hard to live by three, let alone 55 of your maxims.
- [39:27]
B
It is, yeah. I mean, and one of the 55 was to have a bias toward action. I think what happens with a lot of people is they think that they have to, like, learn a certain amount. Like, if I got to read these books, I got to listen to these podcasts, I got to do this before I get started. Just get started, and then you'll realize exactly what you need to know. So having a heavy bias toward action, like the first step I found in anything, any big endeavor, it's the first step that's the hardest. Like, just getting that initial momentum going, whether it's like getting healthy again, whether it's writing a book, starting a side hustle, whatever it is.
- [40:04]
A
Yeah, doing is hard. Saying is easier than most things. But look, I mean, we know this, and this is my last thing for you. The 55. You said earlier that you had been writing consistently. How much, at what point in your life did you realize the right ways, whether or not you're where you want to be? I'm sure you're not. In terms of your practice, of the ways are these things you developed over years, did you have a eureka moment and bust out like three dozen of them?
- [40:38]
B
No, it's over the years. And honestly, a lot of it came from, you know, I. When I came out of college, you know, and, you know, you and I are the same age, like I did, you know, I came from a small town, went to school. Not. Not far from where I grew up. I went, I'm a. I'm a Longhorn. And when I came out of college, the Internet was just, like, just beginning to be a thing. I didn't know, like, you could actually. I thought there was, like, one path to success, right? You. You get a degree, you go into the corporate world, you work your way up. And I'm an artist at heart. I've never been cut out for the corporate world, but I was really good at faking it, and I faked it my way all the way to the top and was never happy the whole time. But what it allowed me to do, I'm a pretty astute observer. So I look at and I judge things by the results, by the fruit. And so I saw what worked and what didn't. And the ugly truth is, in the corporate world, especially in the upper echelons, like, I was in the C suite, and 100% of those guys are miserable. I'm being a little bit exaggerating a little bit. But I'd had these guys come to me because at least I had my climbing and I had other things going on in my life. They'd be like, what are you doing, Kevin? To be happy, because I'm worth $50 million and I'm miserable. And it's surprisingly common. It's a quality problem to have at least they've got the money. But it was just observing what works and what doesn't and then slowly developing sort of this point of view about life that resulted in these 55 things.
- [42:18]
A
I think one of the trickiest things, and certainly I struggle with it, is understanding the difference in appreciation between more and enough is a really tough measure. And again, easy to say, you got to move away from more. Because the eternal quest for more is just that. It's eternal and realize enough. And people will put it a million different ways. You know, it's not about what you want. It's about appreciating what you have. You know, we all heard all the same Hallmark saying, but easy to say, hard to do, but I feel like you really grab that spirit in the 55 rules. And I love. I haven't seen anything like this since that guy was dying and wrote that. That. The guy who wrote the. The. The. The speech for the graduates.
- [43:15]
B
I know what you're talking about. That's. That was a while back. Wow.
- [43:17]
A
Remember that guy?
- [43:18]
B
Yeah.
- [43:19]
A
Yeah. So I remember how that, like, that, like, overtook the media. Why? Because we're desperate for the way we're desperate you know, whether it's religion or philosophy or in, you know, in our society, fads, trends, quick fixes, you know, we're desperate for understanding. And I just think it was a real gift you gave people, and I was so happy to connect with you.
- [43:43]
B
Thank you so much. This has been a super fun discussion, and thank you for recognizing the work. And, yeah, I'm a. I'm now. I've become a Chris Cuomo fan now. Wow. Sounds like we've got a lot of things in common.
- [43:56]
A
Well, I certainly aspire to a lot of the things that you are. So, Kevin Dahlstrom, thank you very much. I appreciate you. I look forward to what comes next. And I'll probably be hitting you up about both health, because I got to get to a better place. So thank you for being with us.
- [44:16]
B
Appreciate it.
- [44:22]
A
You gotta love it because it's working for him. And the science is simple. Everybody knows, especially 50 plus fitness people. We all know it's what you can't control that you gotta figure out. And that is definitely about hormones. More so than diet, more so than training. It's what's happening inside your body and what can you do about it. So Kevin Dahlstrom is definitely on the right path with that, but I get why it went so viral and it's continuing to grow. His 55 reasons may have been tailored to his age, but, man, do they work for every stage in your life. I hope you check them out, and I hope that that meant as much for you as it did for me. I'll check you out on Substack, where I'm doing my wellness stuff, where I benefit from people like Kevin, my wife Christina, who has her integrative nutrition business Purist. And I'm talking to you about my workouts, my food practices, what's working and what isn't. And there are opportunities in there to subscribe in ways where you can get more access to me that is coming. And I'm all about us spreading the good word. Be a critical thinker. Show that you are different. Show that you are a free agent. That's why the merch is there, so that we can crowdsource contributions to causes we believe in. Gave away like 30 grand this year of money that came from you guys. I'm not doing it to put in my pocket. I'm doing it to put into the pockets of people that we all respect. So I'll see you on News Nation 8p every weekday night. Thank you very much for checking me out on social media. And of course, the Chris Cuomo project. Spread the word. Let's get people to subscribe to YouTube and become part of this conversation. The problems are real. Our approach has to stay the same. Let's get after it.