119. Devon Lévesque: What Facing Death on Everest Taught Me about Living

1h 19m
“The closest a man comes to a calm mind, the nearer he is to real strength.” This profound insight from Devon Lévesque’s journey might just change how you think about personal growth forever. In this episode, Gary Brecka sits down with Devon Lévesque who reveals the raw, unfiltered truth about what it takes to summit Mount Everest and bear crawl an entire marathon. But this isn’t just another adventure story – it’s a masterclass in understanding how pushing your limits can transform your approach to business, success, and life! What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done, and how did it change you? Share your story in the comments below – let’s learn from each other’s experiences!

Special citation from Joe Rogan’s podcast on the impact of physical conditioning on mental health: https://bit.ly/4ik6plQ

Connect with Devon Lévesque:
Website: https://bit.ly/3AZjaBR
YouTube: https://bit.ly/4g0n6RV
Instagram: https://bit.ly/3B0DYca
Facebook: https://bit.ly/4eXhqXB
TikTok: https://bit.ly/3BbCFHq
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/49gEAH2

00:00 ​Intro of Show and Guest
03:05 ​Who is Devon Lévesque?
07:03 ​Three Words that Changed His Life
08:34 ​The Bear Crawl Marathon Story
12:53 ​Importance of Community
17:50 ​Going Back to the Basics with Nature
20:47 Partnership with Jesse Itzler
23:38 ​​Impact of Physical Conditioning on Mental Health
24:10 Hormesis & Types of Fun
28:27 ​How to Wake Up & Feel Content
32:20 ​Preparations & Climbing of Mt. Everest
50:51 ​Reaching the Top of Mt. Everest
54:00 ​Debacle between Nepalese & Westerners
56:15 ​Lessons Learned from Pushing to the Absolute Limit
1:03:30 ​Why Should You Do Hard Stuff?
1:16:49 ​Final Question: What does it mean to you to be an “Ultimate Human?”

GET GARY’S WEEKLY TIPS ON HEALTH AND LIFESTYLE OPTIMIZATION: https://bit.ly/4eLDbdU

EIGHT SLEEP - SAVE $350 ON THE POD 4 ULTRA WITH CODE “GARY”: https://bit.ly/3WkLd6E

BODY HEALTH - USE CODE “ULTIMATE20” FOR 20% OFF YOUR ORDER: http://bit.ly/4e5IjsV

BAJA GOLD - 91 ESSENTIAL MINERALS PER PINCH! 10% OFF USE CODE "ULTIMATE10": https://bit.ly/3WSBqUa

ELEVATE YOUR WORKOUTS WITH THE ULTIMATE HUMAN STRENGTH TRAINING EQUIPMENT: https://bit.ly/3zYwtSl

THE COLD LIFE - BOOST RECOVERY & WELL-BEING WITH THE ULTIMATE HUMAN PLUNGE: https://bit.ly/4eULUKp

MASA CHIPS - GET 20% OFF YOUR FIRST $50+ ORDER: https://bit.ly/40LVY4y

PARKER PASTURES - GET PREMIUM GRASS-FED MEATS TODAY: https://bit.ly/4hHcbhc

SHOP GARY’S TOP-RATED PRODUCTS & EXCLUSIVE DEALS: https://theultimatehuman.com/amazon-recs

Watch the “Ultimate Human Podcast” every Tuesday & Thursday at 9AM EST on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RPQYX8

Connect with Gary Brecka:
Website: https://bit.ly/4eLDbdU
Instagram: https://bit.ly/3RPpnFs
TikTok: https://bit.ly/4coJ8fo
Facebook: https://bit.ly/464VA1H
X.com: https://bit.ly/3Opc8tf
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4hH7Ri2

SUBSCRIBE TO:
https://www.youtube.com/@ultimatehumanpodcast
https://www.youtube.com/@garybrecka

Download the “Ultimate Human Podcast” on all your favorite podcast platforms: https://bit.ly/3RQftU0

The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka Podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice, and no doctor/patient relationship is formed. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast is at the user’s own risk. The Content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Press play and read along

Runtime: 1h 19m

Transcript

Speaker 1 I saw my dad struggling with some mental health thing and he didn't have an outlet. And I come to find out that day after he dropped me off, he killed himself.

Speaker 1 And then when I saw what happened, my goal was to help people wake up happier.

Speaker 2 It's very impactful to know what someone's driving force is. And it's not that somebody has to have that major of a catastrophic event in their life, but we don't have a lot of time to waste.

Speaker 1 I realize my why is I want to live my life without my hands in my pocket. Everyone on this earth is going to go through transitions.

Speaker 1 The best way I've found for people to transition is to have a good community around them. And that's all I'm trying to foster.

Speaker 2 I feel like a lot of people are just disconnected from the basics, mother nature, community. You're meeting people where they are and giving them a space.

Speaker 1 That's my goal is to calm people's tension in the world by providing these communities.

Speaker 2 When you sat down, you were telling me a Save My Everest story for this podcast. Tell me about that.

Speaker 1 We go up to nowhere. You're in this blizzard.
You're like, holy shit, I might actually die right now.

Speaker 2 And how are the guys that were with you?

Speaker 1 People are dying. People literally in that condition.
It was terrifying. Get to the top.
You could hear a pin drop at the top. Perfect weather.
It's so next level. It's a feeling of this crazy energy.

Speaker 1 I'm happy I did it, but I wouldn't, I would never do it again.

Speaker 2 Grinding through the pain of Everest, pushing your body to the absolute limit. You'd call it do hard shit.
Why should people do hard shit?

Speaker 1 The thing with brain bigger is better. And I'll tell you one thing.

Speaker 2 today on the Ultimate Human, we're honored to have Devin LeVake. He's an extraordinary individual.
He's hilarious.

Speaker 2 He's one whose life exemplifies resilience, endurance, and dedication to mental health advocacy.

Speaker 2 He's known for bear crawling an entire New York City marathon, which set a world record and backflipping on top of Mount Everest.

Speaker 2 He pushes his physical and mental limits, and Devin's journey is so inspiring and so transformative. He's a very successful entrepreneur.

Speaker 2 He's the founder of Sweet Honey Farm, which I love, and an advocate for sustainable family-centered wellness.

Speaker 2 Devin's here to share his philosophies on building resilience, supporting mental health, and his vision for holistic health.

Speaker 2 We are so excited to dive into the powerful stories and insights that define his approach to life and wellness. Hey, guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast.

Speaker 2 I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brecca, where we go down the road of everything, anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. And today's guest is a guest.

Speaker 2 Dude, I've been wanting to have you on here for a long time.

Speaker 2 And we narrowly missed each other. He was actually on the

Speaker 2 summit down here on a cruise ship, and I narrowly missed him, but I got him, captured him. He's on the podcast today.
Guys, welcome Devin Levesque.

Speaker 1 No, it's fine. However.

Speaker 2 No, not Levesque. You said it.
Love Ake. Love, Ache.
Levake. I love Ake.
Devin Levake.

Speaker 2 Hey, man.

Speaker 2 I memorized it differently. Love, Ake.
Devin Levake.

Speaker 2 You know, I was,

Speaker 2 first of all, man, I'm super pumped about the message that you're putting out in the world. We ran a whole podcast before we got on the podcast, you know, talking about your regenerative farm and,

Speaker 2 you know, some of just the amazingly phenomenal physical feats that you've accomplished, climbing Mount Everest, bear crawling an entire marathon.

Speaker 2 But there was something about that marathon, bear crawl. When I was actually

Speaker 2 really.

Speaker 2 figuring out who Devin Levake was and I went down the Devin Levake rabbit hole, you know, I stumbled on a talk you did and it actually just really hit hit my heart because I feel like very often on this podcast, the most impactful people in the world that are really making great change and really, really affecting a lot of lives have solved the problem in their life.

Speaker 2 Maybe it was drug addiction, maybe it was the loss of a loved one, you know, maybe it was a bad breakup, whatever it was, you know, Lyme disease.

Speaker 2 And they solved the problem and they basically turned that into the most impactful message ever. And you were doing a talk on stage and I heard you say,

Speaker 2 and I want to dig into this, but I heard you talking about, you know, you're going to bear crawl a marathon. You set a world record for it.

Speaker 2 And the two questions were how and why.

Speaker 2 It was your explanation for the why that really brought things home for me because I like to know what's the driving force behind people. And now I know why you're so inspired.
You're so passionate.

Speaker 2 You're so purpose-driven. But if you wouldn't mind,

Speaker 2 share that with us. I mean, not just the overwhelming physical feat to bear crawl a marathon.
That had to be one of the most difficult things you ever did. For sure.
But it was the how and the why.

Speaker 1 Yeah, man. Well, one, thanks for having me on here.
Appreciate you. You live it.
You breathe it. You're doing it, which I respect.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 1 The how is easy. It's the how is probably a lot of a lot of humans listening to this right now yourself.
The how is so easy, man.

Speaker 1 Guys, we don't quit. You just don't quit.

Speaker 2 Yeah. You just don't quit.

Speaker 1 Whether it's your company, you know, founders, companies don't fail. Founders give up.

Speaker 2 Don't quit, right?

Speaker 1 Us as humans, we can't quit. That's the how.
Just don't quit.

Speaker 1 But the why is, is, is the purpose. The why is a little bit more in depth.
And I'm glad that caught your attention because that was a,

Speaker 1 it's been a core of mine

Speaker 1 since I was about 16. And,

Speaker 1 you know, I'll take you back. I grew up in a small town in New Hampshire, 1,500 people.

Speaker 1 You know, you had to make your own fun. I had a ski lift half a mile from my house.
I grew up fishing, you know, snowboarding, riding my mountain bike, kind of took it for granted.

Speaker 1 It was my natural, you know, milking cows. I grew up on a farm and I took it for granted.

Speaker 1 And I, you know, you'd have to make, you'd have to make your own fun in whatever you did.

Speaker 1 And so me and my buddies, you know, would, it would cause problems, cause ruckus, cause, you know, whatever we could to, um, you know, keep ourselves occupied. And,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 I, one night on July 17th, 2008, my buddy Maddie and I went into my parents' liquor cabinet and said, hey, let's go grab some alcohol and let's drink with the girls tomorrow night.

Speaker 1 I just turned 16 at the time and I was like, you know, just trying to have some fun as a kid. Of course.

Speaker 1 And so I remember I was going, I went into a liquor cabinet and like any kid, you know, you have this Nalgene bottle and I'm putting like Gold Schlager and Jameson, vodka.

Speaker 2 I just remember Gold Schlager.

Speaker 2 It's not even around anymore, like with the gold flakes in it. It's literally the worst liquor in the world.

Speaker 1 The worst. And I was just mixing it in and we were so excited.
And fast forward to the next day, it's summer. So my, you know, I wake up early, 5 a.m.

Speaker 1 I go to work with my dad, who's a drywall contractor.

Speaker 1 So, you know, my job at 16 was, you know, go pick up all the scraps, you know, screw, screw the, you know, screw into the wall, the, you know, the drywall,

Speaker 1 you know, just pick up, help them out, go grab lunch. And he was always, he was my coach.
He was my football coach. He was, you know, he's my best friend.

Speaker 1 And he was always like, Dev, keep your hands out of your pocket. There's always something to do.
Constantly get your hands out of your pocket, go pick this up.

Speaker 1 Get your hands out your pocket, go grab lunch, get your hands out of your pocket, help me with this.

Speaker 1 And so,

Speaker 1 you know, fast forward, he drops me off at driver's ed. Um, four hours go by, my friend Maddie's mom picks us up and she said, you know, three words that changed my life forever.

Speaker 2 When you got in the car, right.

Speaker 1 When I got in the car, she said three words that changed my life. And, you know, when, when your friend's mom picks you up, you know, you just got in trouble.

Speaker 1 And so I had the alcohol and I'm like, shit, this is it. Like, we're getting a lot of trouble.

Speaker 1 And instead, she said

Speaker 1 three words, your father's dead.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 1 I was like, what?

Speaker 1 I start, I was just in shock, man.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, man,

Speaker 1 what did I do? Where is he? I start calling him. He wasn't answering.
And

Speaker 1 he just dropped me off four hours ago. I was just working with him.

Speaker 1 I was just working out with him yesterday. He was a professional weightlifter.
And I was just like, what the heck just happened? And

Speaker 1 I must have called him 300 times. I get home

Speaker 1 and,

Speaker 1 you know, there's friends, families, everyone's around our house. And I come to find out that day after he dropped me off, he went and jumped in front of a truck on the highway.
And he killed himself.

Speaker 2 Took his own life.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 that was the hardest part I've ever gone through in life

Speaker 1 when your best friend takes her life and you don't know why. And I was just so confused.
And as a 16-year-old boy,

Speaker 1 was a it was a pivotal point in my life. And so now, you know, fast forward, you know, to 2020, October 31st, when I started the bear crawl in New York City.

Speaker 1 Started in Brooklyn and I went the exact route of the New York Marathon.

Speaker 1 And I'm at about mile 20. And

Speaker 1 I remember stopping and I'm like, man, I got 6.2 miles left in this bear crawl. And I was doing this bear crawl for suicide prevention and mental health.

Speaker 1 That's why I went into it.

Speaker 2 I'm sure why. Right.

Speaker 2 But at mile 20, I realized something. I realized, look,

Speaker 1 mental health and suicide is a massive cause. But my why

Speaker 1 is actually how I want to live my life.

Speaker 1 And I want to live my life without my hands in my pocket. I love that.
I want to live my life maximizing my time. I want to live my life being curious.

Speaker 1 I want to maximize my life, seeing what's out there in the world and helping others. And there's always something to do.
And so I wanted to live a life without my hands in my pocket. I love that.

Speaker 1 And so as I went in with a purpose, an intrinsic motivator, I had extrinsic motivators coming from around.

Speaker 1 I realized what mattered to me, what really mattered to me. And that.
that was living a life without my hands in my pocket. And I was just talking to you outside.

Speaker 1 I've formed this mindset, you know, really in the last five, five years of

Speaker 1 the closer a man comes to a calm mind,

Speaker 1 the nearer he is to real strength. So

Speaker 1 the closer you and I can be here now, talk and not think about the camera, think about what's going on afterwards, think about this, that, the, the closer you and I can come to that calm mind, I believe that's real strength.

Speaker 1 And that's a quote from Marcus Aurelius, right? I'm not just making this up. It's, it's, it's something that's, that's been around.

Speaker 1 And, you know, I really believe if we can be in the now, we can maximize our time and we can truly live with our hands outside our pocket.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I love that, man, because it's, it's such a metaphor for life.
And I'm sorry I took you there in that story. It's just that because for me and for my audience, you know, it's.

Speaker 2 It's very impactful to know what someone's driving force is. You know, I had a very, you know, tipping point moment in my life too, and it changed the direction of my career.

Speaker 2 And, and then i've had so many blessings bestowed upon me because i became very authentic i lived a very inauthentic life and now i live uh you know a very authentic life i'm very conscious very aware try to be present right um but it told me so much about you and it gives i think people a window into what's driving somebody's passion and and it's not that somebody has to have that major of a catastrophic event in their life.

Speaker 2 No, but we don't have a lot of time to waste. No.
And we got to get off our, get our hands out of our pockets.

Speaker 1 You have 24 hours in a day. I don't care how you split it.
If you say, I'm working for eight hours, I see my wife for two, I see my kids for the other two, I'm eating for two. You're not getting that.

Speaker 1 You're not getting it back.

Speaker 1 If you want to break it down and say, hey, I'm working a certain amount and family time to a certain amount, cool. It's still 24 hours.
Right. There's still 24 hours.

Speaker 1 You're not, it's not all of a sudden 20 hours or 24, 23 or whatever. It's 24 hours in a day.
We're not getting this time back.

Speaker 1 Do it fucking now. What are you talking about? It's 24 hours you have to maximize.
And how can you create a life to where

Speaker 1 you're happy, to where you have purpose, you have a why?

Speaker 1 What makes you happy?

Speaker 1 What are your values? You know, so many people have companies and, you know, my mission statement, my, you know, my pillars of my company.

Speaker 1 But what about you as a brand, you as a person, you as a human? What are your values? I live life off of five values and I don't deviate outside of these values.

Speaker 1 And it helps me de-risk my time and decisions I make. Family, community, health, freedom of time, and giving back.
I do not deviate outside of those five.

Speaker 1 And it allows me to de-risk decisions I make and where I go and who I meet with and the people I'm surrounded by by simply having these my core five. If you're about it, cool.

Speaker 2 If you're not, that's okay. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like, I just don't have time to waste right now, though. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, and you built, you know, and one of the things that I noticed, you know, just sort of following your trajectory and, you know, as your impact has grown, you're big on communities like you know regenerative farms you have a run club with jesse itzler um you know you're i think you're a co-founder of pro-mix is that accurate statement a co-founder of pro-mix and you've been really militant about your ingredients and i think there's a community forming around um you know that i i'd love for you to talk a little bit about um you know building communities because you really do foster this communal sense and it's like you give people permission i think they don't have to be a super athlete right you like to do really hard shit and climb Mount Everest and bear crawl a marathon, but you're meeting people where they are and giving them like a space.

Speaker 2 So talk a little bit about, I was really fascinated and I happen to be very jealous of your regenerative farm, but I'm like, come business. That's my, that's my next dream, dude.

Speaker 1 Stay right at Sweet Honey Farm. We'll talk about it.
Yeah. You know, community,

Speaker 1 when, when I was younger, and I don't want to bring it back. to this, but I will.

Speaker 1 You know, when I was younger and I saw my dad struggling with some mental health thing, he was the happiest human on earth I've ever met, man. Like, he was such a,

Speaker 1 man, he was such a giver. He was always giving to people, helping, donating.
Like, he was such a good guy. And the last year of his life, I saw him really depressed and he didn't have an outlet.

Speaker 1 And I would watch him and he was reading the Bible and he was praying. He was trying to do the right thing.
And I was just seeing the sorrow on his face. And then when I saw what happened and how

Speaker 1 that happened,

Speaker 1 my goal was to help people wake up happier.

Speaker 1 That was, that's really my goal right now on earth: is to help humans wake up happier.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 everyone on this earth is going to go through transitions.

Speaker 1 We went to elementary school for four years. You go to middle school for four years.
You go to high school for four years. You go to college for four years.
We are taught by society to transition.

Speaker 1 But what do you do in those transitions? What happens when you enter the military for eight years and you have to go back into civilian life?

Speaker 1 What happens when you're an Olympian or an athlete and you're making it to the Olympics and all of a sudden 18 years goes by and you get third place and no one remembers you and now you don't have a place in society all of a sudden because, well, you didn't get first and you're not in the military anymore and you're not at this job anymore.

Speaker 1 What do you do at transition? The best way I've found for people to transition is to have a good community around them. And that's all I'm trying to foster.

Speaker 1 Whether it's with Pro-Mix, you know, farm to table supplements and vitamins, whether it's with Sweet Honey Farm, making an area, a real space where people are welcomed in and not welcomed in for, hey, let me charge your credit card $50,000.

Speaker 1 I'm saying, hey, what are affordable ways that everyone can have access? Health, mental clarity, community should not have a barrier of cost.

Speaker 1 It should have a welcome, open arms feel, you know, and that's really what I try to encompass with everything that, you know, I create or co-create is helping we people wake up happier.

Speaker 1 I think with Pro-Mix, it starts from within. And we'll talk about it, but it starts with your gut.

Speaker 2 Yeah, dude, I had you, I had your

Speaker 2 gut, the Debo.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the Deblo, the preem probiotic was amazing

Speaker 2 and sweetened with organic peaches.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it was amazing. Thank you.

Speaker 1 And so it's like, hey, how can we start from within? Let's get your gut right. Let's, let's get your, your blood flowing.
Let's, let's.

Speaker 1 get your body right from within because we all know that your gut impacts your brain it impacts your mood it impacts how you're reacting to conversations.

Speaker 1 It impacts everything, your skin. So let's get that right.
And then

Speaker 1 once your body gets right, what type of

Speaker 1 environment can you be around? And that's why I created Sweet Honey Farm.

Speaker 1 Less than 1% of Americans right now farm or grow their own food.

Speaker 2 That's crazy. Want to get an extra hour of quality, good sleep every single night? Let me tell you how I do it.
My wife and I sleep on 8 Sleeps Pod 4 Ultra.

Speaker 2 This is a technology that fits over your mattress to cool or warm each side of the bed, giving you up to an extra hour more of quality sleep every single night.

Speaker 2 My wife likes her side of the bed warmer than mine, but I've noticed that I've improved deep sleep at cooler temperatures. It even elevates automatically when it detects snoring to improve airflow.

Speaker 2 With 99% accurate sleep tracking, you can leave your wearables on the nightstand.

Speaker 2 And I even had this thing independently EMF tested to make sure that I was not getting any extra EMF at night, which I'm not. Get $350 off the Pod4Ultra at eight sleep.com forward slash Gary.

Speaker 2 That's eight sleep.com forward slash Gary and use the code Gary G-A-R-Y for your discount. Transform your nights and elevate your sleep.
Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human podcast.

Speaker 2 That is insane. That is crazy.
Less than 1% of Americans. Yes.
See, that's my, eventually, that is my dream goal. I actually have

Speaker 2 a map. you know, to get there.
I actually plan to sell this beautiful penthouse in Miami and exchange it for a regenerative farm. I actually have a piece of land already picked out.

Speaker 2 I can't wait for you for that. Yeah, I can't, dude, I can't wait either in Colorado and have a head of cattle and

Speaker 2 this particular piece of land. It's got a beautiful stream, glacier-fed spring water.
And just bring people there because I feel like a lot of people are just disconnected from

Speaker 2 the basics, mother nature,

Speaker 2 community, you know, other human beings. Like, like we vibed when you first walked in the door.

Speaker 2 Did you get a hug?

Speaker 1 Yeah, we actually did the heart hug and

Speaker 2 then we had a really good regenerative meal. And then we went and did some pull-ups.
You actually did some muscle-ups. I didn't do the muscle ups.
You crushed that.

Speaker 1 We're doing it.

Speaker 2 But yeah, we're doing it. But it was, it's just so awesome.

Speaker 2 And I, and I feel like the temperature in this country would come down if people were back in touch with nature a little bit, really in touch with, you know, humanity, not looking for,

Speaker 2 you know, what's, what's different about your opinion from mine, but, you know, like, what, what are the things we have in common? Like you were saying here earlier, it made me laugh my ass off.

Speaker 2 You're like, pet a fucking cow, you know, like,

Speaker 2 you know, you're real, yeah, you're out in the garden, just shoveling in, you know, um, um, raw spinach. People forget to like act like a kid, and that's that's a rule I have.

Speaker 1 I have a rule: do one thing every day you used to do as a kid,

Speaker 1 you know, it keeps you young. Yeah, you know, the vibes people get when they leave Sweet Honey Farm is

Speaker 1 clarity, is calmness, is less anxiety.

Speaker 1 And it's not that I'm, you know, having them do any, you know, crazy drugs or, you know, some, you know, crazy biohack. And I'm all about the future.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying, take off your shoes, go ride a horse, you know, jump in a sauna, jump in a cold plunge, move a little bit.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Go, go, just walk around without your phone. Go walk through the garden.
You're going to feel the grounding ripping through your body.

Speaker 1 And then when you leave and you jump back into society, you're like, wow, this is, I feel a little bit calm. And, you know, that boss calls you and they're all pissed off.

Speaker 1 You're not going to react in a negative way. You're going to respond in the right way.
And that's my goal is to calm people's tension in the world by providing these, these, these communities.

Speaker 1 Pro-Mix has an amazing community. Doesn't it really?

Speaker 1 Yeah, my values, the health, the freedom of time, the community, the giving back all my family. The values values are the core of Pro-Mix.
My values are the core of Sweet Honey Farm.

Speaker 1 My values and Jesse Itster's values are the core of all day running.

Speaker 1 Like are the values are being ingrained into these brands to hopefully build a community and help people, you know, just wake up happier.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 How did you, um, how did you get into business with Jesse and start all-day run club? I mean, I see those all the time.

Speaker 1 And I'll, uh, I'll give a quick high level, but Jesse messaged me after I bare crawled at the New York Marathon.

Speaker 1 Um, and then, you know, I went out to his event 29029, where you climb the height of Mount Everest in 36 hours,

Speaker 1 four laps into this climb.

Speaker 2 It's like up 5,000, down, up 5,000.

Speaker 1 Yeah, every mountain's different, but you're hitting the 29,029 feet

Speaker 2 elevation.

Speaker 1 By the way, Everest was 29,029 feet 10 years ago. It's now 29,032 feet.

Speaker 1 It's gotten taller.

Speaker 2 So if you were there a few years ago, he beat you by two feet. Correct, correct.
So I just want to throw that

Speaker 2 out there.

Speaker 1 But, uh, I was out at his event in

Speaker 1 Sun Valley, Idaho.

Speaker 1 He's a partner and owner of the Hawks as well. And it'll come full story.

Speaker 1 And so, Hawks on one side of the country, this event on the other side, four laps in. He texts me, Dev, meet me at the lodge.
I meet him down at the lodge.

Speaker 1 He goes, Look, we have about 20 hours left in this race or so.

Speaker 2 Um,

Speaker 2 if we take

Speaker 1 if we take the jet across the country and watch the game, game six of the playoffs, Hawks, and watch it and we can make it back in time to finish the race. And I'm like, I love some adventures, man.

Speaker 1 Let's go. And so me and some buddies, Jimmy DeSico, Jake DeSico, Dan Churchill, we all jump on the plane with him.

Speaker 2 We fly out to Atlanta.

Speaker 1 We watch the game. We may or may not have had some tequila.

Speaker 1 Jesse looks at me and he goes, back on the plane. We get back on the plane.
We land in Sun Valley, Idaho at 3 a.m. We finish the race with 30 minutes to spare.
No.

Speaker 1 That was the first 36 hours I ever met Jesse. It's lurking.

Speaker 2 That's so cool. So talk about awesome.

Speaker 1 Talk about bonding.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Talk about like we were just kind of how I came in here and we kind of just clicked. You know, that's how Jesse and I were.
And we're, we've always been on the same page. And all day was never about,

Speaker 1 it's, it, it, it wasn't about money.

Speaker 1 It's about us having a canvas to bring people together and community and not creating a running company that has first, second, or third place, but rather creating a running community and a community that says, hey, everyone's welcome.

Speaker 1 Let's just have a good time. You know, let's take the seriousness out of running.
We don't, at running, man, the festival we do every year, we don't pick a first, second, or third.

Speaker 1 Matter of fact, everyone's together helping each other finish their marathon.

Speaker 2 Sometimes your things are circular, too. So you can't really tell who's winning.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And so, you know, we're, him and I are just on the same wavelength of, you know, how we want to impact people in a positive way.

Speaker 1 And I think that's, that's kind of how we went into business together.

Speaker 2 You know, it's, it's really interesting because there's a lot of research out now

Speaker 2 about, you know, the impact of physical conditioning on mental health and like the, just there's the impact of a simple walk, right?

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 versus an antidepressant, like an SSRI, like, you know, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are not as powerful as movement for depression.

Speaker 1 Interesting.

Speaker 2 And, you know, Joe Rogan's talked about this. I'm happy to put it in the

Speaker 2 links to the research in the show notes.

Speaker 2 But I so totally agree with you because if people would move more, speak more, have more eye contact, get better, you know, back in touch with nature, not all the time.

Speaker 2 You know, not everybody has to move to a regenerative farm.

Speaker 2 But once in a while, instead of taking a vacation where you just like go to Vegas and get blasted and you come back more exhausted than you left and you need a vacation from your vacation, take like a selfless vacation where you actually go and put some hormetic stresses on your body and, you know, hot, cold contrast therapy.

Speaker 1 You know, what is that word?

Speaker 2 Hormetic. Yeah, hormesis.

Speaker 1 Hormesis. Cool.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So hormesis is,

Speaker 2 you know, the, the,

Speaker 2 you know, it's what happens. It's this scientific term for stressing the body and it strengthens in response.
Cool. Right.
I mean, you, you tear a muscle, it gets larger.

Speaker 2 You, you load a bone, strengthen. Hormesis.
Challenge the immune system. It, it, right.
It strengthens. Um, you know, so hormesis is the act of like strengthening through um cold plunges, right?

Speaker 2 Activating brown fat, and you know, um, shivering, peripheral vasoconstriction.

Speaker 1 I call it type two fun for me, dude.

Speaker 2 I love that term, too.

Speaker 1 Tell me, so type type one, type two, type three. Type one fun is what we were just doing.
We were drinking Deblow, eating some of your food, or laughing, we're joking, we're having a good time.

Speaker 1 We can laugh about it now, we were laughing during, we're always going to laugh about it. It's immediate fun.
Type three

Speaker 1 is when I was coming off the summit of Everest. All right.
And I'm coming down. I, I just, I'm at 28 and a half thousand feet.
There's 50 yards to go. But, you know,

Speaker 1 in that 50 yards, before I go over to the next cliff, there's 100 people in between and there's two inches to step on. And my oxygen's running out.

Speaker 1 And all of a sudden, I say in my head, Devin, you're likely going to die. This is not fun during.
I'm not laughing about it. It is.

Speaker 1 What's my girlfriend Nina going to say at my funeral? What's my mom going to say at my funeral? This is it. I wonder what jokes they're going to make.

Speaker 1 I wonder, you know, what, what, what my buddies are going to say. That is, it's not fun during.
I'm looking at death in the face. I'm seeing where my head's going to hit the rock.

Speaker 1 I'm seeing where my body's going to end up. That's not fun.
That's type three fun. And maybe in a year, and I'm laughing about it now, maybe that, now it's type three.

Speaker 1 Type one is what we're at before this. Type two is right in the center.
Type two is the cold plunge. Type two is, I don't care who you are.
Cold plunging isn't that fun during.

Speaker 2 You're like, holy

Speaker 1 shit. This is nobody likes these.
You're always like, oh my God, I love freezing everything off right now. It's not that fun.

Speaker 1 But right afterwards, that dopamine rush, that feeling you get of like, that was so fun. Everyone wants to post about it.

Speaker 2 Like, oh my God, I'm Superman. I'm the ultimate human.
I feel good.

Speaker 1 That's type two fun. And I think every single day, every single week, every month, every year, everyone should add a type two fun into their life.

Speaker 2 I love that, man. So add a hormetic stress, type two fun.

Speaker 1 Add a hormetic stress.

Speaker 2 And so do you see these when you're in these communities and you, you know, you host these events or people come out to your farm? I mean, do you see transformational change? Like, what do people,

Speaker 2 what do they say to you? Like, besides thank you, but what do they for sure, man?

Speaker 1 You know, there's everyone, everyone has a story. All you have to do is ask.
Yeah. It's one of my favorite things to say to humans.
Every single person has a story. You guys are listening.

Speaker 1 We're talking. Everyone has a story.

Speaker 2 All you have to do is ask.

Speaker 1 And if you can put an environment together where people can open their mind a little bit outside of their normal routine, they're not taking the normal route home.

Speaker 1 They're not going to their normal weekend bar, et cetera, then their brain is actually going to expand and they're going to feel good. So what happens when it expands? Well, relationships are cured.

Speaker 1 Relationships form.

Speaker 1 right yeah um all of a sudden you're sick you're not so sick anymore all of a sudden you have anxiety well man this this event opened my eyes a little bit. And I'm not even doing what I love.

Speaker 1 I want to go work with so-and-so, or I want to go start this, or I want to do that.

Speaker 1 Or man, I'm going to hit up that girl that I was so afraid to talk to, or I'm going to hit up the guy that I was nervous to message. Or, you know, relationships happen

Speaker 1 mainly. I would say relationship building, and that can be personal, that can be professional.
That's the main thing that happens. The second thing that happens is you're, you feel better.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, you feel good. You've

Speaker 1 too many of us and too many, too much

Speaker 1 social media, I think, tries to put out,

Speaker 1 hey, you have to wake up ecstatic every single morning, super stoked, happy.

Speaker 1 I'm a pretty happy guy. I don't wake up ecstatic every morning.

Speaker 1 And that's just life.

Speaker 1 But how can you wake up content? How can you wake up and be like,

Speaker 2 you know what?

Speaker 1 Life's okay.

Speaker 2 You know, I'm good.

Speaker 1 I'm alive. I'm breathing.
I have oxygen.

Speaker 1 I'm okay. And that's what I'm trying to instill in people like, hey, guys, it's okay.
Take a deep breath.

Speaker 1 And so from the relationships to how you feel, I think the two major takeaways from our events from Sweet Honey Farm is just like, hey, let's bring it back to the basics.

Speaker 1 People are good. Surround yourself with some good people.
Here's some good people. And hey, this is what feeling good and content and happy looks like.

Speaker 1 Try to remember those two things. Yeah.
And I think.

Speaker 2 And at least know that you can feel them. Right.
I mean, I think for some people, like I say this all the time, like I think the majority of people have forgotten how good normal feels.

Speaker 2 Right. And I liken that a lot of times to nutrient deficiencies, the absence of whole foods, the absence of, you know, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, you know, nutrients of all kinds.

Speaker 2 And so you get, you get them out. It sounds so simple, but you get out of a farm.
They're touching the ground. They're petting a cow.
They're eating some spinach out of the garden.

Speaker 2 They're in a community.

Speaker 2 But what it does is it reminds them of what normal feels like.

Speaker 2 And so often when, you know, clients of mine are like, oh my God, Gary, I feel amazing. I'm like, you know, you actually don't really feel amazing.
Like, what? I'm like, you just feel normal.

Speaker 2 That's how good normal is supposed to feel, dude. I mean, that's how God wants us to feel.
He wants us to thrive. You're supposed to have it all.
Right. And, and it's just so, you know, so amazing.

Speaker 1 There was a doctor I was talking to, um, and he said, I was asking him about TRT. And I'm curious on this, you know, from you.

Speaker 1 Not that I would take it. I was just curious on his perspective.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he said, well, you know what I tell patients? I say, hey, one, are you having regular sex? Are you getting sunlight? Are you moving?

Speaker 1 Are you doing the things and taking the things into your body that are going to make them healthier? And then come to me and see if your testosterone is low.

Speaker 1 You know, try those things first versus just TRT, TRT, TRT. I totally agree with that.

Speaker 2 You know?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And the reason why I agree with that is because, again, you know, hormones, and I don't want to flip the podcast here, but, you know, hormones are one of those things that need raw materials to be constructed.

Speaker 2 Like if you're deficient in DHEA, you're going to be, it's going to be hard for you to build the hormone testosterone.

Speaker 2 If you're deficient in vitamin D3, it's going to be hard to build the hormone testosterone. If you've got rampantly high insulin, you know, which is going to lead you to be estrogen-dominant.
So

Speaker 2 when you get the basics right, yes, rarely there's true testicular hypofunction, right?

Speaker 2 Testicles for one reason or other, damage, radiation, you know,

Speaker 2 lots of, lots of abuse that can't produce testosterone. And by all means, you should replace it.

Speaker 2 In 2018, the Journal of American Urology updated all their clinical guidelines on hormone therapy. It is, it is actually really good for you and can substantially extend your life.
Cool, cool.

Speaker 2 But people also want to start to quick fix and do it before it's needed. I mean, no matter what anyone tells you, there's no better hormone than one your body produces on its own.

Speaker 2 So if you can be high on your own supply, have healthy levels of growth hormone from your pituitary, healthy levels of testosterone if you're a male from your testicles, healthy levels of hormones,

Speaker 2 cyclical hormones if you're a female,

Speaker 2 that's the best life has to offer. And it's usually the absence of the basics.

Speaker 2 One of the reasons why I really, you know, love, you know, love so much, you know, I identify so much with the missing neuron.

Speaker 2 You know, and

Speaker 2 we've been talking about that. I mean, when you sat down, you were telling me,

Speaker 2 and I'm very flattered by it. You were like, really, I saved my, my Everest story for this podcast because you you haven't really gone out with the story yet.

Speaker 2 So, I first got to deeply appreciate that. I think my audience is just going to love your message.
But, um,

Speaker 2 tell me about that because, yeah, uh, I've never climbed Everest. I'm actually going on an extreme race with my son in three days.
We're he's doing seven marathons on seven continents in seven days.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's going to be a blast for him-184 miles in seven days. But the cool thing is, it's on every major continent in the world.
Um, so I'm literally going to see the world in eight days, and

Speaker 2 it's astounding to me

Speaker 2 the negative responses that I get from so many people when I just start to talk to them about, like, oh my God, I would never do that. Oh, my God.
I could never do that.

Speaker 2 Think about all that time in the air. Dude, he's going to be, he's going to be torn to shreds.
Not going to be able to move when he gets home.

Speaker 2 Like, dude, we're going to seven continents in seven days.

Speaker 2 This is living, bro.

Speaker 1 This is the ultimate living, man. Yeah.
You guys are going to have a blast. Antarctica is beautiful.

Speaker 1 I'm so excited for you to go. If anyone's listening and you have the chance to go to Antarctica, you should go.

Speaker 1 It's quite remarkable. But, you know, Everest, it goes back to that Marcus Cerealist quote: the nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to real strength.

Speaker 1 And I've been really trying to get deeper and deeper of what that means. You know, am I meditating? Am I working out regularly? Am I, you know, is it the gut health?

Speaker 1 Is it how can I calm my mind so I can be

Speaker 1 here now?

Speaker 1 Right. It's, it's something I'm, I'm really passionate about.
So I went to this thing in February called the Hoffman Institute, which is seven days, no phone. It's a total reset.
Highly recommend.

Speaker 1 Change my life. And so I did that.
And I went into Everest with a clear mind.

Speaker 1 Now it's taken me about four or five years to train for Everest, just understanding gear, understanding layering, understanding climbing, understanding just topography, just understanding everything about a mountain.

Speaker 1 Because you have Mother Nature, you have your physical ability, you have your gear, you have other people on the mountain you have to worry about.

Speaker 2 So like there's a lot of,

Speaker 1 there's a lot of variables that go into it. And so finally this year, I felt comfortable.
I'm like, I'm going to go attempt to climb Everest.

Speaker 1 And I didn't go in with an expectation of I'm going to stand on top of the world, but rather an intention to calm my mind. How can I get closer to a calm mind?

Speaker 1 How can I just be me and just be on my own? I didn't take any sponsors on. I paid for it fully out of pocket and I was just using it for a time to get away.
And I was also using

Speaker 2 solo, fully solo.

Speaker 1 I was with Dr. John, who's an amazing guide.

Speaker 1 He was introduced through a couple mutual friends, Jesse Itzler, Mike Posner, et cetera.

Speaker 1 And then Jen Jen, our Sherpa, who's an amazing guy as well. He's awesome.

Speaker 2 They're special humans, man.

Speaker 1 Special.

Speaker 1 So, so,

Speaker 1 you know, I went out there with that intention, not expectation, and just fully took it in. And, you know, what I noticed at Everest is there's not that many people on Everest.

Speaker 1 You know, that's, that's number one.

Speaker 1 There's, if, if you have one hot restaurant in New York City and it's only open one time a year, it's going to look busy because everyone's waiting in line to go up to that one restaurant.

Speaker 1 Um, the other thing about Everest is that you only have a couple times, if any at all, to summit. There's not that many summit windows, sometimes four, sometimes three, sometimes one, sometimes zero.

Speaker 1 And so when there is a summit push and there is an open window, naturally people are going to go up and a lot, a lot of people.

Speaker 1 And when I say a lot, I think there was 300 permits this year, which you go to a restaurant tonight in Miami, there's going to be 700 people there. So there's not that many people on Everest.

Speaker 1 They're all on the same path.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 Everyone's on the same path. And if you deviate outside that pass, you could, you know, you could cause an avalanche.
You could get someone hurt. You could get hurt.

Speaker 1 Like, it's, you stay on the path and quotes path, right? They put new lines in every year. And when I say they, it's, um, it's, it's the locals.
It's the, it's the Nepalese team.

Speaker 1 There's about six to eight guys that go up and and try to put new lines in. And those lines aren't guaranteed.

Speaker 1 and so everything has to go right on everest if you're going to summit um everything you can't get sick a lot of people get a lot of people have a cough gary i'm i'm not kidding man when i when i'm chatting with people on everest it's

Speaker 2 it's

Speaker 2 gary um

Speaker 1 yeah i'll be on your pot cast it's bad yeah a lot of people are coughing they have um

Speaker 1 colds and these these these chest colds going on altitude sickness maybe your gear is broken. You're too tired.

Speaker 1 Mother nature, avalanches, ice falls, falling in crevasses, food, nutrition, altitude, right? Like the altitude, just having oxygen alone. You don't have oxygen up there.

Speaker 1 So there's a lot of variables that come into being able to summit. But again, I was looking at it as calming the mind and

Speaker 1 you know, education. I'm a very curious guy.
I dropped out of college. I use climbing the highest point of Antarctica, highest point in South America, Africa, now Everest as my school.

Speaker 1 That's my education. I think it's important for people to know how they learn.

Speaker 1 You know, society doesn't have to tell you how to learn. You decide how you want to learn.
Are you good at listening?

Speaker 2 Are you good at writing? Are you good at reading?

Speaker 1 Are you good at feeling? Are you good at touching? Like, what is your

Speaker 1 optimal learning levels? And mine is curiosity and traveling. and seeing and touching.
That's me and listening. I'm a sponge.

Speaker 1 I'm not on out on Everest saying, hey, Colin O'Brady, I'm going to tell you what to do. Hey, Dr.
John, I'm telling you what to do. I'm listening.
I'm like a total sponge and I'm just taking it.

Speaker 1 I'm seeing. I'm listening.
I'm like,

Speaker 1 I'm SpongeBob on Everest, man.

Speaker 2 I'm up there.

Speaker 1 And so, you know, it took me 47 days. You know, you have to rotate.
47 days. 47 days.
I was out there.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Because you're going to different levels and then

Speaker 2 hanging out there to acclimate, right? Heck yeah, man.

Speaker 1 Trekked into base camp with my girlfriend, which is amazing. That's, I recommend everyone to adventures with your girl, man, or your partner.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you left her at a certain altitude, right?

Speaker 1 Like, she, yeah, just left her there, never saw her again. No,

Speaker 2 she's still there waiting for you to come out. She's still still there.
No, she's going to see this podcast and be like, damn it, he's back.

Speaker 1 What the hell? She, uh, no, she came to base camp, which is no joke, man. It's about 17,500 feet.

Speaker 2 That's at 17,000.

Speaker 1 17 and a half.

Speaker 2 Dude, I've got a cabin at 10.5.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I go on these ruck walks just a straight wall. I put a 20-pound ruck and I go on this little route in the woods.
When I come back, I mean, I'm significantly winded. I feel amazing.
Oh, man.

Speaker 2 But I'm also not just pushing straight up a hill. And it's at 10-5%.

Speaker 2 My son actually did a half marathon from like almost a half marathon in pieces from like 10.5 up to 13 and a half thousand feet and back down to prepare for this race. But man,

Speaker 2 you get 100 yards and you got

Speaker 2 a knee. You're winded, man.
If nobody's been to that altitude, it's hard to respect what it's like when the ambient oxygen goes from 21%, which is sea level. At 10.5%, it's about 13.7.

Speaker 2 And it doesn't sound like a big deal, a 7% drop in oxygen, but you dead sprint 100 yards and you're taking a knee. Hey, everyone.

Speaker 2 If you've been tuning into the Ultimate Human podcast for a while now, you know I'm very selective about the products that I endorse.

Speaker 2 I only feature items that I personally use daily to enhance my own health and wellness. One product I use daily is the EchoGo Plus.
This portable hydrogen generator is a game changer.

Speaker 2 Simply take the top off, pour your bottled water in, and with the push of a button, it transforms into high concentration hydrogen water. You'll see the bubbles rising.

Speaker 2 That's the hydrogen being generated right before your eyes. Hydrogen water offers numerous benefits and these are backed by peer-reviewed clinical studies.

Speaker 2 These include reduced inflammation, enhanced absorption of our supplements and our nutrients, balanced stomach acid levels, and support for your gut health by feeding beneficial bacteria.

Speaker 2 In my opinion, hydrogen water is by far the best water you can drink. And with the EchoGo Plus, you can take it anywhere.
Visit echowater.com.

Speaker 2 That's echowater.com and enter the code Ultimate10 for a special discount and elevate your hydration game. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Humid podcast.

Speaker 1 You're doing it. And that's what causes the lines on Everest.
It's not a line due to people are going too slow because of someone in front of them, a traffic jam. It's due to what you just said.

Speaker 1 You have to take a knee. You're exhausted.
Even with altitude or even with oxygen tanks, you have about five levels on each tank. Some tanks have six.

Speaker 1 Each level,

Speaker 1 level one, drops it by 1,500 feet. It drops you down 1,500 feet.
If you're at 20,000 feet, you're going to 18,500.

Speaker 1 If you go to level 2, you go to 3,000 feet. It's just 1,500 per level.
But the issue is, if you go all the way max out to level five, your oxygen tank might only last 15 to 45 minutes.

Speaker 1 Those oxygen tanks weigh a lot. You can't just bring up a ton of oxygen tanks.
So you have to know how to regulate. You have to acclimate and you have to make sure that your body is

Speaker 1 recreating these cells, right? And so. And so with that being said,

Speaker 1 that's why it takes 47 days, right? You want to trek into base camp. That takes a couple of weeks.
You hang out at base camp. You might even go all the way back down

Speaker 1 to Kathmandu. You will then go back up

Speaker 1 to base camp and you wait for a weather window. And once you get that weather window and after you've done a couple rotations.

Speaker 2 So you're back down, you're back up. You're back down.
You're back up. You're just getting this acclimating.
Acclimating.

Speaker 1 The problem with the Nepalese side, and not a lot of people know this, but Everest is

Speaker 1 split in half. Half of it's China and half of it's Nepal.

Speaker 1 The China side doesn't have the Kumbo ice fall. The Nepal side does.
And so what happened was we, China didn't approve our permits. They approved them and then they took them away.

Speaker 1 China's funny with that stuff, man. They

Speaker 1 let their locals go up first. And

Speaker 1 they're not that inviting to Westerners. And that's just what it is.
It's a pretty known fact. Right.

Speaker 1 And if it's not. Well, this podcast will tell who it is.

Speaker 2 It's pretty climbing the Nepal side. Dude, yeah, definitely client.
I mean, it's crazy how

Speaker 1 they treated us. But anyway, so we, we somehow managed to get a permit on the Nepal side.
We get to base camp, and now we have to redo all of our logistics because we don't have a team out here.

Speaker 1 We don't have our tents. We don't have, we're, you know, it's kind of a free-for-all, you know, we don't have support.
And so we were kind of, uh,

Speaker 1 we were, we were in a little ruckus for, for a week or so. Um, finally get a window to go up the Kumbho Ice Fall.

Speaker 1 The Kumbo Ice Fall is one of the scariest places on earth because you have these thousand thousand-foot-deep crevasses. Ice can fall at any time.
There's avalanches all around you.

Speaker 1 You have to go in the middle of the night because if you are in the middle of the day,

Speaker 1 it could cause melting, which would then increase the likelihood of icicles falling on you. So, a lot of variables are going into it.
Go up the Kumbho Ice Fall at, say, 11 p.m.

Speaker 1 takes about five, six, seven hours to get through it. Exhausting.

Speaker 2 There's cliffs.

Speaker 1 There's, I mean, it's the first time I went through it, I messed up and I told myself, I was like, I don't need to eat that much. Like,

Speaker 1 I can't, like, I'm just going to get sick at altitude. And so I didn't eat.
And I got really, really sick for not eating. So nutrition is big

Speaker 1 on Everest.

Speaker 1 Finally, we get out of the Kumbha ice fall. You go up to camp three.
You hang out there for a sec. You come all the way back down.
That's rotation number one. If you do it correct, you can acclimate.

Speaker 1 And then you make for a summit push maybe a week later. It's pretty wild, man.
And so

Speaker 1 I come back down to base camp. We go up from camp two to camp three, which is 22-ish thousand feet to 23 and a half.
There was a big storm that came in.

Speaker 1 And so 100 people were making a, you know, a jump for summit that day and everyone started coming back down. And I told Genjen and I and John, I was like, man, let's just go up.

Speaker 1 I was like, I think the storm's going to pass. John's like, I kind of do too.
Chen Jen's like, it's up to you guys.

Speaker 2 Let's go. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And so we all, we all proceeded up, ended up getting to camp three safely. The storm did pass, but I mean, it was 50 mile per hour winds.
It was, I mean, it was terrifying. And it wasn't storming.

Speaker 2 And it was 15.

Speaker 1 And it wasn't supposed to storm in the weather forecast. It just boom out of nowhere.
50 mile per hour winds, negative 10, 15 degrees, and you're just, you're in this blizzard.

Speaker 1 And at that point, again, it's type three. You know, you're like, holy shit, I might, I might actually die right now.
And how were the guys that were with you?

Speaker 2 I mean, what was their state?

Speaker 1 You know, they, they're, they're somewhat indifferent. Jen Jen was so cool, man.
He, you know, he summited multiple times before, and he was, you know, he's a family guy.

Speaker 1 I was never trying to risk anyone's life, and neither was he. So, like, we were always, we always were on the same page.
And I would ask him, like, are you comfortable? And he said, yes.

Speaker 1 John, you comfortable? Yes. I'm comfortable.
Cool. Guys, everyone's on the same page.
No one has to be a hero. If, you know, if we feel unsafe, let's get out.
So

Speaker 1 finally, get up to camp three.

Speaker 1 Man, I'm in the tent at camp three, and there was a group that went up before us.

Speaker 1 Um, and all all I hear in camp three at 11, 12 a.m.

Speaker 1 Man, and then it started, it just went on all day. People are coming back down the summit that didn't make it because there was a storm.

Speaker 1 The blizzard that I was in at camp two to three, they were in at the summit. So imagine how bad it was up there.

Speaker 1 So people are dying, people can't breathe, people are being trying to be evacuated off, but helicopters can't go above camp two. And all you hear is,

Speaker 1 give him oxygen, give him oxygen he's not breathing cpr

Speaker 1 nepales people yelling american british like all these just yelling intense it sounds like i'm in a war zone and i'm supposed to go for summit the next day and i'm just sitting here in my tent i start getting emotional people literally in that condition dying wow and i'm like this is crazy like what am i doing here this is not a place i should be and it's not like there's an ambulance or a uh you know like i said a helicopter there's nothing around if you if you break a leg up there you're probably going to die die.

Speaker 1 If you

Speaker 1 stop breathing, you're dead. Like it's not, you don't have resources.
So we then had to make the decision to go up. And so we then, I didn't sleep that night because I was terrified.

Speaker 1 And so we then went up and pushed the next day.

Speaker 1 It is so slow trying to get up Mount Everest after camp three. You can't move.
I'm saying. You might be not even half a mile an hour.
I mean, you might be going 0.2 miles an hour.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's so slow because you're so exhausted. Right.
Even if you do have a little oxygen. So

Speaker 1 fast track to camp four.

Speaker 1 Somehow we get there, exhausted.

Speaker 1 People start thinning out. You start seeing people turn around.
Imagine being out there for 47 days, going for summit, and then all of a sudden weather comes in. You're like, I got to turn around.

Speaker 1 And that was your only chance maybe in your lifetime. And someone just spent $250,000 to be out there and their

Speaker 1 life and their time and everything. And all of a sudden they turn around.
So that's kind of what's going on. I'm watching it.
We get to camp four,

Speaker 1 you know, super bright outside. And by the way, there's a lot of trash at camp four, a lot.
Really? Yeah. And I'll tell you why, you know,

Speaker 1 as I was coming down, I'll tell you after. But so anyways, get to camp four.
We then make the summit push.

Speaker 1 try to get ahead of everyone. And what happened was my guy, Dr.
John, was trying to help facilitate me and Gen Zhen. And so he put an extra oxygen on himself.

Speaker 1 And so he got stuck behind, which I didn't know about. And so he has a little bit of double the weight on him.
He's behind us. So now I get separated from him.
So now I'm just with Gen Zen,

Speaker 1 me on Mount Everest,

Speaker 2 climbing.

Speaker 1 And how did you get separated, though?

Speaker 2 You climb faster?

Speaker 1 You can't even. You can't run.
You can't walk faster. Everyone's going pretty much the same speed.
So yeah, I mean, he was just behind. And when I say behind, a couple hundred yards.

Speaker 1 And it wasn't, he was trying to do us a favor, which John's amazing, one of the best guides out there. He's a great guy.

Speaker 1 Highly recommend. He does, you know, a ton of, a ton of climbs around the world, Kilmanjaro, at Concago, et cetera.

Speaker 2 But,

Speaker 1 you know, he got stuck behind. We then make the summit push.

Speaker 1 I fell asleep. I fell asleep on the summit push on the side of the mountain, negative 20 degrees out.
I was exhausted, Gary.

Speaker 1 I couldn't breathe. I was tired.
And I just fall asleep on the line. And all of a sudden, my tank stops oxygen.
And I go

Speaker 1 and Gen Gen,

Speaker 1 my Sherpa, turned my oxygen back to level one. It was at level three.
Oh, my God. It turns it back.

Speaker 1 The problem was when you go to level three, you start to get relaxed because you're like, I got a little bit of oxygen. Right.

Speaker 1 But the problem when you get relaxed and you're that tired is you fall asleep. When you fall asleep at negative 20 degrees, you freeze.

Speaker 1 And that's what happened. That's what happened to the two Mongolians before us.
They froze on the line. It was in the news.
That was the day before us.

Speaker 2 That was the day before us.

Speaker 1 The right date before us.

Speaker 1 And then, so the guy woke me. How do they get the bodies down from here?

Speaker 2 Yeah, they just leave them. Oh, you can't.

Speaker 2 So you have to hike past them.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 So you actually saw dead figures.

Speaker 1 There was multiple. And you know, these bodies, man, they're wax figures.
They look like wax characters. They look perfectly preserved.
Sometimes their eyes were open.

Speaker 1 There was a guy, his eyes were open. He had a blue,

Speaker 1 black diamond helmet on. He had a red north face, onesie on, you know, the

Speaker 1 man. And he was just there.
And it looked like he was alive. And I'm looking at him like, man, this is, this is someone's brother.
This is someone's maybe father. This is a

Speaker 1 child of someone. Like, this is wild.

Speaker 2 Multiple, multiple people.

Speaker 1 So then we proceed. past these bodies.

Speaker 1 It's starting to get scary. You're approaching 29,032 feet.
Get to the top. You could hear a pin drop at the top.
Perfect weather.

Speaker 2 Perfect.

Speaker 1 Blue skies. Get to the summit at 5.05.
I had a little extra energy because I took that mini 60-second nap.

Speaker 1 Did a little backflip on the top, which is really fun.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 1 proceeded down up there for about 30 to 45 minutes.

Speaker 2 So you stayed right at the summit for 30 to 45 minutes. Yeah, man, just keeping it.
All the flags stuck in there.

Speaker 1 Man, when you stand on top of the world and you just look around and you're like, like man

Speaker 1 i'm i'm the tallest point on earth there's no one higher than me right now it is i mean it's giving me the chills thinking about it is it's so next level it's a feeling of this crazy energy of just okay i did it but i didn't do it i got to get down now yeah and that's the hardest part man that's the scariest part i go down and why is that Well, you know, it's you're, you have to go past people.

Speaker 1 It was what I was saying earlier in the podcast.

Speaker 2 You have to literally, Harry, I have to, I have a,

Speaker 1 I have a carabiner attached to the line and I have to, my stomach to your stomach, I have to come around you and put my other carabiner around.

Speaker 1 Every person, hundreds of people, you have to go around and you have this much to step on. And guess what? It's a 5,000 foot drop if you fall.
So it's terrifying.

Speaker 1 You're just, there's no way I'm getting down right now. And it's not just a walk in the park.
You're going down.

Speaker 1 you know, the size of buildings, just, you know, trying to pass people, repelling down.

Speaker 1 I would go over the hillary step after summon i'm at about 28 and a half thousand feet i go over the hillary step 30 minutes later behind me boom the whole thing collapsed no multiple people fell dead no dead and i'm just like john we gotta get the out of here

Speaker 2 i'm getting out of here

Speaker 1 my man like i'm not staying on this mountain i know you know people take three four days to get off everest two if you're good i was like we're out

Speaker 1 We've got the whole freaking mountain in 20 hours. We were like, see you later.

Speaker 2 And when you say collapse, the area that you were walking, is that because it's pure ice?

Speaker 1 Ice, snow, mother nature.

Speaker 2 And it just cracked off and down they went. Yeah.
And the Caribbean didn't, didn't hold them to the.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it must have, it must have came out.

Speaker 1 And so, and if any families are listening, man, I, you know, and, and you lost someone on Everest, like, serious condolences because it's like, it's, it's, it's scary, man.

Speaker 1 I would never go back there.

Speaker 1 I, you know, and my blessings go out to everyone that tried but like shoot man it's it's really sad it's it's and they there's good climbers out there you're not getting to the top of everest as a bad climber you know these are experienced people that have trained their life to do this and it's just it's a sad it's a sad sad thing and i don't know i think if you have a family if if you know you have a wife or a husband and man i wouldn't recommend going to everest i just wouldn't recommend i'm not going back you know yeah there's also there's also

Speaker 1 there's a debacle between the Nepalese and Westerners, and I'll be the first to say it.

Speaker 1 There's, there's a little bit of,

Speaker 1 it's a debacle, man. It's, they'll cut your lines.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 1 They will cut your lines, man. I'm not kidding.
I was standing coming out of the Kumbo Ice Fall. John and I.
standing there. There's 20 Sherpas locals around us.

Speaker 1 And they're all jamming in front of us to get their carabiners on the line ahead of us. And I'm like,

Speaker 2 brother, like, can I get in?

Speaker 1 And they're like, they're just pushing me out of the way. And I go to shove in and just put my carabiner on so I don't fall off this freaking cliff.
And John's like, no, no, no, chill.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, why?

Speaker 2 He's like, they'll cut your line.

Speaker 1 I'm like, what do you mean?

Speaker 1 He's like, they'll cut your line. They'll push you off.
He's like, don't fight with them. He's like, it's two verse 20.
And I'm like, right.

Speaker 2 Got it.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, and I believe this goes back to 1953 when Tenzing Norway, Annapolis, and Sir

Speaker 1 Hillary,

Speaker 1 they both summited. And some say that Hillary, Edmund Hillary summited first.
Some say Tenzing Norway did.

Speaker 1 Some say they summited together. But the world puts Hillary on this pedestal, which

Speaker 1 probably isn't the right thing, you know, if they did summit together. And so I think ever since 1953, there's been a little chaos and confusion and debacle between

Speaker 1 the Westerners and Annapolis. you know, it's their mountain.
It's not ours. And so it's, you got to watch out for that.
You got to watch out for who's guiding you.

Speaker 1 You got to watch out for your health. You got to watch out for Mother Nature.
There's so many variables. Yeah.
If you have a family, I would not recommend coming to you.

Speaker 2 And who wants to be a guide doing that? I mean, dude, forget it. I'll be a river guide or something like a little less dangerous.
Yeah, I'm good. I'm good.
But

Speaker 1 I've, I've found a little bit more calmness in my brain. I'm happy I did it.
And

Speaker 1 man, what an adventure. You know, I probably wouldn't, I wouldn't be talking about this if I didn't do it.
And I think it's, it's, it's something cool I can, um,

Speaker 1 I can, I can always have in my back pocket and know that I, I accomplished. So, yeah, I'm happy I did it, but I wouldn't, I would never do it again.

Speaker 2 That's amazing, man. How, how do those experiences like

Speaker 2 you know, the grinding through the pain of a bear crawl, uh, grinding through the pain of Everest, you know, pushing your body to

Speaker 2 the absolute limit, even into the zone of the unknown, right? Because,

Speaker 2 you know, I feel like when you do, you know, you prepare for a race, like a marathon or distance race, you kind of know what you're getting into, you can manage your exhaustion.

Speaker 2 Like, look, my son's never done seven marathons on seven continents in seven days, but he knows what a marathon is, right?

Speaker 2 And if he gets into trouble, he can slow down a little bit and bring himself back. And, but

Speaker 2 these are like sort of black holes that you're going into, black holes, right i mean they're they're not pre-planned um

Speaker 2 you obviously you can train but right you're also in that black hole like what has what has that done what did that experience do to shape you what what what was your big takeaway from from those it

Speaker 2 because nothing prepared you you didn't like prepare to look at uh frozen dead people no um you didn't prepare to have somebody maybe uh cut your line and actually take your life because right you butt in front of them in line.

Speaker 2 Like that wasn't part of your training. Right.

Speaker 2 So I think,

Speaker 1 and I loved your, your, um, your perspective on this, but you know,

Speaker 1 the, the thing with the brain, bigger is better.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 And I, I believe when you activate your brain in different scenarios, like I said, not the routine. In and out, you're expanding your brain.

Speaker 1 And I can take that, my brain and things I learn and I see and I push through. I don't start a race until I get to last 10% of the race.
That's when the real race starts.

Speaker 1 The first 90% is, guys, we're having fun. This is type, type one, type two fun.
Right. The last 10 is the type, damn, man, this is a 2.5 fun.
This is some shit. I'm, man, my heart's beating.

Speaker 1 My head's going to explode. I'm dehydrated.
I have a blister on my foot. Jesus, man, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I need this to stop, like freaking out.

Speaker 1 That's where you learn about yourself. How do you, how can I, for me, handle chaos? How can I handle exhaustion? How far can this body go? And I'll tell you one thing.
This body can do a lot.

Speaker 1 Our bodies are so, so, so, so smart, man. And they're, they're, they can, they can recover fast.
They, they know when they need hydration. They know when they need protein.
They, like, it knows.

Speaker 1 And understanding my body on all fours, I wanted to understand it. And I wanted to be as comfortable on twos.

Speaker 1 You know, I wanted to be as comfortable on bare, like literally crawling on all fours as I was walking in two feet. And I wanted to see what's that like, right?

Speaker 1 I wanted to be as comfortable on Everest as I am walking around Central Park. I wanted to be just as comfortable.
And I want to see how my body adapts and how far can this body really go?

Speaker 1 Not to the point of death, but to the point of like, all right,

Speaker 1 knocking on that door real quick, you know? And I think

Speaker 1 I believe in what's helped me in my business career, my personal life, my friendships,

Speaker 1 everything

Speaker 1 is when I push my brain a little bit past that uncomfortability, I can handle all those other scenarios so much more easier. Like, you know, people are, you know, they flip out about the most basic

Speaker 1 things. And I'm like, man, like.

Speaker 2 Have you ever sit there? You feel on a cliff, man?

Speaker 1 Like, have you ever, have you ever ran a marathon? Have you ever like really been in a situation where, you know, you know, death's knocking on your door?

Speaker 1 Because if not, then put yourself in a position where it's really hard and you need a test. Do a masogi.
Do something that you don't know if you're going to complete or not.

Speaker 1 50% you're going to complete it, 50% not. And go put yourself out there because that's where your brain's going to expand.

Speaker 1 You know, I was reading in a book, take a different route home every day from work. Don't take the same route home.
Don't take that same subway back and forth, back and forth. Take a left turn.

Speaker 1 Take a right turn. Go to that coffee shop you've never been to.
Go to that restaurant.

Speaker 2 Try that workout place.

Speaker 1 Try different things. Expand your brain.
And that's what these races, the marathons, the bear crawls, the Everest, the Antarctica, the trips,

Speaker 1 these adventures I put myself riding across America.

Speaker 1 That's where my brain expands. The other part, you know, like

Speaker 1 riding across America in New Mexico, people are living in tents, Gary. They're living in tents and they're chilling.
And they're former doctors. Yeah, guess what?

Speaker 1 Guess what?

Speaker 2 They don't have bills.

Speaker 1 They can go to the store and get food once a week.

Speaker 1 You know, they don't have that nagging girlfriend or boyfriend. They're chilling, man.

Speaker 1 And they're doing their life. They're riding their bike every day.
They're running and they're living out of their tent. They're jumping in the river.

Speaker 1 They are living and they have reset the standard of what they want. And you know what that did to me? That made me think, man, we add the stress to our life.
We're the ones that keep stacking up.

Speaker 1 Well, I want this and I want that and I need this perfect. Well, guess what? This is the standard.
You can live it. We can all live in a tent next to a river somewhere on this planet.

Speaker 1 And that's the very simple life if you want that but if you want to start a company expect stress if you want to run a race ex expect you're going to have to get in shape if you want to do this you're going to have to sacrifice that we're adding the stress to our life you know what i mean you can't we i can have a simple life man I asked to be on this podcast.

Speaker 1 You wanted me to be on this podcast.

Speaker 1 I was, you know, the last 24 hours, I've been like, all right, let me look at these notes. Let me listen to Gary.
Let me, I put that stress on me. Yeah.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 If I didn't want to do it, I would, hey, I'm going to back off.

Speaker 2 I'm going to chill in my tent at the river.

Speaker 1 And that's great.

Speaker 2 When it comes to snacking, Masa is flipping the script on what real food should look like. Masa chips are crafted with grass-fed beef tallow, one of the healthiest fats on the planet.

Speaker 2 These chips are packed with essential vitamins like vitamin A, D, E, and vitamin K2, all of which play a role in keeping your skin vibrant, your immune system strong, and your bones solid.

Speaker 2 But here's the real magic about Masa. Masa's corn goes through an ancient process called nixdimylization, which makes it way easier to digest and it amps up its nutrient profile.

Speaker 2 Plus, these chips are low in PUFAs, so you won't find any of the inflammatory seed oils that you find in most snacks.

Speaker 2 And instead, Masa uses pure Redmond sea salt, giving you a natural hit of minerals that keep your cells hydrated and your energy steady. So don't just snack.
Reach for Masa.

Speaker 2 It's real food, real health without any of the junk. Grab a bag and I promise you'll feel the difference.
Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human podcast.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think that's such a great metaphor for life.

Speaker 2 It's like, you know, you talk about finding that calm in your mind, but being calm under stress, you know, it's like if you've ever done like a really hard yoga session, they wrap you into the candle stick pose or something, and it should be like called the torture pose.

Speaker 2 And, you know, you're there, you're half squatted, your hands are together, your butt's firm, you're holding in your abdomen, and you just start shaking in pain, right?

Speaker 2 And like, and you know, the sweat's coming off of your head, but you're just trying to calm your mind in that scenario. I feel like you can condition yourself, condition your mind.

Speaker 2 It's like why, why I tell people to, you know, if your morning's hard, your day will be easy. And I'm not saying you have to go in and do a workout that just taxes your joints every day of your life.

Speaker 2 But I, um, you know, a few months ago, I was like, you know, I really freaking hate wide grip pull-ups and I really suck at them. Do I?

Speaker 2 And so I'm just, that's who I've got a David Goggins in my mind all the time, like, you pussy, like, do it now, do it now, do it now. And, um,

Speaker 2 and, and what was crazy is I went in and started doing, I was like, one and hold myself, hold myself, hold myself down, you know, and then, you know, and then I just started working through them.

Speaker 2 Now I'm in there rolling them out. And I'm like, you know, it's, it's such a metaphor for life.
Like, you know, you call it do hard shit. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I think the reason why you want to do hard shit, well, I'd love to hear your reason. You know, why should people do hard shit?

Speaker 1 Expands your brain. Yeah.
It expands your brain. It makes, it allows you to enjoy the good times much, much more.

Speaker 1 Yeah, man, that Memorial Day weekend when I came back from Everest, I was the happiest guy on earth, man.

Speaker 1 I was so happy. I enjoyed that burger, and I enjoyed my friends, and I enjoyed my hugging my mom, and I enjoyed it so much more than before Everest.

Speaker 2 That's so cool, man. You know, I took the family on an extreme Costa Rican vacation about two years ago.
And

Speaker 2 my,

Speaker 2 my daughter, my

Speaker 2 two sons, my youngest daughter and, you know, my wife and, and my son's fiancé. And we all went down there

Speaker 2 and was really cool. When I say extreme vacation, it wasn't like, definitely not like Everest or Bear Con of a fire.
You didn't take your family to Everest? No, like, no,

Speaker 2 only one of us would make it.

Speaker 1 And that'd be my, my son.

Speaker 2 But, um,

Speaker 2 but what was really cool is, you know, we rafted the Pequari River, we did spelunking, we did, you know, repelling.

Speaker 2 Um, you know, we ended up DTVing out in the, uh, you know, we, we stayed in these lodges that didn't have any running water freaking bugs everywhere. And, um, in the last night, we were in the

Speaker 2 the Picori lodge. And, and the next morning I had to leave.

Speaker 2 If I left the family there, I had leave the jungle at 4:30 in the morning because I had to get to town and take a flight to Miami because actually has a speaking engagement in Miami.

Speaker 2 And it was at Live Nightclub in Miami. And, you know, somebody had rented, it wasn't a nightclub thing.
It was like they rented the nightclub and it was, it was actually

Speaker 2 Dan Fleischman's

Speaker 2 uh mastermind 100 million dollar mastermind so anyway but but the whole point is i i woke up in the jungle i'd only been there for seven days i take this flight i land in miami and as i'm like getting to the speaking venue it all felt so surreal like i was looking around i'm like

Speaker 2 none of this is necessary like these fucking buildings that ferrari this crazy gorgeous nightclub all these clothes these fancy clothes you guys are wearing wearing, that $20,000 bag that just passed me in the lobby.

Speaker 1 Doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 It was super perspective for me. Like,

Speaker 2 I was almost like, I don't belong here.

Speaker 2 Like, I wanted to go back to the Costa Rican jungle so bad.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 so I really identify with what you're saying. And I think that by doing really hard shit, you know, people understand that, you know, life's, you know, take it a little easy.

Speaker 2 Like, take it easy on yourself. It's not that serious.
Nice. I got a hater on Instagram.
I don't even know who this freaking person is. Yeah, man.

Speaker 1 It's not, you know, I don't want to sound like this, but, you know, in,

Speaker 1 I think we'll live to 180.

Speaker 2 I really do.

Speaker 1 I think in 150 years, none of this is,

Speaker 1 I don't think any of this is really going to matter. It's, you know, that, that, that person that.

Speaker 1 you know, you thought was mad at you or that stupid little fight you got in with your girlfriend or that, it's not really going to matter. It's really not.

Speaker 2 Take it easy.

Speaker 1 Relax. Everyone take a chill pill.
You know, the other reason I like doing hard stuff is because it, you know, Stephen Kotler from

Speaker 1 his book on flow state, you know, speaks on there's three ways to re-tap into flow state in our brain. You have to do something mindless.
You have to do something hard.

Speaker 1 And you have to do something calm. And with those three things, you can retap into the body.

Speaker 2 You have to do all three of them.

Speaker 1 You have to do all three of them.

Speaker 1 Flow state only lasts in the brain for 75 minutes, according to studies. 75 minutes, you can be in that state of

Speaker 1 not understanding time, being in the zone, and just being in your own world.

Speaker 2 That feeling of, oh my God, what just happened?

Speaker 1 I just got that shit done that I wanted to get. It's 75 minutes.
Can't have flow state, Gary, for 10 hours in a row. It's not possible.

Speaker 1 However, the way to maximize it it is by doing hard shit, cold punch, by doing something mindless, meditate, doing something calm. Maybe it's a sauna.

Speaker 1 And so that's why, like at Sweet Honey, that's what I do every 75 minutes. And that's why I encourage members and people.
Every 75 minutes. Every 75 minutes.

Speaker 2 Dude, that's so cool. I never, yeah.

Speaker 1 And so then I get to reset. and I retap into flow state.
And so if I'm taking calls or meetings from say 10.30 to 3, I'm doing it multiple times in between.

Speaker 1 And by my three, four o'clock call or meeting, guess what? I'm at 100%, baby.

Speaker 2 I'm good to go. You know,

Speaker 2 because I'm retypping in. Three saunas, three cold plunges.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And I just lay there, meditate.
I'll do a Hoffman meditation. I'll just listen.
Sometimes I'll just go pet a horse and I just do something. I'll just, I just chill.
And guess what?

Speaker 1 By the end of the day, I'm 100% on a call. I'm not, hey, Gary, how are you? Sorry, man.
I'm so tired. It was my last call for today.
That's not, Gary, let's go, baby. What do we got going on? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm in it. Let me focus.
I'm you and me, baby. Let's get this call done, you know? And, and I think that energy is what we all need in our life.
It's not the extra caffeine. It's not the cocaine.

Speaker 1 It's the good, real energy that we can give to ourselves. It's the real dopamine.
It's the real flow state. And that's, that's just what I believe in, man, from doing hard shit.

Speaker 2 Dude, that's so good, man. I think it's, like I said, I think it's such a metaphor for life.
And I, uh, I remember back when I first started doing CrossFit because I've always tried to meditate.

Speaker 2 Um, you know, I do, I do breath work every morning now, which really helps. But I never was able to really, really quiet my mind.
And I found CrossFit.

Speaker 2 And the thing that I loved about it was if, you know, if you're ever doing a CrossFit WAD and you actually don't want to quit, you're just not doing it right. Right.
Like

Speaker 2 70% of the time, you should really want to quit.

Speaker 2 It's brutal. It's brutal.
And like, you know, whatever the AMRAP is that you're doing.

Speaker 2 But afterwards, by the way, as many rounds as possible. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's just like, what's Gary doing?

Speaker 1 Okay. Yeah.
Yeah. And the guy next to you, you're like,

Speaker 2 Emoms are a walk in the park.

Speaker 1 It's like, all right, I get a little rest. These are fun.
And wrap is just

Speaker 2 MRAPs are torture because you're trying to condense time. And, and I realized, you know, over a long term that combining speed and heavy weight was a bad idea.
That's why I stopped doing it.

Speaker 2 I didn't have a problem with heavy weight or a problem with speed, but I think the.

Speaker 1 combination for like deadlift for time 400 meter sprint deadlift for time that's no good to me is yeah that's that's it's that room for the recipe for disaster it is right but what do you so what do you think of these hybrid athletes then that everyone's like yeah, the deadlift and then run the mile or whatever.

Speaker 1 And is, is that, is there longevity to that?

Speaker 2 Or is I think there's, there are athletes that, you know, can condition and participate that, but, you know, compound Olympic lifts, um, you know, like a real overhead snatch, right?

Speaker 2 Or, or a squat snatch. I mean, That's not something that your average soccer mom should just do twice a week, you know, after she drops the kids off at school, right?

Speaker 2 I mean, just come in, you know, fresh out of bed, had a cup of coffee, dropped the kids off at school, you know, pulls in, and now she's doing compound Olympic lifts.

Speaker 2 And it's, um, it's not that I have any problem with those activities or even the CrossFit games, but it's, you know, what I saw, and I owned a CrossFit gym.

Speaker 2 It was, it was called Real Fitness in Naples.

Speaker 2 Um, and we had great programmers, but, but I, I did see a lot of people get injured because you, I think you were taking people too far, too fast, you know, just getting somebody to understand the mechanics of deadlift and safely deadlift real weight

Speaker 2 or overhead snatch or clean and jerk or just clean. I mean, those are

Speaker 2 complicated movements. For you to master 15 of those

Speaker 2 as someone who's not dedicated to that craft, you know, is I think there's a risk for injury. I

Speaker 2 actually watched,

Speaker 2 it's terrible. We had those, they call them the GHD setups where you kind of lock your knees.

Speaker 1 I love the GHD.

Speaker 2 I love one.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we have one at Sweet Honey.

Speaker 2 I love them too. But I saw, I, I saw,

Speaker 2 uh-oh.

Speaker 2 It was like my fifth day owning the gym, too.

Speaker 1 And I was just like, I was like, I'm so excited, man.

Speaker 2 I just put this big investment in. And, you know, and,

Speaker 2 you know, this guy comes in and he, and he, we didn't have, we didn't pre-test him for his level of conditioning.

Speaker 2 And he jumps in the wide and he gets him on the GHD and he goes flying back and splits his linear alba from.

Speaker 2 the like the base of his sternum to the top of his pubic bone and just saw everything come out through through through the skin and he ended up getting surgery and being being fine but it was like 18 months of recovery for him you know stitching that all back together but it just

Speaker 2 came came right out and it was just laying outside of his abdomen inside of his skin i did not even know that was terrible i'll never forget that um

Speaker 2 but um now he must have had like a hernia or something uh but in any case i i

Speaker 2 That was the worst thing that I'd seen, but like not lots of knees, hips, shoulders, rotator cuffs, you know, you know,

Speaker 2 people don't work on their shoulder mobility and and then they're trying to do a snatch and, um, right, you know, just those kinds of things. But I, I've, I'm not dishing on CrossFit.

Speaker 1 What is, what is your, what is your daily? What it was my meditation. Oh, that was your meditation.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it was my, it was my meditation because when I was done that workout,

Speaker 2 um, because there was that period of time where all you wanted to do was quit, there was nothing else on your mind, but trying not to quit.

Speaker 2 And at the end, I always felt this incredible sense of zen calm. Like I actually got addicted to, it's like the

Speaker 2 post-cold punch feel. Yeah.
Like I got addicted to what was coming after, right? The workouts always sucked, but the after was, and you know, now that I look back, it lasted like,

Speaker 2 you know, 75-ish minutes. I always remember that by a certain time in the morning, you know, it would wear off, but I clearly remember that, which much must be what, you know, you're just

Speaker 1 yeah, the flow state is, you know, when, when you just lose, lose track of time, man, and, you're, you're in this zone of just

Speaker 1 zen

Speaker 1 getting this done.

Speaker 1 Some people can tap into it easier than most, but Stephen Kotler has that book, Stealing Fire.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it's, uh, it's good. It's, it's a great book, and it talks about Navy SEALs and, and, and how you kind of integrate flow state.

Speaker 1 But, you know, I, I do think if you can tap into that, you don't need a

Speaker 1 Again, you don't need caffeine or anything else to do that. You can do it yourself.
That's so awesome.

Speaker 2 And I had a cosmetic surgeon on here one time, Dr. Cameron Chestnut.
Oh, cool. And what was really cool about him, I'd never heard a physician say this or a surgeon say this, is

Speaker 2 he

Speaker 2 doesn't allow himself to schedule more than a certain number of surgeries a week. And I think he only operates two or three days a week.

Speaker 2 And the reason is because he puts himself into a flow state before every surgery because he's like, I want to be so present for that patient.

Speaker 2 I want to be so present for that procedure, for that, you know. And

Speaker 2 being a patient, you got to be like, that's the guy that I want.

Speaker 2 You know, I mean, if you're cutting my eyes or redoing my nose or whatever you're doing on my, on my body, I want you in a flow state too.

Speaker 1 100%.

Speaker 2 It's just really cool to see that he actually used that as his super.

Speaker 1 My surgeon,

Speaker 1 Dr. Sam, sports doc Sam, he's amazing.
He's not quick to cut. He's not a guy that's like, all right, your ankle hurts.

Speaker 2 Let's.

Speaker 1 Let's cut that thing open, baby. Let's throw it.

Speaker 1 He's a peptide guy. He's a stem cell guy.
He's so, he's functional health, but he, he jumps in a cold plunge every morning before he goes into surgery. Like that's his jam.
And he just, he rips.

Speaker 1 You know, I, that's the other thing I think with, with, with this whole health world is having a doctor, having a biologist, having someone that you can really go to and, and, and trust.

Speaker 1 And, and, and they're going to provide you the information or the peptides or the functional way of going about your, you know, your injury or, or, or your disease or whatever you're dealing with.

Speaker 1 I, I don't know. I think it's really important.
I have this guy on speed dial. You know what I mean? Like,

Speaker 1 I think everyone needs that. And especially someone that lives kind of lives that life as well.

Speaker 2 But yeah. Well,

Speaker 2 first of all, this has been amazing, man.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 your story is inspirational. And I mean, just the way that you're making an impact in a world and building communities is incredible.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 You know, I ask every guest that comes on my podcast the same questions. There's no right or wrong answer to this, but what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?

Speaker 1 To be an ultimate human.

Speaker 1 I think for me to be an ultimate human,

Speaker 2 it is to

Speaker 1 develop my own patterns, not patterns that were passed down from my parents and their parents and their parents, but develop my own about who I am.

Speaker 1 I think it's understanding what values you live by, you're absolutely no matter what.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I think it's to be kind to others and do the right thing when no one's looking. I really do, man.
I believe in that. And I think

Speaker 1 if we can just, if we can just put a little bit more love out in the world, and I don't want to sound too woo-hoo, but a little bit more love.

Speaker 1 you know i'm going to hug you when i leave man yeah i'm going to hug her i'm going to hug him and i'm going to you know i'm going to put that love out in the world.

Speaker 1 And I think if more of us could do that, we can be an ultimate human. The energy you put out in the world is exactly what you're going to get back.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, and I'm going to spend every second of my time on earth putting it out positive energy and putting out my values. Cause guess what?

Speaker 1 The people with similar values are going to be attracted back in. So true.

Speaker 2 You know, that's so true.

Speaker 1 And the last thing I'll say about being an ultimate human is maximizing your time for what you want, not what your boss wants, not what your mom wants, not what your girlfriend wants, what you want.

Speaker 1 What do you really want to do?

Speaker 1 If you're not going to control your time, someone else will.

Speaker 1 So true. And so I would say that's

Speaker 1 how you can be an ultimate human.

Speaker 2 That's a great answer, dude. I've had a lot of answers, but that one's awesome.
Devin, I cannot thank you enough for coming on, brother.

Speaker 2 You're a bright light in this world. I mean, and you're touching so many lives.
And I'm going to continue to follow your mission. I I hope you'll come back on again.

Speaker 1 100%, my brother.

Speaker 2 I appreciate you.

Speaker 1 Thanks for having me. You're welcome.
Awesome. Awesome, what you guys are doing.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 And as always, guys, that's just science.