Real World Hacks for Staying Healthy Over the Holidays, with TJ Anderson

My guest is TJ Anderson. He is a behavior change specialist, a health hacker, and founder of Elevate Your State, which is a growing community of health-conscious leaders online. TJ is dedicated to helping high-performance entrepreneurs, business professionals, and health-conscious leaders to merge the fundamentals of a healthy life with cutting-edge science and strategy, so you can stay on top of your health game. His new book, called The Art of Health Hacking, has been endorsed by people like J.J. Virgin and Bulletproof Coffee's own Dave Asprey. In short, he's killing it, and he's helping people to live better and healthier lives. Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: The Art of Health Hacking Book: https://amzn.to/2QhGWj0 Elevate Your State Website/Podcast: www.elevateyourstate.co Youthing Song on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVr1EZZ-gJQ Dry Farm Wines: http://www.dryfarmwines.com/elevateyourstate Healthy Holiday Recipe E-Book: https://drive.google.com/open?id=14zMwfBqEClBe2UQl2Yx4_EbP5kfvkjzJ INTERVIEW: TJ, welcome to DREAM THINK DO. Oh, Mitch, it's an honor and a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. This is just fun, man. I know you've been healthy since the day we met. Has that always been a thing for you? I don't know that we've ever talked about childhood stuff. Did you grow up being healthy, or was this later in life kind of thing for you? Good question. Well, everyone’s childhood is different, and I would say health is relative across the spectrum. I had a great childhood, but my personal, own desire and passion related to health improvement, health consciousness, et cetera, didn't really start until after college. That's when the fire ignited. After college, I realized how the unhealthy lifestyle I was living in college wasn't the best for me. I actually realized through my parents. My mom inspired me through creating my own meals. It really starts in the kitchen, how much nutrition impacts health. That was after college. Awesome. So some people have always just been geared toward healthy living. For others, it’s a major event in their life. Maybe somebody else close to them started to have health issues, or themselves started to have health issues. Yours was a little bit more gradual but, man, it's become a major focal point for your life, for your own life, but also helping people all over. Definitely. The inspiration really came for health right when it came for entrepreneurship, so the passion for both took off at the same time. At times, I would notice my parents running their own business, and how that could add a lot of stress on to one's shoulders if they don't navigate it in the best way. It's not easy. There's no playbook about how to be a healthy high performer. I used to be the health guy that was just all into health and fitness and looking good and feeling good. Then, when I went down the rabbit hole of what's possible for using our health as an asset in our life, with how well we're able to think clearly and have the energy necessary to work and perform at the top of our game, I've really started, through the book and in all my work, it's really connecting the dots between how our decisions, our habits, our behaviors impact our performance, both in the present moment, but also for the further, for longevity. Absolutely. Well, that's funny, because I remember it. Just as you're saying that I remember you had invited me to be a part of one of your first entrepreneurial groups, right? You were trying to help a bunch of entrepreneurs get healthy and stay healthy. I'll just never forget. I remember one of the interactions. One of the guys was sort of confessing, “I did this to try to get six-pack abs, but the thing that I'm actually benefiting from is clarity.” He said, “Yeah, I'm losing some weight. I'm feeling better, but,” he's like, “I had no idea the positive effects on my clarity of thought, my reduced anxiety,