← The School of Greatness
The School of Greatness
The 5-Step System That Will Reset Your Body & Help You Live Longer
01:20:42
Dr. William Li reveals groundbreaking discoveries about the four specific gut bacteria found in people who live beyond 100 years, and how you can cultivate them starting today. This conversation completely reframes our understanding of longevity, showing how your gut health might be the missing link to preventing dementia, healing your body, and adding quality years to your life.
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- [00:00]
Lewis Howes
There is one main thing that is blocking you from reaching your full potential. And it's all because you're trying to do everything alone. And that's a big problem because real growth happens when you build a community, when you're in a room full of people who want to see you thrive, who support you becoming your best self. And if that's something you're looking for, then make sure to join me at the summit of greatness live at the iconic Dolby Theatre in in Los Angeles down in Hollywood, September 12th and 13th. Because this year is a powerful lineup of incredible speakers and performers like gabby Bernstein, like Dr. Tara Swart, like Brenda Bouchard, Amy Purdy, and so many more inspiring surprise guests. You'll experience a couple days of transformation and inspiration and deep connection with a community that actually gets you and wants to see you thrive. Tickets are selling fast, so go to lewishouse.com tickets right now to get your seats. Bring your friends and family, and I can't wait to see you there at the summit of greatness very soon. Welcome back, my friend, to the school of Greatness. It is a beautiful day. It's a blessed day and I'm grateful for another opportunity to live on purpose. I hope you're doing well today. I've gotten so many messages lately from so many of you who have just been so grateful for the content we've been providing for the interviews for the guests. And it means a lot to me every time I get a message from someone on social media or when someone comes up to me on the street and just says hello. And their biggest takeaway from the show, it really means a lot to me. We have got a big one. His name is Dr. William Lee. He's a physician, a scientist and a researcher. And we had him on the show before it got millions of views over on YouTube and the audio. But he is back and Dr. Lee reveals how our gut bacteria communicate with our brain, our immune system and overall health in ways that we are just beginning to understand. He's going to share some simple changes to our diet and lifestyle that you haven't heard before on any other show on how it can nurture beneficial gut bacteria and potentially adding healthy years to our lives. We all want to live longer and we all want to live healthier with the current days and years that we have. His a practical approach proves that optimizing your longevity isn't about expensive biohacking but about working with your body's natural healing systems. And he's going to share the four specific gut bacteria that stand out in people who live beyond 100 years and which foods help them flourish. This is going to be so powerful. Please share this with one friend and really send this out to a friend that you think could improve the quality of their health. Or maybe their mind's been a little bit foggy or they've been feeling stressed or anxious. There is so much that's connected to the gut, what we eat eat in our our mood and our brain health and our brain function. So it's not always about losing weight or something like that, but it's about optimizing the way our brain and our immune system work in tandem. And that's what this is about. So share this with one friend. If you're enjoying this, please leave a review over on Apple Podcast or on Spotify. Make sure you're following us on those platforms as well so you can stay up to date on all the biggest guests that we have coming out every single week. And also make sure to get a copy of Make Money Easy, the new book, which is about creating financial freedom and living a richer life. Without further ado, let's dive into this episode with Dr. William Lee did you.
- [03:41]
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- [04:11]
Lewis Howes
Golddealer.com provides one of the nation's largest inventories of gold, silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium bullion, and our website offers live buy and sell prices. We specialize in precious metal IRA accounts charge no setup or shipping fees and provide one of the best storage programs in the business. Golddealer.com also provides a free audio quote line that is updated twice each day and a gold newsletter that is published every week. Lowes knows to bring your vision to life. It's important to find the right color. That's why Mylo's Rewards members get a free Valspar paint or exterior stain sample to test your look to confidently refresh your space Offer Valid in store only 87820 limit one per customer while supplies last Discount taken at time of Purchase see associate for details. Rewards program subject to terms and conditions. Details@lowe's.com Terms subject to change. Welcome back, everyone, to the school of greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Dr. William Lee in the house. So good to see you. Thank you for being here.
- [05:15]
Dr. William Lee
Good to see you, Lou. Thanks for having me.
- [05:17]
Lewis Howes
Very excited about this because you've been on the show a couple of times and you've been a researcher, a scientist, a physician for many years, mostly helping people figure out about how to cure cancer. That's kind of where your background is around the cancer world, but you've also gone in different places around medicine and science and research. And currently you're, you're, you're diving in deep into the longevity topic, which is really interesting. We were just talking off camera about a new approach to what you're seeing that the, you know, super centurions, I guess, are experiencing. And a lot of people want to know right now how to live longer, but also how to live healthy longer, how to have a good health span as well. Because it's not, it's not fun if you live to 100, but for 25 years, you're on machines, you can't walk, you can't move, and you're not healthy. And so I think that's what a lot of people want. So the first question I want to ask you is why do you think people care so much about being immortal or living for as long as they can? And what are some of the new things that you're seeing in the longevity world?
- [06:28]
Dr. William Lee
Great questions. Okay, so first of all, I am a cancer researcher, but I will tell you how I got into cancer research and then ultimately into longevity research. I'm interested in common denominators of health or of disease. So in other words, you know, in academic research, you see people taking an inch of a territory and diving a mile deep, and they're super experts in this stuff. I took a different approach. I wanted to figure out, like, you know, how everything was interconnected and what are the common denominators between cancer, heart disease, blindness, arthritis, Alzheimer's. Like, if you could drain the Pacific Ocean, how do all those islands connect? And my feeling is that if you could, you could get an economy of scale, of knowledge. If you could figure out those connections, you could pull the bow back and send a single arrow through multiple conditions at the same time. Really? That's my, that was my approach, which is why I started the Angiogenesis Foundation. It's a not for profit organization. It's focused on the common denominator of blood vessels. Wow, 40 million. It's, we've got 44 hundred miles worth of blood vessels in our brain and that's a fraction of the 60,000 miles of blood vessels in our body. And it connects every organ, every cell. And so these are the highways and byways of health. And when they're messed up, compromised, diseased, that becomes the common denominator of disease. So that's really kind of like my unique angle to look at diseases, anything from cancer to blindness to wound healing. And now I'm looking at aging in a slightly different way, which is I've had a whole career of building brick by brick, looking at what are the hallmarks of, hallmarks of cancer, hallmarks of diabetes, hallmarks of aging. Now, all right, and that is actually how we advance the science. That's how we advance our understanding of ourselves and the quest for longevity, immortality. Okay, I like how you said the quest for immortality being an ages old enterprise, okay, Pursuit, pursuit is, I think it's part of our humanity. Like we always want to know how we can actually go beyond our own limitations. I think that's probably ultimately what has led this interest. And of course it's a huge interest now. I mean, if you look at the success of books like Outlived by Peter Thia and David Sinclair's books, people, they go gonzo over these like incredible books written by really amazing people. But I'll tell you, the first emperor of China, okay, set off to try to find that little elixir, the vial, Remember that Indiana Joe's movie where they're looking for some like, vial of immortality. Hey, you know, this has been going on for a long time, time. And the first emperor of China didn't find it. He wound up dying. And before he died, he built like the 10,000 Terracotta warriors to look over his tomb. That was his ultimate solution to immortality. That was before science, before Google's calico, to try to conquer blindness, before all the amazing work that's going on right now to build up those bricks by brick by brick and putting in the grout in between to be able to build up that wall of understanding. So we are still looking. We're beginning to have a better understanding. But my approach to it is to say, all right, so what are the common denominators of people who live a really long time? What are we finding? And my friend, and I think yours is Dan Buettner from the Blue Zones. The guy is amazing because he found like oh, this guy. Its place. It's where you live and where you do what you do in terms of where you live that actually can contribute. So I'm a, I'm a researcher, so I take a, I ask that same question from a slightly different perspective.
- [10:39]
Lewis Howes
Right, right.
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Dr. William Lee
Yeah.
- [10:40]
Lewis Howes
He has a number of different, like things, which community and your activity level and the foods you eat and.
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Dr. William Lee
Yeah.
- [10:47]
Lewis Howes
Having a purpose and kind of these.
- [10:48]
Dr. William Lee
He's in the beans.
- [10:49]
Lewis Howes
Beans. They get the beans. Right. Yeah. And. But that may not necessarily like, I guess be the only solution.
- [10:57]
Dr. William Lee
Right.
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Lewis Howes
If you follow these kind of core tenets that he has from the blue zones. And we're also seeing that some of those blue zones are no longer blue zones, I think, or they're diminishing their blue zones because of the way people are changing their food intake or things like that, I think. Right. Like the places.
- [11:11]
Dr. William Lee
And there may be more blue zones that haven't been discovered yet.
- [11:14]
Lewis Howes
Interesting. And so are there what other new things that you're observing that most people aren't noticing about people that live well into their hundreds?
- [11:26]
Dr. William Lee
All right, so let me take you on a little bit of a journey into our gut. Now, everybody knows that gut health is important for overall health. And even the people who are the experts, you know, and I've gotten into this space now, we don't know entirely. We don't have the whole answer. All right. And you know, you're talking to a real scientist when. Because real scientists tell you we don't know everything. Right. All right, so. But what good scientists do is they observe. We take a look at what's going on and we, we see what is common, what we've come up with, ideas. And so what's really interesting is to think about gut health not just in terms of somebody in the middle of their life, you know, like a 30 or 40 or 50 year old person who, you know, has inflammation. And how do I actually get over my autoimmunity? That's important too. But I got interested in it because we're beginning to understand that people who have dementia actually have problems with their gut health. And what is the connection between your gut and your brain? Well, that's a gut brain axis. But what if the problem with Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, you know, vascular dementia, what if, what if the common denominator actually isn't the little sticky plaque or the little single molecule that people have been diving on and billions of dollars have been spent? What if there is another factor that has been hidden in plain sight, which is Our gut bacteria. Wow.
- [13:00]
Lewis Howes
On how the gut impacts the brain.
- [13:02]
Dr. William Lee
The brain, yeah. And until recently, we didn't have the tools. We didn't have that. The tools in a toolbox to be able to look at it. But today, and this is pretty new, we can actually take a sample of poop. Okay. Send it off to a testing machine.
- [13:23]
Lewis Howes
And I'm oversimplifying, obviously, and get the lab details.
- [13:26]
Dr. William Lee
Get the lab details. And, you know, we are able to do the crime scene investigation of our poop to figure out what bacteria are in there. And we get a pretty good approximation and we can find out what are the standouts. Okay, so, like, there's 39 trillion bacteria. You can't count every single one.
- [13:43]
Lewis Howes
39 trillion?
- [13:44]
Dr. William Lee
Yeah. In your gut microbiome. Wow. So we can't get every single one. But if there are standouts, oh, man, you've got like four or five really bad guys that are, like, popping out in high levels. We know you got a problem. Or if you're missing a handful of really good guys. All right, we're beginning to say maybe these good guys are playing a bigger role. And this is the story that's emerging on dementia that your gut bacteria. And by the way, it's not just in your poop. Your gut starts in your mouth. And we're beginning to realize that gum disease and bacteria that are either growing or not growing in your mouth might actually be one of the trigger points for dementia.
- [14:27]
Lewis Howes
Gum disease.
- [14:28]
Dr. William Lee
Gum disease.
- [14:28]
Lewis Howes
Wow.
- [14:29]
Dr. William Lee
Gingivitis.
- [14:30]
Lewis Howes
All right, what is so. Okay, so it sounds like it starts with the mouth and then it's the gut, because what you put in the mouth is going to be in the gut as well.
- [14:37]
Dr. William Lee
That for food. Yes. But. But all throughout, from your mouth all the way to your tailpipe, you've got bacteria growing.
- [14:44]
Lewis Howes
Yes.
- [14:44]
Dr. William Lee
By the way. So the two biggest concentration of bacteria, when you talk about gut bacteria, one is in your mouth. Our mouth is packed with bacteria, good bacteria. When bad bacteria overgrow, you get bad breath, you get cavities, you get gum disease. You get all the things that you know, like, you know pretty quickly. Right. Or, you know. Sure, sure. Okay. When you're so there, there's a big concentration in your mouth, and we're beginning. We're still beginning to figure out what those are. Your lower gut, which we classically think as gut bacteria, your gut microbiome, you know where it is in the gut. Did you know? Like, what. What part of the gut, anatomy wise, like, what section of the gut?
- [15:24]
Lewis Howes
The lower gut.
- [15:25]
Dr. William Lee
Yeah, lower Gut.
- [15:27]
Lewis Howes
I've.
- [15:27]
Dr. William Lee
Okay. So, you know, if you imagine your gut from mouth to end, anus 40ft long. Okay.
- [15:34]
Lewis Howes
Is that what it is?
- [15:35]
Dr. William Lee
Yeah. The last 25% is your colon. Right. You've heard of colon cancer and everything else, or colonoscopy. So that's the last part. It's like, it's basically where like, everything gets all the, the stuff gathers before you get rid of it. But that's actually where the gut bacteria is. And it's in a particular part, a little sac in your colon called the cecum, spelled C E C U M. And you know where the. What's near in the cecum? It's the appendix. Now, a lot of people have had their appendix out. Okay. We used to think it's an unnecessary organ. Maybe, just maybe that appendix plays a role that we didn't suspect. What's that role? We don't know, but we suspect it might play some air traffic control control role for your gut microbiome. Wow. All right. So what I get excited about is new discoveries about our body that we didn't know. By the way, we're talking about gut brain. Do you know that recently we've discovered that your brain has its own microbiome? We've got bacteria that grow naturally, healthily in our brain.
- [16:39]
Lewis Howes
Wow.
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Dr. William Lee
And it's 20% of the same bacteria that's in our gut that's actually found in our brain.
- [16:45]
Lewis Howes
So they're connected.
- [16:47]
Dr. William Lee
We believe so because we used to.
- [16:49]
Lewis Howes
We used to, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but we used to treat like Alzheimer's and dementia as focusing on the brain. Correct. Like, let's look at the brain and see what's wrong or what's off and try to treat the brain versus now you're saying, well, it's the gut, it's the whole body that's connected to the brain. So we have to look at everything.
- [17:08]
Dr. William Lee
And we're beginning to sort of ask new questions about what might be some of the contributing factors, not just the tiny little plaques in Alzheimer's disease, because by the way, we've actually made a little bit of progress in that area, but after billions and billions of dollars, like we haven't made enough really. Right. I mean, if you think about it like if you wanted return on investment, you would not actually call Alzheimer's research to be good. Because for the bang, for the buck that we put in there, we're actually getting very little bang.
- [17:36]
Lewis Howes
We still don't know how to reverse Alzheimer's or prevent it, I guess.
- [17:40]
Dr. William Lee
Not really. But I'll tell you that what I'm excited by is this idea that maybe there could. This is the theory. Could there be some bad bacteria or the absence of some good bacteria in your mouth, even. Okay. Or the lower gut that actually is a trigger for Alzheimer's or Parkinson's? Wow. You know, by the way, there is a bacteria, a probiotic, that's been researched to show that it can actually really slow down the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. It's called Lactobacillus plantarum, and it's a probiotic called PS128. And, you know, it's surprising that a probiotic could have such a profound effect on the brain.
- [18:27]
Lewis Howes
What is that called again?
- [18:28]
Dr. William Lee
P.S. like Paul and Sam, 128. And the actual bacteria is called Lactobacus plantarum. Okay. So I'm just sharing with you discoveries. Okay. About the brain. And so what I got interested in terms of longevity. I'm not a neuroscientist and I'm not a dementia specialist, but I am somebody that is sort of really good at framing out if there's a connection between gut and brain. Maybe we should be looking at the connection between gut and longevity.
- [19:03]
Lewis Howes
Interesting.
- [19:04]
Dr. William Lee
And that's where some of the really exciting new stuff is coming out as well.
- [19:08]
Lewis Howes
And so what is the main things that you've been able to observe, then, about the gut and how it relates to people that live over a hundred?
- [19:14]
Dr. William Lee
So, first of all, people who live to 100 are called centenarians. Right. Sent like, a hundred. And we think that if you could live to 100, like, that's 100 candles on your birthday cake.
- [19:27]
Lewis Howes
It's a big deal.
- [19:28]
Dr. William Lee
That's a big deal, right? That's a big.
- [19:29]
Lewis Howes
That's the big birthday. That is.
- [19:31]
Dr. William Lee
All right, now, I have to tell you, my great uncle lived to 104.
- [19:36]
Lewis Howes
Wow.
- [19:36]
Dr. William Lee
Okay. I was at his 100.
- [19:37]
Lewis Howes
Come on.
- [19:38]
Dr. William Lee
Birthday party, and I saw 100 candles on his game.
- [19:40]
Lewis Howes
That's impressive.
- [19:41]
Dr. William Lee
Yeah. So I know it can happen in my own family.
- [19:44]
Lewis Howes
Did he have the energy to blow all the candles out?
- [19:46]
Dr. William Lee
Not only did he have the energy to blow the candles out, he planned the party himself.
- [19:50]
Lewis Howes
Wow.
- [19:51]
Dr. William Lee
Okay. He invited the guest list. He actually. I mean, he made the guest list. He planned the meal. You know, he hosted the thing. So. So it's possible. Yeah. Okay. Now, most people think that, you know, living to 100 would be, like, a crapshoot, a long shot. Like, oh, if I could in a healthy way. And I live to 100 be great. But you know, because I've been doing some research on this, it turns out today, you know, how many people live are a hundred years old now?
- [20:24]
Lewis Howes
I think you said it was close to a million or over a million.
- [20:27]
Dr. William Lee
Today there are 722,000 people who are centenarians living in the world. You know, almost a quarter of three quarters of a million of people that are 100.
- [20:38]
Lewis Howes
That's a lot of people.
- [20:39]
Dr. William Lee
That's a lot of people. A lot more than most people suspect. And what that means is that it is possible to actually get there, which means that we can begin to study these people. And that's what where like I think some of the most exciting and provocative stuff actually is. Right. So.
- [20:57]
Lewis Howes
And people are studying their gut bacteria.
- [21:00]
Dr. William Lee
Yeah. And now we can just. Now we can actually study the poop. Wow. And the microbiome of people who are 100 and older.
- [21:08]
Lewis Howes
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- [24:32]
Dr. William Lee
So centenarians are people who live to 100. But it turns out that there's something called a super centenarian or an alternate super ager. And these are people that live to 114, 115 years old. All right. And like they're really interesting. So a research study was done out of Italy looking at people across the lifespan from young adulthood, you know, like 20 to 40, 40 to 70, 70 to 90, 90 to 100. And then like the Superagers. Okay. Like 100 to 115 or 114. And in today's technology. All right, like believe me, I think that wearables are great. I think that, you know, biohacking devices are quite amazing. But I think it's even more amazing that we can actually study the gut microbiome of like these super agers. Sure. So the question is, is there something in the gut microbiome in superagers a hundred and above that pop out as important? It's not present in People who don't live that. That long. Okay. It turns out there are four bacteria that are standouts in people that live to 100 and beyond.
- [25:48]
Lewis Howes
Does that mean there are four bacteria in people that live 100 beyond in their gut? Bacteria that people under 100 don't have.
- [25:58]
Dr. William Lee
They have more of it. Gotcha. They have more of it. Like, they're like. For them, it really stands out as a super big spike.
- [26:06]
Lewis Howes
Okay.
- [26:07]
Dr. William Lee
These four bacteria, you want to hear about them?
- [26:08]
Lewis Howes
Yes.
- [26:08]
Dr. William Lee
All right. They've got names that one of the names you might have heard of. I think we talked about it in my last time I was on a podcast. But there is four bacteria. One of them is called Odoribacter.
- [26:20]
Lewis Howes
Odor.
- [26:20]
Dr. William Lee
Bacteribacter. Okay. One of them is called Oscillobacter. One of them is called Kristen Cinella. And then the fourth one is our old friend Akkermansia.
- [26:38]
Lewis Howes
Okay.
- [26:39]
Dr. William Lee
And we've talked about Akkermansia before, which, you know, it's sort of been making the rounds as a important gut bacteria. I think the last time I was here, I was telling you that there have been discoveries that if you have cancer and you're on immunotherapy, which. Which jacks up your own immune system to attack the cancer, it's not chemo. It's one of the most natural ways of approaching cancer. It's resulting in complete responses, meaning stage four to stage zero. Okay. Wow. Turns out Akkermansia, having this gut bacteria may wind up being one of the critical pieces that you have to have to connect the dots for that to happen. Okay. To really get a great response.
- [27:23]
Lewis Howes
To help you reverse cancer.
- [27:24]
Dr. William Lee
Yeah, to help your own immune system reverse cancer. Wow. Okay.
- [27:28]
Lewis Howes
Interesting.
- [27:28]
Dr. William Lee
Gut bacteria talks to your immune system. 70% of your immune system lives in your gut. All right. And so you've got the right bacteria. They know how to speak the right language to your immune system to tell it to do what it's supposed to do.
- [27:44]
Lewis Howes
70% of your immune system lives in the gut.
- [27:46]
Dr. William Lee
Yeah, exactly.
- [27:47]
Lewis Howes
Where's the other 30%?
- [27:49]
Dr. William Lee
Scattered in different tissues in your body. Really? Wow. But you know, by the way, you know where the immune system lives? In the gut? It's actually in the wall of the gut. Think of your gut as a garden hose. Cut that garden hose open and look in the. Look in the cross section. There's a little empty stuff in the middle. That's where the bacteria live.
- [28:05]
Lewis Howes
That's where your immune system is.
- [28:06]
Dr. William Lee
Your immune system lives in the wall of the. Of the garden hose inside the Wall.
- [28:11]
Lewis Howes
And the bacteria.
- [28:12]
Dr. William Lee
The bacteria live inside the. Inside the. Inside the cavity of the garden, and they talk to each other like college students shouting at each other through a cheap wall in a dorm room.
- [28:22]
Lewis Howes
So the immune system is kind of like the insulation in a house. Is that right? In the walling of the house?
- [28:27]
Dr. William Lee
The immune system lives in the walls in between the drywall of the house.
- [28:31]
Lewis Howes
Yeah. So it's kind of like the insulation.
- [28:33]
Dr. William Lee
Exactly.
- [28:33]
Lewis Howes
Inside the drywall. And whatever's in the house is the bacteria.
- [28:37]
Dr. William Lee
Exactly.
- [28:38]
Lewis Howes
The people, the dogs, the cats, you know, all moving around. Plants, whatever.
- [28:41]
Dr. William Lee
Yeah, exactly. So what do we eat that affects our gut microbiome? The healthy bacteria directly affects our immune.
- [28:48]
Lewis Howes
System, you know, and impacts our brain.
- [28:50]
Dr. William Lee
And then it impacts our brain.
- [28:52]
Lewis Howes
How much of what we eat impacts our brain?
- [28:55]
Dr. William Lee
More than we think. More than we think?
- [28:58]
Lewis Howes
Like, either. Giving us clarity and focus versus cloudiness. Giving us.
- [29:02]
Dr. William Lee
You know, that's what I'm working on right now. And I do know that there are people that are working on this. So, you know, you. You laid it out the right way, Louis. You eat something, it goes into your mouth, it tumbles down through. Yeah, whatever. Our body, our human body, our human cells don't absorb, goes on to feed our gut bacteria. Okay. Or poison our gut bacteria in the case, maybe. So, you know, you put something good in your system, it's going to do something good. Put something bad in your system, it's going to, like, mess up the bacteria. All right? And then our bacteria then begins to talk to our immune system, our brain. It helps to work on our. Our healing mechanisms as well. I, you know, I study angiogenesis, how our blood vessels grow, you know, that circulation. I've done research. There's one bacteria called Lactobacillus ruderi. Okay. And we found that if you have a wound in the lab and you feed these animals with a wound, this probiotic in their drinking water, you actually double the rate of wound healing from the inside out. Really?
- [30:08]
Lewis Howes
Yeah, it's like wolverine.
- [30:10]
Dr. William Lee
So you become wolverine without the claws.
- [30:12]
Lewis Howes
So it just. There's a probiotic that you can drink as a human now also.
- [30:17]
Dr. William Lee
Well, it's a. You can. You can. You can. It's a tablet. You can chew it. Yeah. Lactobacus reuteri. So Lactobacillus reuteri, by the way, is an amazing bacteria because it. It's normally in the gut. It's a healthy gut bacteria. So, you know, like, we. We pulled it out and made it in something, but it's normally in the gut. Used to be present in Everybody after the 1930s and 40s with the advent of antibiotics coming out, like, it became. Maybe it's there, maybe it's not. Not surprisingly. Okay? And so a lot of people don't have it, but this bacteria lowers inflammation, improves your immune system. And by the way, we do know for a fact this is one bacteria that text messages your brain to release a social hormone called oxytocin. Oxytocin is the social hormone that your brain releases when you are super happy to see somebody go to the airport to meet a friend or a relative you haven't seen for a long time. You give them a big hug. You feel great.
- [31:20]
Lewis Howes
Yes.
- [31:20]
Dr. William Lee
Oxytocin. Wow. Oxytocin is what your brain releases when you have a kiss. I'm not talking about, like, pecking the cheek. I'm talking about deep, passionate, like, French kiss. Oxytocin. Oxytocin is also what your brain releases when you have an orgasm. Okay? So this is a very important brain hormone. This bacteria makes your brain release it.
- [31:43]
Lewis Howes
Okay, now, and this isn't a drug. This is just like.
- [31:46]
Dr. William Lee
This is like. I'm just telling you, normal. Well, I'm telling you, this is a normal physiology. I'm talking about the physiology. Like, how's it normally works? Okay. By the way, moms would give the babies, her babies this bacteria because. And this is like a crazy story, that normal gut bacteria, at around seven or eight months of pregnancy, there'd be a signal sent to the gut. Hey, you know, the, The. The. The cake's almost done. All right. Bun's almost ready to come out of the oven. All right? And then these bacteria would hit you right in a blood cell. It's like calling an Uber. Send it to the baby and then take the bacteria. Your normal blood cells would take the bacteria, drop it off at the nipple. Right. Uber. Okay. Destination. And then when the baby takes their first suckle, they get rush. They get. They get the rush of the bacteria. That's how. That's another way that moms actually give babies there. They get the injection of bacteria, including lactobacillus reuteri. Right? Okay. Now this bacteria.
- [32:54]
Lewis Howes
So it's important to do breastfeeding then?
- [32:56]
Dr. William Lee
Oh, yeah. It's part of the reasons you also get immune cells and a lot of other good stuff from breastfeeding.
- [33:03]
Lewis Howes
Side note, how long should a mother breastfeed a newborn?
- [33:06]
Dr. William Lee
You know, I think it's. It's very individualized based on the mom and the baby. But, like, I would say that the categorical yes. Unless there's a medical reason not to do it. Is you definitely breastfeed? That's like the, that's like the non controversial thing.
- [33:21]
Lewis Howes
100%. 100% breastfeed. Don't go right to a bottle or formula or something like that. Right.
- [33:26]
Dr. William Lee
Because, mom, I can tell you that the companies that make formula, they can't mimic mother nature.
- [33:31]
Lewis Howes
They cannot.
- [33:32]
Dr. William Lee
They can try, but they can't do it. Not anywhere close.
- [33:35]
Lewis Howes
Right. So unless there's some reason the mother is unable to do it.
- [33:38]
Dr. William Lee
Yeah, I mean, there are, there are legitimate medical reasons where, you know, it's, it's impossible, there's complications, all that kind of stuff. And I totally get it. Then you gotta make accommodations for it. But still, it is always better for the baby for the mom to actually breastfeed, by the way. So I'm diving into all this stuff. You find all this fascinating stuff out about the gut microbiome and from the beginning of life, like babies all the way to the far reaches of life, like these superagers. If these four bacteria, by the way, you know, the Odorobacter, the Oscillobacter, the Cristinellaella, the Akkermansia, they all do. They all play functions in the body and we're figuring them out. They improve your metabolism, they lower inflammation, they help your immunity, they lower your cholesterol. Okay. They help your brain health. Wow. So all the things that we know are important. These bacteria seem to be doing the job in the superagers. And there are foods that we can eat to grow these bacteria, to cultivate these bacteria. Oh, yeah.
- [34:53]
Lewis Howes
What are the key foods that we can eat to cultivate the best bacteria to help us live longer?
- [34:58]
Dr. William Lee
So, you know, among all these four, let me kind of just throw a few out there for you. It turns out pomegranate is really good. It's got bioactives like Ellagitannins that actually help your gut nurture. The Akkermansia. Okay. It turns out that chili peppers can do the same thing. Black raspberry turns out, can do the same thing. Oh, by the way, for Akkermansia, here's like a new discovery as well. I'm all about, like, my science background is all about discovery and like pushing the frontiers of things, healing. Akkermansia, it's a bacteria. A bacteria has a shell around it. Like a beetle has a hard shell around it. Recently they've discovered that around Akkermansia, the shell of Akkermansia, there's a piece of the Akkermansia that they named. They gave it a name. It's called P, as in Peter. Peter. Nine. P9. All right. They've now discovered that that P9 bacteria, the P9 fragment of Akkermansia, actually causes your body to secrete its own GLP1.
- [36:10]
Lewis Howes
Which is the fat burning, which is.
- [36:12]
Dr. William Lee
The same thing that we use for prescription weight loss drugs. Your bacteria's been doing this. Your healthy bacteria has been doing this behind the scenes this whole time. Interesting, right? So this is what I'm saying is like, you know, we learn a lot from pharmaceuticals, but we might actually learn a lot more from what the gut bacteria are doing. Mother Nature's kind of like so fascinating, it seems.
- [36:32]
Lewis Howes
So it seems like how much disease stems from the gut more than we think.
- [36:36]
Dr. William Lee
Yeah. You know, probably a good number of our neurodegenerative diseases like dementia. I think that a lot of the diseases of aging, for sure, the chronic diseases.
- [36:49]
Lewis Howes
We do know that diabetes is from.
- [36:52]
Dr. William Lee
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely.
- [36:54]
Lewis Howes
Cancers are from the gut.
- [36:55]
Dr. William Lee
Cancer, probably cardiovascular disease. You know, like the big ones. You know, all the big ones are diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative diseases, probably even lung diseases.
- [37:07]
Lewis Howes
Because the society is talking a lot in the last few years about mental health. Like, it seems like there's a lot more anxiety, depression, ADHD and these types of mental health conditions or diseases that are. That are accelerating in mass numbers. Based on what I'm hearing you talk about, it almost sounds like if we stop thinking about mental health, not stop thinking about it, but focus more on gut health, it sounds like it connects to the brain and the mind and it'll create more alignment in ease versus disease, more.
- [37:43]
Dr. William Lee
It's a new frontier. It opens up the avenue for more solutions. And by the way, because the gut also connects to other parts of the our body as well. You know, again, remember I told you, like I'm all about the common denominator. Pull that bow back and send a single arrow through as many things, many problems as you can imagine. If we could actually tackle mental health, mental wellness and physical wellness all at the same time. And, you know, gut bacteria clearly plays a role. It's not, you know, it's not the only thing, but, you know, it is the undiscovered country because there's a.
- [38:17]
Lewis Howes
Who is the. The doctor? Dr. Emeran Mayer? I think it is. I don't know if he's got a book called Gut Brain Connection. I think something like that that's talking about these things as well. And it seems like a lot of the Things that are stemming from the brain disease or challenges is in the gut. Yeah. And it's also linked to longevity. It sounds like it's.
- [38:35]
Dr. William Lee
Exactly. Well, this is what we're beginning to really, I would say, unravel and take, you know, go into the layers of the onion to say, all right, if gut health is important for you in your, you know, normal, active adult life, which we now know it is, what role could it play towards actually fostering, supporting, maybe even triggering those signals for longevity? I mean, maybe. Listen, I mean, so I always talk about our body like this. We're all different. You know, we've got different genetics, we've got different, you know, like. Of course, most people say they've got different metabolisms, but it turns out that when we are born, it's like taking a laptop out of the box. Our operating system is all set. When you and I are born, my operating system and your operating system, pretty much the same. Our OS was exactly the same.
- [39:29]
Lewis Howes
Exactly.
- [39:30]
Dr. William Lee
All right, and so why is it that our. I mean, maybe your metabolism. My metabolism. Closer than more different. But, you know, because we take care of ourselves. But why is it that people develop such divergent. So different metabolisms, for example, or maybe longevity patterns. And it turns out, you know, just like your laptop, you know, if you take care of your laptop, you turn it off at night, you clear the software. Yeah. You update the software. You make sure that you pad it when you're traveling. Clean it, clean it, all that kind of stuff. And let's say I'm not so careful. I drop it. It stays. Gets really hot in the car. I spill coffee on it or whatever, you know, what do you think is going to happen to our operating system? Or I download all kinds of stuff.
- [40:17]
Lewis Howes
It'S going to break.
- [40:18]
Dr. William Lee
Well, what's going to happen is that your computer, operating system and mine are going to diverge. You're going to go this way, I'm going to go that way. And actually, probably for our. Definitely for our metabolism, but probably for our longevity as well. That's actually what happens, is that we start to diverge our patterns. We're all born the same way. And the reason I'm bringing this up because I think for anybody who's listening to this or watching this, people. People tend to think I'm the fate of my genetics. You know, there's nothing I can do about it. So screw it. I'm just gonna do whatever I wanna do.
- [40:49]
Lewis Howes
Whatever, drink, whatever. Yeah.
- [40:50]
Dr. William Lee
You know, what I wanna really emphasize is that we are all hardwired to actually heal. We can get back to that healing. We can heal to get back to our original state, which is designed like the laptop to function its entire life of the device with an intact operating system. You know, what do you do with your, what do you do with your computer? You know? You know, hopefully you don't have to reinstall the operating system. Take good care of it. But if you don't take good care of it, clean the cache clear. Do a virus scan, you know, like clean it up. Yeah, take good care of it. And that's kind of how I think people should think about longevity, is that it's not like just set a number. Okay. This is not like booking a seat in a movie theater online. I'm going to get that number and that's what I want. Okay, good luck. You know, I think that, you know, it's a journey we need to focus on today and keep focusing on as far as we can actually see and keep doing that. You know, it's like longevity. You know, there's a quote from EL Doctorow, who is a novelist who once said, like, writing is like driving at night. You can't see beyond your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. And that's kind of how I think about longevity. Living as long as you can go. I mean, you know, but you want to actually make sure that you are enjoying yourself and you're fully aware of what you're doing along the same way.
- [42:15]
Lewis Howes
Yeah, 100%. And seeing what's in front of you, not just only focusing on how do I make it to 100 or 110. Just enjoying the moment.
- [42:22]
Dr. William Lee
The horizon is important, but honestly like so is what's directly in front of you.
- [42:26]
Lewis Howes
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- [43:31]
Dr. William Lee
Seriously.
- [43:32]
Lewis Howes
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- [45:39]
Dr. William Lee
First of all, I think that we're able to recover a lot of our health and heal ourselves by making small moves. And this is really important, not extreme moves. Big moves are some people can do them. Most people can't maintain big moves. All Right. Small moves almost anybody can actually do. And of course, you know, people are very complicated. And you know that the scenario you described is somebody who's like, you know, been super unhealthy their whole lives and, you know, not done the right things and are overweight and they're alcohol. I mean, I think you were stacking.
- [46:14]
Lewis Howes
You know, I mean, maybe it's not that extreme, but maybe it's, you know, you know, like 140 pounds overweight.
- [46:19]
Dr. William Lee
How about this? Like the typical person who hasn't taken.
- [46:22]
Lewis Howes
Care of themselves, maybe not too extreme.
- [46:24]
Dr. William Lee
What can they actually do? You know, and maybe it's not 90 days, I would say, you know, like, hey, you know, I think you should take a look at things that you can actually do in a month or two. Give yourself a little Runway. All right? Take it easy on yourself. Because, you know, stress and, you know, putting too much pressure on yourself doesn't actually help. But some of the principles, I will tell you, that is supported by evidence, scientific evidence and clinical evidence is number one, I would say switch to eating more of a plant based diet with whole foods. All right, So I just said a mouthful there because what I'm saying is that eat more foods that you are buying whole and fresh and cook them yourself.
- [47:07]
Lewis Howes
Not processed.
- [47:08]
Dr. William Lee
Not processed, okay? So you can cut down on your ultra processed foods and focus more on your whole fresh foods. Immediately you're going to be flooding your body with more of mother nature's pharmacy. That's pharmacy with an F, not a ph. All right? And that's gonna start healing and prompting your gut to start doing it as well. But you're gonna start getting a lot of stuff that it's not prescription.
- [47:33]
Lewis Howes
Before you go to the next point, can you make a distinction if you can explain to people. Cause I don't think people truly understand when you eat one processed meal, what is happening with a processed food, Whether it's ultra processed or just processed and not it's complete whole food that you cook? What happens when it enters the mouth of ultra processed food or something that's processed and goes through the gut and out? What is happening to your body with that versus just single ingredient whole foods cooked and in the system?
- [48:11]
Dr. William Lee
First of all, I think that this idea that the word. I mean, we're now beginning to have this conversation about ultra processed foods as a, as a society, right? And it's, and it's, and it's damn well time that we actually did. All right? Because we do know that ultra processed foods aren't good for You. But the word process and ultra process often gets confused. So let's start there. Okay, so raw foods are, I mean, whole food ingredients, or like going to the grocery store and just eating the food without doing anything to it. Banana. Apple. Exactly.
- [48:45]
Lewis Howes
Spinach.
- [48:45]
Dr. William Lee
Right.
- [48:46]
Lewis Howes
Carrot.
- [48:47]
Dr. William Lee
Right.
- [48:47]
Lewis Howes
Single ingredient. Yeah, single ingredient.
- [48:49]
Dr. William Lee
The salad bar is a great example of really just like whole individual ingredients that you put into a bowl and just eat them one by one. Most foods that we cook, by cooking them, we're processing.
- [49:01]
Lewis Howes
Okay.
- [49:02]
Dr. William Lee
I don't know if you've ever seen. So anything that we do to manipulate food is processing. So have you ever made pasta by yourself? You take a big pile of flour and you crack some eggs in it, and you just take your fingertips and work it, and you then roll it up and roll it out and cut it up and. Okay, so that's processing. So that's different than all your processing. Going to ultra processing, which is having a factory extrude the ingredients, shape them into animal crackers or whatever, and then adding flavors. Food coloring is adding coloring, adding stabilizers, adding emulsifiers, and then throwing in all these, like, chemical ingredients that you can't pronounce. You have no idea what they do in there. That's ultra processed.
- [49:44]
Lewis Howes
Okay. So the difference between something minimally processed first. Ultra processed. What happens to the gut, the bacteria in your gut, and the body and the immune system with having those different options?
- [49:59]
Dr. William Lee
Yeah. And I'll tell you what we know as it relates to longevity. So first of all, I try to break it down really simply. Our body is like your car. When you put. Our food is our fuel. When you go to the filling station, you get a choice. You're gonna actually put in, like, you got four different kinds of fuel you could put in. All right? If you put in good quality fuel, your car is gonna drive better over the long haul. It's gonna drive better every now and then. You put in some crummy, cheap fuel, it's all right. You're not gonna notice. But if you do that day in and day out, you're going to notice it for sure. All right? So you put something good into your body, your body's going to respond really well. You put something bad in your body, your body's also going to respond accordingly in a negative way. So simply, in simplest terms, that's actually what's the difference is between ultra process, which isn't really good for you, and your body's going to revolt and it's going to trash your body from the inside out in ways some Ways we know, in other ways we don't even know yet. By the way, the whole conversation about ultra plastics but microplastics. All right, hey, you know what? If you ever see like the amount of machinery and plastic that has to, you know, the machines that the processed food has to go through, who knows how much ultra microplastics are actually found in ultra processed foods.
- [51:20]
Lewis Howes
It's like leaching through.
- [51:21]
Dr. William Lee
Yeah, that, that remains to be. That remains to be seen. You know, and so what I say is that the least amount of processing you can have for your food, the more you can be assured that it's going to be a quality food that you're actually going to put into your body and your body will react well. So what's going on? When you feed your food, minimally processed whole foods, your body is going to extract immediately as many of the polyphenols as it can out of it, goes in your stomach, it's absorbed into your bloodstream, those polyphenols go to town. The effect of a polyphenol of eating polyphenols. And there's a lot of polyphenols in foods. Strawberries, blueberries, an orange, an apple, broccoli. All right, when those, all those polyphenols basically get into your bloodstream and think about it like starting a symphony of effects, you know, you ever go to like listen to a symphony orchestra? It's not just usually one instrument that goes off. The whole orchestra goes off. And that's what happens when we eat poly foods. With polyphenols, the dietary fiber tumbles down. We might absorb some of it, some of it we don't absorb tumbles down all the way to your lower gut. What does it do? It feeds our gut microbiome. We've got 39 trillion hungry little baby birds in a nest waiting to be fed. Okay. And the dietary fiber we eat actually feeds them. How important is this? And we know it's really important not only because dietary fiber seems to be. Eating dietary fiber lowers the risk of diseases like dementia, diabetes, cancer, improves outcomes for cancer. But for cancer, for example, there was a study from the MD Anderson Cancer center that looked at people with melanoma, okay? A deadly form of skin cancer. Getting immunotherapy, so they're getting the state of the art treatment, requires their own immune system to go to town. That's the 70% in your gut requires the gut bacteria. Gut bacteria need to eat, okay? Gotta feed em. Turns out for every 5 to 6 grams of dietary fiber, it decreased mortality by 30% mortality. Death. Okay, death.
- [53:41]
Lewis Howes
Decreased it.
- [53:41]
Dr. William Lee
Decreased it by 5 to 6 grams of dietary fiber per day. Now, what does that look like? Dietary fiber, 5 to 6 gram. You get a medium sized pear has 5 to 6 grams of dietary fiber. Not a big ask. Okay?
- [53:55]
Lewis Howes
You do one of those a day.
- [53:56]
Dr. William Lee
One of those a day. Or the equivalent to get the dietary fiber. All right? So. And again, now you get all the polyphenols and so like powerful effects. How quickly does it actually does dietary fiber and these polyphenols, how quickly can they change your. The fate of your gut bacteria? Within 24 hours. Come on, you can start getting changes. So, and I wrote about this in my book Atop disease, you have kiwis, okay? And you measure the gut microbiome and you can, within 24 hours after eating one kiwi, you can start to grow more healthy gut bacteria in the first day. All right. By four days, you start growing other bacteria that are healthy as well. So, you know, like, you're asking me, what about the, what about the dude who actually hasn't been taking care of himself? Look, this is what I'm telling you. Go eat some whole fresh foods that you prepare yourself, okay. Cut down some of that ultra processed stuff I'll talk about with the ultra processed stuff does in a second. And you'll start to get these changes. You're hardwired to do this. Your body wants to do it, you know, let it do its job.
- [55:02]
Lewis Howes
Yeah.
- [55:03]
Dr. William Lee
Okay.
- [55:03]
Lewis Howes
You'll start to feel the effects or maybe, or at least your body will feel the effects within 24 hours.
- [55:08]
Dr. William Lee
Well, you, you're. The changes start fast. And so, you know, definitely within a few days, you will start to feel much better. I mean, listen, you ever, you ever go like on a, like a crummy food bender and then, right, like, don't feel good. Don't feel good. And then you say, you know what this is? This sucks. I'm gonna actually, like, eat healthy now. You start getting it back pretty quick.
- [55:31]
Lewis Howes
Yes.
- [55:32]
Dr. William Lee
Like, I am so glad I'm doing this right. So the changes happen fast. So I think, you know, so number one, it is in within everyone's power to be able to actually make these moves. Okay. That count. Simply by shifting to whole good healthy foods. Because, you know, the bad stuff with the artificial preservatives and artificial coloring and all that, you know, the simplest way to think about what they might do besides dump chemicals into your body is they can kill your gut bacteria. That's not what you want to do. You know, killing the gut bacteria by the way, is like, we're talking about the symphony Beethoven's fifth, you know, where Handel's Messiah, Big choir in a, in a big concert hall, you know, like hurting your gut bacteria, like ultra processed foods with all these artificial things. It's like sending in, it's like sending in hooligans from our, from a British football game screaming in the air, screaming into a concert hall and kicking over all the instruments.
- [56:35]
Lewis Howes
Wow. That's what processed foods do. Ultra processed. What are other things that ruin the gut bacteria then, besides ultra processed foods?
- [56:46]
Dr. William Lee
Well, alcohol will do it. Smoking also can affect it. Not getting enough good sleep, not getting exercise can also affect your gut.
- [56:54]
Lewis Howes
What about vaping?
- [56:55]
Dr. William Lee
Vaping? Oh yeah. Vaping is also, I mean, look, cigarettes, vaping, cigars, pipes, it's all part of the same continuum. There's nothing better about vaping. In fact, research has actually shown that the flavoring that they put in vapes are actually probably even worse than some of the stuff that you have just in a plain cigarette.
- [57:16]
Lewis Howes
So, you know, so vaping or smoking or cigars, that doesn't help the gut bacteria?
- [57:21]
Dr. William Lee
No, not at all.
- [57:21]
Lewis Howes
Does it impact it in a negative way or is it.
- [57:23]
Dr. William Lee
Yeah, it impacts. In a negative way. Really? Yeah, because guess what? All those chemicals, instead of eating them, now you're inhaling them and they go right into your bloodstream instead, from your gut, your stomach. It just goes right into the bloodstream for your lungs. And now, you know, everything is affected. That 60,000 mile channel of highways and byways is delivering whatever the menthol flavor or the, whatever flavor you've got all over the place. You really don't want that.
- [57:49]
Lewis Howes
How much of a block. If someone is smoking every day or vaping or doing cigars or pipes every day, or they're inhaling some type of smoke, how much of a dam are they creating in the flow of health throughout their nervous system, their bloodstream?
- [58:08]
Dr. William Lee
I don't have a number for you, but it's pretty significant. It's so significant that some of the researchers looking at environmental toxins have been even looking at not only smoking and vaping, but looking at even cooking. Think about the line cooks at a restaurant.
- [58:30]
Lewis Howes
The smoke, you mean?
- [58:31]
Dr. William Lee
And all the, the fryer smoke, the.
- [58:34]
Lewis Howes
Grease and everything coming out.
- [58:35]
Dr. William Lee
Listen, like you, you and I, that was good. We, we probably have spent more time. We've probably done our time. Oh yeah. Standing in front of a grill.
- [58:43]
Lewis Howes
Oh yeah.
- [58:44]
Dr. William Lee
In the summer, Right, of course. And we're flipping the burgers or grilling the steaks. Hey, you know, like, that's part of the, that's, that's part of the, the, the, you know, that's, it's part of growing up, you know, and doing your. Doing our thing. All right, think about all that stuff that we're breathing. We know that, that grilling meat puts carcinogens into the meat. What do you think we're breathing in? Oh, man. Okay. Fortunately, you know, like, most people aren't.
- [59:09]
Lewis Howes
It's minimal.
- [59:10]
Dr. William Lee
But if you're a line cook in a restaurant, you're going there, doing that.
- [59:14]
Lewis Howes
Eight hours a day.
- [59:15]
Dr. William Lee
Station, eight hours a day, every day. Okay? So what I'm saying is that, like, how what we expose our bodies to makes a big difference. So these are choices that we make. And you know, researchers and public health and policymakers, like, I think that there's starting to be a convergence in recognizing that, you know, if we want a healthier society and healthier individuals, all right, we gotta just be a little bit more alert to the fact that what we're exposed to can have like a really, really big impact in ways that we didn't think about before. Now it's time. Now's the time to think about it.
- [59:50]
Lewis Howes
Okay, so number one, I think I took you off track for a second. Number one is eat more plant based.
- [59:55]
Dr. William Lee
Whole foods and less ultra processed foods.
- [59:57]
Lewis Howes
Less ultra processed. Was there more to this? Was there more steps to this?
- [60:01]
Dr. William Lee
No, I think that's probably a good first step. I mean, of course there's a lot of little things. Second thing I would tell you is don't overeat. Don't overeat. Look, we live in a culture of abundance. The more there is, the more you want to eat. Yeah, right. Eat.
- [60:15]
Lewis Howes
The access, too.
- [60:16]
Dr. William Lee
Easy access. Okay. And easy access to the cheap stuff, which is the ultra processed stuff, which is the. Definitely the bad stuff. Right. So not the good stuff.
- [60:23]
Lewis Howes
If you're gonna overeat. Overeat, fiber, overeat, like the healthy stuff.
- [60:26]
Dr. William Lee
You know, honestly, I would tell you, don't even, don't, don't even overeat the good stuff. And here's the reason why. Really? Oh, yeah. Because the fact of the matter is that our bodies are designed to take in food as fuel. All right? Like, remember I gave you the analogy, the gas, the car at the filling station, getting your tank filled up, right? So that's basically how we interact with our food. We're just like in a car, you don't really think about your fuel until the meter runs low, the gauge runs low. Then you're like, shoot, where can I find a gas station? That's all you can think about. And that's basically how our body works. Like, we don't think about eating until, you know, our getting hungry. The fuel tank goes, you know, your tank's running low now, like, okay, I gotta get something to eat. Okay. So that's the same way. And what happens is that when we go to the filling station with a car, we put hopefully high quality fuel into our gas tank, which is a metal container in the side of the car. We fill it up, right? And what happens is when the gas tank in a car fills up to the top, it goes click. And now no more gas comes out. We get up, we put it away. Okay. And then we drive off. Right? And our tank's full. Our body doesn't have the clicker.
- [61:40]
Lewis Howes
Wouldn't that be amazing if it did?
- [61:42]
Dr. William Lee
If we had a clicker?
- [61:43]
Lewis Howes
Yeah, if we had a clicker and it said, okay, you've eaten all you need to fill your tank today. Stop eating. Go burn it now. Go, run.
- [61:50]
Dr. William Lee
I'm going to tell you what the. We kind of do have a clicker and I'm going to tell you what it is. If you eat slowly, yes. You will actually feel satiated, full. And if you stop there, stop before you're full. You're satisfied before you're full. Now this requires a little bit of finesse for you to know yourself.
- [62:14]
Lewis Howes
Okay, well, also when you're eating. When I eat ultra processed foods, I never feel full. It's like I can have two pizzas and candy and you want more and more hungry.
- [62:22]
Dr. William Lee
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [62:23]
Lewis Howes
So the clicker doesn't turn on with ultra processed foods like it would with whole foods, where you feel like, oh, I got a lot of good fiber in me. I got some good grains. I got some, you know, meat or beans or vegetables. Like, I feel satisfied.
- [62:36]
Dr. William Lee
So that's the key thing, feeling satisfied. Knowing you're satisfied and stopping no matter what's else. Like, I don't care if you haven't cleaned your plate. Stop, stop. Quit the clean plate club.
- [62:48]
Lewis Howes
Yeah.
- [62:49]
Dr. William Lee
Okay, you gotta quit it. All right, then in that case, you shouldn't have put so much food in your plate to begin with.
- [62:55]
Lewis Howes
Exactly right.
- [62:56]
Dr. William Lee
So this is my overarching second piece of advice for somebody who wants to take better care of themselves. Don't put too much food in the plate. Don't feel like you have to clean the plate. Take your time eating so that when your stomach starts to get full, you'll start Feeling that you are satisfied. You don't have to feel full. Like, we're trained to eat until we're full. Yeah. All right, but, you know, like, listen, anybody who's been at a big Thanksgiving dinner will know this, right? So you've been hungry all day. You can't wait for that meal with all the amazing food and all the amazing family. Look forward to it every. Every year. And you go there and it's time to eat, and you pile your plate up and you're eating. Okay. And you're like, oh, my God, I gotta go back and get more. Right? So you go back and get more. You take one forkful of that second plate, and you cross that line and.
- [63:44]
Lewis Howes
You got all this food left over.
- [63:45]
Dr. William Lee
Yeah, yeah. And then you feel like, oh, man, I don't think I can eat anymore. And then you are on the couch feeling crummy for the rest of the day. That's crossing the line. You ate so fast, you didn't pay attention. Right. So second piece of advice for people, don't overeat.
- [64:00]
Lewis Howes
Okay.
- [64:01]
Dr. William Lee
Third.
- [64:01]
Lewis Howes
Third thing.
- [64:02]
Dr. William Lee
Third thing is something that everybody can do. Like, I'm. By the way, Louis, I'm telling you, all things that are. Don't cost a lot of money.
- [64:09]
Lewis Howes
Exactly.
- [64:09]
Dr. William Lee
In fact, they'll save you money.
- [64:10]
Lewis Howes
Yeah.
- [64:11]
Dr. William Lee
All right. That's the key thing. You don't have to be, you know, like a super wealthy person and buy all this and order all these supplements and do all this crazy stuff and track your glucose and all that. You don't need to do all this stuff. This is a simple way to heal yourself and get started. Because your body's got the operating system already hardwired into you.
- [64:30]
Lewis Howes
Yes.
- [64:31]
Dr. William Lee
It's an easy first step for anybody. Now, third thing is every now and then, skip a meal. I do it about three times a week. Two to three times a week. Easiest meal for me to skip is breakfast. Okay. I get up, I take my time. If my work day starts early, I've got a ton of stuff I gotta do. Sometimes I'm so busy, I just don't even have time to eat breakfast. And that's totally okay. We were told by our moms we gotta eat breakfast in order to have to learn something at school, have enough energy. Totally not true. By not eating breakfast, what we are immediately doing is extending this fasting period from overnight when we weren't eating after, you know, when we went to sleep. Now you're still not eating until, let's call it lunchtime. You've extended your quote. Fasting period, maybe 12 hours. Okay? That's the easiest way to do intermittent fasting. You don't have to, like, go into a schedule and do anything else. I always tell people, like, don't bother going into these crazy plans. Just skip a meal or two. And even if you don't do it every single day, which, you know, it's probably hard for everybody to skip breakfast or skip lunch every single day, but if you do it two or three times a week, okay, you'll be fine. These are the easy steps. This is the third thing I would do. Fourth thing I would do is say, get on your feet and go for a walk after dinner. Okay? And by the way, when I'm saying a walk, I'm saying like a brisk walk. Like, you know, don't drag your feet. Walk until, you know, like, you're feeling it. You know, like you're feeling like you're getting some good exercise. If you can do it with a friend or a family member, even better. Catch up on things if you don't have anybody to walk with. Hey, there's something called podcast.
- [66:17]
Lewis Howes
Yeah, exactly.
- [66:18]
Dr. William Lee
Listen to School of Greatness.
- [66:19]
Lewis Howes
Yes.
- [66:20]
Dr. William Lee
Okay, listen to an episode. Listen to this episode, all right? And by the time it's done, you'll have actually gotten some pretty good exercise and movement. If you can squeeze it in to do a workout plan or join a gym or go swimming or cycling, more power to you. But I'm saying you can do it walk the really, really easy way anybody can do is just walk. Unless you're in a wheelchair. Okay? This is something you can do to actually start to gain your health back. All right? That is the next thing. And then the final thing that I think is a start, because you can't stack too many things on, is try to get some good sleep. Yes, just get some good sleep. And by the way, you know why? Because when you sleep really, really well. And look, even if you don't sleep well now, there's. At some point in your life, you did get good sleep. So we all know how to do it, all right? When you get good sleep, deep REM sleep, dreaming sleep, what happens is that your body regenerates itself. Your stem cells get regenerate, start to regenerate, Your brain cleans itself out. By the way, have you heard of the glymphatic system in the brain?
- [67:25]
Lewis Howes
I've heard it, but what does it do?
- [67:26]
Dr. William Lee
Okay, so there is a hidden sewer system in our brain called the glymph phatic system. You've heard of lymphatic system, but the glymphatic system, they say glymph because the cells in our brain are called glia G L I a. So glymphatic system is a sewer system that's normally closed during the day. And so, you know, like, here we are during the day. You know, we're doing this podcast. We're doing other things. You know, you prep before, you got to do some stuff afterwards. Me too. All right. You know what's happening? We're building up toxins in our brain, oxidative stress, all kinds of stuff is going on in our brain when we sleep tonight. Okay. Hopefully I'm going to get some good sleep and hopefully you too.
- [68:10]
Lewis Howes
Yes.
- [68:11]
Dr. William Lee
All right. When we get good sleep, and only when we get good sleep, the glymphatic systems open up. It's like the sewers of Paris. Drains the toxins from your brain. All right. And that's how we regenerate the freshness of our brain. That's why they say get a good night's sleep before an exam. All right. And if you don't, by the way, you get brain fog. You know why you get brain fog? Because you've kept those toxins in. Wow.
- [68:38]
Lewis Howes
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- [70:51]
Dr. William Lee
Seriously.
- [70:51]
Lewis Howes
If you don't love it, they'll refund you, no questions asked. Stay salty with LMNT. Again drinklmnt.com greatness. If someone, say, has one glass of wine or one drink of alcohol before they go to sleep and they say to themselves, it's not that much, it's just one glass or one drink, how much is that impacting the brain to not be able to recover, flush out those toxins and feel fully rested?
- [71:21]
Dr. William Lee
Different for everybody.
- [71:22]
Lewis Howes
Okay.
- [71:22]
Dr. William Lee
Okay. Now, I think in general, what I would say is that I have an opinion about alcohol, okay. And my opinion about alcohol is this. From the time that humans started to grow grains and ferment them, all right, we've been having alcohol and alcohol as part of human ritual. We celebrate birthdays and funerals and wakes and holidays with it. So to me, I think that, you know, drinking some wine, having some alcohol is really part of our humanity. All right? The problem becomes when we actually start really abusing it and drinking too much of it. And here's the reason. The alcohol in all alcoholic beverages, ethanol, okay, which is present in all of them, that's a toxin. So whether you drink a little or a lot, you know, the bottom line is still a toxin. So the more you have, the more toxicity. Your body's more toxic in. Your body's got to purge. Yes. Every now and then. It's probably not a big deal. Like have a great glass of wine or bottle of wine on your birthday. Don't drink the whole bottle, but enjoy it with some friends. Okay? Like, social drinking in that context I think is okay.
- [72:32]
Lewis Howes
But if you're doing it every night, just One glass.
- [72:34]
Dr. William Lee
What I would tell you is this. You know, your body's got to work against that to clear it. And everybody's body's different. You know, your liver might work a little bit more efficiently than mine, so you're going to clear a little bit better. And the faster you clear it, the better the sleep you're going to get. And by the way, alcohol itself is a brain toxin, so it knocks out a few neurons. You got to regenerate those. So you're going to regenerate them when you're sleeping. Right. So it's all interlinked. And so I don't like to character assassinate any food really. I think, you know, like, you know, you gotta, you gotta enjoy if you're gonna want, if you want to live for a long time. You want aiming for longevity. You know, life is for the living, so you gotta live your life. I'm a big believer in that. But just you. But you gotta be aware of what it is you're putting into your body and how your body's responding to it.
- [73:22]
Lewis Howes
So again, these four bacteria that are in the gut of people that are living well beyond 100, we talked about those before. You gave a few different foods that can support you and I guess a few of them. The fourth one.
- [73:36]
Dr. William Lee
Yeah, there's, there's, there's more for, for, for all these bacteria. Like I'm not gonna, let's not go through every single one. Sure, sure. This is like still a relatively new area of research for me. But I'll tell you, I was surprised to discover that resistant starches can grow some of them as well. You know what a resistant starch is? Starch. Right. It's a carb, right. Like rice and all this other kind of stuff, Banana. All right. When you actually change the starch so it becomes a little harder to digest. Like you refrigerate like a day old rice. Okay. It becomes a resistant starch. A potato. You're going to roast some potatoes, all right, you stick them in the fridge. The next day, the natural chemistry of the potato, the starches changes. You got some resistant starch. Resistant starch can grow some of those bacteria that are found in ultra ager superager.
- [74:29]
Lewis Howes
Interesting.
- [74:29]
Dr. William Lee
Okay. Also some natural foods, green bananas, resistant starch, plantains, resistant starch. All right, so any roasted potato, stick in the fridge, have it. The next day, you actually have created your own resistant starch. So those actually also can help grow some of the healthy gut bacteria as well.
- [74:51]
Lewis Howes
Amazing. What, I mean, what are the things that are blocking us beyond the processed foods, beyond smoking alcohol. Here's actually a question I have for you about this. If you're eating all the right foods, but you say take a Tylenol once a day, or take ibuprofen once a day, or take some type of chemical compound that is a drug, even if it seems like it's safe over the counter, what does that do to the gut microbiome when you take a Tylenol, Advil, Ibuprofen, or some type of pain killer?
- [75:25]
Dr. William Lee
We. We don't know. And it's going to be different for different. Different medicines. Like, I will tell you that a. Some medicines might actually be very harmful. Okay. And I think that we're just still at the beginning of discovering, like, we're, we're. Our consciousness has only been recently raised as researchers to think about the gut microbiome. There's a lot more work to be done, but a few years in. Yeah, we're just a few years in. But I'll tell you, there are some surprises. And I know that on your program you've actually had people coming in to talk about longevity drugs like rapamycin and metformin. You know that metformin's been discovered to improve your gut microbiome. Really? Yeah. So medicines aren't always bad. Some of them might actually be good. We're just starting to figure this out and understand it.
- [76:12]
Lewis Howes
Yeah. Interesting. I guess I'm curious if there's side effects that would also hurt. Maybe they'd help in some way, but then hurt in some other way.
- [76:19]
Dr. William Lee
I'm not sure, but we don't really know yet. And I think that's really part of this new frontier I'm, I'm really excited about because I think that, you know, when I went to medical school and I was learning and studying and reading all these books and, you know, like, we're digesting 4,000 years of medical knowledge. You graduate medical school with your stethoscope around your neck, figuring that, you know, like, okay, I probably know most of what there is to know. Heck, no. We are still discovering new cells in the body, new organs in a body, new pieces of our physiology and how our body works that we didn't even imagine. So that's what's exciting to me as a medical researcher, the physician, as a scientist. And then, you know, like, part of what I do is, you know, as I write books, I like to translate some of the most exciting but also pragmatic, like, practical things that we're discovering that you can actually do something about.
- [77:15]
Lewis Howes
This may sound a little woo woo this question, but how much do our thoughts and our mindset impact our gut but also our overall health?
- [77:25]
Dr. William Lee
Oh, I think it's huge as it relates to the gut. We do know that it's a two way street. So if we're depressed or you know, like some other thing is going on in our brain, inevitably the gut's gonna be affected in some way. We're really, as I said, like we don't have it all figured out yet.
- [77:41]
Lewis Howes
But it's impacting it.
- [77:43]
Dr. William Lee
Probably not for the better.
- [77:45]
Lewis Howes
So stress overwhelm, anxiety, depression, bad thoughts.
- [77:50]
Dr. William Lee
And it may actually, it may be a gut signaling, the brain signaling back to the brain. You know, like, like two people playing pickleball.
- [77:59]
Lewis Howes
Interesting.
- [78:00]
Dr. William Lee
You know, like batting, you know, like nasty things, nastiness, bad to each other. That could well be happening. Okay. With brain and gut, we do know that it can be good. You know, there's beneficial gut brain interactions. So it makes sense that there might be some negative ones. But I can tell you that I think that the, that too often we disconnect mental wellness with physical wellness. We call them two separate things. You don't know, the psychiatrist or the therapist deals with this. And you know, medical doctors say, oh well, I deal with the liver or I deal with the kidney. Yeah, you know, what we're beginning to realize is there's all this interconnectivity. And again, back to what I do. I'm all about the common denominator of health and the common denominators of disease. If we can actually take a science based approach to look at how everything is connected, it's that idea of draining the Pacific Ocean and seeing how the islands are connected. We get a lot more mileage out of that than just taking an inch wide and going a mile deep and thinking that you've got the answer.
- [79:04]
Lewis Howes
Yeah, it almost sounds like if you're eating unhealthy foods, ultra processed foods, it's more than likely going to have an impact on the way you think because you're going to feel a certain thing or maybe the signals are sending something up. This is not enough. I need more nutrients, I need something else. And therefore it's going to create some type of fogginess in your thinking or in your mind. And if you're thinking your mind is a lower energy, a lower frequency. Thinking tired, it's going to send it back to the gut. It seems like it's kind of connecting at the same time. So when you eat something healthy, hopefully it's impacting your mind or your brain to think better. And if you're thinking better, hopefully your gut is being impacted in a better way also.
- [79:50]
Dr. William Lee
And that's connected to longevity because one of the goals that we all want to have is we want to be clear in mind, we want to have good cognition. It's not just about memory, it's really about decision making. What am I going to do today, what am I going to do next week? And making good decisions, right? I mean, you know, like, I just think that rather than pick a number, you know, I'm going to do 150 or whatever. Let's think about this whole journey and everything we need to do to enjoy where we're going. You want to go on vacation, right? You want to really plan your vacation? Where are you going to eat? What are you going to pack? What's the weather going to be like? All these components I think are, at least from my perspective, longevity is not just about the big number. It's really about your health span and the quality of your life along the way. And that's to me is really the exciting thing, is really the science of that enjoyment along the way. I'm, I'm a big believer in joy and in pleasure and in making life worth living 100%.
- [80:55]
Lewis Howes
And if you could, I got a couple final questions for you. But if you were to focus on a few supplements you think people should be taking to just non negotiables that you think is going to help their gut, their lifespan, everything, what would those few supplements be?
- [81:12]
Dr. William Lee
I can only tell you what I do.
- [81:13]
Lewis Howes
Okay, all right.
- [81:14]
Dr. William Lee
Because I don't think I can really fairly address this should be for everybody, the non negotiables. But I'll tell you for me, I know that it's hard for me to get enough vitamin D, so I'll take a vitamin D supplement. I know it's even though I enjoy seafood and I like, you know, plant based sources of omega 3s, it's hard for me to get enough. So an Omega 3 supplement is good for my brain, good for my heart, it's good for my muscles. So I take an Omega 3 supplement. I think those are for me, non negotiable. I just don't get enough. And I think most people don't get enough either, honestly, because I do work in this area, you know, I have an unfair advantage of seeing the results of research and thinking, oh wow, why don't I do this if I'm seeing this? So I do take some probiotics and it's all based on the research that I've actually seen. So that bacteria, I told you, Lactobacillus reuteri, you can find it in food. Sometimes it's in yogurt, it's in sourdough bread. But I don't want to eat too much sourdough bread. It's a carb. Lactobacillus is what makes the sourdough bread tangy, which people like, but you can't eat that much sourdough bread. Lactobacillus rudori is also in the Italian version of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Mm. It's so good. Big, you know, orange wheels. Okay. It's a starter bacteria for it. You don't want to be eating too much of that. Shave a little bit on. Okay. But you're not going to be eating, like, mouthfuls of it. So I can't get enough of that. And I've seen enough research from what I've done to know that it's good for my immune system, it lowers inflammation. I've seen really good data in animals from the lab that it reduces the development of colon tumors and breast tumors. It also improves your metabolism, your lipids, it text messages your brain for that oxytocin.
- [83:09]
Lewis Howes
So what's that one called again?
- [83:11]
Dr. William Lee
Lactobacillus reuteri. And by the way, it's Lactobacillus reuteri is spelled R E U T E R I. I'll give it to you so you can put in the show notes.
- [83:22]
Lewis Howes
Yeah, please.
- [83:22]
Dr. William Lee
Lactopocys rudai. And I'll tell you, I actually order the kind. Like, this is stuff you get on Amazon. I, I, I get the kind that you can chew.
- [83:29]
Lewis Howes
Okay.
- [83:29]
Dr. William Lee
Children's chewable version. You know why? Because there's other data in humans that this healthy bacteria in the gut. Remember I told you the gut starts in the mouth, actually kills the bacteria that causes cavities? Really? I brush my teeth now? Chew up a couple of these. Come on, babies.
- [83:49]
Lewis Howes
I want some.
- [83:49]
Dr. William Lee
I'll swish them around, then I swallow it. Good for the upstairs, good for the downstairs.
- [83:53]
Lewis Howes
I'm in.
- [83:54]
Dr. William Lee
Great. And remember I told you we're beginning to see links between gum disease, gingivitis, bad bacteria in your mouth, and dementia. Okay, so, you know, I didn't have to convince you very hard on that one.
- [84:07]
Lewis Howes
No, I'm in.
- [84:07]
Dr. William Lee
All right.
- [84:08]
Lewis Howes
I'm in. You take these every day?
- [84:10]
Dr. William Lee
I do. And then, you know, and then I happen to be involved with the research on Akkermansia. And I know that there are. People say it's been so talked about on, you know, on social media and YouTube and podcasts. I do research on it. Okay. So I and my colleagues are doing the research on it. So I'm looking at it. And this bacteria actually is really, really important. And I'm a cancer researcher, so I know just how important that can be. So I do take that back. I do take that probiotic. But I also don't rely on probiotics like from my akkermancy. I also drink some pomegranate juice and I'll, you know, have dried cranberries. And, you know, I, I try to make. I use supplements as a top off, which is what supplement means.
- [84:55]
Lewis Howes
Yeah, yeah.
- [84:56]
Dr. William Lee
All right. But I try to get most of my foods. Things from foods. Yeah, yeah.
- [85:00]
Lewis Howes
So what is that one called? The Akkermansia.
- [85:03]
Dr. William Lee
A K K E R M A N S I A.
- [85:06]
Lewis Howes
That's the probiotic name or not?
- [85:07]
Dr. William Lee
That's the name of the bacteria and the probiotic.
- [85:09]
Lewis Howes
Oh, it is. Okay, cool. Yeah, gotcha.
- [85:13]
Dr. William Lee
So.
- [85:14]
Lewis Howes
So those four things are the main that you take. Vitamin D, omega 3 and these two probiotics. Yeah, you might throw some other stuff in there, but those are the main.
- [85:21]
Dr. William Lee
Those are the main ones.
- [85:22]
Lewis Howes
I do got you.
- [85:23]
Dr. William Lee
You know, I mean, look, everyone's going to be different. Everyone's going to have different needs. I might add some, you know, based on research that's coming out. So I, you know, I try not to create a little, you know, a box of things that to say, you have to do this. Of course, you know, you're not going to be healthy. This is what I do. And people always ask me, so I'm happy to share it with you.
- [85:48]
Lewis Howes
That's great. You've got some amazing books, Eat to Beat disease and Eat to Beat in your diet that cover all the research that you've done and give people way more tips than what we've talked about here. This is a great starter. And you're on YouTube every week. People can check out YouTube. DrWilliamLee to see your content where you dive into the research and you share more. And you're doing it, what, two, three times a week right now?
- [86:13]
Dr. William Lee
Yeah, three times a week. And then we actually add more content whenever I can. And the way that I treat my YouTube is that I look really closely at what people, you know, my audience and people who hear about me, they want to ask me. So I get lots of. I could collect information like what are the questions that people want to know. And then I create my YouTube content based on answering what people want to know.
- [86:34]
Lewis Howes
What's the biggest pain that people are facing around their health today that you've been answering?
- [86:38]
Dr. William Lee
You know, confusion about what they should do. They get so much misinformation it becomes confusing for them. And so what I always try to tell people to do is that I'm trying to give you information that's based on science that I know to be true as well as we understand it. Now, you can count on me to be a trusted source of information. I'm a scientist, so if I don't know it, I'm going to tell you I don't know. That's okay because we can't know everything. And I think that just like what we talked about today, I'm a pragmatic, but I'm a practical person. Do what's practical. You don't have to do what's expensive. You can't. You know, this is not health, is not elitism. Health is universal. It's something we can all do because we're all hardwired to actually heal. We're all hardwired to have good metabolism. We're hardwired to have our health defenses. So if you have been off the path, don't worry, you can get back on it. You know, just, you know, follow your own signals with a little bit of guidance and you can get there.
- [87:35]
Lewis Howes
This is powerful. I want people to go subscribe to your YouTube, check your out all your books. Drwilliamlee.com you're going to be updating people there. You have a newsletter, all these different things people can check out. Also I'm going to get a link or a list of all the supplements you talked about and add it to the show notes. So I'll get that from you later and I'll add it to the show notes on YouTube and, and all the different audio platforms. But this has been very powerful. I appreciate you for revealing some of the new research that you're discovering and you're seeing that I haven't heard anyone talk about which is kind of understanding the gut bacteria connection to longer term health and longevity. And I think it's really important that we need to start exploring more of this. And I'm assuming over the coming years you're going to be talking more about this on your YouTube channel, about what you're discovering and sharing the research and the science that people can have for themselves.
- [88:27]
Dr. William Lee
Yeah, it's so exciting what we're actually finding out in terms of how to live long and live well. To me that's the alignment you want. Years and quality at the same time. That's what I'm focused on. Like a laser beam.
- [88:41]
Lewis Howes
Dr. William Lee thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it.
- [88:44]
Dr. William Lee
Thanks for inviting me again. Powerful.
- [88:46]
Lewis Howes
I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy and if you are looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life. But you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to make moneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment. Moving forward, we have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following and stay tuned to the next episode on the School of Greatness. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links and if you want weekly exclusive bonus content episodes with me personally as well as ad free listening. Then make sure to subscribe to our greatness+channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you listen lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.
- [90:22]
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- [90:52]
Dr. William Lee
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