← The Human Upgrade: Biohacking for Longevity & Performance
The Human Upgrade: Biohacking for Longevity & Performance
Jordan Harbinger: Fight-or-Flight, Two Kidnappings, and the Wallet Ruining Your Spine : 1499
01:08:35
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A
You're listening to the Human upgrade with Dave Asprey. Have you ever promised yourself you would do things differently only to end up right back in the same pattern? The same relationship, the same habit, the same reaction, the same result? Predictive mind helps explain why you complete an assessment and then review the results in a one on one session. Their brain pattern mapping process reveals the hidden drivers behind your behavior and decision making so you can finally see what has been shaping your choices all along. This goes beyond personality tests and self help advice. Predictive mind maps the patterns that influence how you react, how you make decisions and why certain cycles keep repeating in your life. Once you can see the pattern, you can start changing it. If you've ever felt stuck, frustrated or confused by your own behavior, check this out. Go to PredictiveMind IO Dave and use code DAVE for 10% off your brain pattern mapping session. You're losing hair on your head and collagen in your skin right now, even though you probably can't see it yet. That process speeds up as you age and it doesn't reverse on its own, but you can intervene at the cellular level. Studies show that specific wavelengths of red and near infrared light will stimulate your hair follicles and that does support collagen production. Irestore has been making red light therapy devices that actually work for over two decades and with their summer savings event, it's the perfect time to upgrade your hair and skincare. The Irestore Elite is their most advanced laser hair growth system using 300 lasers and 200 LEDs which helps you regrow thicker, healthier hair in about three months. And it is really easy to use. You can wear it while you're working, while you're reading or unwinding at night. And The Illumina Face Mask360 medical grade LEDs can turn red, infrared or even blue light at the same time to target all of your different skin concerns. Just 10 minutes a few times a week gives you brighter, smoother and healthier looking skin. I've been using the Irestore Elite and the Illumina Face mask while I work at home but not on video and they fit into my normal routine with no extra time cost. I really like it because I don't lose any time when I use it. Irestore is so confident you'll love their products that they give you a 12 month money back guarantee. That's because it actually works. You will see more hair. Irestore is kicking off their summer savings event with some huge discounts on their red light therapy Devices you can save on customer favorites like the Irestore Elite helmet and the Illumina face mask. Just head to irestore.com, use code Dave to take advantage of the sale. That's daverestore.com Please support the show and tell them we sent you. Give your hair and skin the upgrade they deserve so you can feel confident and refreshed. Today's cool fact of the day is that when most people think of psychopaths, they think of people like Hannibal Lecter or Jeffrey Dahmer. But not all psychopaths are violent criminals. In fact, most of them aren't. Some of the most successful and charming people in the world today are psychopaths and they use a combination of persuasion, manipulation, deceit and chameleon like abilities to get people to do whatever it is they want. Another interesting fact is that a disproportionate number of CEOs, lawyers, entertainers, sales professionals and of course politicians have psychopathic tendencies. Today's guest on the show is a guy who knows is a guy who knows a thing or two about psychopaths. Just kidding. I bet you had that intro, Jordan. By the way, this is Jordan Harbinger, very successful podcaster who runs the Art of Charm podcast who studies charm. And not all people who are charming are psychopaths. In fact, few of them are. But still, I thought it was a great intro for you, Jordan.
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B
Yeah, thanks. Jordan Harbinger, part time psychopath here.
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A
Jordan's podcast, the Art of Charm gets about 2 million downloads a month, maybe 2 and a half million. Another thing that's interesting that Jordan does and the reason we've got him on the show today is that he runs the Art of Charm boot camps where he teaches people about relationships, business, networking and self confidence. And as you'd expect for a guy with his level of visibility, he's been in all the big media things like Huffington Post and Men's Health and Details magazine. And the cool thing we're going to talk about this on the show is that he's so charming, he talked his way to freedom during two different kidnapping attempts, which is kind of legit.
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B
They were actually successful kidnappings.
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A
Oh, you were kidnapped?
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B
Yeah, yeah, twice. So it's funny because attempts. I'm just like, at what point does it not become a kidnapping anymore? I don't know, but we can explore that.
- [04:44]
A
Well, I was going to ask you. We're going to talk about resolutions and how to get things you want into your life and how to build them in. Because you spend a Lot of time thinking about that. And we're really gonna focus mostly on the most popular New Year's resolution, or at least the most popular ones, according to A.C. nielsen. WHO measures this crap? And I'm gonna ask you how an average person can achieve those goals. But before then, how can an average person talk their way out of two kidnappings? Yeah, tell me the story. Sure, we'll just go there.
- [05:13]
B
So the first story, I'll shorten them both up so we don't take up the whole show. But basically, the first kidnap story, I was 20. I'm 36 now, so to put that in context. So 16 years ago, I was in Mexico City, and I worked for a nonprofit. And this. I lived in, like, a crappy area, kind of like a barrio type place, and I lived on, like, the roof of a house that was kind of not finished and stuff. And I lived with his family. And I got into a taxi, and it turned out to be a fake taxi. And the reason I'm. One of the reasons I'm still here is because nobody had mobile phones in 2000. Really? Especially in Mexico City. It was just kind of not a thing. Most people didn't have cell phones. And so the guy was trying to drive to an area where he had, I assume, had reinforcements or other people waiting for him to show up. So they could probably get in and take people who he had had thrown in the car or maybe just rob them or beat them up, whatever. And he. At that point, I was. I had been working out a lot. I was doing at that point what we now call mma. So, you know, ground fighting and boxing and stuff like that. And we just called it. We just called it kihome, which is like some Japanese word for basic. And I was 20, so I've been lifting weights every day. And this guy was probably, like, 50, and he'd been driving a cab every day. So you can imagine the difference in our physiques. But I couldn't get out of the car because you know how sometimes the cars, old cars especially, it's a VW Bug. So the locks on old, crappy cars, they kind of the plastic parts ripped off, so they go below the door or the window frame, I guess you would say. So I couldn't just, like, pull the lock up. And so when the lock. The doors were locked, I was like, I'm stuck in this car unless I bash this auto glass or maybe not auto glass, this plate glass. And then what? Reach out and then the door still locked. So I was like, what am I going to do. And I told him to turn around. He wouldn't turn around. I told him to let me out. He wouldn't let me out. So at the next light, I was. He sort of had slowed down, and I was like, look, let me out of this car. And he goes, no, no, no. My friend's house is right up here. So he starts to pull over in front of these, like, shady, gross buildings. And I was like, don't get out of the car. Don't get out of the car. And I put my arm between him and the door, thinking, you know, what if he just bounces out of the car? And he. He made a fast one for the door. He didn't know my arm was there, so I just reached around the seat and just basically reached entirely around my. My arm and pulled in and just kind of like smothered him with my forearm, basically. And. And then he stopped moving for a minute. I had to crawl between the two front seats because I still couldn't get out of the car. I had to crawl between the two front seats, open his door, push him out, get out, tried to get the. Tried to get the keys and drive the car. I didn't know how to drive a stick shift, especially a stick shift that had been manufactured in 1968. So I was trying. I mean, I could drive a nice, you know, Ford Mustang or something, but I wasn't about to be able to figure out, you know, how there's a trick with a clutch. Every car that's over 10 years old has a trick, maybe even 5 years old. I couldn't figure this out. And I was. Adrenaline was going crazy. And as you know, just from your studies, when there's enough adrenaline, you couldn't probably do the Alphabet, so let alone figure out how to do a stick while you're being, you know, trying to make sure nobody's coming out. So I ended up not being able to do the car thing. Took the keys out of the ignition and chucked them so that they couldn't chase me in the car and just ran. And I don't know how far I ran, but it seems like some kind of half marathon. And I'm running it and like, Banana Republic chinos and stuff till I get to a main road, and then I'm trying to flag down cars, but I'm drenched in sweat. I'm a white dude in Mexico City. At the time, I had fake, like, dyed blonde hair because I was 20 and I was an idiot, and. And I did that to myself. So nobody would stop. And I just kept thinking, like, I'm not. I'm. You know, what if these guys come back? So finally, someone stopped and took me to a metro station because they were just like, what are you doing here? Because I was dressed really nicely. I just looked like crap because I'd been running, and I was clearly super scared. So I think they just realized, like, all right, this guy's in the middle of the hood. And this doctor had stopped with who I thought was his daughter, but now I think is probably his girlfriend, actually, she was like, one third of his age. And she's like, we can't just leave him here. Because I was in the middle of the hood. And then. So. So they took me. So I didn't talk my way out of that one. That was a brute force method.
- [09:32]
A
You smothered your way out of.
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B
Smothered my way out of it. The second one that I had was I worked as an English teacher in the former Yugoslav Republic of Serbia. And so I live. Not Siberia, but Serbia. A lot of people get those two things confused. So Yugoslavia, Macedonia, whatever. In fact, we still called it Yugoslavia in 2005, and that's the name it had on maps. And in those countries, you have to register with the police wherever you go, because they're socialist and they want to keep tabs on everybody, and they don't have, you know, pesky freedom getting in the way of authoritarian rule. So I decided, you know, I'm. I can do that. But it became more and more of a pain because you have to go to the police station. You got to wait at the police station, you got to register at the police station, and the police were total jerks about it every time they treat you like a criminal. And one time I was there really late at night because you got to register, like, the day you get in. And I'd gotten in at 11. So I was sitting there at, like, 1:30am and instead of doing the paperwork, they just kind of decided, oh, you must be a criminal because you're here so late, so you're going to jail. So they threw me in jail with a bunch of, like, Roma women who. Like, AKA gypsies, which I think is not a nice term for that. So I'm not sure, but most people
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A
are okay with calling themselves they might.
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B
So do I. I just don't want anybody to be like, how dare you? But technically Roma.
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A
So we're both offending people inadvertently because.
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B
Yeah, exactly. So I'm in prison or in jail, I should say, with them. And they're chain smoking and like yelling and talking the whole night. And I thought, this is the last time I'm going to voluntarily register. So I stopped doing that. So they started looking for me thinking, like, this guy's some kind of spy. And they. I ended up on state security radar because I was not registered with the police. But my job as an English teacher, the people paying my salary was the U.S. department of Defense. So they were like, oh, he's definitely a spy. This is a cover. And then they found me and my buddy. And my buddy was. His dad was a war criminal in the former Yugoslavia. So he had, like fallen out of favor with, you know, the current folks. And he lived in Italy and his stepdad was like Saddam Hussein's lawyer. So this guy was kind of all, you know, had some weird connections to the country that were no good. And he happened to live in this building where this arms dealer had been busted a couple weeks prior. And they found like, RPGs, and so his address was kind of all over the news. And they just thought, like, when the police eventually caught up to us at a festival, and they thought, we got this guy who lives in the arms dealers building, and then we got this guy who's supposedly an English teacher who's not registered with the police, like, this can't just be a coincidence. So they took us and they were taking us through the. Out the. Off the festival island, which was in this old Turkish fortress. Speaking of Game of Thrones, it looked a lot like that. And they started yelling at us, and they were really, really aggressive. But they were also kind of like drugged out because their cops there are. They're state security officers. It's not like this professional FBI, state security, CIA types. They're kind of just like. A lot of them are just kind of like these deadbeat war criminals from Bosnia that got relocated to Belgrade or wherever or Novi Sad. And so these guys, they were not thinking logically. So I was like, all right, I gotta. I pulled in a lot of AOC Art of Charm principles. Like, get them emotionally reacting in a different way. Because they were kind of like, America bombed us. You're. You're a spy. And I was like, well, all right, I gotta re. Reguide their emotions to something more calm. And then redirect them, not re guide. I need to redirect them somewhere more calm. So I started talking about like, yeah, that, you know, America, it's full of shit and all that, you know, agree with them and then bring it down a couple notches. Where I go, you know, and, you know, I love living here. It's amazing. It's so fun. I love the food and, you know, the food and the drinks, because I felt, all right, these guys are slightly overweight and they're drunk. So food and drink, they're probably huge fans. So we started talking about those things. And of course my friend is all pulling the whole like, do you know who I am? Kind of thing, or do you know my dad is. That didn't work as well. And so they took us to this safe house. They were still like, basically beating the snot out of my friend. And they were talking with me more about Serbian culture and food and sort of trying to discern whether or not I was actually a spy or just actually a teacher, which I was. And I started every emotional topic I brought back down to a logical level. So if it was like, you bombed us, you guys are fuckers or whatever, I would just go, all right, you know, actually what we. What we do is this. Or here's this other way that we operate, or, you know, here's this, here's what I'm doing. I'm teaching English to refugees. And they're just kind of like, this is bs And I would. I'd say call my boss, you know, and so they would be on my phone and I just kept them thinking. And I kept them thinking, kept them talking, because once people get emotional, they can get out of control and things can escalate. And what. That's why you see crowds going insane over stupid stuff like sports or not, or even non trivial stuff like elections. You see people who are normally just quiet, sitting in the corner, doing paperwork, lighting police cars on fire, right? Because they're just so emotional. So I tried to keep them out of that state as much as possible. And after a while, I had been talking about food, politics, and really keeping this guy in a logical headspace. And eventually I asked for some water. And since we were in this place where there were like broken and rusty pipes coming out of the basement, I knew that he would have to go upstairs to get water. And he went upstairs. I heard nothing for a while. And then I heard him actually get in the car and drive away thinking, like, maybe they had to go buy some water. And you're probably thinking like, well, what do they care whether or not you have water? And the truth is, we got them. I should say I got the guy who was interrogating me to at least respect me enough as a human, because we were like, really sick and I was still bloody and stuff from earlier, stuff. So they were like, all right, you need to take care of this. I was like, look, I need to be in good condition. I have a meeting with the foreign minister tomorrow, like, you know, dropping some things that. That said, look, I'm going to be missed. And also, I'm connected with people in government in your country. And luckily, one of my students was the interior minister at one point and also a representative to the un So I was able to drop his name, and they were kind of able to go, who is this? Can we verify this? And. And it was. It was interesting because even my own student couldn't do anything to get me out of that situation and couldn't help me after that situation. But he was able to verify that, you know, this was a government. This was. These were government guys. And so after they got in the jeep and bounced me, I dragged my friend out of there and we essentially re escaped these guys and got re arrested by regular police who didn't believe a word of what we were saying until they verified that we did have. We were in a black Jeep with government plates, with tints. And, you know, here's the guys, what they looked like and everything. And they found them later, and they couldn't do anything. The police actually found them, and all they did was get our phones back and my hat. So. But. But it was very lucky. My friend had puncture wounds all over his body from needles that they were, like, jabbing him with. He had bleeding, he had burns, so he had to go to the military hospital for four days.
- [16:49]
A
So he was like, seriously tortured. Wow. And it sounds like they beat you up, but you. You still stayed calm.
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B
It was about staying calm and about redirecting the con to a logical level. Because it's really hard to get upset and emotional when you're also trying to solve a problem with your brain.
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A
It's totally true. And there's ways you can practice that, right? If your light environment isn't dialed in, your biology isn't either. And if you're not using light as a performance tool, you're leaving results on the table every single day. The right light wavelengths unlock recovery energy and clarity in ways most people never tap into. EMR Tech's Krypton UV line puts that power in your hands. With red near infrared, uva and UVB all in one system, they have something for everyone. From the compact Krypton Micro and Mini to the modular 606 watt and 1612 watt, each device lets you choose your wavelengths. Your timers and how deep you want to go with your setup. I personally use the Ultra. It's a beast. Full body coverage, built in timers, and high output light from premium components. Whether you're syncing your circadian rhythm or designing a pro level light environment, EMR tech lets you scale it your way with precise control. Go to emr-tek.com Dave and use code Dave for 40% off. Your doctor said your labs look normal. Okay, then why don't you feel like yourself? Why are you exhausted all the time? Why has your body stopped responding to the things that used to work? That's why Gatlin exists. Gatlin is a physician LED optimization program for people who know something is off even when the conventional system says everything looks fine. It's also for people who want more energy, better recovery, better sleep, and long term performance. Because the current system often waits for disease, Most people get 10 minutes with a doctor, a basic blood panel, and a vague everything looks normal even when they still feel off. Gatlin does things differently. You speak with a licensed medical provider, you get comprehensive labs, and depending on your needs, your plan may include hormone support, thyroid support, peptide therapy, and longevity focused care personalized around your actual biology. Not one size fits all medicine. Feeling off shouldn't be dismissed just because it's common. Start your journey today@gatlin.com Dave and use code Dave. That's G a t l a n.com Dave. Code Dave. I. I did the urban escape and evasion course.
- [19:22]
B
Oh, with Kevin. Who's. Who taught that course?
- [19:27]
A
That was Kevin Reeve.
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B
Yeah, Kevin Reeve. I took that same course exactly.
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A
Nice.
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B
Yeah. Afterwards. Two years, five years too late, I guess, but.
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A
Oh, you took it afterwards.
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B
I took it, yeah.
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A
Afterwards. For listeners, this is a course you can, you can go through where they teach you what to do if you're kidnapped and like how to get out of handcuffs and how to know you're being tailed, how to tail people. And the final exam is they literally hood you, handcuff you, throw you in the back of a van, and you have to like escape and then run missions while a team of bounty hunters searches for you. And what made me think of this, Jordan, is you talked about how you ran like a half marathon. Yeah, when I escaped. You have this kind of adrenaline. And I remember this time where I was kind of freaking out a little bit. And really, you're not in danger. If they kidnap you again, they just drop you off, but you have no money, you have no cell phone, you have no way to do anything. You just have to socially engineer everything. And I'd met with one of the other people who'd been kidnapped, and we were plotting and scheming to try and stay free and to run these little missions. And this is in Santa Monica, which is a pretty nice part of town, really, but you're still kind of scared, and you have no way to get across town. And I was like, okay, I think they spotted me, and I just hightailed out of there. And when I finally hooked up with people, I was like, six miles away. And I don't even know how I got six miles away, but you get that adrenaline. And I had a little costume with me, like a red knit cap and a fake ponytail. And what really stood out for me is one of the guys who had military training was like, oh, okay. And our job was to go talk to the guy wearing the black hat at the bus stop. And two of the people at the bus stop are bounty hunters. And you can see them. And you're like, how could I run this mission? So I'm, like, hiding and running away. And he shows himself wearing the red hat. And then they come to chase him, and he goes into a store. He's like, hey, can I go out the back? He goes around, does the mission, and he's totally cool. And I was, like, about to shit myself.
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B
Oh, very cool. That's a good plan, right? He distracted them, and the other guy stayed there.
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A
But it just took a level of rational stuff. I was already too adrenaline and too, like, not logical to even formulate a plan. So I learned a lot about. About myself that way. And I didn't have the real threat of torture. Like, like, you experienced well or knew that. But, man, it was a learning experience for me in a big way.
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B
It was a cool course. I'll tell you, I got caught a bunch during that class. And the reason I got caught a bunch, I think. I mean, it's easy to blame other people, but I didn't have a good plan for. For most of my, like, hiding if they were chasing me. I remember I tried to watch a Little League game, and the coach was like, can I help you? And I was like, I'm hiding from a friend of mine. And he was just like, nah, this is too weird. This is a Little League game, bro. So I got caught then, and I thought that was kind of a cool plan. And I. They put me with this. Really? Speaking of fitness, health, and nutrition, they put me with this one guy who was. It was. There was a bunch of FBI guys There was a bunch of like security guys, police officers, and then there was one kind of armchair, you know, prepper guy. But he was. And I thought for prepper, listen, buddy, if you're preparing for the apocalypse, he was at least 100 pounds overweight. And when we had to, you know how they lock you in the truck and, or the van and then they leave the van to go to Home Depot or whatever it is and you escape the cuffs and you get out of the van. This guy walked maybe half a mile with me at a very slow pace before basically just tapping out. And at the end of the course, Kevin told me, he goes, look, you know, we knew that was going to happen and you did better than we thought you did. We're going to do. Because the equivalent of this is having an injury victim or a small child with you who just can't keep up the whole time. Because this guy was. I would get caught trying to save this guy a half dozen times throughout that course.
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A
How frustrating.
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B
It was frustrating. And eventually I started to get a little angry about it. And then I thought, wait a minute, this is the test for me, right? Not can I hide from people at a juice bar in Santa Monica. It's going to be much more about can I deal with the person who's dragging me down. Because in a real life situation it will be the fact that there's somebody who's got an injury, like my friend was in Serbia or maybe you're with your wife and she has a busted ankle. You're not just going to get mad and yell at that person. You have to deal with that. What if it's an 8 year old kid? So it was a really good test for me to go through that with somebody who really didn't. Was not ready for this at all.
- [24:03]
A
It's something that I didn't think we'd get into this detail on, but something that listeners will appreciate that idea of like, how do you maintain control of yourself in an emergency like that? I learned a ton just by realizing I was teamed up with some other people too. And it's pretty darn emotional when your nervous system believes that you have a threat to your survival. You rationally, you know, like, I'm in Santa Monica, I paid these guys, like there's no real risk, but it doesn't feel that way at all. And you really quickly get sucked into it. So it's one of my favorite experiences for just looking at sympathetic activation, fight or flight response and just realizing you think you're in charge, but you're so not.
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B
Yeah. It also one thing that brought up for me sort of parallels what you were just talking about with the sympathetic activation is after that class, I thought, what about people who are on the run for like a month or a year? Your level of adrenaline would. Would take weeks. I mean, you would wake up most days probably going, oh, my God. Oh, wait, I'm okay. I'm safe. Wait, look out the window. I mean, your whole life would be. You would age twice as fast, easily, because you'd be activated the whole time. Your adrenal glands would be shot. I mean, speaking of adrenal fatigue and entrepreneurs, imagine being on the lam.
- [25:23]
A
I walked into one. I was trying to hide from these bounty hunters. I walked into one tire store, and I had, like, this weird knit hat and these sunglasses, and there were like, three people staring at me. And I was like, maybe they're bounty hunters. Oh, my God. I'm like, they're gonna find me. And they were staring at me because they thought I was a celebrity, because I was like, I had that weird. Like, I was clearly trying to hide what I look like.
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B
Right, Right.
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A
So, like, who is that guy? And it was just so surreal. But I would recommend anyone listening ever get a chance to do one of those classes where you really push your limits like that? It's not a prepper thing at all. And plus, it's cool to know what to do if someone's gonna try to kidnap you. Short answer is yes, you should not get in the car. Do everything possible. You know, kick ass, make a lot of noise.
- [26:06]
B
That's right.
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A
You're probably gonna die.
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B
That's right. It's Gavin de Becker. Gift of fear. Says, never go to the secondary location. And what that means. And that's the thing that essentially saved. And I saw that on Oprah when I was a kid watching with my mom. And no judgments. And so I was in this Mexican taxi, fake taxi. And I remember going, oh, my God, we're totally on the way to the secondary location. So first mistake was getting in the car. I thought it was a taxi. I mean, what are you gonna do? But the second mistake that I avoided narrowly was my mind really wanted to go. You're fine. This isn't. Look, he's kidnapping you. No, he's probably. Does really just need directions. And then your other logical brain goes, he's a cab driver in Mexico City, and you wanted to go down next to the presidential palace. If he doesn't know where that is, what are the odds of a cabbie in Washington, D.C. not knowing how to get to the White House. Zero. Right. So if he says he needs directions and you feel like something else is up and he won't let you out and he won't turn around, he's not really taking you where you want to go. He's. This is bs. You're kidding yourself. And that was sort of the trigger that I needed, along with that advice. Never go to the secondary location. That was the trigger I needed to go, okay, snap out of it. It's not just going to be okay if you bury your head in the sand and, you know, look out the window or whatever I was doing. So that's what caused me to take action. And I think that possibly saved my life. Like, looking back on it, 50, 50 chance. Whether or not I was just gonna get taken to 15 different ATMs and then dumped out when my card froze. But. Or. Or chopped up into little pieces and sold, I don't know. I mean, who knows? You never know. You don't really want to find out.
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A
I hear you have some really nice kidneys. That's all I'm saying.
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B
Yeah, they're clean. You know, I drink a lot of tea. I stay hydrated.
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A
Now, you talked about this, this overweight guy who really couldn't take care of himself when you were doing that training. It turns out that more than half of people are obese. I used to be 100 pounds heavier.
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B
Wow.
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A
And so I've definitely dealt with that. And a lot of my work is like, how do you get control of your biology that way? Not just the fight or flight response.
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B
Sure.
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A
But the New Year's resolution, that's number one. At least it was number one last year was what was lose weight. Like, I want to lose weight. You search Google for diet, you'll get 100 results. Half of women are on a diet at any one time. 90% of dieters don't lose the weight they want to lose. And in fact, they usually gain it back because of some hormonal things that I've written about. But what's your recommendation for someone who wants to get their weight loss goals?
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B
Sure. So I'm not a weight loss and fitness expert, so I just want to qualify that.
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A
No, this is about doing what you want to do, doing what you say you're going to do, not about what techniques are to use. So I'm not saying more fat or whatever, right?
- [29:00]
B
Yeah. Because I'm like, I don't know. So. But the truth of the matter is, whenever I'm trying to Change any habit, for example, weight loss or otherwise. I always try to use my own psychology against me. And so it's about equal part. Well, I shouldn't say equal parts. Some parts. Equal parts does sound clever. So equal parts, how's that? Self awareness and putting in systems to use your own psychology against you. So for example, when I was running, which I now just dislike, strong dislike, but I cycle instead, what I would do, especially when I lived in Michigan instead of California and it was freaking freezing outside most of the year, I would say, all right, I will get out of bed and I will put on all my workout gear, on my running gear. And if I want to go back to bed after that, then I can. And then after that I would usually go running. And then when it got really hard because it was cold as hell outside and I knew it, or if that stops working because I know, you know that trick of putting on your clothes, getting out of bed and making it happen, that trick might stop working. I would go, all right, I'm gonna put on all my stuff and then step out onto the front porch, step and feel that cold air and take three deep breaths. And then if I want to go back to bed, I can. So I kept escalating it until I got. Until I reprogrammed my brain to realize, ooh, runner's high is so fun versus, ugh, getting out of bed sucks. Right? So it was avoiding the pain of not getting that runner's high became greater than the pain of getting out of bed. And that was a critical.
- [30:30]
A
You became an opiate addict. Basically.
- [30:32]
B
Basically became an opiate addict. Self generated opiate addict. And I use little, little things like this all the time. Where for example, I, I wanted to start getting up earlier and not like 4am Crazy stuff, but getting up, you know, at 6 or 7, just like a normal productive person. I don't. Are you one of those get up at 3am Type of people?
- [30:53]
A
I think that there's something we talked about what sociopaths or psychopaths are like. They wake up at 3am that's just all I'm saying. Really.
- [31:02]
B
Oh, good. Well, I wake up at six or seven, sometimes eight, so I'm way less psyched.
- [31:07]
A
You're more even keeled there.
- [31:09]
B
Exactly.
- [31:09]
A
This Hal Elrod guy in Miracle Morning, I don't know. These early morning people, you got to look at them a little bit quicker.
- [31:15]
B
A scan how.
- [31:16]
A
Love you, man.
- [31:16]
B
Askance. Yeah, yeah, we can't pick on Hal right now. He's going through so much.
- [31:22]
A
But I just Texted him this morning that. That's why I've given him a shout out.
- [31:25]
B
No, I know, I. He's. Man, he's the one guy who can get cancer. And everyone goes, of course now you're going to use that to your advantage. You get all the breaks.
- [31:35]
A
Like, I'm going to kick its ass.
- [31:37]
B
Yeah, Hal gets all the breaks.
- [31:38]
A
He does indeed. And by the way, if you're listening, you don't know about Miracle Morning, you should check it out, pick up his book or get in touch with him. And if you haven't heard, Hal's been really public about it. He had a rare form of leukemia and he's totally winning it right now. But he does wake up really early in the morning, which is why, even though I like Hal, I always keep one eye on him. Because you never know these early morning people, right?
- [32:00]
B
Had to get the rarest form of leukemia. Couldn't get regular leukemia. Hal, come on, buddy. Always gotta be different. And yeah, he's kicking his butt more than anybody that we could possibly. That I know for sure. So. So what I'm saying with the waking up early stuff, aside from picking on hell with this, was I knew that. And I just know from my college days, it's really easy for me to look at the clock at 6 and go, well, I didn't go to bed early enough like I thought, so I'm really tired. I can move my stuff on my calendar around and make all kinds of crazy gymnastic leaps to not getting up. But I study Chinese in the morning and I have to schedule my lessons a week in advance. And if I cancel one, I can't just push it an hour. It just gets. I lose it, and it costs me money. So I scheduled all of those for first thing in the morning. Like get up, don't even shower, just crawl over to the computer and, you know, work on Skype. And so what that does is when I wake up and I look at the clock and I go, oh, but I'm so comfortable. I go, well, do I want to lose a Chinese lesson? Feel guilty about not doing the lesson, then sleep crappily for another 35 minutes and then get, no, that's gonna be awful. And so I created a pain point that was greater than the pain point of getting out of bed. And I do that in many areas. When it comes to eating, when it comes to getting up early, when it came to running, creating a pain point that is greater than the pain point of not. Of inaction is key because. And you've probably Heard this a million times. But seeking pleasure is much lower on the schedule of what your brain will force itself to do versus avoiding pain. So it's your brain prioritizes avoiding pain versus seeking pleasure. And so if we can set up, it's not enough to say, if I get up and work out this morning, I'll have a cake later or whatever, or I'll watch some Netflix. It doesn't work as well as going. You are going to face the following consequences immediately by not getting up. And that is the way to do it. Not by reward, which is counterintuitive for a lot of people.
- [34:06]
A
I became a 5am riser for two years before I had kids. And I did that just because I was like, I want to do it. I have since learned from Michael Bruce the power of Wen, who's been a guest on the show. There are four different chronotypes, and I am the night chronotype, which he calls a wolf, where my productive time is late and it's not biologically normal for me to get up at 5am but I did it for two years and I was just militant. Like, the alarm goes off at 5, doesn't matter what time I go to sleep. So eventually I started going to bed earlier because I was more tired. And I did shift. I'd wake up and meditate every morning. And it was, in my case, the pain of you feel really good when you do breathing exercises. I did some called Art of Living, which actually has a lot of similarities to what Wim Hof does. Like some different arm positions, but like really rapid counted breaths and things.
- [34:54]
B
And
- [34:57]
A
you get high from that in a good way. Like if it recharges your day. And it was same thing. It was like the pain of not getting that good, calm, emotional recharge because if I woke up later than five, I wouldn't have time to do it. That became like the cornerstone. And I did make the habit change, but now I don't do that anymore because I don't think it's what works great for my biology. So it's kind of a similar thing to what you did. Now. How do you apply that to someone who's said they're gonna lose weight and they're walking down the street and they see the ice cream store.
- [35:30]
B
Right.
- [35:30]
A
And they're either gonna go in or they're not. What's your habit change perspective on what you could do inside your head at that point?
- [35:37]
B
Yeah, I mean, I definitely used to be that guy. And what works for. For everyone else might not Work. It's a very individualized thing. With habit change and weight loss. However, the principles still hold. So the way that I typically do any sort of eating outside of what is sort of prescribed, like real healthy meals, and the food that I chose earlier when I wasn't in an emotional state, well, actually let me back up. So I choose food and meals based on, not based on emotional states. Unless I'm with friends and it's a weekend and we're like deciding we're going to go get whatever we want because that's, that's what we're doing it. You, what you don't want to do is choose what you're going to eat when you're in a hungry, cranky, rushed emotional state. And that's not always avoidable, but it is. You can plan around it. So instead of waiting until dinner time and going, oh, what should we do for dinner? Let's get some fried chicken. Because I'm hungry and I smelled fried chicken earlier and it's stuck in my brain. You want to have a plan for something that is healthy, that's outside of that. And the reason that you can stick to that plan is because you've already set up the logistics. It's not just a vague plan that you have in your head. It's got to be logistically handled. So it's kind of like not having snacks in the house, or not having cigarettes in the house, or whatever habits you're trying to break. You need to make sure that whatever you have that you plan to eat is either in the house or on its way. So if you're gonna, if you desperately need food and you only have a few minutes, you need to go on Postmates or whatever service you have, order something healthy. And then what I would normally do is say, look, if you still want the unhealthy option after you've had the healthy stuff, knock yourself out, go right ahead. And that's been very useful for me as well. If I'm with a bunch of friends and they're like, oh, we're gonna go eat this ice cream. Great, go ahead and eat all of the ice cream that you want. I'm just gonna have one bite from my girlfriend or soon to be wife's ice cream or whatever, I'll have that or we'll share this or I'll get the tiny, like baby portion where it's a half of one scoop or even just the tasters. And often after you get that taste, you go, yeah, I don't really want this. It's sugary. And the problem is, if you just ordered a double scoop of that, you will eat. If you're anything like me, you'll eat the whole thing because, well, it's kind of good, and I paid for it, so I don't want to waste it. But if you eat three tasters, I should say if I eat three tasters, like those little spoons, those little wooden tongue depressors, basically, that they give you with the ice cream on it, there's a 95% chance that after I have a couple of those, I go, yeah, I'm good on this. Like, I got the taste. The emotional need was filled, so I don't actually need to consume the product itself. Does that make sense?
- [38:18]
A
It does. And this is something people don't know. For two years, I worked at Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors scooping ice cream. And it's guys like you who come in and get samples and don't buy ice cream. No, I'm kidding. I actually did work at 31 Flavors, but I don't have any anger towards people who sample us and then run out the door. It's actually kind of funny.
- [38:36]
B
I mean, if it makes you feel any better, Baskin Robbins. The reason I do that is because at that point, my willpower has already been exhausted. And that's kind of an important point with any habit, weight loss or otherwise. The reason that you're not able to rely on willpower is because when you decide, I'm gonna eat healthy this week, look at the emotional state and the physical state that you're in. You probably just ate something that wasn't good for you. You're on a dopamine. You're at Cheesecake Factory, sitting there going, oh, man, we gotta get the check. Oh, you know, I'm gonna eat healthy for the rest of the week. You're not saying that when you're, oh, man, I skipped breakfast. I'm starving. Well, I'm gonna eat healthy this week. I already said I was gonna do that. Very unlikely you're going to make those willpower promises when you are in a different emotional state. You have to be very aware of the way that you react in different emotional states. Whether we're talking about hunger, whether we're talking about going to the gym, whether we're talking about some sort of nervous tic that you do when, you know, maybe you pick your eyebrows or your nails or whatever little nervous tics people have. They do this a lot when they're nervous. You have to be aware of what emotional state you're going to be in because you can't just say, I'm not going to bite my nails anymore. You can't do that. You can only do that when you've used your own psychology against you, which is creating those pain points and realizing that your willpower, whether or not it's finite, it doesn't really matter. There's sort of debate back and forth on whether or not willpower is finite, whether it's not.
- [40:03]
A
Yeah, there's debate.
- [40:04]
B
There's sort of back and forth on it, as you know more than I do. So we can't rely on it. The bottom line is you just can't rely on it. So you have to use systems. And that's why for people like me, I built a recording studio in my house. It's convenient, but also it gets me to do it. There's a gym across the street. I signed up to that one. Even though it's a big box gym, it doesn't have all the stuff that I would want. There's people there that sweat on things and don't clean up. It doesn't matter. The point is it is there and it's convenient enough. And that. And since that's my usual go to excuse, you know, time, which is what most people have, I took that excuse away from myself. So these systems are all about creating pain points and taking away your own excuses because eventually you will run out of the easy excuses. And then you start to realize, well, I don't really have time to go, well, the gym's across the street. Well, it's too expensive. No, it's not. It's $29 a month. Okay, well, let me think of another reason. Oh, my gym shoes are still damp from yesterday, so I can't know. Okay, you're going to then get another pair of gym shoes. Oh, well, you know, my pants are in the wash. And you just have to continue to take excuses away from yourself such that when you start going through the excuse process, you've eliminated all of the top excuses. And then you catch yourself in the middle of that excuse making process. So you go, all right, well, it's close enough. So I have time. I've already paid the membership. It's not expensive. I can get everything there done that I want. It might be crowded, but I have alternate workout plans to use the machines that nobody's going to use if I go there and the racks are full, which is another excuse. And then, so if you're trying to think your way around those excuses, it usually takes Enough time. And I'm talking about a few seconds where you go, oh, I'm doing that thing with excuses again where I'm not going to do this particular thing. Just like I was, where I was not doing my Chinese stuff because I'm so busy. It's like, no, it's scheduled, it's first thing in the morning. There's never anything over that other than sleep. So I actually have to get up and do it. And if you create those systems, you create those pain points and you start to systematically take excuses off the table, you'll start to do a lot more. But you have to do all of those things. You have to do all three things in conjunction or you won't actually get habit change. You'll figure out a way around it because the pain point of taking action will still be greater if the pain point is not in place. Does that all make sense?
- [42:27]
A
It makes wonderful sense. And what you're describing there is ego awareness. It's your ego that makes up all those excuses. When I do the 40 years of Zen neurofeedback program with clients, the whole thing is like using a lie detector. The neurofeedback there, well, not the whole thing, but a big part of it. To become aware that where those inner excuses come from and then change the programming that makes them happen. I was amazed at my ability to make up excuses. Just my powers of self deception are infinite. And it's the same thing. If you make it convenient, you build those systems. And I love your advice there for weight loss. Now you talk about systems a lot. On the art of charm. There's things like getting things done. GTD the action method, the pomodoro technique, Jerry Seinfeld's favorite called don't break the chain. What do you use to stay organized? And so I think everyone will benefit from this.
- [43:21]
B
Yeah, I do get a ton of email from people that say things like, okay, how do you do all this? And even when I hang out with people that you and I probably Both know, like CEOs of, I guess you'd call corporations where, you know, AKA companies that don't usually do all the business from their house or, or their house in one tiny office, these big corporations, these CEOs are going, how the hell do you do so much? And the truth is I have some fancy schmancy tools and tactics, but I also have some not so fancy tools and tactics that most people underutilize like crazy. And so the first thing that I will tell you, and this is where people Are like, oh come on, the calendar is magical. And I mean that people use the calendar in the wrong way. The way that most people use a calendar is they go, oh, your cousin's wedding is in May. All right, put it on the calendar. And they go, write that in there. And then they go, oh, this weekend we should go to the zoo. Alright, then maybe they write that on the calendar and then that's pretty much it. Or they write go to the gym 4pm and that's the only thing on their calendar and everything else is blank. But here's the problem. When you're an entrepreneur or when you're running a business, or when you're just a really busy parent with two kids or something like that, you can't just put the things that are aspirational or multi day affairs on the calendar. The way that I do it is I put everything on my calendar broken into 15 minute blocks. And so the way that it looks is. And I'm gonna look at my own calendar right now just to like not have to create things from memory here. So if I look at Tuesday the 29th, there's things on there like get RMA form for this device that I had to return. Chinese lesson record, advertisements for the art of charm, podcast record Minisode Mondays email schedule and there's three like random guest names in there. There's shower is on there and then there's a phone call and another phone call and another phone call. All 15 minute blocks. There's a lunch block on there so I can get some sanity, some recording. Somebody's interviewing me, a bike ride that's on there, checking my equipment to go go portable. Because I was going down to LA to interview Peter Diamandis from Love Peter.
- [45:36]
A
He wrote a blurb on my last book.
- [45:38]
B
Yeah, yeah. And the, the other things that are on there are all similar. Right. So as you can see, my calendar is loaded with things that most people would never put on their calendar. But here's the problem. Most people go, well, I can remember the few phone calls that I have to do or they're in my email inbox or they're on my to do list. Even if they're pretty much, even if they're more organized. Ish. And they have a to do list and they're checking things off. The problem is if things aren't, if things are not planned out in space and time, they won't happen because a to do list is just a bunch of magic tricks that will occur outside of the space time continuum at some Point, possibly. Right. And what we know is people have crap on their to do list that's like, write books and it's like, what? No. Or like, you know, do outline for next book. And it's like, that's a three day process, not something you squeeze in while you're waiting for your kid's karate lesson to finish in a parking lot. Right. So you have to put this stuff into the calendar because what that allows you to do is say, I can cross that off my to do list. Because it's getting done at 9am on Tuesday. And I know what people are going, I don't even know. My day is so flux, I can't put things down in the calendar. That's fine. You should still plan it and put it on the calendar. And then if it has to move, you know, you've guesstimated the amount of time that this is going to take. And you shuffle, you shuffle that block around in the calendar. What you find is that those 20 phone calls that you needed to make over the next month, if you're moving those in and out of your work schedule, your gym schedule, your kids schedule, your dinner and eating your food and your Chinese or whatever the hell you're doing schedule, you realize, holy crap, I can't do these 20 phone calls until the end of the month or the next month or something like this. And you start to not only figure out how much time your tasks are going to take, you start to actually knock them out because they're planned. So what's on the calendar gets done. And things that are on the calendar, they do not get done. You say no to those things. You say no to spontaneous random meetings. And since you're moving things from your to do list to your calendar, what that does for you as well is it starts to show you how little time that you have. Like, we all know we don't have enough time. Yeah, but it's one thing to be able to show yourself tomorrow. You really don't have time. Because if you say, sure, I'll do a lunch meeting and you go there and it takes an hour and a half instead of an hour, well, you, you realize in that moment that you screwed up. But if you've got it blocked off and you realize you only have a half an hour for lunch that day, you realize you have to say no to that meeting and it forces you to reprioritize. So using the calendar in this way forces you to not keep a huge to do list because they're taking up actual finite amounts of working and waking and living space in your brain and in your calendar. It also makes sure that you move things around to get them done. It also makes sure that you can protect your time against people that are intruding and it forces you to reprioritize. So if you're not using your calendar or a calendar in this way, you're probably dealing with a bunch of crappy problems that are very avoidable. And I used to be that guy who would wake up kind of whenever, do whatever work I needed to do, whenever I needed to do it during the day. And what I found, and this is in my 20s even starting the art of charm and the show and everything was yeah, you start work around two, after lunch and after the gym and then you stop working around five because people come over and you're like, eh, whatever. So you get two or three hours of work done a day instead of 10 and over time that stacks up.
- [49:12]
A
It's a life changing thing. My calendar looks just like yours. If there's any self care. Am I driving my kids to school that morning? All of the things, every little thing is on there. My lunch, if it isn't scheduled, I won't eat lunch. And I've trained my wife. I'm like, if it's not on my calendar, it doesn't exist. And, and by the way, don't ask me to remember. Like I don't keep my to do list in my head because it's in my calendar and I don't have a to do list. No, it's all in my calendar. I schedule it when I say I'm going to do it. And I have a team of admins who help me do this now because it's really stacked. But I'm growing a company. I write New York Times bestsellers. I have a top radio show. Like it's more than one person's supposed to be able to do. And it's because no minute gets wasted during the day. And it also means I that it's hard for people to keep up because how is that possible? I'm like, it's because I don't do anything that I'm not unique at doing. And every little thing's on the calendar. I'm so happy you said that. Instead of going into one of those techniques, I was a getting things done guy. And getting things done, you spend a lot of time filing things because there is a rational fear that's like, if everything isn't where I can find it, then I'll probably miss something. And if I miss something, it could be a really bad thing and therefore there's a stress response. You manage the stress response by filing things. I found just one day I woke up, I'm like, wait, I'm spending a lot of time filing things I don't really care about. And I have a search function in my email, so I don't file anything anymore. And it totally set me free. I'm like, I put the important stuff on my calendar and everything else. I'll search by keywords. And if I can't find something, I probably didn't need it that much. And if I really need it, it might take me two hours to find it. In the very worst case, that's not going to happen and it never does.
- [50:50]
B
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of people that you and I both know, I'm sure, that spend hours or they've got it down to a system now, but it's still way too much time filing emails in different folders. Their finder on their Mac or whatever has 8,000 different folders. You don't need that anymore because the search functions. In fact, they're designing OSS now so that you don't need to file things and that it does it intelligently for you. And there's even on your phone. Here's something I noticed yesterday. I wasn't paying attention, but my friend said, oh, what is your. What's your fiance look like? You know, I never met her. And I was like, oh, my God, that's right. It's never worked out in the past few years for. For them to meet. So I was looking like, how do I find a picture of Jenny? So what I did is I looked at my phone and I saw a tab that said people. And I was like, oh, I don't think I have folders for people because it seems like a huge waste of time. It's got face recognition, it finds people. And so it's funny because it's sort of, I guess, maybe not beta, but it's not perfect. So it has like Jenny with a bike helmet folder and Jenny without a bike helmet and like sunglasses. And then it's got me. And then some people who look a lot like me, who we always joke, look a lot like me. So it's great and it gets it mostly right, but it can't, you know, tell my cats apart, for example. But it's great because I could have spent hours over the past few years figuring out, oh, this is a picture of Jenny. I better tag it. It doesn't matter. They're trying to figure out how to do all that for you because they know that you're the exception when you're the one who does it manually. So searching for files on your computer, searching for email is the way to do it. People often will, especially CEOs and high performers will also get really hung up on being organized when. And I agree that organization in some ways is important. Like this calendar thing is great organization, in my opinion. It's an example of great organization. Having things decluttered on your desk is organization. Making sure that every receipt you ever have is emailed to you and then put in a separate Gmail folder is not organization. It's busy work. And the way to tell the difference is to ask if something saves you time right now or costs you time. And so the mistake that a lot of people make is they go, well, having all my receipts in one place will save me time if I ever get audited by the irs. Ah, but it's not saving you time right now. So you're spending the amount of time that it would take you to find everything. If you get audited by the irs, you're doing all of that time investment. Now, for something that has a very low probability, a low likelihood of ever happening, that's a bad investment. Because the consequences of not having that stuff filed is that you then have to do exactly what you've just spent the last three years of your life doing, right? The consequences is not. It's not life and death. If you're military, you plan for contingencies, even if they're really, really low likelihood, and it still costs you a billion dollars because, yeah, you gotta make sure that aliens can't attack or whatever the hell contingency they're coming up with, right? But if you're talking about organizational stuff, if you're talking about getting audited, if you're talking about creating folders on your desktop so that. Well, if I ever need to give my computer to my assistant, I can tell her how to find something. People will find excuses for this busy work. When I'll be honest, what your assistant's going to do is push the option space bar thing to pull up the search and say, what do you think that file is called? And you go, I don't know, like business letter template. Oh, here it is. It doesn't need to be seven nested folders deep. That's your ocd. Busy work. That's been really good for you. When you were in school, it was great in college, but now, in the age of computers, we have to let go of a lot of that stuff. And I know people are going, well, if my computer search fails, I'm going to have it all in nesting folders. You're just planning for a contingency that has an ultra low likelihood of ever happening. And you have to ask yourself, is that worth the upfront time investment? And the answer is almost always no. The answer is almost always no.
- [54:40]
A
Could not agree more. And it sets you free to do a lot more important, meaningful stuff. And for me, there's really two things I want to do with the time. I'm either going to go play with my kids and be with my wife and do family stuff, or I'm going to go do something that I think has the most impact on changing the world, changing the lives of millions of people, like disrupting big, bad processed food and things like that, like filing something. Just doesn't matter. What I do with receipts, I know I miss some of them. And I have an assistant I work with, which is really helpful, but I will not touch it twice. To me, that's a waste of time. So if I'm somewhere and there's a receipt that might be a business expense, I don't want to get beeping EPA all over my fingers, which is endocrine disrupting. Anyway, they coat all those receipts with this nasty chemical that basically mimics estrogen. So I literally.
- [55:29]
B
So you have your wife handle it. Here, honey, you take this.
- [55:34]
A
Well, I just. I literally. I get the receipt at the counter, I take a picture of it, and I go, here, I don't need it. And I touch it once and I take the photo. I don't know if I email all the photos to my assistant. If she needs one, she'll probably tell me. But they're like in my photo thing somewhere. And if I ever get audited, I'm sure I could find it. But the bottom line is I didn't have to put it in my wallet. I never had to touch it again. I didn't have to straighten out the receipt and scan it. None of that crap. Like, you could not pay me enough to do that.
- [55:58]
B
Well, we do wallet audits. When I go out with Entrepreneur Buddy, and you're probably next. When I see you at Mastermind talks, I'll do a wallet audit. I did this with Noah Kagan. I don't know if you're familiar with him. He owns.
- [56:07]
A
Yeah, no, it's cool.
- [56:09]
B
So we always victim. This is his idea. I'm not trying to take credit but we basically victimize everybody at the table, and we do wallet audits and. And it's, you know that Seinfeld, where George Costanza's like, it's a personal filing system and his wallet's that thick. We do. We do that, and we. And we find out. We talk logically about everything that's in everyone's wallet. And people have freaking, like, library cards in there. And I'm like, you have Internet, right? When do you go to the library? And they're like, oh, once with my kids. You know, I go like, once a month. When's the last time you went? June. Oh, really? June? Yeah. Of 2015. And you're like, get that thing out of there. Right? And you end up taking out cards. Well, this is my business card. This is my personal card. Great. No problem. And you can get things like coin or whatever, but, you know, you keep one or two cards in there, and people go, well, I have this Visa. Just in case this Visa, this other one doesn't work. And I'm like, look, man, you've got Apple Pay on your phone. You've got your cards saved in one password encrypted. So if. If people want your money, they can run that card manually. I go to Chipotle and I go, oh, my God, I don't have my wife wallet. Here's my number. They can enter that thing in manually. Every. Almost every merchant anywhere can do that. So you don't need three backup credit cards. And we do these audits, and I'll tell you, we get rid of stacks and stacks and stacks of cards in the wallet. And what it does, it sounds like no big deal, because who cares? You know, you got a thinner wallet, but there's multiple benefits from that one. You're not making as many decisions. Which payment method? How are you going to file this? Where do you put this? Is this business? Is this personal? Is this points activated? On this, you don't have to worry about that. You also don't have to worry about keeping things around. Like you said, you can do digital most of the time, but. And this is probably something you've covered, but I actually went to a doctor because my hips were so tight and screwed up, and my right hip was way worse. And they said, well, how are you sitting? And I go, well, I'm ambidextrous, so it's not really that one foot's always in front of the other. And they go, where did you keep your wallet? And I go, oh, snap. I keep my wallet in my right Freaking rear pocket. And the whole time I'm sitting down, I've got an inch and a half, you know, wedge underneath one of my butt cheeks. And my hip flexors had to over in my spine had to overcompensate for that. And that was an actual. I got a real health problem from having too many freaking cards in my wallet. It's a real thing.
- [58:30]
A
I gotta tell you. If people listening to the show only took one piece of advice from the whole show. Never carry your wallet, even if it's thin in your back pocket, front pocket, at least never sit on it, put it in your front pocket, it's harder to pickpocket, it's harder to slash and steal. But most importantly, your spine will curve if you sit on a wedge over and over because your butt and your molars basically control the curvature of your spine. And if either of them has a, an imbalance, you're not going to like how your body feels. Like it's such an easy thing. But. But yeah, if you have like 15 credit cards, you're not going to like it even more.
- [59:02]
B
Yeah. The wallet audit thing was a fun sort of productivity thing. And it was weird how I remember taking it out of my rear pocket. And I've been going back and forth from front pocket, rear pocket for years. But I'll tell you, most people don't like the way it looks in their front pocket. Whatever. So these entrepreneurs were saying, and I was saying the next day, how's your back? And people are like, you know what? This is the first day my back hasn't been sore in three years. I'm like, it's your stinking wallet. And people don't believe it because they're like, but the chair is soft and my wallet's only half an inch thick and it just doesn't matter. It was shocking to find out how many people have like life altering problems from keeping a stupid leather folio in their back pocket. It's ridiculous.
- [59:43]
A
This has to be the best biohack like to talk about changing the environment around use so you have control of your biology. How's this? Don't sit crooked all the time. Like it's, it's so simple. It absolutely matters. And the, the trick for the, the wallet in the front that I use, I just have a big tubular shaped wallet. So I carry that in the front. It solves the problem.
- [60:00]
B
It looks like a cucumber. Right? You roll up all your money and you put it in there.
- [60:04]
A
It's, it's a promote the vegan Diet. It's okay. All right, we're coming up on the end of the show, and I gotta ask you, how would you use the art of charm to get out of a speeding ticket?
- [60:18]
B
Oh, you know what? I do this. I don't get out of a lot of speeding tickets because I don't speed that much. But I've taught this, and I've done this a bunch. I was gonna say I do this a bunch, but maybe several years ago, the way that you do this, you can memorize these stars and bars. And if you just Google. In fact, I'm gonna try to find you a. A site with this, and I'll only spend a second on it. There's images that I used for a while. The problem is you can't just Google stars and bars because you end up with, like, Union Jacks. But if you. If you look for, like, military ranking chart or something like that, yeah, here it is. There's tons of images about this. Post one up someplace, and you'll find that you can look at things like the bars and the little chevrons that officers have. And if you greet them using that, they often feel a little bit. This is just pure and simple. Like, attracts, like, camaraderie. So you can say, like, hi, Sergeant, what can I do for you? And let them assume that you, you know, know cops or you're from a cop family. I often will get asked like, oh, are you an officer as well? And I say, no. I just. This is great. Jumping off point where. And I don't lie about this. I do actually volunteer for this, But I go, no, I just volunteer at a lot of Police Athletic League events, and I donate to my local PD when it comes to this kind of stuff. And, hell, I live in a weird neighborhood, so I call the cops a lot. And I figured I might as well know where you guys stand on the totem pole. And I'm saying this tongue in cheek. And they're often like, oh, well, then you be careful out there. And I teach this because the ranking thing, and then giving them a reason, because here's what most people do. They go, oh, I, you know, I donate a lot, or I volunteer a lot. I'm a good person. And they try to convince the cop not to do this. Or they act, like, indignant about it. Obviously, that won't work. Or they act emotional and they play victim. And cops are. They're so used to this that it's just so played out. In fact, I know a lot of guys and girls, officers of the law who really resent it if somebody just starts crying because they know they're being manipulated. Even when someone says, like, my husband's going to be so upset, they're like, oh, is he abusive physically to you? And if they're like, well, no, then they're like, well, then suck it up, honey. You know, like if the guy's really going to be. If it's a big problem, then it's a bigger problem that needs solving. But usually they just cut right to the chase and it's no, I know you're crying because you think I'm going to feel bad for you. And female, I've noticed my female cop friends, they just want to claw people when they do that because it's, you know, talk about being in a masculine profession. They don't want to see this kind of crap happen. So if you memorize the ranks and you engage them in that kind of sort of friendly way, they open the door for that. It's fine. But I'll tell you, you know what, even then you're looking at 50, 50 speeding ticket and cops are doing their job. There's no way, there's no magic trick to getting out of a ticket. Anybody who says, oh, I do this thing every time and I get out of a ticket, they're just lying. Cops are. They're supposed to give you a ticket. And frankly, if they're speeding, a bunch of you deserve one. Talk about setting up pain points to create different habits. That's what they're designed to do. They're negative incentives. So if you get them in a good mood, they feel a little sense of camaraderie. And you, they open the door to you talking about something that you've done ideally for them. And frankly, on that token, go out and volunteer for a bunch of cop stuff. Because if you get pulled over by somebody who you were just standing next to at the turkey part, the bake sale, or the, the turkey day trot thing, you know, that'll get you out of a ticket much more than anything I teach you right now ever would.
- [63:54]
A
Good point. Healthy relationships. My favorite police experience was somewhere in Southern California, out in the middle of the desert. I got pulled over and I was really respectful and nice, just non reactive and I ended up getting the ticket. But he knocked it down from whatever it was to whatever, some, some other amount. But at the end of it, he, he just looked at me and he goes, he goes, you're a really nice man. And he shook my hand. I'm like, all right, That's a win. It was sort of like people would act this way and you give them a ticket. What the hell? Because I'm like, look, my view on these things, which took me out of the anger and fight or flight mode, is like, tickets are a driving tax. The more you drive, the more the chance you have getting a ticket. It's set up that way. And the cops are just doing their job. They're just revenue enforcement. It's okay. And I would rather that they just increase my gas tax at the pump by 2 cents. And we didn't have to do the whole speeding dance thing. And only people who are really speeding. But it's not how it is. So you just accept that and you're like, ah, how's it going? I'm happy to pay my driving fee for this year. And then all the pain went away. And then I was able to be more calm. And then I think that they feel that. And then they're nicer to you and you're nicer to them and it works.
- [64:58]
B
Yeah, there's something to be said out there for understanding where people are coming from with it. Whenever police are. Being a cop is a job that I just wouldn't be able to deal with myself just cause it's so dangerous and you're constantly. It forces you to look at the world in a totally different way. So anything you can do to show that you understand that world a little bit will go a long way. Will it get you out of a ticket? Hopefully not, actually. But it should get you maybe you'll be only 10 under instead of 15 or 10 over instead of 15.
- [65:26]
A
Right, there you go. Well, now I do want to ask. I was going to ask you three questions, but we're coming up on the end of the show. So someone came to you tomorrow and said, look, I want to kick more ass at everything I do. I want to be better at everything. What are the three most important pieces of advice you have for me? What would you tell them?
- [65:43]
B
It would be focus on your relationships. And the reason is because you cannot do what an entire army of people can do, you can't learn on your own the way you could be taught by other people who are experts, knowledgeable in any field. You can't meet the amount of people that 10 friends of yours can meet. And so if you're focusing on your relationships and you're working really good closely with helping other people get what they want, the law of reciprocity will show them towards helping you get what you want. And that's sort of like an old Zig ziglar type of, maybe even Brian Tracy, some sort of old school wisdom there. And the way that we do this is by. And I'll be really specific with the focus on your relationships. I can give you three points that should cover you here. One is abg. So instead of abc, always be closing. It's abg, Always be giving or always be generous. And, and what I mean by that is if you write to me and you say, hey, do you know how I can get a faster server for my show? I will make an introduction to another person in my network and I will do that freely. I'll make several introductions. You have to do that. And a lot of people think, well, that's not, that's a crap tip. That's not a real tip. You'd be surprised how many people will think, well, I can't do anything with your server, so I really don't know. And they give up. Or I see a lot of this in networking circles and entrepreneur circles. Oh, I really need a graphic designer. And people are often. There's a whole tier of people that go, well, I'm not a graphic designer so I can't really help. But it's all about figuring out how to plug people in your network into each other. Because if you have to do the work yourself, you're gonna go, oh, do I have time for this? Do I want to help this person? Do I have the expertise? It doesn't matter. It's scalable. If you're just connecting people to each other, you could send 150 emails a day creating relationships with two different people and you do that before dinner, you know, but you can only help a certain small number of people yourself. So you want to abg, always be giving and looking for opportunities to give to other people. Especially if that opportunity and that giving is just an introduction to somebody else in your network. Super powerful and super scalable.
- [67:56]
A
I got to say that always be giving thing just in the conversation of this, of helping others. See, you and I just talked about Peter Diamandis. We talked about Hal Elrod. Like mention other people, it's the same thing. There's no business rationale for doing that. It's like good people, you send attention to good people. And that is a huge piece of advice and it's one I don't hear very often. I've heard this question answered like 350 times. I love it that you chose always be giving. Just being generous without expecting something in return. Return is, is so fundamental. So thank you for sharing that, man.
- [68:30]
B
Yeah. Yeah. And the. The. The second sort of tier. I appreciate. I'm glad. I appreciate your appreciation. The second tier of that is don't keep score. And this is where the ABG people. Most people will either not ABG in the first place. Most people are looking for what they can get from it. But even if you're ABG or not, the. The keeping score thing will bite people in the butt. So here's. Here's what this would look like. Hey, Jordan, we should do a show on my new book coming out in April. And I don't know if you have a new book came out in April, so don't get your hopes up. I don't know when the new one
- [69:02]
A
comes out, by the way. April is when my book comes out. Is it really? Good call, man.
- [69:05]
B
Wow. I was just. Okay. So, yeah.
- [69:07]
A
Your new book develops psychic powers. I gotcha.
- [69:09]
B
Yeah, no worries. We'll talk about that on the next show. So, yeah, sure. And then what you don't. I'll say, sure, I'd love to promote that. I think it'd be really fun. I'll help you with your launch. What you should not then do is go. Yeah. Also I'd like to come back on in April and you should mail it out in your newsletter and blah, blah, blah. If people want to help you, let that be a completely independent action. Don't turn it into a transaction, because what you do when you keep score is two different things. One, you end up turning what should just be, I like helping people, I like helping my friends, or I like making friends into transactional relationships where they're then afraid to ask you for anything because they're afraid of what you might ask for in return. And that's not good because that cuts you off. That cuts you off as a node on their network because they go, well, crap, I'd love to have Jordan's help in launching my book, but I really don't want to have him back on the show in April because it's just going to be so hectic. You know what? Just don't even email him. Don't even email him. And then I'm out that opportunity and you're out that opportunity. So it's a net loss for both of us. The other thing. And it turns it into a transactional thing, which builds resentment. The other thing that it does is whenever anybody keeps score, there is always an imbalance. The person keeping score never feels like they got a good deal. Right. So if I'M keeping score. And you're like, hey, can you help me with my book launch in April? And I go, yeah, sure. If I'm keeping score secretly and not asking you for anything, then what happens is I start to resent you because I go, freaking Dave always asks to be on my show, and I'm always launching his books. He's never asked me to fly out to where his stuff is. You know, I just build this weird entitled covert contract where we are both in some sort of weird agreement, but you don't know about it. Only I know about it.
- [71:00]
A
That's called business codependence. It drives me nuts.
- [71:03]
B
Yeah, yeah. And it's called covert contracts as well. And relationships where the equivalent is in outside of business. You. We all have this guy friend in college, right? He drives this girl to the airport, he's picking up her books. He's going grocery shop. He's doing all this stuff for her, and she's like, we're just friends. Meanwhile, he's like, one day she's going to realize I'm the one. And then he gets drunk one day and he's like, I'm con Angela. I'm going to tell her she's horrible because I do all this stuff for her. And you're like, no, right? Like, that's a covert contract, and we don't want that in our business. Where I suddenly resenting everyone around me because I did this for them, but they never did anything for me. And that's what keeping score is. And it is freaking toxic in your. In your relationship. So get rid of keeping score. Always be generous, always be giving, and you can scale it. And that, that's maybe two things, but I feel like they flesh out nicely.
- [71:58]
A
They do indeed. That's a phenomenal answer. All right, Jordan, I know people can go to artercharm.com is there anywhere else that they should go to learn more about the cool stuff you do?
- [72:08]
B
Yeah, I mean, since you're listening to a podcast, I'd love it if people tuned into the art of charm podcast as well. But yeah, we also have a challenge that we're doing speaking of relationships, where we are helping people to foster new relationships for business and personal reasons. And we're also helping people get outside their comfort zone if they find themselves, like, being in a workaholic mode, heads down all the time, where they don't know how to start the networking and relationship development process. That's at theart of charm.com challenge. Or if people are in the states, they can text the word charmed C H A R m e d to 33444. That's charmed to 33444 and it basically will it'll say like, what's your email? So if you're driving and you're at a red light, you don't have to try to navigate on Safari or whatever on Chrome. You can just text it and it'll ask for your email and it sends you the challenges. And it's super fun. We have like 5,000 people doing it and it's just rad to see how many connections are being made for personal and professional reasons. People are getting promotions and stuff. So it's just it. That's that's what we got going on right now and it'll be going for the next few months.
- [73:12]
A
You guys just heard Jordan Harbinger from Art of Charm. Have an awesome day. Thanks. See you next time on the the Human Upgrade Podcast.
- [73:26]
B
The Human Upgrade, formerly Bulletproof Radio, was created and is hosted by Dave Asprey. The information contained in this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended for the purposes of diagnosing, treating, curing, or preventing any disease. Before using any products referenced on the podcast, consult with your healthcare provider carefully read all labels, and heed all directions and cautions that accompany the products. Information found or received through the podcast should not be used in place of a consultation or advice from a healthcare provider. If you suspect you have a medical problem or should you have any healthcare questions, please promptly call or see your healthcare provider. This podcast, including Dave Asprey and the producers, disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warrants about guest qualifications or credibility. This podcast may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products or services. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to herein. This podcast is owned by Bulletproof Media.