Pushing The Limits

Are you having a hard time achieving good health? Do you find that no matter what you try, you can’t seem to hit your fitness goals? It’s not really your fault — wellness is hard to achieve when the food industry sells unhealthy food. Fortunately, there’s a way out.  In this episode, Prof Grant Schofield shares how we can optimise our metabolic health in the modern environment. He discusses the advantages of being metabolically flexible, especially for athletes. We also talk about how sugar addiction and chronic stress can lead to severe physical and mental consequences. Likewise, we delve into the importance of making research more understandable for people.  If you want to improve your health and achieve a state of healthy metabolic balance, then this episode is for you!   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health programme, all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year’s time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, goals, and lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity, or want to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health, and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. 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Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Discover how to become metabolically flexible and fat-adapted. Find out the truth about the keto diet and its effect on your metabolic health. Learn how chronic stress can lead to severe brain damage.    Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron!  Harness the power of NAD and NMN for anti-aging and longevity with NMN Bio.  Listen to other Pushing the Limits episodes: #183: Sirtuins and NAD Supplements for Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova #189: Understanding Autophagy and Increasing Your Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova Connect with Prof Grant: Website | Facebook What The Fat? Book PreKure: A place where you'll learn about health & wellness From Prof Grant’s blog: Who cares about what humans have eaten in the past? How to reverse the diabetes epidemic in 3 years. Fast This Way by Dave Asprey Patrick McKeown and James Nestor  ‎Huberman Lab Podcast by Dr Andrew Huberman    Episode Highlights [03:34] Prof Grant’s Background Grant liked science and sports from his early childhood. He wanted to study physical education in university, but his family told him to take up engineering. He eventually ended up studying physiology and psychology.  Grant then got into triathlons while he started his academic and research career.  He focuses on fitness, nutrition, sleep, and well being. He has written books on fasting and diets for reversing sicknesses and enhancing performance.  [10:41] Metabolic Flexibility Can Be Trained A long time ago, humans used fat as a primary fuel source when resting and moving around.  In contrast, the modern, average person doesn't burn fat, especially when at rest. Grant thinks that people can reverse this and train to be metabolically flexible.  People who have metabolic inflexibility tend to have a low supply of readily available energy.  Grant prescribed a diet and workout training programme to a client. This person eventually became fat-adapted and broke a record in the triathlon he joined.  [17:54] The Truth About the Keto Diet The initial process of getting into the keto diet is strict, but after around three weeks, however, it becomes sustainable. Unless you have therapeutic reasons to do so, you don’t need to stick to the keto diet all the time.  Some people believe that the keto diet isn't good because our genetic ancestors had short lifespans. Grant and Lisa argue that the cavemen’s lifespans were shorter because of other reasons. [24:18] The Addictiveness of Food Lisa thinks that the quality of our food is horrific: a lot of processed food is unhealthy and addictive. Grant also observed this through his research.  Sugar, in particular, is often overused in our food.  Sugar addiction can be especially harmful because our bodies are not predisposed to coping with it.  The food industry has many tactics to make unhealthy, addicting food sound healthy.  Listen to the whole episode to hear Grant’s research and battling the food industry’s tactics. [34:57] The Metabolic and Mental Health Crisis Mental health problems are becoming more and more prevalent amongst New Zealand youth.  Because of the faulty healthcare system, the youth often turn to medicine for their mental health problems.  We have a metabolic crisis involving obesity, diabetes and the brain. Our metabolic balance can be interrupted by antidepressants. Instead of taking medicine, Lisa thinks the youth should be taught how to manage their health better. [43:41] About Glutamate and Stress Our brains produce glutamate when we are stressed. There is an inhibitory system called GABA that inhibits the effects of glutamate. When you are chronically stressed, this amino acid keeps getting pumped out and can overwhelm your brain. Too much glutamate in our system can kill our brain cells and damage the brain.  You can combat glutamate toxicity through various methods. Learn how when you listen to the full episode! [58:02] Making Science Understandable for Everyone Lisa mentions the works of Patrick McKeown and James Nestor.  Grant applauds their approach of translating science into something understandable while not dumbing it down.  Lisa thinks that most health systems treat most people as idiots and don't explain the science behind health well. [1:03:26] Grant’s Parting Advice It’s difficult to reach a state of good health and homeostasis in our current world. However, it’s not impossible. Grant advocates for everyone to use their voice to overwhelm the industries that promote unhealthy living.   7 Powerful Quotes From This Episode ‘The thing is, with addictions, of course, is that people go because everyone is not addicted to it, doesn't mean it's not a thing.’   ‘Sugar is definitely one of those things that is one of the hardest addictions I think, not that I've been addicted to anything else but it's a bloody hard addiction to get rid of and stay on top of.’   ‘We're fighting a war here, and we've got kids that are already diabetic and before they're even teenagers, and this is a coming huge disaster for the healthcare system.’   ‘We've got a metabolic crisis with obesity and diabetes, but guess what? The most important metabolic organ is your brain.’   'Now I understand the need for health fundamentals like sleep, hygiene, and movement, and exercise, and sunshine, and the right diet, because diet is a huge piece of the puzzle because your gut and your brain are connected.'   ‘We weren't designed for long-term stress. We're designed for acute fight or flight.’   ‘Let's treat people as if they have got a brain in the head. Just because they don't know the jargon. You can explain the jargon.’   About Prof Grant Prof Grant Schofield is a Professor of Public Health at Auckland University of Technology and the director of the university's Human Potential Centre (HPC). His research and teaching interests include wellbeing and chronic disease prevention. Prof Schofield is committed to unlocking people's peak performance through consulting. His motto: 'be the best you can be'. Grant has been interested in human health and performance ever since he started his career. He first took up psychology, went into sport and exercise psychology, then into public health. Prof Schofield has a diverse background and has an interest in biology, medicine, public health, and productivity management. He covers various health topics in his blog and book. If you want to connect with Prof Grant, you can follow him on Facebook.     Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can learn how to optimise their health. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Full Transcript Of The Podcast Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com.  Lisa Tamati: Well, hi everyone and welcome back to Pushing the Limits. This week I have another wonderful professor with me who is going to share some insights and the latest research and I'm really, really excited for this interview. I have Professor Grant Schofield, who is the Professor of Public Health at Auckland University of Technology. He's also the director of the University's Human Potential Center, located at Millennium Campus up in Auckland. His interests lie with dealing with chronic disease and well being and prevention around degenerative diseases, obesity, metabolic disorders. He’s a very, very interesting man, he's written a number of books along with his team. I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation. We're pretty frank and upfront about our beliefs, and they’re very much aligned so I really enjoyed this talk with Professor Grant Schofield.  Before we head over to the show, just a reminder to check out our patron program, www.patron.lisatamati.com, and I'd also love you to check out our flagship epigenetics program. Our epigenetics is all about understanding your own genes, and how to optimize them for your best health. So looking at areas from your food, to your exercise to the what times of the day to do things, your chronobiology, that's called looking at your mood and behavior, your what parts of the brain you use most dominantly, and this is a very powerful program that has changed really, hundreds of lives. We've now used it for a number of years in the corporate space, as well as in the athletic space, as well as with people dealing with different health issues. So if you want to find out more, go to lisatamati.com and hit the work with us button and you'll see our Peak Epigenetics program.  We've also got out Running Hot Coaching. Don't forget that, www.runninghotcoaching.com is the website to go for our online run training system. It's all personalized, customized to you to your next big goal, you get video analysis, a consult with me all in the basic package and plan for your next event, including everything from your strength to your mobility workouts, as well as your run sessions and advice around eating and mindset. So check that out at runninghotcoaching.com. Right, over to Professor Grant Schofield at the Millennium Center in Auckland.  Well, hi, everyone, and welcome back to Pushing the Limits. Today, I have a superstar. I have a guest that I'm really, really excited about speaking to because this is a very learned gentleman and an elite athlete and someone who I greatly admire. I have Professor Grant Schofield to guest. Welcome to the show. I’m glad to have you, Grant!  Prof Grant Schofield: Hey, Lisa. Yeah, thanks for having me. And, yeah, I've been following you from a distance for years. And you know, just enjoying your achievements love, and it's so great to have you on the show. Lisa: And likewise in reverse. So thank you very much. It's a real honor. So today we, I reckon we just gonna dive into some of the stuff that you've been researching and what's on your mind at the moment, because you've got so many areas that I could go down, you know, looking at high fat diets and obesity and diabetes and prevention. Then we can look at the weight paper that you've just recently released, which I've, I just studied and went, ‘Wow, that was all about glutamate and toxicity and all that’. Well, that's new, that was all new to me. So which direction and firstly, give us a bit of an introduction to you in your background and your sporting career and all of that sort of stuff. Grant: Yeah. So, like, I'd always, something that always interests me in my life is things that I was sort of good at, and I was only good at it because I like doing them was, not so much school, but science and biology. I just liked it. I just like learning about that stuff. I was right from the very start of school and this is just something that continued to happen. I also like doing sports. I was just like one of those kids who is into the sports and I was okay. It was like, every New Zealand kid plays rugby. I wasn't that great, but I played it, you know, I've got on the 15 rugby and all this sort of stuff and that sort of thing. And the school I said also had rowing as a sport, which Yeah, and they did a performance level. So it was to win the national championships. And they so, the crews I was in, trained hard. And there was high-performance aspects, as long as they were in hindsight of nutrition and psychology and training and the broad range of things that good teenage athletes get involved with.  Then of course, they don't finish as when you finish the school, and I sort of found myself, thought I’ll go to uni. My dad was an engineer and he thought I should go to, I wanted to go to do physical education. That was the main thing I was interested in, and my family sort of pulled me out of it and told me I should have gone to engineering. I lasted a week in there. It obviously wasn't for me. But I ended up in a degree studying physiology and psychology, just a science degree because that's what I found interesting. And then I went from, not really been that interested all of sudden getting these A-pluses. I didn't think I was brainy. But it was just, you know, I was just used to go to lectures, and not really take notes, and just listen and ask questions, and it was really interesting. But because I wasn't that mature, there was never a point in my life early on where I was like, Grant Schofield is now capable of getting a decent job where someone's going to employ him, and he's going to make some difference to the world. That wasn't a thing, right?  Lisa: Yeah.  Grant: So I couldn't finish this one degree and go and get a job because I wasn't capable of doing any work. I didn't think I could at the time. But that's the reality in hindsight, right? So. Of course, this is the early 90s. And this sport of triathlon was coming on the scene where I live in New Zealand, there was these great personalities like Erin Baker, another woman, Erin Christie, another one, Rick Wells, and, just to a young person, and then I ended up, you know, going out training with quite large, and a lot of these people, and I just got into the sport. The thing is about endurance, especially longer, it’s as you know, what, you need to be sort of mentally tough, the pain’s a lot softer than something like rowing or, or, you know, measuring 3,000 meters running or, you know, 400-800 meter swimming, these are sports with a piano actually does fall hard on you. And so that sort of softer pain of the— Lisa: Softer, longer.  Grant: Longer. Lisa: There's all the pains that come with it, yeah.  Grant:  But it's more of a, it's more of a thinking person sport, right, because you get to work through that. Whereas, you know, in a 400-meter is something that you don't get to work through anything. It's just falling on you, the cut score is coming in. And so I really love that stuff. And so I just did more and more of I just want to do nothing but that. The mindset of the endurance ethic that just wants to do more and more and more. Luckily, I sort of carried on with my studies and then started my academic career. And then I became a psychologist, I'm actually quite useless at psychology because, mainly because I want to give people the answer. And of course, you know, good psychological counseling is about asking open-ended questions, reflective listening, and waiting for the client to come up with a solution, which is absolutely hopeless. As my wife would tell you—  Lisa: You’re an action orientated guy, like no, there is the solution here.  Grant: Yeah. This is why this is the problem for us. It's this sort that out. By then, by the early 2000s, when it really just dawned on us that our kids didn't look like we did when we were kids.  Lisa: Yeah.  Grant: You can look. I actually was reflecting on the other day, I looked at my photo of Twizel Primary School, Year One in 1974. And, yeah, by modern standards, people will be wondering if those kids are properly fed, why the teachers are so lean. And you compare that with a modern day Year One primary school class, or later, and it's a different world we lived in.  So that was the early 2000s, that world had unfolded, right? So didn't, wasn't the same.  Lisa: It’s scary. Grant: And as fit as I used to be, they weren't the same shape they used to be and we wondered why. And so that was really the field that welcomed me, which was that topic of nutrition. Lisa: Wow. So that’s where you got into, yeah. Grant: Yeah, yeah, just didn't mean to. And then, you know, all of a sudden, I guess my research career’s followed my curiosity around the world. So when you're, when you've got young kids, you're interested in young kids. When you've got teenagers, youngsters, young teenagers, When I was racing, elite, high performance, triathlons, we're interested in that. And thankfully, being an academic, it allows you to, especially in my field, allows you the freedom to roam around those and understand those different things. So I've sort of had a, maybe it's a short concentration span, but effectively just a curiosity to keep rolling my research career and practice. Lisa: It's really good that you can do that with an academic career sort of go go like this and still stay— Grant: You can’t go off into sort of, you know, rocket propulsion or something, but, you know, yeah, as long as I stick it to the main things, which are being sort of fitness, nutrition, sleep, well being, then those sort of four things combined, have really been my wheelhouse. But in different, the settings, and the context seems to often change. And then you just, you'll do some work and you'll discover what you think an answer is, or not an answer is, it's a dead end or it's actually got places to go, then you're sort of done with it, and you're on to the next sort of variation of something.  So that's sort of been my life. So the latter stuff is really, we've done a lot of work on low-carb and keto diets, fasting, written quite a few books on that.  Lisa: Yeah, What the Fat? and— Grant: And yeah, yeah, and so that's been really interesting for me, you know, for, for reversing things like diabetes at one end of the spectrum, sort of net, sort of metabolic dysregulation, through to the other end of a high performance.  I'm an athlete, so I coach still, you know, being able to triple their ability to burn free fatty acids at a given intensity and really have a pretty much inexhaustible fuel supply. Before that, they would, you know, really run out of glycogen and struggle through the enjoyment and performance of an event. So— Lisa: Let's start with that one, just if I may interrupt you there, because it's, you know, something that's fascinated me. When I was, you know, active career, I'd never become fat-adapted as an athlete. Your take is that, should endurance athletes be always fat-adapted? Or is it a genetic thing some people are good at, and some people are less so? What is your take on it now, like, given the knowledge that you have and the experience? Grant: So I think that the normal human condition, if you wander up to a Paleolithic human before we started farming grains and wheat and stuff, that sort of hunter gatherers that they would have enjoyed this metabolic flexibility to use fat as a primary fuel source when are resting and moving around low intensities, and then as they got higher and higher intensity, then they would have supplemented that fat burning with extra energy produced from burning glucose in the body. But that doesn't exist. So commonly, and so we're just in the normal human state that lets you burn fat in some circumstances, and carbs and fat in other circumstance.  But if you went down to the local Westfield shopping mall and went to the food hall, and you you bought all those people up to my lab and put them on our metabolic card and measured there, because you can measure both breath by breath gas analysis and understand whether they've been in primarily fat or carbohydrate or whatever mix of. So we do that sort of graded exercise tissue stop at risk, just breathing into the tube. The machine’s analyzing fat and carb burning, and as you increase your intensity, like running speed or power on the bike, then you just see this greater change.  Now, your average person off the street in the food hall doesn't burn fat, even at rest. So they’re metabolically inflexible. Yep. And then the question is, can you train that? And can you train that even on high performance athletes? I think the answer is yes, and I'll give you a good example. There's a young fellow I trained, Matt Kurt and what I mean, saying this. I've trained him for a few years now. So he came from a CrossFit background. He was a fit young man. Yeah, he would be eating mostly carbs, actually. Lisa: Yeah, we were all told back in the day.  Grant: Yeah, totally. So he wanted me to help him prepare for an Ironman triathlon. And so I started training him and say, on an April one year so over in New Zealand winter, didn't really mention diet, because we couldn't seem to get to that but we sort of got on the on the idea that he had to go bike riding, and what running would look like, and it was learning the sports. And by December, he did his first triathlon, which was a 70.3, sort of half Ironman, with a view to going through the Ironman in New Zealand three months later and beginning of March, and he did pretty well actually, like it came fourth overall in the amateurs, so he is talented young man, and he’s a swimmer. He could hit a bike, he could run a bit. But I knew he was a cub and I was like, I need to put you in my lab and we need to measure your fuel burning on that.  So in early December, we got them in there and his peak fat oxidation was about half a gram, a minute, at about 165 watts in the box. So it's not very good power, output is not going to be very fast. And he's only getting because a gram of fat has about nine calories, he’s spending half of one of those a minute over 60 minutes. He’s got about 400 to 500 calories an hour available from fat, and you know, he's going to be racing at 1200 calories an hour.  Lisa: Yeah.  Grant: So over several hours, yeah. He's simply is going to run into all sorts of trouble, because he's got this deficit of 800 calories an hour, he needs to find from glucose. He's got probably 2000 calories that he's got in his muscles and liver. He can consume another couple of 100 by eating gels and stuff, or bananas or something. So he's woefully short. And so it means he can just make a half, I mean, over four hours. We probably have eight or nine hours, he's going to grovel home. He’s going to be a really bad mess. And that's what you see. It's always frustrated me. I got things like Ironman Triathlon, they sort of, 8-15 hour events, or 17 hour events for people.  And I think the saddest thing for me is, first of all this, two thirds of the fittest still mimics the general population, which is overweight.  Lisa: Yeah.  Grant: And virtually all of them run out of glucose or glycogen and their body, sometimes during the bike or shortly into the run. And so the whole marathon experience for them is a very unpleasant affair. They don't like doing it, they finally make it, it's been a real drain on, and they've had so much support from their friends and family over that preparation period, and it was all avoidable. So with Matt, within a mile, we're like, what this is going to happen with you, Matt. So we're stuck on a strict keto diet for three weeks, his training over that period was fairly low intensity, we didn’t really go for any intensity up until after the new year period. And then just sit them on to Iron Man training, and that includes his long run and his long bike which he did weekly, and I've been doing them fasted. Yeah, so with just water. People find that a little bit extreme but his intensity is really low. We'd go out and do you know, like a six hour bike in the end that with no food, and he’d be fine.  Lisa: And that’s the thing, you're adapted.  Grant: You get adapted. And so going back into the lab just before Iron Man, and he’d improved his maximum fat oxidation from half a gram a minute at 165 watts or something, to 1.1 grams a minute at 260 watts.  Lisa: Wow.  Grant: So now he's able to supply 800 calories an hour from fat, and he can do it at 260 watts, which is actually a reasonably competitive pair out, but he's going to get along at you know, 39, 40 calories an hour.  Lisa: Wow.  Grant: And yeah, and so in his first, second ever triathlon, in his first Iron Man, he does, he finishes, I don't know, the top 10 and 9 hours 22. So good effort.  Lisa: That’s amazing. Grant: Yeah, we come back the next year, now with a bit more training on his belt, and he can he manages 8 hours 50. Wow. And this year, he comes back and he wins the entire age group race by half an hour, breaks the course record by seven minutes and does 8:27. And I got him back in the lab straight after that. And what we saw as further fed adaptation over that two-year period, so now he is able to burn 1.8 grams a minute of fat at 310 watts, and that's an astonishing power output. So 310 watts, yeah, you're doing 42 Ks an hour, on a decent course. And that's, he rode 4 hours 29 480 Ks, it's an astonishing time, especially for a guy who's working full time as a teacher. Lisa: That's insane. Grant: So that's what we mean by being metabolically flexible, and, and becoming a real fat-burning machine. Lisa: But what about the arguments about you know, I mean, keto diet is a very difficult diet for people to, if we're talking about the general population now, and it's quite a hard diet to stick to, long term. What about adherence to things? Do you have to be strictly keto? Do you have to be really low on your carbs in order to get the ketones and be in ketosis and to get this fat adaptation? Is there any middle ground? Can you— Grant: Oh, yeah, yeah. It's a great question. I mean, the series of questions you got there, Lisa, are just crucial. And the answer is, initially getting into that. as I'm, for that three, it's very strict. And so that's three weeks. After that, it's very much cyclical. So we generate nutritional ketosis and fat burning by fasted long workouts. And on other cases during the week, we're adding carbohydrates quite a bit. So it's definitely not a strict ketogenic diet at all. And we'll have off periods where he's just eating whatever. In fact, I have trouble trying to get him off the ketone to be a bit more loose, frankly. But that's, that's an athlete, not a normal human, in that sense. This is why I introduced the idea of fasting and intermittent fasting and I'm quite keen on that. And for me, what the fast what I tried to sort of mimic what I felt was an easy, sustainable, cyclical way for me to eat that generated fat burning. Lisa: And pursued it with autophagy? We're all talking about intermittent fasting and I do it like an intermittent fasting, a short-ish intermittent fasting. Is that going to this, I'm not gonna get into ketosis doing an intermittent fasting. Grant: So I just, I would do this sort of pattern of Sunday, try and be reasonably good on the low carb, just eat whatever I wanted. But try and be okay with it. Monday, do some restricted eating windows. So you know, might be, a longest window. Someone who's experienced like me, I could just have one meal that day, and the Tuesday I just did the same thing. So you know, and when I hit a meal I made sure it was super filling, super nutritious, I was calling that super meals. So that's my, that's my Monday and Tuesday, my hard parts of the week, right I worked hard and I concentrated hard on my freshly generated nutritional ketosis. By Monday lunchtime, despite the weekend, Saturday being quite poor, I was back in full ketosis.  I made a bit of an effort, I managed to sort of hang on to some stuff with no real particular restriction but trying to keep the carbs down for Wednesday, Thursday. By the end of Friday, everything had sort of gone pretty loose. And Saturday it was, could be, sometimes off the route is completely out of nutritional ketosis and plenty of carbs, even the odd bit of alcohol, which I'm not encouraging, by the way, but that just seems to happen sometimes.  Lisa: Yeah. And we've got to live, too, Grant: Yeah, yeah. So I'd be completely out of ketosis and in no shape for that at all. But by Monday morning, I'll be back in again. So I just get this period.  Lisa: So you can do that. It's been my question today is like, do I, if I go to keto, you know, go the keto diet. Do you have to do it as a religion? This is me. And then you get people like Dave Asprey and and if you read his book, Fast This Way, and that, he talks about cyclic keto, and how that's even better than just being straight keto, because keto itself can have some negative benefits. Dr Grant: Yeah, I completely agree. And so unless you're wanting to be on keto, for some sort of therapeutic resume, I said, you know, glioblastoma, brain cancer or brain injury like a TBI, I think so. Interesting thing, some other cancers, or you're in chemotherapy, then I don't see any reason to be in that state all the time. But the point is having a bit of bollock machinery to be able to be and easily get in and out. My hypothesis is the Paleolithic one, which is really that humans are metabolically flexible, it's the normal human condition and to see modern humans that have really lost their orchestration of the metabolism to, to burn fat as a primary fuel sources as a sort of denying your own humanity type situation without being too dramatic about it, really. Lisa: But yeah, if we, I was reading one of your blogs, and you hit another, Dr Lisa Te Morenga, I think it was, saying, oh, but you know, like, if we look at from an evolutionary perspective, the caveman because this is an argument that I've had with people too, oh, but the cavemen didn't live very long, so therefore, it's not a good diet. To say that that's, but that's not a bit that helped us survive till now. You know, like we— Grant: I think that’s a complete straw man of an argument, by the way.  Lisa: Yeah, I think so too. Grant: I mean, I think, you know, I mean, first of all, while the average lifespan, is fairly low for people, it’s just for other reasons!  Lisa: It’s for other reasons.  Grant: So if you didn't have those reasons, your actual survival was pretty good. And actually, the important thing to remember is that Paleolithic humans didn't have chronic disease. So they didn't have this, these, what is it a New Zealand at the moment, 12 years of disability in their life before they died, which, so subtract 12 off your lifespan, to get your health span, to health span, span with the same thing. And also question about that. Lisa: We don't have infant mortality, like they did. And we didn't have lions chasing us, and we've got all these other things that make us live longer. But now we have to take even more care of our metabolic state, in order that we don't have these long term. And I mean, I've been living with the consequences of mom's metabolic disorders, leading to an aneurysm, for the past five years, and trying to undo the damage. You know, what I'm talking about is like, in that decline that we see with so many people for over decades, sometimes, and it's just a horrific way to go out for starters. Grant: You know, I don't think anyone, if you ask them when they're in good health, about how they want the rest of their life to track, says they want to be in poor health with a low health span. I don't think that's a topic that people raise as being a good thing.  Lisa: No.  Grant: It's my experience. When I ask even people who aren't doing many healthy behaviors of what they want, then they'll say health, family, friends and happiness, whatever that means. But they, yeah, Lisa: yeah. And I think this is the discussion that we need to be having, so that we find out what the optimum diet is. People I know, I've struggled with my diet over the years. One of the reasons I started running was because I wanted to eat more, because I love food. And then, then I suddenly, at some point, I realized, this hypothesis of calories in calories out is absolute bullshit. This isn't working and that really came to you know, people who hear my podcasts and hear me say when I ran through New Zealand, and I just suddenly woke up. I was running 500 kilometers a week. Yeah, and I was getting fatter because I was in a complete state of chaos. You know, my hormones were up, my water retention, all of that sort of—  Grant: High amount of inflammation, probably.  Lisa: Huge amounts of inflammation. And I ended up flaccid, losing muscle mass and getting fatter and having a slower metabolic rate. I could have sat on the couch and eaten chips and gotten better, you know, in shape?  Grant: Yeah.  Lisa: So that's when a light bulb went for me, and then it also had other reasons like genetically I'm not really made for the long distance stuff, I'm more the high intensity, shorter, sharper, is more suited to me. So I was doing that wrong as well, because some people, it's better to be doing the long. But I think having these discussions where we really dig in, and you've done the research, you know, what, from an evolutionary perspective, what we need to be eating. The state of our food now is horrific. Then you, you add into all that the whole addictive nature of all the stuff and the additives, or preservatives, the MSGs for all of the sugars that are added to our phones, and people are up against it. Like, you know, you can’t even— Grant: Yeah, I agree. Those two topics that might be worth going into those, I've got two— Lisa: Yes, please. Grant: —sort of bases, working in both those areas, the first you mentioned, like you go out, the state of our food supply. So what we've been doing recently is we've been going to primary schools around the place. And we've been taking photos of all the year sixes’ lunchboxes. And whatever you think, particularly on what we call that social gradient, that sort of tipping of rich versus poor at the bottom end of that, whatever you think the food supply’s like, I don't care what you think about how bad it is. It's worse than you think.  Lisa: Yeah.  Grant: I actually cried, I actually physically cried. Lisa: That’s what our kids are getting to eat every day.  Grant: Yeah, and how that's not a priority. Just remember that the biggest cost to our healthcare system for our kids is having to anesthetize them to extract teeth because they're rotten at age five, and we can't walk around too much if they're not anesthetized. So yeah, I mean, what society treats its most vulnerable like that? Just one little rant: in kids healthcare, we have to go and do fundraising and buy raffle tickets to pay for the hospitals for kids. And we don’t do that with adults. That sort of fundraising for that is despicable. It's not a government that cares. Lisa: Not to mention the whole bloody ambulance service. Grant: Yeah, there’s all of that, wouldn’t I fund that? There’s all of that stuff as well. So that's just a mess of how, frankly, Ad the second thing is I've got another student who's just really got into this, the addiction side of food. And as a former psychologist, she goes through and look at the, some, you know, use this Diagnostic and Statistical Manual DSM, DSM-5 is the latest version, which is a way of characterizing disorders.  And you look at the substance misuse disorder, which is really around addictions. And you know, if you change the word alcohol or methamphetamine or tobacco for sugar, yeah, then, you know, the sorts of things you know, sometimes feel withdrawal sometimes. I eat more than I should change unprofessional behavior and makes things worse in my life. You go across all 11 criteria, and you go, Yeah, it's pretty plausible. That's a real thing. Yeah. And the thing is, with addictions, of course, is that people go because everyone is not addicted to it, doesn't mean it's not a thing. So there's this, there's a lot of alcohol drunk where people don't turn into alcoholics It doesn't mean there's not such a thing as alcoholics. And there's, you know, for many people, it becomes a substance they can't control using and I feel the same things about sugar in your ultra processed food in general really. Lisa: Yeah. And the sugar I mean, the I mean like people like you I know you've done a lot of work with a Pacific Island population and Maori and so on, we have a predisposition to you know, not being able to cope with the sugars and more cardiovascular disease and more metabolic disorders. So even more Prater the stuff because we've already and haven't had I don't know hundreds of years of of having it to a certain degree in I mean, I've struggled no sugar is definitely one of those things that is one of the hardest addictions I think, not that I've been addicted to anything else but it's a bloody hard addiction to to get rid of and stay on top of. Grant: Something like smoking or alcohol like the absence of is part of it is hard but just slightly easier because it's contained whereas sugar’s so ubiquitous in the food supply, you can't stop it. It's very hard, you know, all of a sudden you put some chili sauce on your something and you're damn near 75% sugar, you know, like? Lisa: You don't even realize it unless you start baking them and making everything from scratch.- And then you know, not to mention all the MSGs and the additives, preservatives, emulsifiers that are you know, destroying our guts and causing us to want more. I mean, there's a real reason why you can't eat one chip. If you eat one chip, you've eaten the packet, Grant: Well, that's certainly my experience. But strangely, and I had an argument with a dietitian the other day about this, there's a total open quote and short of eating. And it's like her hypothesis was, well, the whole reason we I was like, Look, there's no point having salted chips in my house, because they’ll last five minutes, I’ll eat the whole lot. Yes. Oh, no, no, no, the way you should overcome that is just have dozens of packets on there and just eat yourself silly and then you'll get over it. That’s just bullshit in my experience  Lisa: Pretty much done that, and that didn't work. That doesn't work. I've heard that theory too. I think that's absolute rubbish, and not something that I'd recommend for starters, because you're gonna start on an either like, that's like, you know, a little bit good, then we must have just have some more.  Yeah.  Lisa: That's ridiculous. Really, they still think that. You know there's a whole movement?  You're kidding? Okay. But how do we help people? Because people are unaware of the addictive nature of their food and we're so like, I don't have a big garden full of organic veggies. I never time, all the knowledge and I used to having my dad used to do my garden and then it was good. But now I don't. Most of us don't have access to good quality foods. What the hell do we do? We go into a supermarket and it's just so easy to pick up a pre-made sauce, you know, tomato sauce, or Bolognese sauce instead of, you know, buying a bloody lot of tomatoes and making it. But yeah, but we've fallen into this trap. And now we're addicted all of us. Because the big food industry wants you to eat more of its crap. Grant: Yeah, they've conspired both on research and practice. And then just in all practical ways. In fact, I wrote a paper with a couple of superstars actually a guy, Aseem Malhotra, who's a cardiologist, in London, and Rob Lustig, who's pretty famous, a pediatric endocrinologist from San Francisco about the the tricks that the food industry has pulled, which are pretty much the exact same ones as Big Tobacco have over the years, you know, creating bogus interest groups, false advocacy, sponsoring athletes, list goes on. Lisa: I’m a part of that machinery, unfortunately, you know, when I was a young athlete being sponsored by Coca Cola— Grant: I didn't, I was told, I was told not to come back to, I'm in New Zealand. I spoke there one time, a couple of years ago, because I had to guard the sponsors product, which was Nutrigrain, Kellogg's Nutrigrain, which is four and a half staff health rating food, that's, you know, a third sugar. It's just a disgrace. Yeah, that was not welcome again. Lisa: When you see famous sports teams, I won’t name any, but they're nutritionists on the telly telling you to eat stuff that really is not what you want your kids eating. And you’re like, ‘Wow, that's wrong on so many levels’, you know? Grant: I’ll tell you a story about that. I don’t know if I should tell this story. Years ago, I gave this talk on a sort of update on physical activity and health for the first-time executives of Coca Cola over this Waipuna Lodge in Auckland. I'd finished my talk, I was just at the back. And the head and corners in and go on. The next guy that got was a corporate guy from the US about how they're going to discredit various nutrition people and active tactics. I went around, and I sort of sat there and listened to it. And I was like, ‘Oh’, and then about halfway through, I was like, ‘Shit, I'll make sure I get out of here alive’. Yeah, but there was like an active discussion about, about the tactics to deal with scientists who were dissonant to the view, to the worldview, which I thought was a really interesting, Lisa: This is a reality. And this is what's happening not only in the food industry, it's also happening in the pharmaceutical industry. It's also happening in many industries that we in the public are not, and when you've got people like you that are brave enough to stand up and say stuff, you get attacked. I'm quite surprised that my podcast hasn't been taken off here yet. But anyway. Grant: Yeah, that's right. And yeah, it will heavily wind but people will be, there’s forces in play there. You don't want to get too conspiratorial because it sometimes requires a degree of organization that doesn't, that we’re capable of, but yeah, I think in the food industry case and pharmaceutical industry, the evidence has been there for a long time. Lisa: Yeah, yeah. And I think, my approach to it now is like, we are possible, light a candle toward the good information rather than fighting and banging your head against the, you know, because otherwise you can end up in a very bad place. But okay, so we know that there's all these addictive forces, if you like, at play. And so because you just look around town, you know, in the obesity and they are boys they’re looking like girls and, you know, the hormone regulation is just obviously affected and fertility rates are going down. We're fighting a war here, and we've got kids that are already diabetic and before they're even teenagers, and this is a coming huge disaster for the healthcare system when you’re in public health. Grant: Yeah, yeah. The present one that I've become much more interested in because it's, I think it's become more obvious today for a bunch of reasons. I'll tell you a few stories as mental health, particularly Youth Mental Health. I've been an academic for a few decades. And, you know, a decade ago or two decades ago, okay, students will get seconds, some would have some mild mental health problems, but it wasn't really a thing that you would see very much. Now at the moment, all the time I get students, students like it's dropping out of the degree now because of their mental health.  They've got anxiety. And these are really smart, intelligent, switched-on people with, these are the top of the socioeconomic ladder, we don’t know how much worse it is at the bottom. I didn't even get there in the first place. That youth suicide rate in New Zealand, it keeps getting talked about as the tip of an iceberg for a major problem. One of the women that I work with, mid-20s, beautiful, intelligent woman. Yeah, we're talking about SSRIs, antidepressants, because I've been on those I could have knocked me over I said, are, you know, is it a common thing for your friend group and that sort of thing? She goes, I pretty much everyone I know is on them. Yeah, yeah. And, and so we've got this—  Lisa: It’s a good sequence, isn’t it?  Grant: Because the brains are metabolic. We've got a metabolic crisis with obesity and diabetes, but guess what? The most important metabolic organ is your brain. Somehow, again, here we are, asleep at the wheel, we've got this, you've got this treatment gap. So even if we could treat them with anything effective, which is doubtful. From our current system, yeah, they can only treat half the half of the 910,000 people in the country of 5 million. Because 910,000 is the number of serious mental health problems. Wow. Half of them don't get any treatment whatsoever, because there is no treatment. You bring the mental health crisis line, which we've had to do. And they will say, are they killing themselves right now? And that's just like, no, that's like—  Lisa: ‘Okay, we've got time.’  Grant: Yeah, then okay, we're not doing it, I think. And we'll go to your doctor. If you go to your doctor, you know that there's a nine month wait to see a psychologist?. It’s just unacceptable. Lisa: And what's the answer? The course, the easy answer for the doctor is to give them a SSRI. Grant: Which doesn't work very well. No. neuroplasticity, if they're a young person, causes them harm.  Lisa: Closes down hormones. And does it different.  Grant: Yeah, 100%.  Lisa: Just interrupting the program briefly to let you know that we have a new Patron program for the podcast. Now, if you enjoy Pushing the Limits, if you get great value out of it, we would love you to come and join our Patron membership program. 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Grant: So to me, the unacknowledged metabolic crisis here we can see obesity. We can measure diabetes. Yeah, and those are problems. But you know, to me the most perverse one, especially having, you know, teenage kids myself and that sort of thing is this youth mental health thing. It's despicable. Like my dad, yeah, good for him. He had metastatic prostate cancer and was sorted with this keto diet, but the amount of access to expensive treatment, he was able to get in his 80s. Compared to a young woman in her early 20s, who has a serious mental health problem that's going to affect her, and even around for the rest of their lives, who can get none. It's perverse, who spends their money on health that way? Yeah, like, I want my dad to get his treatment and get better and everything, which he has, but, what sort of society prioritizes that over these young people? Lisa: Yeah, and what can we do? Like why, there is a lot of I mean, I talk research a lot, and I know that your research is also pointing in this direction, that there's a lot of health fundamentals that we can get right, that can actually help people without costing anything even, without having to be a pharmacological intervention. How about we try to teach people how to manage themselves? And I mean, I've had, I was on antidepressants for over 20 years, and I could not get off them, because they are addictive. It took me three years to get off them, and thank God I did. I, in my early 20s, had relationship crises, was put on them, just stayed on them because I didn't know any better.  What are, what implications that’s had for me, and then trying to get off them. And of course, your body starts to downregulate your own if you're not producing your own. I've got off them now, and I'm fine, and so on, and I'm helping other family members off them. But that was the first port of call. Now I understand the need for health fundamentals like sleep, hygiene, and movement, and exercise, and sunshine, and the right diet, because diet is a huge piece of the puzzle, because your gut and your brain are connected. And there's a lot of, like you say, a fix. When you have a bad diet, and you have bad nutrition, you're going to have more mental instability, if you want to put it that way, you're going to have more problems, than if you're on a good, really robust, solid, good diet. That's going to affect your mental health. And what are our kids, they're not giving any of that information, or any programs around it. Grant: Yeah, and you interfere with one aspect of metabolic homeostasis with an antidepressant, and you're surprised that it doesn't work very well, and there’s unintended consequences. What we're trying to do is, and humans, I think, all want to be in the state, we're trying to return ourselves to a sort of metabolic homeostasis where things are balanced and well-regulated. For the most of the body, that's the primary target, there is a sugar in your blood and the insulin in your blood, because if those aren't right, then you're an inflammatory environment and pro-growth and no chance to, you know, being that autophagy of tightening things up. So that's the big metabolic picture. But in the brain, I've just started to stitch together a much more, I think coherent view of what's going on.  Because the balance of neurotransmitters in the brain is important. I just think with the low fat revolution, we pick fat, not carbohydrates. We pick the wrong one of the three. Yeah, well, this is alright, we pick serotonin as the neurotransmitter to manage, we need to get it back to where it started more quickly. That's what reuptake inhibitors do. And actually, sorry?  Lisa: You've written a paper recently on glutamate and its role in all this. Can you explain about it?  Grant: I have, six months ago, I had heard of glutamate because I, trying to, from psychology, and frankly, I'd forgotten what it did. Until one of my smart students reminded me that glutamate is the most important and most prevalent excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain. It's about 90% of your neurotransmitters, it runs in tandem with an inhibitory system called GABA. And so these two things operate together. The inhibition fine tunes the excitation. And not only that, the glutamate gets recycled onto glutamine and then back into GABA and they rely on one another to be in a sort of, you know, good, healthy relationship, right?  And so what happens is, when there's over-excitation, which chronic stress does, then glutamate because it's excitatory neurotransmitters, just keeps getting pumped out. Pumped out, pumped out, and it hits its receptor in the other side of the synapse, between neurons. That receptor, it's called the NMDA receptor, it's downregulated. So it stops seeing the glutamate as much as it could be, which causes even more glutamate to be produced. And then this glutamate starts to seep out of that cleft and to just general space. And the trouble with it—  Lisa: It's toxic.  Grant: It’s toxic, and this is called glutamate excitotoxicity. So this is not a theory, this is a thing. And it starts to kill brain cells, and the trouble with it, first of all it atrophies neurons, which is never good, and they're not there anymore when they die. But those dying neurons themselves spill out glutamate, into more glutamate into the space, and you get this downward spiral of—  Lisa: Neurodegeneration.  Grant: Neurodegeneration, exactly right. And so the most interesting thing in my mind about this, and this is why I'm so excited about it is because, and you'll see this. So the most obvious is a concussion or mild TBI, traumatic brain injury, is that what causes your initial brain cell death is just an insult, right? You bang your head, right? So you get that glutamate excitotoxicity. The initial effects of the concussion is mild, but the long-term effects of the concussion because of the glutamate excitotoxicity are severe. That's why concussions get worse and worse and worse for time after they've happened. Lisa: Okay, thanks that somebody's saying that! Because people go to the hospitals with a concussion and they go, no, there's, you've had a mild concussion, go home and rest. And that's it. It's like we there's so much we can do— Grant: 100% there's so much we can do. And I think we already do it when it gets really severe, right? So if you're in hospital with ischemia, lack of oxygen in the brain from a heart attack, or sometimes in some hospitals, that neonatal hypoxia, so newborns become deprived of oxygen. One way that they deal with that is they induce hypothermia, because cold exposure, especially in those areas, helps reduce glutamate. And they provide intravenous magnesium because magnesium antagonises as a receptor and allows glutamate to get back to its homeostatic levels more quick, and it's highly effective. And the animal studies are very, very convincing. And it's near a clinical practice for things like spinal cord injury.  And then you start to think about other ways that the brain gets damaged. So Alzheimer's and dementia is an interesting one. So for other reasons, including high glucose, we start to lose brain cells. But as soon as you start to do a little bit excitotoxicity, then exacerbates the problem massively. A mild or severe stress, which results in post traumatic stress disorder, is another way of damaging the brain initially through chronic, elevated glutamate but it rolls onto itself. And this is solved, then it's not a problem.  Lisa: This is why stress and trauma—  Grant: And chronic stress, you’re just stressed out, your fight or flight response is up more than it should. And it goes on a long time. The two to three minutes that it's designed to be up for is actually days, months, years, same thing. And so you've got these different pathways, getting brain damage. Lisa: Brain damage is happening as well.   Grant: When you take, if you if you scan people with major depressive disorder, you autopsy people who've committed suicide, then you see severe atrophy and things like the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, important areas. And it's caused by chromatic toxicity. But the reason why that's interesting is that there's a lot you can do about it. And so we mentioned cold water therapy, just getting in cold water, especially you can breathe slowly and deeply through your nose, which downregulates the nervous system, as medical therapy for depression, right? Yeah. So and potentially I think for TBI and concussion and Alzheimer's and that sort of thing, because it helps with that.  But so is aerobic exercise for the same reason. So is a whole range of nutrient supplements, particularly magnesium, particularly you have to take them in the form of magnesium citrate or magnesium l-threonate. And the clinical trials of magnesium citrate and depression is a more effective medication than an antidepressant. And there is no real side effects. So magnesium, zinc, omega-3 fish oils, B complex vitamins, vitamin C, vitamin D, all anti-inflammatory, antioxidant type. Lisa: And all stuff that I'm on every day, and my mum's on with her brain injury on, all the time.  Grant: That's right, because and they are downregulating glutamate transmission and achieving a glutamate GABA balance in a better way, as does presence of ketones in your blood occasionally, as does any sort of diet that’s anti-inflammatory, and any diet that's inflammatory, exacerbates the problem. So— Lisa: So for things like brain injuries, like someone like mom who was in a coma and they were putting a ba- basically a glucose strip into the, you know, into feeding tubes. That's just like causing more damage than if we'd had ketones present if we'd had— Grant: 100%, because you're, there's also a fuel cri- an accompanying fuel crisis on the brain where it can't— Lisa: Uptake the glucose. Grant: —uptake the glucose in the normal fashion, but you can use ketones. So you've got the glutamate part going on, and you've got the glucose fuel crisis. So you know— Lisa: And isn't the same with Alzheimer's, and they, it's a, when you get insulin resistance, you also get the glucose not being able to be uptaken in the brain, and therefore the brain starving for glucose. Prog Grant: Yeah. So ketogenic diet for that group is actually a pretty therapeutic diet, that would be the one situation that would be, you know, granted, for keto is hard. I mean, obviously, it's a hard population group to work with them on that, but that doesn’t make it not therapeutic. That's another whole— Lisa: No, and that's what I put, you know, like with mum’s brain injury, once I started to realize that from the research I was doing. I was doing I had her on as good as possible, keto diet for that first couple of years. Not so much now, because she's got autonomy so it’s harder regulate. But she does do intermittent fasting, and she has got all the supplements, and she has got a very, low-carb diet, as much as I can get it to do it, when she’s not sneaking things around my back. But this is just so crucial for all of these degenerative diseases, and I'm really excited about this glutamate thing, because it's only just come on my radar through your research, and I think that this is perhaps gonna go to the next level. Are you continuing the research on this?  Grant: Yeah, and I'm really interested in, I haven't been that interested in micronutrients through my career. I sort of felt while you're eating whole foods, you know, that should be the template. And I still think that, but I increasingly started to think, especially my colleague, Julia Ruckledge, who's a professor of psychology at University of Canterbury, in her work with micronutrients. She uses fairly high doses, but how effective those have been in her clinical trials with various aspects of mental health. And just as I see also random other outcomes like they just happened to be doing a clinical trial when the Christchurch earthquake happened, and they're only halfway through it. So the randomization wasn't quite complete.  They noticed at the end of the trial that the people in the micronutrient supplementation group, about 19% of those ended up with some sort of post traumatic stress from the Christchurch earthquake. Lisa:  Yep.  Grant: Those without, who are in the placebo group, 69% have post traumatic stress. And this is consistent with other research around, you know, the stress of natural disasters, natural disasters, and that sort of thing. And all sorts of things go wrong in the brain. And it's just, there's a mess of effects. If you could get this from a pharmaceutical, the pharmaceutical company would be all over it. But, you know, inexpensive micronutrients. So, you're interested in those really. Lisa: So that improves your resilience. Basically, you've got the right vitamins and minerals and things in your body to do the work that's needed to be required. Have you ever heard about the research of ketamine and post traumatic stress? When that ketamine is able to stop the formation of the memories, the traumatic-ness if that's a word?  Grant: Yeah, so, so yes, yeah.  Lisa: Because it's part of that there'll be part of that glutamate thing, wouldn’t it? Grant: Ketamine is, antagonizes the NDMA receptor, as the same mechanism magnesium roles a play, plays a role on. And so ketamine is a little bit more of a difficult substance to think about it because it's an analgesic and it's sort of that pre-anesthetic and acidic and it really spaces people out. But you're right across PTSD, single treatments have been shown to be highly effective. Single treatments with major depressive or otherwise intractable have shown to be temporarily effective. The most interesting one, for me, I was just talking to an ethicist the other day about this. He was talking about ketamine with chronic pain sufferers, and about half of the people they treat with ketamine with chronic pain, they have an instant and complete alleviation of the chronic pain. And they give them ketamine at a subclinical dose for five straight days. I don't know the ins and outs of that.  Lisa: Because it stops the pathways from— Grant: I don’t know what, I’m thinking of. Re, re — Lisa: Receptors. Grant: —re-tokenizes the receptors, and they go into my pathway for a start, which is the only real known mechanism amongst possible other things, but again, it's astonishing right? So this is otherwise incurable life debilitating chronic pain. Five days of treatment of the subclinical dose, you're not unconscious, you probably can't drive around, but it's gone, not there now. So ketamine is an interesting one. And equally, there's other interesting antagonists of that receptor, which, I am obviously no expert, but other people are starting to do the work and unfortunately become illegal drugs, like some of the solutions like psilocybin magic mushrooms, and, there’s are ayahuasca ceremony type things in South America.  Lisa: I hope they didn’t keep researching those. Just because they're drugs doesn't mean that they haven’t got therapeutic benefits.  Grant: So they have potential therapeutic benefits. And  to understand that I think it's going to be that's, people will follow that, however I won't be doing any of that research, of course, but someone will be, and it'll be interesting to follow that as it unfolds. And you understand, just to finish it, and US in the 60s, all that came out. I was there, no one knew what to do with these drugs. So they just made them illegal, which is, you understand at that time, but probably needs to make another think about that. Lisa: They do. So when we, so all of these things from things like Alzheimer's, to brain injuries, to stre-, chronic stress, to big stressful life events, all cause an excess of glutamate, is that correct?  Grant: Yeah. Because it's just overexcitation. Because it's the excitatory system, and you're overproducing and you haven't got a pathway. Lisa: So you're in a sympathetic state, you're in a fight or flight response.  Grant: Yes, correct. And then it'll get there. And some of those are, just because there's, well, not the traumatic brain injury and the Alzheimer's aren't because of that. There's other reasons that they branch off. But for the PTSD, for the depression, for the, you know, chronic stress sufferer.  Lisa: This is why stress, one of the reasons why stress is just so damaging to us, isn't it?  Grant: Yeah, we weren't designed for long-term stress. We're designed for acute fight or flight. Lisa: Yep, yep. And then be now, this is why I think there were the research and information around how to turn on your parasympathetic nervous system at will, breath work, cold therapies, or, saunas, heat therapies, all of these things that we can do to manage our stress levels, because which, you know, stress is probably not going to go away anytime soon. We've got these incredibly stressful lives that we lead now, with thousands of jobs that we have to do and things and things like when my dad passed away eight months ago, that was a stressor I couldn't control.  Grant: It's life, isn't it? Stressors evolve. Lisa: And that's, I’ve lived a mess of post traumatic stress that, so I'm interested in all this research on how do I undo that damage, if you like? Yeah. How do I how do I manage it? This sort of stuff is really interesting. Grant: I just think you know that the mainstream medicinal effects of cold therapy, hot therapy, and breath work, especially nasal breathing are now sufficiently well established to be mainstream. These are normal things to engage in your daily life, to manage your life. Lisa: Absolutely, yeah. I think nasal breathing the work I don't know if you know, Patrick McKeown and James Nestor and stuff, they just absolutely amazing work that and information that we can put into our daily lives to help cope, or to help us cope with this stress that we're under, and the bad food even, can all help, and athletic performance. Grant: And I love about those guys with that stuff, they've actually, they haven't tried to dumb down the science from the late for the lay public. They treat them with the respect that they deserve, and they just translate it into an understandable manner, but they don't dumb it down. They give you the full noise.  Lisa: I love that.  Grant: I love that. I just think, it's like I ate three plus servings of vegetables and fruit and exercise half an hour a day, and not too much gardening or do it. It's just bullshit. It's just treating us with disdain, and not with the deserve I respect, and respect that we deserve. For where’s the science in that? Now I actually get fitter, the more the better. As long as you manage it. It’s pretty friggin, like, why do they not. And I see cancer patients getting told, I just want to eat whatever makes you feel good.  Lisa: Oh, no.  Grant: No, I want the best possible information. Thank you.  Lisa: Yes. And not eating cookies while you're having chemo. You know, and that's what they're doing. And it's just like, do you not? Are you not aware? Have you looked at them for metabolic you know, approach to— Grant: Often, the excuse that, the excuse that Lisa is, are well, they won't do it so there's no point telling them. That’s just not good enough, right?  Lisa: I know, and that is just treating you, and I've experienced this unfortunately firsthand, treating you like an idiot because you're not a professor.  Grant: Yeah.  Lisa: Just because I don't have a ‘professor’ in front of my name does not mean I'm an idiot. And don't treat me like an idiot as if I don't know anything and that is unfortunately the way you get treated in the system.  Grant: The health system’s not good for that. And they try and use jargon to bamboozle. Lisa: Yeah. Doesn't work with me. And that's not fair.  Grant: Yeah.  Lisa: When I'm teaching people or working with people, I find that it's absolutely crucial that I explain the mechanisms of action behind why I'm giving you this information. And I try to keep it to a level that I don't overwhelm people, but I want them to understand why they're doing this in order to make, because then they're more likely to go, ‘Ah, actually, I get it now’. Just telling you that stress is bad for you, you should meditate for a day, but I don't tell you why. What are the mechanisms, and what is this actually doing in your body, then you're less likely to do it, you know? Grant: Just today, and the reason I'm late with you is that I had a group of first year electrical apprenticeships. Young guys from 17 to 20 here at university, and we did today's Stafford is a fitness stuff with them, but I did a bunch of content. You know, frankly, I can get my master's level. These are smart guys. Probably they're interested in it. That's great. Yeah, and no one's treated them like that, they never had got tread lightly by some of the teachers office at school. They didn't get interested in those areas. But you know, like— Lisa: Yeah, let's treat people as if they have got a brain in the head. Just because they don't know the jargon. You can explain the jargon. And when you understand, one of my great podcast loves at the moment is Professor Andrew Huberman, you know him from The Huberman Lab? Grant: Yeah. Following that, he's done a great job of just sort of sitting on the couch and having a, no graphs, nice. Pictures, just, it's deep scientific lectures about cortisol and stress exes. And— Lisa: Yeah, and even if you're not, they haven't spent a decade studying this stuff, you can you can understand how. He makes it very— Grant: High grade neuroscience and medicine just available to the public, I love it. Lisa: I know. It's so awesome. That's why you've got to get your podcast back up.  Grant: Yeah, yeah, I’m gonna get it going. You gotta remind us to get on your one and get reinvigorated.  Lisa: Exactly. Because we need, we need to, we need it straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak. We need it from people who are at the cutting edge of academia, of academia, the cutting edge of research to deliver it to us straight, rather than it going through the zigzag of ten, you know, professionals along the way, getting dumbed down to the point where it's of no use to anybody. Grant: Yeah. And then it goes into the Ministry of Health and comes out on another format altogether. Lisa: Yeah, it’s just complete bullshit. If you just look at the whole, you know, vitamin C recommendations, they've been trying for years, the scientists to get it, the recommended daily allowance, recommended daily amount that you meet to have put up just a little bit. Yeah, but no, we can't do the head. You know, even though the science says that that's not enough. Grant: Well, I mean, the entirety of nutrition dietary guidelines, in a complete state, which is a drag so far as I'm concerned, but yeah. Lisa: Professor Grant Schofield, you've been amazing today. I've really loved this conversation. I've taken up a heap of your time, I would love to have you on, obviously, for more sessions, if we can. Because we haven't even touched the sides, really, and there's a heck of a lot. Is there any last things that you want to share? What are you, you're a couple of takeaways from today in our conversation today that you really want to spotlight in? Grant: I still think that. Yeah, your body wants to be in a state of the scientific ord isw homeostasis, but in a state of balance, I guess with the world that lives in. But the world is designed to live in, needs to have some mesh, or be at least somewhere close to their current world, and often those are a long way apart.  So I think that's probably the major issue isn't it is that we can't reach this homeostasis. So we end up with either glucose or insulin being really high as sort of global things, or the soul glutamate thing running amok. And it's entirely predictable, then, on that basis. So we're actually not going to be as well functioning as we would like. And so then the question is, what can you do about it? The thing is, we always put it back on us which is good, what doesn't need to start with us but I think we forget we live in you know, most people listen to this live in a democracy. And part of a democracy is everyone actually has a say. So, you know, my hope is that, you know, everyone you guys out there, become a little bit more vocal about that. I think that's a really important thing.  There is a democracy around health as a, sooner we'll be, we get to decide like the country decides. And actually we do eventually overwhelm the food industry, that pharmaceutical drug That sort of stuff, it becomes that important, it's become pretty obvious that, especially if you're young people, we can do so much better. And we just need to. And so that's up to everyone, not just me. I'll keep trying, guys.  Lisa: Please, please do. Because at least you have the titles, the credibility, the name, the books, the stuff behind you to actually make a massive impact. But if we collectively all put our two cents and so to speak— Grant: Yeah, that's miles more than I can do. And just on that, we've been, I've written the books, it's great, have a look at those. Lisa: Yeah, list out your books, and where can people find you.  Grant: So this, www.whatthefatbook.com. And it's got the What the Fat, What the Fast, What the Face. The latest one is What the Fit recipes. What the Fit sport performance. I'm really incredibly proud of me and the rest of the team, it's not a solo effort. Those put those together, especially Caryn and Craig Roger. We've started a company called  PreKure. It's been going a few years now. And we've really concentrated on filling a sort of treatment gap and health and the health sector with health coaching. This time health coaching and nutrition and mental health aspects as well. In my opinion, if you're passionate about health, then you don't need to go to university for 10 years to make a difference.  There's some stuff you need to learn, especially on the coaching aspects around how to help people find the most for themselves, meaning where they're at, and those things and those are good fun skills to learn both for yourself and your family, but also for helping other people. So, PreKure was sort of felt such, prevention is cure, PreKure p, pre with a K. Lisa: P-R-E-K-U-R-E.  Grant: Yeah, dot com. We're really passionate about helping you help yourself with your health, but more than that, helping help others and that sort of help, you know, taking us out of, taking an active part on this issue for us as around, you know, take advantage of democracy, but also take the advantage to help you know, when you get new knowledge and it's useful. Share it, for God's sake.  Lisa: Share it, yeah.  Grant: That's gonna chip away at the food industry and the other forces that tend to undermine any attempt at human wellbeing.  Lisa: Change and yeah, and I think this, you know, the health I mean, obviously, you had in the health coaching space, and this is a new burgeoning area. We need more people coming into this area that can share this sort of knowledge and bring it out there.  Grant: And, you know, how better to keep you on track and helping you with things for friends and family and other people around your community rather than having to go to the clinic and the doctor, and it's all sickness orientated.  Lisa: For 15 minutes if you're lucky, yeah.  Grant: But someone who's actually got a genuine interest in how you're going and wants to help you. And, you know, so I think we'll go that way. I'm really looking forward to that. Lisa: Yeah, let's keep working on this mission. I think we're on the same mission. Professor Grant, you're just awesome. Thank you so much. Really enjoyed our conversation today, and we'll hopefully have you on again soon. That's it this week for Pushing the Limits. Be sure to rate, review and share with your friends, and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com. The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

You’ve heard it before: go hard, go long. But do we need to go hard all the time? Many people think that harder is better. However, overtraining and overexertion can reduce your gains and also be detrimental to your long-term health. Let go of this mindset and take on a healthier view of your body. Legendary long-distance running athlete Lorraine Moller joins us in this episode to talk about how training and racing should not be about winning at the expense of your own body. It's all about your personal journey of learning more about yourself and growing from it. With the Lydiard approach, Lorraine shares how her career was mostly injury-free. Her body's performance is stellar, proving the merits of her training! If you want to know how you can adopt a holistic approach to your training, then this episode is for you.   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health program, all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/. You can also join their free live webinar on epigenetics.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year’s time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, goals, and lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity, or want to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health, and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa’s Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, an NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that can boost the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements of the highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third-party tested NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust — NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combats the effects of aging while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Learn how the Lydiard approach to training is a safer and healthier way. Discover the ways we can achieve peak performance and how to remove the obstacles towards it. Understand the ways your body adapts and why it's essential to listen to it.   Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron! Harness the power of NAD and NMN for anti-aging and longevity with NMN Bio.  On the Wings of Mercury by Lorraine Moller Listen to other Pushing the Limits episodes:  Episode 27 - Gary Moller - Functional Nutrition Consultant, Elite Age-Level Mountain Biker   Episode 189 - Understanding Autophagy and Increasing Your Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova Episode 183 - Sirtuins and NAD Supplements for Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova Episode 194 - Inside the Mind of New Zealand Olympic Runner Rod Dixon   Connect with Lorraine: Lydiard Foundation | Email   Episode Highlights [05:19] Lorraine’s Background Lorraine grew up naturally active and part of nature. She was engaged in the community and local athletics.  At some point, Lorraine became more interested in her school running events and just kept going.  During the 60s and 70s, being a professional athlete wasn’t a career choice. It was commonly discouraged and seen as for men.  When Lorraine’s talent was discovered, she was brought to a neighbouring town to train. She competed against women a lot older than her. By 16, Lorraine was representing New Zealand. Listen to the full episode to learn about Lorraine’s running journey!   [14:37] The Lydiard Approach to Training  The Lydiard approach to training is primarily based on endurance training.  Building your aerobic capacity is the core of the Lydiard approach.  In a way, Lydiard is the father of periodisation. He found what worked and incorporated it into training.  Lorraine shares that you need to understand the principles first then apply your own perspective in training.  [19:52] What’s the Overall Picture? Some people get lost when looking at the details. You need to know the overall picture first.  When you don’t understand the overall picture, you may overshoot the mark and get burnt out.  We have a culture that thinks more is better.  But training can give you more than the capacity to win.  It’s really about the inner journey taking place and what you’re learning along the way.  [24:25] Take It as a Personal Journey As you're growing, you are influenced by external factors like other people's expectations.  But you’ll also reach a point where you start dismantling these expectations to uncover your true self.  Running was a choice Lorraine made for herself. Through this, she developed a deep connection with her father.  When Lorraine didn’t do that well, she kept things in perspective.  She always came back to being in love with the journey of the race.  [28:51] From Track Athletics to Long-Distance Running In Lorraine’s experience, long-distance running doesn’t make you slower.  You’ll need to do the work to run faster, but long-distance running lets you sustain your fastest possible pace.  The body responds to whatever stimuli it receives, which is why a holistic approach is vital for achieving the best results.  The Lydiard training, for example, has different phases for training that consider more than just your endurance.  Don’t neglect the foundational elements of mobility, coordination, and strength. [39:51] Let Your Body Adapt  The Lydiard training first started with helping people with cardiac problems fit enough to finish a marathon.  The approach is considerably different from the ones professional athletes consider. But, the Lydiard training is safer long-term.  People can adapt to different situations. You can direct your body into what you want to be.  Pay attention to your body, especially when it gives danger signals. Learn to back off and give yourself recovery time.  Burnout and overtraining usually come from a lack of confidence and trust in your own body.  [46:46] What Keeps Us from Peak Performance Hard work is redundant. Things don't have to be hard — just do the work! Lorraine feels a state of flow and happiness in races. The flow state is peak performance manifesting as coordination of body, heart, mind, and spirit.  People often don’t reach this state of flow because of tension and excess energy.  If you don’t give yourself time to rest when your body needs it, it will become detrimental to your health over time.  You need to identify the fine line between putting your body under strain to get stronger versus pushing it until you break. [56:22] Don’t Let Age Stop You People need challenges and goals no matter their age.  Invite new experiences and learnings into your life.  Don’t let age stop you from living your best life.  As we get older, we also accumulate more wisdom.  Society needs to acknowledge the value of elders more from that perspective.  [1:08:11] The Strength and Beauty of Our Bodies   You don’t need to be perfect; you just need to inch your way forward on your own time.  There is a way back even if you’ve beaten your body with overtraining.  Your body is strong enough to regenerate itself.    7 Powerful Quotes from this Episode ‘What I did with the Lydiard system was look at what were the principles, not looking at the hard and fast rules. Because as soon as you start looking at rules you have limited yourself, and it doesn't work that way. It's an experiment of one. Your journey as an athlete is completely unique.’ ‘I think the journey of the athlete is a wonderful way to get to know yourself and to be able to tap that in the knowledge and to learn.’ ‘That's the beauty I think of the Lydiard training is that It is holistic. It puts all the energy systems and every type of training response in its rightful place. So that you can be at your peak on the day that it counts.’ ‘And that's why you go on principles. So you look at what you're trying to achieve, and then how best to achieve it based on the level of that person.’ ‘You want a cooperative relationship with your own body and it will give you the information that it has and which is better than if you're trying to perform to these external measures.’ ‘We approach a lot of the things that we wish to do, or the things we wish to create in our lives from a state of fear… And then we can't get into this natural flow. ’ ‘I think that as we get older, our world should be getting bigger, not smaller. You know, and, and I do think that a lot of what we attribute to old age is just bad habit.’    About Lorraine  Lorraine Moller is the only woman to have run all of the 20th century Olympic marathons for women. She is a 4-time Olympian, Olympic bronze medalist, world track and field finalist, multiple Commonwealth Games track medalist, and winner of 16 major international marathons, including the Boston Marathon.  Lorraine’s career started as an exceptional 14-year-old middle-distance runner, coached by John Davies. This continued into a 28-year stellar career as an undefeated master runner. Her wide range of accomplishments earned her title as ‘New Zealand's greatest women's distance runner’. Lorraine credits her mostly injury-free career and high-performance longevity to the Lydiard training approach combined with her unique ‘inside-out process' philosophy towards competition.  Since retiring in 1996, Lorraine has helped establish charity running events in Cambodia, Mongolia and East Timor, served as vice-president of Hearts of Gold and NGO in Japan and co-founded the Lydiard Foundation, which educates coaches and athletes on endurance training. Lorraine also wrote her autobiography, On the Wings of Mercury, which became #2 on the New Zealand Best Seller List.  “Sports is a powerful spiritual path. When one seeks their most excellent self, they invite the noblest of human qualities into their lives.” Interested in Lorraine’s work? Check out the Lydiard Foundation.    Reach out to Lorraine through lorraine@lydiardfoundation.org.   Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can learn why it's vital to listen to their bodies. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Full Transcript Of The Podcast Welcome to Pushing The Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by www.lisatamati.com. Lisa Tamati: Hello everyone and welcome back to Pushing The Limits this week. Today, I have another athlete to guest, for a change. It's not a doctor or scientist, it's an athlete. This is an incredible athlete. One of my role models from childhood, Lorraine Moller. Lorraine, if you don't know her, she's an absolute legend. She's a four-time Olympian. She won the Boston Marathon, that’s a serious marathon, that one. She has won the Osaka marathon four times. She was in the first four marathons for women in the Olympics, which is an incredible thing. She also was a middle distance runner before doing marathon.  She's also the sister of my good friend, Gary Moller, who I've had on the show previously. Lorraine, she has her insights on what it is to be an elite athlete. Lorraine is still training athletes today as part of the Lydiard Foundation. After Lydiard she came through that school, of Arthur Lydiard's training style. It was really interesting to talk to her and sort of go head to head on ideas around coaching. She is available there for help if anyone wants to find out more.  Yeah, really interesting conversation with a very, on-to-it lady. I hope you enjoy this conversation. I certainly did. It's really nice when you get to meet your heroes from yesteryear, so to speak, or when you were a kid, and they’re just as cool as you thought they would be. Before we go over to the show, make sure you check out our patron program. If you haven't joined already on the podcast family, we would love you to be a part of our VIP family. There are a lot of member benefits when you do, if you wouldn't mind helping us out. Keeping this great content coming to ear, we've been doing it for five and a half years now. It's a globally top 200 ranked podcast now on health, fitness and medicine.  We need your help to stay there, we need your help to keep bringing this content out. It's a huge labor of love. I've been doing it for five and a half years, and guys, I can really do with a bit of a hand. So for the price of a cup of coffee a month, it's really a very small contribution. If you would like to become a member, please go over to patron.lisatamati.com.  I'd like to also remind you to head on over to our website, www.lisatamati.com. Check out our image genetics program. This is all about understanding your genetics and how to optimize them, and this is our flagship program, the one that we've been doing for a number of years, we've taken literally hundreds of people through this program. It's been a huge success for people changing their lives and helping them optimize so they’re no longer doing the whole trial and error thing or the one size fits all. Medicine and fitness and all of these areas, nutrition should all be personalized now according to your genetics, and that's what you should expect from your health professionals. This is a very powerful program that can help you sort of optimize that so go and check that out at www.lisatamati.com and hit the ‘Work With Us’ button.  We also have our NMN, our longevity supplement, an anti-ageing supplement that I'm recently started bringing into the country and from New Zealand or Australia. I've teamed up with molecular biologist Dr. Elena Seranova. This is an independently-certified, scientist backed and developed product. This is a longevity supplement that is aimed at upregulating the sirtuin genes, which are longevity genes in the body and science, it’s too complicated to name here. But I would love you to check out those two episodes that I've done with Dr. Elena Seranova. Also, head on over to nmnbio.nz. That’s N-M-N-bio.nz, if you'd like more information and more on the science behind it, or reach out to me and I can send you a whole lot of information around it. I've been on it now for over seven months and my mom's been on it too for that period of time. I've had huge changes. Actually my whole family has, and we've all had different things that it's really helped us with. It's working on a number of levels, so make sure you check that out. Right over to the show now with Lorraine Moller.  Hi, everybody, and welcome back to Pushing The Limits. Today, I have an amazing woman to guest, certainly one of my role models, Lorraine Moller, welcome to the show. Fantastic to have you here with me.  Lorraine Moller: Thank you, Lisa. Fantastic to be here with you. Lisa: I'm excited for this conversation already. Before we got recording, we already dealt with some deep topics so who knows where this conversation is going to go, but I think it will go pretty deep. You are a legend in the world of running. You have so many, four times Olympian you've won the Boston Marathon, you've won the Osaka marathon three times, you're an author, you're still involved with running. Lorraine, can you just give us a little bit of your background for starters? When did you realize that you were this amazing, incredible athlete? What was your childhood like? Should we go back that far?  Lorraine: Usually, not in my childhood, although, you know, we were brought up in a time where we were naturally active and very just a part of nature and engaged in the community and local athletics and swimming and you know, all those things. Walked their feet and just went to the beach on the weekends and got sunburned. All those sorts of things. So it was a very lovely, free, close-to-nature sort of upbringing in my little town of Putāruru, right in the middle of the North Island, and where everybody knew everybody and it was just pretty easy-living, and our needs were pretty simple.  Those were the times when we had the quarter-acre section, with the garden out the back and like okay, go get a cabbage for tea. So you'd go cut one and bring it in. So it was, yeah, I suppose it sounds idyllic, but in certain terms that was. It was just a fabulous basis for growing up healthy. I had my trials as a kid. I was in the hospital a few times, and just that separation, and just the emotional eggs have been taken away from my family for long periods of time. It's very lonely.  I think that was, I think, you know, we have things that happen to us, and they sort of set you up. They set your story up, and then it's like, okay, go see what you make of it. So I had, I think, running for me was a real freedom. Something that just, I don't think it was something that I really decided to do. I just think it's something that took me. Lisa: It happened to you. Lorraine: One of the key events was, when I went to high school, and we graduated from the little kiddies athletics, doing 50 yards, 100 yards, you know, yeah, I met all that was. We graduated to being able to do the full 40 yards. In my first full 40 yard race at the local club, I could beat the girls who beat me in the sprint. It took me a little bit longer, but I've got your number, you know. So I was really excited by that.  So I started to get really keen and show up during the school events, and I won just about everything in the school events.  Lisa: Just naturally talented at the event, sort of.  Lorraine: Yeah, but you know, at that time, and that would be in the 60s, there was, it wasn't like the girl thing to do. It was nothing in your vocabulary. The four-bill athlete or woman-athlete, professional athlete, even, that just didn't exist back then. That was not a career choice,  being an athlete. It was even discouraged, somewhat. It was considered as a man's sport. If you did too much of it, you would become manly and— Lisa: Your uterus might fall out, as Catherine told me once. Lorraine: That’s universal, you know. People tell you that all across the world I think, that yeah, that was just a popular meme. You had to wear clean underwear in case you got run over and taken to the hospital, they find out you've got dirty underwear on. Those things sort of just become popular culture, but nobody really thinks about how true they are or whether they really apply. We just accept them.  I accepted that as a girl, we didn't have longer events, that we didn't have official events. The cross country was unofficial, usually. So we would have a men's race. Then they would have a little short bill’s race, but, you know, that's just the way that it was, I didn't think I was disadvantaged in any way. You just get on with what's available and go like it, and I loved it. Lisa: How did you develop, because even back in the 60s and 70s, there wasn't any official thing that you could go to. How did you actually get—I mean your later career was phenomenal. How did you actually bridge that? Was it a time change too that in the 70s, things started to open up, and or how did that sort of unfold? Lorraine: People were really kind and the club system was very nurturing. So as soon as they realized I had some talent, they took me in hand. I was taken to a neighboring town of Tokoroa, which was sort of like a big town, and introduced to John Davies, who was the bronze medalist from the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. They wanted me to have a proper coach. I was introduced into the Lydiard training theory, from about the age of 14, and for races, et cetera. My event was the 80 yards. I really loved it, and so laps of the track.  I also did cross country. But those events I competed in, there were no junior woman. So I was competing against women who were probably 18 years my senior. I did go to my first national championships and the senior women's at the age of 14. Yeah, and I made the final. I came last in the final. We're like a mate. We're pretty darn good. You know?  Lisa: Yeah. You were 14?  Lorraine: Yeah, sort of, like hanging on, I can remember coming around the straight. I had two people behind me, and I could just see them going, ‘I'm not letting this kid beat me.’ Yeah, threw me off, but you know. I was going—representing New Zealand from the time I was 16. That provided opportunity, and that was so damn exciting. Just to be going overseas, and wearing the silver uniform, and getting on a plane and going somewhere, and it was just the most amazing time, and I absolutely loved it. I was put into a competition at a time when I was young enough not to have any respect.  Lisa: You had no idea what was coming at you yet.  Lorraine: So I sort of figured I could run with the best of them. Yeah, so that was sort of part of my make-up or my set up. Which really, you know, it just went from there, until finally, I sort of took off on my own and went to the US and just sort of, seeking greener pastures. That makes a big wide world and yeah.  Lisa: Oh, wow. So tell me a little bit, like Arthur Lydiard. What was he like? Tell us a little bit, you know, so I've heard you say on articles or something, there's a bit of a misrepresentation of how he trained. What was his actual philosophy as an athlete that was actually in under him for a while? What was he like, and what sort of training regime did you have, and how did that develop you? Lorraine: Yeah, I think I was really, really fortunate to grow up in New Zealand, and his system was pretty much adopted by the New Zealand running culture, and I think still has—is part of the culture, yeah. It's based on endurance training. So that's the first thing that John Davies did, was give me a training program. He used to write it, handwrite it on a— and send it to me by mail. So I would get a letter with my training program written down. It would be so exciting.  I ran with my dad. So my dad didn't want me going out there by myself, or we ran on the bush a lot. We got lost a lot, but wouldn't have me there by myself. Although I'm sure if I'd navigated, we wouldn't have got lost, but anyway. Yeah, I mean, we just—and we had a great time. It was really fun for me to get to know my dad. I don't think I would have developed that closeness without having that running. It was just fantastic. So we just ended up doing longer and longer runs. It was just building up mileage, just getting some aerobic base, which is really the crux of the Lydiard training, is that you build your aerobic capacity, and that's the main engine. Lisa: Yeah. Because a lot of them, you know, like I had Rod Dixon on last week, on the show. He's also trained under that. Of course, a lot of the great runners that have come out of New Zealand, and there's been many, have trained on that system. Then, you know, was it a real high mileage system? Like, was it—is there anything that you do different now? Because I know, you're still involved with Arthur Lydiard? The groups that you're taking through now, is there any change in the approach that you’ve had? Because you know, a lot of the listeners out there are runners that are listening to this. So is there anything that you've learned along the way that you do differently now? Lorraine: No, no, the Lydiard system was sound. I mean, the only thing was, as an athlete, I'd come off a season and then I'd go, ‘I'm gonna just train harder than I've ever trained before,’ and then I jump in and overdo it and sort of mess it up. That's what we do, we overtrain. So the Lydiard system itself, I think if you just take the way that he put it together, and the, he was the grandfather of periodization, we didn't call it periodization. The exercise physiologist came along a lot later and then just started to put the jargon onto it, and all there is.  Arthur was very practical. So it's just what worked, it was about 60 years in the making. So you will find Lydiard, that he evolved it with just trial and error. Then, as more people started to do research, he started to incorporate other things. But he was really like, just what works, and what he put together worked really well. What I did with the Lydiard system was look at what were the principles, not looking at the hard and fast rules here, because as soon as you start looking at rules, you have limited yourself, and it doesn't work that way. It's an experiment of one, and your journey as an athlete is completely unique. You occupy your own place, and space and time that nobody else can occupy. If you can respect that, and get away from any sort of cookie-cutter staff. Lisa: I love that personalization approach. That's what I'm heavily into now. It's not like we have access to genetic testing and things like that now, where we can actually tailor things to people's genetics even. But back then that wasn't the case. But to make it your own, so here's the framework, and then you make it yours. That fits with you and your style of being, in your style of life, and in everything that fits to you, rather than just forcing yourself into the confines of just, this is black and white. I think that that's pretty insightful, especially back then. Yeah. Lorraine: Yeah. So what I'm teaching now, and I teach courses through the Lydiard Foundation, two coaches, on how to apply the Lydiard training. The big thing, I think, is to look at things and the overall picture because the, you might say the devils in the details, but the details can completely tell, like the devil, the wrong story So it's very easy for people to, and most common, I think, to overshoot the mark. To put in too much. Then if you put in too much energy into the task at hand, you will get the opposite of what you intended.  Lisa: Yeah, overtraining and burnout.  Lorraine: Also we live in this culture where we think more is better. He said also, we pander to outsourcing our information, and so not tapping into this incredible vehicle that we have that can synthesize and put the information together that is specifically tailor-made to you. That is there. It's innate within all of us. We're just not tapping it. I think the journey of the athlete is a wonderful way to get to know yourself and to be able to tap that in the knowledge and to learn.  So the focus, and this happened to me, during my own running, there was, initially you're motivated by the—just winning or getting a faster time and all those kinds of things. Then you think, well, what is it really payback? It's pretty silly, you know, you're all just running around the house and in circles. Somebody goes, ‘Oh, I'm really great, because I finished in front of you.’ You get all worked up. Does that really matter, in the big scheme of things?  Well, in certain terms, it doesn't. The exercise is, and I just gave a talk to our advanced classes on the hero's journey. The hero's journey is that the focus is then on the inner journey that's taking place. Yeah, and is a path for us to get to know ourselves. Socrates said, ‘Know thyself.’ It's really sound advice, because, I mean, what else are you going to do to see, you know, you go through life, and then suddenly you get to the other end? Lisa: You don’t know what the hell it was about. I mean, this is, this is exactly in line with what I like to talk about, which is like, you know, that we, we learn so much when we do these, you know, athletic endeavors, and I don't care whether you're good, or you're really not talented, and you don't have any ability. It's all about yours—your personal journey. That's why any athlete who's just starting out and doing the first kilometer, you know, is on a journey, to get to know their own body, their own mind, what they're capable of, and we find it, you know, and it's, I hate comparing, you know, like, the actual winning of races and stuff is amazing, but how many of us are actually going to have a career like yours, where you're actually at the top of the podium?  For 99% of the people, it's about what they learn along the way, the health benefits that they gather from the training, the strength—mentally. All of these aspects are just even more important, I think, than the, getting the gold medal put around your neck, or the silver or the bronze. It is much more about a personal journey for most people. I mean, you as an elite athlete, at the top of the pyramid, so to speak, did you find that as well? Has it had a bigger implication on your entire life and your life philosophies than just winning? Part of it? Lorraine: Oh, yeah. In the end, though, the inner journey became more important to me than the outer journey. In a way, I think with life, you have your experiences and you're influenced by your parents and your upbringing and your ancestors and all the rest. So we have all these influences that make up who we think we are I think then—and then we go into our older adult life, and we proceed accordingly with this concept of self, which then I think starts to happen. You start to dismantle that concept themselves, and you start gradually stripping it away, so that, hopefully, when you're ready to go out the other end, you have connected with the essence of who you truly are. Not just all these roles and the expectations and put on yourself, you know. Lisa: Was it for you,was there a lot of expectation, you know, like, I had a lot of expectation in my early years from my dad, who I loved dearly, and wanted to impress and wanted to please and so I had a lot of expectation all the way through. So a lot of the things that I did weren't necessarily what I wanted to be doing. They were things that I felt compelled to do, or expected to do. Was that a part of your journey with running? Or was that more, you just had this passion and actual, like Rod just loved running. You know? What was it like for you? Was it a cut and dried thing that this was a passion of yours, or was it more of an expectation that you would—because you were so good?  Lorraine: Yeah. No, it was mine. I mean, it was completely driven by me, instigated and driven by me. My family was really supportive. My dad got on board with it. So my dad got into running because I was a teenager that got into running. He figured he was like the canary in the coal mine. If there was—if I was doing too much or overdoing it, you know, and he did the same as me. Well, then he would clog up before I would. That was very nice of him. He did, you know he actually died while he was out running. That was the way he wanted to exit. So he did. Lisa: Well, yeah, it's never a good thing to go. But if you're going to go, I suppose doing something and being healthy until the last moment is the way that most of us would like to exit this world. Lorraine: My parents were, oh, they were obviously proud. I mean, you get out there, and especially when you're in an Olympics, or Commonwealth Games, or something that's really big for your country, you do feel the expectation of your country and how you do and you know it really matters. It's quite personal. Sometimes when I didn't do that, well, and you get refreshed.  Lisa: That's harsh.  Lorraine: Yeah. Yeah, it is. You just, you know—I don't know, you get over it with pursued— you realize that you have to keep things in perspective. I think one thing I could always come back to and just be in love with the journey of the race and yeah. That it didn't go away.  Lisa: That passion stayed right throughout you. So let's talk now a little bit about the actual—some of the highlights of your career because this is like for most of us, we're never gonna get to do these sorts of things at this level. What was it like to go to the Olympics? What's it like to compete in the first marathons that women were allowed to do in the Olympics? What was that like for you? Lorraine: Well, the first marathons, my foray into marathons was another thing. That was sort of serendipity in a way. It just sort of came to me, and maybe there was a certain, I don't know, maybe openness, the new experience, I think that yeah, that just led me into different sorts of places. But what happened in—when I left school, and I was already a nationally recognized runner as a high school kid, and what to do? I didn't know what to do, so I decided to go to phys ed school because it was the closest thing that I could think of that’s for a woman.  Lisa: It is, exactly. That’s all we had back then. Lorraine: Yeah, yeah, you just, that's what sporty girls do, become a phys ed teacher. Gary was, my brother, was already at the phys ed school underneath. So it seemed really easy to hit off down to the need. I thought that was really great because it was really a long way from home. Yeah, you know, and I just loved being a student. I just thought that was so fantastic.  So the first day I was there at the phys ed school I got, I was standing on the steps of the phys ed school, and I was sort of looking to my left and looking to my right, and I didn't know where anything was or which way to go for my run. This group of guys came running past. They were a bunch of lunchtime runners, and some of them are very good runners. One of them looked up and saw me standing there in my running shoes and shorts and said, ‘Hey, chick, you gotta come and run with the boys today.’  Okay, there's an invitation I can't refuse. Down the steps, I glommed on to the back of this group, I could barely keep up. But we did this run. The next day, I was there again, and the next day, and so I became the girl that ran with this group of guys.  Lisa: Crazy girl.  Lorraine: Yeah, and they sort of took me under their wing. So I did all the rounds with them. Sunday was like the Needham version of the white tacori run, was the white Eddie's. It’s just, just, you run out somewhere over a mountain and down the other side and you’ve gotten 20 miles, you know. So I started doing those every Sunday with the guys. As a 800-meter runner, you know, I was building this incredible base, and I just got stronger and stronger. Lisa: Did it make you slower doing the long stuff, for the actual short track races? Lorraine: I'm glad you asked. Yeah. No, that's not true, that. Yeah. Endurance running does not make you slow. No, it does not. Though, you do need to do the faster work to bring on your speed. But the endurance will enable you, eventually, to be able to sustain your fastest possible pace. That's the basis of endurance. So nearly all events over two minutes would derive their energy mostly from aerobic means, right? So the greater aerobic capacity you have, the greater capacity you have for any event over two minutes. Lisa: But what about, I've never been fast, that’s why we’re long. So I don't have a comparison really, of having lost speed because I never had any to begin with. But doing the super long stuff, you know, the ultra marathon distances, I got dreadfully slow when it comes to the shorter distances over time. I always put that down to my muscle, fast twitch fibers mainly tuned into slow twitch fibers.  Now, actually, like, in the last five years, where I stopped doing the ultra marathons, and I've been concentrating more on shorter, sharper, I'm still not fast by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm a heck of a lot faster than I used to be over the short distance. So even in your 50s, you can start to go back the other way. But it’s interesting to hear you say that, no, you don't find that. Because that's—yeah, interesting. Lorraine: With some caveats in matters that, if you—your body will respond to what you give it. In terms of training, stimulus response, so what training is, you are giving the body a specific stimulus to get a specific response from the body. It will do that really well. So the thing about the Lydiard pyramid is that you build the endurance, but you don't do that ad infinitum. Right? So then you go on and then you go through the faster phases and you develop the muscles on faster twitch and the different ones, right through to your peak events.  So, we have quite a few ultra runners who come and do our coaching courses. They get in and they get really excited about doing the phases and getting the full development. That's the beauty I think of the Lydiard training, is that it is holistic. It puts all the energy systems and every type of training response in its rightful place, so that you can be at your peak on the day that counts. What I find with a lot of ultra people is that they've just lost their flexibility and range of motion because they haven't practiced it.  Lisa: That's definitely a big part of our training and how we coach—a lot of strength and a lot of mobility, in proprioception, work and coordination and drills and things that traditionally, when I, because when I started back in the dark ages to when we had no idea, and I certainly had no coaching back in the day, I just ran and ran long, because I wasn't very fast, so just run longer than everybody else and I was good at that.  But now I understand and what you know, that whole mobility piece of the puzzle is absolutely crucial, and the drills and the form and the strength training or all the foundational elements, to be able to run the mileage, you know, it's like a pyramid for us, how we how we build it. So yeah, I totally agree, and I think most ultra runners neglect that part. That's where they come unstuck to some degree. You get very slow and stiff. There's reasons for that. But you managed to finish the distance, but the quality sometimes goes down with the length of time you’re out there. Lorraine: Also, if you're out there for a heck of a long time, you don't want to spend much time in the air. You don't need a lot of upwards motion, or that long, beautiful stride, et cetera. You develop a bit of a shuffle, it's just being efficient at the distance that you're doing, yes. Just interrupting the program briefly to let you know that we have a new patron program for the podcast. Now, if you enjoy Pushing The Limits, if you get great value out of it, we would love you to come and join the program. We've been doing this now for five and a half years and we need your help to keep it on here. It's been a public service free for everybody, and we want to keep it that way. But to do that we need like minded souls who are on this mission with us to help us out. So if you're interested in becoming a patron for Pushing The Limits podcast, then check out everything on patron.lisatamati.com. That's P-A-T-R-O-N dot lisatamati.com.  We have two patron levels to choose from: you can do it for as little as $7 a month, New Zealand, or $15 a month if you really want to support us. So we are grateful if you do. There are so many membership benefits you're going to get if you join us. Everything from workbooks for all the podcasts, the strength guide for runners, the power to vote on future episodes, webinars that we're going to be holding, all of my documentaries and much more. So check out all the details: patron.lisatamati.com, and thanks very much for joining us. Lisa: Yeah, that's really fascinating. It is like, I did, like I said at the beginning, everything wrong that you could possibly do wrong, I think in my early career. It was just like, go long, go hard, though, you know, but no strikes, no mobility, no drills. I didn't know what running form was. I just ran. Incredible that you can still achieve great distances and that way, but it's certainly not healthy. It was very high mileage in those early days, and that has its own toll.  Now we try to train people efficiently because most of the people that we training are also, you know, got careers and kids and jobs and stressors. So we find that you can't train them like you would a 20-year-old professional athlete when they're a 45-year-old mum with three children and a full-on career. Then you're going to break them if you have that high mileage model. So it's much more about time efficiency and getting the best results that they can get with the level of stress that they're already under.  So yes, it's just really interesting to compare notes on all this, especially as you've come from the elite level, in a lot of the things that I find with people who are not in that elite group, don't respond the same way that elite runners would, like when you were doing your top level stuff, the amount of mileage and manner of training that you would have been able to cope with is not what your average person can cope with, because you would have been focused on that solely. Lorraine: I think if you look historically at Lydiard training, he started coaching the first joggers group in the early 60s. So the story is that he was invited, after his Olympic successes, to the Tamaki Yacht Club to talk to the businessman there about training, etc. He was asking them about their own levels of fitness. A whole bunch of them said, ‘Well, we can't do any, our doctors told us to take it easy, because we've had cardiac arrest’. And Arthur’s like, you know typical, Arthur, you know, ‘That's absolute rubbish. If you guys want to start jogging with me, I will teach you how to run a marathon.’  He had quite a group, of which quite a few of them were cardiac patients, and had this running group. He got them to run a marathon in about nine months. You're talking more than a couch potato? Yeah.  Lisa: Exactly. He approached that differently than he would with his elite athlete, obviously?  Lorraine: He had to, because if they couldn't start out on 100 miles a week and he realized that you can't expect middle-aged men getting run out to do that kind of mileage because they spend so much more time on their feet, that they're actually doing a lot more work than an elite runner, yeah. So then he changed the distance to duration.  Lisa: Yes, that's what we do too mostly, duration, because then that's more of it. Because otherwise if you run your good marathons at incredibly fast times, but the person who is at the other end of the marathon is taking six hours, they're going to be athletes for twice as long or longer. That doesn't equate from an equivalent point of view. That's—yeah, so that's exactly what we do. Yeah. Lorraine: Physiologically, it's about the same based on duration. Not based on distance. If you spend two hours out there, and you're just jogging along, and that's as fast as you can go, you will have about the same effect as somebody who runs at the same effort but is heck of a lot faster. The system is adaptable to all levels of runner. That's why you go on principles. You look at what you're trying to achieve, and then how best to achieve it based on the level of their person, but, you know, the—we're all, physiologically, we all basically work the same.  We all have—we metabolize fats and glycogen and have the same energy systems and they are invoked at the same perceived effort or level of effort and can be developed. We all have this system of adaptation. We all are losing cells and regenerating them all the time. That is basically so, if you're becoming a new person, like they say, maybe 95% of our bodies are replaced every year, just cells dying and new ones coming on. Or in seven years you get a completely new you. So it doesn't really matter, the point is that, can you direct who you are going to be in the view. Yeah, you can. Athletes know that. Lisa: Yeah. That's what our reputation is all about and why we do it, that’s why we train so that we get that reputation. In heavier like—what do you do with people, because we get a lot of athletes who are just head through the wall, type A personalities who want to go harder than what their bodies, and I'm putting myself in this category, to harder than what their bodies can actually cope with, they're burning themselves out, breaking themselves and not actually reaping the reward that they should be for the amount of effort that's going in to their training. How do you try to get them to back off a bit? Lorraine: Yeah. Yeah. So, one of the key things that I teach is that we start right from the beginning, learning to pay attention to our bodies, and getting this rapport with ourselves and learning that you want to a cooperative relationship with your own body and it will give you the information that that it has, and which is better than if you're trying to perform to these external measures, which, there's so many of them because we can measure every frickin’ thing that we do, and post it some way of where other people can look at, and they couldn't care less, because they're too busy putting their’s up and wanting other people to pay attention to it.  So this constant pandering to make ourselves into somebody that we think that’s something on the outside that's going to approve of us. So people who overdo it have a lack of confidence, and a lack of trust in their own body and their own physiology. Because my goodness, your body does an incredible job to keep us alive, and to keep us going and to perform the tasks that we give to it so we can achieve the dreams that we have. Then that will bust itself, for you.  But we do have sort of certain sort of measures, then that will also put into place when you’re going to to kill yourself. But those that are well, I'm not doing this because yeah, our minds are incredible also. But most of them use our minds like a slave driver.  Lisa: Yes. I certainly did.  Lorraine: Yeah. You have to learn the hard way sometimes. But we have, being able to recognize, and to know where those danger signals are, and to be able to catch them and back off. Those, I started out my courses, were talking about the fallacy of hard work. Hard work is not where it said, everybody thinks, ‘Oh, God, you must be a really hard worker.’ Well, you know, I can knock a knuckle down, but you know, why put in more energy than the task requires? So hard is redundant. Just do the work. Don't make it hard. Because then now, as soon as you say hard, people start to stress, they tense up, you know, okay, Lisa: It plops your brain and it becomes a negative, that you associate with, pain with your exercise and things and that it creates a negative loop. Lorraine: It's horrible. When I won big races, it was actually you get in the state of flow, and it feels wonderful. Lisa: Wow. So when you're actually at the top of your game, and winning these international events and things, you felt like—so it didn't feel as if you were killing yourself to get across the line on those days.  Lorraine: I always get pretty tired of the marathon.  Lisa: Yeah the in and out it. But you felt like you're prepared for this, but not overprepared for this, not burnt out and sorry about it. You actually enjoyed that, you enjoyed those top races that you really did well in? Did that feel like a flow state? Lorraine: The system that I teach, it's a performance system, right? It's good, so that you get the best you possibly can on the day that counts. So that's getting yourself into a peak performance state from wherever you're at. Right? Everybody can do that. That feels amazing. I'm sure you felt it, that you just get there and everything's clicking right. You've got it.  So it is a coordination of body, heart, mind and spirit. It's just, they all come together and you reach that state of flow. Actually, for most of us, we don't get there because we are working too hard. We have too much tension. That getting into a peak state is actually an act of surrender. Yeah. So, when you hit it a few times, you go, ‘Man, this feels so good. I'm gonna try and figure out how I got there again’. As I said, when I was young, I'd just go on the on the train harder than ever before, and you know, and then it seems to sort of go away from you and then you get injured or something or you don't perform as well, because you're in the syndrome of hard work, you're overcooking it, you've got excess energy. That energy has to go somewhere, and all it does is that just messes things up. So that precision of giving the stimulus that is needed for the effect. The thing is that the effect of it takes place during the recovery period, not when you’re actually doing the task. So, you know— Lisa: That's an important point. If you had a bad night's sleep, you're being under the pump all week with work, you've got kids who have slept in, everything's going to cast it, and then you go and smash yourself, because it's on your list today to do a really long, hard run. You’re not going to get the adaptation, you'd have been better to go hang on, well, ‘Life, come at me this week, I'm gonna actually take it a little bit easier.’ Having that confidence to do that, and back off, because I think a lot of people are like, ‘Yeah, but I have to go harder’. They congratulate themselves when they slave drive themselves, and they push them through the bad event.  While that might make you mentally tougher, and there's some advantages of that approach for a while, it isn't going to get the adaptation that you're going to want, because actually, it's in the recovery, it's in the sleep, it's in the downtime that you're actually going to get that benefit. If you're not able to adapt, and then all that training was for nothing, or worse, it can be even detrimental to your immune system and to your health, your mental health. That's a hard sell, tough-minded athletes who think that they have to enter. I certainly struggled with us, and still do so on occasion, we, but I have to go harder, and I'm not, you know, doing enough, because I'm not getting the results, therefore, you know, a little is good, more must be better. That approach doesn't work. Lorraine: Yeah, look, it's a lack of trust. I think a lot of us are brought up to sort of think in the negative all the time, and to talk about what we don't want to have happen. We approach a lot of the things that we wish to do, or the things we wish to create in our lives from a state of fear. That's a real shame, because that immediately puts us on the backfoot. Then we can't get into this natural flow. Look, the world has set up for us to be creative beings, and for us to have, be able to manifest our dreams and make works that are worthwhile and contribute it, so when we leave this life, we have lived something better, we have used our own talents and things are more enhanced, because of our being here.  I think most people have a very huge drive, I think all human beings do, to be of value in this life in some way. I think, you know, we started out talking about this, that we have these systems in our systems, they're not human, you know, they’re just systems that are put in place that eventually become self-serving, and they don't serve us.  So they will perpetuate fear, etc., because it just gets us putting our energy into the system, rather than putting it into ourselves and our own dreams. I think that what we need to realize is that it is set up in our favor. I'll give you just one really good example of that. When we train, and we give the body a training stimulus, so to meet that training task, that run or whatever we do, that workout, you have used this fuels in your body and you've broken apart all these bonds to provide energy to enable you to do the task, and then you stop doing it.  As soon as you stop doing it, the body gets busy. It starts to reconstitute those energy bonds and etc. So all these adaptations are taking place. That brings us back to normal again. But it doesn't just bring us back to normal. It gives us more, it makes us stronger, more storage space, you know, stronger muscle fibers, better oxygenation. It actually adapts itself to better accommodate what we're asking it to do. Yeah. So nature has given you a bonus. I mean, if you can't see that everything is set up in your favor just by that little thing alone, it’s like, ‘Wow.’ Lisa: Yeah, biology is just incredible. These are hormetic stressors. So when we put our body under strain, we come back stronger. When we put ourselves under too much strain, we actually break it down. So that's the fine line that we have to, for us, for each of us individually, find where those points are. That will shift as we get stronger, and you'll be able to take on more training.  But we have to honor the process, that honor the the hormetic stress, recovery, stress recovery, and then build on that so that we can then, you know, eventually you can be running at the best, if it's a training thing, but this is in every area of life, that we're more stressed, we're more resilient. Resilience, the word. We're more able to take on a load, this is just the beautiful thing of all these hormetic stressors and if we don't push ourselves at all, well then, we're going to definitely, the body is going to go well, this is a piece of cake, I can just keep being where I'm at, and then actually start to decline.  What I'd be really interested in your take with older people. One of my passions in life is to empower older people to not give up on on their lives because society sees your past that, and that you've got a use-by date,  you've passed, you know, all of these sorts of attitudes that are just insidious in our culture that, in the Maori culture, it's a little bit better, where we actually respect their elders, and we value their wisdom, but in general culture, it's pretty bad.  We also have this thing—when I retire, then I'll recover and I’ll relax. For me, that's the beginning of a downward spiral. So in the rehabilitation journey that I've been on with my mum for the last five years, you know, I set her tasks every day that she has to achieve. She has goals that we're aiming for. Of course, we have phases of recovery, and so on. But she's always on a mission of some sort or another, and she's 79 years old, and we're going forward. I will treat her like that until there is no hope, you know, to the end of her days, because I believe that humans need challenge.  They don't need comfort. They don't need to be, you know, mollycoddled and stuck on the couch to watch telly all day, because you're older now. No. I'd like to see people having their challenge, whatever their challenge is, and it could be like, mum has offered art classes now and just loving the creative. She's got time to do something different and that's a goal that is helping her brain stay on point. What's your take on the way society sees people when they get older? How do you approach that from your personal standpoint? Lorraine: Well, from my own personal standpoint, they’re getting older. Yeah, I'm with you 100%, Lisa. I think we need to continually be adding new stimuli, and you know, they can be stress, you know, stimuli stress, it's all just, you're asking the body to do new things. So then you’re just inviting new experience into your life. I think that as we get older, our world should be getting bigger, not smaller. I do think that a lot of what we attribute to old age, it’s just bad habit.  Lisa: It's accumulating it for many years and makes it the typical aging things. I mean, we are all going to die at some point, but my goal is to live an extremely long life that is healthy until the end, that's my goal. None of us know what's going to come at us from left field. I’ve experienced an awful lot, I know that some things can still, but that's the goal. That's the approach that I take. So I'm doing everything in my life and in my family's life, to make that as best as possible.  To have constant challenge and have constant goals that you're aiming for and new things that you're learning. It keeps you in this growth mindset for starters, and it keeps your body not knowing what's coming, so it's still having to adapt and go forward, rather than going backwards. As we get older, we get wiser, well, hopefully we do, most of us do, we've got more experience, we’re more able to cope with, you know, all the, the emotional things that we probably weren't able to cope with when we were 20, we've got all these experiences.  It's just fantastic if we can look to our older generations as the one who provide wisdom for the ones that are coming behind, and they're seen as a valuable resource in our society, because and not as being your past that because you're over 50, or you're over 60, or you're over 70, or whatever, you know, this demarcation line is that people have and they put on themselves, you know, partly because society does this. Lorraine: Yeah and it's a horrible thing for you to be made redundant and society in terms of your value to it. That is largely, I think, exacerbated by what runs the show is generally money. So people are not seeing older people as being contributing into. Yet we need to start valuing other things besides that. I think we are at the moment, just with the times and what it's for, the time of shifting, and there's an invitation here to make sure that we reconnect with our humanness, and start to prioritise what things we value as human beings, because we're in danger of losing a lot of them. We look at our older people, and we also look at our children. Now children have a life expectancy less than that of their parents. Lisa: Yes, horrific. Lorraine: It’s the wrong direction, and you can't cut off your old people and your young people are not benefiting from the wisdom that is available, and that wisdom is something that you can't put a price on. We need to get back to, away from this sort of outside focus and measuring everything in those sorts of terms, and start to value our human relationships and our depth of experience and our connection to the divine spark which we all have within us. To value that journey and support each other on that journey. We're all in it alone, and we're all in it together. Lisa: That’s beautifully put. I think we are in an age of change, and I hope things will gather some more momentum. We've got lots of problems in the world but we've also got lots of opportunities now to change things. In the areas that I'm working in, I'm seeing huge changes taking place within just the last few years and that's encouraging. Then there is lots of negativity, but I like to focus on the positivity.  But I think, yeah, let's start valuing our elder, older population, and they have a lot to bring to the party. What we want to do is help people stay healthier, longer. That requires a bit of a mindset shift. When I take my mom to the gym, she's training her butt off there at 79 years old, and people know where she's come from, like being in a wheelchair for a few years, and not being able to do anything. Now she's doing all this, you know, crazy stuff, well, you know, compared to where she was there. That's a role model. She's a role model for so many older people who now have actually joined the gym, and, you know, we're doing stuff because they go, ‘Well, if Isabel can do it, I can do it.’ That's, to me, the greatest, beautiful thing that's come out of that tragic journey that we've been on. It's empowering now, other people to not give up just because they're older. To have that attitude of, ‘I'm going to fight my way back.’ Then it's a team event. I'm mum's coach, mentor and driver. She's the one who's willing to put in the hard yards and to do whatever I asked her to do to the best of her ability, and that's a winning combination. I'd like to see more people have that, if they've been on rehabilitation journeys. Even for younger people, that they've got someone in the corner that's willing to help them fight because when you're in a big health battle, you need people fighting with you and alongside you. Lorraine: Yeah. When you're down and you don't have the energy, that's what families are for. That's what families are for. To help you when you need to help and how you can all be putting in and bringing it together. I just think this divorcing ourselves from old people and just giving them a bunch of pills, then putting them in front of the telly, what a waste, what an incredible waste of resources.  Lisa: Yep, and loneliness and despair, and all of those things, and the value of that person's life history is just disappearing, when it could be being impassioned, if they, if we can keep their minds active, and their bodies as strong as possible for as long as possible, they have a great value. It's not like, from a societal standpoint, it's often thought, well, once you retire, you're no longer adding value to society, it's measured in monetary value, and you're costing more in the health systems. Hopefully, you don't live too long. That’s just an approach to me that is just horrific. The way that society treats its young, and it's old and it’s vulnerable, as is the mark of a civilization, I think that is, you know, is that is what we should be measured by, not how strong— Lorraine: Yeah, and I think the example of your mum, is that, all we have to do is take care of what's in front of us and do the best that we can. That is being an example to other people, it just starts to, so she's going to the gym and other people see her and they go out, and they have a whole different mindset about the possibilities and what happens and, and that's all it takes. Lisa: You like the work that you're doing, that's imparting your knowledge. You could be sitting back on a beach somewhere and just enjoying life. Instead, you're still teaching, you're sharing, you're imparting that valuable knowledge that you have to other people, and that is gold. It's so important. Gary, your lovely brother, who I absolutely adore and admire, thinks he's crazy and awesome at the same time. Still world-leading mountain biker at his age, and he certainly helped me on my journey when I was broken and burnt out and came to him, a few years ago going, ‘But Gary, I’m broken, can you help me?’ He put pieces of the puzzle back together again, and helped, gave me actually a role model, because he'd done the same thing, burnt himself out and blown himself apart. He had found a way back. So that was a role model for me. There is a way back when you have smashed the crap out of your body and you didn't listen to it. The work that he's doing is, I think, fantastic. Lorraine: Yeah, well, it's the same. It doesn't matter what age you are, your cells are still regenerating themselves. You can still direct that process to make a better you than you were before.  Lisa: Day by day. Lorraine: We do things in increments. It's just giving it just that bit of what you want, and the direction that you wish to go and go.  Lisa: You don't need to be perfect, you can just be inching your way forward with one bite at a time and one exercise session at a time, and one good sleep at a time, all of these things add up. I think we've totally aligned. Lorraine, this has been a really interesting, amazing conversation. I think we need to have a couple more privately, because I think there's a lot more that we need to discuss and maybe do some things together.  But I really just want to thank you for your time today. It's been really an insight. You are a legend in the sport and what you've achieved is just nothing short of amazing. I remember, as a kid, watching you and a lot of your fellow people in that age group who just did amazing things, and it was awesome to have, like, Rod on last week, on the show as well. Those are role models for me. I can never win in the Olympics or anything like that, but I did things in my own way. You pioneered a path, especially for a woman to be able to do long-distance running, and that's just gold. Lorraine: Well, thank you very much, Lisa. It's been an exciting journey and I feel so privileged to have been born in this time and this body and to have had the experiences that I've had, and it's not over yet. Lisa: Hell no! [1:10:10-1:10:12 unintelligible, garbled audio], and you're obviously still doing that. Lorraine, where can people find you if they want to, you know, learn about what you're doing, read your book, On The Wings of Mercury, where can they reach out to you?  Lorraine: Yeah, they can reach me at lorraine@lydiardfoundation.org. So you got to get your eyes in there, like Lydiard, with R-D. Yeah, just write to me. They can go to our website, lydiardfoundation.org, to see the programs that we've got. We have quite a few New Zealand coaches. They've been through the course and they're very popular and we've got a lot of wonderful things, expanding it all the time.  Lisa: Awesome. Maybe we collaborate and go and do them. Do one of those as well. always adding courses to my list of things that I have to do. That might be a good one of them that I have to add. Lorraine: You'd be most welcome, Lisa, we'd love to have you.  Lisa: Thanks. Alright. That's it this week for Pushing The Limits. Be sure to rate review and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at www.lisatamati.com. The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

Imagine yourself standing smack in the middle of a busy city. You’d get dizzy just by looking at how fast people go about their daily lives. Everyone is so hyperactive and absorbed in getting things done. Amid all the chaos, we forget to take a pause, be still and breathe.  Remember, we can only evolve into our best selves if we take a moment and be present. And no one knows this more than the ultimate warrior, Mark Divine. He joins us in this episode to share his experiences in the military and how meditation helped him develop inner strength. Mark also teaches us how to use positive internal dialogue in visualising and attracting victory.  If you want to know more about the benefits of meditation through the experience of an ultimate warrior, then this episode is for you.   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health program, all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/. You can also join their free live webinar on epigenetics.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year’s time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, goals, and lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity, or want to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health, and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa’s Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, an NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that can boost the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements of the highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust — NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combats the effects of aging while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:  Find out Mark’s experience with meditation and how this made him into an ultimate warrior. Discover how a positive internal dialogue can train your brain to be focused. Know about recapitulation and how it can help in dealing with traumas.   Episode Highlights [05:34] Mark’s Background Mark’s experiences with his father forged his mental toughness and resilience. This laid the foundation for him to be an ultimate warrior. He grew up boating, hiking, and running trails through the mountains. Athletics was his escape, but he wasn’t able to think about his future.  When Mark left college, he was fortunate enough to get a job in a big accounting firm; this allowed him to go to a top business school.  Despite school and work, Mark was determined to continue his athletic career. He then became interested in Seido karate. Meditation made him realise that he wasn’t following his true path.  [15:13] Becoming an Ultimate Warrior Mark came across a Navy recruitment centre, saw their poster, and applied to be a SEAL. Mark graduated with his entire boat crew. He was number 1 in his class.   Mark credits this achievement to meditation training and the team building activities that compelled you to tame your ego. [19:59] The Importance of Meditation and Yoga Mark meditated and trained in yoga every day in the war zone. He felt stronger and more confident.  Yoga is the oldest science of mental and personal development.  Mark learned that training one’s physical, mental, emotional, intuitional, and spiritual aspects mean you can access more of yourself and your potential. Yoga, in a sense, is integration; it is coming back to who we are and being whole.  Listen to the full episode to learn how Mark got into yoga and how this contributed to him becoming an ultimate warrior. [26:33] The Importance of Emotional Strength In SEAL training, most of those who quit were physically strong but lacked the emotional strength to handle extreme moments of crisis and doubt. The person subconsciously created the injury to quit.  Mark tried to be flexible and didn’t let anything bother him during SEAL training.  Mark trains SEALs by teaching the Big Four: box breathing, positive internal dialogue, visualisation, and micro-goals.  [35:19] Examining Your Internal Dialogue Meditation is a critical part of examining one’s internal dialogue.  How you talk to yourself has an incredible impact on your energy and motivation.  The term 'feeding the fear wolf' means to allow negative dialogue, imagery, and emotions to control and weaken you.  Positive thoughts, or ‘feeding the courage wolf’, creates a higher vibration, bringing in more energy and access to creativity.  Controlling your breathing and adding a positive mantra can be very transformative; it helps you develop concentration and increase productivity.  [41:33] Imagining Victory Our belief systems are made out of statements that may or may not be true.  Pay attention to your thoughts and make them positive. Know that you are competent.  Although you may not feel it yet, continue meditating to get rid of that negative side.   When you understand your capabilities, you can project them into the future and have an image of your success.  When positive thoughts overcome negative ones, you can see your true self more clearly, and powerful thoughts start to spread.  [46:10] The Zen Process Meditation is challenging, especially for active people. We have to disconnect from various distractions and be still.  You can’t evolve if you are constantly active; the only way to go inward is to slow down and be quiet.  The first step in meditation practice is box breathing. It releases stress and brings brain-body balance.  In the second step, the box pattern turns into concentration practice. The mantra is also added to train concentration and attention.  The third step allows you to put less energy into concentration and observe yourself from a witness perspective.  [53:00] The Importance of Doing Emotional Work Doing emotional work is the foundation of meditation.  Without this, you don’t get the full benefits of meditation. Meditation requires patience.  The process is different for everyone.  [55:44] Going into the Witness Perspective In this part of the process, you empty your mind and allow any thought streams to come in. You experience a metacognitive split here.  You see the thoughts that come up from a perspective that’s separate from them.  Through this, you realise you’re not your thoughts and emotions. And so, you have the power to change your story. When you visualise from the witness perspective, you see what your spirit wants you to see. You realise your true purpose.  If you do this every day, you attract the future that’s right for you, and you feel connected to the world. Through this, you eventually gain enlightenment. [01:02:43] How Meditation Can Help Athletes Meditation supports total health. Through it, you’ll become more healthy, strong, and motivated. Awakened athletes and warriors who serve the world can change it. Athletes can do so because they are emotionally balanced. [01:05:25] What Is Recapitulation? Recapitulation is where we use imagery to go back into our past, relive traumatic events, recontextualise them, and forgive.  It is to see yourself forgiving your younger self and changing the image and energy associated with your traumas.  Awareness and identification of traumatic events is the first step to the recapitulation.  Recapitulation can be used to go back and overcome big traumas and to make sure you are not dragging past regrets.  Recapitulation then becomes a daily practice of letting go of regrets and resentments. Listen to the full episode and hear some examples of this!  [01:18:28] How to Be a Good Leader Show up as the best version of yourself. Be humble, authentic, trustworthy, courageous, and respectful.  It takes time to develop those qualities and work on them with your team.  Listen to the full episode to know how Mark does leadership training in his programs!   Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron!  Harness the power of NAD and NMN for anti-aging and longevity with NMN Bio.  Listen to other Pushing the Limits episodes: #183: Sirtuins and NAD Supplements for Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova #189: Understanding Autophagy and Increasing Your Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova #199: Episode with Dr Don Wood Connect with Mark: Website | Instagram  The Unbeatable Mind Podcast with Mark Divine Bedros Keulian on Learning How to “Man Up” How to Deal with Trauma with Dr Don Wood Check out these books by Mark Divine!  Staring Down the Wolf  Unbeatable Mind  8 Weeks to SEALFIT The Way of the SEAL  KOKORO Yoga Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda 2021 Unbeatable Challenge   7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode ‘It was about physical, it was about mental, it was about emotional, it was about intuitional and spiritual aspects of our being. In that, I learned that if you train those together, then you will integrate, you'll become whole again.’ ‘Human beings have not learned to be whole, and they don't recognise that we're all interconnected. And every one of our thoughts, every one of our emotions, every one of our actions has an implication or impact on the whole.’ ‘How you talk to yourself has an incredible impact on your energy and your motivation. Literally, we use the terminology “feeding the courage wolf” versus “feeding the fear wolf.’ ‘Understanding your capability as a human being, the potential that you have, the power that we have, you can then project that into the future and say, “What does victory look like for me?”’ ‘I think that there's two reasons we're on this planet. One is to evolve to become the best version, highest and best version of yourself in this lifetime. The second is to align with our calling or our purpose.’ ‘Ultimately, we create our own reality. It's all basically, it's all experienced with [the] mind. So that's powerful.’ ‘You can do anything, one at a time.’   About Mark Mark Divine grew up in Upstate New York. He has a degree in economics from Colgate University and an MBA from NYU. He is a New York Times best-selling author, leadership expert, entrepreneur, motivational speaker.  Mark is also a retired U.S. Navy SEAL Commander. He spent nine years on active duty and 11 as a Reserve. With 20 years in service, he served in over 45 countries. During his time in the military, Mark created a nationwide mentoring program for SEAL trainees. Because of his success, he decided to start SEALFIT. This fitness company aims to prepare civilians for the physical and emotional demands of a SEAL-like lifestyle.  Mark knows the value of emotional strength in transforming lives. With this in mind, he published Unbeatable Mind in 2011, which includes an at-home study program. Mark also has several other entrepreneurial endeavours and books in his name. He’s also the host of the Unbeatable Mind podcast. With all these ventures, Mark’s ultimate aim is to create more resources to improve the lives of everyone he meets.  If you want to know more about Mark and his work, check out his website and Instagram.     Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can be motivated to be their real selves through meditation. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Full Transcript Of The Podcast Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential. With your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com. Lisa Tamati: Well, hey everyone, Lisa Tamati here. Fantastic to have you back at Pushing the Limits this week. Now I have a wonderful man who I’ve followed for a number of years. He’s one of my heroes, I was a little bit of a fangirl in this interview I have to admit. But it was pretty crazy. I have Commander Mark Divine on the show. Mark is an ex-Navy SEAL. He was a Commander in the Navy Seal. He was there for 20 years, and he was a fantastic leader. He was deployed in over 45 countries around the world. He also trains, trains a lot of the SEALs who are going into BUD/S training. He was number one on his course when he went through BUD/S, and that’s saying something. That’s nine months of hell on earth, so if you get through that, you’ve got to be pretty cool, and to be number one in the end of the whole 190 that went on, that’s pretty amazing.  He’s the author of a number of books: Staring Down the Wolf, Unbeatable Mind, and SEALFIT, and runs a number of multi-million dollar companies. As a leadership consultant, he trains, not only does he train the military, he helps people prepare for SEAL training. He also now runs through his innovative SEALFIT and Unbeatable Mind training systems. Kokoro crucible is one of his programs. He shares the same secrets with entrepreneurs, executives, and teams through his book and through his book, and through his speaking, and through his award-winning podcast. He has his own, and I have the privilege of being on that one shortly. He runs world-renowned leadership and team events. Wonderful man to talk to, someone that I really, really look up to and respect. His discipline that he brings to everything that he does is quite amazing. So I hope you enjoy the show. Before we go, I just want to remind you to check out our epigenetics program, if you haven’t already. Head over to lisatamati.com and hit the work with us button, and find out about our Peak Epigenetics program. This is all about understanding your genetics, and how to optimise them for your best performance. So everything from food, to exercise, what types of exercise to do, what times of the day you should be training, what times of the day you should be eating, and how often. What type of diet is right for you, right down to the nitty gritty. You know, eat almonds, don't eat cashew nuts, right specific to your genetics, so to speak. It also looks at your whole mood and behavior, what makes you tick, why do you think the way you do, what areas you may have problems with, your predispositions.  That's not to be all deterministic, and negative, that's all to be like this is what you're dealing with, and this is how we can hit things off at the pass. This is a really life-changing program, and we're really proud to bring it to you. We've been doing it for a number of years now. We've taken hundreds of people through this program, and we work with corporate teams. So if you're out there and you have a corporate team that might be interested in doing either this or our boost camp program, which is all about upgrading and learning all about how to manage stress, how to reduce the effects of stress, and be more resilient and bring a higher performance to your game, then please reach out to us. Go over to lisatamati.com. and check out all the programs that we have here.  Just a reminder too, I have a new book out called Relentless: How a Mother and Daughter Defied the Odds. If you've listened to this podcast for a while, you would hear me harp on about my amazing mum and the journey that we've been on back from a massive aneurysm that left her at the age of 74 with hardly any higher function, and a prognosis that said she would never ever do anything again. And they were very, very wrong. So I want to share this book, I want to share the story, because it's a very empowering story. So if you haven't read the book Relentless, I really encourage you to go and do that. I'm really keen to get this out there because this will empower and change lives, and already has, so make sure you read Relentless. Right, over to the show with Commander Mark Divine. Hi everyone, Lisa Tamati here. I’m super, super excited. I'm jumping out of my skin, I can't sit still. I have one of my great heroes that I've followed for such a long time, so I'm a little bit, being a bit of a fangirl right now. But I'm sure I'll calm down in a minute or two. Commander Mark Divine is with us. He has such a huge history. You are known, really, as the warrior man, Unbeatable Mind, SEALFIT. You've done a heck of a lot in your life. Mark, it's just, I can't wait to share some of your insights, because what you do and what you've done is just absolutely amazing. So, welcome to Pushing the Limits. Can you give us a little bit of background, Mark, on where you come from and what you've done and how you've, just to give us a little bit of, because you, obviously you've been in the SEALs, you're a commander in the SEALs, you're a trained SEAL. So let's start there. Let you come to it. Mark Divine: Oh, my God, where to start? Lisa: Maybe childhood. Mark: I was born at a very young age in a very small town in upstate New York, a province of the United States. I'll try to keep this short because sometimes I have a few run-on sentences. Go like 40 minutes, right? We don't want that to happen. That’s when we have a good time. So yeah, I was a pretty normal kid growing up, running around the woods of upstate New York, crazy family, lots of alcohol and anger. The belt would come out pretty much every other night. My brother and I would literally just provoke my father just to do it, because we stopped taking him seriously after a while. In that regard, I feel pretty fortunate that my young spirit was like, ‘You can't break me’. I realise now that we all choose our parents, let's just say, from a spiritual perspective, I certainly believe that. For certain experiences, and for a while I played the victim, woe is me.  But now I look back and thank God, that really forged my mental toughness and resiliency. I had to unpack some crap from that, obviously, but it made me a Navy SEAL warrior, right? When I went through Navy SEAL training, you could not hurt me, because nothing was compared to my dad. Anyway, so that's a little aside. Upstate New York had a really— it's beautiful. I've been to your country in New Zealand. It's just absolutely gorgeous. I feel the same way about America in certain places, the much bigger. New York is one of those areas that, 6 million acres of unfettered, protected land in northern New York called the Adirondack Mountains, and that was my playground. And our summer home was on the west shore of a lake called Lake Placid where the Olympics were, you're probably familiar with that.  Lisa: Yeah.  Mark: There was no road access to my house. There was no TV, no internet. Still, there's finally internet after but no TV, and we would have to take a boat to get there. And so I grew up with boats and I grew up hiking in the Adirondacks and a lot of time alone in the wilderness, which is one of the reasons I became kind of an endurance athlete. I know you're an endurance lady. Because I was comfortable, being alone. I was comfortable running the trails in the mountains, and I used to have a friend, we would run up Whiteface Mountain, which is at the base or the foot of Lake Placid. Not a huge mountain, it’s 4,000 feet, but you know it took a couple hours. If you're going to hike up there it takes a few hours. For us to run up there, took us 45 minutes. People used to think we were crazy. When we got to the top we would wrap our ankles and our knees and we would play tag on the way down. The trails are steep and just rocks and ruts and roots. It's amazing we didn't kill ourselves.  So that was my like early childhood upbringing, nature being in the woods and in the water were my solace away from the family dynamics. That led me to be a competitive athlete in high school, 12 varsity letters and then into college, I was recruited for swimming and I became a competitive rower. And then I started triathlon. So, I was an athlete, but the athletics really was my escape and kind of my grounding rod, like it is for so many athletes, right? When I— then I wasn't sure what was going to happen. I didn't really spend a lot of time in my youth thinking about my future, I kind of accepted a lot of the stories for my family that I was going to go back and be part of the family business. That business was really the place that Divines go, you know, we don't go into the military, we don't go into academia, we don't do those things. So anyways, it's as your listeners are hearing this, they're probably like, ‘Yep, check.’ Lisa: They may have done that. Mark: That's the norm, right? That's not, I wasn't off, but it's certainly not what I teach today, right? Because, right, I think if we're— if we don't follow our passion and find our calling in life, then we're going to have discomfort later on, and discomfort is going to lead to existential crisis. So I was very fortunate, incredibly fortunate that when I left college, I got a job with a big accounting firm, consulting accounting firm called Coopers and Lybrand, which became accountant, became— Lisa: You were an accountant. I mean, that makes me laugh, really. Mark: I was an accountant. Lisa: I was on the way to being an accountant too. So because of what my dad wanted, and I'm about as far from an accountant, as you can get, you know.  Mark: I was too. Lisa: That’s a good story. Mark: But I stuck with it long enough to become a certified public accountant, I had to pass the exam.  Lisa: I didn't. Mark: I got my— I tell you what, I would rather go back to BUD/S Navy SEAL training than try that darn exam again. That told me something right there. But you know, it is a great opportunity. Because here I am, you know, I got a degree from a pretty good university called Colgate. But I didn't really have any skills. And so this job opportunity gave me and sent me to a top business school in the United States called NYU, New York University. So I got my MBA in finance, and I became a certified public accountant for four years. I got to work on a lot of different companies as a consultant and auditor. So I saw a lot. But, so that was kind of formative, in a sense, like, I learned a lot. What was probably more formative, or more substantial for me was, once I got into that suit and tie, and I was working eight hours a day, mind you, they allowed me to work only 8 or 10 hours a day. Most people in those scenarios work 15 to 20. But because they were sponsoring this small group of us to go to business school at night, they had to let us off, and then we would go to school full-time during the summer, and just come in on Fridays. It was a really cool program. So I was working 8 to 10 hours a day, going to school at night. And it's— I was an athlete, right? And I was like, ‘How am I going to, how am I going to stay as an athlete?’ Right? Most people don't. Because you know, in the corporate world, and I was like, ‘I've got to, I've got to continue my athletic career.’ And so I would get up really early in the morning and go for a six mile run. And then at lunchtime when all my peers would go have a beer or martini and lunch, I would go to the gym and do like this, what I now know is a high intensity functional workout, which back then nobody talked about. Because I had to go fast, and I was wanting to do a lot of different variety, and I had to be in and out of there in 45 minutes. And then after, they let me go at five o'clock in the afternoon, and my first class wasn't till 7:30. So I'm looking at that saying, ‘Look, I got two and a half hours. I could do some training here.’ So one night, I wasn't sure what I was going to do. But one night, I was walking down 23rd Street, I was living on 22nd in Manhattan, and I heard these screams coming out of this building. And I stopped and I looked up and I was standing under the flag of the World Seido Karate Headquarters.  ‘Oh, interesting. Maybe it's a martial art.’ And I had been intrigued with the martial arts. But in Upstate New York, that just wasn't much. There's nothing as a matter of fact, in my time, and so I didn't really get a chance to study anything. So I went in there and I was floored. I was stunned by what I saw. It was an incredible art. This was the headquarters of a worldwide art called seido, they had three or 400,000 students. And the Grand Master, the founder was on the center of the floor, this Japanese man, 10th degree black belt, looked like a frickin’ tank. And he was, his name was Nakamura, and he became my mentor, my first real mentor. Yeah. Now what's interesting, he says it wasn't really the karate that changed me. It was the zen training. And he is one of the few masters who kept the old ways of training the mind and the body and the spirit, and understood that they all had to be in balance, and they all were part of the package of developing these corrupted, these trainees.  I loved the zen part, and there was a zen class we had every Thursday night for an hour, we would sit on that little wooden zazen bench. And honestly, this studio is the headquarter, had well over a thousand students. There were ten of us in this class, most of them black belts, and I was a white belt, and I was like, ‘Where is everyone else?’ I didn’t get it. And then there wasn't a lot of understanding or talk about meditation back then. But boy, I did this thing to do meditation. I had all the usual kind of resistance to it, and my monkey mind going all over the place and wondering if it really worked. I trusted Nakamura and the way he acted and presented himself as a character, just who he was, was so different than any other human I've ever seen or experienced. And I was like, ‘There's got to be something to this, right?’ So I stuck with it. And it literally changed almost every aspect of who I was and how I saw the world and what I perceived to be my calling and my purpose in life. And it was sitting on that bench that I realised that I was going down the wrong path with this MBA, CPA, working in the corporate world. Even if I went back to the family business, it just wasn't what I was meant to do. That was the first time in my life that I allowed myself to examine my core story that said, this is who I am, and to recognise it was built on a lie. Lisa: Yeah. And you weren't following your true path. Mark: I wasn't following my true path. But my true path wasn't exactly laid out for me, in those meditation sessions. It was more like the archetypal energy in the arc of my life was shown to me and that that art was to be a warrior, and then it would lead somewhere else that wasn't quite clear to me, but the warrior part was very strong. And it didn't— I didn't get messages while I was meditating, saying, ‘You're going to be a Navy SEAL.’ What I got was ‘warrior’ and, ‘You're going down the wrong path with this business stuff.’ It was when I finally started to accept that, that I learned about the Navy SEALs, right. Remember, this is 1987, 88, there was no TV shows and movies, no famous names.  Lisa: They weren't famous back then.  Mark: Nobody knew them. In fact, the few people that did know them were like, crazy guys. So I— one day, I was walking home from work, and I came across a Navy recruiting station. I didn't even know it was that but I saw a poster in the window. I took a double take of this poster. I was like, well, the title of that poster was, ‘Be Someone Special’. And it had Navy SEALs doing really cool shit. Jumping out of airplanes, yeah, blocking out little mini submarines, sneaking through the water. It's just so cool for me. I just sat there kind of transfixed, looking at that, and I didn't say anything about the SEALs. They said, US Navy, and I was, ‘Huh, interesting.’ So I went back and I talked to the recruiters so what, ‘Who are those people in that poster?’ They said, ‘Oh, they're crazy Navy SEALs. You don't want to do that.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I do. Tell me more.’ So long story short. I started that whole CPA, MBA bullshit, 1985. In November of 1989, I got my black belt, I got my MBA, I got my CPA and I was on a bus. I was on a bus to Officer Candidate School. Lisa: That was the next mission. Mark: On to the next mission. I wandered away from, I walked away from probably what would today's dollars be $200,000 salary to get paid $500 a month?  Lisa: Wow. That takes— Mark: For heading off as a candidate. Lisa: That takes courage. That alone takes courage. Mark: But I didn't question that. You know, I knew it. I knew this is the right path. And when I got to SEAL training, what we called BUD/S, basic underwater demolition SEAL training. Man, I felt like I was home, and there was no way that they were going to get me to quit. I mean, other people said this, but I said this very clearly: ‘You have to kill me to get me out of here.’ And I don't think they can legally do that. Although they sure do try. Lisa: It can get pretty close. Mark: It can get pretty close, yeah. I sailed through SEAL training. We had 185 in my class, hardcore, awesome guys. And 19 of us graduated. I graduated number one in my class and my entire team, my boat crew that we trained together from day one, graduated with me.  Lisa: Wow.  Mark: So there's something about that meditation training, Nakamura and the skills, and the values on team building and taking my eyes off myself and putting them on others, the taming of the ego, it really allowed me to help lead my team to success, right? We made it about the team and not about me, and everyone else was about them. And they— the team's, the instructors are, their job is to select the next crop of teammates that they will go to war with.  Lisa: Yeah.  Mark: So what they're looking for is not who's the toughest guy, not who's the best athlete—  Lisa: Not the coolest, yeah.  Mark: Yeah, exactly, not the best looking whatever. It's, ‘Are you a great teammate? Are you gonna have my back?’ So that's something that I guess I demonstrated.  Lisa: Wow, that's a brilliant intro into your background. What fascinates me with you too is that you like— you know, because the SEALs are known for being hard asses. I mean, you know they are hard people, they have been through tough stuff, they go through tough stuff every single day that you're out there. But you've got this meditation side, you do a heck of a lot of yoga. You do, you talk about authenticity, and I know you don't like the word vulnerability, but you're quite, you're open about the stuff. That's quite the opposite of most, in the training that you get. I suppose this comes from Nakamura being your master, that he taught you that very early on, they're sort of the both sides of the coin.  I get that question quite a lot, too. When they— when people read what I've done and achieved and so on, they're like, ‘Wow, you must be a super hard ass.’ And then they meet you and realise that you're actually very vulnerable or cry a lot. I'm very full of mistakes and problems and stuff that I'm working on at all times. But the difference is, I think, that you embrace both sides. And that you are always in pursuit of excellence, and you're always improving, and you're always developing. And I found that a really interesting combination in someone who's so physically tough and mentally tough to have had both sides. Was that a hard thing in the beginning with the SEALs? Mark: I think you're right. I did learn that initially from Nakamura and so every day, you know, I was so committed. Every day I would stretch and I would do my breathing practices and my visualisation while I was going through SEAL training. Every day in the SEALs, I do some version of that. It was you know, it's difficult for a military operator to keep a daily dedicated practice going if you're up 24 hours a day, and you're in combat. Honestly, when I went to Iraq and combat, I meditated and trained yoga every single day. And it had a profound effect on me, right? In the war zone, all my teammates are just getting frayed at the edges, and I felt strong and confident, and I knew I was going to survive, because I did, I had that vision. I was going to be home with my child, you know, my wife and son.  So it came first from Nakamura, and then I started into yoga. It's not my career, it's important people know, I did plus-20 years in the Navy SEAL, but about nine years active duty and 11 years reserve. So as reserve, so nine years after I joined, even while I was on active duty, I started to get into yoga. But when I got off active duty I had more time. I went full on in, and that was because— actually it is a blessing in disguise. I was living in San Diego and there was no seido karate out here. Otherwise I would have gotten back into seido karate. So first I got into something called goju karate, I got a black belt there. It was very similar to seido but it lacked the spirit and like the mental, the meditation, so I didn't really stick with that. And then I got into ninjutsu, thinking ninjutsu might be a little bit more spiritual. I really liked the teacher but he was a horrible business guy, so right on the cusp of getting my black belt, he shut his school down and ran out of money.  And then I found yoga kind of about the same time as ninjitsu. But I didn't really understand it until I read Patanjali’s yoga sutras and also Paramahansa Yogananda’s autobiography yoga. And those just absolutely shattered my paradigm of what was possible and what yoga was, as the oldest science of mental and personal development. So I fully went into yoga and I ended up getting 700 hours of certifications and started my own yoga program and wrote a book about it eventually, but, and started teaching it to SEALs. And so all this I was still a SEAL officer. Because I didn't retire from the SEALs in 2011, but I was able to do all this and build a business that started to teach Navy SEALs everything I would have been learning. And that's called SEALFIT. That was the business that everything I've been learning and applying in my own life, right? And this was this integrated model of development. It started with Nakamura where it wasn't just about the physical. It was about physical, it was about mental, it was about emotional, it was about intuitional and spiritual aspects of our being. In that, I learned that if you train those together, then you will integrate, you'll become whole again. What that means is you'll become more, you have access to more of yourself. You have to put more potential. You can maintain peak performance, you can serve more profoundly, you can do more, you've got way more energy, way more enthusiasm, way more motivation, way more peace of mind, way more clarity.  It's extraordinary. In a sense, it's like coming back to who we are. That's why I call it integration. In fact, the word ‘yoga’ means union or integration, and so does is zen, believe it or not. Those practices and traditions are really all about becoming whole as a human again, as opposed to fragments and separate, separate from yourself and separated from others. So I stumbled upon this, and created my own path or my own model. And then when I had started to teach it to SEALs and special operators, and other military operators, a ton of people, even from New Zealand, some of your listeners might have been to my training. Then I started to recognise that, ‘Wow, this is necessary in our culture.’ Because most Westerners have no connection to this, this way of living of, taking care of the internal while you are working in the external, the yin and the yang, the balance between being and doing, becoming whole again, so you can do your work from a whole perspective as opposed to a fragmented, separated self. Which leads to suboptimal results, at a minimum, in at least a flat out crisis or destruction at the maximum level. And that's, we're seeing that both in from the investment in violence, military build-up, conflict, as well as environmental degradation is because human beings have not learned to be whole, and they don't recognise that we're all interconnected. And every one of our thoughts, every one of our emotions, every one of our actions has an implication or impact on the whole. Lisa: Yep. This is really good. Because I think, we live our lives very much in the doing. We're busy all day, we're busy with a billion million things, we're running businesses, we're— we’ve got families and so on. And it's really hard to find that stillness. And I know that even as an athlete who, I think for years, I was just headed through the wall, you know, taking— Mark: Most people are, that’s how they learn, until they hit the wall, right?  Lisa: Yeah, no, I hit the wall a couple of dozen times before, because I was a bit thick. I didn't wake up, said, ‘Hang on, this stuff isn't working anymore.’ And it works when you're 20. And it works when you're 25. And it works when you're 30. And but when you start hitting your 40s, and you're still smashing the crap out of your body, and you're not really not refilling the tank, and you're not re-examining what the hell are you doing, I think that's when the wheel started, when the wheel started to fall off for me. And I'm like, ‘Hang on a minute, this— why isn't my body doing like, it wasn't what it was supposed to do?’ And when you've grown up, though, with that expectation of, you have to be tough, you have to be hard. And I grew up different to you. But I had a dad who was very, he was an awesome father, but he was a hard ass. And he expected you to be tough and mentally tough, physically tough. He didn't really tolerate a lot of weakness or sickness or anything like that. And he was an amazing dad, but he pushed really hard. And that sort of makes you think, well, you have to be hard all the time. And then when you break down, then it's you being weak. Instead of looking at the whole picture, and quieting the mind and doing these things like meditation was for me. Yeah, I know, I hear it's really important, but I can't sit still. I need it twice as much. Mark: Yeah, well, there's a reason for that. It'd be fun to talk about. But think about, when I reflect back, and my SEAL training and all these other guys were trying to be hard, and they had the same thinking, because America has a real soft side to it. But there's a lot of freakin’ warriors in America. And we have that same kind of what your dad's talking about. Gotta be hard. Like, there's no room for weakness. It's got to be tough. You think about the metaphor, the guys who quit were just bad asses. Yeah, why did they quit? They quit because they didn't— they lacked the emotional strength to understand what was happening to them in their either most extreme moments of crisis or moments of just doubt, right? And then they're like, so they let uncertainty in, let doubt creep in and corrupt their decision making and then, one mistake leads to an injury we call, quinjury. And you've probably seen this in endurance athletes’ is when all of a sudden the injury kind of crops up and then the person's out. And then really, reality is they created that injury to quit.  Lisa: Yeah, because they wanted a way out.  Mark: Because they wanted a way out. It's very subconscious. It's not prepared. It's not preparing properly. It's not recovering properly. It's not understanding that this is a long game and getting your ego out of the way. Lisa: It used to prop up for me every— before any big race, that in the week ahead of that race, I would get sick. And I would, I'm sure that that was my subconscious trying to stop me do it. Mark: Yeah, I've given you an out, right. And so— Lisa: You’ve got a cold, you've got the flu. Mark: Think about the metaphor between, if you got a tsunami coming, like, consider tsunami a metaphor for a crisis, or a big challenge, like BUD/S or a 50 mile or 100 mile race or something like that. There's a tsunami coming. Would you rather be a mighty oak facing that tsunami, or would you rather be like a reed?  Lisa: A reed, definitely. Mark: Yeah, if so, when I went to SEAL training, I tried to be the reed, right? I tried to be really flexible. I didn't let anything bother me. You know, structures would come up and, during Hell Week for us, which week seven back then. But now it's more like week three or four, seven days non-stop training around the clock, no sleep. Everyone's heard about that. Like a day, Thursday, like the day before, we're over it most of it, we’re down to 60, 35, maybe 45 or 50, actually, in our class from 185 already. And instructor evil comes over and he's like, ‘Mark, I don't like you, I'm gonna make you quit.’ And in my mind, I was like, ‘Good luck.’ And I even think I started— Lisa: That confidence! Mark: I don't know, it was just my spiritual strength saying, ‘No, you're not going to get me to quit, you can't.’ And so I actually was challenging him in my mind, and it must come through on my face. And he goes, ‘I'm gonna wipe that smirk right out that effing face.’ And he just made me start doing 8-count bodybuilders, which are like a burpee, basically. And I remember in my mind thinking, ‘Okay, all right. Let's do this.’ Right? All I got to do is one 8-count bodybuilder at a time, until he gets tired. Lisa: Until he gets tired. Mark: Exactly! So that's what I did. I just did one. I just want, did one 8-count bodybuilder. And then I just did one 8-count bodybuilder. And then I just did one 8-count bodybuilder. And when we got up to like— Lisa: You broke him. Mark: 800.  Lisa: Holy heck.  Mark: Which is nothing, right? I did 24 hours of burpees last, a couple of years ago, as part of our challenge. We did, check this out: we did 22 million burpees as a tribe to raise money for veterans. And part of that was to break a world record where our six-person team, you would love this, three men and three women, we did 36,000 burpees in 24 hours, so I did 7,500 or something like that. So 700 is nothing. Back then I didn't know if it was going to be 700 or 7,000 or 70,000. But he got bored, and he walked away at about 700, and I have to say, that worked. That's a good strategy.  Lisa: What about the burning in the muscles and the exhaustion and the running out of glycogen—  Mark: You can do anything, one at a time.  Lisa: Wow.  Mark: It's just like in a race, I'm sure you get to a point where all you have to do all you are saying to yourself is, ‘Just one more step.’  Lisa: One more step. Yep, absolutely.  Mark: Same thing. We call them micro goals. And so we teach— I started teaching these to SEALs, and the best guys already did this. But now we teach it, the SEALs are teaching what I call the Big Four. And they're teaching box breathing for controlling their stress, they're teaching positive internal dialogue, and mantras. And they're teaching visualisation, visualise every event and visualise what the end state looks like for you and then visualise the mission and whatnot. And then micro goals. Like go to BUD/S thinking about eight months of training, you go to BUD/S thinking about, ‘What do I got to do today to win this?’ And then when today gets hard, you just collapse. ‘What do I need to do to win this evolution or event that I'm in?’ And then when that gets harder, you know, it's like, ‘What do I got to do to get to the next five minutes?’ Anytime you quit, or you have the thought, ‘Well, this sucks. I think I want to quit.’ You just say, ‘Well, let me just push through to another— let me just push through another five minutes.’ Or, ‘Let me just get to that berm up there,’ if it's a run, or Log-Pt could go on forever. ‘Let me just finish this evolution, then I'll make a decision.’ And so you just keep kicking the can down the road of the pain and the quit decision and the suffering and eventually the suffering goes away, because that's a temporary state. Lisa: And this is like that you just dropped so much golden inside of two minutes. Take a couple of those because these are things that I've took me 20 years to learn. Mark: Play it back in slow motion. Lisa: You know, like this. That's how that's how I break down. You know, every mess of the like, I remember and my listeners have heard me tell the story. But I ran 2,250 kilometers from New Zealand for charity.  Mark: Wow. Good for you. Holy cow.  Lisa: Yeah, no, it's like, but I've been so busy in the build-up doing— I've been at other races around the world, done Badwater in the States, just come back from that, just launched a book and then I'm standing at the start line. I've been so busy in the thing that I actually hadn't thought about actually running the— because I was just like, ‘Yeah, I got everything, sweet.’ And then I’m starting at the start line and I just had a panic attack, like the first real big panic attack. And I'm not, because you're staring down the barrel of this—  Mark: Like, holy shit, this is too high to climb. What the heck have I done? Lisa: What the frick was I thinking? And I went home, we had media, we had all my crew and everybody there and I just went away behind the one of the cars and got my mum, my mummy ‘cuz she's my safe place, went to my mummy and I just bawled my eyes out. And said, ‘Mum I can't do this, I don't know what the frick I was thinking. I can't, and there's no way out.’ And mum's just like, ‘Hey,’ as she hugged me, as mums do. And she said, ‘You don't need to do 2,250 today. All I want you to focus on is that little box up there,’ you know, that was a couple of hundred meters up the road. ‘That's what you got to do right now. And then you're going to, you're going to get through to lunchtime, and then you're gonna have lunch. And then we're going to get through to this and that.’  She just broke it down into pieces, and she took all of that load that I was just like, ‘Oh my God, this is huge,’ and she broke it into one step at a time, basically. And that was some of the greatest learnings that I've taken away for every event that I've done when— and there have been times when I've broken and I've just crashed on the ground. I don't know how to get up and people have come along and they've got me up and walked me through the next few steps. Or the next— and that has gotten you over that hump, you know? And I just wait, you know, that's so much gold, right there, what you've just said. I think if we can do that in daily life so when we're faced with some big scary thing coming at us, how do I just get through this moment? And we're very— if you can get through these impulses, you know, like there's 30 seconds, through the 30 seconds almost, sometimes you can get to a place where you can cope again. And then you can sort of get back up. Mark: And this goes back to like the internal dialogue. Most people don't examine their internal dialogue. And this is where meditation is so critical. And you can also consider, like running or swimming or biking, endurance sports generally, are also very good for examining internal dialogue, because you're going to meet resistance. How you talk to yourself has an incredible impact on your energy and your motivation. Literally, we use the terminology ‘feeding the courage wolf’ versus ‘feeding the fear wolf’. Feeding fear is allowing negative dialogue and negative imagery and negative emotions to kind of run the rule the roost of your psychology, and that weakens you. Negative thoughts demonstrably weaken you as a human being.  Lisa: Yeah, because—  Mark: They're gonna not just weaken your motivation but literally musculature-wise you get weaker, and that's been proven through kinesiology. So positive thoughts create a higher vibration, which bring more energy, more access to more creativity and motivation. And so you got to train positive thoughts. That's what I mean by feeding the courage wolf. And the more you feed the courage wolf by training positive mantras and positive thoughts, then the more you starve the fear wolf until he goes away, until he just doesn't have the food anymore. And those patterns dry up and blow away. So I created a bunch of positive mantras that I would say in the SEAL training, and they're still with me today.  As soon as I start a hard workout, they kick back in. ‘Feeling good, I'm looking good, ought to be in Hollywood. Feeling good, I'm looking good, ought to be in Hollywood. I can get out of me in Hollywood. I've got this easy day, piece of cake. Boo yeah, hey, got this. Easy day, piece of cake. Boo yeah, hey.’ And then I'll synchronise that with my breathing. So, hardcore, run three steps and inhale 1, 2, 3, ‘I've got this. Easy day. Piece of cake.’ Exhale 1, 2, 3. Right.  Lisa: And the rhythm is good too, hey. Mark: Yeah, exactly. So I was synchronising those before, the big four. The first skill I said, box breathing, it's really breath control. Running, anything you're doing, always breathing through your nose as best as possible, and controlling the breathing and creating a nice rhythmic pattern with the breathing. It's going to be different depending upon what you're doing. If you're lifting weights, gonna be one thing, if you're running another, swimming another. Swimming creates its own little breathing patterns, because head in the water versus out of the water. But just starting there, controlling your breathing and adding a positive mantra, or a positive internal statement that's linked to the breath is transformative. Not only does it keep you in the game athletically or whatever, but when you do this during your regular day, day in and day out, you're training your mind to be really positive and to be very concentrated. So you're developing concentration power. So you're turning your mind from like a scattered floodlight, which is flickering on and off, the monkey mind, to a very, very concentrated laser beam that you can point that laser beam on anything, any task, any project, and it deeply improves your productivity, the ability to get things done, you know, significantly.  Lisa: Wow.  Just interrupting the program briefly to let you know that we have a new Patron program for the podcast. Now, if you enjoy Pushing the Limits, if you get great value out of it, we would love you to come and join our Patron membership program. We've been doing this now for five and a half years and we need your help to keep it on air. It's been a public service free for everybody, and we want to keep it that way. But to do that we need like-minded souls who are on this mission with us to help us out. So if you're interested in becoming a patron for Pushing the Limits podcast, then check out everything on www.patron.lisatamati.com. That's P-A-T-R-O-N dot lisatamati.com. We have two Patron levels to choose from. You can do it for as little as $7 a month, New Zealand, or $15 a month if you really want to support us. So we are grateful if you do. There are so many membership benefits you're going to get if you join us. Everything from workbooks for all the podcasts, the strength guide for runners, the power to vote on future episodes, webinars that we're going to be holding, all of my documentaries and much, much more. So check out all the details: patron.lisatamati.com. And thanks very much for joining us. Mark: And then the imagery, right, the imagery. Well, let me backup. The other thing that that process of paying attention to the quality of your thoughts and changing them to positive thoughts, and increasing your concentration power, as you start to look at the dialogue too, in your head. What is actually going on? And you recognise that typically what's going on in your head is a series of statements that are also based upon belief systems, but it can be framed as questions. When people say, ‘I don't think I can do this,’ what they're really saying is, ‘Am I worthy? Am I competent?’  We can begin to recognise that our belief systems are based upon questions and statements that may or may not be true. And so you want to take a look at the ones that are questionable, especially if they have a negative quality, and say, ‘Is that true?’ And you realise, ‘It’s not true. I am worthy. I am competent.’ Now, I may not feel that yet. But the more I tell myself that and the more I can see that in myself, and the more that I meditate and actually feel into my worthiness and my confidence, and the more I work to eradicate the emotional side or shadow that may have, be tied to related to that — for me, it was because of the childhood abuse, I kind of felt a little unworthiness and whatnot, even though I was capable as a SEAL, it's still kind of plagued me for a while, until I had to stare down that wolf of fear and be like, ‘Yeah, that's all bullshit. That's just a story that I'm holding on to and I was able to release all that energy and feel that worthiness now.’ Then that leads to a whole nother set of questions, which are extraordinarily empowering, right. So when I— understanding your capability as a human being, the potential that you have, the power that we have, you can then project that into the future and say, ‘What does victory look like for me?’ Right? ‘If I'm going to run this 2,000 meter, or 2,000 kilometer race, and I'm going to raise money for charity, what is that for? What's my ‘why’? And what does victory look like?’  You get a clear sense of what victory looks like. And then you can even do that with the micro parts. So you chunked it down into 100 kilometer segments, let's just say. What does victory look like for that segment for the next five days? What does it look like for today? What does it look like— this is, in a sense, what your mom was doing, but she was doing it from the other way around. What does it look like for the next six hours? What does it look like for the next three hours? You get a clear picture because you're asking the right questions, and you're winning in your mind before you step foot into the battlefield. So asking really powerful questions like, what does victory look like? Who is on my team? Who's got my back? Why am I doing this? How is it related to my purpose in my life? These are the questions that we start asking, because now we've drowned out the negative incessant chatter, which is just holding us back and distracting us. We've created this space, and I use the metaphor still water pond. We've taken our mind and we've created it instead of this choppy, you know, bouncing all over the place, turbulent thought stream, largely negative, we've calmed down. And it's now this still water, and on this still water, you can look at it, you can really see a reflection clearly. So that's kind of a nice thing, you get to see your true self more clearly, but also, what you drop into that water in terms of the thought is going to ripple out and affect everything. So you end up dropping thought seeds that are really powerful, instead of chaotic and negative. Lisa: Because there's this whole, these automatic negative thoughts and if we think about how we evolved that was there for our survival. Because we needed to be aware of dangers and things in our environment, so we were always looking for the bad thing that was going to come at us. But in our world now, where we just, we have this constant chatter in our head. And it's, you know, I've certainly dealt with this for a long time, and I and I fought against the whole sitting still thing, and focusing inwards. Because it's very unpleasant, when you having— when you want to move, you just want to move. Give me a hard ass workout, any day, over meditation, you know, because it's just like this energy, this agitation, but that's why I need to do it. So that I can break through that piece of the puzzle. And then you can tap into strengths that you didn't know you had, and quietness, and then you start to really reflect and like, for me, it has only really been, even in the last few months where I've been— My dad passed away, and it was one hell of a battle for his life. And I, yeah, it was a real— I was fighting against the system. And it was a mess of battle. It's all good when you win, but it's also good when you don't win. And so this one, just been— I was a bit of an existential crisis after that, because I'd lost this battle for my dad, who I loved dearly. And it made me go inward. It made me start to really question some of the biggest things because you start realising that life's short, shorter than I think it's gonna be. You want to understand why, and then going inside and doing some deep work and doing some trauma work and doing all that sort of hard stuff has been great. There's always good that comes out of shit. You never ever want to go through things like that, but when you do, you can always turn them into something, a learning curve of some sort. And having that, I was listening to you with Bedros Keulian, who's also is another one that I— Mark: Yeah, he’s an awesome guy. Lisa: Yeah, he's just a rock star. in you, when you were talking about how you went through the zen process where you were, for a start, you started meditating, but you're just learning to quiet the mind. And then after a few months, that became then mindfulness. Where you’re starting to observe yourself from outside in splitting the mind or somehow you put this and you're actually observing yourself as this higher self, if you like. Can you explain that a little bit? And how does that— Mark: Yeah, so glad you brought that up. Because I wanted to talk about that. Because you're right. It's— meditation is hard, especially for active people, which everybody, everybody listening, everybody in the Western world is pretty much hyperactive. Yep, that's what we're taught; it’s reality. Like, ‘Go, go, go. Do, do, do.’ We get over-committed. Now we have, you know, constant distraction with our iPhones and social media, and it's just gonna get worse, worse, worse. Wait until we get plugged in with a neural link, you know, like, wow. So we got to push back against that. The only way to push back against that is to disconnect from all that and to sit still, or stand still, or take a walk. But don't do anything, right. Don't do it for a goal. Don't do it to check it off a box. Don't do it to be the best meditator you know. Lisa: Tick that box.  Mark: It doesn't work, right? Lisa: That was what I was going to— Max: There's no goals here. Right? It's about becoming still, getting that clarity and this still water mind back, if you ever had it, but we had it when we were kids, of course, but in a different sense. So that you can evolve. You know, let me start there. I think that there's two reasons we're on this planet. One is to evolve to become the best version, highest and best version of yourself in this lifetime. The second is to align with our calling or our purpose. And those two really kind of go hand-in-hand or hand-in-glove. You can’t evolve if you're constantly doing. You actually will stay stuck. You'll keep getting your ass handed to you. You'll keep suffering. You'll keep feeling victimised. And you'll keep looking outward for the solutions. And you'll keep blaming other people, or society, or taxes, or the government, or God. Lisa: A lot of fingers are turned. Mark: The answers lie within, right? And so the only way to go inward is to slow down and just be quiet. Right? So it's imperative. Now, why do most people fail? A) Because everything I've just talked about, they haven't been taught this. And B) because they're body mind, their body brain is very, very agitated. It’s amped up because you've been taking all this stress on throughout your life. So what I teach is that the first step in meditation practice isn't mindfulness. It isn't a mantra practice. It's just a box breathe, which is a pattern breathe, five-count in, five-count hold, and five-count out, five-count hold, or four, or three, if you have trouble with that. And just let that nostril breathing in that massaging that the vagus nerve, stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. And it's bleeding off stress and bringing your body brain back into my balance.  Lisa: Yep.  Mark: When your body brain is back into balance, your brain is going to experience that as a lower frequency rate. Lower frequency means fewer thoughts, right? If you're in gamma, it's like tick-tick, popcorn brain. But if you're in alpha, like listening to beautiful music, classical music, or you're maybe doing some journaling, your mind stops racing. It starts to get into— Lisa: A lovely alpha state of focus.  Mark: Yeah, and so the box breathing practice trains your mind to get back into alpha, trains your body to de-stress, and you do this. It might take you months, usually about three months. I— my clients have this extraordinary calming that comes over them. And they're already changed. But this is, you know, just the preparatory work, right? This also, for those who are working on their physical structure in their health and their weight, this also has enormous benefits because you begin to feel a lot better. And you begin, you know, you're starting to breathe in that life force again. You're getting more oxygen with every breath, and you're retraining the breathing patterns so this becomes your more natural state. If you, let me just pause here, if you train for 20 minutes a day, have a five-count box breath, that's three breaths per minute, over time, and might take a year or more, you're gonna eventually settle into a natural breath pattern of six breaths per minute, which is now proven to the optimal. Lisa: Exactly.  Mark: I've been doing this for years, I never knew that, it just settled out there to where six breaths per minute through the nose was standard for me, or a standard, and that's what will happen to you.  Lisa: Yep.  Mark: Yeah. But those are full breaths, full exhales, getting all the toxins out there.  Lisa: Basically the exhale. Mark: It's enormously beneficial for your body, and everything starts to come back into balance: you start losing weight, you start eating better. Because you want to eat better, you start sleeping better, because you got all that, less cortisol and less stress. Wow, all that is foundational. Now, with all that starting to happen, after three to six months, you can start to sit comfortably, and you're starting to enjoy it, and you're starting to look forward to it. That's when we can start meditating. Now everything looks like meditation, but you're really sitting in box breathing. But now we turn that box pattern into a concentration practice. That's part two. And so the way I teach that is to visualise the box being drawn with each side being drawn in a different color, lighting. And also adding that mantra, or one of the other, but they both work and they work together. So now you're giving your mind one thing to focus on. This then develops that power to concentrate deeper, but also gives you the ability to notice when you're— when you lost your focus, or you split your focus. You’re wandering. And then you get, develop the ability to bring it back quicker and quicker to the box better, and that's called attention control. So you're training yourself: concentration, the ability to control your attention, and the ability to be less distracted. Wow.  Now that's mind training and that's the part where I say you're training your mind first with the box breathing, then with the second part of concentration and attention control. To be like a tame, beautiful stallion that was a wild stallion. A wild stallion is gorgeous, but it's dangerous. And most people's minds are like that. They're beautiful, but they're dangerous.  Lisa: Yep.  Mark: They’re dangerous to themselves and to others. But once you train it by lassoing that mind and stabilising it and calming it down, de-stressing it and then being able to focus it, then it's much happier and it's much calmer, and it's going to serve you, instead of trampling.  Lisa: Achieve more and do more.  Mark: Right. That's step two in the process, and this might be like, again, everyone's gonna be different, but six months to one and a half years. That's step three. Some of this stuff naturally unfolds, but it's really powerful if you recognise and you're deliberate about it. You don't want to rush meditation; this is a lifetime practice. Be comfortable, get it right in the beginning, because it'll serve you for the rest of your life. So many people bounce around with meditation, they draw in it, they're off it, they quit. They're just using an audio app, you know, and they're not really training their brains. It does have some health benefits, but it's not really training their minds.  Furthermore, if you don't end up doing the emotional work, you can really do what they call spiritual bypass or an emotional bypass where you can have some nice experiences. You go for the bliss and the white light and all that. But you're not doing anything to change your character, your underlying structures of beliefs and thoughts and biases, right? I had a meditation teacher who told me, ‘Mark,’ he wasn't talking to me, he was talking about meditation. He said, ‘If you're an asshole, and you start meditating, and you meditate for 20 years, you don't do anything about that, you’re just gonna be a more focused asshole.’ Lisa: There’s just more asshole-ness. Oh no. Mark: Right? So you want to get this right. Meditation can be transformative at all levels, but you got to do it, right. It's just like learning foot placement and proper alignment and structure to run 2,000 kilometers. If you don't, you break. Same thing with meditation. If you go straight into, like Kundalini Yoga, and you think, ‘Oh, that's it, that's my path.’ And you have a Kundalini awakening, and you haven't done the foundational work to integrate that, or to deal with that in your body, then you could go crazy. And there are people around this world who are absolutely batshit crazy, because they had Kundalini awakenings, and they weren't ready to handle it. Lisa: Wow. Okay. So you need to do this— Mark: You need to do this work. This is why the yogis would train for years and years and years, in the asanas, the physical postures, so that when they were ready for that experience of enlightenment, which some some had, and some didn't, and they had that massive, like lightning bolt of electricity just explode up their spine and integrate all their chakras and, and just drawing and all this life force that they were able to handle it.  Lisa: Wow.  Mark: It’s an intense experience. Now that's a little bit advanced training, probably, we don't need to go into much more of that here. But my point is that, take your time, don't be so goal-oriented with meditation. It's okay to be goal-oriented with your athleticism and with your business stuff. But when it comes to raising your kids and the meditation, it's better to be patient, and to be present and just allow the process to unfold because it's going to be a little bit different for everybody, depending upon where you are at psychosocially and physically and emotionally.  One thing I do want— so one thing I just want to finish up this part. So you have the first part, which is the de-stressing the routes of control where you're just breathing for that. Then the second part where you're breathing for concentration, power, and attention control. The third part, which you alluded to, that opens up naturally, is you start to take a little bit of the pressure off of the concentration training, and you allow any thoughts streams to arise. Where concentration training, you're trying to like— you're not trying to empty your mind of all thoughts, because you're thinking of one thing, and that is the concentration, you know, the object of concentration. And so you're putting a lot of effort into that, mental effort, which develops mental power. But eventually, you've got enough of that. And so you, you take off the gas a little bit, and you allow less energy to put it— be put into the concentration and allow other things to arise.  This is where you get that metacognitive split, which is interesting. So now it's almost like your brain has been partitioned into two hard drives. And one hard drive is your right brain and right hemisphere, which is fully online and aware now, because of the concentration. It’s not all subconscious, it's aware, say able to see context. And the second partition is the left hemisphere of your brain, which is the content, thinking. And so your box breathing softly, just, mindfully, this being aware, and you're seeing what's coming up. But you're seeing it from a perspective that's separated from the thoughts and emotions. This is a sea change in behavior. It's awakening to this understanding that you are not your thoughts and emotions. And therefore you're not the stories and you can change your stories, you can change your life by inserting new stories. Lisa: So you're observing yourself from the outside as an extra character that's watching the emotions and the things that you're off and understanding the actual brain that's been partly programmed in childhood and our culture and everything that it's exposed to, which is running this pattern that's been running forever. And you're actually watching and saying, ‘Well, that's interesting.’ Mark: I do that in the observer. Yeah. I call that the witness. Lisa: Yeah. Mark: So then, there's two more things we do in meditation. So once you begin to open up to the witness, the most powerful way to visualise is from the witness perspective, because you're doing it from your higher self, you're visualising your future from that perspective. It's just, a lot of people start training, they start with visualisation, and they're like, I can't get a clear picture of my future. And they're really hooked to their thinking mind and they're thinking about doing in the future. When you can decouple from the thinking mind and look into the future from the perspective of your witness, you're basically seeing what your spirit wants you to see. And so that's going to be much more in alignment, if not in total alignment with what your real purpose is on this planet. And you're not seeing yourself doing, you're seeing yourself as a type of person, like an archetype or calling. Seeing yourself as a healer, as a teacher, as a warrior, as a leader, as a— and then that's gonna have a certain flavor to it, like a healer might be a healer of the earth, or it might be healer of children, or it might be healer of elderly, right, so it's gonna have a flavor to it, that's going to come to you spontaneously.  That's where intuition comes from. It's like this deep knowingness inside, or transrational, from outside of us, which really isn't, nothing outside of us. Ultimately, we create our own reality. It's all basically, it's all experienced with mind. So that's powerful. So witnessing can lead to the most incredible thing, which is, like embodied visualisation, where you're visualising from the perspective of the witness, and you are seeing your future clearly. And you practice that every day. And then that creates this massive magnetic pole. Because you're actually creating a memory of a future that is bound to happen, right? You know, we have these different kind of futures strands, which are possibilities, but we get to choose which one now, that's going to become the go from possibility to probability to destiny.  Lisa: Wow. Mark: That's profound. And then the last thing that happens is, when you stop doing anything at all, and this happened to me on the on zen bench when I was in my 20s. Now it's routine, where you know, you can start breathing, for control, and then you breathe for concentration, then you open up to the mindful awareness, and you see what's going on and check in and make sure that everything's cool. And then you do your visualisation, and then you just stop efforting at all, you just stop trying to do anything, and you just sit and rest and let your mind rest. You're not going to sleep. But what you're doing is kind of turning inward and just letting awareness kind of search for itself. So awareness, your awareness is searching for, let's just say, absolute awareness, is trying to recognise itself in the totality of everything. And it will find itself because it is the same as that.  This is when you get this incredibly, deeply connected feeling to all that is, right? This is where you know, the ultimate road to the end of separation is this sense, this unity we experience.We're super easily connected. We all arise on same thing. Our higher selves all arise from the same thing, we have our unique aspects of it. But the metaphor is that I love to use is, you know, we recognise that we're all like waves in the ocean. But we're still all, we all have the same awareness and we're connected to the ocean.  Lisa: If we were part of the ocean, vessel in the ocean. Mark: This is another transformative experience in meditators’ progression and evolution is that they then never, never do go back to feeling separate again. You may have moments but you remember, ‘Oh, yeah, this is just a temporary experience of separation. So let me go back and continue my training.’ And then the training starts to become integrated into your daily life, and then every moment becomes training, and then you've— that turns into a permanent state of unity experience. And that's, that would be called enlightenment.  Lisa: Wow. And this is like the whole body things, it's not just training your body because everyone wants to know, ‘What diet should I have and what exercise should I be doing?’ We’re forgetting this big piece of the puzzle that we're not just physical beings, and that we can access our neurology, through our physiology, and we can access also higher, higher things if we take the time. It was a hard sell for me, like I said. I struggled because I just wanted to be doing. I'm an action-oriented person, I want to be doing things and to actually take that time and it's not a waste of time, even though you know when people say to me, ‘But I haven't got time to meditate.’ Well then, you need to make time to do all this stuff. Because— and you start off you don't start off eight hours a day up in the mountains. You gotta progress. Mark: You’re not sure you might want to do that. That's—  Lisa: Really great. There was one other thing that you discussed too, with Bedros that really interested me, which was recapitulation. Can you explain what recapitulation is and how that works? Mark: I will. And before I do, I would like to just say that as an athlete, I imagine most people listening are athletes, we have a great opportunity and also great responsibility. Because most of the people, at least in the past who have been drawn to meditation don't have the physical strength or capacity that we have. And so you end up seeing you know, this might be one thing that has turned off a lot of people, you know, healthy people fit people, is there— that Buddhist monk is fat, right?  Lisa: He doesn't look like I want to look like. Mark: Right. I don't want to look like that, or I don't want to wear a robe, check out a society and sit in a monastery woods. And yeah, yeah, and I— so those, you got to recognise that like zen monasteries, I've been to zen monastery before, and it's just not my thing. And people who are drawn to spiritual traditions, but ignore their body, and ignore their emotions, they're incomplete. They might have some advanced mental training, but they're incomplete. The physical structure— and a lot of these people fall, right, they fail in the long run, because they still get stuck in their ego, or they get really unhealthy and they fall apart. So athletes can approach this from the perspective of total health, right? Body, mind, spirit, and we say physical, mental, emotional, intuitional, and spiritual. And it's going to be a more complete process, or package. And furthermore, you're going to be able to help others because you're going to be really healthy and really strong, really motivated. And you're gonna have a lot of endurance. Yeah, and you're gonna happen, you're gonna be whole. So I think it's athletes and warriors who also become enlightened or awakened, who are serving the world, who are— who can change the world.  Lisa: Yeah. Mark: Together, right, because we got the strength and the staying power. And also, because we're— you know, we have to face our fears and our shadows, because we do hard things, we tend to actually be more emotionally balanced than people who don't. So that's— I wanted to say, that's a really— that should be a motivating force. Lisa: I mean, that's, you know, like, you know, we’ve sort of come full circle in this holistic approach, rather than a hit through the wall approach. Which, you know, in the gym, or in the training field, you have to go sometimes to, through to places that are not pleasant. But you don't need to neglect this other part of you, and that that's your whole and it's not contradictory, because a lot of people think, you know, ‘Mark Divine, what's he about, man? Is he this hard ass athlete? Or is he this amazing spiritual teacher?’ And he, well he's both, you know, and— Mark:  I’ve done my three hours of training this morning.  Lisa: I haven't. Mark: Today was deadlifts in a nice functional lot and my yoga and meditation all together. It's all one thing. Back to your question. So imagery and visualisation is just such an incredible powerful tool for us to create our destiny, which I've already talked about, but also to heal our past. So recapitulating is where we use imagery, ideally, also, from the state of the witness, right? When we get there, to go back into our past and to relive, re-experience and relive traumatic events. And then to recontextualise them and to forgive both from your heart and from your dialogue, conceptual stuff, but also with the imagery to see yourself forgiving your younger version of yourself.  And then to change that picture, to change the image that you associated with it, and the energy associated with it. This is often best done with a qualified coach or like therapist, in the process of like EMDR, eye motion desensitisation training. It’s really valuable, and that's something I do all the time. I have an EMDR coach, and I continue to do this because there's no there there, right? You can peel the onion forever. And then many, many past lives, right work on the past life, right? There's no end to this stuff, right? Once you get into it, you realise that this is a lifetime of work. And the more you do, the lighter you feel, and the more energy you have, and the more joy and bliss you bring into life. I like, I call it akin to like dragging kettlebells of regret and resentment. Lisa: I love that quote, because you're draining all that, like what I've felt in the last years, like I'm pulling this heavy load of shit that's accumulated from all the traumas and all the shit. And so I've been working with Dr Don Wood, I know he's been on your show, working through some of the traumas and taking the colour out of those memories and recapitulation or what— Mark: What Dan is doing is recapitulation, it’s a form of it. Lisa: It’s the same thing. Mark: It's the same thing: to change the association, the energy, the emotions, and the imagery with past traumatic events. First, you have to identify those events, right? So awareness is the first step. I learned to recapitulation, I've done thousands of hours of training in different systems, not just Navy SEALs, but obviously yoga and Tibetan Buddhism and martial arts, tai chi, qi gong, and now aikido and my earlier stuff, and then even a patchy scout training and some Toltec training. Toltec training, they're— the ancient warriors. required the young men— I don't know if I don't think the women in ancient times— and the Toltecs were warriors, but the men. By the way, I only say that because of all the culture weirdness is going on in America anyways. Yeah. Lisa: You got to be careful what you say. Mark: I don't want to get canceled. Lisa: Google might take us off here. Mark: Right, exactly. So they require the young men, before they were allowed to become warriors, to spend a year in nature. Now that's, people heard of that, right? You can take your year walkabout and assuming you survive. But what they had to do during that year was what was unique. They had to recapitulate their entire lives, day by day, all the way back to birth.  Lisa: Wow. It’s heavy. Mark: It's heavy. So this did a couple of things for them. One is it really developed their visualisation skills.  Lisa: Yeah.  Mark: Which then they were going to use for great benefit for their future, but they had to learn, you know, first, to work with their past and secondarily, let them see and recontextualise and heal any regrets or any wounds or any trauma that they had, or any mistakes that they made. So that when they were admitted to the warrior clan, and they actually had to face battle, they didn't have any of that energy holding them back. Lisa: That's so— Mark: If you think about anyone listening or even you, if you walk outside right now, and someone's standing there with a sword, first thing that’s gonna leap into your mind and your heart is like, ‘Holy shit. I don't know if I can do this.’ Or there's energy there that is going to prevent you from acting in a powerful way. Well, recapitulation and clearing all the energy will clear all that up, and you would just literally spring into action.  Lisa: Wow, so you wouldn't have that? Mark:  You wouldn’t have that, you even overcome fear of death. Lisa: Yeah. Wow. You haven't got that heavy backpack of shit.  Mark: Right. Exactly. I love that metaphor. We use that in our Kokoro camp, which is 50-hour training that we have for SEALFIT, which, at once, in one sense, simulates Hell Week. But in other it’s really designed to train these five mountains of the physical, mental, emotional, intuitional, and spiritual. We have, the students end up in this very long, painful hike, and they've got these 40-pound sandbags in their back, and they're doing all sorts of drills and skills. At the end of this, we haven't take the sandbag out. You think about their biggest regrets, like the big one. Like everyone's got like one big one. The monster regret. And then we have them cut the sandbag, open, and then they dump that regret out. And it's so powerful, because people are literally in tears as they let that shit go. Lisa: Wow, that is, that's amazing. Because you've literally carried it up this bloody mountain. You've exhausted yourself. You're letting that stuff go. It's absolutely brilliant. And I think, yeah, we need to be doing, and then doing this as a daily practice at the end of the day, going back over your day, so that you’re not taking the shit from this day forward. Mark: Yeah, I'm glad you said that. So that the morning routine is to prepare to win your mind for the day and the evening routine is to look back and make sure that you won the day and you learn from your mistakes, and you let go of all regret. So recapitulation is used in two ways. One is to go back and overcome the big things, the big traumas, like you're doing with Don.  Lisa: Yep.  Mark: And the other is to go back and to literally just make sure that every day that you're not dragging any new kettlebells of regret into your sleep cycle. You deal with it right away. If you did something that you think, ‘Oh, man, I wish I hadn't done that.’ Well, either forgive yourself right away, or go make amends right there if you can. Pick up the phone. Send a text. Do it now. Or plan the critical conversation for the next morning to get it off your chest.  The faster you do, the better off you do. Then this becomes a practice of letting go and having a daily practice of letting go of regrets and resentments is extraordinarily valuable, right? Because then it frees up all the energy before it takes root and starts to create a cancer of energy in your body, or real cancer, literally. Lisa: Yeah. And then we've got much more power to actually do the stuff that we’re meant to be here doing, to create the programs, the books, podcasts, whatever it is that you are in for. You can't when you're carrying this huge great load on your back, yeah, I don't know. My ability when I was in my 30s and I didn't have quite so much crap in there, I was unbeatable. I was like, and then as life keeps slapping you around the face, and you're getting some big traumas happen, you start to lose that energy and you start to like, live. And people go, ‘Oh, well, we’re just getting older, you know, the mitochondria and all that.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, well—’ Mark: This is where people start to give up, right?  Lisa: Yeah!  Mark: And that's, no. It's the time to get busy. Lisa: And the older you are, the more you have to work. That's my mantra because I've brought my mum back from a massive, massive aneurysm, which I've written a book about called Relentless. And this story is really, really powerful. And, but it's about like, she's 79 years old  and I train her like an Olympic athlete. Mark: That’s awesome. Lisa: I make little concessions every now and again, which tells me off, like the other day, she's, she's willing to go through the hard yards to rehabilitate her brain because her brain was in a vegetative state when she first had this. Not much happening upstairs at all. I’ve spent five years rehabilitating her, and spending hundreds and thousands of hours, retraining her from the time of being a baby, but like a being a baby, being an adult, and read the neuroplasticity, and all the things that I had to learn and hyperbaric, and through all the stuff that I did with her.  She hasn't given up. She hasn't ever said to me, ‘I don't want to anymore.’ Because she's a fighter. Even though she's a quiet, lovely lady, and you think well, that she's just a nice, gentle lady, she's tough as nails when it comes to just getting up and doing the work today, at the age of 79. That is a huge role model for other elderly people. Because we tend to— and I really honor our elderly, you know, they're part of my culture, I'm from Maori culture, and we do that quite well. And in normal culture, we seem to tend to think that, you know, older people are no longer worthwhile, and they should, they cost the society and though they're a burden, and they're not. This is where our wisdom and their experience if we can help them be healthy and strong, and my opinion is that they have to have goals, and they have to be working. People always told me, ‘You should make it comfortable. And, you know, hasten her exit of this world.’ And I'm like, ‘Hell no.’  Occasionally, like, the other day, I was pushing down on the back, and she's doing squats, you know, to give her some weight resistance, because I can't put a barbell over here. For once, she comes up and she goes, ‘I want to punch you in the face.’ And I was like, ‘This the first time in years!’ Mark: There’s the fighter! Lisa: She usually just does whatever I ask her to do, but she’d had enough of me that day. But she fights every day, you know, and that those sort of stories are powerful. But you know, you have to, she just gets up and does the work every day. So it's never too late. And we should be honoring our elderly people, we should be giving them goals. I don't care whether you're five or 105, you need to be aiming towards something. When you let go and you be comfortable, and you just get into your comfy world. And this is you know, I'm going to sit back on the couch and watch Netflix and eat chips. Well then you’re on the way down. Mark: You're toast. Yeah, that's why the idea of retirement is such a killer. It's just a horrible deceit. So get rid of that thought, don't ever retire, just change what you do and find something else you'd love to do and keep on setting goals and achieving and growing. Yeah, keep growing.  Lisa: Yeah, that's absolutely true. Mark, you've been absolutely amazing. I want to be respectful of your time, because I could talk to you for hours. Literally, honestly, I'd love to just unpack all this stuff. But you've been absolutely amazing. Now you have a number of books, you have courses online, and then you have live training camps that people can go to, which, I’ll think twice about. I think they’ll be really tough ones. But where can people find you, your books? All of it. Mark: I love your sell there, ‘Think twice about going to his training.’ That's probably a good advice. Well, my personal website is www.markdivine.com. They're just kind of like a catch all, and my podcast can be found there. You can find my podcast at iTunes and all that. And then follow me on Instagram, @realmarkdivine. And books, if you're interested in this training, you know, here's my last like this one, Unbeatable Mind is where it all started. And I'm actually working on the fourth edition, my pandemic edition will be out in September. Staring Down the Wolf is came out last year, right before the pandemic. This is about emotionally powerful leadership. And then The Way of the SEAL is really like how to think and lead like in the lead warrior, like how to get shit done. And there's some really good stuff in all these books, and they're all, there's a little overlap, but they're all very, very different. Lisa: That actually, just before we do wrap up. That leadership piece of the puzzle, I have to ask this, because my husband's a firefighter and he's leading teams and so on. How do you get— if I can just ask for a couple of quick tips on the leadership stuff because it's probably another bloody hour. But how can you be a good leader? How can you get people who are disengaged back into the game, into the team, being part of a team? Mark: You know, that's a really good question. Lisa: Yeah, I’m sorry I only thought of it now. Mark: The first thing to do as a leader is to show up as the best version of yourself: humble, authentic, trustworthy, courageous, and respectful. To develop those qualities takes some time, and you got to work on that. And you got to work on it with the team, in front of the team, and not hide it from the team. And not pretend to be perfect, not pretend you have all the answers. So most leaders are, in their own way, in terms of being able to unlock the power of their team, because they don't, the team doesn't trust them, because they don't know they're wearing a mask. So take the mask off, develop your whole self as a leader.  Then what we like to do in our company, Unbeatable, is we like to develop leaders. We like to create teams within the companies that we work with, for the sole purpose of development, which is really cool. We call them boat crews. So imagine you're in a company or a fire department, and you're in a boat crew with guys that are working on becoming better versions of themselves. You’re working on things like we've been talking about. That ends up developing incredible trust and motivation. Because now everyone's— they're taking the mask off together, and they're holding each other accountable to be better people. And then they go out and fight a fire together. That's simple things, it's like box breathing with your team. It’s very intimate, and it creates this incredible resonance and trust with people.  You start to recognise, like we were saying earlier, that we're not separate. One of the best ways to be motivated, to help someone who's unmotivated get motivated, help them in separation themselves to feel connected. Lisa: Yep. And how do they get him to take that mask off and let you know, because you said once somewhere, that leaders are also followers, and that when you're— like the team is the new way of the future. The team is the new leader, and leader follower? Mark: The way we do it, is to put everyone together into a crucible experience, into some experience where they literally cannot solve the challenges alone. This is why we do these events that we have, they’re not all hard. The SEAL events, the SEALFIT events are ridiculously hard, and they’re for people like you. In SpecOps candidates for FCS or SEALs or Green Berets, whatever. But with Unbeatable Mind, my company, I'm doing mine, which is the same behind me. We do this with corporate clients. And we have 50 year old women who are out of shape and they're like, ‘Aah!’ But we don't beat ‘em up like Navy SEAL training, we just get everyone uncomfortable together. This will be like doing yoga and breathwork and ice baths, and integrated training. We teach them a lot of the skills of Unbeatable, all the skills of Unbeatable Mind.  We have them do it together as a team, we have them hold each other accountable, we have them really open up and develop more of that vulnerability. It's really uncomfortable for a lot of people. We did an event last week where two of the individuals hadn't even spoken to each other in over a year. By the end of the event, they were hugging. They were like, ‘Wow. I'm sorry that I treated you like that, and I projected all that on you.’ It really helps— we start all of our training events with corporate teams, or organisation teams, or even athletic teams with a three-day or two-and-a-half to three-day event like this, which is very, very dynamic, very integrated, it’s not all— it's only a little bit of physical training. But it's definitely there, right? They're learning all these skills, all five mountains, they're doing physical, mental, emotional, intuitional, and spiritual development as a team. After that, we work with them for a minimum of four to six months in a boat crew, in a small team setting with a certified coach. The combination of those two is just transformative, because then they're practising all the skills we talked about both individually, but all the team and they're being held accountable. They're doing challenges together, they're having really authentic communications together and they're working on emotional things, are working on their mental strength and physical strength and setting goals. It's really, really powerful.  Lisa: It must completely change corporations when you do that in teams— Mark: Yeah, it can be. Lisa: Because we will go to— a lot of people go to work and they have this professional persona that they put on and they're all doing their interactions with this. And then they go home and— Mark: They take the mask off and pick up the beer or the wine. Lisa: Yeah, because of the frustration and, ‘Oh my God, I'm not coping.’ And if we can, I often get, I know we have to wrap it up. But if we can, you know, like, just be real with each other. We're human beings. We do not have to go around like the Queen of England and observe all these protocols and stuff and be professional. Can’t we just be us, you know? Mark: People are craving leaders who are real.  Lisa: Yeah.  Mark: And that's what we need. And that's what we need to work on. Just doing the work that we talked about today brings it right, it brings that reality back. Because you're discovering the truth of your own nature. And then as a leader, you just want to bring that to your team. First is how you show up. And then by starting to introduce these ideas, and then by starting to train together, and eventually, I think, where the world will change is when, when we all start changing yourselves. But then, we then— each organisation becomes a change agent internally, meaning you're changing the people, you're not trying to have a bunch of jerks, trying to change the world through donating to some social cause, or demanding some social cause on social media. You're all changing. The organisation is changing, because you've got the practices, you're practising breathing and mindfulness and authentic communications and compassion within the workforce. And then that shows up in how you interact with your customers and how you interact with the environment, etcetera. Lisa: It just covers that whole area in this theme of leaders-followers and having that change around. Just because you're the one that's got the officer or whatever on your shoulders, it doesn't mean that you are always in the lead role. Sometimes you can be in the follower, if you've got that and having been comfortable with that.  Mark: That's right.  Lisa: I think that this is a good place to wrap it up. Mark, you've been absolutely wonderful today. Thank you so much. So unbeatablemind.com. The three books, The Way of the SEAL Unbeatable Mind, and what was the other one again? Mark: Staring Down the Wolf. And I’m going to say, we have this amazing entry course that we created this year. It's a 30-day challenge course, where it's a 15 minutes training day. I have a video training, and then there's a little journaling. And it can be found at www.unbeatablemind.com/challenge.  Lisa: Wow. And we can do this online. Mark: You can do it all online. I’ll email you. And people love it. And it's a great way to learn box breathing and visualisation and micro goals and a lot of things we talked about. It's super cheap. Like it's ridiculously cheap.  Lisa: It sounds a good—  Mark: $99 or something like that. So check it out. Lisa: That sounds like a really good place for people who, you know, stuck in New Zealand can't fly to America together. Mark: That's right. Yeah.  Lisa: Or something. Right. Which I'd love to. Mark Divine, you've been amazing. You're just incredible, man. And I thank you so much for your time today. That's it this week for Pushing the Limits. Be sure to rate, review and share with your friends, and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com. The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

When your loved one has a serious illness, the world feels a bit darker. But you shouldn’t lose hope. In this episode, I talk to Cushla Young, my lifelong friend and the co-author of Relentless. This book recounts my mother’s road to recovery despite seemingly insurmountable odds. Cushla and I talk about the challenges my family and I face to cope with my mum’s sudden illness. You’ll also hear a little from my mum and her experiences through this ordeal. Our circumstances didn't stop me from being relentless. My goal was for my mum to recover, despite the experts saying otherwise. I wanted to extend my mother's lifespan and give her the best quality of life I can. Throughout my mother's treatment and rehabilitation, I had to step up and take control. I managed to compartmentalise things before they got out of hand.  If you want to learn about my relentless effort to defy the odds, this episode is for you. You will gain insights into how I challenged myself to keep my family together in a time of crisis.    Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health program all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year’s time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, your goals and your lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity or are wanting to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within 3 years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa’s Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, a NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that is capable of boosting the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements that are of highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust — NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combat the effects of aging, while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection ‘Fierce’, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Discover my relentless journey of helping my mother recover from aneurysm. Learn important lessons about the value of health and extending your loved ones’ lifespan. Gain insights from how I maintained my composure and became the backbone of my family in these difficult times.   Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron!  Relentless: How a mother and daughter defied the odds Listen to other Pushing the Limits Episodes: #71: Cushla Young- Seizing the Day in Paradise #183: Sirtuins and NAD Supplements for Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova #189: Understanding Autophagy and Increasing Your Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova   Episode Highlights [04:43] Cushla’s Interview with Lisa’s Mum, Isobel As an educator, Isobel shares that she felt terrible when the doctors told her about what she can't do after the aneurysm. Getting a driver’s license boosted Isobel’s confidence. Isobel advises people who are going through a rough time to hang in there and continue to fight. To maintain her health, Isobel is currently going to the gym, taking yoga, undergoing hyperbaric treatment and attending art classes. She feels amazing about herself. [14:04] How an Aneurysm Affected Isobel and the Family After the aneurysm, Isobel went from an active individual to someone who couldn’t function. Lisa shares some medical mishaps on the day her mum was rushed to the hospital. These mishaps caused delays in Isobel’s surgery. It took 18 hours for Isobel to be taken into surgery because she had to be airlifted to another hospital. The fear of death coming to her mum was a big wake up call for Lisa. [20:03] Lisa’s Relentless Fight for Her Mum’s Life In the initial phases, Lisa was in shock and was extremely terrified. After processing the situation, she was in a ‘mission mode’. Lisa’s father came up to her, saying that they needed to plan the funeral despite Isobel still being alive. When people are in crisis, you need to take control and give them jobs, so they don't panic. Over the next few weeks, Lisa was relentless in organising her family and the logistics surrounding her mum’s medical needs. [26:14] Sustaining Herself Throughout This Journey Lisa shares her experience crossing the Libyan desert with an abusive boyfriend. During that extreme situation, she learned to compartmentalise. She will fall apart, but not right now when there’s something that needs to be done. Lisa and her family had to stay with Isobel in the hospital around the clock for she could go any moment. Lisa also had to learn a lot about aneurysms, medicine and rehabilitation.  Amidst all this, Lisa’s dad experienced heart problems, so he had to go home. [32:17] The Importance of Self-Care Lisa knows the value of exercise and having fresh air from time to time.  She made sure to take at least half an hour to an hour for herself. When you’re in stressful situations, you tend to put self-care aside. However, it’s vital to have systems in place to manage the stress so that you’re prepared to continue fighting. [35:02] Lisa’s Family Lisa’s brothers were very supportive throughout the whole process. Lisa’s family trusted her and what she told them to do. Her father also stepped up to help. He was relentless in caring for and supporting his wife’s recovery. [38:25] Coming Home from Wellington after the Surgery Lisa was happy that her mother was stable. But she is also worried during the flight because any dropping of pressure could cause Isobel’s death. Lisa sneaked into the hospital to have a friend check her mother for sleep apnea. And the results confirmed her suspicions. She had to convince the medical staff to provide her mother with a C-pap machine. Her mother could breathe properly with the machine. [44:43] Moving Lisa’s Ageing Mother Lisa shared how they came up against people who insisted on having her mother placed in a facility. A social worker was against them having a caregiver. Lisa shares that she had to fight for the resources she wanted for her mother. [46:08] Caring for Isobel at Home Lisa and her family were willing and able to care for Isobel in the comforts of their home. A social worker told her that they wouldn't be able to care for her mother adequately. But Lisa remained relentless in the face of all these judgements. She and her family wouldn’t go down without a fight. [50:57] The Importance of Mindset Professionals show you statistics based on their knowledge and experience. Don't discount their expertise, but don't lose hope. How you approach things is critical. You have the power to control your health and well-being. Lisa brings her mum to the gym daily for this reason. Lisa wants Isobel surrounded by athletes pushing their limits. If you want to stay alive, you need to work hard to keep fit and healthy. [1:00:28] Living and Lasting Longer Living a relentless life means taking lots of small steps and letting them accumulate.  By being relentless, you’ll find more fulfilment and last longer.  Lisa shares that she wants to push degeneration out for as long as possible. There’s a lot of research now that helps you live longer and better. Don’t feel guilty for investing in your health.  If you want to learn more about how Lisa takes care of her body and her family, tune in to the full episode. 7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode ‘She was really the rock of my world. And then that turned upside down very much overnight. And you go from being this adult kid to complete role reversal where you're now having to do everything for your mum.’ ‘We need to set up systems and processes and understand our own bodies and how our bodies work so that we can manage the stress levels.’ ‘What I want people to understand is you have to fight for the resources that you want for your loved one.’ ‘I'm only ever going to listen to the ones that tell me I can do, not the ones that I tell me I can't do. They may be right. I'm not saying they're not right, but I'm gonna throw the book at this. I'm gonna do whatever it takes.’ ‘They're (professionals) making educated guesses, based on the statistics of the past whatever and their experiences. And I get that. And we can't give people false hope. But we've also can't take away all hope.’   ‘The older you get, the more effort you have to put into [working hard] if you want to stay alive... If you still want to be alive and enjoy life, then you have to fight for it.’ ‘If you have some self-care and take those small steps, whatever that may look like for you at the time of your life, then you are living a life that is relentless.’   About Cushla Cushla Young is a life-long friend of Lisa. They met in a running retreat they both participated in 7 to 8 years ago. She is also the co-author of Lisa’s book, Relentless: How a mother and daughter defied the odds. Cushla is a teacher at the St. John Bosco School, New Plymouth. She is also a Trustee and Educational Coordinator at the Taranaki Gifted Community Trust. Having an interest in gifted education, Cushla provides intellectual and creative ways to support students with advanced and complex learning skills. The other things Cushla is passionate about are digital technology, literacy and pedagogy. Cushla currently lives in New Zealand with her family. If you want to reach out to Cushla, you can find her on Twitter.    Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can find comfort and hope in fighting for their loved ones’ lives. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Full Transcript Of The Podcast Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential. With your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com. Lisa Tamati: Hey everyone. And before we get on the way with the show today, I just want to remind you to check out all our great programs that we have. We have our www.runninghotcoaching.com, where you can find out all about our online run training system, we get video analysis, your customised personalised plan made specifically for you, and ongoing support and help and education around everything running. So check that out at runninghotcoaching.com.  We also have our flagship epigenetics program, which is all about optimising your genetics and making the best out of them and how to do that. Understanding what your genes are all about and how to get the right food, the right exercise, the right timings for everything. Understanding every aspect of your life, your place, your career, your social environment, all of these things, your predispositions and much more. So check that out. Go to lisatamati.com and hit the work with us button and you'll see our Peak Epigenetics program right there. Also a reminder to check out the longevity and anti-ageing supplement that I am now importing into New Zealand and Australia in conjunction with Dr Elena Seranova, a molecular biologist who is behind this product. Now this is all about the sirtuin genes basically, which are all your longevity genes. Now NMN is a precursor to something called NAD, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. And this is an absolutely essential compound for every in every single molecule— every single cell, I should say, of your body. It's very important in regards to ATP production, and in regards to metabolic health, in regards to autophagy, in regards to sirtuin genes and upregulating those. Make sure you check out the episodes that I did with Dr. Elena Seranova and head on over to www.nmnbio.nz if you want to find more about the science of that, and why I am super excited about this product, this longevity and anti ageing product, NMN.  Right. Now, today I have something very, very different. I've turned the tables on myself and I have a very dear friend interviewing me about our book that we wrote together. Cushla Young, she's a, got a master's in English and she is the person who helped me rescue my book when I had a hell of a mess, basically. So I hope you're gonna enjoy this interview. This is all about my mum's story. It's about mindset. It's about going up against all the odds, it's about going against the establishment. So it's a lot of things we cover in this interview. So you're also going to hear from my very special mummy. She's going to come to work and tell us a little bit before she heads off on her coffee date. So now over to the show with Cushla Young and Isobel.  Well hi, everybody. Welcome to Pushing the Limits. Today I am doing something very unusual. And so hi everybody in YouTube land who's listening to this as well. I want to introduce my best friend, Cushla Young. Cushla, welcome to the show.  Cushla Young: Thank you. Lisa: For starters. Now I'll give you guys a bit of background. Cushla and I have been friends for now, a decade or so. Cushla is the lady that helped me write this book. Without her it would not exist. It wouldn’t have come out before Cushla came along. The book is Relentless: How A Mother and Daughter Defied the Odds. It's my latest book, and Cushla is the magic behind that book. What we're going to be doing today is talking about what the book is about, which is the story of bringing my mum back from a mess of aneurysm, major brain damage at the age of 74, when it was against all the odds, when the medical professionals were telling me the brain damage is so bad that she's never going to recover.  Being an athlete I went, ‘No that's not happening, and we'll find a way.’ This is going to be all about that story. Now I'm going to hand over the reins to Krishna to actually interview me, but I've actually got a very, very special guest sitting here next to me, who is the actual star of the show. And so Cushla is going to, she's going to take off for a coffee date. So I'll have to let her come to work first. So I'm going to pass you over to my very special mummy. There she is, Isobel. And she's gonna talk to Cushla for a second so I'll just pass over the headphones. Cushla: Hand over the reins. Lisa: You’re on, Isobel.  Isobel: Okay. Cushla: Hi Isobel, morning.  Isobel: Good morning, Cushla. How are you?  Cushla: Taking off for a coffee date soon, are you? Isobel: Yes.  Cushla: So you are a guest of honor for a few minutes on this podcast. This is, I'm going to be a little bit different because I get to interview your daughter rather than her interview others today. Isobel: That's good. Cushla: So, but we'll start with you. So you have been on one heck of a journey over the last few years. Isobel: I sure have.  Cushla: So how can we start with how you're feeling now?  Isobel: I'm feeling good.  Cushla: You're looking great.  Isobel: I can go for a coffee and I can go walking on my own. And I can do almost anything.  Cushla: When Isobel left my house after a lovely glass of wine the other day, you didn't have one, but Lisa did. You drove, didn’t you? You drove her home? Isobel: I did. Yes. I can drive now. That's good. Especially if Lisa’s having a wine. Cushla: You get to be a mum.  Isobel: I do, I get, revert back to being mum. Yeah.  Cushla: Yeah, and that must have given you a lot of independence that you have lost for quite a few years.  Isobel: Yes. It’s awesome. You don't realise how isolated people are. They haven't got— We all have a way of getting around here. It’s isolating. Yeah.  Cushla: And can you tell us a bit about what you have been getting up to? I understand you've been doing some art classes with your sister. How's that going?  Isobel: Not as well as I would like to but it's, we're doing all right, you know?  Cushla: Yeah.  Isobel: I'd like the results to be a bit more spectacular. But—  Cushla: It must be nice to be creative.  Isobel: Oh it is. It’s good, it does me good.  Cushla: Now, do you have much of a memory of the hospital time?  Isobel: No. Cushla: No. What's your first memory that you can recall?  Isobel: Probably where we went to a meeting with all the big guns— Lisa: At the hospital.  Isobel: At the hospital, and they wrote me off, really. Cushla: Did they? They underestimated you as well.  Isobel: I can remember saying— Lisa: I was feeling good. I was feeling good. Isobel: I was, I was feeling fine before this. Now. I'm feeling terrible. I have been demoted, I've been, lost my independence. Just because they were talking like they were, they shouldn't have done that.  Lisa: They took away all your confidence. And— Isobel: Yeah, they just. Cushla: And so your background is similar to mine. You're an educator.  Isobel: Yeah.  Cushla: Have been for decades and decades. You must understand how demotivating it is when somebody tells you what you can't do rather than what you can do. Isobel: Yeah, that’s it exactly.  Cushla: So when did it change for you after that meeting? What were some of the first things that happened that gave you a bit more confidence? Lisa: Driving?  Isobel: Getting on a driver's license probably was a major breakthrough. Lisa took me down to the dam by the port and just— Lisa: It’s been months. Isobel: Happier— Cushla: Round and round you. Isobel: You will, ‘now you drive.’ I was totally gobsmacked. Cushla: But you did it.  Isobel: I did it.  Cushla: And I understand the doctor was utterly shocked—  Isobel: He was.  Cushla: —when you went in to get your medical for your license.  Isobel: Totally blown away. Cushla: Yeah.  Isobel: That was a blow away.  Cushla: It had probably been a while since the doctor had responded that way.  Isobel: Yeah, I think so. He was a nice doctor. So that was good. Cushla: So could you give some advice to someone who might be going through something pretty tough at the moment. What would you say to them?  Isobel: Just hang in there and— Lisa: Fight. Isobel: Fight hard. Yeah. Yeah. You've got to grit your teeth and just carry on, really. Yeah. Cushla: You're one tough lady, aren’t you?  Isobel: I must be.  Cushla: Definitely.  Isobel: So that's what we did.  Cushla: Can you describe some of the routines of things that you do at the moment that keep you in such good health? Isobel: I go to the gym most days.  Lisa: Do weight training, cardio. Isobel: I do weights, I do cardio, I do walking on the treadmill, yoga. Cushla: And you still do your hyperbaric as well?  Isobel: Yes, every day at the moment. Cushla: Everyday? Wonderful. Still eat the smoothies that Lisa makes you in the mornings? Isobel: They’re pretty terrible.  Cushla: But they’re good for you, right?  Isobel: But they are good for me. Broccoli is not exciting, and it’s sickening. Cushla: What we've noticed is, about over even the last six months, is how fit and agile and glowing that you are. That's amazing.  Isobel: It is amazing. It's amazing that you said that. I don't always feel it.  Cushla: Right.  Isobel: It's hard to know where you're at, so.  Cushla: Yeah, I think sometimes what you see is yourself reflected in others’ eyes, and that's a really good indication of how far you've come.  Isobel: Yeah, and I have come a long way.  Cushla: Really. Isobel: Yeah, a really long way. Lisa: A bloody long way. All right, now you can go get coffee. Isobel: I’ll pass you back to Lisa— Lisa: —and get yourself a coffee date. Cushla: Enjoy! Isobel: I will. Lisa: Thanks, Mummy.  Isobel: Okay.  Lisa: She’s an absolute legend. Thanks, you have a nice coffee. We're now actually going to get into her backstory. Because, I would have done it the other way around and had her at the end of the show. But she needed to get to a coffee date. So she’s just rolling. Yeah, we're rolling with the punches.  But Cushla, this— can you, I'm gonna pass the reins over to you fully. Because you know the story, you lived it with me, you helped me from the get-go pretty much. So over to you. Oh now I’m an interviewee. Cushla: Got you. We're flipping the tables, aren’t we? Lisa: Yeah, we sure are. Cushla: To be interviewed for once, which is fabulous. So this has been a long journey for you and your mum and your family, and you're right. I was, I had known you for a few years before this happened. I think from my perspective, the thing that was so shocking about what originally, with the aneurysm, with your mum, was just how quick things changed overnight. I think we see Isobel now and— how old is mum?  Lisa: She’s 79.  Cushla: 79. So we're going back quite a few years, and I used to often pop into the shop and see your mum, and just pop in and say hello. And she is now but she also was been a very intelligent, clear spoken woman that used to do acro-aerobics all the time, she was very fit and healthy, very independent, working still pretty much full-time. Lisa: Yeah, she was. Cushla: For somebody watching, to see overnight that she went from that, from a completely functioning full-time working adult, to just being, nothing was there. Overnight, the aneurysm took her from being completely functional to nothing. I think the shock in that first visit and I saw her quite a few weeks after the aneurysm, and you’re back up to New Plymouth. You'd been in Wellington. The shock of seeing her lying there, she had aged a decade overnight.  Lisa: Yeah.  Cushla: It’s hard. Hard to see. I think the shock of that must’ve ripped through your family quite viciously. You notice that change overnight. Lisa: It was huge. Yeah, to have growing up with mum being always the one supporting me. And the one that was there for me in all the phases of my crazy, upside down life that I've had, you know, with all my adventures supporting me with all lower— dramas and relationship breakups and divorces and business growing.  Cushla: Rooting for you at most of your races. Lisa: Oh, yes. Yeah. She’d seen, been there, done that with me, I can tell you that she had a hard life with me. She had a good life, she had exciting times with me. She was really the rock of my world. And then that turned upside down very much overnight. And, you know, you go from being this adult kid to a complete role reversal, where you're now you know, having to do everything for your mum, you are advocating, you're fighting, you grow up really quickly, even as a fully-grown adult. Obviously, I still am very much, when you've got a parent, you’re still like a kid in a way to them. That is that was a biggest shocker for me I think was to be, no, now you are the one that's caring for your mum, and you are going to have to pull out all the stops to help her and it’s you know, no longer about you being the selfish egotistical athlete, and there's nothing wrong with it, if you’re an athlete, you have to be if you want to reach, know, do the stuff that I did. But that was a shocker. And then not, like the— we had medical research mishaps from the very get-go when mum had this aneurysm that happened early in the morning. And an ambulance driver came into the house, you know, they got her into the ambulance up to the hospital, he knew already that she was having a neurological event. And he told the doctor so much, and he just ignored it. He ignored it.  He said, ‘No, she's having a migraine, I think. So we'll just leave it for a few hours and observe her and give her some painkillers.’ Well, you know, ‘Thanks very much for that.’ The first six hours not knowing, and she was dying, basically. She was dying. And I knew she was in deep trouble. And I didn't know what to do. Because at that point in my life, I had no idea of anything like this. So I was never, you know, in a situation like this, I didn't know what was wrong with her. But I knew we were in trouble. And that was a very big wake up call. I actually got our mutual friend, Megan Stewart, who's a paramedic here and the head of the ambulance here. And she came up to the hospital at that time. She sort of rattled some bloody cages very quickly. And because she knew immediately what was happening, stroke or aneurysm or something neurological, migraines. She went and told this doctor what for. He then relented, and we got a CT scan. And that's when we saw the blood right throughout the brain. So that was a very big wake up call for me in a number of ways. Obviously, the shock of it happening to your mum, the fear of her dying, she's being very, very, very close to death at this point. And then realising that, you know, the medical system had not worked for us. And I'm not— you know, we're all human, and we all make mistakes and stuff. But that was a pretty big one. That was a pretty big one. Cushla: I think, in those situations, we want to trust the people that are— the medical professionals that are around us. For the most part in ED, they're an amazing group of people. But I think also there is a lot to be said for your mum. You knew what a migraine looked like, you should have before. And it's a matter of trusting yourself, isn't it, enough to then think, this isn't to your question what you’re saying, and then fight as hard as you can for a different outcome. Because my understanding about aneurysm is there's a golden hour, or it's really important to be treated.  Lisa: Exactly.  Cushla: A short time.  Lisa: Surgery, that's the golden hour, they talk about getting you into surgery within the hour. It took 18 hours. 18 hours, because not only do we have the medical mishap and we also had the fact that we had to get to our Main Hospital down in Wellington, neurological. Living in a regional area, unfortunately, that's just the way it is. But we had to wait another 12 hours for the air ambulance to actually get to us, and when you're over 65, you’re sort of bumped down the hierarchy, especially if you— if they don't think you're a good, you got good odds. So, you know, we— there were, at that time we had a baby that needed help, and that was more urgent than mum. They have to make those calls. I understand. I don't like it; I understand it. It’s your loved one and you don't really give up. Cushla: Not at the time because you're also going through the shock of what's happening and trying to process that. In that moment, can you describe, I suppose I want to focus a little bit on what was happening to you and your body. Because I think the thing about this really, this story is that it's not just about a mum surviving an aneurysm, but it's also about you and your family and how you've managed to pull yourself back together as well.  So not just Isobel but yourself. I know that a lot of us, all of us will face a moment in our lives where we have to handle a bit of trauma.  Lisa: Yep.  Lisa: What was going on in your body and how did you cope so that you had the ability to fight for your mum? What are you doing in your mind? Lisa: So in the initial phases, Cushla, you know, you are in shock, you're out, you're terrified. But very, very quickly, oh, especially after the mishap, once I realised what had just happened and the ball’s up that that was, and that it was likely going to cost your life. I just went into what I call mission mode. Like, ‘Okay, right, I am not going— I'm going to research the hell out of this. I'm going to learn everything I can. I'm going to be hypervigilant. I'm going to watch everything they do. I'm going to question everything they do. I'm going to get my family organised.’ Because I had get them down to Wellington. My father was, of course, falling to pieces because it’s the love of his life. He's been, you know, married to her for 55 years. He came up to me already in the ED and said, ‘We better start planning the funeral.’ Because they were, you know, saying to us, she's like, unlikely to survive. And I'm like, ‘Dad, we're not even considering that. She's alive, she's still breathing, and we're gonna fight with everything we have. Here's a list of jobs to do: I want you to go ring so and so, organise this, get the boys down, my brothers down to Wellington, blah, blah, blah.’ When people are in a crisis, you need to take control and give them jobs to do so that they, their, you know, their amygdala, that their permanent part of the brain doesn't go into complete full-blown panic, and which doesn't always work. And I'll relay a story a little bit later, where I did go into full blown panic. It's all very well and good to say this. But at that point in time, I was like, ‘Dad’, I shook him, I grabbed him, I held him and I said, ‘No, you've got this and this job to do, we're going to do it, and follow me, dad. Follow me.’ And that was basically how it was then for the next few years. Yeah. My brothers as well, they were very much, ‘What do we do?’ I had no idea at the time, but I pretended like I did. Fake it till you make it. What we're doing this is how we're going to operate over the next few weeks. So it was being down on Wellington together, organising the family to be down there, all the logistics that go along with that, and your jobs and your, you know, partners and all the rest of it. And then a 24-hour watch over Mum, and being hypervigilant, explaining to the boys everything that I was learning medically, because I was like, studying forever, I was just going, going, heart out, trying to understand and get up to speed on something that I was completely not aware of prior to this, learning what an aneurysm does, what vasospasms are, what I've been looking for, what they— signs.  We were only in the neurological unit, we weren’t in the ICU, which, looking back when I arrived, what the hell. When she got down to Wellington, they get straight into surgery, they started draining her blood off the brain. She started to— start to have that pressure released. But then we had to decide the next, in the next couple of days, though it had stopped bleeding at that point, but it was about to go out in time again, it could go at any moment. How do we clamp it? What do we do? Would we cut into her brain and put a physical clamp over the area? And it was a mess of aneurysm. Like we're talking a 16 millimeter huge aneurysm. We went up through the femoral artery, and we weighed up the pros and cons and you make that call. She's got a 50% chance of dying this way, she's got a 30% chance of dying that way, pretty much. So we'll take the lesser evil, but she was going to have to have two operations and in that way you know. So that was gonna be really touch and go, really touch and go. I remember them wheeling her off for that operation. I think it was on day two, through the doors, and you just don't know if it's the last time you're going to see them alive, and the whole just trying to hold your shit together. Cushla: I know that you're very good at compartmentalising parts of the— of something when it happens. What I remember you talking about when we were writing the book, was how you were able to put the jobs that needed to be done in that box. The research you were doing in this box, your family in that box, and probably, and I know this because we had phone calls and I was in touch with you at the time, your emotions and your shock and your trauma in this box. It was a matter of kind of keeping you know, all those juggling balls in the air at one time. But also, and importantly allowing you to have that emotional spot as well. And I know that you were very good at compartmentalising and giving yourself time to do that, but not letting it overtake you, letting you drop all the other balls at the time when you were dealing with the emotional side of it. I think that's really important because I know— so when Lisa and I first met, I was a bit of a Lisa Tamati fangirl, before we became friends, and I got to know you really well.  Lisa: And then realised, oh no. Cushla: Yeah. I mean, we just saw you as Wonder Woman. You know, there's tough, tough, you know, athlete. Then I got to know you, as a human being, of course, a woman, there’s a vulnerable side to you. But what I think is really important at that time, an immediate trauma time, as you gave yourself time to release a bit of that stress and that trauma by leaning on your husband Haisley, by your phone calls to me. But also, like, I know that you went for some runs, went to get gym, threshed it out, you probably screamed at the ocean at one point. Do you know? That's also important, isn't it? It's not just— Lisa: If you want to sustain— we knew this was going to be a long, long, long battle. While we hoped it was going to be a long battle, a short option was not a good one. This is something that I've learned doing ultra marathons: is to— in particular in the Libyan desert crossing, where you have to read the book for the whole story. But I did an expedition across the Libyan desert with three other guys, one of them being this abusive boyfriend that I was with at the time. There was a very extreme situation that we were in, we needed two liters of water a day, etcetera. And I'm having this big domestic fight with the boyfriend right in the middle of the Libyan desert. Cushla: In the most extreme environment on the planet. Lisa: In the most extreme environment, walking 45 kilometers a day with 35-kilo backpacks and only two litres of water a day in a military bad zone, not a good time to breakup with a boyfriend of five years. And in that moment, when he left me and disappeared over the sand dunes, that was a turning point for me, and I fell apart initially. And I was like, ‘Oh, God,’ started  crying in the rails. I can't afford to lose any more tears here. I've got to pull my shit together, because I cannot let the energy dissipate that at the rate of I want to actually survive. It was getting down to that sort of level of you know, you're going to survive this or not. And so I learned in that moment, really a very hard lesson in compartmentalising things in your brain. So like, ‘I'm going to fall apart, but not right now. I'm going to put that off right now because I have to focus on this, and getting through the desert and surviving.’ That's been actually a really good lesson. It's never a pleasant one to actually have to instigate where you have to actually compartmentalise.  Just interrupting the program briefly to let you know that we have a new Patron program for the podcast. Now, if you enjoy Pushing the Limits, if you get great value out of it, we would love you to come and join our Patron membership program. We've been doing this now for five and a half years and we need your help to keep it on air. It's been a public service free for everybody. And we want to keep it that way. But to do that we need like-minded souls who are on this mission with us to help us out. So if you're interested in becoming a patron for Pushing the Limits podcast, then check out everything on www.patron.lisatamati.com. That's P-A-T-R-O-N dot lisatamati.com. We have two Patron levels to choose from. You can do it for as little as $7 a month, New Zealand, or $15 a month if you really want to support us. So we are grateful if you do. There are so many membership benefits you're going to get if you join us. Everything from workbooks for all the podcasts, the strength guide for runners, the power to vote on future episodes, webinars that we're going to be holding, all of my documentaries and much much more. So check out all the details: patron.lisatamati.com. And thanks very much for joining us. Lisa: But in this in this situation where you're dealing with— you're having to study like really hard. And we have access now to the greatest minds on the world that come in, all those information about out there that you can study. So I was studying all the drugs that they had on, all the procedures they were doing, what is the normal plan, and what happens when you have an aneurysm, what are of the some of the dangers, or of the things that I should be looking out for, what are the signs in your body. You know, all of these types of things in the initial phase and then later on at it went into rehabilitation research and study. And so that was one aspect of it. And then we had a 24-hour clock system, much to the disgust of the people at the hospital because they didn't want us there 24 hours. They don't like that. There was no way I was leaving my mother when she could die at any minute alone. No way.  So I had massive battles with the hospital, for them to be able to allow us in. And then having to fight for that. So you're fighting on all these fronts, you're already fighting with— your mum's in deep, deep trouble, and then you're fighting against these systems. And they may have some good reasons for those systems. But there was no way I was leaving my mother alone when she could die any second. A family member had to be with her at all times. And I was very, very strict on that. We had some big blow-ups at the hospital. We got through really in the end. And we tried to be as unobtrusive as possible when we did what we were. And we picked up things that they missed, because she was on a neurological ward, they only come around a couple of hours into obviously, patients. But going back to the whole compartmentalising things. I know how to manage my body really well, and how to pace myself really well from doing ultra marathons and stuff, and expeditions. And so I knew that we were going to be in the for the long haul, I knew sleep deprivation was going to be a problem, I knew that the family dynamics were going to be a problem, that there was going to be fighting because of the stress there was it we were under, and we were all living in one motel unit. And that mum was in deep crap, we had my father to look after who was just, you know. Cushla: And he was down with you in the initial stage.  Lisa: He was here, he was; and he's very much, was a homebody. He didn't like to be out of his garden and sheep. So he was very, very stressed on that front, and of course his wife in such dire straits. He was, but he— so we managed to, had him to manage home because he started having heart problems. And so I had to eventually actually send my dad back home and actually lied to my dad that, ‘She's okay now, we've got her, Dad. She's all good.’ Because I think that we're gonna lose him. I was making those sorts of decisions and just running the ship. Like you said, I know the importance of, for me, especially exercise and fresh air for my mental well-being, that if I was going to sustain it, I had to have at least half an hour to an hour every day out from this whole thing, where I just go and do a workout.  Again, all the fear, the cortisol, the adrenaline that's running through my body flat stuck and try to manage it, and making sure that she was looked after, and that time. You know, you feel guilty and everything for leaving the hospital all. But you had to do that after a few days. You know, just a couple of days, I didn't, but after that. It was— it’s setting all these things in place. And we need to do that in our daily lives. We need to set up systems and processes and understand our own bodies and how our bodies work so that we can manage the stress levels and we can manage the movement that we need, the sunshine, and needs for sleep and recovery and all those aspects. And of course, in a situation like that, sleep deprivation was a massive, and there's not much you can do about that, you have to function at that level for as long as you have to.  Cushla: And I think a lot of people that are in stressful situations, whether or not it be something like what happened with your mum, or even at work or just in daily life, big stressful moments. A lot of people put the self-care to the side. And they just think, ‘Well, I'm not that— I don't have time for that,’ or, ‘I shouldn't have time for that.’ That's when the guilt that kicks in, and yet, it probably is one of the most important things to prioritise in terms of your day and compartmentalising your day through to handle stressful situations because it allows you to have the focus and the energy that you need and get back into the the stressful—  Lisa: Into the fight you're in. Yeah, absolutely. You need to be able to have that energy put back in. It might only be 10 minutes out in the bloody— you know, like when we, here's another situation which we'll probably get onto later with my dad. In his situation, in the hospital for 16 days, fighting for his life. It was sometimes 10 minutes in the waiting room doing press ups. That was all I could get before I went back into the battle zone if you like.   Cushla: Just to release that.  Lisa: Just to manage the cortisol. Reach, I call it discharge and recharge, and then reset. Come back into the moment. But yeah, it was a heck of a lot of lessons to be learned and then leading in a crisis situation. My brothers were amazing. They were very supportive, and they were, followed everything that I asked them to do, basically. Because I'm the study-er of the family, I'm the one that is into research and science and studies. They trusted me to do that thing. And they were like, ‘Well, you tell us what to do, we'll do it.’ And that's really great. Because you've got your roles. That is, in having somebody lead the charge, so to speak, even though you don't know what you're doing, where you're going, and there’s certainly no rehabilitation over the next years, because this process took years, having that person that's got that responsibility, got that, ‘This is what we're doing. This is how we're doing it, I just need you guys to do this bit and the other thing.’ And my whole entire family were willing to do that. They were— my dad was just, jumping ahead in time, my dad was just amazing, how he stepped up to the mark. When he had a wife that had done everything for him pretty much. Cushla: He was, back when she came back to New Plymouth, he was cooking, and— Lisa: He was doing all the things.  Cushla: He was doing all the things, yeah.  Lisa: It was a shocker for him, but he stepped up to the mark to the best of his ability. He was the most wonderful, caring husband. He didn't give a— he didn't care that she— when she came back home for the first time, and we actually got her out of the hospital after three months. Now, I'm jumping ahead in time. But he didn't care that she had no function, basically. She was in a vegetative state who had a heartbeat. She was alive, and we were fighting. That was all he needed to know. He had his wife at home, she was alive, she's stabilised, we were fighting together, and we were on a mission. Every day he had his jobs to do and the things to do. He was just relentless in his love for her, stepping up.  Cushla: So going back to the moment where— so she's in Wellington, and you need to read the book to find out what went on in Wellington. The moment that she was transferred back to New Plymouth was a bittersweet moment, wasn't it? You were able to come home and be with Haisley and be back at home with the family and friends around that were helping. But you knew that the care that you would receive back in New Plymouth wasn't at the level that it would be in Wellington, basically just because Wellington is way more resourced. And fair enough, you can have a very small region. Taranaki here, you know, we're a little provincial spot in New Zealand. So we knew that we wouldn't get the care that you got in the big city. So talk us through how it was like to come home— Lisa: It was terrifying. I was happy for all those reasons, but at the same time, and I was happy that she's apparently stabilised. But she was in ICU for the good part of the two of the three weeks that she was in Wellington when she was in and out of coma. Once she'd gotten out of the coma, then they had to get the stent out of her heart, and she kept dropping. What happens when you take the stent out is that pressure can start rising in the brain again, and three times as they tried to take the stent out, the pressure went up. On the third time, they said, ‘Well, if it doesn't work, this time, I'm going to have to operate and put in a permanent one.’ And the third time, it worked. But it only worked for the next 24 hours, and then they were like, ‘Right, she's not— her pressure’s not going up. She’s keeping consciousness, she's not falling back into the coma. She's good to go.’ And I had researched, I knew that that was not the case, that she couldn't have— that pressure could go up over the next 70 days at any point, and if that pressure went up, it would happen very quickly, and she wouldn't— she could die.  So I knew that even though they weren't telling me that, she could still die in the next 70 days. If that happened in Wellington and the pressure started to go up, they were— they might be able to recognise that, they might be to go in and do something. They wouldn't be able to in New Plymouth. I was hypervigilant on trying to understand how I could notice if something in her consciousness was going down, right. All I could do was to understand some of the symptomatic things that she did which might exhibit if her pressure is starting to go up, because you wouldn't be able to communicate it to me, you wouldn't be able to see it, you would slowly lose more and more of a brain till it was gone basically. So that was a huge fear bringing her home, and of course putting her in an airplane with a pressure change. Yeah, I didn't know what it would do. In fact, it was nothing, but there wasn't a problem, really. But you know it this time you just— Cushla: You don't know.  Lisa: Yeah, so for the next 70 days, I'm like, hypervigilant. If I noticed something down on, I’ll be like, ‘I think she's doing this and doing that.’ Then they took her off the oxygen at the same time, and that was a big problem. They didn't see it as a problem that she was, ‘Her oxygen states are alright.’ What they were forgetting was that she was sleeping 18, 20 hours a day. So when she was asleep, she wasn't breathing properly, and I believe she had sleep apnea. So I said to them, ‘I want a sleep apnea assessment.’ They said, ‘No, she doesn't need that, why should she need that? Her oxygen stats are okay when she's awake, so why would she?’ I knew about sleep apnea. So I got a friend of ours, he's actually a sleep apnea consultant, Jez Morris. I said, ‘Come into the hospital illegally, would you do that?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I'll do that.’ Well outside of rules actually, so not illegally, but you know.  We sneaked into the hospital at nighttime, put on these machines onto her, did an assessment overnight, because it had to be an overnight thing. We got the results, and when it came back, severe sleep apnea. Now, this is absolutely key. Like her oxygen levels were down at 70% SPO2. she was Cheyne-Stokes breathing, which is not a good thing. Probably going to be on your way out in the next couple of months. Her oxygen was so low that she was knocking off any brain cells that she has, the infections that are in her body were just going apeshit. So bacteria was exploding, and they're already known. That was actually the one of the signs that I picked up because I had done a lot of racing at altitude, and I was seeing a lot of the signs in her that I had at altitude when I had altitude sickness and things like that.  That was at first wind, because I had to convince the bloody staff that we needed to have the CPAP machine on here, and they weren't trained in CPAP machine, so they didn't want to do that. I'm telling what she needs, she's got this and you know, him being a sleep physiologist was able to convince them that okay, this is a good thing for her now. He said he'd been banging his head against the brick wall for decades, trying to get for stroke patients an assessment that is part of the process. Because very often, this happens that that part of the brain is damaged in the stroke or the aneurysm, and even in things like concussions, that you can have a change in your breathing situation. And that part of the brain that monitors that is not working properly. So it should be staying apart and perfect, and that's what I believe, and that's what he believes. So anyway, we got the CPAP machine. Initially started to have little bits of improvement, but we're already two months, three months, two and a half months or something into her time in the hospital and we're running out of time. But she's stable, nothing we can do with her, basically. She's pretty bad, and we've given paid lip service to some physio and some speech therapy and stuff, and now it's time to get you out of the system. Cushla: And I think at that point, I think they, if you saw Isobel at that moment in the hospital, you would see an old woman who was probably on her way out. You didn't see the vibrant person that we saw before the aneurysm, that was so independent, and so highly functioning. For the hospital, I think they just saw an older woman— Lisa: Another older woman.  Cushla: —another older woman, and a family that wasn't willing to accept the fact that they had an ageing mother. So there's that little bit of not understanding who she was before, and how abrupt this change was. We knew that if we could just get her back, even if it was a little bit back, then you could take her home and start working on rehab. Can you talk about how quickly they just wanted to move her into a home? Lisa: Oh yeah. And this is what happens very often when you're over 65 is the answer is get them out of our budget into someone else's budget. That means putting them into a hospital-level care facility. If you've got anything, that's the normal route that you go, and they will try and convince you of that route, at least in our situation. I can't speak for everybody obviously. We came up against a brick wall of this, especially the social worker who shall remain nameless, who just was totally against us being able to have the caregiver that I wanted, the caregiver for in the morning for an hour, and one in the evening for an hour, which is part of, they do provide the service and so on. But it costs more money, and you stay in the budget. That's the key point.  We were fighting over these resources. What I want people to understand is you have to fight for the resources that you want for your loved one. And we have limited resources, it's a fact of life. If you want to get some of those resources, and you think your loved one is worthwhile, worth it, because they’ve spent their entire lives paying taxes, being good citizens and have a right to have some of this, then you better be prepared for a fight because that's what you're in for. And we did have the fight. Cushla: And it was interesting that, because as a family, you were willing to bring her home and you're willing to do a lot of the care yourself. You didn't want to be taking up a resource in a care facility. You were prepared to do that yourselves, as a family, at home. So in a sense, there's a lot of money to be saved. Because I know how much you have given up and how much it costs the family to care for her at home. But that is what you wanted, and your family wanted was to just, to have her home. I remember in the book, you spoke about wanting Isobel to hear familiar sights, smells, sounds around her to aid her in her rehab. And that in having those, you felt that she was going to make more connections, neurological connections, because she was in her own home, with her own people around her, with her own sights and sounds and smells around her. Can you talk a little bit about how positive you felt that was? Lisa: Yeah, that's a huge piece of the puzzle. I had a friend's mum who actually worked in stroke rehabilitation. She really encouraged me to do that and said how important this was, and it just made total sense to me. I knew that when you're in the care of any facility, no matter how good they are, they can never provide the love and the attention that you can. Because they've got other people and you're just another patient and in— they provide a magnificent service and so on when this is absolutely necessary. But in this case, we had the willingness and the ability to do this. They said to me, the social worker said to me, ‘There is no way in hell you are going to cope with her. She's 24/7 around the clock care, two people at all times, there is no way you're going to cope with her.’ I actually came and threw my books on his table one night, across the table at him. And I said, ‘Read these. This is who I am and my family are, and we are not giving up without a fight. We may go down fighting, but we're going to go down fighting, we're not going to go down and take the easy route out. It is not in our nature.’  It's a fundamental difference between a family that’s a fighting family and a family that isn't. It's very much influenced by the people in power in these situations, the medical professionals, the people that are associated with all of it. And you have no confidence to stand up against all these professionals, usually. They're the ones that have been to medical school, they're the ones that have been to whatever, social work. Whatever the case may be, and you have a tendency to think, ‘Well, they know better than me.’ But one thing they don't know is you. And they don't know how strong you are. They don't know the resources that you have. They don't know your mentality. And they don't know, really, they're all guessing as to what will actually happen based on their experiences. But that's what becomes partly a self-fulfilling prophecy. So when they say to you that there is no hope. No, that's their opinion that there's no hope.  I had time and time again, people telling me, ‘There is no hope, there is no hope, she's 74, her brain damage is so massive, it cannot be that she would ever.’ I was like, ‘We’ll see.’ I'm only ever going to listen to the ones that tell me I can do, not the ones that I tell me I can't do. They may be right. I'm not saying they're not right, but I'm gonna throw the book at this. I'm gonna do whatever it takes. And it's all about attitude and effort and grinding it out then I'll take that one any day, I'll take that option. I'm a fighter. I'm a worker. And my family is too, and we're not going to go down without a fight. I've seen lots of— I saw lots of other families going through the same process, because this thing's happening every day in every hospital around the world, right? It is very much, ‘Well, statistically, this person's not a good bet. Therefore we'll just go through the standard of care, we’ll be the— do the humane thing, we'll do all this— tick all the boxes or do it all right.’ But the anomaly cases, the cases like mum’s, why is nobody coming to say to me, why do I get— no, I'm out there telling everybody that story. That’s why I've written the book is to empower other people in these types of situations, even different ones. But why is nobody asking me, ‘Well, what did you do?’  Cushla: What did you do to get there? Lisa: They’ve been— I’ll let you know, when they mum here today, talking and walking and going off for coffee and driving up to see her friends, you would have no idea that she ever had anything.  Cushla: No.  Lisa: She’s just completely normal again. But I was told that was an impossibility. How many people are told, you have a terminal illness, you are going to die of this thing? When you plant this sort of stuff, they're making educated guesses based on the statistics of the past whatever and their experiences, and I get that. We can't give people false hope, but we've also can't take away all hope. Cushla: No. That's a really powerful message, I think. I was talking to a friend of mine who is battling with cancer at the moment. She has the most amazing mindset, her mindset. So she's— you know, she was told she had three months to live, that was, I think, six months ago. Her mindset— and she's just been through some chemo and the tumors have shrunk. Her mindset, basically, is that cancer is not welcome back. It's just not. I'm going off to live my life. If I die of it, well, okay, I die of it. But in the meantime, I'm living my life, and I'm— it's not welcome back. She is charging in life and sure, she has her rough days. I really love how you said, it's— there's a responsibility for them not to give false hope, but at the same time not to take away. similar situation with my father, he has myeloma, so cancer of the blood. I think at the time, the doctors said, ‘After this treatment, you have between five and fifteen.’ He immediately said, ‘I'll take the 15, thanks.’ Because it puts them at that, at the point that it would have taken them to 85, and he was quite happy with it, because at the time he was 69. I love that. And we're six years down now. And I think mindset is huge—  Lisa: Oh, yeah.  Cushla: —in the way that you approach things. Because, sure, we might, I might die by being run over by a bus today. But if you don't live life thinking that things are going to get better, that you have the power to do, to have control over your health and your well-being, the way that you deal with these traumas, if you don't have that mindset—  Lisa: You're definitely not going to—  Cushla: — you're definitely not, you're going to roll up in a corner. As my friend with cancer said when she went to hospital, she's like, ‘Oh, I'm surrounded by all these sick people.’ Which I loved. Because she didn't see herself in that. Lisa: That’s one of the reasons I take mum to the gym every day.  Cushla: Exactly.  Lisa: I don't take her, I didn't take her, we did go to the physio program at the hospital. Don't get me started on that. But it was dreadful, it was shocking. The story’s in the book, if you want to read that one, that is a real battle. But they— I like her to be surrounded by athletes going for it. Because that rubs off on her. She's not a patient, she's an athlete. She's training for her Olympics. That is the attitude we take every single day. And I make no concessions that she is 79 years old, and, ‘Oh, isn't it time for her to relax?’ No, it isn’t time for her to relax. It's time for her to work harder. It's time to go harder and the older you get, the more effort you have to put into, if you want to stay alive. That is the key.  When you stop wanting to be alive, then yes, sit on the couch and do nothing. Because it's what that will lead to. If you still want to be alive and enjoy life, then you have to fight for it. This goes whether you’re bloody 10 years old, or 95 years old, or 105 years old. If you give into the easy way, if you go, ‘I don't feel like training today.’ I don't feel like training most days. But most days I train. Because it keeps me healthy, fit, and I'm being prevented. That's what I'm all about now is being in the prevention space, and then helping people who are in dire need navigate the waters of into connecting people to the right doctors in the right studies and the right information and the right books and all of that sort of jazz. Cushla: When I was in the depths of my training for a marathon, I remember that exact conversation with a friend. She said, ‘I can't—’ You kno at the end of the day, I go for a run. And she's like, ‘You've just worked a full day.’ And I'm like, ‘Yeah, And I'm tired. But I'm going to go do it because you never regret it when you finish it.’ At the end of that 10k, you've never thought, ‘I really shouldn't have gone for that run.’ You don't. You come back thinking, ‘That was awesome.’ Sure you're tired, but you were tired before you went out for the run. So you actually end up more energised.  Lisa: You mean that will energise your cortisol in—  Cushla: My muscles might be tired, but you’re energised.  Lisa: And you’re getting stronger. Cushla: Yeah, I think that's a really good message, that you don't regret it once you get out. It's always just those first, first few five minutes, or I always say the first 4k of any round was always more difficult than the rest. Lisa: 20 minutes is all it is.  Cushla: Yeah, it is. It’s always shit.  Lisa: So same for me. And if I warm up properly, then it's only shit. If I'm in a hurry, and I run out the door, and I don't, then it's gonna be more shit, warm up quickly.  Cushla: The more experience you have with training, or with whatever it is that you're doing for self-care, understanding that the first little bit is always tough. And the more that you experience it, the more you know to expect it, then you know that you're going to get the buzz at the end and you start looking forward to that. Lisa: Yeah, yeah, I had that conversation with my brother yesterday, because I've been telling him, he's very funny. He does a lot. He's amazing, boaties, he does weight training. He's a surfer, and he surfs sometimes six hours a day, but he doesn't do cardio. And, you know, I monitor his blood, and his health and his everything. ‘You've got to do some cardio, we've got some issues here, we need some cardio please.’ And he's like, ‘I hate cardio, I don’t want to do  cardio.’ And then we’ll do five minutes, and he’s like, ‘I don't want any—’  and I said, ‘It's about pushing through that barrier. It's the same as if you tell me, why aren't you going surfing anymore? And I'm like, “Oh, because it's so hard, and I don't want to get hit by the waves and get smashed around.’ And he's like, ‘what are you talking about? It's awesome.”’ As long as you go through that barrier. Pushed enough, long enough to get through that, and I'm having to go through that.  It's always that initial adaptation phase, that time when you're not fitting, you're not good at the surfing or the running, or the whenever, when it's shit. Let's be honest. But if you hang in there long enough, if you stay with the tension long enough, then you'll start to make the adaptations, and then you start to actually like it, and then you start to enjoy it, and then it will become like, ‘Wow, I’m actually into this.’ And you still have the days we don't want to do it. And those are the days when you have to just take action, a small piece of action, and put my running shoes on or I'll go to the letterbox and I'll see, or I'll just do 20 squats and then 10 press ups, and then I'll just stop there. Then you do those, and then you're like, ‘Oh, now I've got a couple more minutes.’ And then, you know, the next minute you've run for an hour or something. Cushla: And, really, this is such a good title for the book. Because it's not, it's not just about your mum's story. It's about the process of taking those small actions and how those small actions all build up and all add together to make a big amazing solution. What I probably—  again, going back to the fangirl in me, this isn't a story about Lisa Wonder Woman who can do everything, because she can't. She has vulnerabilities, and she has rough days and she has days where friends need to pick her up. Lisa: Definitely. Cushla: But what you've done with your mum, and what you can learn by reading the book is how those small actions actually build up and accumulate. That is relentless. That's what it means to be relentless. It doesn't mean that we should all run a marathon or an ultra marathon, or that's the journey that most people should take. That's not what we are saying here, but it's about how, if you have some self-care and take those small steps, whatever that may look like for you at the time of your life, that you are living a life that is relentless. Lisa: Yeah, yeah, I love that. Cushla: Be way more powerful, more fulfilling, and you’ll last longer. Lisa: You’ll last longer! We all want that. And you last longer helps me, you know, rather than yeah, it's all about for me, it's about healthspan as well. You don't want to be living in a horrific state of affairs and barely alive, but still kicking, that's not living. It's—  we want to push that degeneration out for as long as possible. And the exciting thing, what I'm excited about, because I study this type of stuff obsessively, is the stuff that's coming down the pipeline with regards to longevity and anti-ageing.  I'm like, ‘Mum, if I can keep you alive for another 10 years, the technology is gonna keep you alive for a lot longer.’ That the advances in medicine, the advances in science are going to mean that you can possibly live for a hell of a lot longer. If I can hold my, you know, 52 year old body together, now, by the time I get to my 60s here, I'm going to be things that are probably going to mean that we're going to live to, they're talking 150 and beyond. Whether I'll see that or not, but my children might, or our little ones, and this next generation might, and we may. Who knows? Because things are changing so rapidly. And there's one having each and the latest and greatest stuff. I love shiny objects. I’m doing the research and in staying across all that and maintaining so that I can actually get to hopefully enjoy the benefits of it and not have something major happen out of the blue. Because most of these things that come at us, the big four, the cancer, the cardiovascular diseases and strokes, and the diabetes, and the Alzheimer's, if you take just those, they are predictable a long way out.  If I had known more about things then mum’s aneurysm was bloody written on the couch. Her dad died at 52. Now I've done our genetics and we have, I have a very poor lining of our blood vessels. They're like glycocalyx is very, very poor quality, which means we're more prone to strokes and aneurysms and stuff. So now I know that, okay, so now I can do something preventative about it. I didn't know that when mum went down, she was always struggling with her weight and always, always having problems with that. Now we've cracked that code. She's tiny now, she's very slowly, and she’s lost 35 kilos, and we've cracked the code on it. But hey, it's taken me bloody years to work that out with for here and now. But we have that science now. We have that epigenetics and all the genetic tests, and we have all that available to us, you know? And yes, it all costs, and people go, ‘I couldn't afford this.’  Cushla: Can you afford not to? Lisa: Yes, can you afford not to? Yes, this stuff costs money, all this stuff costs money. To keep mum going, costs me over a couple of grand a month. But I would—  instead of having a fancy car—  Cushla: Yeah?  Lisa: — I got a fancy mum. Cushla: Love it. Lisa: You know, it’s just, if you don't have anything within your— Cushla: Yeah.  Lisa: —you can do the stuff that makes, you can get for free, which is exercise, which is not eating bad shit, and eating right and things. But if you have got a little bit of resources, where are you putting it? Are you doing it, for me superfluous things like, I don't go and have facials and massages. Well, massages will be actually healthy, so I probably shouldn't lump that in with it. But, you know. Cushla: You don’t have fancy shoes. Lisa: No, I don't have fancy clothes. I wear the same thing all the time. You know, but I spend it on stuff that might keep us alive longer. Cushla: When I was going through some rough health over a year ago, I talked with Lisa and we booked in a whole raft of tests. I think it was probably just over $1,000 to get a really good picture of where things are. Sure that's a lot of money. But the fact was, my health was bad enough that I wasn't coping. I wasn't getting more excited for work. So you know, for me to be able to earn an income, for me to be able to be a functioning adult, you know, that can walk me through the world, I had to invest in it. I think that sometimes we can feel guilty of investing in those kinds of things, especially if you're a mum, or if you have other commitments. But the fact is that if you need to be around for your kids, or in my case for my class, I'm a teacher. Yeah, I need to be there, 100%. I need to be at 100%. And so they're there.  Lisa: Yeah, so it's chicken and egg scenario. You lose your job if you’re not healthy.  Cushla: Exactly.  Lisa: If you lose your job, then you're not going to be able to stay healthy. So it's a chicken and egg scenario, and I'd rather invest in those things and prioritise those things.  Cushla: Before they become something major. Lisa: And then, you can't see everything coming. I've been—  I mean, you know, the journey that I've been on with my dad, and he unfortunately passed away in July last year, after one hell of a battle. Now, I didn't see that one coming. He was, I had him, but he—  Dad did one thing that I could never stop him doing, and that was smoking. And that's what basically got him in the end. That's addiction, and I was, I'm just sad about that. But you can't—  and I spend a lot of time studying. I study hours every day so that I'm not caught short. And since losing Dad, even moreso. But I realised I can't know everything, and they will be curveballs that come at me anyway. But I can be as prepared as I can be, and then I can react to the situations the best I can, you know. And I can hit, I at least know where to go to get help. I know where to go if I have something. If I have something tomorrow, I'll probably find out who the heck to talk to very quickly.  Cushla: Exactly.  Lisa: To deal with it. And that's a good resource to have. Cushla: So in that Relentless, in our book, at the back is a bunch of resources. We've listed them out. So—  and Lisa said something really funny to me the other day, she got some feedback from a bloke that read the book. He said, ‘I normally would have never read a book with the two chicks on the cover.’ It was hilarious. But, and then he said, ‘But it was a rocking good book.’ He didn't— he said it was a really good book. He read it through and also provided him so much information in here. And I thought it was interesting because we—  the process, of course of getting the book published and the cover, and everything was quite a major wasn't it? Lisa: And we obviously made a mistake. Cushla: Made, and in some things fixed. But I thought it was worth pointing out that it's not just a story about your mum, but it is a bunch of lessons and resources that you can apply to in any situation that involves either health or stress. Big— Lisa: Big mindset. Cushla: Big moments that require that positive mindset and real strategies in there about what it takes to survive trauma and in stressful situations that can apply to health or work or relationships, or all sorts. So I just thought, you know, I kind of do that little promotional push. When we need to do book launches, you’re all booked to the map, hadn’t we? We would join them. And then— Lisa: The day after. Cushla: The day after. We managed to, week one in our hometown, which was also a book launch, which was fantastic. But unfortunately, we couldn't do the big push. So as your co-author, because I know Lisa touts this book any chance she can, but as the co-author of it. I'd like to recommend that everyone does get a copy. Read the heck of it, and really gains from, really can get some benefit from reading the resources and the steps and the strategies that are in there. Yeah.  Lisa: Yeah. Thanks, Cush. Yeah, it's not a book just for ladies, it's not a book just for runners. It's not a book just for people with brain injuries. It's for all of the above class. It is the people who are taking on massive challenges and who are up against it. It's for people who want to understand what it takes to succeed, want to understand what it takes to take on massive challenges and have a chance at actually coming out the other end. It is a coaching book, basically. It is written in a story form, but there is a lot of learnings in there. And there's also a lot about a lot of the therapies and the doctors and the podcasts and the books and the resources that I used in order to rehabilitate my mum.  And this is the whole point of the podcast now that we've been doing Pushing the Limits for five and a half years. I actually started it before mum had her aneurysm, but it became one of the greatest resources for me personally, because I got to get the world's greatest scientists and doctors and their latest research, and to share that with everybody. And whether it was around health and fitness and running or mindset, or high performance or longevity or anti ageing or any of those things, it was all relevant. For me, it was partly a selfish endeavor, because it did help me in that whole process. We're very passionate about the show, and we'd love that anybody who isn't already subscribed to Pushing the Limits, or as a podcast, to make sure that you head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen, and subscribe to the show, because we really get world-leading experts up on here, every single week. It's pretty, pretty fantastic. And a great resource.  Of course, it'd be marvelous today, as always. And we're working on another book. We haven’t started working. We haven't started yet. We've discussed next year. Yeah, yeah. So she's a very brave woman, because back with me on this book. Cushla: Look, the journey has been an absolute privilege to be a part of this book, and also to be a part of your life. It's interesting, I've never written a book before. So I just like to put that out there, that sometimes you have to do brave and scary things, just to see what you're capable of. What we really hope with this is that people get a lot out of it. It's a great read, there's some comedy in there. As well good moments, as well as the hard stuff. And I think that's what I've learned is, being part of this journey is, you know, life's about putting yourself out there, do the things that are scary, that you've always potentially had in the back of your mind you wanted to do. Lisa: Absolutely. And you know, you with the Masters in English, that was a good place to start. Cushla: I’m afraid that— Lisa: It's fabulous and has now made the emphasis for you to write your own novel, which is fantastic. So that's what happens when you step outside your comfort zone. You're very much good at pushing, push further outside your comfort zone. Cushla: Yeah. Lisa: Yeah, yeah. Lots of beaches along the way. Yeah, I haven't told you yet. So it's—  Cushla: Not yet. Lisa: I am being good. Cushla, thank you so much for your time today in being the interviewer, in being an author on this marvelous book, and we hope it's going to empower and help lots and lots of people along the way. Cushla: Definitely. That's it this week for Pushing the Limits. Be sure to rate, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com. The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

Contrary to popular belief, optimum nutrition is not one-size-fits-all. What works for others may not work for you. Our body type is dictated by genes that we cannot change. What we can do is tailor our exercise and diet so that our genes respond and are expressed the way they are supposed to.  This week, Neil joins me to explain how to personalise your optimum nutrition and exercise. Throughout the episode, we emphasise the importance of knowing your body type in building the right diet and exercise for your specific set of genes.  If you want to achieve optimum nutrition and health according to your genes, then this episode is for you.   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health program all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/. You can also join their free live webinar on epigenetics.   Online Coaching for Runners Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching. You can also join our free live webinar on runners' warm-up to learn how a structured and specific warm-up can make a massive difference in how you run.   Consult with Me If you would like to work with me one to one on anything from your mindset, to head injuries,  to biohacking your health, to optimal performance or executive coaching, please book a consultation here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/consultations.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within 3 years. Get your copy here: http://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   My Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection ‘Fierce’, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Know the three general body types.  Get Neil’s recommendations for each body type to get optimum nutrition. Discover the role of genes in shaping our biology.    Resources Email lisa@lisatamati.com to know more about my health optimisation consulting. The Search for the Perfect Protein by Dr David Minkoff     Episode Highlights [04:17] Genes and Body Types All body types are unique.  Genes are the blueprint of the body. Everything that happens in the environment affects your genes. The exercise and food we give our bodies dictate how our genes express themselves.  Our bodies can significantly change if we do the wrong exercise or give it below optimum nutrition. We may end up with an unhealthy body. [09:15] The 3 Major Body Types The formation of body types starts at embryogenesis. It depends on which layer (ectoderm, mesoderm, or endoderm) is provided with more energy.  Different bodies will respond to exercise in different ways.  Ectomorphs are taller, slimmer, and leaner with a low percentage of body fat. Mesomorphs are shorter and have the classic triangle shape (broad shoulders and narrow waists). Endomorphs are great at putting on fats and muscles. They have bigger bones and evenly shaped lower and upper bodies.  [14:46] Nutrition and Exercise for Mesomorphs Mesomorphs are agile and quick responders. As a result, they are coordinated and athletic.  Activities that work well for this body type include 20- to 40-minute CrossFit-style exercise, intensity interval training and short bursts of high-intensity activity.  Make sure to have enough rest to avoid injuries and health burnout. Have three full meals a day, with regular snacks. Get your protein up for recovery.  [24:32] Nutrition and Exercise for Endomorphs Endomorphs are good at endurance and strength.  Get heavier weights and lower repetitions. Start slow and exercise optimally late in the day. Also, take longer warm-ups.  Take later breakfast and lunch, with lunch as the biggest meal of the day.  Increase your vegetable intake.  [31:22] Fasting for Different Body Types Women have to be a little careful with more prolonged fasting because of their cycle.  Fasting should be shorter for ectomorphs and mesomorphs. For ectomorphs, 12 hours intermittent fast is good.  Endomorphs can last up to 16 hours or longer. They take two to three meals per day.  [33:05] Nutrition and Exercise for Ectomorphs Ectomorphs have a more developed nervous system and are suitable for speed endurance.  Cycling and swimming help calm their body.  Because they have stiffer and more rigid body tissue, speed, endurance and flexibility work should be balanced.  You can put a heavier load with higher repetitions — for instance, 12 to 20 reps. Do this at 7 in the morning and in the afternoon.    7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode ‘We’re all born with around 23,000 genes; we’re all born with a blueprint. That’s a blueprint of our genes, and those genes were given when born. But what we can do now in a way our body responds with the exercise and food we give it will dictate how our genes express themselves’. ‘Here's my genes. Here's how I can optimise them, and how I can also be aware of perhaps some of the weaknesses that I might have and how I can make the best out of my body, and out of my mind, and out of my sporting performance and out of my health’. ‘If you look around — look at your family, your friends, those around you — you'll see that we are all different shapes. And we should be different shapes. It's okay to be different shapes’. ‘You can still be a long-distance runner, but it becomes more important, then, that you rest harder’. ‘You can get gains without pain’. ‘It's okay to be me, in all aspects’. ‘There are advantages and there are disadvantages to every body type. The thing to take away is let's work with our advantages’.   Enjoy the Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can personalise their diets and exercise based on their body type. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Full Transcript Introduction: Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential, with your host, Lisa Tamati. Brought to you by lisatamati.com. Lisa Tamati: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Pushing the Limits this week. Coming up, I have a very good interview with Neil Wagstaff, who has been on the show regularly, my business partner at Running Hot Coaching. And today we are getting into personalized nutrition and personalized exercise. So, understanding how to build the right exercise and diet plan for your specific set of genes.  So, this is related a little bit to a couple of episodes that we've done prior, but it's focusing in on the nutrition aspects, and on the exercise aspect. So I hope you really enjoy the session.  Now Christmas is coming up. So if you haven't got your Christmas presents ready yet, you might want to grab one of my books. We've got three Running Hot and my first one, Running To Extremes, both of those chronicling my adventures all around the planet. Lots of successes and failures, and lots of laughing, lots of fun we have at those books. And my recent book, Relentless—how a mother and daughter defied the odds, which is really a book about empowering you to overcome obstacles, think outside the square, take control of your own health. And it's a love story between a mother and a daughter and family. So I hope you grab one of those for your Christmas present this year. You can get them over on lisatamati.com, under the shop banner.  And before we go over to Neil, I just want to remind you, we are taking on a small—very small number—of clients on one-on-one sessions. If you have a health problem—I just was getting asked all the time, ‘Can you please help me with this or that problem’? And so we've actually opened up a number of places, we're only dealing with 10 people at a time on their health journeys.  If you've got a complicated health journey that you want to help with, or you want high performance, or you've got some big massive goal that you have, and you need some support around your mindset, or brain injuries, or a cancer journey, or stroke, or whatever the case may be, then please reach out to us, support at lisatamati.com and tell us what you're looking for. And we can see whether we'll be able to help you. We're enjoying working with a number of people and getting some fantastic results. So, let us know if you want to do that.  Please also give a rating and review to the show if you haven't. It really, really helps the show. And I can't emphasize enough how appreciated that is when I get a rating or a review from a listener, it really makes my day. I love hearing from listeners because you don’t—you're always talking into a microphone, you don't actually get a lot of feedback. So, we do appreciate you telling us what you think. And if there's guest recommendations or if there's things that you want us to talk about then maybe we can add to the list, then please let us know. Okay? Reach out to us. And yes, right, over to the show now. We'll be enjoying this conversation with Neil Wagstaff, all around personalized diet and exercise.  Welcome back, everybody. Fantastic to have you with us again. Today, I have Neil Wagstaff in Havelock North, my business partner at Running Hot Coach, my long-time coach, and exercise scientist, brilliant man, welcome to the show again, Neil. Fantastic to have you back again. Neil Wagstaff: Thanks, Lisa. Nice introduction. I like that.  Lisa: Yes, well, got to [00:03:40 unintelligible] you up a little bit. (laughs) Neil: Very nicely. Very nicely.  Lisa: All very well entertained, by the way people.  So today's subject and I love having these conversations with Neil because we love to learn together, develop our philosophies together, train together. Yes, it's all fantastic. So today we're going to be looking at exercise and nutrition, and how to personalize it to you, so that you are doing the right diet and the right types of exercise for your particular body.  So, Neil, where do you want to start with this? Do you want to start with the body types and that type of thing?  Neil: If we give people a little bit of an overview of just the phenotype, what we're going to be looking at and then we can go into some of the body types in there. So just everyone should appreciate and understand, Lisa, they're all unique. And it's okay to be different. It's okay to be themselves. And gone are the days of the one-size-fits-all program for the exercise and nutrition point of view. And your exercise and nutrition should be personalized to you.  Now as we look at that and sort through, it is good to look at it through the lens of—which is where we're going to be looking at it—through the lens of epigenetics. So, as you know, we’re all born with around 23,000 genes, we’re all born with our blueprint. That’s our blueprint of our genes, and those genes are what we’re given when born. But what we can do now and where our body responds with the exercise and food we give it will dictate how our genes express themselves.  So, if we're giving ourselves the wrong type of exercise, or the wrong type of nutrition, or doing it at the wrong times of day, or a different time of day, then our genes can respond in a different way. And what we get as a result that is a phenotype, with you and I looking at each other with how we look. Our phenotype can look some differently different, it can be affected from a health point of view, if we've got the exercise, wrong time of day, wrong dosage, and the wrong intensity. And the same from nutrition point of view—wrong foods, wrong time of day, and the wrong amount. And all of a sudden, our phenotype can change quite significantly. And we can end up with a body that is not in a good state from a health point of view. Lisa: Yes, and this is where the one-size-fits-all approach of the fitness industry—up until recently, at least—has put certain body types in down the wrong direction. And you use a couple of terms there, I just want to clarify, and people would have heard on a couple of our earlier podcasts, if they have listened to a number of them. We're really big on understanding your genes and understanding how to optimize your genes and how to make the best out of your body, and not seeing the genes as something as deterministic. But seeing them as a, ‘Well, here’s my genes, here's how I can optimize them and how I can also be aware of perhaps some of the weaknesses that I might have, and how I can make the best out of my body and out of my mind and out of my sporting performance and out of my health’. So the word phenotype is a word that we use in our daily language now. But people probably don't quite understand what a phenotype. So, if you think of your DNA, your 23,000 genes odd, we're still counting, but around about there. And then everything that happens in your environment, or your food, your nutrition, the way you think, the perspective on life, your emotional well-being—all of these things affect your genes. And what is the result of that is how you are. That includes not only the way you look physically, but also the state of your mind, the state of your body, and the state of your health. It’s a combination.  So the ‘epi’ meaning above the gene, it’s outside of the genes, what's influencing the genes. So when we talk about genes being turned on and off, this is where it gets exciting because we have the ability. So, we inherited our genes, we can't do anything about that, mum and dad did that for us. We are given the blueprint half from mum, half from dad, we got to make this or that. However, which genes are actually activated and which are being transcribed—transcription is a word that is used in regards to genes—and actually read is very much in our control.  So some people get a little bit nervous when they hear genes or ‘Getting my gene system, maybe I'll come back with some bad genes’. Well, there's no such thing really as having—well, there is some bad mutations and so on—but we don't need to say, ‘Well, that means I'm going to get cancer. I've got the bracket gene, so I'm going to get cancer’. Or ‘I've got the MTHFR gene and the methylation, and I've got some bad mutations, therefore I am going to get XYZ’. That's not the case. It's like, ‘Oh, okay, got a bit of a problem here. Right, I have to do some certain interventions, or certain things that can help support my body’. And that's what we're all about. And today we want to focus in on the exercise part of the puzzle, and also the nutrition part of the puzzle.  So, if we go now into some broad body types, to give you a bit of a framework to build this around, and unfortunately, the podcast, for those watching on YouTube, we do have slides and stuff, but we haven't got them with us today. It's a little bit hard to picture. But if we go in now and talk a little bit about the three major body types, Neil, can you explain visually how they look? And what, yes?  Neil: Yes. So somatotypes, as they're called, are basically three different body shapes. Okay, so different bodies are going to respond to exercise in different ways.  Okay? So an ectomorph are generally taller, longer, slimmer, low percentage of body fat, leaner, and generally, depending on what they're doing, we'll find—will often struggle to put more lean tissue on. And regardless of whether exercising or not, they normally keep a similar sort of shape.  A mesomorph are normally a little bit shorter in stature, then that sort of traditional triangle shape. So broader shoulders, narrow at the waist, and shorter with the lower limbs, and they're very, very good at putting on muscle mass and usually put it on very quickly. And they're usually those a little bit more agile, quick, good coordination. And usually those good in the sporting arena as well.  Endomorphs are usually bigger bones, great putting on all tissues. So great putting on adipose tissue or body fat, also great putting on muscle. So bigger, much, much bigger units from a body point of view and evenly sort of shape with upper and lower body so that that mass is kind of distributed quite nicely across the whole body as well. And if you look around you, look at your family, your friends, those around you, you'll see that we all different shapes. And we should be different shapes, it's okay to be different shapes.  If I'm an endomorph, I don’t want to spend my entire time... Lisa: ...trying to be an ectomorph.  Neil: ...trying to be an ectomorph. But this is the way the health and fitness industry has been set up, it is the picture of, ‘This is what we should all look like we should all look like this’. And we should all be great, which for some people, they're going to fit into that box and they're going to go, ‘Yay works for me’. Others, it's just not good news. We need to trade some more individuality and personalization around it, that people getting the right results.  If we take it a step further as well, this whole process starts when you're growing in your mum's tummy. So, the science of embryology, this all happens at that phase. And if you imagine as you're growing in mum's tummy, how much energy you're given to each of your derms. So you've got your ectoderm, your mesoderm, and your endoderm. As you're developing and growing in mum’s tummy, you'll get certain amount of energy into each of those derms. So this whole process of what body shape or somatotype you're going to be starting as you're growing in your mum’s tummy.  As you're developing—I’m just kind of sit as a ecto-meso, a little more on the ecto side. So, I'm kind of taller, stroke, with muscle — I can put some muscle tissue on more than the true ectomorph could. As I was developing in my mum’s tummy, I have much more energy go into my ectoderm. So, I have more development through my nervous system. So, I've got quite an active nervous system, more sensitive to pain, and a little bit of a very active mind. And probably described the body's a little bit more fragile than an endomorph body would be, which has more development through the digestive tract, and the ability to put more on tissue. So therefore, a much more resilient body, going to be better to deal with the calibre stress... Lisa: The human weight  Neil: Endurance wise, it’s great at taking a whole lot of burn, physical endurance. From an exercise point of view, it’s a sort of body that's going to be well suited to powerlifting and things like that, but great endurance wise,  Lisa: Dwayne Johnson is a good example of one of those, isn’t it? The Rock.  Neil: Very much so. Very, very resilient body. This whole process is starting, as you—when you come into the world, you're kind of already going to be an ecto, a meso, or an endo, or a combination of—you might be an ecto-meso, meso-endo, and an endo-ecto.  But if you can start to relate as you're listening and look at your body shape, and start to think about where, what sort of body shape I've got, and what sort of activities should I be doing for that for that body? And what time of day, should I be doing it? And how should, what sort of dose of exercise should I be applying? Then you can start to get some good wins. Okay, you can start get some real, real good wins with your exercise and nutrition plan. Neil: And that's what we sort of want to cover off today, it’s a little bit of a broad—it's a very broad overview. So Neil, and I have a program where we actually do your genes and have a have a whole technology behind us if you wanted to go into it and do a deep dive and find out exactly what you are and where you sit and what the right recommendations are for your body—the right foods, the right exercise, the right times a day.  But to just give you a broader overview here, what are some takeaways from today, so start to think where do I sit? So, I know that I sit on the ecto-meso sort of side of things. So I'm not a true-true mesomorph but I am quite muscular in built. I'm a little bit taller than your average mesomorph. So I have some ectomorph tendencies as well. So if I'm looking for me, there are certain things that are really good for me and certain things that are not so good for me.  And so, we're going to cover off a little bit today, those from them three major groups, the ectomorph, endomorph, and the mesomorph. What some high level wins that you can just take away from this podcast today and actually go, ‘I think I fall into that category or a combination of those two’, and then you can start to experiment. I mean, of course, come and see us, ask us some questions, do the program if you want to do it, but if you don't want to do it, you can take some high level wins away from this.  So for the—let's start with a mesomorph because it's sort of the part that I fall into and know quite well. So the mesomorph from our body type is very good at putting on lean muscle mass, they're very quick adapters. So when they exercise, they get results quite quickly. They're very coordinated usually and quite athletic. From a personality perspective, they can be quite into challenge and into beating everybody else, very competitive. They love to express themselves. So they're quiet, they need to be able to share their thoughts. Sometimes there's no filter between the brain and the mouth. And they have a dominance in testosterone and adrenaline if they're true mesomorph. And this means that they have a bit more of a risk-taking personality, they have a lot of drive and determination, they can push through, and they tend to go hard out. And they like a lot of change, and a lot of like, challenge, and that sort of thing. So, you can see, possibly, that I fit nicely into that category with a bit of ectomorph in there as well.  So for that person, Neil, can you explain what are some of the high level wins for them from an eating and an exercise perspective? Neil: Yes, no worries, Lisa. So natural strengths for the sort of body you're just describing is going to be good from sort of hand eye coordination point of view. So, getting involved in activities that involve good hand eye coordination. They're going to be quite agile and quick, they're going to be able to move quickly, and respond quickly. From a body awareness point of view, they're going to have good connection with their body. Often you'll find—if you're the sort of body, you'll be able to pick things up quite quickly. Try sport, try an activity, and get it quite quickly. As you say, quick responders, so the type of exercise you're doing, and you're going to respond quickly to.  To be fair and probably very honest, this is the message the sort of people that the fitness industry is...  Lisa: Catering to  Neil: ...screaming about for years when you should do high intensity and sport training. So CrossFit style exercise, high-intensity interval training, short bursts of high intensity exercise worked very, very well for this body. So if you've got this body, those shorter sessions are sort of 20 to 40 minutes, is going to work very well for your body.  And things to be careful of here exercising for too long. So exercising for long periods of time, it's a lot to involve in, resulting in additional information and additional load on the body. So one of the biggest wins—and we've worked a lot on this, at least ourselves as well with your programming—is making sure that there’s enough rest in the program. Here, it's all about going hard but then resting hard. Going hard, resting hard.  Now what often happens is, a lot of our athletes, the runners that we work with, and just people looking for general health goals as well, we find that they go hard really well, but they don't rest so well. So, you end up with that inflammation, that additional load on the body, and then the next one, you end up with the injuries, niggles, and health burnout as well.  So just, yes, rest hard and all right to work out, make sure the rest hard is there as well. Move daily, the regular movement. As I'm talking to Lisa, now she's moving around on a... Lisa: Rocket board.  Neil: Rocket board. So she's rocking back and forth. That’s great for her, it means we can do what we're doing. And she can stay in flow and she can stay in flow because she's moving regularly. For this body type, leaving it sat still, desk all day, is a recipe for disaster.  Lisa: Kills me. Neil: So don't be sitting in the tree in the afternoon. Okay, be conscious about moving in that 2 to 4pm window, getting out and moving. If you sat at your desk, then stuff where you can work and move is very useful as well.  Lisa indicated that about having a competition—the challenge, whatever you’re doing, exercise-wise. This is why for the mesomorph programs like CrossFit works so well. You get a workout after the board, it’s like, ‘Right. What is the challenge for today? I don't know what it's going to be, what is it? We've got the challenge, it’s up on the board, the way we go, and now the whole group of people I can be’. So that’s why it works so well for the mesomorph. Looking for opportunities as well. Working out earlier in the morning. Some good wins when you work out through the afternoon. But make sure that you are dipping things down and going through your working install exercises in the late afternoon and evening.  So you turn in the body down, mobility work, meditation work, stuff that's going to slow the system down and get you into a parasympathetic state. So, you're then ready to rest and recover and go and do the same thing the next the next day. Lisa: Don't go hard out all night, which I used to do, day and night (laughs). Relinquish. Neil: Rest, rest, rest hard. Food wise, you can start to see that it's a similar—it's going to be with the amount of movement that we're encouraging for the mesomorph. It’s like, ‘Right we're going to need to feel that’. So food to this body is like kindling on a fire. If you put it in and it burns through it quickly, transit time from mouth to bomb is pretty quick.  So you need to keep fuelling. So, three good meals, with breakfast, lunch, dinner, and then regular snacks. So, you're going to be looking at up to sort of five or six meals a day, that paleo style food recommendation, again has come out from the fitness industry, is great for the mesomorph.  Lisa: This type...  Neil: Okay? And enough protein. Protein is going to be key. Often we find that a lot of mesos we work with, and some are even vegetarian or vegan, where we get some massive wins, is getting the protein up. So protein is needed for the recovery, it's needed to see more so for this body type, so getting that happening and increasing that can be can be key. Lisa: And to that point, quickly we did a podcast was two weeks ago, I think, with Dr. David Minkoff, make sure you go and listen to that podcast because it was all about the perfect amino combination and getting the right—so amino acids bring the building blocks of proteins, and this is a game changer for a lot of athletes, especially people who are in the mesomorph interview.  Definitely if you're vegan or vegetarian and try in your office body type, or if you're like me, and you're constantly dealing with a protein deficiency, then that can be really detrimental to your health. And there's a product that Dr. Minkoff has put out, which is just next level. I've had some great ones with it already with a couple of people that I'm working with and with myself. And just healing much better, much more calmer and so on because you're finally getting all the proteins that you need in the right combination.  So make sure you go and listen to that because when you have a steak, only 33% of that steak is actually going to turn into protein. So just because you eat meat, don't think you've already got it covered. So make sure you go and listen to that episode a couple of weeks ago.  Just as an aside, but the mesomorph does need a lot more protein. The mesomorph also has a lot more oxidative stress—they have a lot more oxidants. So, they need a lot of antioxidant support. So these antioxidants are things like your vitamin C, which I've just done a massive series on as well. Very, very important for this body type to define as your master, antioxidant bioflavonoids.  So, getting your fruits and your veggies and your things that have got this antioxidants in there can really help this type as well.  Neil: Connecting the dots a little bit for the listeners as well, Lisa, is that we're recommending here, when we said sort of dosage wise, we were talking about that sort of 20 to 45 minutes short session.    Now it could be, we got some runners listening and doing ultra-marathon runners like you used to, with your big distance you've done in the past, is looking at right, it doesn't mean you've got to stop running long distances and you've got to cut back to doing 20 to 45-minute sessions. You can still be a long-distance runner, but it becomes more important then that you rest harder. So the rest dosage needs to go up. Plus, really conscious then, are you getting the right amount of food in each day? And is there enough protein to support that additional workload?  So it's getting clever with going, ‘Right. There's other exercise that I want to do, which isn't necessarily the best choice of exercise for my body type, but I love it. So I'm going to carry on doing that. But now I can use the other information I've got to go right. What do I need more of to support my body through this’?  Lisa: And that's working in the grey, if you like. We've got our personal goals and then we've got our genetics and what they want. So, it's that's what we help with people to work in that grey area to make—like I wanted to do ultras, I did it for 25 years and had some fantastic times and successes but it did come at a cost because I wasn't aware of all this spec being and not necessarily covering all my bases which lead to problems, as shall we say.  Okay, let's move over now to the endomorph body type. So, these are those—the types of people that are bigger boned, like literally bigger boned, and they have more muscle mass, more bone mass, and they tend to be conservationists in their body type.  So, my mom's a classic example of an endomorph body type. Can level the smell of an oily rag basically, as far as food goes for a long period of time, and not lose weight and also not lose muscle which can have huge advantages and huge disadvantages.  So Neil, what are some of the exercise and food recommendations for the endomorph body type? Neil: But generally, these guys' bodies we said when we're talking about the embryology side with the body shapes, these bodies are going to be good for endurance, they're going to be great for strength, you can put a significant amount of load through them.  Okay, so we've talked for now you start to see some differences coming in. We talked about the mesomorph, short, sharp, high-intensity, fast, explosive, quick style movements, Cross fit style stuff. Now we're going to talk about getting heavier weights. Okay? So heavier weights, lower repetitions, could be in the sort of five to eight rep range with good rest periods in between. So, you can get gains without pain. That message again, that's come out of the fitness industry over the years is, ‘Got to keep pushing. No pain, no gain’. Yes, we can get gain without the pain, that's fine. Just let the body take its time, put some good loads for a bit.  Things to take into care in here as well as we've got runners listening, which we probably have with the audience. Lisa's looking at making sure you've got a longer warm up. So, this body is going to take longer to warm up, if you're going to do some endurance stuff, give it a good 15, 20 minutes. A mesomorph body type might not need as long to warm up. Okay? There's going to be differences and care for the perfect repetitive impact and jumping without the extended warm up can still do them, but you need the longer the longer warm up for it.  Now, and generally in the morning, this body type—we said with a mesomorph get up early and get into some stuff. What we're saying here with this, the endo body shape is start slower. This body is going to have a different hormone balance as well. So, getting up early and loading the body with a high intensity class at 6am is probably going to result in that body putting on all adipose tissue and body fat tissue.  So you could do bootcamp, literally three days a week. You can train like a HIIT train and get better or not change at all. So both are just crazy concepts. I train three mornings a week, I eat six meals a day, and I'm getting better. So it's looking at—the morning should be about improving your circulation and rising slowly. So if you want to move, move, but keep at low volume. Lisa: Low stress level. Go for a walk.  Neil: Low stress level. Ease into the day, spend time in nature, and then slower heavy lifting will start to get you better results.  Optimum times—when doing some training is going to be later in the day. So, the later you can push your training in the day, the better against slow start, pick up steam, and then go hard. And then use your energy before you go down into the latter part of the day. And yes, just look at low reps, try it and test it. Okay? Like you said at the start, if you want to get the exact, here you are, come and look at the program. If you want to play with it and test it, see what results you get. Some more traditional style lifting, bigger compound movements, get some good weights through the body, and that weight will—sorry the body will respond well to that additional resistance. And that applies to guys and girls. Ladies, don't worry that you're going to start getting bigger. The result of this will start to change shape in a positive way by getting more load through your body.  Lisa: Exactly, and muscles are good things, girls. And an example of this is my brother Dawson, who looks like The Rock actually. And his classic training style is heavy, heavy weights, and doing them quite slowly. Whereas if you watch us two at the gym, I'm going hard out hard out, like back-to-back seats, changing. And he's sitting near with his music on and he's doing one set, and then he's having a rest, and then he's doing another set and having a rest.  And I used to think, ‘Shit, I don't want to do that because that's wasting my day. Like I don't want to spend so long at the gym’. And then he’s cut it down to the size he wants. But that's the right way to exercise for his body. Conversely, with my husband, Haisley—and I've said this before—I used to make them do CrossFit at 6am in the morning, which was a complete disaster for his body. Neil: You’re a hard woman, Lisa.  Lisa: Yes, I am a hard woman. Poor Haisley.  And now that he does super long-distance running. And he does heavy weights, he doesn't like doing the weights particularly, so I got to drag him to the gym. But that—his body responds to that heavier slower weights but don't make him do CrossFit, he won't get the results and it won't be a good experience for him.  From a meal perspective, let's talk a little bit about their eating times and the chronobiology of their—when they should eat. Neil: Yes. We talked about with the mesos that five or six times a day, the food is like kindling on a fire. Now we're going to change that. For this body type, we're looking at potentially changing the meals to say 10, 2, and 6. So later breakfast, later lunch, with lunch being the biggest meal. Lunch being the biggest meal of the day and then a smaller dinner as well. And in some key cases, depending how close you are to the meso and how close you are to the ecto in some cases, looking at—for the endomorphs looking at getting rid of breakfast all together and having a longer fast in the morning. Higher vegetarian. High vegetarian intake for these bodies as well.  And it's amazing, some of the local wins we've had with some of the guys working with locally in Hawke's Bay. Big guys, big sportsmen as well, and just going from eating sort of four or five times a day, lots of meat, reducing that meat down, increasing the vegetarian portion of food that's going into a diet, longer fast in the morning. Their energy has gone through the roof, their clarity of mind has gone through the roof. Their resilience with regards to niggles and injuries that they had before, which was probably down to inflammation, has now started to go. And the results they're getting is phenomenal.  Now, again, you see in the media that everyone should be fasting’s next best thing. What we're seeing now that for some people it is the next best thing, it's the perfect thing. Lisa: For these guys, it’s great.  Neil: For these guys, it’s great. For others, if you put me on a fasting process like that, when we talked about the ectomorph having the high nervous development in the nervous system, need carbohydrates for the brain. I'd be out cold by lunchtime, if I follow through a meal time like that. I would have probably eaten one of my limbs. So the more time for a person... Lisa: I mean, you could do a fast. But you do a shorter fast don't you, Neil? So you do a 12-hour as opposed to... Neil: Yes, so generally I won’t eat after seven in the evening and then don't eat until seven again in the morning.  Lisa: So it’s a 12-hour fast type of thing? Yes Neil: So, to kick start my day, I need to eat the carbs.   Lisa: Yes. And so that's just working in with your thing. Because there is good things about fasting, don't get me wrong here. Like there is really good things about fasting for all body types to a certain degree. Woman have to be a little bit careful with a longer, longer fast, in relation to—so I find and if you're of an ectomorph side of the wheel then, and to a certain extent, a meso, then your fast should be a little bit shorter.  There are some great things about fasting, especially if you're dealing with weight issues or inflammation on the body. Or if there's some specialized reasons why you want to do longer fasts for autophagy, inhibiting mTOR and things like that. But that's outside today's discussion.  But it is a general rule, a good 12-hour intermittent fast for an ecto is a great thing to give your body a rest. For an endomorph, if you can last for up to 16 hours or even longer, brilliant. And you can actually even go for longer periods of time if you're really on the endomorph side of the scale without too much detriment.  So it's a learning to understand but definitely only two to three meals a day. And not five to six meals a day is probably a key takeaway point. Neil: Correct. And the way we've had the biggest wins just as a little summary for these guys is changing the exercise time. So, moving the exercise the later in the day, and going to three meals, at 10, 2, and 6. Huge, huge, huge wins.  Lisa: Already.  Neil: So it's simple changes, massive results. Lisa: Yes, slower, slower periods in between your seats, or long-distance slow sort of aerobic activity perfect for these guys.  Okay, now let's go to the ectomorph, the last sort of group on the spectrum, if you like. What do these guys need?  Neil: So these guys are generally going to be your speed endurance guys and girls. They're going to be the ones that got the ability to live on that threshold. So, they often be your triathletes, your sort of middle-distance runners, those people that—and some people also long-distance runners—but they can live on the edge, that lactate threshold quite comfortably and enjoy it for quite long periods of time.  So high drive to do that as well. So, they want to do that, enjoy doing that. And we talked as well about them being more developed in the nervous system. So, the rhythmical exercise of cycling and running and swimming, that helps calm his body a little bit as well. So the rhythm is a good exercise, almost like a meditation, will help calm that I find being able to process my thoughts of mine while I'm on a bike or running is the best place to do it.  Things to be careful of. This body will often be stiffer through the spinal cord and will often have to tie some more rigid tissue. So, you need a balance of that speed endurance work and but also to complement that, you're going to need a lot of mobility work, flexibility work. Okay? Stuff that's going to mobilize, moving up the spine.  From a repetition point of view, we've just talked about the endomorph having higher reps. I am personally, historically would always come out...  Lisa: Oh right. Actually.  Neil:  ...generally done a strength block a couple of times a year. I would end up doing reps of sort of five to eight heavy lifting and that's when I'd usually pick up most of my injuries. The  reason is my body just wasn't, is... Lisa: Not designed for that. Neil: Not capable—capable is not the right word—it’s not designed, as you say, to do that. I can put some heavier load through it but we need to be a lot more careful than an endomorph body would. So high reps, 12 to 20 reps, lots of mobility work and really going a day of high intensity, endurance base work followed by a day of recovery, yoga, mobility work, and peaking and troughing like that.  Okay, and good windows of opportunity with exercise around seven in the morning. And then again in the afternoon, depending on what works best for this body type. Okay, again, seeing quite big differences. Differences in body shape, therefore differences in the type of exercise you're going to respond to and the results you're going to get from it. Lisa: Yes. Now, I think that rounds it out really nicely.  So you got your ecto, your endo, and your mesomorph.  And this is a helicopter view, guys. If you want to dig deeper into the whole science of the genetics and epigenetics, then we can get really granular. Like we can tell you, ‘Don't eat kale, do eat spinach’, like down to that root sort of level.  But just to keep it so you can take away some wins for today, those that I think, try and identify what you are. Whether you're like me, a bit of a mixture between a mesomorph and an ectomorph, and where use it on that scale, listen to this, again. Pick out some of those—because this is about low hanging fruit and getting a couple of wins. And if you take away from this that you should be eating a little bit later in the day and doing your exercise later in the day, then that's a little bit already a positive one then, that’s an understanding. I think one of the biggest things that I've gotten out of this whole genetics, this whole genre of it, you and I’ve gone down, Neil, in the functional genomics and the epigenetics is, it's okay to be me. In that in all aspects, whether it's us working together in our business, in the way our brains work, in the way our personality is, in the times of the day that we do things, right through to the nutrition, and right through to the social, and understanding, ‘Hey, I was born this way’.  Not that this is an excuse to be not great at something, but it does explain why I do things in a certain way, and why my brain works in a certain way, why my body reacts in certain ways. And that gives you permission to be you because like as a young woman, I know that I was always wanting to be an ectomorph. I always wanted to be the super skinny model type girl and I was a muscular athletic girl and that was not okay because that was not what I wanted to be. And I know Neil's struggled with the same thing here. Small calf muscles and thought, ‘If I do a billion reps of calf muscle exercise, I’m going to have big calves’. And you're pushing should have basically, aren’t you, Neil? You can’t be what you’re not.  Neil: They weren’t enough.  Lisa: Now you love your calves because you can run a lot faster than I can, that's for sure.  Neil: Yes. They’ll look great in heels.  Lisa: Exactly. And you know, for someone like mum who struggles with the weight because of the endomorph tendencies. I tell you what if she hadn't had that type of body, she wouldn't have got up out of a wheelchair after two years of being unable to walk. Because she still had muscle mass. She still had good bones, she still didn't have osteoporosis, or anything.  So there are advantages and there are disadvantages to everybody type. The thing to take away is let's work with our advantages. Let's be aware of our weaknesses and let's accept ourselves, I think, as we are and understand ourselves better. And that's probably a good place to wrap it up... Neil: Nicely. Lisa: ...for the day.  Neil: We'll wrapped up. Very good. Lisa: Okay guys, well thank you very much once again for listening to us. Please do reach out to either Neil or I if you want support doing this program. We'd love to have you join us of course.  Or if you've got any other health issues or whatever you want to talk about, or your fitness journey, you're running, you've got some goals, please reach out to us. You can get us at support@lisatamati.com. Give the show a rating and review and share this please with your friends. We love doing this type of thing, aren’t we, Neil?  If we could just do this all day, we’ll be stoked.  Neil: Would be nice. Would be nice.  Lisa: We love teaching, we love sharing, we love having good content out there in the world. So, thanks very much, guys and we'll see you again next week. That's it this week for Pushing The Limits. Be sure to rate, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.  The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.  

Have you ever wondered what it must feel like to be a world record holder? It may seem like their experiences are so different from yours, but you’ll be surprised with how alike they are to you. They may share the same hobbies or be in the same industry as you before they made their record. Or they may have faced the same struggles you're currently confronting. No matter where they come from, great people are still people, just like you. Today, ex-Special Forces soldier, security specialist, and record-breaking adventurer Dean Stott joins us. He shares his experiences, from his military background to his Pan-American Highway cycling adventure. His is an inspiring story of pushing the limits and redefining the meaning of ‘adventurer’. Just like everyone journeying through life, he has also faced challenges on the way to the finish line. After listening to the episode, you may gain the motivation to try something you've never done before. If you’re thinking of one day achieving a world record or if you want to know the meaning of being an adventurer, this episode is for you.   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health program all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year’s time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, your goals and your lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity or are wanting to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within 3 years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa’s Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, a NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that is capable of boosting the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements that are of highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust — NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combat the effects of aging, while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection ‘Fierce’, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:  Find inspiration as Dean shows us the meaning of adventurer. Realise your similarities in experiences with a world record holder. Gain insight into how long-distance cycling is both a physical and mental feat.   Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron!  Harness the power of NAD and NMN for anti-aging and longevity with NMN Bio.  Listen to other Pushing the Limits Episodes: #183: Sirtuins and NAD Supplements for Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova #189: Understanding Autophagy and Increasing Your Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova #192: Mental Resilience and Endurance: A Journey Across the Ocean with Laura Penhaul Connect with Dean: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter   Relentless by Dean Stott   The Black Country Buddhas Podcast Episode #55: Dean Stott- Human Performance, World Records And The Unrelenting Pursuit Of Excellence!  13 Hours (2016)  Heads Together UK Windy TV    Episode Highlights  [04:53] Dean’s Background Dean’s father was a tracksuit soldier or the football manager and coach in the army.  Dean was an active child growing up.   While he was never forced to go into the military, he ended up joining anyway. [09:00] The Fruits of Dean’s Military Training Dean’s time in the military helped him put on some muscle and gain height and weight. He didn’t feel pressure to choose a department because he wasn't aware of how difficult each option would be. Dean ended up in the SBS (Special Boat Service) as he was more comfortable with water. He learned that rehearsing over and over helps you prepare for different scenarios.  Dean’s training also prepared him to expect things to never go according to plan. He was taught how to react and plan for the best outcomes. [16:57] Dean’s Turning Point Unfortunately, Dean had an accident while on an aircraft jump during pre-deployment training. Luckily, he landed successfully. However, he tore numerous supporting muscles, particularly in his knee. He couldn’t even run 100 meters due to these injuries. Dean left the military. After retiring, he experienced an identity crisis. Dean's wife, Alana, was also pregnant. So, he was under a large amount of mental pressure. Alana helped him during this challenging period.  [22:35] Experience in the Security Industry With his training from the Special Forces, Dean went on to the security industry. He carried out projects for the British and Canadian embassies. Dean bought weapons and communication tools to sell to his clients. Additionally, he also made and sold evacuation plans to oil and gas companies. Ad-hoc security projects were a better option for Dean as he didn’t want to join organisations. He helped in the aftermath of the Benghazi assassination of the then American ambassador. With his safe houses and contacts, he was able to transport people from Benghazi to Tripoli.  Despite the numerous tribal and ideality differences between these two places, Dean helped people safely reach their destinations. He did this by communicating respectfully and humbly with the locals. [31:33] The Effect of Fear The media largely contributes to the world’s perception of high-risk places.  Dean is fully aware of the threats present in his job. But he learns to appreciate and look at another perspective.  Despite terrorist threats and danger, these high-risk cities have hospitable people and lovely surroundings.  [37:03] Looking for the Meaning of ‘Adventurer’ Dean became fixated on working to gain money. Then, he realised he was losing physical and mental wellness. Before turning 40, Dean experienced a midlife crisis. He wanted to leave a legacy. And so he chose to break a world record on cycling.  Dean chose to cycle from South Argentina to North Alaska via the Pan-American Highway, the longest road in the world. To beat the record of 117 days, Dean's goal needed to cover the distance in 110. So, he trained to cycle in different weather conditions and altitudes. Dean cycled for Heads Up, the mental health campaign of Prince Harry, Prince William, and Kate. He set a target of  ₤1,000,000. [48:11] Preparation Phase As Dean was doing his research for cycling, he also spoke to previous record holders. He asked them questions that he learned from his experiences in Special Forces debriefings.  Dean learned that the previous record holders experienced issues in South and Central America, the second half of the challenge. [49:27] Dean’s Journey Across South and Central America  Dean decided to start in the south first to get all the issues out of the way. His adventure began in Southern Argentina. He became physically and mentally stronger after four weeks on the road. Most of the time, Dean would also go beyond his daily-set kilometres and hours.  He divided his milestones into countries, cities, and days. He also divided his days among four stages. With smaller and more manageable milestones, Dean didn't feel overwhelmed. He instead felt like he was training, nothing more. Dean looked forward to small rewards after each milestone. These motivated him to move and be better the next day. [55:47] Dean’s Trip Across North America By this time, Dean learned that he was invited to Prince Harry’s wedding. This meant he had to finish the challenge in 102 days.  So, he cycled at night.  Dean also saw a post of a recent world breaker, saying he’ll break a record within 100 days.  Dean’s family was also at the end to greet him; this thought motivated him. So, Dean cycled for 22 hours every day, even at -18 degrees, to beat the record.  [1:01:50] The Cycling World Record Dean's adventure lasted for 99 days. He spent ninety-four days cycling and five days on logistics.  He averaged 147 miles a day with a speed of 16.8 miles per hour. Dean also lost 12 kilos. Most importantly, he raised $1.2 million, or  ₤900,000, through corporate donors and sponsors.  He was even able to attend the royal wedding.  [1:03:19] Events Following Dean’s Adventure  Dean experienced two highs in a week and felt a depression phase after. Dean did a Q&A with Prince Harry shortly after returning to talk about the amount they raised. It's weird for your family to go on with their everyday lives while you’re still riding the highs of your success.  Dean feels lucky because his family is involved in his activities. So, they can be with him throughout his journey.  Anyone can do a world record when they have the luxury to just focus on their craft and immediate goals. Mortgages, physical health, and family responsibilities may get in the way of those goals. [1:08:44] What Lies Ahead for Dean His next goal is to kayak from Rwanda to Egypt, which is a 4,280 mile-long feat. This time, he will raise awareness on issues such as human trafficking, modern slavery, and pollution.  This new feat will also promote African people and their beautiful and natural environment. Kayaking is more skill-involved since he'll be encountering wild animals and overcoming water currents and waterfalls. Listen to the episodes about the specifics of Dan’s preparations. [1:14:54] Final Thoughts and Advice Don't compare yourselves to other people, especially on social media.  Anticipation is worse than participation. Start with small steps and progress from there.    7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode ‘If someone disagrees, “I didn't think you're gonna do it”. The best way to prove them wrong is actually physically doing it.’ ‘You can't control the uncontrollables, you know, as long as you have a plan. One thing I saw, really take from the military is that meticulous planning and detail that goes into it.’ ‘What I really took from the military is that unrelenting pursuit of excellence, trying to be the best you can be.’ ‘The world's very quick to tarnish certain societies with one brush because of what they've seen on TV.’ ‘Before you get, sort yourself out, you know, we'll sit down, and we'll ask three questions: “What worked? What didn't work? And if you're going to do it again, what would you do differently?”’ ‘And then it was just, look at the next two hours. Look at the next stage. I didn't look at the afternoon, didn’t look at the next day. And before you've done it, you've done a day, you've done a week, you've done a world record.’ ‘Don't worry about what other people are doing. Just focus on yourself. You know, I always say anticipation is worse than participation.’   About Dean Dean Stott is a former member of the British Special Forces, where he travelled to dangerous places for 16 years. After an accident, he was forced to find other ways to use his time and skills. With his experiences in the Special Forces, Dean is now a world-leading security consultant and avid adventurer. Indeed, Dean redefines the meaning of adventurer in everything that he does. He has set the world record, cycling the entire 14,000 km Pan-American Highway in less than 100 days. Apart from these successes, Dean is also a motivational speaker who helps others overcome fear and adapt to change. His positive mindset and wide range of skills also enable him to work with brands and charities. He also incorporates advocacies into his adventures, with his most recent world record supporting mental health. Check out his website if you want to know more about Dean and his next adventure. You can also reach him through other platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.   Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can understand the meaning of being an ‘adventurer’ and go on their own adventures. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Full Transcript Of The Podcast Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential. With your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com. Lisa Tamati: Welcome back everybody. Lisa Tamati here, your host. Fabulous to have you with me again for another crazy episode of Pushing the Limits. Before we get underway with today's guests who I know you're going to find very, very exciting and interesting, just a reminder, to check out our epigenetics program, our flagship program that we do. One of our main programs besides our online run training system, where we look at your genes and how to optimise your life, your nutrition, your food, your exercise, all aspects of your life, including your social, your career, what parts of your mind you use the most, your dominant hormones, all this information is now able to be accessed and we can identify the lifestyle changes and the interventions that we can make to optimise your life. So if you want to hit know a little bit more about that program, head on over to lisatamati.com, hit the work with us button and you'll see our Peak Epigenetics program, go and check that out.  I also like to remind you about my new supplement, NMN, nicotinamide mononucleotide. A bloody long name I know, but it's about longevity and anti-ageing. There is a ton of science that has gone into the research into NMN and as a precursor for NAD, which is nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. I've had a couple of podcast episodes with Dr. Elena Seranova. I'd love you to go and check those out. She is the founder of the company and I'm importing it now into New Zealand, Australia and down the center of the world. So if you want to check out that anti-ageing and longevity supplement, I spent months trying to get it so make sure if you're down in the world and you want top quality, independently certified, scientists-backed supplement that really does what it says on the label, then check it out. Go to www.nmnbio.nz, nmnbio.nz, and find out all about it.  Right. Today's guest is oh he's a bit of a legend. Dean Stott is his name. He's a ex-Special Forces soldier, he was in the special boat service, British Army's where he came from originally. And he spent 16 years going into the most dangerous places on the planet and doing his job as a frogman. That's his nickname on his website. Even, as The Frogman. He is the author of a book called Relentless. Go figure, we've both got books called Relentless. I think we knew that we were going to get along. He's a motivational speaker. He's also a world record holder. Most recently he cycled the entire Pan-American highway. What are we talking- what is it, 14,000 miles or something ridiculous. And he did it in under 100 days. He's an absolute legend. And he had to get it done in time to get to Harry and Megan's winning. So he was desperate to get it done under 100 days. It's a really interesting story. This is a guy who's lived life on the edge in every which way you can possibly imagine. So I'm really looking forward to sharing his insights and his story with you now. Right, over to the show with Dean Stott.  Well, hi everyone and welcome back to Pushing the Limits. Your host Lisa Tamati here, sitting in New Zealand and ready for a fantastic interview today. I have a bit of a hard ask with me. I think it's a bit hard to describe this man, what he's done. I have Dean Stott with me. Dean, welcome to the show. It's fantastic to hear you. Yeah, you're sitting in Orange County? Dean Stott: I say, yeah moved to move to Orange County in California six months ago, actually in the middle of the pandemic. Just took advantage of the world pause, and just changed scenery. Lisa: Just change the scenery. Right, Dean we're gonna have a really interesting conversation because when I discovered you actually through another friend's podcast, My Home Vitality, shout out to Sean and everyone over there. And I realised that we had the same title of our books, was your one right?  Dean: Yeah.  Lisa: My one's been smaller. I thought, you, ‘This guy's probably right up my alley’. So you are known as the frogman, you've been in this Special Forces, Special Boat Services. You have also become an expeditionary athlete and adventurer and, in many years. But I want to go back a little bit, and it's starting to, were you always this determined and crazy and head through the wall type of person? And tell us a little bit about your background for starters. Dean: Yeah, so I don't know whether I was on reflection, you look back and think maybe I was slightly, you know, you touched when I was in the military, my father was in the military. And I grew up surrounded by that, in that environment, but was never forced upon me to continue any sort of tradition and things like that. My father was the army football manager and coach. So he was very sports-oriented, what we would call a tracksuit soldier. He very much that, you know, his career was based on his sport and abilities. So there was that competitive drive anyway, that I had from my father. My parents split up when I was a young age. And when I was about eight years old, I moved away with my mother for a couple of years. My father then got custody of me and my sisters, we went back to live with my dad, so I only had the single parent, and we just went everywhere with him. And it was all with the military and all these sporting events. I wasn't, you know, the children of today, with technology, you know, when we were younger, as you will know, we know you weren't allowed in the house unless it was absolutely raining.  So we had some natural physical robustness. And by, I joined the military, I approached my father and told him my intentions of joining the military, when I was 17. And he, he told me, I'd last two minutes. I don't know whether that was reverse psychology for me to push harder and prove him wrong. And, but I was about 65 kilos, and five-foot-seven, so I wasn't, you know, the figure, the man that I am today. And, but when I did join the military, I then went through training and things. And I didn't have aspirations of being Special Forces or commandos or anything like that. And I didn't, I wasn't really aware about the structure of the military anyway, because it was just sport. That's all I've seen where my dad, I hadn't seen the bigger picture. So then when I pass basic training. It’s only 10 weeks long, you know, you then get a little bit of confidence in your abilities. And then you started in a short period of time, by the age of 20, or 21 actually, I was a para-commando diver and a PTA, done every arduous force within the military. But I'd grown so quick over those two or three years, and I will be about 85 kilos, now. I'm five-foot-eleven. So I was getting confident in my own abilities. And I was also growing into the individual that I was today. And I mean, once you pass a certain threshold, or pass a course, you then sort of look at, ‘Well, what's next?’ You know, I wasn't the best on the courses, but I just gave it my 100%. And then you sort of, your career then starts channelling in one direction, you then those before you or your peers, the mentors are all going Special Forces. And then it's like, the next question is, ‘Why not? Let's have a crack.’ Lisa: Yeah, that it takes a special type of person to be able to, like, I grew up in a family with lots of stories, like my dad was only in the military for a short time, but he was a firefighter. And so, you know, my husband's a firefighter, my dad's a firefighter, my brother's a firefighter, we’re a firefighter family. And when I was a girl, when I was a little girl, we couldn't, I couldn't grow up to be a firefighter. It wasn't, it wasn't you know, unfortunately. Thank God, you can now. And, you know, if my dad had had his way, I would have been a firefighter, I would have been an SAS soldier, I would have been like, because he was a hard ass And he wanted all of that for me. And, you know, unfortunately, society sort of stopped some of the things. So I ended up doing it in other ways that I could do it. But wasn't there a lot of pressure? Did you feel like you had to live, you know, your dad saying that to you? Was it sad and just a thing? Or did that really bite with you that, ‘Hey, I'm going to prove you wrong,’ you know what I'm going for?  Dean: Yeah, I think for me, it was. And we'll talk about other stories in my career, and it seems to be a common theme. I know, I fought. There's no point in arguing my father, you know, and or anyone, if someone disagrees, ‘I don't think you're gonna do it’. The best way to prove them wrong is actually basically doing it. Yeah. And then you don't even need to say anything. You just need to just leave that pause. And so I think for him, I don't know. I think it was a throwaway comment, you know, the fact I still talk about it now. And you know, a lot of people say to me, would you say that to your son? So of course, you know, I mean, I and, but for me it was that drive. Now, my father we talked about, you know, he really, he was sport oriented, actually when I joined Military I got sent to Germany to play football as well, because they knew I was Dave Stott’s son.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dean: And see, after a year of being there, I said, ‘No, I don't want to follow the same footsteps as my father, I want to carve my own path.’ And that's when I then went, commando, para and things. So I was going a different path from my father, he wasn't a para commando and things like that. So for me, it was like, this was new territory to me. I wasn't really put under pressure from him. I know a lot of guys who I served with, you know, from a young age, from young boys, all they ever wanted to be was a Royal Marine, or a para, they wanted to be SAS and things. I didn't, I wasn't, there was something that I didn't– Lisa: You weren’t conditioned. Dean: Look, I wasn't even aware of it. That was why. So when I approached these courses, I didn't put myself under that self-induced pressure with some of these guys– guys and girls do. And I think that helped in a way. I sort of approached it in a, you know, it is what. It is not being naive, it's not what was involved walk in the park. But, you know, I was aware how difficult it was. But it wasn't the be-all or end-all. You know, some guys who did it, don't achieve the grades or, or the standards, and then they're broken. That’s all their life. And I think it's actually too much pressure on themselves. So sort of going into these situations, you just need to be a bit open-minded. Lisa: And what was the training like to go into the Special Forces and to know what you do? What is it like to go through– because we see the stuff on the telly, and you know, everybody knows about how hard ass all that type of training is. And what do you need? What did you get out of it? What was the experience like for you to do those extreme sort of courses? Dean: Well for me, it’s very much a grown-up course. You know, the way that then, you've got this stuff on TV, where you have the perception it's hard-ass and everyone's swearing and shouting here. And it is night and day from that, you know. I understand with TV, there's a fine line between authenticity and entertainment. Actually, if you film selections, it’s actually quite boring. You know, these guys just get told where they got to go. And they just do it. So, and that's what I liked about the course is that the fact that you're– you all grow– you’re all treated as grown-ups. There was no shouting, and they just told you what to do. They didn't need to shout, the selection was that hard in itself, that they didn't need to put that additional pressure on you. So I did what I can. And in fact, they gave you some sort of independence. To think on your own. I was fortunate to be an instructor on the commando course and also the senior dive instructor. So I've seen it from an instructor's perspective. And on those sort of courses, you do give the students some motivation and inspiration as well.  But on this one, you don't get anything. Yes, you get the reverse when you go to the jungle, and they tell you about how you're not doing well. And you know, just give up now and save six months of your life and things out. But again, I got that reverse psychology as a young boy telling me I couldn't do it. So yeah. And for me, I didn't go– you're– I was from, I came from the army. So I, the normal traditional route was especially SAS. I went SBS. I was one of the first army guys to do that. And that was because I'd spent eight years with three commando brigades, Brigade Iraqi force and I was a senior dive instructor. So water, I was more comfortable in water. So the special boat service was that natural transition for me. So they say when you go on selection, be the gray man, you know, just don't don't stand out and bring attention to yourself and things. I’ll be the gray man for about two minutes. Because they will react, they’ll scream my name out. And that's why I was going this way and not the traditional, right? Lisa: Because you came from the wrong place. Dean: Yeah, although I didn't put myself under my own self-induced pressure. I had that sort of hovering above my head. But again, once you– if you're confident in your abilities, and there's a fine line between confidence and arrogance at that age. I was a 28 year old sergeant. And I spent seven years in Brigade Iraqi. I've seen those who've gone before me and I knew that I was just as good as then. And you sort of know that they're going to play these mind games and when they come, as long as you identify when they come in and just deflect it.  Lisa: Yeah. Has it really helped you in everything that you've done since like, what are some of the key learnings that you take away from doing such arduous, tough, scary stuff? Dean: Um, I think, you know, you can't control the uncontrollables you know, as long as you have a plan. One thing I saw, really take from the military is that meticulous planning and detail that goes into it. And the fact that we rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse. You know, we do that over and over and over again. You know, I've been guest speaking alongside some, like, some of the England rugby players. They talk about the World Cup, now that how they repeat an exercise, until they get 1% better. You know, we'll rehearse, rehearse all these different scenarios. And, but ours is a bit of a different situation. You know, if we get it wrong or pause or hesitate, you know, we don't lose five points in a row, we lose lives. Guys, people will get killed.  So yeah, so there's that which what I really took from the military is that unrelenting pursuit of excellence, trying to be the best you can be. But also, as well as the planning, and that we talked about that, we'll probably talk about it later when we talk about the bike ride, is the fact that not– nothing always goes to plan. Plan is the best plan in the world, you know, and things never go to plan. And don't worry about that. And that's what I liked about the Special Forces is there were a lot of, ‘Well, if you don't go as planned, you just react to the situation that's in front of you.’ And a good friend of mine told me a quote, ‘You can't be experienced without experiences’. And that's what I got from the military. The military, a lot of these big corporates around will, would love to try and replicate the scenarios or, or conditions that these people have been in, but you just can't. And that's the great thing about the military. They put you in some high octane environments, in difficult positions, difficult environments, and having to make difficult decisions. But you learn from that, you know, my decision, when was the wrong decision? You know, when you have to make? Yeah, you just reflect back on what worked and what didn't work. Lisa: Wow. So you were in the military for, I think it was 16 years, was it, or something?  Dean: Yes, yes. Yeah.  Lisa: And so it was a big chunk of your life. And then and then what happened? Tell us about the accident. Dean: Yeah. So I joined, I joined a special forces in the height of the war on terror. So I was the pinnacle of my career, everything was going really well. I was doing what these children nowaday plays Call of Duty. That was my lifestyle, day in day out. And we're just about to get pre-deployment training to go back out to Afghanistan again, and we're out training in Oman. And I was doing what's called a HAHO jumps, it’s a high altitude, high opening jump. So unlike freefall, where you're free aligned, you're actually still connected to the aircraft. You exit the aircraft at 15,000 feet. And you do that, because that's the limits of oxygen. Any higher and you need oxygen. You open the aircraft and the parachute will open– pull open straight away. And when you travel up to 50 kilometers, or 30 minutes in the air to the target area. So I've done–  no– we've done hundreds of these jumps before, I think it's about the third or fourth jump in a day.  And I just exit the aircraft as I normally did, no different from any time before. But this time, when I look, there was something wrong and my leg was actually caught in the line above my head. So I was trying to clear my leg in time before the parachute opened and potentially rip my leg off. But I couldn't clear it in time. The parachute opened, pulled my leg up over my head and the right. Thankfully made my foot released. And otherwise wouldn't be here having this conversation. But straight away I knew there was a problem. The pain was so severe that I was vomiting and because of how thin the air was, I was drifting in and out of consciousness. But no one else in the team knew there was a situation so I wasn't going to come over to net and tell them that I had a sore leg. So I managed to stay with the team, assess where the other parachutes were coming in against the wind.  And my first challenge was to land it because if I didn't land it correctly, you know, on one leg, you know potentially, you could damage your good leg. So, but I did. It was a great, great landing, landed one-legged. And fortunately, the damage sustained on the exit show in my career. As I tore my ACL, my MCL, my lateral meniscus, my hamstring, my calf and my quadriceps, so all these supporting muscles–  Lisa: Just got ripped. Dean: Yeah, just got ripped. But you know, in the ideal world you would go straight back to UK and you start physio, you just start working on it. But it was the same time as the Icelandic volcano which grounded all aircraft. I was there for about nearly five weeks just thrown in a hotel with painkillers.  Lisa: Are you kidding. So that was it.  Dean: Yeah, yeah, I sort of missed that, and then got back to UK. I remember I made it back to UK, got sent home for six weeks and leaves. We’re now talking about 11, 12 week period from the injury. Then they lost my MRI scans. It was just a spiral of failure in the medical system there. And so yeah, so I left. But all I've ever known, it’s 16 years. Military, even as a young child growing up. So I didn't have, I didn't look beyond the military. For me, I was a lifer. That was me. Lisa: Wow. So how did that, apart from the gun to the physical injury, but how did that affect you mentally? Like you suddenly– you're at the top of your game, you've been training for this forever, you're doing your job. And then all of a sudden, you're out of the game. And you’re completely sidelined. What happened to you mentally from that side? Dean: My wife will tell you a different– Lisa: You didn’t get divorce. So that's good. Dean: But the one of the things I scored an identity crisis. Well, it is whether you believe in the military, whether you're a professional sports person, or whether you're just someone who works in an organisation or a team, but I've been– I've gone from working in a tight-knit unit, having a role and having a purpose, knowing what I was doing for the next two years, to like, ‘Where do I now fit in society? What was my role and purpose?’ But I got to where I got to, because of my physical robustness. That had now been taken away from me as well. I couldn't even run 100 meters without my leg being in pain. So I had that going on in the background. Also, to add to the pressure, my wife was eight months pregnant. So also wondering whether there is going to be any work there. How am I going to support my family? And thankfully, for me, my wife is very entrepreneurial. You know, you hear horror stories of men and women when they leave the military, about that transition can be quite turbulent. Mine was quite smooth. You know, the military, like your mother and father, you know, they clothe you, they feed you, they pay you on time. You don't even know what, who provides the water or what to eat. You’ve just got a job to do.  But when we leave, we're not aware of who we need to speak to in the council's or the state. There. So my wife was a bank manager for three sons and their banks in Aberdeen. So the stuff that I would normally be worried about, she was, ‘Yeah, I've got all that.’ And she sent my first security company on a Blackberry watching TV, you know, done the right paperwork. So when, so whatever I was going through a hard time having to talk personally, you know, thankfully, wasn't that bad, because my wife had sort of–  Lisa: Yeah, she's awesome.  Dean: But yeah, I just had, you know, talking to the security industry, the pressure of trying to, if there's any work. And I was very fortunate. Within 48 hours I was asked if I can go out to Libya, which I know you're familiar with, to help set up the different project restart the British Embassy during the Arab Spring. And so that's what I did. So wow, look at me, I had work straight away. And I was out in Benghazi, helping sell that project. Lisa: Can you tell us a little bit about that story? Because that sounds like a bit of a movie. Dean: You know– familiar I did– when I left, I wanted to find a niche within the security industry. I didn't want to go to Afghanistan and Iraq and do the hostile action, because I've sort of done that, you know, I've done that bit. And you know, I was very lucky to survive. So why would you take another risk? And I looked at the security industry, and actually, a lot of my friends from the special boat service. They were,  they had their maritimes companies who are dealing with the Pirates of the east coast of Africa. So I didn't want to be competing with them either. My wife's from Aberdeen, so I moved back to Scotland with her. It’s the only gas capital of Europe. So where is all this trouble? So I was looking into more in the corporate clothes protection sort of industry, that's where my head was focused.  But when I got to Libya, I soon identified that Libyans didn't want another Libyan, another Afghan or Iraq once Gaddafi had fallen, they wanted to take control. But also these larger security companies, the big five, now sort of like dominate the industry. They were charging crisis management in evacuation plans, when actually we just scraped the surface, there was nothing in place. So I flew home, my wife gave birth to our daughter, Molly. And I said, ‘Look, I have a plan. Do you mind if I take our savings out of the bank?’ And that's what I did. And I went back into Libya, there was a huge proliferation of weapons at this point. It's actually ammunition was difficult to get hold of, weapons are not a problem.  So I bought 30 weapons off the black market, and I buried them between Tunis and Egypt and buried them with communications equipment money, and just designed my own evacuation plan, spent a month in the desert. These in design. And I mean, I sold them to a couple of the oil and gas companies on a retainer and just just sat on them. Then the security industry. You know, for me, I didn't want to work for an organisation and be on rotation and things like that. I took a gamble and it was very ad hoc. So each time I got a phone call was a different job. So you know, for example, we did London Olympics. And then next thing you're taking the UAE royal family superyacht from Barcelona to Maldives, and you're training the Kurdish Special Forces in Erbil.  Lisa: Wow! Fascinating! Dean: It's very diverse. When you tell people in the security industry, I mean, they think you're a doorman from the local nightclub. Lisa: Surely not. Dean: I'd like to help people as well. And I'm for me, but what it what it was good for me was– is I was seeing– some of these countries that I've been to anyway with the military, but seeing all the cultures and seeing how things, not from a military perspective, because it was almost a little bit blinkered, there, you know. Lisa: Yes. Like you say, your head, your role. Dean: You know, it’s understanding more the politics, the demographics and things like that. So I just come back from the London Olympics. I was in Benghazi. And in the evening, the American ambassador got killed. And they made it into a film called 13 Hours. Lisa: Yes, that's what I thought, it sounds very familiar, I'm sure. Dean: I know, I always say, ‘Right place, right time’ or ‘Wrong place, wrong time’. And I was there in Benghazi. And I was asked by a German oil company if I could get some of their German engineers from Benghazi to Tripoli. So I had safe houses in the desert. And that's what I did over the three days. I took them back out. And then two years later, I was in Brazil, covering the World Cup. Lisa: You’re just like… You just got them out through a hole and you do that like going to the supermarket. Dean: There's no real, no threat to them, no direct threat to them. the only issue I had with that one, you know, we could have– I had drivers from Benghazi, who took us out initially. The problem in Libya, you have 167 tribes. And this is where there's real issues. Because, I mean, you have, you know, those in the East in Benghazi, don't like those in the West in Tripoli. You know, the politics are in Tripoli, the oils are in the East. And so it's understanding that as well. And that's why, so we did it over three days, and the reason we did that is, I was actually, I had the drivers from Benghazi in the safe house. And now that will, ‘You know, Mr. Dean, we can go on because Tripoli is only, you know, it's not far, 300 kilometers’. But they didn't realise I had drivers coming in from Tripoli. Lisa: And you didn’t want them to–. Dean: And I didn't want the drivers to compromise us when we go in. So I woke up that morning that we were setting off and the drivers that arrived from Tripoli, the drivers and Benghazi in there. They all had their guns out.  Lisa: Oh, my God.  Dean: I say I mean, I mean, they’re worried they weren't gonna get paid. I said, ‘No, you're paid. I just can't take you to Tripoli.’ And so it's just understanding that sort, rather than just driving as fast as you could to Tripoli and potentially running into issues along the way. And so yes, that was a success. And two years later, I was in Brazil covering the World Cup. And we now had the Tripoli war, which is a civil war between the militias and the government. And I think that's just ended now. And I got a phone call from the Canadian Embassy saying that they'd been stuck in Tripoli. And so they had 18 military within an area close protection team with them, but they weren't allowed to leave the city. So they'd never seen the coastal road out and didn't really have eyes on. So in the days leading up to that, the British Embassy got shot at every checkpoint between Tripoli and the Tunis border. So I went out with my fixer, and just spoke to the tribal elders in those regions at war and everywhere else. And it was actually just showing them courtesy and respect. Just let us know who we are, when we will come in, we were no threat. And again, it's that understanding the politics and the demographics, which was a success to that. And yeah, we got 18 military in four different maps safely back to back to Tunis. Lisa: Wow. Dean: But you know, I've never like they said in Hollywood, I never needed to dig up any of the weapons. They're still there. It’s more of an intelligence-led security thing. But I came home from that trip and my normal procedure would be to wash my kit, repack my bag and everything else, and then get ready for the next phone call. Yeah, one of my shirts was covered in blood. But I've been doing first aid and RTA. And I said to my wife, ‘Can we get the blood out of the shirt?’ And she said ‘Yes, but I’m more concerned why there's blood in there’. Totally what I just got yourself is like a throwaway comment. Yeah, you see, this was the second time in my life, I realised the pin dropped. There was something more mentally, I was just five years now from the military and I was trying to match the adrenaline rush that I had been, without coming to terms with the fact that I'd left and I didn't have that support network. If something had gone wrong, my friends were gonna come in and parachute for me. And so something had to change. And my daughter was young, and my wife now is, you know, she had a very successful property development business. And she said, ‘Look, this was actually all about communication’. She thought I wanted to go away. And I thought she needed me to go away. Lisa: Yeah, yeah. Because you've been used to that sort of setup for so long. Dean: Yeah. And I've just been disconnected from society. I just thought that was the norm. You know, I was going to Somalia on my own. Yeah. Just doing– Lisa: Were you not like, like most people listen to this, I mean, it's such a foreign world for the average person who's never been exposed to any of this. And I've never been anything military. I've been in some tricky situations, and self-caused, gone into shit places which I wasn't really for or shouldn't have been in. But for most people, this is a terrifying thought to even go to some of these places, let alone to do the job that you do. Did you never have a fear of like, do you not have the normal fear responses that most people have? Dean: I think I do. I think the problem that we have in today's society is TV, is media. You know, it's very, you know, dramatised about these places. These places they go. I use Somalia as an example. I'll go there on my own and have a walk from the airport to the hotel, I won't– because that's where the business is. That's where I think things are happening. And then I've been, you know, yes, there's bad places and things go on. But it's no different from any city, you know. Yes, there's a bit of a terrorist threat and things. But I've been sent on a mission, south of Mogadishu, and in some of the most beautiful waters. I see parts of the country that people don't see. Now, I'm not naive to think there is no threat at all. You know, the success of a lot of my projects is having the right fixers and local influence. The world's very quick to tarnish certain societies with one brush because of what they've seen on TV. For me, they’re the most hospitable people. You know, the Canadian Embassy, the KCA Deutag and a few others, they wouldn't have been successful if it wasn't for the locals. Lisa: The local people. Yeah.  Dean: And I think that's where somebody's security companies or individuals who think they can just come in with weapons and guys like me, very arrogant, they think they're going to do, to get away with it. And, and it's just showing respect, and humility. And that's my approach to it. So I am obviously conscious there is there is a friend, you know, I have friends who–  Lisa: And you can handle yourself there as well.  Dean: –things that, but yeah, I think that as long as–  Lisa: Yeah, I know what you'd be like when you go to some of these places, you have these preconceived ideas. And some of the places I've been to, like Niger. I went to Niger and you know, Niger, I don’t even know how to say it properly, Niger. Never got that right. That was one place where I landed there. And we were doing a 333k race through there. And I didn’t like go, ‘Holy shit, this place is pretty damn scary’. And you know, you're running across the desert on your own, and there was a lot of military, sort of oil problems. Chinese doing exploration in the desert against the wishes of the tribal people. So there was lots of military convoys coming through with all the arms and things. And you're a little girl running across the frickin’ desert on your own. It's pretty, pretty hairy moments here where you think you can just disappear, you know. But generally speaking, most of the places that you go to where you think are gonna be terrifying, aren't that terrifying. And the people are pretty amazing, too. And you've got to be aware of yourself and, you know. Dean: Yeah. Having the responsibility, you know, those sort of places as well if they're running an event like that, and, you know, these countries want, you know, it's all about tourism and try and promote and put the country in a good light, you know, they'll do this. Yeah. Lisa: This one was a bit out there, though. Like this was a French Foreign Legion guy who was running it. He didn't give a shit about anything except making money, right? We went into it naively. These particular ones thinking it was gonna be like the marathon on Saturdays or something. You know what I mean? And it wasn't. It was like 17 runners, nothing was organised. It was like, we ran out of water, we ran out of food, we, you know, I ended up getting food poisoning on top of it all. So that was a really– that's when I realised that most of the races are really super well run, but then there are the cowboys out there. And, you know, we were in their very hands really, you know, and we were lucky to get out the other side on that one. But so how do you like, for your wife? What's it like having your husband off doing God knows what, and having to keep the, you know, the business going, and the life going, and that fear of you being away?  Dean: Yeah. And I'm very fortunate. I've got a, my wife is part of the business anyway, the scoop is anyway, so she would always be doing intelligence bits anyway. So having her being part of that helps. Yeah. Well, rather, you just go in, and she's not knowing what's going on. Yeah. I mean, a part of that. And when we talk about the bike ride, you know, she was the campaign director that so–  Lisa: Sounds amazing.  Dean: –but gets involved in everything. Because then it's very easy to explain why you're doing something or why you're going away because, yeah, the full picture. But no, very, very fortunate to have an understanding– and she, you know, Alana's got a book coming out soon as she talks about why she fell in love with me, because I showed a world that she hadn't seen before. I mean, I was very, we had very similar mindsets, and like, achieve whatever goals you want. So for her to then say, ‘I couldn't do something,’ or you know, would go against, you know, what she believes in, and why we got into it. So obviously, now I'm a bit older and we've got kids and obviously I need to be a bit you know, she needs a little bit more. Yeah. Lisa: She sounds like an amazing lady. I'll have to get her on. Dean: Yeah, yeah, she is. She's got a cracking story herself. Lisa: Yeah, she sounds like it. So I want to transition now into going into life after this chapter of your life, if you like, in becoming this professional adventurer. Because in what you're doing now, what you've got coming up, and the whole world record that you have. Tell us about that. Dean: Yeah, so we actually stem from coming back from that Canadian Embassy job. You know, something had to change. In chapter 16 in the book, it’s called ‘Dead or Divorce’, so that's the stage we're talking about. Obviously, it's been five years since my leaving the military. I’ve sort of neglected my own sort of physical and mental well-being. I’ve been so fixated on work and bringing in money, and I take like a TRX with me around, just throw it in the suitcase. And I haven’t done any sort of cardiovascular stuff. My injured leg like now was two kilos lighter than my good leg, which is an awful wastage.  So I just that’s when for Alana said, “Come do property development.’ And that's what I did. I hung up my security boots and just bought a pushbike of farmers, and just cycled to and from the office. There's only about eight miles there and eight miles back. You know, nothing big but straightaway being physically active again, you know, I felt like there was a big, big weight off my shoulders, and that's what I did. I cycled to and from the office. But you can imagine my story, you know, sat in these architects and planners meet.  So it’s about a month for my 40th birthday. So I was getting a midlife crisis around. What have I done with my life? I'm going to have a legacy and things. So I said, well, ‘I've always fancied doing a world record.’ And Alana said, ‘Well, what in?’ And I said, ‘Well, cycling is good, because it's not impacted– well, you need to consider my knee injury.’ And something that wasn't the knee injury wasn't going to compromise it.  So I said, ‘Well, what about cycling?’ And you know, being in Scotland, I was thinking maybe Aberdeen to Glasgow or something. And my wife then found the world's longest road, which runs in southern Argentina to northern Alaska. So for the listeners, it's probably equivalent to say it's the equivalent of cycling from London to Sydney. Yeah, 30,000 miles.  Lisa: And then another.  Dean: Yeah. Because of the curvature of the earth. So having only cycled 20 miles, this is what I did: I applied for the world record in it. We had looked at Cairo to Cape Town. But I–  majority of my security work was in Africa. So I'd be in those days anyway. So for me, I wanted to, as part of the challenge, I wanted to see places that I am–  someplace that I hadn't been to before and also because of where you started, and when you're finishing, you're going through all different temperatures and climates and things like that. And so Guinness came back. And the world record when I apply for it was 125 days. Six weeks later when it came back, and said you were successful with the application. And we've been beaten by eight days, the new world record was 117 days.  So that was my target. And my wife and I do a lot charity work. We have been doing since I met her really and, you know, do a lot of stuff with the military. You know, it's part of a special boat service, ambassador for Scotland. Legion, which is the oldest military charity in the UK. But I’m gonna name drop now massively. So Prince Harry and I are good friends, and we've known each other.  Lisa:  Is he though? Dean: Yeah. And as you’ve seen. And I've been friends about 14 years, met each other on a community training course. And, you know, he’d come to some of my events; I've been to some of his events. You know, I– in Mozambique, Tanzania had an intelligence fusion sale, which would identify smuggling routes for the ivory, you know, which I could then relay back to him. So he's doing a lot of stuff in the background. So I rang him up, and I said, ‘Look, I’m gonna cycle, the world's longest road, you know, what campaigns should we do it for?’ And this is back in 2016. So him and his brother and Kate, were just about to launch a mental health campaign called Heads Together in 2017. And he said, would I do it for that campaign? And I said, ‘Yes, of course’. So I now have the challenge of the campaign. And in the end, I set a target of a million pounds.  Lisa: Wow, that’s a big-ass target! Dean: For me it had to be the enormity of the challenge to reflect how much you're trying to raise. You know, you couldn't– you know, you can't go– can’t say I'm going to raise a million pounds and run the London Marathon because it just doesn't add up. The size of the challenge and the size of the ask here, you know, was balanced. And also to add to that I'd never cycled before as well, which is even more of a– Lisa: Mental.  Dean: Yes, yeah. So I did a train for a year, you can imagine what it is like trying to get sponsorship at the beginning. Lisa: What the hell! Dean: I will perform, break a record, and we'll record and raise a million pounds in mental health and a lot of them thought had mental health problems themselves. Lisa: But you had a track record of what you've done? I mean, I would have taken you seriously, as far as the– Dean:  A lot of people say to me, ‘How do you get sponsorship?’ You know, I got– and it was just, it was the right messaging at the right time. You know, the Heads Together campaign is launched in the UK, and it's very much the topic of conversation. So a lot of these big corporates wanted to get behind.  Lisa: Wonderful. Yep, yeah.  Dean: So it was the right message at the right time. And, yeah, I got a great sponsor. And, you know, that was only about two months before setting off. You know, I funded it, funded 50,000 of my own money up until that. I had to believe in it Lisa: And put something on the line?  Dean: Yep. Yeah. So. So that's what I did. Yeah, I mean, I set off on the first of February 2018, the– when I was doing all the early stages when I was doing the planning, and I'd never cycled with I just took a military set of orders, put it on there and just crossed out ammunition. And then as I started learning about saving, I then introduced that into the plan. But there's things that, you know, there are things that are out of my control, like natural disasters, coups, third party influence. So the world record was 117 days, but I was aiming for 110. And it wasn’t– I was going to beat it by a week.  Lisa: You’re in that buffer. Dean: Yeah that buffer. The buffer, the fudge they call it. Encounter that is eating into the fudge and not your challenge. So that's why, where I set off aiming for 110 days. You know, I was very fortunate to, being in the military and worked in the desert, the Arctic, and the jungle, and things that I've never done on the bike. I had to then simulate those situations. So the Atacama Desert in Chile is the driest non popular desert in the world. It's 47 degrees. What I decided to do so, I went out to Dubai and did two weeks heat training in Dubai. The altitude in Ecuador, of cycling. You know, the biggest climbs in Tour de France ranges in 21, 23 kilometers, minus 67 kilometers and sea level to four and a half thousand meters. So I had to train altitude. So I know that on the day of the event, you know, you do 8 to 10 hours on the bike.  Lisa: Altitude. Yeah.  Dean: So, yeah, I did that. And there's a famous bike ride in the UK called Land's End to John O'Groats. Lisa: Yes, I know that one.  Dean: Yeah, so I did that twice. I never mean to sound arrogant, but for me, it was a training ride and actually it’s training ride because the challenge was 15 Land's End to John O'Groats back to back. So if I couldn't do one, how was I going to do 15? Lisa: Yes. It's funny how your perception changes, the bigger your current goal that you're going for, the other stuff becomes small, but what I've learned too is that it goes the other way as well. When you stop doing the big stuff, your horizon comes back in pretty quickly. And then you know, it can be gone the other way. Dean: You can never replicate what you're going to do with some of the ultra marathons, you won’t go run the exact distance.  Lisa: No, no, you're running near it.  Just interrupting the program briefly to let you know that we have a new Patron program for the podcast. Now, if you enjoy Pushing the Limits, if you get great value out of it, we would love you to come and join our Patron membership program. We've been doing this now for five and a half years and we need your help to keep it on here. It's been a public service free for everybody. And we want to keep it that way. But to do that we need like minded souls who are on this mission with us to help us out. So if you're interested in becoming a patron for Pushing the Limits podcast, then check out everything on www.patron.lisatamati.com. That's P-A-T-R-O-N dot lisatamati.com. We have two Patron levels to choose from. You can do it for as little as $7 a month, New Zealand, or $15 a month if you really want to support us. So we are grateful if you do. There are so many membership benefits you're going to get if you join us. Everything from workbooks for all the podcasts, the strength guide for runners, the power to vote on future episodes, webinars that we're going to be holding, all of my documentaries and much much more. So check out all the details: patron.lisatamati.com. And thanks very much for joining us. Dean: Yeah, what I got from doing those Land's End to John O'Groats, you know, I did about nine days, is the fact that the first four or five days are always whether you're at your peak, or wherever you're below peak is always going to be hard and then by the end of the first week, your body then knows what you're asking of it. Lisa: I found that like too, when I did– because I ran through New Zealand, and I did you know, 2250ks in 42 days, which I was aiming for 33 days, but I had again, I didn't add in the fudge, did I? And I got slower and slower and more injuries and so on. So it took me a bit longer than I was planning. But at the two-week point was when I was at that absolute, like I don't know how to take the next step point, you know. And somehow I had to drop the kilometers a little bit, but then I was able to– my body actually got better from that point on. And I would never have believed if I hadn't lived through it. I thought I was like, absolutely, I don't know the how I'm going to take the next step to then actually the end of the 42 days being like, ‘I could carry on now’. You know, it was quite a phenomenal thing to go through. And I've heard other expeditions that athletes go through the same sort of thing that it bottoms out at the worst point. I've got a couple of mates who ran across the Sahara, and I mean, right, right across the Sahara, 7,000 kilometers. And they said the same thing that they you know, two weeks, and they were thought, you know, ‘We're about to die here. We're not gonna make it.’ And then it's sort of you know, and you have the ups and downs. But if you can push through that mentally, that point you seem to come through it. Dean: Yeah, you do. I think, you know, for me, I set off from sort of going back slightly when I was doing my research, I, you know, was reading books and magazines learning about cycling. You know, it evolved so much since I was a young boy in a BMX, and I wasn't getting the information I really wanted. So I spoke to the previous record holders, and they're very open, which was great, really, they're very receptive. but they– you know, one of the things we do in the military, especially in the special forces is, it's like a hot debrief. So when, as soon as you've done a job or operation, you come. Before you get, sort yourself out, you know, we'll sit down, and we'll ask three questions: ‘What worked? What didn't work? And if you're going to do it again, what would you do differently?’ So I just asked that question to the previous record holders, and all their issues were in South and Central America: bureaucracy, the borders, languages, first to the base. So they all started in North America, and it was the second half of the challenge which had the issues, right. So I turned on its head, start in the south and get those issues out the way early. So one thing I was quite proud of–  just because everyone did it that way didn't mean it was the right way.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dean: But yeah, but I set off from Southern Argentina in the first week, you know, relentless winds, it was like 40 mile an hour, approximate speed. I've never known anything like it. But once that had–  I had targets each day, you know what I had to hit each day and I was hitting those targets. I think by the end of the first week, I was 39 miles behind target, but my target is still a week ahead of the world record, right? Yeah, yeah. The weather sort of changed for the better and now the winds have abated. I got through Peru, I got tailwind all the way through Peru. That's 2500 kilometers of tailwind. We did you know, I crashed the bike in Chile, I got food poisoning in Peru, you know, coming out with issues and, you know, got to Ecuador, got the big climb-ins. But before they're gone on the challenge, I've never done more than 150 miles on the road, on the road. I've done 10 hours on a turbo trainer, but never done more than 150 miles. By the week four when I was in Peru, anything less than 150 miles wasn't enough for me. I was physically and mentally stronger as I went. I started at 90 kilos. I was too big.  Lisa: Yeah, but I but you needed it.  Dean: Yeah, but I knew from my time in the military that special forces selection six months long, you don't start day 1 100%. You carry that timber and weight, and then that will shed and you'll get fit. And that's what I did. And you know, when I finished I weighed 78 kilos. Almost 12 kilos. And you know you have to– it’s almost like a polar expedition, you're losing weight from the start. So you just need to try and try and keep it on. But I got to Cartagena on day 48 on March 21. That took 10 days off the previous world record for South America. But that wasn't the world record. And a lot of people called me said, ‘Oh,’ they said, ‘The pressure’s off.’ I said, ‘That's not world record. Call it Brucie bonus. That was a Brucie bonus or a marker to aim for rather than looking at the full challenge. As you know, you don't look at the– Right down into– Lisa: You get overwhelmed pretty quick. Dean: What do you do on the flight? So I did. I broke it into countries into days, and then broke the days into four stages. Food and hydration were paramount. So just have a big breakfast. And then just cycle as fast as I could for two hours. You know, I didn't then– just get off the bike for 30 minutes and have food and water and then I'm back on the bike. I was disciplined in my time into 30 minutes, 30 minutes and then chat to someone or the llama you know, he was like, ‘Back on the bike’. Lisa: Okay.  Dean: That creepage thing gets bigger. And then it was just, look at the next two hours. Look at the next stage. I didn't look at the afternoon, didn’t look at the next day. And before you've done it, you've done a day, you've done a week, you've done a world record. And so that's how I did it. So I was just doing four training rides a day, I wasn't doing a world record. Lisa: I love it. And you just chunked it down into bite sized pieces that you could make–  Dean: That you can manage. And then I– you see people when they do that–  a lot of people do their challenges in the lab. Well, you know, 10 miles behind today, you know what, I'll catch you out tomorrow, but you don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. You could have another bad day and then be 20 to 30 miles behind. So for me, to be in the right headspace, mentally, I made sure I hit my targets or I was ahead of targets. After that first week, I was 39 miles behind target. From then on, I was way ahead. So I was in a good headspace at the end of the day, knowing that I was where I should be. Because as you probably accounted with your New Zealand, when you know that you've set a target and you're not– may not get there. You can start messing–  Lisa: I did, yeah. Yeah, it does. Yep. Dean: So for me, I always say to people, ‘Just stay on the bike or do those–  run an extra two or three, just hit the target you set for the day because you, mentally you're going to be in the better.’ Lisa: You can get that nice dopamine hit, that neurotransmitter dopamine, it gives you that little reward and that motivates you to do the next round and keeps you going. Dean: You know, next morning you know you're not right, I've got to do 30 miles before, your way should be all ahead. Lisa: Overwhelming you away when you're certain to go backwards. It's yeah, I found that brilliant.  Dean: And then I used to trick myself in the fact that, or give myself a treat, so I had like four stages for South– North America we'll talk in a minute, that’s a different way of psyching, and but for South America because of the security issues, you know, I had a support team and a documentary team and we were very much risk averse, more risk averse than myself. We stay on but I had to consider their welfare. And so we were saying– I'd say go from first light to last light. So that was my depth. That was my cycling period. And the– sorry yeah, I broke it into four stages. So in the morning was fine because I just had a breakfast. So the first two hours, I'd be able to gauge how long I would be on the bike for the day. Because unlike when other people go for bike rides at home, they'll go for a ride and they'll do a loop and they'll come home. So at some point they'll have a headwind or a tailwind or a side wind. But on this ride, if I had a headwind, it was all day. So that would really gauge up to the rest of the day. So that was the first stage. The second stage I had lunch to look forward to. And the third stage– sorry, the fourth stage. I had the end of day to look forward to. The third stage I had nothing to look forward to. So I would make sure– so my look forward was a can of Coke or an ice cream. Yeah, just something simple. And something to look forward to after the two hours.  Lisa: Yeah, let's get reward thing. You just need it little, ‘Yeah, I’m going for something.’ Dean: ‘They’ll arrive in, oh, just another two hours after that.’ LisA: I'd find that sometimes my reward, and this is getting like pretty sad like, yeah, ‘I'm gonna be allowed to go to the toilet,’ you know, like, ‘I'm gonna have a wee’. Like shit! That’s pretty, pretty shit when you actually, when that's your reward.  Dean: It's probably looking with a bit more–  Lisa: What the hell. And so, you know, because I watched the little short. Can people watch the documentary? Is it out yet? is it available?  Dean: No. So we've got the footage, we've got all the footage together. We– the sort of plan is maybe because we're talking about the next challenge shortly here, rolling onto that and doing a double. And they do it through a series of them. Where we were sitting on that, which is good. But yeah, I took, you know, a broader South America record, which is great. From the cycling perspective, you know, it was a great decision going south-north. From a logistics perspective, it wasn't. We're having to change vehicles in every country in South America to slow me up. So we bought an RV and a 4x4, which was going to get shipped from Fort Lauderdale to Panama. And that would then take us all the way to Alaska, because I had to fly from Colombia to Panama, there’s a Darién gap, which you can't cross. This is the only bit you have to fly. And I was in Ecuador, two weeks before my wife Alana rang me, told me, the vehicles hadn't been loaded on the container in Florida. So my wife, my PA, and a couple my friends, I think it forced them, they flew out and they drove the vehicles 4000 miles in eight days from Florida through Mexico all the way from Central America to Panama.  Lisa: This location. Dean: So when I broke the record in the morning, flew across, they came in an hour late and handed over the keys. So that then really helped us for the second part of the challenge. And I got to North America on day 70. And I was 14 days ahead of that. Perfect, you know? Okay, you know, i can take the foot off the gas, or I can have a day's rest here or there. Then my wife kept ringing me and you know, she's very good in keeping all those distractions away from me. So my initial thought was the children, or something wrong with the kids. And then she told me we've been kindly invited to Harry and Megan's wedding. Changed the dynamics completely of the challenge. So you get home, I had to be finished by day 102, which is 15 days ahead of the challenge. So going into the challenge, going into the phone call, I was 14 days ahead. 10 minutes later, I'm now a day behind.  Lisa: Oh my God.  Dean: It doesn’t matter what you've done, it's been taken from you. So yeah, mixed, mixed emotion cycling off from that phone call.  Lisa: Yeah, like excited for the wedding. Shit! I’ve got to go faster. Dean: And then when I got to Lubbock in Texas next day, we have 60 mile an hour winds and tornadoes, so I was stuck for another 24 hours. So I was now two days behind and there was an app on your phone called Windy TV. I don't know if you've come across it. It gives you the strength and direction of the winds every hour for the next two weeks. But 95% accurate real time I stepped away from the challenge when looking at Windy TV, but unlike South America when I sit outside first light, last light, in North America we had the luxury of security. Cycle at night. So I took advantage of that and I just played. To get out at Lubbock, I just cycled 340 miles in 36 hours to miss the next weather window coming in and just play chess with Mother Nature through North America. I had 17 days planned, and I cycled in 11 and a half days in Canada. We also use it to my advantage: I picked up a tailwind in Cheyenne in Wyoming and did 260 miles in 11 hours and 10,000 feet of climbing because I had a 50 mile an hour tailwind. Lisa: And some luck and some– Dean: Yeah exactly. Though it’s not about having a plan but having to change the plan to the situation on the ground and then I got a week outside and I was that, right? This will record smashed. I'll be back in time for this wedding unless I get eaten by a grizzly; we’re in Canada and Alaska. And then I was made aware about this professional cyclist who's got three other endurance world records. He's about 26 years old, sponsored by old Red Bull, all the brands, and he come out on social media that day and said that he was going to do the Pan-American Highway in August and be the first man to do 100 days. Dynamic’s completely for me so I just cycled. You know, every time I thought I hit my objective, my objective then kept moving. So I am, I cycle with– for 22 hours in the last 30 hours in minus 18 to come in maybe nine days, 12 hours and 56 minutes. So it wasn't the original plan. It was so fast. Yeah. And I couldn't tell anyone I've been invited to the wedding. You can see friends comment that, ‘He's picked this right up, you know, he's now– he's going,’ and people said, ‘He's rushing back for his mate’s wedding.’ I couldn't tell them. Yeah, so I just had to do it. But my family were in line and the kids had flown into Prudhoe Bay, which is an oil field on the top of the Arctic Ocean. They'd come in with all these oil workers. They’d never seen kids there, so I knew they were there at the end. So that was that final bit of motivation. Lisa: Oh yeah. And when you're in that last spurt before the thing, it's like, let’s just get this shit done. Get over the damn line. Dean: Like the last day, last two days, I had 250 miles to do. And I thought well, I'll do 150 miles a day. I mean, and this leaves me 100 miles in the last day. And I'm well under the 100 days. So I did the first 50 miles and got to this roadblock at noon. And they were at, ‘No, you can't pass until eight o'clock tonight.’ So they took eight hours off my streak. So I got into the RV. And again, I just put pen to paper even on the last day. But thankfully because it landed at midnight sun, it doesn't get dark. And I said, ‘Well, it's eight o'clock tonight, I will cycle until I get there.’ And I cycled at seven o'clock the next evening. But doing about eight, nine mile an hour because the winds were so strong. I was taking in coffee every couple of hours to stay hydrated. So even to the very last day, the plan to get– Lisa: That’s insane.  Dean: So yeah, we crossed the line, you know, from any cyclists out there, you know, it worked out 99 days. So ninety– five days off. Three to get where you’re into and two logistics. There's 94 days of cycling, which is 147 miles a day. And I burned– I lost 12 kilos in weight. And the app speed was 16.8 mile an hour, which is fast because it was just short, sharp sessions. And more and more impressively was the money we raised. We raised over $1.2 million, or ₤900,000. Lisa: You’re kidding me! That is insane. Dean: Mental. Yeah. Lisa: Congratulations. Dean: That was through corporate donors and sponsors. And I might seem like those guys, showing no emotion, they like, see people suffering, with their hands in their pockets. But for me, I was trying to promote, like the unrelenting pursuit of excellence if you're going to do something you do it to the best of your ability. So me crying on the camera wasn't gonna happen. Lisa: There was a few tantrums on there, right? Dean: But that was it, yeah. So I'd never looked, you know, we couldn't– we came back two days later, we had the royal wedding was sort of then for me, overshadowed everything I did you know, all the plan was like, ‘How was the wedding?’ I was that, ‘Really? I'm just–’ Lisa: That's a bit sad really, isn't it? Dean: I wish I'd had a bit of time to sort of absorb what I've done and achieved. You know, I was still just getting used to being with my family. Never mind–  Lisa: Harry and Megan they kind of waited another week for you to get your shit together. Dean: No press. No revenues. No ads, you know, we talked about, you know, as well, but you have depression when you come back, when things taper things like that. You know, for me, I had two highs in one week. And then it was like, pfft! We had a big fundraiser six weeks later and Harry came, you know, did a Q&A session on stage and we raised it.  Lisa: Oh, wow.  Dean: And that was my sort of short-term focus after the bike ride. You know, I was supposed to taper my training and I did a 10-mile bike ride to the coffee shop. And you know, when I came back, I'm very objective. I need to have a target or something to go for. So for, just to go cycling 10 miles wasn't– on the way back then these cyclists spotted me. I just needed to put on my PB for that strays, I knew I wasn't actually going to be taping. So I just put the bike in the garage. Lisa: It's really either, like, if we can just touch on the mental health side of it afterwards. Because, that's something that I've found after every big thing that I've done, especially when it's been overseas environment and some out of place or something. You come back and you're like, you come back to your family, especially when your family not involved, and then like everybody else is just going about their normal business and you're like, just like, ‘Do you know what I just experienced?’ And everyone's like, ‘Oh, that's nice, darling.’ And you might, you know, that's really– I found that quite devastating at times, when your family just didn't get in, you feel like a fish out of water.  So I have this bit of a crisis of luck with– and you’re saying you also have a crisis of like, ‘W8hat is my, what is my role in life?’ Like when you got out of the army, it's like, ‘Well hang on, my whole bloody safety net of who the heck I am and the framework that I built is just suddenly been taken from me. Now, what the heck I am?’ And then you've gone and become this adventure athlete and doing this crazy sort of stuff. So you've filled that, that void, if you like, and in like, with my mum's story, now with the same book name that we've got, like that was Relentless it was– I was suddenly thrown into this new world of like, I'm no longer an F, you know, I couldn't be a full time more I was. I was always working, but I was an athlete at the same time.  And now it was just mum, you know, like, full bore to rehabilitate her or she's going to die. So, but you adapt. Everything becomes the ability of the human mind and body, you go through a transition phase, but then you learn to adapt. And some, you know, for a couple of years, I found it hard. It's like, ‘Who the heck am I if I'm not that anymore, and I'm not doing that anymore and I’m not doing that? But you have other priorities. You've got kids now and stuff, and you don't want to be in dangerous situations involving– Dean: Yeah, I was probably used to that. Because at the time in the military, you know, when we were, it was the same sort of situation, you'd be away on tour, and you come back, and everyone's just going back there to their normal day to day business. And it's– there's no point in trying to talk. So I was used to that anyway, from the military, and in the private security. I think we're, um, I'm lucky with Alana and the kids is that they get fully immersed in it. They're part of that project as well, you know. Our daughter cut her hair, she had really long hair, cut her hair and raised ₤1000 for the charity. So they really go all in everything. Alana does the campaign and, and the fundraising. So it's not me and then the family, coming back to the family. They're in that with me. So I think I'm very lucky. Lisa: You are pretty lucky, I reckon, with your family, you've got a pretty good combo with your wife. And– Dean: Then I believe that anyone, and I don't mean to sound arrogant, anyone can break a world record if you take away all those distractions, the mortgage, and things like that. And then who's looking after the kids who's picking the kids up from the school and all you've got to concentrate on is your– Lisa: I totally hear you, because I think that's the fix, the actual key to it, you know. when you've got the luxury and it is a luxury now not having that luxury to be able to be a you know, selfish athlete, who can do what, and can focus fully. And then you can, of course you can do crazy, amazing things. Unfortunately, life does come and chuck, you know, curveballs at you. And you have to go with the flow you know, but it doesn't negate what I've decided too is that I’m reaching an age now, you know, like my body started to break the pieces by about 48 things have gone pear-shaped. Is that you know, it doesn't negate what you did. And you know, because you know you sort of have this mentality ‘I’m a has-been I've been there, done it’. No, it's just like I could use a new stage in your life. And what is the challenge now? And there are some other big challenges that you're on. And you've got a big– speaking of big challenges, you've got some other crazy mission coming up. Tell us about that. Dean: So my unique selling point in the athlete world is I take a sport or discipline I've never done before. So, you know, we're going to– we’re actually going back slightly when we- when our sponsored marketing team did the SWOT analysis on the lockdown. Right?  Lisa: There's mum ringing in the middle of my bloody podcast. Dean: We’ll end this. The strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities, and threats. And the only weakness it came out was my arrogance towards the cycling community. But, you know, thankfully, no one ever said that, you know, but I took that as a strength. You know, it's that fire in the belly to say, ‘Well, you know, that's what they think then’. But no, look, no one ever said that innovation was good. But then, you know, now, I've enjoyed cycling. Now I'm going to be arrogant towards the kayaking community. I just say that back. The kayaking community really, really great in coming around on this challenge. So I’ve cycled the world's longest road. The plan is now, or the plan is next year, first of February, I set off, is to kayak the world's longest river from source to sea, from Rwanda to Egypt, which has never been done before as in paddled from one end to the other. There’s been stages, but never completely. So 4,280 miles is that long. But unlike the last challenge which was promoting mental health, you know, will still always be an ambassador and push the importance of physical activity and mental health. You know, this one, my wife's very passionate on modern slavery, human trafficking and– Lisa: Yeah, wow. Dean: –doing a lot in that area. But I didn't want to channel myself down just that one topic. So I've left it open. And so we're going to talk about poverty, pollution, sustainability, conservation. Lisa: Amazing. Dean: Six-episode documentary, and really, for me, promote Africa. I, we talked about the security industry and how people see a continent from what they see on the TV. For me, it's my favorite continent. I love Africa. I know the people don't have two coins to rub together, but they're probably the most friendliest, happiest, and hospitable people. Lisa: Totally. Dean: I really want to promote that as well. And unlike the bike ride, which is mostly physical this is, you know, there's a lot more skill involved in this. You know, it’s everything from flatwater to grade six waterfalls.  Lisa: Yeah, isn't there some big waterfalls and stuff? Dean: You got crocodiles, you got hippos, you got civil war in South Sudan. So it's gonna, it's gonna have it's gonna have some issues along the way.  Lisa: You're going to hit some more adventures, and I can't wait to hear about those. I have to actually connect you ahead on the podcast. Last week, a lady by the name of fellow countrywoman of yours, Laura Penhaul. And Laura is, she rode across the Pacific. And she's a bit like you. She didn't, she never rode before, when she took on this challenge. So she did it with three other ladies, she got a team together. You have to have a listen. I'd love to connect you guys because she might get I mean, it's a different rowing, quaking, but you know, pretty, pretty phenomenal. Lady is– Dean: Amazing. Yeah, no, please do. Yeah, but I've left this one open if anyone wants to come join me at any stage, more than welcome. You know, we approached Guinness about being a world record and you know, Guinness, no one's ever done it before. So they just took the Amazon guidelines and dropped it on this, but Amazon's a different river. Amazon's quite flat and they said ‘Oh, you're allowed to use one boat.’ But if that was the case, you’re carrying the boat about halfway around so we then changed it to self propelled by paddle which means I can use either a ocean ski, a creek boat, or a raft. But actually then, in reflection, looking at you know, when you do Guinness World Records, there's so many guidelines you need to adhere to. Which is fine when you're cycling on a road or something. When you're paddling the river which has never been done before. I mean, there's Civil War, there's animals that are gonna eat you and things that, you don't want to be– you're gonna have to make some key decisions and you don't want your decisions to be blurred because you've got to stick to these guidelines. So actually, we just push that out and said ‘Well, we're not going to do it for world record.’ Not at first anyway. We'll collect the data, but I don't want that to sort of hinge long decision. Lisa: And I think it stands on its own, Guinness World Record or not, you know, like that's not– I don't know, it's not important. This is about the actual beast you're gonna go on this crazy adventure.  Dean: Yeah. Lisa: So we can– do you know– I'm you know– I'm just absolutely fascinated by your mindset and the way that you approach things and all the stuff that you do and I'd love to have you on at another stage in the future. And your wife. Because I think you need a double episode to find out what the hell makes a lady like that tick as well. But where can people follow you, get involved with your project, the next one that you've got coming out, your book, etcetera? Dean: So I'm obviously on social media. You know, social media for me was a taboo when I did the last challenge because Special Forces. But I now understand it’s a platform where you need to be sort of promoting. So I am on Instagram as @deanstott and then I am on Twitter @DeanStottSBS, and I’m on Facebook. And so I'll start, you know later on in the year you will start seeing posts of me training and you know, talking about my nutrition and things I didn't really do before because I didn't think people were interested in that, and in the mindsets, we add that. And then the website www.deanstott.com.  Lisa: Dean Stott with two T’s.  Dean: We've got the frogman on there and then you can then– and we're going to be posting up there as well. You can buy the book from there or you can get the book from Amazon or audio. Lisa: And it's got the same title as mine so buy both Relentless books, people, when you're on Amazon or wherever the heck you are, both buy Relentless. Buy Dean Stott’s one and my one, that would be really, really good. Dean, is there any last words that you want to share like to people out there listening, who are just over– like to look at someone like you and they just go, ‘Well, you know, he's amazing and I could never be like that.’ What's your words to them? Dean: Yeah, you know, I always say don't compare yourself to other people. You know, the problem you have nowadays is social media and the people like, ‘Well, I can't do that’, you know, well you’re not that person. You're unique. And you know, I did it when I was doing the cycling. People out there, ‘Look at Mark Beaumont.’ I'm not Mark Beaumont and things like that. So don't worry about what other people are doing. Just focus on yourself. You know, I always say anticipation is worse than participation.  Lisa: Yeah, I love that. I've quoted that from you. Dean: A lot of people will tell you why they can't do it. And, you know, just block out those out. And just take it in bite sizes, what I say. You know, if you're gonna, for example, a marathon 26 miles. You wouldn't go try and do 26 miles, you probably wouldn't achieve it. I mean, you'd be so deflated and your self-esteem is–  but just set yourself a manageable target: five kilometers, hit that and then you just grow from there. Lisa: Yeah. There's some fabulous advice. Dean, thank you so much for your time today. You're an absolute superstar. I, you know, or have your, you know what you've done. And thanks for, you know, raising so much money for charities and doing good in the world and being a positive force out there in the world. I think it's really, really important. So thanks.  Dean: Thank you. You’re more than welcome to come and join me anytime on the now.  Lisa: Oh, man. Now I would love to do that. Mum might have something to say. That's it this week for Pushing the Limits. Be sure to rate, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com. The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

So many things seem to be beyond our control in this fast-paced world. As a result, we've developed anxieties and worries that we carry every day. With their weight, we may find it more challenging to achieve even the most minor goals. So, how do you get through these thoughts and feelings? How can you reach success and improve your well-being? Carly Taylor joins us today in this episode to teach us how to deal with things outside of our control. Through her discussion, you'll hopefully learn about how to recognise and optimise your thoughts and emotions for your greater good. Carly also shares about helpful tools she's discovered and practised, including Morita therapy and Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT). If you want to deal with the daily pressures of your life healthily, you'll learn helpful things from this episode. Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year’s time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, your goals and your lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity or are wanting to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within 3 years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa’s Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, a NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that is capable of boosting the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements that are of highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust — NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combat the effects of aging, while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection ‘Fierce’, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Learn how to manage your thoughts and feelings to live a fuller life. Gain some insights on how to recognise and manage seemingly uncontrollable situations. Discover what ‘being present’ means to you.   Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron! Harness the power of NAD and NMN for anti-ageing and longevity with NMN Bio. More Pushing the Limits Episodes: 183: Sirtuins and NAD Supplements for Longevity with Elena Seranova 189: Increasing Your Longevity with Elena Seranova Connect with Carly: Instagram | Carly Taylor Coaching Visit the Mind, Body, Brain and start optimising your psychological capital for productivity, resilience, and peak performance with the 8-week programme.   Episode Highlights [04:32] Carly's Background Carly is a mindset coach who follows multiple Japanese ideologies. There are three Japanese ideologies she knows about: Morita, Kaizen, and Naikan. However, she only mainly practices the Psychology of Action of Morita Therapy. She also includes Stoicism and commitment therapy. Kaizen therapy is making changes incrementally yet continuously. It involves encouraging yourself to become better. On the other hand, Naikan therapy exercises the art of self-reflection. Both can improve your well-being.  She had backgrounds in music and advertising. These supplied her with the skills to help other people. Her husband learned about a 10-day course. The next thing she knew, she was on the way to Vermont to attend it.  [10:27] The Reason for Automatic and Anxiety-Inducing Thoughts Assess which things in your life are within your control. You cannot control automatic thoughts and emotions. They pop out when you encounter a situation. However, you can manage them and improve your well-being. You have to monitor and observe your thoughts. Assess whether or not they are helpful. Some negative automatic thoughts used to be beneficial for survival during ancient times, but not anymore. The amygdala is responsible for these emergency responses and automatic thoughts. The amygdala can also help when you need to make now-or-never decisions. To balance it out, the prefrontal cortex lets you analyse whether these automatic thoughts are logically sound. [18:50] How to Approach Things Out of Your Control Most people worry about what other people think about them. Back then, we had to empathise with other people's needs to thrive within a tribe or community.  Nowadays, we have too many connections through social media. We get pressured because of the appearances our friends and acquaintances share online. Assess whether your thoughts and feelings are helpful. Redirect your energy and be productive to improve your well-being. Make room for your thoughts and feelings. Tools like breathing and exercise can help you improve your well-being. Listen to the episode to learn more helpful tools. [21:09] The Use of Comforts and Discomforts of Life Morita therapy uses two opposing thoughts: the desire to live fully and the desire to be secure and comfortable. Even successful events give you a level of discomfort and anxiety.  We seek comfort all the time. Sometimes we may not even want to go through the emotional, physical, and financial challenges. But you can take the discomfort with you. You can coexist with it while still achieving great things.  [24:39] Teaching Yourself to Improve Your Well-Being Suppressing your fears or intense emotions will get you stuck. Practice getting uncomfortable or harvesting discomfort.  Start with minor and straightforward tasks so you can have more control. Do it incrementally so you can train yourself to become more resilient. Do this to improve your well-being. You'll learn how to improve your well-being in more complicated situations. Daily rituals are essential. It can be as simple as having a cold shower, much like Carly does. [28:02] Know Your Limits Pushing the limits can be a great thing.  However, psychology and biology set a limit. You have to work within this limit. You may get burnout instead of crossing this line.  You can't always go through hard times. It defeats the purpose of life, which needs to be a dynamic journey. You can still prevent adverse outcomes from happening by staying healthy. You can improve your well-being. [31:13] Reflection Exercises A simple yet powerful question is, ‘What would you do differently?’ Spending more time with the family is usually the top 1 thing people want to do. Think about the regrets you may have when you are on your deathbed and act on them. Aligning with your most significant priorities will let you live a fuller life. Take every opportunity to be with someone before it's too late. [34:54] Helpful Routines  Carly follows a waking-up-early challenge. She tries to avoid phones and computers and instead enjoys silence in her mornings. Carly also journals about minor things. She remembers the little things she appreciated from yesterday.  You should be able to pay to enjoy good things more to improve your well-being, or at least in the same way as you linger on with painful thoughts. The simple silence helps. It can help instead redirect your attention from stressful thoughts and improve your well-being. You can calm down and find what you're in control of instead of what you can't. Then, you can achieve calmness and peace of mind. [44:33] Being Present Makes All the Difference A study found how people were happier when they were living in the moment. A wandering mind achieves the opposite of this. It matters to focus your full attention on what you are doing. Finish your inherent task at first, even if they're boring. Sometimes your brain will tell you you're not fit for the task at hand. But know that these thoughts are often your excuses preventing you from improving your well-being. Prioritise the most urgent and important tasks first before moving to the following systems and processes. Don't feel guilty about giving time to the people who matter in your lifetime. They are also important. [52:35] Final Thoughts Having a purpose-driven life instead of an emotionally-driven life can improve your well-being. Your purpose can be minor things in the moment, like cleaning the kitchen or learning new technology. [54:02] Carly and Paul's 8-Week Program Carly and Paul do weekly sessions every Tuesday and reflect on the significant aspects of their lives. They use an app where you can check on your daily rituals.   7 Powerful Quotes from the Episode 'I use the modalities of Japanese psychology and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and I also throw in a bit of Stoicism as well. Because all three of those modalities are just so intertwined. And it's just what I find incredible is what's relevant today is what was relevant back 2000 years ago.' ‘I then looked at life coaching, and it kind of didn't really resonate with me, then by the time I kind of was, you know, trying to figure out what direction I was going to go that my background is completely different.' 'I mean, we're all individuals. And we're productive, you know, from when we are born right up to our experiences, right up until this present moment.' 'But what makes us unique is that we're able to observe our thoughts. And if we can create that space between us and our thoughts, we can look at that thought more in an analytical way rather than in an emotional way.' 'So that's sort of the acceptance part of what's in our control, what's not in our control, and the big one is those thoughts and emotions.' 'Well, I mean, what other people think is a huge one for the majority of my clients, it is the number one fear if you want to call it or or anxiety or worry is what others think of them.' 'But it's that sort of everyday anxiety that we feel. And it's this, sort of focus on the discomfort and wanting to get rid of it. And when that's intense, this is not easy.'   About Carly Carly Taylor is a certified nutritionist, health trainer and personal coach. She is also a qualified Japanese Psychology therapist who applies Morita therapy and Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT). She shares her tools and learnings through her Mindset Coaching. As a guarantee to her clients, Carly also uses the tools she teaches in her coaching sessions. Through her coaching, she helps people change their mindset and break barriers that used to hold them back. As a result, her clients develop skills and achieve success despite their situations. With her passionate approach towards research, she continues to learn about new practices and tools to navigate life. Along with her husband, Paul, Carly also helps groups of people achieve peak performance through the Mind, Body, Brain Performance Institute.  If you want to learn more about Carly and her coaching approach, you can visit her website or Instagram.   Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can learn new tools to improve their well-being. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Full Transcript Of The Podcast Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential. With your host, Lisa Tamati. Brought to you by lisatamati.com. Lisa Tamati: Welcome back, everybody to Pushing the Limits. And this week, I have the lovely Carly Taylor to guest. Carly is the wife of Paul Taylor, who was also recently on this program, and who I absolutely loved. The amazing woman who is with Paul is Carly Taylor. Now Carly is an ACT therapist and a Morita psychology therapist. So what the heck is that all about, you might be thinking. Well, she's somebody that helps you if you have problems with anxiety, with depression, with overthinking, all of those things that many of us really deal with. So today's episode is all around giving you the tools to help with all those from the point of view of ACT therapy or Acceptance Commitment Therapy, as well as the Japanese psychology, Morita therapy. Now, Carly is also a qualified nutritionist, a certified personal trainer, and a certified health coach. She brings over 10 years’ experience in the area of behavior change. So I'm really hopeful that you're going to enjoy this episode with Carly. She's a very lovely lady, and she has a lot to give you. So enjoy that.  Before we head over to the show, make sure that you check out our epigenetics program. This is our flagship program that we use as a framework for all people that we're doing health coaching with, the people that we're doing running coaching with. And it's really helping you optimise your genes. So learning about what your genes are all about, who you are specifically, unique you, and then optimising you. So in all areas, we're looking at mood and behavior, we're looking at your dominant hormones. We look at the career path that may be right for you, we look at the way your brain thinks, at what time of the day you should be doing different activities. We're also, of course, looking at exercise and nutrition specific to your gene. So if you want to find out more about that program, head on over to lisatamati.com, hit the ‘Work With Us’ button, and you'll see our Peak Epigenetics program. Come and find out all about it, or drop me a line at support@lisatamati.com, and we'd love to help you with it. We do run webinars so we can send you some information on it. It takes a little bit to get your head around, but I tell you this is the future of personalised health. No longer is it a one size fits all approach. This is all specific to you. It's very scientific and very evidenced-based. So I hope you'll come and join us on that program. We've taken literally now hundreds and hundreds of people through this program, and it gives us fantastic results. We also have a course, our online run training system that's personalised, customised to your specific goals at runninghotcoaching.com. Find out all about the package and what's involved there. This is not, by no means, just for elite athletes. I don't want people to think that it's just for ultra-marathon runners or just for people that are doing crazy adventures. This is for you. If you're just getting off the couch, if you're doing your first K. It's also for you if you are doing your hundredth marathon, ultra-marathon or marathon. So find out all about that at runninghotcoaching.com. Right now, over to the show with the lovely Carly Taylor. Hi, everyone, and welcome to Pushing the Limits. It's fantastic to have you back with me again. Today, I have the lovely Carly Taylor with me. Welcome to the show, Carly, it's fantastic to have you. Carly Taylor: Oh, thanks for having me. It's good to be here. Lisa: Super excited. Carly is the famous wife of Paul Taylor, who I've had recently on my podcast too, and who I really connected with. I think he's an absolute legend, your husband. What he's doing is absolutely—I think he's probably as crazy as me, if not worse. Carly: And he’s passionate, I think. Lisa: And is passionate, and silly, and crazy. So I thought, ‘Who is this amazing woman that is with Paul Taylor? Because she'd have to be probably something special.’ I started researching into what you do. And I thought, ‘Oh, I have to have you on the show as well.’ So welcome, Carly. It's really exciting to have you. Today, we're going to talk about Morita therapy, and ACT therapy. I'll let you explain what all that is and give us a bit of your background. But can you just tell us who you are, where you're from, and all that sort of jazz? Carly: I do one-on-one coaching. I'm a mindset coach, but with a bit of a twist because I use the modalities of Japanese psychology, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and I also throw in a bit of Stoicism as well. Because all three of those modalities are just so intertwined. It's just—what I find incredible is what's relevant today is what was relevant back 2,000 years ago, and also in the Eastern, in the Japanese psychology as well. So with Morita—so the Japanese psychology there were three components to it. So it’s Morita therapy, which is also known as the Psychology of Action. Which is kind of unusual because you kind of think of Eastern philosophy and what you think of meditation and contemplation and all that sort of stuff. But Morita therapy is very much about purpose and action. Then there's Naikan, which is the self-reflection exercise that you can do, and then Kaizen as well, which is that sort of incremental things that you can do to improve over time. But my main focus is Morita therapy. Lisa: So, how did you get into this? What was your background before you got into? How did you get into mindset coaching? What's your personal story? Carly: It’s really evolved. I've always been someone who likes helping people. Over the years, I was kind of the go-to whenever friends had problems, and I looked at— Lisa: The shoulder to cry on. Carly: Yeah, exactly. I was always the shoulder. But, I started off looking into life coaching. I did when we're in Scotland, I did voluntary work with ChildLine Scotland. That was such a brilliant organisation, and they have really good training. So I kind of started my training with that, and counseling over the phone with young people. I really got a lot out of it. I then looked at life coaching and it kind of didn't really resonate with me. Then by the time I was trying to figure out what direction I was going to go - my background is completely different; my background is music and advertising - so I kind of did it and adapted then and tried to sort of play to my strengths, I guess. Had kids, and so, my focus was on the kids. Paul was building his business and doing a lot of traveling, doing a lot of extra educational stuff, just continually learning. And I was doing that, sort of in the background as well, but not with the intensity that he was doing because I was with the kids.  And then he was listening to the Art of Manliness podcast. Greg Krech, who is a Morita therapy expert, was on and talking about the Psychology of Action. Paul was just like ‘Oh, my God, this guy is amazing and so aligned with the stuff that we're doing,’ and looked into it a bit further. We worked out that he did this certification course over in the States. And Paul just said to me, ‘Right, it's your turn.’ It's like, ‘This is all you. If you don't do it, I'll do it, then it's your turn.’ So I was way out of my comfort zone. First time I left the kids, and that traveled over to Vermont, in the States. Did a 10-day residential component of the certification, and then came back, and then studied for a year and a half. That's how I got into it. It really, that 10 days at the ToDo Institute really completely changed my life. It was the first thing. Jumping to one of the components of Morita therapy is around attention and where your attention is. One of the first things Greg said in the course was, ‘Your life is not based on your life. Your life is based on what you pay attention to’. And I was just like, ‘Well, that's an—,’ and it kind of just took it from there. And then when I got back, I started just slowly getting clients with the Japanese psychology, and then I discovered ACT, which is Acceptance Commitment Therapy, which was started by Steven Hayes in the 1980s. It is more of a modern approach, but same principles. It's Japanese psychology. So I combined both of them, and I just loved them, and I use the tools myself every day. Lisa: And you've turned it into the Carly therapy. Carly: Yes, Carly therapy. Lisa: Yeah. Because you do—you take, I do this too. Like bits of this, and a bit of that, and a bit of like your own recipe or what resonates with you. What you find is working and so— Carly: Yeah, and what I actually love about it is it's not just about, it was started by Shoma Morita who was the Japanese psychiatrist in 1920. He started it for patients with anxiety, a form of neurosis. It started as an in-patient program. He had quite a strict protocol that they went through. But what I love is that you can apply these principles into just your daily life. So it's not just about emotional well-being. it's about living fully every day using these principles. Lisa: So let's dive into it a little bit then. If someone comes to you with anxiety, depression, something like that, where would you start with them? So like we can—what I want to get to is how do we pull out some of the tools and some of the learnings that some people can take some value away from this conversation today? So where would you start? What's this type of thing that you're looking at? What sort of tools and processes do you go through? Carly: One of the first exercises that I will do with them is to look at their life and identify what's in their control, and not what is not within their control. It's a really interesting exercise, because it gets the thinking process going. Because that list of what's not in your control becomes very, very long. And the things that are within your control is actually quite short. So you look at the things that aren't in your control, the obvious ones, like the weather, COVID, a lot of political decisions, that sort of stuff. But you drill it down, and you can't control what other people think. You can't control what other people think of you. You can certainly influence it, but you can't control it - what they do, what they say, how they behave. And you cannot control what you think, or the thoughts that come into your head. Lisa: The automatic sort of thoughts that jump out of your head. Carly: Yeah, the automatic thoughts and the automatic emotion that comes up. Of course, once those thoughts pop up, you can reframe and do all that sort of stuff, or positive affirmations, all that, all those sorts of things. But as soon as that thought pops up into your head, that's beyond your control. We have between 70 and 80 thousand thoughts per day. Lisa: Yeah apparently. This is crazy! We’re just thought machines! We are just churning these things out all the time. Dr. Daniel Amen, who I follow, he talks about ANTs, automatic negative thoughts. And where do you think there's this, you’re saying that we're not in control of those, they're just coming through. Are they coming through from our programming or, subconsciously, or what? Carly: Yeah, I mean, we're all individuals. And we're productive from when we are born right up to our experiences, right up until this present moment. But it's also good to have an understanding of how the mind works because those automatic negative thoughts, if we didn't, as humans, have a negative bias, we wouldn't see the human race today. So, back in caveman days, you probably heard this before, it's like, we had to have anxiety. We had to have that negative skew because otherwise we were going to get eaten by a saber toothed tiger. But in our modern world, it's those negative thoughts. It's like, ‘What's our boss thinking of us? So why do we get that many likes on our Instagram posts?’ It's not helpful. A lot of the stuff right now that's causing those negative thoughts. It’s not helpful for us to live fully. So in Morita therapy, the first step is the acceptance. First of all, it's awareness of thoughts. And that's where it's good to use that metacognition of observing your thoughts and something. So I love that I'm constantly observing my thoughts and I’m like, ‘Oh, there it is again’. Lisa: Because I first heard that from Craig Harper, our mutual friend at the You Project. I've been using that a heck of a lot since I heard that. When you step outside your house, when you watch yourself, as if you were above, as if I was above looking down my spirit self or whatever you want to call it. Looking at my brain. Just tuning out this shit, basically. Bringing forth this. And then looking at it and go, ‘Hang on. Is it good? Is it serving me right now?’ Carly: Exactly. And that's the question to ask. It's like, if you can create space, because then Craig would have talked about the different cells and we are not our thoughts, and we're not our anxiety. So there's a part of us, as humans, animals can't do this, but what makes us unique is that we're able to observe our thoughts. And if we can create that space between us and our thoughts, we can look at that thought more in an analytical way, rather than in an emotional way. It's not about whether that thought is right or wrong. It's whether it's helpful. Lisa: Yeah. And something right now. Carly: Yeah, exactly. That's sort of the acceptance part of what's in our control, what's not in our control. The big one is those thoughts and emotions. And then have been aware of creating that space and observing them, that's kind of the first step. Any act, we call that diffusion or unhooking. When we get hooked by our thoughts, it's almost like they're pushing us around, and then they start dictating what we do without necessarily taking us towards the person that we really want to be. So if we can observe them and unhook from them, then that gives us that space to choose our behavior, and choose it aligned with our values or our purpose and takes us towards the person that we want to be. Lisa: That's brilliant. So it's really getting the executive functioning part of our brain, our prefrontal cortex talking to our amygdala more or being more connected to them. This frontal area of the brain that only humans have really developed, and in some primates have to a certain degree. But because a lot of us go around being hijacked by our amygdala, all the time. So that's the reptilian part of the brain that’s sort of a more primitive part of the brain, that is responding very, very quickly, quicker than the prefrontal cortex, to dangers in your environment, or negative things happening in the environment. Was it here as a survival mechanism? Talking about this the other day, and I said, how fast my amygdala switches on when something in my environment happens? Say, someone cuts me off in traffic. Those automatic thoughts that come out from the amygdala before I switched my logical adult brain on, ‘I'm going to punch that dude in the face’. Carly: Thank goodness, your prefrontal cortex switches in then and says, ‘Don't do that!’ Lisa: But when I was younger, I was less able to do that. And I was very fiery, very angry. Now as I've gotten older and understand that sort of process, I can go, ‘Okay, come on, take a couple of deep exhales here, and we're going to calm ourselves down and get a grip of it’. But it's also a very protective thing. Sometimes I catch a glass that's falling off the table before I've even registered it with my prefrontal cortex. And that’s also your reaction speed. Your amygdala is working at, I don't know what it is, thousands of a second faster than this. And so you're catching things. It can be a very positive thing, but it can also be - our jails and our justice system are full of people whose amygdala is more dominant and more able to control. And so they've done things in the spur of the moment without getting political on it, but it is something that we need to practice and work on. And it's something that you as a parent would know that the younger the child is, the less control that they have up there. So they just do whatever their emotional brain tells them to do - scream, yell, kick, whatever. As we get older, we learn to handle a bit more. But there's still this disconnect going on. Carly: Yeah, our brains aren't fully developed until the age of 25. But, you look at that, and there's decisions being made by young people that are going to affect them for the rest of their life, and that their brains aren't fully developed to be able to make those long-term decisions. So, it's really interesting. Lisa: So that's the awareness and stepping out and unhooking as you said, or diffusion, and looking at yourself. So that's the first thing that you can do. And looking at what is in your control and what is not in your control. So how do you approach the stuff that's not in your control, that makes you fearful, for example? Carly: What other people think is a huge one. To the majority of my clients, it is the number one fear, if you want to call it anxiety or worry. It is what others think of them. Even that is a very normal thing. So the next step is about acceptance. It's not acceptance in a passive way, but it's an acceptance of what is a natural part of the human experience. Wiring what people think is actually quite normal because back when we were in a tribal setting, we had to care what others thought. We had to know that we were adding value to the tribe, and the survival of the tribe. Otherwise, we'd get kicked out. So it's just that now, there's too many people. We have so many connections. Not only our physical connection with people, but also through social media. So it's almost like this connection overdrive that we have, and this worry about what others think, this worry about the posts that young people post on social media, their appearance, and all that sort of stuff. So I guess I approach that, first of all, with my clients that this is just a natural part of being human. That looking at that thought of if they're worried about what somebody is thinking of them. Looking at that is not right or wrong. But is it helpful? If it's not helpful, then do that by observing self. Defuse or unhook from it. Create that space, and then redirect attention into what needs to be done in that moment. Acceptance isn't about that passive, “I’ve got to put up with it.” It's not about tolerating anything, but it's about making room for it, and making room for those thoughts and those emotions that come up. And using tools like the breath and exercise that manage it. But I think the main thing is about discomfort tolerance levels, because we don't, and I know you would talk about comfort zones a lot. So Morita, he believed that in radiotherapy there were two sets of opposing forces. One was a desire to live fully, and the other one was this desire to be secure and comfortable. So they're opposing each other. But as you would know, any success, like all my achievements in my life has involved some level of discomfort. And sometimes we're willing to feel that discomfort. Even on your wedding day, you feel nervous and everything, but you still get married. But it's that everyday anxiety that we feel. It's this focus on the discomfort and wanting to get rid of it. And when that's intense, this is not easy. I don't want to lighten this because I know that these intense feelings can be quite debilitating to people. But using these tools, you make room for it, make space around it, and be able to do what's important to you, coexisting, bringing that discomfort with you, in the hope that it's going to turn down like the intensity. It's a bit like a radio playing in the background. If the radio is really loud, it's taking your attention, it's hard to focus. But using these tools of diffusing or unhooking, it's, slowly the radio just starts to turn down. And it might just be a little murmur in the background. Lisa: And hanging with that tension long enough, so stepping, being brave enough to take something on. Say a challenge - you're going to America to learn this thing a bit. You're leaving your kids behind, and your husband behind, you're off to this new place. And you're like, ‘What the hell am I doing?’ All that sort of stuff. Me and my life going off to run like in the Himalayas, or the Sahara, and absolutely shitting myself. And it sounded good while he was signing up, and you'd had a glass of wine. And now, you’re like, ‘What am I doing? I'm in this so deep, there's no way out now, so I have to go through’.  So I know that tension very, very well. And I know that those are the times when the growth happens, isn't it? When you're pushing, but you are also risking failure, you are risking being, and this is the sort of dichotomy, or how it's contradictory. We, as human beings, seek comfort. We seek safe because that is our DNA programming. But because we live in such comfortable societies with comfortable couches and comfortable Netflix's to watch in houses that we live in and cars that we drive, we don't ever get out of that comfort zone if we don't want to. We can have our food delivered to our door and order our clothes online. And we can be very, very insular if that's the way that we decide to live, but we are never going to grow in that state. We are never going to challenge, we're never going to fulfill our potential. And so when you talk to people, they all want to change. They all want to be epic. They all want to do like, ‘I wish I could be like you and run ultra-marathons, or run a business, or whatever the case may be.’ But nobody’s wrong. But a lot of people just are not willing to put up with the pain, the discomfort, the fear, the financial investment, the time investment, the hard yards, in order to reap those rewards. So how do you teach yourself to be a little bit tougher? A little bit of, ‘I'm going to do this. I'm scared anyway. But I'm doing it.’ How do you teach yourself that sort of toughness or resilience? Carly: Because if you try and avoid or suppress those strong, intense emotions, it's going to affect your life. You're not going to be able to live fully by staying in that comfort zone. And I love what I want to do. It just reminded me of the cold shower thing, I have my current shower this morning. So we're running this eight-week course with Jonah. We might talk about it later. But part of that is this ritual of the cold shower. Now I don't particularly like the cold. And I like being comfortable as well. It's like being anxious or nervous, it's not a nice feeling to have. But what you can do is practice getting uncomfortable. So deliberate practice. And I think Paul called it discomfort harvesting or harvesting discomfort. Lisa: That's what I should do, a PhD in the weekend. Carly: There you go, we've got your PhD. Cold shower is such a good tool to get out of your comfort zone. Because you have total control at the end of your nice warm shower, which is nice and comfortable. You have control whether you turn that to cold and spend a minimum of 30 seconds under that cold water, being uncomfortable. And if you can't do that, then the likelihood of when something goes wrong, and these intense emotions come up, then the likelihood of you being able to handle that could be low if you can't even handle having a cold shower. Cold showers, as you know, they have huge benefits on the immune system, and even emotional well-being. Everything that comes from me and my experience of them. It is about getting out of my comfort zone. Because I need to practice that as well. Lisa: We all do, all the time. This is the misconception, too, that you've done it. In my case, I had done one ultramarathon, therefore you're tough for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. This is something you need to use it or lose it. So that's why that daily ritual stuff is very important. Carly: Absolutely. And you were never exonerated, we'll count until the day we die, we'll keep doing this stuff. Because we're human. And that's the acceptance part of it, it’s that life is hard. I loved Matthew McConaughey. That speech that he did for the students who are graduating. But one of the things he just said, ‘Life is hard’. There's nothing original in that, but it's just the way he said it. It's like you need to get used to it, you need to prepare for it. Because life as humans, we will not stay in this comfortable environment, something will happen, somebody will get sick, jobs will be lost. Just like COVID happened and businesses, it's like stuff happens to us. So what we can do, while things are going well, is put ourselves out of our comfort zone on just small things on a daily basis. And then when the shit hits the fan, we can really cope with it. Lisa Tamati: And this just summed up my entire books, really, in a mouthful, because it is about scaring the crap out of yourself, pushing the limits, and finding what you can do. Not all the time. We've spoken about this before about rest and recovery times and coming back so that you can recover from that big thing you just took on. You can't just go back to back to back, scary big, awesome, huge things all the time, because that leads to burnout and PTSD and goodness knows what else. So it is about everything that I study in biology and psychology and all the areas that I study, it seems to be this flow, life loves this even flow, right from our nutrition. So eating the same thing all the time, always being on keto is not good. It's about this up and down. With biology, you want to have a little bit of this, and then you want to pull back, you want a little bit of cold. And when it comes to hermetic stressors, doing things like saunas, like cold showers, like training and exercise. If you do too much, you're going to—if you look at those four phases of stress, where you've got the alert phase, and then the resistance phase, and then the recovery or exhaustion phase. If you're going overtraining, you're not going to get there. You're not going to get that response, that compensation. It's the same thing here. You want to be going flowing in and out of tough times, come back, recover, see how that went, then have another crack at something else in a different area of your life perhaps. And that this even flow of life is, if we just stay in the static, then we're actually going backwards. What really matters for me and the stuff that I do is when it comes to health. Because if you're not in this willingness to put up with things like cold showers and going training when you don't feel like it, and eating good food and trying to have these stable fundamental health habits and working on them, I'm not perfect and no one's perfect, but working on these things, you are going to pay the price with your life, your health. Yes, we're all going to die one day, but I hope that I will live a healthy long lifespan, a very long one. I want to have health for as long as I possibly can. And so by studying all this, by learning all this, you can actually, hopefully hinder the worst things happening. I mean, a lot of things, you can't prevent everything because like I said, some things are outside of our control. And we have to acknowledge that. But what can I do to up the odds, then I'm going to live long. Up the odds that I'm going to be healthy until the end. All of those types of things because the price, and I've seen this in my own life and in my own family, unfortunately, when they didn't acknowledge all those things along the way and then the big freight train came in, and then you're pushing the proverbial uphill. Carly: There's a reflection exercise that I do with my clients. And it's, imagine that you're 80, and you're reflecting back on your life, but it but it's your life today. So you don't go back in the past. It's like you're reflecting back on your life today. And one of the questions is, what would you do differently? And it's a really powerful question, because it gets you to look at your life in a more analytical way and go, ‘Well, actually things like I’d exercise more, or I’d drink less’. Spending more time with your family is a huge one, that's usually the number one thing I would spend more time with my kids or it's more time with my family. And once you've got that list, you can look at that, and then you have the power today to choose those things moving forward. So if you project yourself into the future, reflect back, you then are able to almost design your life how you want to live from this point onwards. Lisa: I've heard what people that are on their deathbed are thinking, what are the greatest regrets that they wish they had done. And it is things like that, it's not, I wish I'd worked more. I wish I’d earned more money. We need a certain amount of work. And we need a certain amount of money, all of these sorts of things. But what are your highest priorities, and then aligning your values and what you're doing to those priorities. And there really isn't a dynamic thing, it changes a little bit and your values and all the things change over time. But being in alignment with your greatest priorities now is something that we need to keep reevaluating, and are we on track for that? I'm talking to myself here, because I'm definitely a workaholic. And I want to, ‘Oh, that sounds like a great idea’. Write another book, do a PhD and whatever  dreams and things that you've got. And then you're like, ‘Hmm, that's going to take me away from my family’. Early in my life, I wouldn't even have thought that I would have just been so excited about the thing. And now I've got to stop and think about those things. Because you realise now, I'm 52 and I'm running out of time to do the things that I want. And when you lose a loved one, like I recently lost my dad, that's a real rough. Because otherwise, when there's no major thing like that has happened to you yet, you’re just bumbling along and everything's okay. When I talk to my family members and stuff about my father, it's like, ‘I wish I'd taken him fishing more. I wish he had more time. I wish I'd learned from him’. And we're all wishing we had done this together. So it is that wake-up call that is like, how do you want to be thinking in the next 20 years then? Carly: And that's kind of a silver lining thing as well, isn't it? Even though something as sad, and the loss of a loved one, that silver lining is that you can learn from that and go, ‘Well, I wish I'd done that.’ And then is there an opportunity now to do that with somebody who's here and with you? Do you know, I was thinking, one of the things that I've started doing consistently now— with life, the modern world, the way it is, and its rush, rush, rush, rush. And we're getting out there almost, a lot of us are on autopilot. And I know I was. Even with it's like, ‘Right, I'll do my exercise. I'll go to my CrossFit class or my exercise class, and then I'm going to work. And I’m doing this’. It's like, go, go, go, go, go. For me inputs, like emails and text messages and social media, everything's kind of input. It's overwhelming.  So what I started doing, and it's actually Craig Harper was on his podcast last year, and right at the end of it was before Christmas, I totally walked into this. He was like, ‘So what's something that you want to achieve in 2021?’ And I said, ‘I want to get up earlier’, because I thought I was funny, even though I was still getting up at 6:30. But I was just fine. I was just going straight into it. And so he sent me his 100-day challenge to get up at 5:30 each day. And what I did was I started this pre-input routine, I don't know, do you do this. So I get up, and there's no phone. Do not touch my phone. I don't have my phone in my room. It's uncharged in the kitchen. So don't go near it. Don't go near a computer. What I started doing is the first thing I do is, I journal. It's not a journal where I'm writing paragraphs of stuff. It's all dot points. But the first thing I do a metric. So I just say, the alarm went off at 5:30, got up at 5:45. Or maybe I did get up at 5:30. Or maybe I got up at 6:00, but I measure it. Over time, I've kind of been able to say: well, what influenced me whether I didn't get up or whether I did get up. Most of it is what I did the night before. The morning starts the night before. So you can see patterns there. But the big thing that I found is that it gives me silence. And I think silence is something that we're missing in today's world, because of all these inputs. If you can sit with silence, that's when you can really think about things, you can observe your thoughts. You can start being creative when ideas come up. So before any inputs or journal, I look at what my wins were yesterday, and really celebrate those. Have you heard BJ Fogg? Lisa: Yeah, Tiny Habits. Carly: Tiny Habits. So, he says to celebrate the small things, and you get that little dopamine hit. And dopamine is also the neurotransmitter of motivation. I will journal even micro moments that I've had with people outside in the community that I thought that was really, just like my barista. She makes me a great coffee, and she has a chat and tells me my hair looks nice. It's those sort of little things that I think we need to have more focus on, and to celebrate those sort of moments in our life, because otherwise, they just pass up. They’re just fleeting, and we’re onto the next thing. Lisa:  And when we tend to just be looking at the big picture all the time, like the big goals - the program we are writing, or the book we're doing or the project at work, or whatever the case is. We don't celebrate those. I've started to, because I'm running three companies, I've got a disabled mom that I still look after 24/7, 7 days a week. It's full on. And a lot of the time, some days, I'm just like, ‘How the hell does any human brain do this?’ I'm just like, ‘I've got a pretty good brain, but I am not keeping up.’ When you drop the ball and you're like, ‘Oh.’ Like I said to my husband, ‘I dropped the ball on this appointment the other day and I'm such an idiot,’ and he said, ‘Stop, stop. You're not an idiot. You're telling yourself that.’ And of course I am. Thanks for pointing that out to me. And yet you're doing the best you bloody will can and in this very difficult situation. Give yourself a break. And we're all doing that, we are all trying to keep up because things seem to get faster and more.  And so taking moments out, like an appointment fell through this morning, ‘Oh, an opportunity.’ Now I can either get into some work, which has plenty to do. Or my husband comes out and he looks at he's looking all down on the dumps and exhausted, and I’m like, ‘Let's go for a walk, darling. It's a beautiful day. Let's go and just walk for 20 minutes. Get some sunshine on our eyes, wake ourselves up, have a talk about the day before,’ then come back and then ‘Wow, it's a different start to the day’. Because usually it's just back, back, back. And then you find yourself at 10 o'clock at night when you finally sit down for the first time. Turn the telly on or something to just zone out, to compensate for this whirlwind. Building into your day, those little micro times we say, ‘Oh it’s a beautiful flower’. Being in the, ‘Oh, what beautiful sunshine,’ and all this, ‘Someone’s smiling at me.’ ‘Hi, how you doing?’ Just those little wee things that can help you get enough energy to get through to the next— Carly: And that's where attention comes in too, which is part of Morita therapy, is that we can pay attention internally to our problems and our thoughts or feelings or our pain. Or even with all that going on, we can still pay attention to a beautiful flower. It's about one of the most simple, and it sounds crazy, but using your senses can get you out of your head and into the present moment. And we were talking about, I think Paul may have mentioned this, I don't know. One of the exercises is looking for the color blue. So if you find you're ruminating in thoughts, or if you're driving in the car, I find that that's when I started, all the thoughts come up when I'm driving, because it's such an automatic thing that you do. So I really try and redirect my attention. There's a metaphor of a torch. So the beam of light is your attention. And you have control over where you shine that. It's so effective. So am I shining that torch in my internal world? Or can I redirect it with all this going on, redirect it to the outside world? And I'll just look for things for color blue. Look for tiny things for color blue look for, obviously, the sky hopefully will be blue. Look, they're different shades of blue. And what that does, it doesn't get rid of what's going on internally, but it just redirects your attention. Lisa: Distracts you from the internal looping that goes on in your brain, when you start to just, those thoughts just keep going around in circles. And there's actually no solution coming out of it. And this is the sort of thinking that goes on at two o'clock in the morning when you wake up. Cortisol has gone up and you've got some project that you're struggling with or something and it's just a loop, loop, loop, loop. And you've got to break that loop. Carly: That's the hardest time, because at two o'clock in the morning, you can't really look for the color blue. You can ask yourself a question, ‘Is this happening now? Oh, no, this is not it's a statement. This isn't happening now’. Because you're thinking about the future or you’re thinking about the past. But it's not happening now. And what's happening now is that you need to sleep. Lisa: I focus on my breath doing breath work. And apart from that, it doesn't happen so much to me. Now that does on occasion. But do some breath work where you're concentrating on the exhale. And there's lots of different breaths - box breathing or 4-7-8 breathing. I like to do what you're doing this massively long exhale. And that really slows down the parasympathetic nervous system, and can actually help you fall back to sleep. And I find that very, very powerful. But it's just breaking that cycling in your head, when you find yourself with a specific problem, that you're just not getting the answers to, going round and round, that's when you need to go either meditate, breathe, go for a walk, go for a run, do something that actually changes your mood. You're allowing space, because a lot of the time people think, ‘I have to stay here and not solve this problem right now. Otherwise, it's going to get worse’. Actually, when you let go, and you let it have time and space, that's when the answers come to you. Carly: Yeah, that's right. And looking at what's within your control at that moment. It's not within your control that those ruminating thoughts keep coming up. But what is within your control is how you respond to them. So what you do in that moment, and a really good question to ask is, what needs to be done now? We’re only at a series of moments. It's that we only have the present moment. And most of the time, the anxiety or the ruminating thoughts are not related to the present moment. They're about the future or the past. So getting back.  Actually, that reminds me, there was a study done. I don't know if you've heard of it by Matt Killingsworth. He's done this study on the wandering mind, and how it relates to happiness. He created this app, and there were 35,000 people involved in this study. And what he did is throughout the day, people just getting on with their day and throughout the day, these questions that pop up like ‘What are you doing now?’ I had that list of 50 things I might be doing. Like, I'm on the train, or I'm at work or whatever. And then it was, ‘What are you—are you thinking about what you're doing? Or are you thinking about something else?’ So it was measuring their wandering mind, and then measuring their happiness levels. And it showed that even if you are stuck in traffic, which is a very frustrating thing, especially if you're running late, if your mind was wandering, you were less happy than if you were in the present moment, just observing your surroundings. You are even happier being in the present moment stuck in traffic than if you were in a pleasant moment but having a wandering mind, if that makes sense. So being in the present moment, and I think we need to practice it. It is a skill. Attention is a skill. And being aware that our attention is constantly being robbed, just like advertising, and social media. It's just constant attention. So if we can take control of our attention and get into the present moment, then that can have such a huge impact on our well-being. Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. And this is one of the things that I love about a podcast like this. I am fully focused on you in this conversation. Nothing is pulling at me right now. Whereas when I'm working on the computer, and there's a hundred windows open, and I'm back and like, ‘I'm just going to jump on messenger so that I can do this task, send a message to so and so’. I get on to messenger, this is an example. And then, ‘Oh, there's another message coming. Oh, who was it from? Oh, I'll answer that’. And then you're off, and you're over here, and you're over there. And that original thing that you were actually meant to be doing in that moment is gone. And this is the difficulty. Even though I know that this happens, and I'm trying to control it. Shutting those windows down is not always an option, because you have to have the windows open, otherwise, re-find the bloody websites every time. But having the control to go, ‘No, I'll work on that later’. I'm working with a guy at the moment who I'm sure I'm driving insane on systems and processes, because this is a thing that my brain does not do well. And it's driving my business partner mental, because I am constantly like chasing shiny objects, super excited about science, running here and there, learning everything, wanting to do a hundred courses, not focusing on the things that need, the systems and the processes, and they're boring. And so this poor guy is trying to help me. Shout out to Mike Drone. Get my calendar sorted, get my scheduling sorted, get my inbox under control, get these basic systems. It was an interesting, the Calendly thing, that you have to have, all professional people have. I have, ‘I can’t do it, I can’t work it out. All I have is a fare overseas. And I don't get it.’ And then there was this resistance to it because I didn't want to waste my time learning something that I'm not interested in, or the outside take care of that. I tried to get my assistant to take care of it, and tried to get my husband to take care of it, and nobody would take care of it. They kick me back on my lap. And then Mike said, ‘You have to do it’. And so I actually spent yesterday, a good two three hours setting it up. And I was so proud of myself. Stuff I hate, but I did it. Carly: Did you do this? Did you just focus on that task that you did anything else come in? Lisa: Yeah, I had things coming in. But I keep bringing my focus back and I actually managed it for the first time in history. On a thing that I'm not interested in. Because if it's a thing that I'm interested in, if it's science, man, I know, I kind of watch or listen to stuff and learn stuff and read stuff for Africa hours every day. That's what I love. That's my happy place. But when it comes to doing the admin, the text, the accounting, the learner, and learning that software, oh God. But it's not because I thought, ‘Oh, I've always thought, are you just too dumb for that. You just don't get it. Your brain doesn't work’. That was an excuse really. Because I can, I know I have a good brain that can cope with it. It's just that I never gave it the attention because I didn't want to be there. And it is still going to be a battle. Carly: It reminds me too, that this morning, the sort of pre-input routine that a lot of people do is deep work at that time. So if there's something really important that you need to work on. Like if you're writing a book or like whatever it is that you want to spend two hours on or however many hours on without any inputs. Do that first thing in the morning. And don't have your email open or don't have those. But if you can, turn off your notifications, but have that as your deep work and get that done. And then you get on with the day with all the other stuff that you need to do. There's a lot of... Lisa: [50:42 unintelligible] Carly: Yeah, exactly. And it's that Stephen Covey thing that, the important not urgent stuff, do that first. Lisa: That's really hard to do. In prioritising those lists, and having, and this is where the systems and processes coming in, as I'm finding out now, as I'm working on this, as this is urgent and important, you have to do that right away. And if it's just urgent, but not important that can wait, I’ve forgotten all the whole list of things that you sort of - but doing that in an automatic fashion, so that you actually know what then. If a free space comes into your life, like a cancellation or something, “Okay, what is the thing that I can grab out of my to-do list?” That should be filling that space. And I'm still working on that one, instead of getting dragged any which way, which I still tend to do, which is easier to do. And there's a billion things when you got your own company, and you're working, there is a billion hits you have to wear every day. And that becomes just, you can work 24/7 and still be behind. Carly: Yeah, it's crazy. And that's why, what you were saying before, when you had that opportunity, when you had that space because you missed an appointment. You had that supposed to choose where you were going to go, and you chose a walk with your husband, which is just such a good recovery thing today and a time to be present, and a time to spend time with somebody that you love and grasp those opportunities. Lisa: Yeah, and not feel guilty, which is what I do. I really should have picked that other project up. I really should have given my husband the time when he needed it, or my mum, or whatever the case may be. In that moment, and take those little opportunities that come up. Carly: Yeah, so important. Lisa: Carly, this has been such an interesting conversation, I feel like we could go for another couple of hours. And maybe I'll get you back on. Because we get into the rest of the ACT therapy and the different areas. But is there anything, as we start to wrap up now, anything else that you think that we haven't covered that we should that would really help people out there listening? Carly: I think the sort of the overarching thing with this approach is having a purpose-driven life rather than an emotional-driven life. And what I mean by purpose is that it's not the sort of big goal, what's my purpose of life, but the purpose of the moment. So even with worry, or anxiety, or ruminating thoughts, just looking at what is my purpose in this moment. It could be as simple as “I need to clean up the kitchen.” Because that's having your house in order, it's something as important to me. And so it's those sort of small things that we do every day, that kind of creates purpose in our lives. I think that's an important thing to— because it's so easy to have our emotions drive us and respond depending on how we're feeling. But if we can look at the purpose of the moment, then we can make those choices that are going to help us live more fully. Lisa: And not relying on motivation all the time, but taking action and doing the things that are on your highest priority. You and Paul have an eight-week program. So you're doing an eight-week program, which is all around. Will you tell us a little bit about that, what you're doing at the moment? Carly: So we're running an eight-week program. We've got about 93 on it, which, it’s our first one. So we're really, really pleased. So we do a weekly zoom session, every Tuesday night for about an hour and a half. It's basically, we go through all the different domains of our lives and the different areas - nutrition, mindset is a big one, exercise. So each week, we have sort of a different topic. And then there's an app that goes with that. So there's like a ritual board,  everybody has daily rituals that they can tick off. Culture is one of them. And they get points to that. So it's a bit of healthy competition going on. There's a leaderboard on who's doing what. We've had such good response from people. It's been amazing. So yeah, we're hoping to do another one soon after this one’s finished. We're halfway through now. Lisa: Brilliant, brilliant. I think this is the sort of stuff I love and I eat for breakfast. Love the stuff. I think it's so important that we're working on this sort of thing. So where can people find you and reach out to you and to Paul and what you're doing? What's your website and your social media handles and so on? Carly: Yeah, so mine is carlytaylorcoaching.com.au and Instagram is Carly Taylor Coaching. And then mindbodybrain.com.au, which you'll find more about the Better You course, which is the behaviour change course. So that's the eight-week program. Lisa: Put all those notes in the show notes. Carly: And then Instagram is Mind Body Brain, which was right. Lisa: Look, Carly, you've been fantastic today. Thank you so much for your time and your input and your passion that you bring to the stuff. Carly: Thank you so much for having me. It's been great to meet you. Lisa: It's just been epic. I've really, really enjoyed a conversation and I think a lot of people will have got a lot of practical tips to take away from this conversation as well. Carly: Yeah, they'll be looking for the color blue today. Lisa: Exactly. Outro: That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to rate, review, and share with your friends. And head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com. The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

Vitamin C is a potent vitamin with many benefits to our body. Although many studies prove it can cure diseases and prolong lifespan, many doctors are still wary of this unconventional treatment. In hospitals, it is not a protocol to deliver IV vitamin C therapy to critically ill patients. Dr Ron Hunninghake of the Riordan Institute joins us in this episode to explain the uses of IV and oral vitamin C in several chronic, life-threatening diseases. He also talks about the different studies and trials conducted to explore the mechanism of vitamin C in action. If you want to take control of your health and dive deeper into IV vitamin C therapy, then this episode is for you. Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health program all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/. You can also join our free live webinar on epigenetics. Online Coaching for Runners Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching. Consult with Me If you would like to work with me one to one on anything from your mindset, to head injuries,  to biohacking your health, to optimal performance or executive coaching, please book a consultation here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/consultations. Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within 3 years. Get your copy here: http://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books. My Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection ‘Fierce’, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection. Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: You will learn about the uses of both oral and intravenous vitamin C in many diseases such as cancer and sepsis. Discover the latest clinical trials that show how IV vitamin C therapy exerts its healing abilities. What are the problems facing functional medicine versus allopathic medicine and the pharmacological model dominant in our system today? Resources Find out more about the Riordan Institute and access Medical Mavericks Trilogy through their website. Follow the Riordan Institute’s YouTube channel. Learn more about the Riordan protocol for cancer patients. Cornell University's clinical trial on IV vitamin C therapy and cancer University of Iowa's clinical trial on vitamin C and pancreatic cancer Watch the case of Allan Smith on an episode of 60 Minutes Living Proof. Explanation lecture of the CITRIS-ALI study by Dr Fowler Learn more about Dr Paul Marik's protocol for sepsis using vitamin C and steroids. Access the VICTAS trials designed to investigate the efficacy of combined use of vitamin C, thiamine and corticosteroids versus indistinguishable placebos on patients with sepsis. Watch Professor Margreet Vissers’ lecture on her work on vitamin C. Episode Highlights [05:16] Dr Ron’s Background Dr Ron went to medical school wanting to learn more about health. He specialised in family medicine because it is the best opportunity to deal more directly with patients. Dr Ron met Dr Hugh Riordan, an orthomolecular psychiatrist who was interested in general health and well-being, particularly cancer. He created the Riordan protocol. The RECNAC Project was created to look for non-toxic ways of dealing with cancer. Vitamin C was used in the project as an in vitro treatment to stop cancer growth and determine its mechanism. [11:56] IV Vitamin C Therapy for Cancer Oral vitamin C is essential, but in extreme illness, IV vitamin C is more crucial to get higher doses. Vitamin C reduces iron. Reduced iron interacts with oxygen, forming a hydroxyl radical. Hydroxyl radicals interact with water to create hydrogen peroxide, a potent killer of cancer cells. Various studies illustrate the importance of IV vitamin C as an adjunct to cancer care. [16:55] Humans’ Inability to Produce Vitamin C We cannot make our vitamin C because of a mutation in the L-gluconolactone oxidase gene. This gene is responsible for converting glucose to ascorbic acid. There is a misconception that taking vitamin C is a one-and-done scenario. When you are sick, the body’s need for vitamin C goes up. You must take vitamin C at specific dosages and frequencies to maintain adequate levels in the body. [21:53] Oxygen Deficiency in Cancer Lack of oxygen is the starting point of cancer. In the absence of oxygen, hypoxia induction factor (HIF) triggers cells to shift back to glycolysis, drastically decreasing the number of energy molecules we produce. The body starts cannibalising itself to provide sugar to the cancer cells, creating the early signs of cancer: profound fatigue and cachexia. Vitamin C suppresses HIF. [28:33] Finding a Doctor Who Knows the Protocol Go to the local health food store or find people who are recognised in the area of nutrition. Some doctors who follow the Riordan protocol keep a low profile so as not to get in trouble with the medical board or get into a political battle. Intravenous vitamin C is a tremendous synergistic adjunct to natural methods of helping the body heal itself. [34:46] Use of Vitamin C in Chronic Illness Care Most chronic illnesses are mitochondrial dysfunction diseases. Vitamin C would be a rescue molecule for threats to life. It works holistically and goes to the very heart of mitochondrial repair. Oral vitamin C would have to be taken frequently throughout the day to get high enough levels in the blood. [38:29] Liposomal vs Normal Vitamin C Liposomal vitamin C is packed with phospholipids and omega-6. The advantage of liposomal forms is that they get into the lymphatics faster and do not cause an upset stomach. Omega-6, however, can cause mitochondrial dysfunction. You can dose 100 to 150 grams of sodium ascorbate orally without causing diarrhea. [34:46] Why Is Vitamin C Given at Low Doses? Doctors are afraid high doses of vitamin C will cause renal stones or dysfunction. Vitamin C does not cause kidney stones, but having a history of renal stones will not stop its formation. Vitamin C is metabolised to oxalate, but you have to have an excess of calcium in the kidneys for oxalate to combine with it and form stones. [52:51] Oxidative Basis of Disease The reduction is the process of donating electrons; oxidation is the process of removing electrons. There is a dynamic balance in electron flow when we are healthy. When there is injury, oxidation is a signal to start the healing process. Oxidation is not necessarily harmful. However, when it is out of balance, it can cause chronic infections, abscesses and sepsis. [54:55] Vitamin C in Redox Medicine IV vitamin C continuously gives electrons. Glutathione also donates electrons. But when it does, it becomes oxidised and can no longer function. Therefore, IV vitamin C works better. Our red blood cells have a redox system to rejuvenate vitamin C, but it is very slow. You need to get vitamin C through your diet and intravenously to take in large amounts during emergencies. It has a short half-life and must be supplemented orally three to four times a day. [59:33] When Can Endurance Athletes Take Vitamin C? Some endurance runners take too many antioxidants to gear up their body and become stronger. However, this is an inappropriate way to use antioxidants. Let the injury occur first and take vitamin C after for recovery. 7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode ‘Vitamin C is probably, as one friend of Dr Riordan said, the most interesting molecule in the world and does things that no other molecule can do’. ‘This is why we're seeing these incredible death tolls is because, once again, vitamin C has not been recognised even though the International Orthomolecular Association has put out several studies and protocols that would work and would really solve the crisis very quickly if they would start using vitamin C’. ‘Science is not about belief. Science is about trying things and trying to see how things work and what we can do, especially in the field of medicine. If it can save a life, do it’. ‘I don't want people to think that if you don't have access to intravenous vitamin C, you're out of luck. I think it's just a matter of learning to dose yourself more frequently if you've got a chronic illness’. ‘All progress in medicine is met with resistance. It's not just vitamin C. Anything new, unless it's a big profit maker in the realm of something that people already know, then it can weave through fairly quickly. But if it's something that's really original and unique in the realm of medical thought, it's a huge, huge battle to get something new in’. ‘We cannot win politically; we cannot win economically. The only way we can win is if we completely show that the science does play out accurately and people do live better, longer. They get better faster’. ‘It's not that all oxidation is bad and all antioxidants is good. It's the cycles that occur within the body that are part of life and you just need to learn how to nuance your supplementation so that you get the best results’. About Dr Ron Dr Ron Hunninghake or Dr Ron, as patients fondly refer to him, is a family medicine doctor. He began his career as a small-town doc in Minneapolis, Kansas, where he first started teaching clinic-based wellness. Later, he joined nearby Salina Family Physicians and was instrumental in founding WellPlan, a comprehensive lifestyle modification program. Seeking even greater involvement in helping patients learn innovative ways to rebuild and maintain their health, he joined the Riordan Clinic in 1989 as its medical doctor. Following in the footsteps of Dr Hugh Riordan after the clinic founder’s untimely death in 2005, Dr Ron set about articulating the Riordan approach in seven core precepts: The primacy of the doctor/patient relationship Identify and correct the underlying causes. Characterise the biochemical uniqueness of the patient as co-learner. Care for the whole person. Let food be thy medicine. Cultivate healthy reserves. The healing power of nature In addition to his full-time practice as a holistic medical doctor at the Riordan Clinic, Dr Ron has made multiple trips to Japan, Spain, Ecuador, Columbia, New Zealand, Canada and South Korea to lecture on the Riordan IVC protocol for cancer. Here at the Riordan Clinic, he has presented more than 300 lectures dealing with all facets of nutrition, lifestyle and optimal health. He has co-authored three books on subjects including inflammation, energy-boosting supplements and how to stop pre-diabetes. You may contact Dr Ron through Riordan Clinic or contact him at +1 316-682-3100 on Mondays, 4:30 to 5 PM, CST. Enjoy the Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so that they can learn more about the benefits of vitamin C in cancer therapy and how to access these protocols. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

It’s common to hear that a good diet and exercise can significantly improve our health. But health is more than that. Your thoughts and beliefs can change your genes and brain structure! 85% of our genes are malleable, and you can change them for the better with good practices.   In this episode, Dr Dawson Church joins us to talk about the benefits of meditation and EFT tapping. He shares that changing our mental states can significantly impact our bodies and even our environment. The key to happiness and calm is in our hands; we just need to invest time to achieve it.  If you want to know more about the benefits of meditation and the science behind EFT tapping, then this episode is for you.    Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year’s time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, your goals and your lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity or are wanting to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within 3 years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa’s Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, a NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that is capable of boosting the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements that are of highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust — NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combat the effects of aging, while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection ‘Fierce’, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Discover the ways you can influence and change your genes and body. Understand the benefits of meditation and achieving a flow state. Learn how to become a force of good in the world by being an emotional contagion.   Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron! Harness the power of NAD and NMN for anti-ageing and longevity with NMN Bio. More Pushing the Limits Episodes: 183: Sirtuins and NAD Supplements for Longevity with Elena Seranova 189: Increasing Your Longevity with Elena Seranova Pushing the Limits Episode with Dr Don Wood Connect with Dr Dawson: Website | Twitter | Facebook Check out these amazing books and resources from Dr Dawson Church   The Genie In Your Genes   Mind To Matter. Get it for free here!  Bliss Brain. Get it for free here! You’ll also get eight meditations that accompany each chapter of the book.     The EFT Manual The Immunity Meditation: Receive Your Complimentary EFT Mini-Manual and BONUS Immunity EcoMeditation! EFT Universe Stealing Fire by Steven Kotler  Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill  ABC’s Catalyst - Meditation The Muscle Intelligence Podcast with Ben Pakulski: Using energy therapy to heal trauma and illness, increase productivity, up-regulate gene expression and build character traits with Dr Dawson Church   Episode Highlights [05:52] The Benefits of Meditation and Alternative Practices Dr Dawson shares how his research shows that our minds can turn thoughts and ideas into reality.  People who practice meditation become really happy.  Dr Dawson shares that he studied meditation, energy healing, and psychology.  Through this, he transformed from a miserable teen to the happy character he is today.  Dr Dawson believes that his purpose is to give the gift of happiness to others.  [10:18] Quantifying Ancient Traditions with Science  Dr Dawson shares how he was able to measure acupressure points using the galvanometer.  His findings proved the integrity of the Chinese practice of energy flows.  Energy treatments have shown astronomical results. Listen to the full episode to hear the breakthroughs in these treatments.  [13:55] How to Influence Your Genes While we can influence our genes with diet, recent research shows that you can also change it with your beliefs and attitudes.  15% of our genomes are fixed, while the remaining 85% are malleable.  In his practice, Dr Dawson learned how anxiety spikes cortisol levels, depletes the immune system, produces calcification in the brain and more.  This finding shows that it’s important to manage our thoughts and beliefs.  Through this, we’re able to influence our physical bodies positively.  [16:36] How EFT Tapping Addresses Trauma EFT tapping has shown its effectiveness in resetting your emotions, especially when you’re feeling stressed, anxious, or angry.  Normally, your stress response creates re-traumatisation by sending high levels of signals in your body. Over time, this can shrink the brain.  When you remember a traumatic event while tapping, you can reduce the signals and break traumatic associations.  Once you break the association between your traumatic memories and fight or flight response, it stays broken.  EFT Tapping is a powerful tool. Learn how Dr Dawson uses this to help war veterans in the full episode!  [25:44] Break the Trauma Loop and Calm Down When traumatic memories and experiences haunt you, you fall into a trauma loop.  We have evolved to become highly attuned to potential dangers, even if they’re just possibilities.  Our modern world doesn’t help with this condition, where people say that it’s hard to find time to meditate and calm down.  Dr Dawson shares that a few minutes of mediation will pay off. Not only will you be calmer physically and physiologically, but you will also perform better.  You cannot afford not to meditate.  [31:55] How to Get into the Flow State Scientists found that when someone is in flow, they have a characteristic brainwave state.  They sought to re-engineer this and train ordinary people to achieve the same state. We can achieve the flow state through mediation like the mystics do or through peak performance.  Once you hit this state repeatedly, your brain will be naturally addicted to the boost in anandamide. You get into the same state of bliss that you achieve through drugs.  There are several other benefits of meditation. Listen to the full episode to hear what it can do.  [37:10] Letting Go of Local Reality Dr Dawson shares that great figures throughout history have let go of ordinary states to achieve the extraordinary.  In meditation, you have the opportunity to let go of local reality and go to a field of consciousness.  This place is where we can deliberately change our belief systems and then affect our local reality.  When you enter the non-local reality, you can change the hardware of the brain.  Immerse yourself in meditation, and it will change your mind and brain. Then it starts to change your whole life.   [44:18] Mindset Changes on Sports and Exercise Athletes often get injured when they’re not in the flow state. Athletes who have a long career tend to know how to pace themselves.  For people looking to lose weight, it’s important to associate exercise with pleasure rather than pain. This strategy helps to stretch people’s limits without burning out.  Learn to listen to your body and stop when it tells you to do so.  Athletes are typically expected to push themselves. It’s the same principle: they need to learn to listen to their body and understand their limits.  The way we build strength and endurance is through recovery. Don’t forget this part of the training.  [56:11] Be an Agent of Positive Emotional Contagion People can affect their environment. Our emotions and moods are contagious.  We don’t know how far our positivity can reach. It can affect hundreds and even thousands. It can even save lives.  Become an agent of compassion and love. Not only will you help others, but you also help yourself.   Listen to the full episodes to learn about the research on spreading positivity and happiness.  [1:05:36] Living Longer On average, optimists live ten years longer than pessimists.  Negative emotions are like corrosive acids that will damage your body.  You need to work on being optimistic and healing your trauma simultaneously. Note that this is a continuous process.    7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode ‘I just said, “You know, universe, what is your purpose for me in the coming year?” And the universe, I heard these words, they said, “We've given you the gift of happiness. Now, go give it to everyone else, too.” So that's really what I see myself doing now and where I came from originally and where I am today.’ ‘It's [EFT] like pushing the reset button for your emotions. So you're upset, you're angry or you're stressed whatever way, then you simply tap on these points very, very quickly.’ ‘You cannot afford not to meditate. The gains in productivity, problem solving ability, and creativity is so enormous that if you don't spend that hour or that half hour, you are missing out on your biggest single leverage point for success in your life.’ ‘In meditation for a little while, you let go of local reality, and you simply identify with the field of consciousness that is the cosmos. There's this huge information field in which we swim in it. We're like fish looking for water when we're looking for God or spirituality.’ ‘I wrote in my journal, “My heart is just burning with love and bursting with gratitude”. Because you come down in the states of such ecstasy and the rest of the world in your life, and it is a world of magic. You then create that magic all around you.’ ‘Athletes, first of all, when they're in the zone, when they're in flow, they injure themselves less and their performance goes up. It's that old Yerkes-Dodson law, currently referred to a little bit of stress is fine.’ ‘Jesus said, “Love your enemies,” to go to them that hate you. Yeah, very good advice, even though it's 2,000 years old. And when you do this, you're producing emotional contagion around you. You have no idea how far it's going.’   About Dr Dawson Church Dr Dawson Church is a leading health writer and researcher whose principal work includes The Genie In Your Genes, Mind To Matter and Bliss Brain. His research linked the connection of consciousness, emotion and gene expression. Moreover, he has looked into the science of peak mental states, flow states and happiness.  With his research, Dr Dawson conducted clinical trials and founded The Institute for Integrative Healthcare to promote groundbreaking new treatments. To date, his largest program is the Veterans Stress Projects which has offered free treatment to over 20,000 veterans with PTSD.     Dr Dawson further shares his research through EFT Universe, one of the largest alternative medicine websites. In addition, he is the science columnist for Unity magazine and has written blog posts for the Huffington Post.   In his undergraduate and graduate courses at Baylor University, Dr Dawson was the first student to graduate from the University Scholar’s program in 1979. He earned his doctorate from the Integrative Healthcare at Holos University under the famed neurosurgeon Norman Shealy, MD, PhD, the American Holistic Medical Association founder.  Are you interested to know more about Dr Dawson’s work? Check out his website and EFT Universe.  You can also reach Dr Dawson on Twitter and Facebook.   Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they learn the benefits of meditation and the science behind EFT tapping. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa.   Full Transcript Of The Podcast Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com.  Lisa Tamati: Welcome back to Pushing the Limits. Your host, Lisa Tamati, here with you and today I have another very, very special guest for you that is perhaps going to change your life. A really very interesting man. Dr Dawson Church, PhD,  who is an award winning science writer with three bestselling books to his credit. The Genie in Your Genes was the first book to demonstrate that emotions drive gene expression. So that's all-around epigenetics, epigenetics and how your emotions can actually change the way your genes are expressing. The second book Mind to Matter, which is really something that you must read, shows that the brain creates much of what we think of as objective reality. And his third book, Bliss Brain demonstrates that peak mental states rapidly remodel the brain for happiness.  Now, Dawson has conducted dozens of clinical trials and founded the National Institute for Integrative Healthcare to promote ground-breaking new treatments. Its largest program, the Veteran Stress Project has offered over free treatment to over 20,000 veterans who are suffering from PTSD. All for love, no money involved, an absolute amazing project. Dawson now shares how to apply these health and performance breakthroughs through his EFT universe. It was just an absolutely fascinating conversation with him. I'm very, very interested always in neuroplasticity because I was told, with my mum story, as you all know, that there was no hope that her brain would not be able to remodel and not be able to learn again and that is so far from the truth. In his new book, A Bliss Brain, award winning science writer Dawson Church focuses on the positive and negative mood and negative thinking and how it's associated with activation of brain regions like the prefrontal cortex - the state of yourself, and positive emotions such as altruism and compassion.  He blends cutting edge neuroscience with the stories of people who've had first-hand experience or brain change. And Bliss Brain really examines the effects of emotional states on brain structure. Suffice to say, you have to listen to this episode. I think if you're struggling with anxiety, struggling with stress, feeling the effects of ongoing long-term stress on your body and with illnesses and sicknesses and depression and all of these things that hamper just so many of us, so many of the people that I work with, and certainly I struggle with it on occasion, as well, then this is a book for you.  Dr. Dawson really emanates happiness and joy. But that wasn't always the case, he was someone who had suffered from depression quite badly in his early years. And this is what sent him down this great path. He manages to marry the science with the traditional things like Chinese medicine and Meridians and energy medicine. He's been able to quantify it so that people like me who love science in general open minded sceptics, I like to call myself, can actually understand why these things work. And that's really, really important.  Before we head over to Dr. Dawson. I just like to remind you, we have now our Patron membership for the podcast. If you'd like to get involved with the podcast, if you'd like to support what we do here at Pushing the Limits. We've been doing it now for five and a half years, and near on 200 episodes. I can tell you, into each episode goes a heck of a lot of work and a lot of research, and a lot of book reading, a lot of time. And we really need — to keep this on air — we really need your help. So if you'd like to come and support us and get a whole lot of extra member benefits, then head on over to patron.lisatamati.com, that's patron.lisatamati.com. You can join us in our tribe there. I would really, really appreciate you doing that. And as always, please give us a rating and review for the show because that really does help us as well and share it with your family and friends if you get benefit from us. I'd also love to hear from you, if you've got a question about one of the guests. If you want to dive deeper into one of the topics, please reach out to me, support@lisatamati.com.  I'd like to remind you too, that we also have our epigenetics program, which is our flagship program that we have that looks at your genes and how to optimise your genes, and how to understand the nuance of what foods, what times of the day, what types of exercise, what are your dominant hormones, what are your dominant neurotransmitters and how that plays out in your life. So if you'd like to join us for that, please head over to lisatamati.com and go under the Work With Us button and you'll see all the information there.  Now over to Dr. Dawson Church. Lisa: Hi everyone, and welcome to Pushing the Limits. I'm super excited to have you here with me today. I have an absolute legend, a man who has done so much research and so much good in the world, Dr. Dawson Church with me. Welcome to the show. Dawson, it's really, really exciting to have you with us today. Thanks for taking the time.  Dr. Dawson Church: For me, too, Lisa. We have had such fun now and the next hour. We just had off the air, this would be a fabulous time for you and me and everyone else combined. Lisa: Exactly. We already had a couple of really good connections. That’s fantastic.  So, Dawson, well, you are an incredible man with a number of books. You have your research, you're an expert on the brain and the mind and body connection. Can you give us a little bit of background about how did you get into the space and what you've been studying? I mean, it's a big question, but we'll start there anyway. Dr. Dawson: Well, let’s start right in the middle. I worked at a book about five years ago called Mind to Matter. It was really off the cuff project — I was interviewing scientists, I was trying to trace all of the scientific pieces, the links, the chain between having a thought and a thing. And I thought, “Well, I'll find some links to the chain, not others.” But I found all of them. It was so interesting to see how our thoughts literally become things, how our brains function like transducers, from the universal field of information and we then manifest those things all around us. While I was doing that I got into —  so I've been meditating everyday for like 20 years plus — but I own some really esoteric forums, our meditation practice by masters who've done it like 10,000 hours. By the end, I find myself getting really, really, really, really happy. I was already a really happy person. But at the end, I had to find myself getting super happy, no matter what the circumstances. But we had to look at all why people who do certain styles of meditation gets so happy. That's why I wrote the book, Bliss Brain. I began the process, 50 years before that, as a teenager, when I was so toxically depressed and anxious and miserable. I was suicidal, I mean, I want to just kill myself when I was 12, 13, 14 years old. And I looked into my own eyes, walked past a full-length mirror one day when I was 15, looked into my own eyes, and I said to myself, those are the saddest eyes I've ever seen. I realised I was so messed up inside. So, I went to live on a spiritual community for many years. I learned meditation, learned energy healing, studied psychology. Wanted to figure out how I could make myself happier, and got a little bit happier over the years. And then when I began to meditate every single day, I didn't have to use energy therapies like EFT tapping, suddenly I got a lot happier. After Mind to Matter, doing these esoteric meditations, got super happy, I want to then just tell it to the world. So I had this epiphany. But I don't want to retreat every New Year's Eve and spend about two, three weeks just really getting quiet meditating, asking the universe, “What are my marching orders for the coming year?”  I was walking the labyrinth with a group of about 40 people at a meditation centre in New Year's, couple of years ago. I stood at the centre of the labyrinth at the stroke of midnight. And I just said, “Universe, what is your purpose for me in the coming year?” And the universe, I heard these words, they said, “We've given you the gift of happiness. Now, go give it to everyone else, too.” So that's really what I see myself doing now and where I came from originally and where I am today. Lisa: Oh, wow, that is beautifully put in. So, Bliss Brain because you’ve written a number of books. Mind to Matter was the last one and then Bliss Brain is this one. And when people are listening to this, a lot of people will think, “Well, yes.” But is this, especially a lot of the people that are scientifically, believe in the science and they want evidence. What I found so interesting with your work is that you've met managed to marry the science, the quantified effects of energy medicine, of meditation, of pressure points, of EFT, all of these things is energy, things and actually quantified those with science in very rigorous-based, evidence-based, which for me is always a fascinating thing. Because I'm very much an open minded person, but I like to have that rigor, that sceptical mind, that prefrontal cortex that often jumps in and goes, “But is this real?” And you said, on the cusp between, being open minded and being scientific and you've seem to marry these two, just beautifully in your work and being able to quantify some of the ancient traditions the Chinese medicine, the Meridians, these types of things that have been known for thousands of years, but are now actually being shown to be correct and with science. Can you tell us about that?  Dr. Dawson: What's amazing is if you're taking a pedal instrument, handheld instrument, called the galvanometer. It's battery powered, it picks up the electrical resistance on your skin. And so, at my live workshops, I will run this over people's skin, and the little muscle device makes beeping sound whenever it hits an acupuncture point. And it's because those points are very, very high conductance, low resistance. You'll run this little deal over the person's face, nothing's happening, it'll hit an acupuncture point like this over here is on the bladder meridian, this point over here, and suddenly the machine goes crazy and starts beeping and flashing only in this tiny point about a millimetre in diameter, and no other surrounding skin. That's the exact point shown in a 2400-year-old Chinese scroll.  These ancients knew about all these points, energy flows, the chakras, the meridians, and so on. Now, we have instrumentation to measure them. At least the cool thing about the measurement process is, as we're measuring the effects of energy therapies, energy treatments, we're finding that as we quantify them, the effects aren't tiny. They aren't 3%, 5%. Sometimes they're astronomical. Like for example, the EFT. So in meta-analysis, meta-analys-s gathered together 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 studies into a bundle. And then, they extract all the information on a scale of how effective a therapy is. An effective therapy gets a score of two. A really effective therapy gets a score of five, and an extremely effective therapy is a score of eight. So two, five, eight, those are the three points in a meta-analysis that tells you whether a therapy has some effect or a huge effect.  In studies in meta-analysis of EFT tapping for anxiety on that 2-5-8 scale, the effect of EFT is 12. It’s off the odds, off the scale, off the chart. Same thing for depression, same thing for PTSD. So now that we're quantifying these therapies, meditation, EFT, other kinds of therapies, we're applying some of them, have incredible results at the level of the genome, proteins, proteins expression, enzymes, all kinds of processes in our bodies. Lisa: Wow, that is, okay, because you've written a book called The Genie in Your Genes. It was a marvellous title because I studied epigenetics and genetics. I know that you collaborated on the book with Dr. Bruce Lipton. I was like that’s one of my favourite books of all time, and actually got me down this rabbit hole of epigenetics. And so, I've looked at epigenetics in relation to the food and the nutrition and the social environment and your neurotransmitters and these sorts of things. But when I heard you talking about how it affects, like meditation — you're able to see, I think it was 72 genes or something, where it actually changes the expression of those genes in real time, when you're doing these meditations. And these were areas, I mean you know the areas better than me, perhaps you can talk about it. Because I think a lot of people don't understand that we have a DNA that we've inherited from mum and dad, that's our code if you like. But all throughout life and throughout every day and with everything that we do, we're turning genes on and off for the want of a better description, up regulating or down regulating certain genes with our environment. So what sort of things can we influence through meditation and through EFT, and so on? Dr. Dawson: That is the key question to ask me, Lisa. We can influence our gene expression with things like diet. You eat certain foods and eat really healthy foods is to turn on certain genes and result and certain processes in your body. And so, the early after they studied and study, 1999, 2002, were all about introducing dietary factors usually in experimental subjects of rats, mice, and then seeing how that affected their gene expression. But what I am much more interested in than things like drugs and external factors like food, is I am super interested in what we can do with this thing behind our bars over here and our beliefs and our attitudes and our energy. It turns out, I mean, that's funny you just mentioned, by done by remarkable, insight-filled therapist called Beth Maharaj. And she found that in an EFT session, a one hour EFT session of psychotherapy using EFT acupuncture tapping, all those acupuncture points, 72 genes were changed. And again, about 15% of our genome is fixed, like I am two metres tall, I have grey eyes and brown hair, not very much of that anymore, and I just have certain physical characteristics that are what they are. Those are fixed genes, but those are only about 15% of the genome. The other 85% is changed. When I have a negative thought, I start producing cortisol, I send a signal down to the medulla on my adrenal glands, my adrenal gland starts producing cortisol, and adrenaline. Adrenaline is your fast-acting, stress hormone; cortisol is your slow acting, but still, it hasn't two minutes and two minutes is turning everything on and off all kinds of other processes off in your body.  And so I'm doing that with my mind alone. If I'm having high cortisol day after day because I'm worried, because I'm stressed, because I’m anxious. Now, what I'm doing is I'm driving my body into this fight or flight state over and over and over again, chronic stress. It's depleting everything else, my body, my immune system, it results in muscular wasting. It literally, over time, produces calcification of the brain's learning memory centres. And you want a lot of calcium in your teeth, a lot of calcium in your bones. You do not want calcium in your brain, but it does. It literally deposits calcium in your brain's memory centres. So that is the effect epigenetically of our thoughts and our beliefs. So, it's so important that we take control of this, like there's a saying in the biology of belief that has positively positive thoughts releasing the ones going our way as having a dramatic effect on our physical bodies. Lisa: And this is like, because I've seen those scans where you have the shrunken brain that's been exposed to a lot of stress. The hippocampus shrinks and the prefrontal cortex and then you have the healthy brain that's nice and plump on the other side, if you like. It is a very good visual because this is very much like we tend to think, ‘Well, yes, I'm stressed and but that's neither here nor there, toughen up and get on with it’ type of attitude. I think that this, I think we need to distinguish between short term hermetic stressors, which are good for us - the things like going in the sauna, or going into cold water or going for a run and exercise and things like that, that are slightly outside the comfort zone. But not these long-term or even medium-term stressors that are going on day for day and week upon week, and month upon month. Those are the ones that really, when you are affecting the genes on a daily basis and your cortisol, and your adrenaline are just pumping all the time.  And this is something like with my genetic makeup, I have a deficiency in receptors of dopamine, so I'm constantly after dopamine. I'm always chasing the source that I can never reach, right? And I have a lot of adrenaline and I was exposed to a lot of testosterone in the womb. So I have that personality that take action, risk taking, jumping, still playing, no strategy, that type of a personality. And these things really affect us.  However, I can take control of that through practice. I can do things that can actually help me control my innate biology if you like. So, how can people, I wanted to ask, because I think a lot of people won't know what EFT is, per se. Would you explain what that particular type of energy work is?  Dr. Dawson: EFT is very popular. It's used by over 20 million people worldwide. It's grown purely by word of mouth, there is no drug company, there is no advertising campaign, people study each other on EFT. It is often called tapping because you simply tap like this on acupuncture points. There are about 13 W's, commonly they're linked to the 13 meridians of the body. It's amazing. I'm working on a video now where I have to describe EFT in two minutes. And it's like the body's reset switch. A therapist used that in a paper, in a peer-reviewed journal recently. It's like pushing the reset button for your emotions. So if you're upset, you're angry or you're stressed whatever way, then you simply tap on these points very, very quickly and it resets you.  So, there are several of these points. While you are thinking about the bad stuff in your life, you combine that reflection of ruminating on the stuff that bothers you with the tapping. And if you ruminate on the bad stuff, what happens normally, if you're just thinking about the bad stuff, is you're sending a signal through those neural bundles and they're getting bigger and bigger and faster. That's what we call re-traumatisation. That's when you re-traumatise yourself and we find over time, that shrinks the brain; the brains of people who are traumatised as children are on average 8% smaller than those who weren't traumatised as children. Traumatic stress is, it isn't psychological, it's physiological. So that's what you're doing if you're retraumatising yourself.  If you remember that bad thing at the same time you tap, then what we see in MRI EFT studies is that the emotional midbrain gets all upset, it's all aroused as a result of thinking about the bad things. When you start tapping, all that arousal just goes down. For example, one veteran I was working with, because we work with over 20,000 veterans, giving them free treatment free of charge. What one veteran was really bothered by a memory when he was in Iraq, he was a medic. And right in the beginning of his tour of duty, one of his friends was shot. And so, he had to deal with all the gruesomeness of that friend's death. One of the things he had to do was he had to clean the uniform of his dead friend to send back to his mum and dad back in the US. Cleaning the human remains and tissue out of the uniform was tremendously triggering for him. He remembers this event, he was cleaning them out in the medic’s hut. And then he'd have to run outside to take a breath of fresh air because the smell was so bad that he'd run back in a little more cleaning, run back out again. We tapped on this terrible traumatic memory. He just then had this complete sense of relaxation. He said, ‘I'm so glad I was the person who got to clean that uniform because it was my way of honouring my friend’. And as his emotional midbrain calmed down, his story changed to where it was no longer one of tragedy, but one of honouring and one of love and one affection with his friend, and you do this act of service. So if he shifts brains function that way, and it shifts it in just a few seconds like that. There's no therapy, there's no elaborate attempt to understand how you are the way you are, you just tap while you're remembering the bad stuff, while all of those new neural pathways are fully engaged, that then calms the brain down immediately. And then I met this young man again, I saw him again, about three months later, talked about the uniform, talked about his dead friend, he was still totally calm about it. And we find in long-term studies, that once you break the association in the brain between that traumatic memory and going into fight or flight, the association stays broken, and people find later on down the road. Lisa: That is absolutely amazing because I think, the longer we all live, we all end up with traumatic, hopefully not as horrific experiences as that.  Are you aware I had last week on the show Dr. Don Wood, who I'd love to introduce you actually to. He is also a trauma expert who works with vets and PTSD and everything, addiction and so on. He has a four-hour program that he takes people into the, out of beta into alpha brainwave states and takes that high definition sort of movie that's playing in people's heads around this event or events. And he says, as a description, puts it into black and white, and it's no longer triggering. So probably a different direction to get to a similar result. But you think we can do this actually, in minutes with EFT, where you can actually take away the power of that memory. Because I mean, I've been through, unfortunately, my listeners know, I lost my dad, just seven months ago, eight months ago. It was a very traumatic event and process that we went through. The intruding memories, the recurrent nightmares, all of the horror that surrounds that event is very powerful, how much it drains your daily life and your energy. I've found, since that event, I've been doing various things, but it's still very, very raw and very real to me. You are triggered a hundred times a day, and it's just draining your power to be able to work fully in the world, and to be the best version of you that you can be. I sort of know that and I'm trying to work out ways. So this is definitely one that I'm going to jump into. Dr. Dawson: Sorry, you lost your dad and what you'll find is that you don't have to let go at the normal sense. In fact, we encourage people to really grieve, really get into their feelings, that and then do the tapping as well. What happens is you process them very quickly. So we aren’t telling these veteran, ‘Don't think about the bad thing. Don't think about the death. Don't think about all the trauma’. We say, ‘Do think about it, but tap while you're doing it’. And then that breaks the association in the brain between that traumatic memory and going into that stress response.  So I really encourage you to do that because we've seen so many people do this now. We work with examples, with kids who lost their parents in the Rwandan genocide. Many of them, still 25 years later, have severe PTSD. We work with victims of school shootings in the US and various places. And again, mothers and fathers who've lost their kids in school shootings. We work with them successfully with EFT. So it's not like we're just working on superficial stuff, but it is that we're trying to work on what you’re being worried about in the report you have to turn it into your boss next week, and it also works on severe psychological trauma. Lisa: This is so exciting. And it is like resetting the brain. I mean, Dr. Woods mentions that it's sort of like a error glitch, and you're just going round and round and you can't get out of this sort of pattern of things.  Dr. Dawson: Yes. The trauma loop, we call it the trauma loop. The trauma loop, it's literally a loop between the thymus, thalamus, hypothalamus, the hippocampus, the amygdala in the centre of the brain. What's supposed to be happening is that input associated be referred to the prefrontal cortex and other regions to moderate emotions. And it isn't; it's stuck in an emotional midbrain, looping and looping and looping. Here’s the thing is, you can't talk yourself out of it. Like I was worried about a situation at work a few weeks ago, and I would say to myself, ‘It's time to meditate now. It’s 6am in the morning, I'm meditating. I will not think about that thing at work’. Well, of course, within nervous sighs, obsessed with a theory, I say that ‘Dawson, I'm going to let that go. It's meditation time now. I'm not thinking about thing at work, I’m going to return my mind to the meditative state’. Now, the thing at work, we cannot talk ourselves out of it, our conscious minds hard, because our brains didn't evolve that way. Our brains evolved to be extremely attuned to the tiger in the grass, or the remotest possibility, the tiger in the grass. And if you had an ancestor who took her mind off the potential threat to focus on smelling the flowers — Lisa: You wouldn't be here. So it makes sense that we have this hyper vigilance. When you've got a PTSD situation going on, you're really hyper vigilant, and you're in this constant state. But it is even all the little things, like in preparation for this interview yesterday, I was just so into researching and stuff. And then all night, my brains just going about Dr. Dawson and what he's doing. Like at three o'clock in the morning, I had to get up and read, keep reading one of your books because it was just, it's not leaving my brain. And then I did my breathing exercises, I did my meditation and eventually went back to sleep. So, you gave me a bit of a sleepless night last night. Dr. Dawson: I’m so sorry about that.  Lisa: But in a good way.  Dr. Dawson: At least you’re reading something good. Lisa: Yeah, well  in a good way, because I was excited about all this stuff. I think it's very powerful. As a health coach, and I work with people on a daily basis. Probably the first thing that people come to me with is depression and anxiety. And then all the health problems and in follow on from that, and that seems to be what so many people are dealing with on an absolute day to day basis. In our modern world, I think that a lot of these things, not that our ancestors didn't have stressors, because they obviously did. But we have perhaps, a hundred tigers coming at us a day in the form of grumpy emails from our bosses or whatever. The amount we have to process in a day for many of us, especially people working on computers and all that sort of stuff with a thousand things coming at you all the time. And it can feel like and so, often, I say when I say to people, ‘You need to do some meditation, and you need to calm the mind. You need to get out in nature’. But they go, ‘I haven't got time. I haven't got time. I'm working 17 hours a day, and I’m a mom of three, how the hell am I going to find time to meditate?’ What's your answer to that?  Dr. Dawson: Actually, you don't have time to meditate. In one piece of research, I talked about several of these in my book, Bliss Brain. One piece of research done by really forward thinking US agency called the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, they've been at the forefront of all kinds of parts of the human potential movement for the last 50 years. They did a study of complex decision-making. Now, this isn't whether I should have grilled cheese or macaroni for lunch, this is when you have to do a scenario that’s meant to solve global warming, or reduce the deficit or solve racial violence in a city. It's the really complicated problems. What they found was that when you're in a kind of flow state, generated by meditation, that people are 490 times better, percent better at solving complex problems; five times is good. Another study by the McKinsey Consulting Group found a 10 year study of high performance executives found that they are five times as productive when they're in these flow states. We're measuring flow now as people meditate, we're finding the same thing. So that even 15 minutes, 20 minutes spent at the end of the day will literally pay dividends. Another series of studies done by Harvard University found that if you do that for only an hour, meditate for an hour, you are more productive and more creative for 48 hours in the future. So you cannot afford not to meditate. The gains in productivity, problem solving ability and creativity are so enormous that if you don't spend that hour or that half hour, you are missing out on your biggest single leverage point for success in your life.  Lisa: Well, that's a really good argument for it. Have you read the book, we’re talking about Steven Kotler, have you read Stealing Fire? Dr. Dawson: I love Stealing Fire, I’ve seen Steven Kotler several times on that and I use — and I have five books, in Bliss Brain and the acknowledgments say, ‘This book, Bliss Brain, was based, there five people really influenced me’. As Steven Kotler’s Stealing Fire was one of those five.  Lisa: His book really influenced me, too. It was like, ‘Wow, this is incredible stuff, understanding how to get into the flow state’. As an athlete and my background as a ultra-endurance athlete, we did stupid distances. I would sometimes get into that flow state, and I still can't do it at will, unfortunately. Maybe I need to meditate more. But the performance that you could bring when you were in that state was far beyond what you normally could bring, and understanding how to tap into that on an actual day to day basis. I find it, too, in a previous life, I was a jeweller as well, so I was a goldsmith in head shops, retail shops. And that I would get into the flow state making jewellery when I was creative, now in painting. So when I get time, do those types of things like painting and making something, do they qualify as meditation? I mean, what actually qualifies as meditation because a lot of people seem to think you have to be sitting on your floor or with your legs crossed and humming or something, doing a chant. Is that the only way to meditate? Dr. Dawson: After World War II, there was a British engineer who worked on the radar system in the defence of Britain and his name is Maxwell Cade. And he put together a simple EG, and they had hook up spiritual masters. This EG, he was reading the five basic brainwaves — now, we know there are more than that — but he was reading the simple brainwaves. What he discovered is that he took up a Pentecostal faith healer, or a Taoist healer from China, or he hooked up a Confucian or in like a Buddhist or a Hindu or kabbalistic Jewish mystic. What he found was that even though their religious backgrounds and religious practices were totally different, they all have the same brainwave pattern. So that was the pattern of the mystics, we now knew what it was.  I talked about this in Bliss Brain,  this void of discovery, as Maxwell Cade was doing this in the 50s and 60s. And then he had a student, at a wise he had hooked out. They said, ‘Well, let's hook up other people. Let's hook up Louie Armstrong. Let's look up jazz musicians in flow’. And they found same bliss brain pattern in them. They said, ‘Well, let's hook up some high performing executives and business people who are at their peaks and scientists’. So they found that regardless of the profession, whether in flow, they all have this characteristic brainwave state. The next thing that we had to realise over the last 20 years of MRI research is, now this is crucial, we used to think that it was just one of those happy accidents. There are only a few Louis Armstrong's. There are only a few Hussein Bolts. There only are a few Swami Vivekananda’s. We used to think these were special people. Once we discovered the brainwave state, some smart scientists then said, ‘Let's reverse engineer this. Let's train ordinary people to attain the same brainwave state’. And lo and behold, bliss brain, they could. We now like — I do seven, eight retreats sometimes. I'm doing virtual retreats now, but we do live retreats, usually once or twice a year. And the first day, it's going to take people, maybe we can induce that state, usually within 30 minutes. By the end of the retreat, start four minutes, they have learned to hit the state of a 10,000-hour meditation master. And they're doing it in under four minutes at the end by the end of the retreat.  So they're trainable now that we're reverse engineering them. And so one state, one way into the flow state is through meditation like the mystics do. The second way is through peak performance. Either way, you can get to that same state and be ignited by flow triggers that put you into that state, and they're reliable. They put you in that state every single time. And once you hit that state, Lisa, over and over and over again, the cool thing in bliss brain is all about addiction. For example, the one molecule that you generate in your brain in these deep states is called anandamide. It has the same chemical structure as THC, the active molecule in marijuana, docks the same receptor sites in your brain.  So you're flooding what are called your endocannabinoid receptors in your body and your brain, with natural THC, just generated by your own brain. It's a very big boost of serotonin. You're mentioning dopamine earlier, and I'm going to send you a meditation that, I've just been playing with this recently. This isn't available to the public and won’t be for about two years. But Mind Valley is working on a huge new program, and we're training people in this one meditation. They literally feel the rush of dopamine they get because dopamine is the same reward system as engaged by cocaine and heroin. So they're sitting there doing this meditation. They're getting serotonin, which is the same as suicide and magic mushrooms. Same Lego structure, they're getting anandamide, THC. They're getting the same molecules that are getting in ayahuasca cocaine and heroin and alcohol, all in one meditation. And so what we're now having to do, it's so crazy, we're bringing people to these ecstatic states, when you read Rumi and St. Catherine of Sienna. I mean, these people were in absolute bliss. Essentially their brains were full of these endogenous drugs. And so, we’re actually learning to generate these in people's brains. What we now have to do at the end of my meditations is you have to spend a few minutes, talk people down, talking them down off this high. They are so spaced out, they can't drive a car, they open their eyes off meditation, they don't know what planet we’re on. So we spend some time doing some orienting. ‘By the way, your name is what's the name again? What time of day, is it? Which country do you live in? What's your job?’ So we have to help them back into reality because they get so far out there, in just a few minutes of meditation. We’re now able to do that. Lisa: Without any extraneous sort of, chemicals and things that can damage your impulse?  Dr. Dawson: No, none whatsoever.  Lisa: I have to ask this — because and this maybe outside the wheelhouse a little bit — when you're in those sorts of states, do you think you can connect? Is there a spiritual, wouldn’t you know? Do you believe that there's a spiritual dimension to what's on the other side, when people pass away, when we die? Is that what the mystics and some of the spiritual healers are tapping into something higher? I mean, I know we probably can't measure this, although I've just read some books on NDEs like near death experiences and the scientific rigor that a couple of these amazing scientists have spent years studying. What's your take, just your personal take on these higher states and being able to connect perhaps, to something beyond us? Dr. Dawson: Albert Einstein wrote in the 1930s, he wrote that also the big discoveries have been made in that altered state of oneness with the universe. In chapter 15 of his book Think and Grow Rich, people think that Napoleon Hill's book from the 1930s Think and Grow Rich is about money, but it's actually about spirituality. It's about letting go. Napoleon Hill says, ‘I let go of my ordinary states, I enter an altered reality. And there I commune with St. Francis of Assisi, and Thomas Edison, and Napoleon Bonaparte, and all these great figures from the past. And that's where I download all of my answers, these questions from’. So throughout history, people have been letting go of — what I call, now in my books, I call this local reality and non-local reality. And so in meditation, for a little while, you let go of local reality, and you simply identify with the field of consciousness that is the cosmos. There's this huge information field in which we swim in it. We're like fish looking for water. When we're looking for God or spirituality, we're like the fish looking for water. We're swimming in consciousness, and our brains are not generating consciousness. Our brains are transceivers of consciousness from this universal field. They then translate this universal appeal information into what we think of as local reality. But we're making up or making it up and we change our minds. When we shift our belief systems, when we orient ourselves deliberately to non-local reality, our local reality shifts dramatically and super quickly. Our brain shift, Lisa, in one of the examples I give in Mind to Matter, I talk about a TV reporter called Graham Phillips, who has a show called Catalyst. He went on an eight-week meditation retreat. They took his whole TV crew into a lab. They did a whole work up on his brain, his body. They use the high resolution MRI to measure the volume of neurons in each part of his brain. He then learned to meditate over the next eight weeks, and they brought him back to the lab after eight weeks ran the MRI scans again and the piece of his brain that is responsible for coordinating emotional regulation across different brain regions called the dentate gyrus — it's really tiny, it's about the size of a little fingernail, but it's right in the centre of your brain. It has tentacles going all over the brain and helps regulate being upset, being irritable, being angry, being annoyed, being stressed. That, the hardware of his dentate gyrus grew 22.8% in eight weeks. When you enter a non-local reality, it's changing the hardware of your brain, and it's not taking 10,000 hours, it's doing it in just a few hours. And he then started to see very different as your transceiver, transducer changes, then it is very different results outside of yourself.  So we are pure consciousness, we happen to be the body for a little while. We won't have a body forever. What you can do is every morning meditation. You can simply let go of local reality, you become one with non-local reality. The other cool thing there is when you come down from that space, Lisa, you are so full of love. I mean, I just cry when I come down. I walked on the beach the other day after meditation, I was just weeping with gratitude. I wrote in my journal, ‘My heart is just burning with love and bursting with gratitude’. Because you come down in the states of such ecstasy and the rest of the world in your life, and it is a world of magic. You then create that magic all around you. That's how I write my books. That's how I live my life, how I do my marriage and children and friends and everything. Well, I just can’t tell you how let's call this brain. It isn't like I'm feeling a little bit of hay brain, it is an ecstatic brain. I mean, in this exciting state, and becomes your new normal. Every day, it starts to change your physical brain. It starts to change the hardware of your brain, and then that starts to change your entire life. Lisa: That sounds like a piece of something that I want. And I think, everybody who is listening will be like, ‘I want what that guy's got’. Because you emanate this. I've listened to many of your lectures and your talks and your podcasts and stuff, and you emanate this beautifulness — for want of a better description — it just seems to pour out of you. That is obviously the work that you've done. What I find, I was listening on Ben Pakulski, my amazing man. You're on his podcast, that was one of the ones that I listened to. He was talking about, as an athlete, and I've had an athletic background. As a young athlete, especially, and he said he was the same, we're actually running from stuff and we were fighting and we were forcing and actually probably brutalising our bodies in order to deal with something that was going on in our brains and trying to prove things. I think a lot of athletes live in that state and it's actually encouraged to live in that state, if you have a burning and I've even propagated the state and others. Where you're using the fire of anger, of being put down, of being let down to fuel your performance. And into a certain degree that works. I mean, being obviously, an incredible bodybuilder in my life that turned into running ridiculous kilometres and across deserts and so on. I don't run any more though stupidly long distances. One of the reasons is, I don't have the massive issues in my brain anymore. I have not needing to run away from something, prove something. I'm not saying that all athletes are doing this. But I do think that there is a large number of people who are handling things through expression of this sports, and how do you change that mindset? Because I still very much have that mindset. When I go to the gym, I'm there to smash myself, I'm going to punish myself, I'm going to work hard. I'm going to push through the pain barriers because that is the culture we've grown up as athletes. You work hard. If it's not hurting, then you're probably not doing it enough. How do we change that conversation and reach still these very elite levels without having that type of a mentality? Sorry for that.  Dr. Dawson: If you aren't in flow, you will injure yourself. I remember interviewing members of American football players and these are usually very large men. They’re very large men and they're very athletic, and they can jump like a metre share, vertical jump, and they reach remarkable speeds. They can start running and running really, really, really quickly, the catching. I remember this one young man said, ‘This is my million-dollar hand’. He was going to pay a lot of money as an American football star and he said ‘I've broken my fingers, at least one sometimes two or three times every season. And I can't afford to have this happen to my million-dollar hand’. After he learned EFT, after he learned to meditate, after he learned centring, getting into flow each game, he never broke another finger. He had one injury when he was just learning to meditate and do EFT. And they said, ‘Oh, it's the Achilles tendon injuries. You'll be out of the game for at least 12 weeks or maybe 16 weeks.’ Three weeks later, he was fine. And so, athletes, first of all, when they're in the zone, when they're in flow, they injure themselves less and their performance goes up. It's that old Yerkes-Dodson law, currently referred to a little bit of stress is fine. Anyone has a little bit of stress. Now what I'm what I'm getting at right now, I mean, to you and me, if I didn't have a fair amount of cortisol and adrenaline, I'd be a really boring guest.  Lisa: To some degree, we want that when we’re ready.  Dr. Dawson: We want that. Absolutely, but not too much of it. Lisa: And like we're in a flow state, I'm in a flow state right now. Because I feel like I am because I just love learning from people like you. I'm just, give me more, all the heroes and stuff, because I'm learning and that is for me, one of my flow states studying and science. That really helps me. But how do we change that conversation for athletes? So that they're not going out to deliberately hurt themselves, but still able to reach those. I remember one story if you don't mind sharing, I think it was with your niece? Was it Jessica or something? Dr. Dawson: Yes, Jessica.  Lisa: Do you mind sharing that story?  Dr. Dawson: Yeah, she is the national champion at rhythmic gymnastics. She meets me out there after the rank every year. So four years in a row, she was the US national champion. But again, she was pushing herself, she was collapsing inside. She was not doing it all well. On the outside, her performances look great. On the inside, she was just suffering and she eventually just couldn't go anymore, and just had withdrawn from the sport and collapsed. So that's not sustainable. What you find for the athletes who have a long-term career usually is they've learned to pace themselves. They've learned to reach that state of flow and stay there over time, they aren’t pushing themselves.  The other cool thing that happens, I've done a lot of work with women who are overweight or obese. They are often at war with their bodies, they have been ignoring their bodies, turning their bodies out, hating their bodies for over four decades. They don't like exercise on the whole. And it's hard for them to exercise. Like if you're heavy, there’s strain on your joints and your muscles. It's difficult to exercise, there's no great reward for exercising. So what we try to do, we don't even call that module of our program exercise, we call it joyful movement. Joyful movement. And so I say, ‘Go to the gym. Grab that maybe a 10-pound weight. And if you're just doing dumbbells and doing 10-pound weight, that's fine. If you have a goal of doing 10 reps, do as many reps as you feel good doing. Wait for the endorphin rush to kick in when you feel good. And the moment you feel bad, stop’. Now what they do is they then do eight and then they start to feel bad or stray, they stop at eight. Now they’re feeling an endorphin rush today. And maybe in the next week they feel the endorphin rush, and they're doing 11. But what has then happened is that they are associating going to the gym with pleasure neurochemicals, not with pain. And then you can't keep away from exercise. I mean, once you've learned to rejig your neurochemistry, to re-associate those exercise bands, or that piece of exercise equipment, or your kayak or your mountain bike with pleasure, rather than with compulsion and pain, then you find people are highly motivated to exercise. So we retrain them to do this. It also has the effect of listening and listening to their bodies. No longer is your body a threat and a problem. It's now something to listen to. It's a signal, ‘Hey, this doesn't feel good’. You stopped right away. So in my own workouts, if I decided to do 20 reps or something, and after 17, I'm no longer feeling good. I stopped at 17, then my body is saying, ‘Wow, 17 feels wonderful’. And then you completely change your conditioning to make that exercise a joy and a pleasure. After a while, you can't stop people going to the gym, if you use your own neurochemistry in an intelligent way like that. Lisa: Well and you don't limit your performance when you do that? Because like, as an athlete you know that you have to endure a certain amount of pain to reach the next level, or that's what we've been told at least.  You have to high intensity interval training and better back in CrossFit and rah, rah rah. The gentle approach, I can see being super good for somebody who's never exercised and just wants to break into this field, does the same apply for elite athletes wanting to get to the best that they can be? Because you're up against the competition that are training in this way of brute force training type of way. Is that as well?  Dr. Dawson: Yeah that too is a way of training, one way of training is the brute way of training. The other way is the supported way of training. That's a very good question. So that way works great for people who are getting into exercise for the first time. But what about people who are at that elite level?  There is a time to push yourself and there’s a time to back off. Only you know that. No one else can really tell you what that point is. But you know yourself. Like me, for example, I do a lot of mountain biking. There are sometimes where there's a long, steep hill. I’m exhausted and I think, ‘I'm exhausted, there's a steep hill ahead. I am just kind of go for it’. And it feels so exciting to do that. But if I had a coach saying, ‘Go for it’. If I was riding with somebody, and they would say, ‘Go for it’. I was trying to keep up with them. And I wasn't listening to my body, then probably I'd injured myself. That's what I have injured myself actually, in the past. So, you tune into yourself, and no one else is something no coach knew for you.  Are you meant to just put in that extra burst of effort? And then transcend yourself. We don't know for another person, we only know for ourselves. So it's really an interesting meditation. And again, it means being sensitive to yourself to know when to do that. The other thing is, it's not the same every day, we have by rhythm. Sometimes, we are just so in rhythm. That's the time to say, ‘I was planning on this 35-minute routine, I need to do the 55 minute routine instead.’ And you just know that day, ‘I’m so in-sync, my body wants to do that.’ You get good at reading your body and you know. I think the best lead athletes and how are some football players, the average football player in the National Football League in the US has about a 4-year career. How does someone like Tom Brady have a career that spans decades? You want these great athletes often, or great musicians or great scientists. They aren't a flash in the pan, they’re sustaining peak performance over time. I think they're the ones who are pacing themselves.  Lisa: Yeah. And are the ones that are listening to the body. I think, with training athletes, I often say, ‘If you start, you have to sort of look at how has your day been? How much sleep did you get? Did you hydrate? Have you had a lot of stress?’ Before you decide what your training is today. Even if we've put it on your plan to do a big, hard long training session, but you had a very bad night or something went wrong yesterday, then maybe today, we want to shift that out. And it's learning to be that sort of intuitive and rather than rigid, ‘This is what coaches said, and this is what I'm doing because I have to do that.’ The give and take means that you will eventually have more performance. I think, while others also, is in the recovery phase is where you actually get the benefit, not on the training phase. Contrary to people think that when we’re actually doing the weights is when we’re getting the strength. No, it's actually in recovery. So if you're not recovering properly, and you're just smashing yourself again the next day, then you're not going to get there with those wins anyway.  That’s just a new perspective for me to take on and maybe I'll be a little bit more gentler on mum in the gym today. She might be thanking you later, Dawson. I had her yesterday in the gym and we were doing weights. She doesn't like weight. She doesn't mind the treadmill and the bike and so on but when it comes to weights, I'm pushing her quite hard, “Come on, mom. You can do it.” Maybe I need to be a little bit more, how shall we say, sensitive.  Dr. Dawson: Yeah, also, if somebody you trust, like for example, a teacher will challenge you. A teacher will, we mentor people, we train people in EFT, in meditation and we train trainers, we train practitioners and that certified what's called clinical EFT, using EFT with other people. We push them. We definitely say that that's a challenge and we recommend you go for it. And sometimes your coach will see a possibility in you, you don’t see in yourself. Well very often we see that this person could be a brilliant healer, they might be a bus driver or a hairdresser, and we’ll say, ‘You can do this’. And we’re experts, we know that they can. So it does take an extra lie sometimes.  Also on the spiritual journey, take somebody that you talk to. I train thousands of EFT practitioners. I wrote the book EFT Manual, the most recent edition of the book. I've written about EFT and have done more research than anybody else in EFT and I have my own practitioner who may say to me, ‘Dawson, you need to sharpen up in this area. I think you can make a shift over here’.  So we are living past the point of needing a trainer, of needing a coach, of needing extra eyes to look at us and to guide us, very, very useful at every stage of our development. We require even people who've been doing this for 50 years, they'd love to have their own therapist and do their own inner work. Because if you think you're past needing a therapist or doing your own inner work and alluded, there's always stuff to work on.  Lisa: That's a brilliant way of looking at it, and a very humbling approach to life. Now, I wanted to just shift gears a little bit, if I may, and talk about the bigger ramifications of changing our brain. Because when we change ourselves personally, we are also affecting our environment, our family, and then our community, and then our country, and then the world. If we're looking at the bigger picture, our world has some big major problems in it that we, and I think, we're not always focusing on the positives that are happening in our society because our media very much concentrates on just the negative. But if we all started to meditate today, and we all really adopted Dawson's approach and these other great researchers and scientists, and these people’s approach, to changing our own brains and how they're functioning in our own lives, and we're happy and nicer people, what sort of effect can we have on the environment do you think?  Dr. Dawson: I have a whole chapter in my book Mind to Matter on this. This is a phenomenon that's been studied over the past since the 1970s, called emotional contagion. And it began when one person noticed that in her workspace, in her office environment, there are good days and bad days. There are generally days when everything seemed to flow, people were nice to each other, the work flows smoothly. And then there were a lot of bad days as well. When people were grumpy and things didn't work. She realised that the good days were when one particular person was sick and took a day off. That one person was removed to the equation, everyone functioned better. And she realised that this was a phenomenon and she named it emotional contagion. We’ve now, have applied the — epidemiology is the study of infectious disease — we've now applied this in various research studies, to emotions, and we find that emotions are contagious.  So in one long-running studies, from guys since the 1950s called the Framingham Heart Study in Framingham, Massachusetts. And now includes five generations of inhabitants at Framingham. The researchers have found that a happy person is highly contagious, and actually produces contagion in her neighbour, and her neighbour’s neighbour, and her neighbour’s neighbour’s neighbour, who she's never even met. So when we are happy, you will literally — there’s this old saying Frank Sinatra in 1950 saying — ‘When you smile, the whole world smiles with you’. And it does, happiness is contagious. So when we do that, we're going to see a therapist, use EFT, take care of our physical bodies, love ourselves, tune into the infinite, tune into a non-local mind. It floods our hearts and our bodies, we feel so much better and we're just nicer to everyone around us. And they're nice people around them, that effect travels a long way.  In one study, I talked about in Mind to Matter, the researchers tweak the feeds of Facebook users, just a few dozen Facebook users, for a few days to make them either a little more positive or a little more negative. Just a tiny touch, more positive, more negative. And those people then pass those certain stories along in their feeds, and others and passed further stories along in their feeds. Within two weeks, they produce emotional contagion in 600,000 other people. So we are highly contagious, our positive energy.  I'll give you one example. Donald Trump is the previous president of the US and a tremendously polarising a triggering figure. And so, people talk about Donald Trump and I've been told so that we just lie or done something really harmful to other people, they get so offended. And so I really counsel people to stay in your heart and just hold Donald Trump and everyone in his party, in compassion, just hold. Take the people who offend you the most and hold them in compassion. Tune into their suffering and hold them in that way. When we do this, when we are as Jesus said, ‘Love your enemies,’ to go to them that hate you. Very good advice, even though it's 2,000 years old. When you do this, you're producing emotional contagion around you. You have no idea how far it's going. But as the Facebook study found, just a few people could produce emotional contagion in hundreds of thousands. So by becoming happy yourself, you walk around happy.  During the pandemic, we all like to wear masks all the time. One study found that when I talk behind the mask, so no one can see whether I’m smiling or frowning. People can hear by the tone of your voice, if you're smiling or frowning. They can tell with a very thin slice of information, what it is. So you're just talking to somebody kindly and nicely, that's using emotional contagion. There’s one story I tell in one of my books, Lisa, that just touched me was this guy who was having a really difficult time. His wife had left him taking with him, their two kids, he couldn't see the kids and missed the kids terribly. And then he lost his job. He just spiralled downward and decided to commit suicide. He’d been suicidal for a few months, but that was the day he decided he was going to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. He literally drove to the Golden Gate Bridge. There's a parking lot there, he parked his car, that he had to cross the serious bester and crossings to get to the bridge. And as he was having chills, I tell the story because such an emotional impact. But I just think of this guy. And so he was stopped at a light waiting for the traffic light to change. He looked at the car next to him. There was a woman, an elderly woman with long grey hair in the car, also stopped at the light. As he looked at her, she happened to look at him. And she smiled, she smiled at him. Suddenly he realised life was worth living. He turned around went back to stop with suicide. You have no idea of the effect you're having on other people. We're reducing emotional contagion and other people all the time. It might be your smile that stops somebody from doing something harmful, or gives them a sense of hope about their lives. So, we support each other, we love each other. And after a while you just live in this world where there is so much love, your sensitised love. You attract loving people into your life, you attract time people into your life, compassionate people. And so now suddenly, you're in this environment that is beautiful.  Are you struggling to deal with people who are homicidal and suicidal and nasty and mean and angry and stressed? Absolutely. And when I drive down the road, sometimes they'll be, maybe a young man and a pickup truck. And he'll be weaving in and out of traffic. They'll be angry. It'll be having episodes of road rage, and maybe have a finger. And that used to really trigger me. And now I say, ‘That guy is probably having a terrible day. He probably does not have a very good life. And I need to just love it.’ So I will just drive in my car in the slow lane. I shower him with love. Now, is that affecting him? Who knows? Is it bringing my cortisols down? Oh, yeah, absolutely. My cortisol is going down. I am now a better driver. I am now making waves to the people around me. So, we are agents of emotional contagion. I urge people in my books, go out and be an agent of conscious, positive emotional contagion with every thought you have, every word you say, you have no idea who might be affecting, and you will certainly be lowering your cortisol. But the other cool thing is, in one study I did recently, we show that when you lower your cortisol, this is people tapping and meditating for a week, they were doing this and they lower the cortisol. The cortisol went down by a huge amount, 37% drop in stat and baseline cortisol in only one week. Their immunoglobulins, which are these molecules are antibodies that attack coronaviruses, emitted lobules globulin is a y-shaped molecule that attach to the spike protein on the coronavirus and neutralise it. Those molecules in those people's mucous membranes went up 113%, more than double, in one week of tapping and meditation intensity in the retreat center. So we now know that, am I affecting the young man? I have no idea. Am I driving my own cortisol down and my own immunoglobulins up? Absolutely. I'm much healthier and I'm able to exert that influence on the world around me. So it is powerful to practice these things and be the agent of positive emotional contagion. Lisa: That is so powerful. I've been guilty of this in the past when someone's cut me off in traffic, before I've even thought, before my prefrontal cortex is actually turned on the amygdala has gone, roar. And you're doing the bird out the window at this person, swearing at them. And then you can like now. When I was younger, I was a lot more volatile, and I come from a family of very strong people and a warrior background, if you like, from my native population. We tend to be quite, warrior-orientated. And now I am very much like that, I'm like, ‘I'm going to damage myself, if I react to this situation then I'm just hitting my cortisol up’. And one of the things, when I was studying our blood sugars and what happens with the blood sugars, how the cortisol sends your blood sugar's up and you actually put on weight — well, that was a very good deterrent from getting angry. Dr. Dawson: Absolutely, weight gain.  Lisa: Weight gain because I got angry in traffic. Dr. Dawson: One study found that optimists live on average, 10 years longer than pessimists. This was a 30-year study, both men and women over the course of three decades. The optimists live 10 years longer than the pessimists. So negative emotion, its battery acid inside your body, it's corrosive, it's really damaging your organs, gives you a much shorter and much more disease-filled life than optimism. So be optimistic, be altruistic. I mean, you feel good doing all those things, you feel much better. And of course, your health is dramatically better. Your longevity is at least a decade more than otherwise. Lisa: And you do this through not just through positive thinking, because we all know I think that just, ‘I'm going to be positive today and the network's for five minutes’. The Positive Psychology thing. What he says, right? But through meditation, through connection, through being out in nature, and through all these things, that we've just talked about the last event is the way to get us more positive responses. That's what I'm hearing. And that's where it becomes more seen.  Dr. Dawson: Yes. Well, yes and no. There are two kinds of focuses that I've found are necessary. And I'm just putting a level playing field on the surface plane over here. One of those is being into the subconscious healing trauma. If you try and go for positive thinking, without healing trauma, it becomes the dark side, becomes repressed anger, repressed rage, and it actually will surface the subway and make itself known often as self-sabotaging behaviour, or repetitive negative thinking. So you have to do both. My initial — all my initial research for more than 10 years was with veterans with people who are traumatised, dealing with trauma. And that's great. So you need to go and deal with all that's holding you back. Then you want to go not just be at a neutral point where you don't have trauma, you’d want to explore peak states. Like imagine being in ecstasy every day, having those need and that serotonin that anonymise, that oxytocin, all these wonderful neuro chemicals flowing through your brain. And now you're hitting a peak state, you're starting your day in flow, and then you just go on from there and have a wonderful creative day. So you want to be doing both of those things simultaneously. This isn't the work of a week. This is the work of a lifetime, but it is so worth doing. Both the trauma, healing through EFT, EMDR, all these other wonderful energy therapies, and then cultivating these elevated states, bliss brain. And again, people reach these states, and they feel wonderful, as well as they're incredibly creative. And of course, their health improves as well. So both of those things.  Lisa: Yeah. Dawson, we’re going to have to wrap it up in a moment and I want to be respectful of your time. But I would love to have you back on because I don't think we've really covered everything.  Would you do me the honour of coming back in a month or two months, whenever your schedule, your crazy schedule allows. But I think we need to dig deeper. And I would like to actually put into practice some of these things that I've learned today and to go a little bit deeper into these things and see. And then be able to have that discussion with you and how our progress. So I think that would be a nice way to come back and actually look at a case study if you like.  Dr. Dawson: Yes, absolutely. Love to do it.  Lisa: Oh, so Dawson, how can people reach you? How can they find out more about your work? Obviously, your books, Mind to Matter, Genie —  Dr. Dawson: Genie in Your Genes. Lisa: Genie in Your Genes and Bliss Brain, your main books that you have. Where can people find you online, find out about EFT, maybe start training with you, all that sort of stuff? Dr. Dawson: Yeah, there are three places that you can go to. To get Bliss Brain, you can go to blissbrain.com and you get the book there, you'll see eight meditations that accompany each of the chapters of the book. And these are brief, they're under 20 minutes each, but they really help you get to those elevated emotional states. Mind to Matter is all about manifestation, about the link between thoughts and things, that’s mindtomatter.com. Then the Immunity Meditation I mentioned earlier is at dawsongift.com. So that's worth doing. We actually once, we got the results of two studies in showing these big rises in immunoglobulins and a special meditation to actually help people hit those peak states. And those are at dawsongift.com. So the two books mindtomatter.com and blissbrain.com and then the meditation is at dawsongift.com, those are the three best places. You also get a portal there for example, because we have practitioners who work with people 24/7 live video sessions in real time. We do a lot of workshops. I do Bliss Brain workshops, we have a big one coming up that's going to be in German, French, Spanish, as well as English. Lisa, I'm just obsessed with getting people this material. And also I'm so moved by people suffering. When I see people suffering, and I realise wow, if only they had this little piece of information, their lives would be so much better. So I just,  Lisa: You're beautiful. You’re amazing. Dr. Dawson: Everyday obsessed with how to do that. Lisa: Thank you so much for your service to everybody. I think this is incredibly important work. This is changing lives and I really thank you for digging really deep into the sciences and bringing this all to us. Because I'm seeing everyday people who are just completely – and in my own life. I've experienced my own traumas and so on, who have so much anxiety, so much trauma, so much PTSD, and being able to elevate a few people in your environment and change the way that you're living your life would just be absolutely fantastic. So thank you very much for your time today, Dawson. Dr. Dawson: Oh, it's been a joy. Thank you. I look forward to our next get together. That's it this week for Pushing the Limits. Be sure to rate, review and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.  The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

There's a stigma associated with unresolved trauma. Many people don't talk about their traumatic experiences. Unfortunately, we're only taught short-term solutions like coping with stress and managing our emotions. With these short-term solutions, the root cause remains unresolved. The trauma is still present and can affect our everyday lives. In this episode, Dr Don Wood joins us to talk about how unresolved trauma can directly affect our health. He aims to remove the stigma around unresolved trauma, and the first step towards healing is understanding the pain we've gone through. He also talks about the power of our minds from the different stories of his past patients.  Tune in to this episode if you want to learn more about how unresolved trauma can affect your health and life.   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health program all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year’s time or finish at the front of the pack? 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Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within 3 years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa’s Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, a NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that is capable of boosting the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements that are of highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust — NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combat the effects of aging, while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection ‘Fierce’, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Learn how unresolved trauma can affect your life and compromise your health. Discover Dr Don's alternative ways of how he sees addiction. Understand the power of our minds and how it can do anything to protect us from feeling pain.   Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron! You can choose between being an official or VIP patron for $7 and $15 NZD per month, respectively. Harness the power of NAD and NMN for anti-ageing and longevity with NMN Bio. More Pushing the Limits Episodes: 183: Sirtuins and NAD Supplements for Longevity with Elena Seranova 189: Increasing Your Longevity with Elena Seranova Connect with Dr Don Wood: Facebook Inspired Performance Institute – Learn more about Dr Don's books and the courses they're offering by going to their website. The Unbeatable Mind Podcast: How to Deal with Trauma with Dr Don Wood Brain Wash: Detox Your Mind for Clearer Thinking, Deeper Relationships, and Lasting Happiness by David and Austin Perlmutter  Emotional Concussions: Understanding How Our Nervous System is Affected by Events and Experiences Throughout Our Life  by Dr Donald Wood   Episode Highlights [05:32] What Inspired Dr Don to Start His Career Dr Don founded the Inspire Performance Institute because of his wife and daughter.  Dr Don shares that he had a quiet and idyllic childhood. He didn't experience any trauma. His wife had a rough childhood which contributed largely to the unresolved trauma and fear she lives with today. His daughter also inspired his research. She was diagnosed with Crohn's disease at 14.  [11:10] Dr Don Shares About His Childhood He remembers he used to get bad stomach pains when he was young. They would go to their family doctor for a checkup. His grandfather mentioned that he has stomach pains because of the stress at home. Later on, Dr Don realised that he felt the pressure in their home. The stress from this manifested as stomach pains. [15:00] Impact of Unresolved Trauma in Later Life Dr Don believes that unresolved trauma creates inflammation in the body. It compromises a person's immune system and neurotransmitters.  A person gets sick and starts feeling bad because of serotonin neurotransmitters. They are affected by our guts' inflammation. Unfortunately, the only things taught to us are managing and coping with the stress. We do not get to the root cause of the problem.  [18:10] Dr Don's Career Before Inspired Performance Institute Dr Don has been an entrepreneur all his life. Before he founded Inspired Performance Institute, he was in financial services.  He realised that committing to Inspired Performance Institute meant studying again.  To add credibility to his name, he went back to school and got his Ph.D. [20:31] What Causes Addiction Dr Don doesn't believe that addiction is caused by physical dependency. It's more about how the mind connected using drugs and survival.  Because people feel bad, they find a way to stop the pain and feel better temporarily. Most of them find it in using drugs.  The subconscious mind tries to find a way to feel better. The conscious mind builds a habit based on it. The interaction between these two memory systems is a factor in developing addictions. [25:39] Subconscious and Conscious Mind 95% of our mind works on the subconscious survival base. The remaining 5% is concerned with logic and reason. The 5% uses reason and logic to make brilliant things in life. However, when survival needs arise, the part dedicated to survival overrides the other. To learn more about Dr Don's analysis of the Time Slice Theory and how it's connected to how we respond to our day-to-day lives, listen to the full episode. [35:08] Effects of Brain Injuries on Brain Response People with repeated brain injuries might have problems with logical and survival thinking responses. Brain injury patients have lower blood flow in the frontal part when faced with survival situations based on brain scans.  [36:03] Available Help for People Who Have Brain Injuries Dr Don's son had three head injuries since he was young. The third one affected his communication skills and emotions.  He believes that his son has functional damage to his brain. Once they discovered that, they got him into hyperbaric oxygen therapy.  He started getting his blood flow into the areas of his brain that process his experiences.   [40:18] Probable Use of fMRI Dr Don shares that fMRI can be another procedure that can help people with brain injuries.  fMRI can detect abnormalities in your brain that other methods may not pick up. [42:26] The Story of Dr Don's Daughter His daughter was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. It affected her career as an actress.  His daughter's condition made him realise: inflammation responds to unresolved trauma. They managed to resolve her unresolved trauma that happened when she was six years old. Her mind understood that, and her negative response stopped.  [46:01] Talking About Depression In cases of depression, the person's mind puts pressure on them to do something in the past.  Depression then becomes the absence of emotion. It tries to numb you from the stress in your mind. When they get to the cause of what their mind needs and resolves it, their depression eases.  [48:02] Story of Rebecca Gregory Rebecca was a victim of the Boston Marathon bombing. She came to seek help from Dr Don five years ago. She has PTSD. Dr Don helped her realise the connection between her response to daily life and the memory she has. To know more about the process on how Dr Don helped Rebecca tune in to the full episode. [51:43] Similarities of Dr Don's Approach to EMDR Dr Don shared that he also studied EMDr In his practice, he used some of the techniques in EMDr He enhanced them to become quicker and more comprehensive.  Unlike EMDR, Dr Don's approach is faster and more straightforward. The patient can choose which way they would like to do it.  [54:36] Dr Don on Talk Therapies He believes that talk therapy is good. You must deal with a current problem. They aim to resolve the old issues that aggravate the new experiences.  [56:22] How Dr Don's Program Helped His Daughter Crohn's disease is incurable. However, since his daughter underwent their program, her Crohn's didn't flare-up. He believes his daughter's body has more energy to do maintenance and repair issues. It's possible because her unresolved trauma has been resolved.  [56:22] How Stress Connects to Our Other Unresolved Traumas The daily stress that we encounter every day might pile up and affect us in the long run. They might also connect and add up to our trauma, making it harder for us to cope. We misinterpreted experiences when we were young that still affect us as we grow older. Dr Don shares stories of how unresolved childhood experiences may affect a person as they grow up. [01:08:15] People Have Different Filters Dr Don says that people have different atmospheric conditions they grew up in. These factors affect how they filter and deal with their everyday experiences.  Our brain acts as the filter, and all of our experiences pass through that filter. The differences in how we operate upon those experiences are based on them.  Dr Don proceeds to share different stories of his patients regarding the differences in people's minds.  [01:15:06] Dr Don on Smoking  Dr Don says that smokers are not addicted to nicotine. They need the sensation of feeling better. The mind of a smoker associates feeling better to smoking. This link causes addiction.  You can break the habit by introducing a new, healthier factor. [01:19:17] A Better Approach Towards Addiction Many approaches to addiction make the person feel useless. They surrender to never getting better. Dr Don pushes a system that empowers people. He makes them realise they can overcome their addiction by understanding the cause.  [01:24:42] How the Mind Reacts to Pain Dr Don shares that the mind is powerful enough. It will do anything for you to stop feeling pain.  People who commit suicide act in desperation to stop the pain they're feeling.  He shares the story of the German sniper. It can represent the power of the mind in reaction to pain.   7 Powerful Quotes  ‘I really started the Inspired Performance Institute because of my wife and daughter more. Mostly my daughter than anything else.’ ‘So if I had been a little frustrated with something that worked that day, or is, you know, some other thing that was nothing related to her, she could pick up on that tone change. And then, in her mind, what her mind would be doing is saying, “What do we know about men when they start to get angry?” And a whole bunch of data and information about her father would come flooding in and overstimulate her nervous system.’ ‘And so when my daughter was 14, she was diagnosed with Crohn's. And they just told us that you just kind of have to, you know, learn to live with this.’ ‘And that's really what led me to develop the program, is I realised that when my daughter was 16, she disclosed to us some sexual abuse that she had had when she was like six years of age that we had no idea. So my wife was, obviously both of us were devastated, but my wife was extremely, she had experienced, you know, sexual abuse as a child and thought she would never let that happen to her child.’ ‘How could the body crave a substance that it doesn't know? It doesn't regulate heroin. How could it crave something that doesn't regulate? I believe it's the mind has made a connection between the heroin and survival.’ ‘What's happened is your mind has been calling for an action for many, many years, that was impossible to accomplish. But your mind doesn't know that and it keeps putting pressure on you. “Do it, do it, do it.” And because you don't do it, it's using these emotions to call for the action, it stops calling for the action, it shuts off the emotions. And so now depression is the absence of emotion.’ ‘I believe in a lot of cases, that's what they're doing, are trying to desensitise you to it. You know, talk about it enough, maybe it doesn't feel as dramatic. And talk therapy has its place so I'm not against it. I think where talk therapy is really good is when you're dealing with a current problem. Where I think the difference between what we do is we're able to get the talk therapy much more effective when you take out all the old stuff that keeps aggravating the new stuff.’    About Dr Don Wood Dr Don Wood, Ph.D., developed the TIPP method after researching how atmospheric conditions affect our minds and impact our lives. In his search for answers for them, Dr Wood connected trauma and their health issues. He also recognised the daily stress they lived with. The only solutions provided came from medications. His experience with his family provided the determination required to develop a cutting-edge neuroscience approach. The program has benefited individuals all over the world. The results have been impressive. Dr Wood has helped trauma survivors from the Boston Marathon bombing attack and the Las Vegas shooting. He has also helped highly successful executives and world-class athletes. Marko Cheseto, a double amputee marathon runner, broke the world record after completing TIPP. Chris Nikic worked with Dr Wood and made world news by becoming the first person with Downs Syndrome to complete an Ironman competition.  The Inspire Performance Institute was built on this simple phrase, ‘There's nothing wrong with you, there's nothing wrong with your mind’. Some events and experiences have created some glitches and error messages for your mind during your lifetime, and all you need is a reboot.   Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can understand how unresolved trauma can affect our overall health and well-being. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Full Transcript Of The Podcast Lisa Tamati: Welcome back, everybody to Pushing the Limits. Today I have Dr Don Wood, who is sitting in Florida. And Dr Don is a wonderful man. He is a trauma expert. He is someone who had a problem in his own family and sought about finding a solution. He is the developer of the TIPP method, T-I-P-P method. He spent years researching, and to understand how our minds affect our bodies. Dr Wood made the connection between trauma and health issues. In addition, he recognised the daily stress that people live with when they've been through trauma, and that the only solutions provided in the normal conventional world and medications. But his experience with his family provided the determination required to develop a cutting-edge neuroscience approach, a real holistic solution that provides immediate and long lasting relief for people who have been through trauma of any sort, whether it's small or large. The TIPP program developed by Dr Wood has benefited individuals all over the world. And he really wanted to create a solution that removed the stigma of trauma. Too many people are afraid to ask for help because of that stigma. And that's why he named the program around increasing performance levels. The name of his institute is the Inspired Performance Institute.  I really love this episode with Dr Don Wood, he is a lovely, amazing person with a way of helping people get rid of PTSD, get rid of trauma out of their lives. So that they can get on with being the best versions of themselves. And that's what we're all about here. He's worked with everyone, from soldiers coming back from wars to victims of the Boston Marathon bombing campaign, to highly successful executives and world-class athletes. He's been there, done that. So I really hope that you enjoy this conversation with Dr Wood.  Before we head over to the show, just want to remind you, we have our new premium membership for the podcast Pushing the Limits. Now out there. It's a Patron page so you can be involved with the program, with the podcast. We've been doing this now for five and a half years; it is a labor of love. And we need your help to keep this great content coming to you, and so that we can get the best experts in the world and deliver this information direct to your ears. It's a passion that's been mine now for five and a half years and you can get involved with it, you get a whole lot of premium member benefits. And you get to support this cause which we're really, really grateful for. For all those who have joined us on the Patron program. Thank you very, very much. You know, pretty much for the price of a cup of coffee a month, you can get involved. So check that out at patron.lisatamati.com. That's patron P-A-T-R-O-N dot lisatamati.com.  And just reminding you too, we still have our Epigenetics Program going. And this, we have now taken hundreds and hundreds of people through this program. It's a game-changing program that really gives you insights into your genetics, and how to optimise your lifestyle to optimise your genes basically. So everything from your fitness, what types of exercise to do, what times of the day to do it. What, whether you're good at the long distance stuff or whether you be a bit more as a power base athlete, whether you need more agility, whether you need more work through the spine, all these are just information that's just so personalised to you. But it doesn't just look at your fitness, it looks at your food, the exact foods that are right for you. And it goes way beyond that as well as to what are the dominant neurotransmitters in your brain, how they affect your mood and behaviour, what your dominant hormones are, the implications of those, your predispositions for any disorders and the future so that we can hit all those off at the past. It’s not deterministic, that is really giving you a heads up, ‘Hey, this could be a direction that you need to be concerned about in the future. And here's what you can do about it.’ So come and check out our program. Go to lisatamati.com. And under the button ‘Work With Us’, you will find our Peak Epigenetics program. Check that out today. And maybe you can come and join us on one of our live webinars or one of our pre-recorded webinars if you want to you can reach out to me, lisa@lisatamati.com, and I can send you more information about their Epigenetics Program. Right, now over to the show with Dr Don Wood.  Hello, everyone and welcome back to Pushing the Limits. This week, I have another amazing guest for you. I've found some pretty big superstars over the years, and this one is going to be very important to listen to. I have Dr Don Wood, welcome to the show, Dr Don. Dr Don Wood: Thank you, Lisa. I'm excited to be here. Lisa: This is gonna be a very interesting, and it's a long-anticipated interview for me, and Dr Don is sitting in Florida, and you've got a very nice temperature of the day, isn’t it? Dr Don: Oh, absolutely gorgeous- low 80s, no humidity. I mean, you just like I said, you couldn't pick a better day, it's very fast. I would have tried to sit outside and do this. But I was afraid somebody would start up a lawn mower. Lisa: Podcast life. I’ve just got the cat wandering, and so he's probably start meowing in a moment. Now, Dr Don, you are an author, a speaker, a trauma expert, the founder of the Inspired Performance Institute. Can you give us a little bit of background of how did you get to where you are today, and what you do? Dr Don: Well it’s sort of an interesting story. I really started the Inspired Performance Institute because of my wife and daughter more. Mostly my daughter than anything else. I talked about this, is that I led this very, very quiet, idyllic kind of childhood with no trauma. Never had anything ever really happen to me. You know, bumps along the way, but nothing kind of that would be considered trauma. And I lived in a home that was so loving and nurturing, that even if I got bumped a little bit during the day, you know, was I, when I was a kid, I'm coming home to this beautiful environment that would just regulate my nervous system again.  Lisa: Wow.  Dr Don: So I believe that that was critical in terms of having my nervous system always feeling safe. And that really resulted in amazing health. I mean, I've been healthy all my life. And as an adult, when things would happen, I could automatically go back into that nervous system regulation, because I had trained it without even knowing it.  Lisa: Yeah. Dr Don: that I was able to get back into that. Well. And so when I met my wife, I realised she was not living in that world. And amazingly enough, Lisa, I thought everybody lived like, because I had no idea that a lot of my friends were being traumatised at home. That I had no idea, because everybody's on their best behaviour. If I come over, everybody's behaving themselves and you don't see it. My friends, a lot of times wouldn't share it because of either shame or guilt. I mean, my wife, nobody knew what was going on in their home.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: And she had one best friend that knew, that was about it. And if you met her father, who was really the bad guy in this whole thing, everybody thought he was the greatest guy. Because outwardly, he came across as this generous, hard-working, loving kind of guy. Loved his family, but he just ran his home with terror.  Lisa: Wow. Terrible. Dr Don: And so, oh, it was terrible. So when I met my wife, I realised, wow, this, because we got close very quickly, because I had the chance to play professional hockey in Sweden when I was 18. So we got married at 19. So very quickly, I was around her a lot, while we were sort of getting ready for that. So I got to see the family dynamic up close very quickly. And that's when I realised, boy, she's not living in that world, which is living in fear all the time. And that's why I sat down with her one day, and I just said, ‘Tell me what's going on here. Because I can sense this tension in here. I could sense that there was a lot of fear going on. What's going on?’ And she started sharing it with me, but swore me to secrecy. Like I could never tell anybody because of all that shame and guilt, because nobody really outside the home would have been aware of it. Lisa: Or probably believed it.  Dr Don: Or believed it. Right.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: And then it was again, that ‘What will people think about me? What do they think about my family?’ That's really common, when you have people who have experienced trauma like that. And so, I sort of follow along and said, ‘Okay, this will be our secret,’ but I thought to myself, ‘Well, this will be great now, because I'm going to get her out of that home’.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: And she's going to be living in my world. So everything will just calm down, and she'll be feeling that peace that I've experienced all my life. Lisa: Not quite so simple.  Dr Don: I was like, Well, how is this not helping? Like, why now? She's living in the world that I grew up in because I was very much like my father. I wasn't gonna yell at her, scream at her, do anything that would have made her feel fearful. But she was still living in fear.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: And if, yeah, and if I said something like, ‘No, I don't like that.’ She could tear up and start going, why are you mad at me? Yeah. And I would be like, ‘Oh my God, like where did you get I was mad at you for?’ I just said. That made no sense to me at the time. Now I understand it perfectly. What I didn't realise at the time was that people who have been traumatised are highly sensitive to sound— Lisa: Hypervigilant and hyperaware of noise and people raising their voice. Dr Don: Any kind of noise. And what she also, as a child, she had learned to listen very carefully to the way her father spoke, so that she could then recognise any kind of the slightest little change in my vocal tone. So if I had been a little frustrated with something at work that day, or, you know, some other thing that was nothing related to her, she could pick up on that tone change. And then, in her mind, what her mind would be doing is saying, ‘What do we know about men when they start to get angry?’ And a whole bunch of data and information about her father would come flooding in and overstimulate her nervous system. Lisa: So then it's like they Google search, doing a Google search and going, ‘Hey, have I had this experience before?’  Dr Don: Yeah.  Lisa: And picking out, ‘Yeah, we've been here before. This is not good. This is dangerous. This is scary.’ Dr Don: Yep. And that's actually what led me to the research that I did, mainly because of my daughter, though. So my wife lived with that, she developed Hashimoto’s. So she had this thyroid issue with, because she was constantly in a fight or flight state.  Lisa: Yeah, the cortisol. Dr Don: More flight than anything. Yeah, cortisol. And so when my daughter was 14, she was diagnosed with Crohn's. And they just told us that you just kind of have to learn to live with this. And she's going to be on medication for the rest of her life. And we'll just continue to cut out pieces of her intestines until she has nothing left and she’d have a colostomy bag. That's just the way it is.  Lisa: Oh. And she’s 14 years old. Dr Don: She was 14. Yeah. She ended up having for resections done, she would go down to you know, 90, 85 pounds. She’d get so sick, the poor thing. No, because she just couldn't eat. Yeah. And she couldn't hold anything down. And they just told us to have no answers. My wife did unbelievable research, trying to come up with answers and really couldn't come up with anything except this management system that they've been given her. And so, I was adopted. So we didn't know my family history. Yeah. So our family doctor was my grandfather. And I didn't know this until I was 18.  Lisa: Oh wow.  Dr Don: I always knew I was adopted. But my mother shared the story with me when I was 18. That he came to my parents and said, I have a special child I want you to adopt, right. Now. I guess you just knew that my parents were just amazing people. And you know, at that time, you know, unwed mothers, that was considered a shame. Right? You didn't talk about that. So that was a quiet adoption.  Lisa: Wow. Dr Don: In fact, his wife didn't even know about it.  Lisa: Wow. Dr Don: Could be my grandmother. And that's, it's interesting, the story, because I should share this too. Because what happened was, is I never understood why my birth certificate was dated two years after my birthday. And what happened was, is that my parents adopted me, like immediately upon birth. But my grandmother found out about it, his wife found out about and sued my parents to get me back.  Lisa: Oh. Dr Don: And so they had to go into this legal battle for two years.  Lisa: Oh, wow.  Dr Don: Now I remember when I was really, really young, I used to get these really bad stomach pains. And I, and they took me, I remember going to doctors, I was really young. I remember going to doctors, but my grandfather was very holistic at the time for an MD. So you know, I was on cod liver oil, and you know, all these different things like, and so what he said to me, he says, No, he's just stressed out because of the stress in the home. You have to take the stress out of this home. He's feeling it.’  Lisa: Yep.  Dr Don: Right. So it's not that my parents were yelling, screaming.  Lisa: He’s ahead of his time. Dr Don: Oh, way ahead. But what he realised was that, because it was so hard financially for them, that had a major effect on their life. So I guess I was feeling it. And so they went out of their way to take all the stress out.  Lisa: Wow. What lovely parents. Dr Don: Oh yeah. So it created this unbelievable, unusual home life. And so I never had any real tension in the home.  Lisa: Wow. Dr Don: Well, that was, I guess, as my wife said, we were the perfect petri dishes for this because I was living what we want to be, and she was living in the opposite world of what a lot of people do live in. And so at least I knew what the model was, what we were going for. Lisa: And when we're exposed to trauma very early in life, it has a much bigger impact on your health and everything then when it happens later in life. Is that right? Dr Don: Absolutely. Because we've never learned how to balance our systems, so then it stays, you know, in dysregulation a lot more than it did. And that's really what sort of led me to develop the program, is I realised that when my daughter was 16, she disclosed to us some sexual abuse that she had had when she was like six years of age that we had no idea. So my wife was, obviously both of us were devastated, but my wife was extremely, she had experienced, you know, sexual abuse as a child and thought she would never let that happen to her child.  Lisa: Yeah. Dr Don: So now my poor wife has also got a new, you know, trauma onto her. And so that's where it really came down to, is, you know, she said to me, ‘You could research this and find out what's going on, because I have no answers.’ And that's when I started to research and I made the connection between trauma and these autoimmune issues, for example, that my wife had, and my daughter. And so what I discovered is that I believe that unresolved trauma creates inflammation in the body. The inflammation compromises the immune system and your neurotransmitters. So we start getting sick, and we start feeling bad because our neurotransmitter, serotonin is produced mostly in the gut. So the serotonin is affected by the inflammation, which was from my daughter, right? She's not going to feel good.  Lisa: Nope.  Dr Don: And then that just leads to a host of other problems. And it's, it's really, really sad that the only solution that we currently are using is to teach people to live and manage and cope with it.  Lisa: I think, yeah, so we, we know, which is, which is good. You know, we're learning things, how to cope with anxieties, and breath work and all that sort of good stuff. But it's not getting to the root cause of the problem and being able to to deal with it. So when we're in a heightened state of stress and cortisol, and when we’re taking energy away from our immune system, and blood literally away from the gut, and and from a neurotransmitter production, and all that sort of thing, so is that what's going on, and why it actually affects the body? Because this mind body connection, which we're really only in the last maybe decade, or 15 years or something, really starting to dig into, isn't it? Like there's and there's still a massive disconnect in the conventional medical world where this is the mind, and this is the body. And you know, from here, up and here, and it's separate. Dr Don: And so on and so forth? Yeah. Lisa: Yeah. And it we’re one thing, you know. And so this has a massive effect on our health, and it can lead to all sorts of autoimmune diseases, or even cancers, and so on. So you were at this time, so you didn't have the Inspired Performance Institute at this stage? What were you doing professionally? And then, did you go back and do a PhD? And in...? Wow. Dr Don: I've always been an entrepreneur all my life. So I was in financial services, we did a number of different things. We, my son and I, still have an energy business, we do solar energy and stuff like that. Lisa: Oh wow.  Dr Don: I decided if I was going to do this, I needed to go back and really study. So I went back and got by, went back to school, got my PhD.  Lisa: Wow. Dr Don: And, you know, to truly, to try to add credibility, number one, to what I was doing. Because, you know, people are gonna say, ‘Well, who are you? Yeah, you know, why should we listen to you? You never had any trauma and you're supposed to be an expert? Like, how does that work?’ You know, it's the same thing with addiction. You know, I help people with addiction. I've never had a drink in my life, never touched a drug in my life. Now that I say, but I know what addiction is.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: I don't believe addiction is a disease. I believe it's a code that gets built from pain. Lisa: Yeah, let's dig into that a little bit. And then we'll go back to your daughter's story. Because addiction, you know, it's something I know from a genetic perspective. I have a tendency towards, towards having addictive nature, personality traits. I chase dopamine a lot. I have a deficit of dopamine receptors. And so I'm constantly going after that reward. Now that's worked itself out in my life, and in running ridiculous kilometres and working ridiculous hours, and not always in negative things. Luckily, I've never had problems with drinking or drugs, but I know that if I had started down that road, I would have ended up probably doing it, you know, very well.  Dr Don: You’d be a star as well.  Lisa: I’d be a star in that as well. And luckily, I was sort of a little bit aware of that and my parents never drank and they, you know, made sure that we had a good relationship with things like that, and not a bad one. Have struggled with food, though. That's definitely one of the emotional sort of things. And I think a lot of people have some sort of bad relationship with food in some sort of way, shape, or form on the spectrum, so to speak. What is it that causes addiction? And is it a physical dependency? Or is there something more to it? Dr Don: Yeah, that's why I don't believe it's a physical dependency. Because here's the way I look at it is, people will say to me, ‘Well, if I stopped this heroin, the body's going to crave the heroin, and I'm going to go into withdrawal.’ And my response to that is, ‘How could the body crave a substance that it doesn't know? It doesn't regulate heroin. How could it crave something that doesn't regulate?’ I believe it's the mind, has made a connection between the heroin and survival. Because you have felt bad, right? Because of trauma, or whatever it is, whenever you took the heroin, you felt better.  So I had a lady come in who had been on heroin. And she said to me, she's, ‘Well, I told my therapist, I'm coming to see you. And he told me, I had to let you know upfront and be honest and tell you I have self-destructive behaviour.’ And I just smiled at her. And I said, ‘Really? What would make you think you're self destructive?’ And she looked at me, because this is what she's been told for a year.  Lisa: Brilliant.  Dr Don: She says, ‘Well, I'm sticking a needle in my arm with heroin, don't you think that's self destructive?’ And I said to her, I said, ‘No, I don't think it was self destructive. I think you're trying to feel better. And I bet you, when you stuck the needle in your arm, you felt better.’ That nobody had ever said that to her before. And so I said, ‘Now, the substance you're using is destructive, but you're not destructive? What if I could show you another way to feel better, that didn't require you having to take a drug?’  Lisa: Wow. Dr Don: And I said, ‘You're designed to feel better. And I believe that the brain, what happened is, is it because you felt bad, you found a resource that temporarily stopped that pain.’ And you see your subconscious mind is fully present in the moment. So when does it want pain to stop? Right now. And if that heroin stops the pain right now, then what happened was, is that system, you have two memory systems, you have explicit memory system that records all the information in real time. So it records all the data, and stores. No other animal does that. We’re the only animal that stores explicit details about events and experiences. We also have an associative procedural memory that we learned through association and repetition over time. So, because the explicit memory kept creating the pain, because we kept thinking about it, and looping through this pain cycle, you started taking heroin, then you engage your second associative memory, which learns through repetition and builds, codes, habits, and behaviours.  Lisa: Wow. Dr Don: Because you kept repeating it your mind built a code and connected up the pain being relieved by the substance.  Lisa: Wow. Dr Don: Now, your subconscious mind is literal. So it doesn't understand negation. It only understands what's happening now. And so if your mind says that substance stops the pain, it doesn't look at the future and consequences of it. It only looks at what's happening. It's only our conscious mind that can think of consequences. Your subconscious mind, which is survival-based only understands. That's why people at 911 would jump out of the buildings. They weren't jumping to die, they would jumping to stop from dying. Yeah, if they didn’t jump, they would have died right now. So even if they went another two seconds, they weren't dying now.  Lisa: Right? So it’s really in the right now, there's really no right now. It's really in the seconds.  Dr Don: And the very, very milliseconds of what's happening now. And there's no such thing as consequences, it’s basically survival. So now, if you keep repeating that cycle over and over using heroin, and then somebody comes along and says, ‘Lisa, you can't do that. That's bad for you. I'm going to take that away from you.’ Your survival brain will fight to keep it because it thinks it'll die without it.  Lisa: Yeah. Makes a glitch.  Dr Don: It's an error message.  Lisa: Have you heard of Dr Austin Perlmutter on the show last week, David Perlmutter’s son and they're both written a book called Brain Wash. And there they talk about disconnection syndrome. So the disconnection between the prefrontal cortex in the amygdala and the amygdala can be more powerful when we have inflammation in the brain. For example, like inflammation through bad foods, or toxins, or mercury, or whatever the case may be. And that this can also have an effect on our ability to make good long-term decisions. It makes us live in the here and now. So I want that here and fixed now; I want that chocolate bar now. And I know my logical thinking brain is going, ‘But that's not good for you. And you shouldn't be doing that.’ And you, you're trying to overcome it. But you're there's this disconnect between your prefrontal cortex and your amygdala. And I've probably butchered that scenario a little bit. Dr Don: No, you got it. But 95% of your mind is working on that subconscious survival base. It's only about 5% that's logical. That logical part of your brain is brilliant, because it's been able to use reason and logic to figure stuff out. So it created the world we live in: automobiles, airplanes, right, computers, all of that was created by that 5%, part of the brain 5%. However, if there is a survival threat, survival will always override reason and logic. 100% of the time.  Lisa: Wow.  Dr Don: So you can't stop it. And it's what I talked about was that time slice theory. Did I mention that when we were going?  Lisa: No.  Dr Don: When I did my research, one of the things that I found was something called the time slice theory. And what that is, is that two scientists at the University of Zurich asked the question— is consciousness streaming? So this logical conscious part of our mind that prefrontal cortex, is that information that we’re, as you and I are talking now, is that real, coming in real time? And what they discovered is, it’s not.  Lisa: Oh. Dr Don: The 95% subconscious part of your mind, it's streaming. While let's say your survival brain churns in everything in real time, processes that information, and then only sends pieces or time slices, because your conscious mind cannot handle that detail.  Lisa: Oh, wow. So they’re filtering it. Dr Don: Filtering it. And yeah, so as it takes it in, processes it, and then sends time slices or some of that information to your conscious mind. Right? But there's a 400 millionth of a second gap in between your subconscious seeing it, processing it, and sending it. And when I read that, that's when I came up with the idea that what's it doing in that 400 millionth of a second? It's doing a Google search, see? And so in that 400 millionth of a second, your survival brain has already calculated a response to this information before you're consciously aware of it.  Lisa: Wow.  Dr Don: And so the prefrontal cortex has got a filter on there to be able to stop an impulse, right? So it's the ventral lateral prefrontal cortex is sort of the gatekeeper to say, ‘Okay, let's not go into a rage and get into trouble. Let's try to stop that.’ So we have that part of our brain. However, here's where the problem comes in— You're driving and traffic and somebody cuts you off. And so your first response is, you get angry, because this person is like, ‘Oh, I want to chase that guy down and give him a piece of my mind.’ But that part of your brain can say, ‘Let's think about this. Hold on,’ you know, even though it's 400 millionth of a second later, the first anger response, then it should be able to pull that back. Here's where the problem comes in. If getting cut off in traffic looked like you had been just disrespected. During that Google search, your now, your subconscious mind has filtered through every experience of being disrespected. And so much information comes in that it cannot stop the response. It overrides it, because now it feels threatened. And our prisons are full of people who had been so badly hurt, that that part of their brain can't do that. You and I can probably do that. Right?  Lisa: Sometimes. Dr Don: Because we can say, sometimes? You know, you can run them down. You can leave the car. But that's where the problem comes in. Yeah, can't stop that, then that rage and all those things come in. And that affects your relationships could affect all kinds of things. And people would say, ‘Oh, you got an anger management problem. We're going to teach you to live with, you know, and manage that anger.’ What I'm saying is ‘No, it's a glitch. We don't need all that data coming in.’ Right, good response, a Google search is creating the problem. Lisa: Like there's so many questions while hearing what you just said that, and I've experienced in my own life where with my family, where the initial response is so quick, that someone's punched someone else before they've even thought about what the heck they are doing. In the, when you said that, disrespected like this is, you know, I think when I've gotten really really angry and overreacted to something, when I think about it logically later, and a couple of times were of, like, in my early adult years, I was in a very abusive relationship. Thereafter, when I would get into another relationship, and that person tried to stop me doing something, I would just go like, into an absolute fit of rage. Because I was fighting what had happened to me previously, and this poor person, who may have not even been too bad, got the full barrels of verbal assault. Because I just reacted to what had happened to me 10 years previously. And that's the sort of thing where I felt like I was being controlled, disrespected when he went in. So that Google search is happening in a millisecond.  Dr Don: 400 millionths of a second. you couldn't have stopped, impossible for you to stop. And then people would say, ‘What's wrong with Lisa? She's just normally a great person, but where is that coming from?’ Up until now, you may not have known that. But that's what it is. And it's impossible for you to have stopped. It was the same thing when my wife and I would say, ‘No, I don't like that.’ And she would start to cry. I'd be saying, ‘Gosh, what am I doing to make this woman cry?’ It wasn't what I said. It was what I said that activated her Google search, which then flooded into data about her father. She was responding to her father, not to me. We both didn’t know that; we all thought that she was responding to what I just said. Lisa: Isn't this always just such complex— and if you start to dissect this, and start to think about the implications of all this, and our behaviour, and our communication and our relationships, so much pain and suffering is happening because we're not understanding, we're not, we're angry at people, we’re disappointed with people, we’re ashamed of things that we've done. And a lot of this is happening on a level that none of you know, none of us are actually aware of. I mean, I liken it to, like, I know that my reactions can sometimes be so quick. Like before, my, just in a positive sense, like effect glasses falling off the beach, I would have caught it with my bare hand before my brain has even registered it. I have always had a really fast reaction to things like that. That's a clear example of, like, that permanent brain that's in the here and now, has caught it before I've even realised that's happening. Dr Don: You know, and that's why I always say to people, ‘Did you choose to do that?’ And they'll say, ‘Well, I guess I did.’ I go, ‘No, you didn’t.’ Didn’t just happen that happened before you could actually use the logical part of your brain. And because it was so much information, right? Even though the logical part of your brain would say, ‘Well, you know, don't lash out at this person. They didn't mean that.’ It would already have happened. Yeah, I worked with a professional athlete. He was a baseball player playing in the major leagues. And I explained that concept to him. And then we were at a, one of his practice workouts, and his pitcher was throwing batting practice behind a screen. And so as he threw the ball, this guy, my client hit the ball right back at the screen, and the coach, like, hit the ground. Right? And I stopped right there. And I said, ‘Great example.’ I said, Did your coach just choose to duck?  Lisa: Or did he automatically do it?  Dr Don: He had no, he had no time to use exactly. The logic. If you use the logical part of your brain, what would you have said? ‘This ball can hit me; there's a screen in front of me.’ Lisa: Yeah, yeah. But you know— Dr Don: No way logic is going to prevail, when there's a threat like that coming at you. Yeah.  Lisa: This is why it's important because we need to be able to react in that split second, if there really is a danger and there's a bullet flying in ahead or something like that or something, somebody is coming at us from, to do us harm, then we need to be able to react with split second timing.  Dr Don: But you don’t want that logic coming into it.  Lisa: No, but we do want the logic coming in when it's an emotional response. Do you think like, when people have had repeated brain injuries, they are more likely to have problems with this, you know, the prefrontal cortex not functioning properly and even being slower to respond or not getting enough blood flow to that prefrontal cortex in order to make these good decisions? Dr Don: Yeah, absolutely. And if you look at SPECT scans or brain scans of people who have had those kinds of injuries, you'll see that that part of the brain, that frontal part of the brain, the blood flow will drop when they get into those situations. Lisa: Wow. And then they can't make a good decision. And here we are blaming them for being— Dr Don: Blaming them for being— Lisa: —and they end up in prisons, and they end up with hurt broken lives and terrible trauma. And, you know, it's not good if they react and hit somebody or kill somebody or whatever. But how can we fix this? And that one of my go-tos is the hyperbaric oxygen therapy. And I've heard you talk about that on a podcast with Mark Divine in regards to your son. And that is one way we can actually help our brains if we've had had a traumatic brain injury or PTSD or anything like that, is that right? Dr Don: Yeah, my, like I said, my son had three head injuries, one in elementary school, one in middle school, one in high school. And the first one, we didn't see as big an effect. But he did have a problem. The second one, he ended up with retrograde amnesia. And then the third one, we just saw him go downhill and just really couldn't communicate very well, didn't have any energy, had a lot of anger issues and they just kept saying he's got major depression, you need to medicate them. And I was like, ‘No, I believe we've got traumatic brain injury.’ But I could not get them to give me a script for a SPECT scan or an fMRI. It was impossible. And I wasn't looking for the structure, because they'd look at an MRI and they'd say, ‘We don't see any damage.’ Well, it wasn't the physical damage we're looking for, it was a functional damage that we were looking for. Lisa: Yeah, the blood flow. Yeah.  Dr Don: And once we discovered that that's what it was, we got him into hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and he started getting the blood flow into the areas that he needed to process what he was experiencing. And so if you can, you can imagine how difficult that would be, somebody saying, well just go over there and do that. And you don't have the ability to process it.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: And so that frustration there is anger would be coming from just complete frustration.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: That he just couldn't do it's like, you know, you ran in somebody and you couldn't lift your right leg.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: Right. And somebody said, ‘Just start running.’ ‘I'm trying.’  Lisa: Yeah, yeah.  Dr Don: It would be very, very frustrating.  Lisa: Yeah, I mean, having worked with, you know, my mum with the brain injury for five and a half years, and I will tell you, man, that is so frustrating. And still, even though she's had well, you know, must be close to 280 or something hyperbaric sessions, and gone from being not much over a vegetative state to being now incredibly high functioning. But there are still some pieces missing that I cannot get to. Because obviously damage in the brain where parts of the brain cells are, have been killed off. And we, you know, I'm really having trouble with things like vestibular systems, so, or initiation of motivation, and things like that. And hyperbaric can do a heck of a lot, it can't fix areas of the brain that is actually dead. So I, you know, and we don't have SPECT scans over here, this is not available. We don't do them. Dr Don: Yeah. And they’re hard to get here. I just don’t understand them. Lisa: They're very frustrating, because they just are so powerful to understand. Because when you see you've got a problem in your head, that it's actual physical problem, then, you know, it takes away the blame the guilt, and you know, like, I was having this conversation with my brother, and I'm, you know, talking about Mum, and why isn't she doing this, that and the other end. And I said, ‘Because she's got brain damage, and we can't get her to do that thing.’ ‘But she's normal now. She should be doing that now.’ And I'm like, ‘She's much, much better. But in that part of the brain, I haven't been able to recover.’ It is still a thing. That is the year. That is, I am, not that I'm giving up on it, but you know, there are just certain things that we haven't quite got the full thing back. Dr Don: The SPECT scan would show that. And you'd probably see it, or do they do fMRIs there? Lisa: I haven't checked out fMRI because yeah. Dr Don: Check out the fMRI.  Lisa: I only heard you say that the other day, and I didn't, I knew about SPECT scans and I knew about. Dr Hearts and all the SPECT scans that he's done, and Dr Daniel Amen and the brilliant work on it all and I've searched the country for it. And New Zealand there's, they've got one that does research stuff down in New Zealand and I think but it's it's nobody can get access to it. And it's just, oh gosh, this is just such a tragedy because then we can actually see what's going on. Because people have been put on antidepressants. They've been put on, you know, antipsychotic drugs. Some things that are perhaps not necessary. We could have, we could have dealt with it with other other ways, like hyperbaric and like with, you know, good nutrients, and even like your program that you do that would perhaps be the first line of defense before we grab to those types of things. But— Dr Don: The fMRI would definitely probably help you. So it's, you know, a functional MRI. Yeah. So it's going to give you blood flow. I just had a young boy come in, nine years, nine years old, having real issues. And anyway, his mum's gone everywhere, tried everything. And I said, have you done an fMRI? She says, oh we’ve done the MRIs. But, and I said, ‘’No, you need an fMRI.’ She'd never heard of it. No, I was telling her about it.  Lisa: I hadn’t even heard about it either. Dr Don: She didn’t want to do SPECT scans, because SPECT scans are going to put something into your system, right? So she didn't want any kind of dyes, or any kind of those, you know, radioisotopes and stuff like that. So the fMRI is the other answer to try to get that. Lisa: Oh, okay. I'll see whether they've got that, they probably haven't got that either. I'd say, probably having Dark Ages with a lot of things. Dr Don: There's so many things like that, that would give you answers that they just don't do, which is surprising to me. Because when you think research, I mean, you find out how effective they are, why wouldn't they do it? You know, they just won't. Lisa: Oh, yeah, like one of those doctors who was on my podcast, and we're talking about intravenous vitamin C. And he said, I said, ‘Why is it taking so long when there's thousands of studies proving that it's really powerful when there’s critical care conditions like sepsis, what I lost my father to?’ And they said, ‘Yeah, because it's like turning a supertanker. There’s just 20 years between what they know in the clinical studies to what's actually happening in the hospitals.’ He says at least a 20-year lag. And this is just, when you live in New Zealand, probably a 30-year lag. We’re just just behind the eight ball all the time, and all of these areas of what's actually currently happening.  I wanted to go back to your story with your daughter. Because she's got Crohn's disease, 14 years old, diagnosed, having to hit all these restrictions, and that she's going to have to manage it for the rest of her life. And she will never be well. What actually happened? Because we didn't actually finish that story. Dr Don: Well, like I said, so she had, you know, suffered for many years with that, and she's an actress, so any kind of stress would just aggravate it. So she would constantly be getting sick, because, you know, the more stress she has, the more inflammation she's creating, and then she would just get sick and go back to the hospital. So it has really affected her career. So that's when my wife said, ‘You've got to come up with some answers.’ And so I did the research. And I really believe that it was a trauma as a child that continued. Because this is when I made the connection between unresolved trauma and inflammation. Inflammation is the response to trauma, whether it's physical or emotional. And the purpose of the inflammation is to protect the integrity of the cell. So the cell gets into an enlarged space. So it sort of puffs out, gets enlarged and hardened to protect it from getting penetrated from any kind of foreign invader.  Lisa: Wow.  Dr Don: So the idea behind it is, it's a temporary pause, because there's been an injury. So the idea is, we need to protect this area. So let's protect it and not let anything get into the cells while, until the danger has passed. So this temporary pause in the system, temporarily suspends the immune system, temporarily suspends the processing of the cell until the danger passes, and then the immune system can come in and clean up, right and take care of everything. The problem was, is that my daughter's trauma was never resolved. So those cells in her intestinal area stayed in an active cell danger response, in an inflamed response, because as far as it was concerned, she was continually being assaulted.  Lisa: Wow.  Dr Don: Because it kept looping through the trauma. Yeah. So once we took her through this program, and we resolved it so that we were able to stop her mind from constantly trying to protect her from this threat as a six year old, because your subconscious doesn't have any relationship to time. So if you think about something that happened to you when you were six, that's happening now. So in her mind, she was being hurt now. And until we got that updated, so it’s like a computer, I say your brain is a computer. Your body is the printer.  Lisa: Oh, wow. That’s a good analogy. Dr Don: And so if the brain has an error message, it’s going to affect the printer.  Lisa: Yes.  Dr Don: So in her mind, that trauma kept on looping. As soon as we got that corrected, and her mind understood that there was no memory— the memory was still there, but the activation of our nervous system stopped, the inflammation went down. Lisa: See, that's it, like your body's calling for action. I've heard you say—  Dr Don: That’s when it processes the emotion.  Lisa: Yeah. So when you think back to a traumatic event in your life, and you start crying and you're reacting as if you were right there in the in, which, you know, I can do in a split second with some of the trauma that you know, been through. That means that there is a high-definition in your brain, that those moments in time are just locked in there, and causing this, the stress response, still now. And that's why you’re crying years later, for something that happened. And it's actually calling for action. It's telling you to do something. But of course, it's a memory you can't do something. Dr Don: So action required, you know I think that’s the glitch, the error message that I talked about. So if you think about something that happened to you five years ago, and you start to feel fear, or cry, your heart starts pounding in your chest, your mind is saying ‘Run,’ five years ago, because it's seen it in real time. Now, it's impossible to run five years ago, but your mind doesn't know that. So it's going to continue to try to get you to run. And so a lot of times when I talk to people who have depression, one of the things I asked, I'll ask them is, ‘What are you angry about?’ And they'll go, ‘Well, no, I'm not angry, I'm depressed.’ And I'll say, ‘What's happened is your mind has been calling for an action for many, many years, that was impossible to accomplish. But your mind doesn't know that and it keeps putting pressure on you. Do it, do it, do it. And because you don't do it, it's using these emotions to call for the action, it stops calling for the action, it shuts off the emotions.’  Lisa: Wow.  Dr Don: And so now depression is the absence of emotion. Lisa: Right. Dr Don: And so what is done is to protect you, it's shut down the request. Lisa: Everything down. So you go sort of numb, numb and apathetic and just— Dr Don: Because you can't do what it’s been asking you to do. And so it's been calling for that action for many, many years. You don't do it. And so it says, ‘Well, this isn't working. So let's just shut the system off for a while. We won't ask for the action anymore.’ And so that's why the people are depressed. And as soon as you get to the cause of it, what has your mind been asking you to do and you resolve it, then your mind stops calling for the action. And then the depression will lift. Lisa: You had a great example of a lady that you worked with. Rebecca Gregory, was it from the Boston— can you tell us that story? Because that was a real clear example of this exact thing. Dr Don: Yeah. So Rebecca came to see me five years after the Boston Marathon. She was three feet from the first bomb that went off. And so her son was sitting at her feet. So when the bomb went off, luckily she shielded him, but she took the brunt of the blast. She lost her left leg. And five years later, she's having post-traumatic stress, right? And she says, ‘I have nightmares every night. I heard about your program. I heard that you can clear this in four hours.’ She says, ‘Iy sounds too good to be true.’ But she says, ‘I'm completely desperate. So I'll try anything.’ And so she came in and sat down. And what I explained to her as she started to talk is, I said, ‘Rebecca, do you know why you're shaking and crying as you're talking to me right now?’ And she says, ‘Well, because I'm talking about what happened to me.’ And I said, ‘That's right. But your mind thinks a bomb is about to go off. And it's trying to get you to run.’ And I said, ‘But there's no bomb going off. It's just information about a bomb that went off. But your mind doesn't know that.’ And that, she'd never heard before. And so what we did is over the next four hours, we got her mind to reset that high-definition data that had been stored about the bombing into a regular alpha brainwave state, right, where it's very safe and peaceful.  So she could recall it and she could talk about it without the emotion. Why? Because, now we're not going for happy, right? You know, it's still sad that it happened. But what we're trying to stop is that dysregulation of the fear, the call for the run. That stopped. And you can watch your testimonial on her on our site, and she just talked about, she goes, ‘I just couldn't believe that you could stop that.’ Lisa: But in four hours.  Dr Don: And then now she can go out and she spoke all over the country. You know, she was a very high-profile lady who did a lot of great work in trying to help people. But she was still suffering with post-traumatic stress. Yeah, trying to help people who were experiencing post-traumatic stress.  Lisa: She knew what it was like.  Dr Don: She was living it. Same thing. I tell the story, it’s another dramatic one was a US Army sniper who had to shoot and kill a 12 year old boy. Lisa: Oh, gosh.  Dr Don: And when I first sat down and talked to him, he was just sobbing. And he said, ‘I just can't live like this anymore.’ And by the time we were finished, he could then describe everything that happened that day, including shooting. And he said to me, goes, ‘How the bleep did you do this? Like, how am I able to talk about it now? And I said, ‘For eight years, your mind's been trying to get you not to pull the trigger.’ Lisa: And you can't go back in time. Dr Don: But your mind knows you're not pulling the trigger now. So it stopped calling for the action. It's just information now. Lisa: And so, is this similar to EMDR? I did a few sessions of EMDR when we lost our little baby boy a couple of years ago. And in that time, when I was doing it, I thought, this isn't working. But when I look back on that traumatic event, I no longer have the response, really, to— it’s sad, but I don't, but I'm not like I was in the months after that. And I don't, I wouldn't say I'm completely, you know, out the other end of that particular trauma, there's been more since that I'm still dealing with. But it definitely did something. And I don't know what, it was a lot of eyeshifting and going home. What was it? Is it similar to what you do? Or is it different? Dr Don: Yeah, I studied EMDR. So what we do, so that's a technique some of the techniques I use in EMDR I'll use. But I think what we've done is enhance it even more. I've made it even quicker and even more comprehensive.  Lisa: Yep.  Dr Don: And EMDR. How many sessions did you do in EMDR?  Lisa: I think I did four.  Dr Don: So yeah, so they're gonna be between 4, 8, 10? Right. We're doing one. Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. And I wasn't sure immediately after it had done anything. But I must admit, yeah.  Dr Don: And it does, because what it's doing is getting that memory reprocessed, which is what we're doing. But we do it much simpler, like I don't need much detail at all. In fact, I've sat with people, you know, a person said, if a woman had been raped or sexually assaulted. The last issue was to sit there and do is start describing what happened to her. So what I do is I say, we got a, we got three different ways of doing this one, you can talk about it if you'd like to, and I'm going to take you through the techniques, right, to get your mind to reprocess it. Or two, I'm just going to do strictly visually. So I have no idea what you experienced. I'm not going to know any of the details, which feels very safe.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: Or third, what I say is I'm going to teach you a new language, and it's called flowing. There's only one word and the flowing language, it’s flowing. So instead of saying, I walked into the room, you're gonna say flowing, flowing, flowing, every word is flowing. The advantage to that is she has to go into memory to see it and bring up the images.  Lisa: Yeah. Dr Don: But I have no idea what it is.  Lisa: Yeah. You don’t need to hear it. Dr Don: I don't need to hear it. And then I take her through basically a two to three minute technique. That's all. And at the end of that, it's updated.  Lisa: That's incredible.  Dr Don: And my wife used flowing with me, right? Because it was some things that were, for me, she didn't want to share. Lisa: Fair enough. Dr Don: Right? Yeah. And that was fine. And so I tell them, whichever way you want to do it. I said, ‘If I needed to know, I would ask.’ I said, ‘But if I'm asking, it's just from curiosity.’ Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: But it's not necessary. That is radically different. Right? For people who have experienced really severe trauma. And it's very, very, you know, safe and very pain free. Lisa: And what, so what is it, what, we have talked therapies where we, you know, go to a counselor, and we spend years sometimes working through our childhood traumas and our, whatever traumas have happened since and we don't seem to get anywhere, which is a lot of time. It might feel good in the moment that you're sharing, and being able to express yourself, but it doesn't really work. In my experience, at least. What is the difference here? Are we just reliving and actually enhancing these memories when we just talk about them all the time, and not actually deal with them? Dr Don: I believe in a lot of cases, that's what they're doing, are trying to desensitise you to it. You know, talk about it enough, maybe it doesn't feel as dramatic. Yeah. And talk therapy has its place so I'm not against it. I think where talk therapy is really good is when you're dealing with a current problem. Yeah, current stress maybe in your marriage, whatever, and learning how to handle what's going on right now. Where I think the difference between what we do is we're able to get the talk therapy much more effective when you take out all the old stuff that keeps aggravating the new stuff.  Lisa: Yep.  Dr Don: So if you're in a current stressful situation, and it's been aggravated, because every time you talk about it is bringing in all the data of the old stuff, then it's very difficult to deal with. So that's, I think what we do, which is really different, and makes everything much more effective. Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense to me. And with, going back to your daughter, because we so we, she is now managed to get on top of her Crohn’s. I mean, Crohn’s is an incurable disease, apparently. Dr Don: That’s what we were told, yeah, that there’s no cure for Crohn's. Lisa: What did you do with her to actually because it's that physical thing, and there are a lot of people out there listening probably have Crohn's or IBS, or something like an autoimmune disease, or can, how did that work out with her? And, you know, why is that sort of a really amazing story? Dr Don: Well, all I know is that after we took her to the program, she hasn't had a Crohn's flare up. So I'm not saying that we can cure Crohn's with our program. Exactly. What I do know is that after she went through the program, she hasn’t had a Crohn's flare up. So to me, there's a correlation between her nervous system and the activation of her Crohn’s. And so once we got that settled down, so Crohn's could be, may not be just from that. There could be other reasons for it. So you never know. So somebody could do our program and not have that same reaction. But what we do see is a lot of different, because when we talk about, I believe that there's imagine more like a cell phone, you plug in your cell phone at night, right? We go to sleep, we charge up, we wake up with 100% of our energy. Then how much of that energy do you have available to do maintenance. So if you've got a lot of maintenance and repair issues, you're draining a lot of energy.  Lisa: Oh, yeah.  Dr Don: And if your mind is looping through a lot of trauma that's pulling a lot of energy away from your ability to do maintenance and repairs. Yep. And so I talked about when I played hockey, which is a pretty brutal sport, I had six concussions, 60 stitches, and I never missed a hockey game. Now at the time, they just said, ‘You just heal fast, faster than most people.’ What I didn't realise is, I believe the reason I healed fast was because I was getting much more maintenance done.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: At nighttime when I slept. Because I didn't have a lot of trauma that my mind was constantly looping through. So it wasn't pulling energy away. So if I'm getting two or three times the maintenance and restorative sleep, of course, I'm going to heal faster. How could I not? Lisa: Gosh. Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense. Really. Yeah. Dr Don: And that's why I've been healthy all my life, I just don't get sick.  Lisa: So super immune system.  Dr Don: Very powerful immune system that can fight whatever comes at me. And again, we talked about vitamin C, if ever, I feel a little tickle in my throat, or I start to feel that, I just pound in vitamin C, you know, 4000, 5000 milligrams, vitamin C, and it’s gone. Lisa: Immune system jumps into gear, because you don't have these stressors. So when we talk about stress being so detrimental, you know, we talk about it all the time, stress is bad for us, and what you know, excessive stress, there are good hormetic stressors, where we go for exercise, or we get in a sauna, or we do cold therapy, and these are short, temporary stressors that cause cascades of changes in the body that make us stronger. But when we're exposed to chronic stress, which is like what we're talking about, traumatic events, and you know, like I also wanted to say there's not just, somebody died, someone's legs been blown off, someone's you know, been to war. These are not just those big, big, traumatic things. These are these daily little things that start to add up as well that can be traumatic stressors, can't they? It's not just the big ones. Dr Don: That's what I wrote my second book called Emotional Concussions. So they're those bumps, right? That little concussion that you feel like, ‘Oh, I'm okay, right. Yeah, I had a bump on my head. But now I seem to be okay.’ Those add up, those little emotional concussions can add up, or can also get connected to other ones. And so you don't realise how they're affecting you.  So I've had people come in who will say, you know, ‘I've never had any real trauma in my life, I've been fine. There's nothing wrong.’ And then all of a sudden waterworks will start when they start thinking about something that happened to them when they were a child. As an example I had a lady come in. She had been adopted by the stepfather, her mother got pregnant at 18, didn't marry the father, then married another gentleman who then ended up adopting her and having two other children. And so when she was about six years of age, the original, her natural father wanted to meet her. And her stepfather said something to the effect that ‘You were a mistake.’ And she said, ‘I hated my stepfather. I made his life agony for him.’ She'd never connected up that event. She just said, ‘I just never liked him. I gave him such a hard time all the time.’ She goes, ‘My brother and sister loved him.’ She says, ‘I just hated him.’ And it came down to that event. And so in her mind, right, once we got and we got that event resolved, and here's how we resolved it. I said, ‘Is it possible—’ So once I've got you in this very, very peaceful restorative mindset, right, then we start looking at some of this information. So when we looked at it, she was crying when she talked about she's, ‘I remember my stepfather saying that I'm, I was a mistake.’ When we look at it, when she's in this very restorative mindset, I said, ‘Is it possible that what he said, isn't what he meant? Is it possible that's a saying that people say, “Oh, that was a mistake.” But they didn't mean you're the mistake.’  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: Right. It probably wasn't the best thing for your mother to have a baby at 18 out of wedlock, right. However, that that had never really occurred to her that that could, because a six year old child doesn't have enough life experience to understand that statement. In her mind, ‘I was a mistake. He thought I was a mistake.’ And so as we're going through this, all of a sudden, she said to me, she says, ‘I just had this flood of energy coming into my chest right now.’ And she says, ‘You know, what just came into my mind? him sitting there braiding my hair when I was little.’ She said, ‘He was a good man, I just never gave him a break. And now I sort of see what my brother and sister saw. He really was a good guy.’ Right? So this in her mind— Lisa: Just one event. Just that one event. One slip of the tongue, so to speak, or, you know, taken the wrong way, or, you know, an adult conversation that a child’s misconstrued, it doesn't even have to have bad intent behind it.  Dr Don: With sometimes no ill intent. My wife had a similar situation where when she was really little. She's living in this dramatic household and gets invited to when she was like, six, seven years of age to a tea party by the mothers in the neighbourhood. And the grandmother dresses her all up nice and pretty. And she goes there. And I remember her telling me the story and crying. And she says, when she got there, the mothers as she walked in, looked at her and one of the mothers said, ‘Oh, look at this one, this is going to be a real heartbreaker. Oh, yes, this is going to be a real heartbreaker.’ My wife as a child has been so hurt already. What she hears is they see something bad in her. She grows up and hurts people. And she says she felt sick to her stomach, she just wanted to go home. Lisa: Wow, completely at the wrong— Dr Don: As an adult, still had that impact on her until we got it resolved. Lisa: And so these little things that as parents that makes you go, ‘Oh, my God, what damage have I done? Just because I yelled at the kids the other day because they couldn’t have any lollies or something if I did, it’ll damage them.’ It does make you feel a bit panicky about you know, all that all the trauma that you could be causing to your kids. Dr Don: So I'm working on a third book, like for just talking about that, on how those kinds of things after studying our program, saying, ‘How can we help parents be able to understand the impact those words?’ Because again, with the best of intentions, right, you could be saying a particular phrase or saying or action that is being misinterpreted by somebody who doesn't have any kind of experience. Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. And it can have far-reaching effects that was way beyond what should have been.  Dr Don: Another great example, I had a lady who again, same thing, uh, no trauma in my life, great childhood, you know, and I said, ‘Can you come up with any kind of an event that you remember that was upsetting or disturbing.’ And so she says, then she had to think about it. And then she says, ‘Yeah, I remember one day she said, I was in church since I was about six years old.’ And she says, and all of a sudden, I see her eyes starting to fill up as she started to talk and she started to choke up, and she says, ‘I was talking and my grandmother took out the brush from her purse and hit me on the head with it and said, ‘Stop talking. You're in church.’ And then the waterworks came. And she says, ‘I just realised I lost my voice that day.’  Lisa: Oh, wow.  Dr Don: She says, ‘I don't speak up for myself. I don't.’ Yeah. And that had never connected to her. And she realises, ‘I just let people tell me what to do.’ She says, ‘I don't ever speak up for myself.’ And that was a revelation to her that she had never connected. Lisa: And it was such a minor thing. Dr Don: Did her grandmother decide to do that? No, it was just like, ‘Stop talking, you're in church,’ right? Yeah, just a little thing.  Lisa: You're like, wow.  Dr Don: Another one, which is really fascinating, just to show you how the subtlety of it. A gentleman telling me that his father who never really was an angry person or whatever. But there was one particular time, he says, ‘My father really hurt me. And it was shocking to me.’ He started to tear up. And as he explained it, what he said is his father hit him on the back, tapped him on the back of the head, he says, but he felt like he just whacked him like full speed. Until he realised, he said, ‘I'm thinking about it now, my father wore this big ring.’ And so when he, his father probably meant to tap. But the ring was like a shock, like a big hit. So the child, ‘You really unloaded on me?’ But he probably didn't mean to, right, and probably couldn't understand why his son was overreacting to this little tap on the head. Right? But then again, that was a situation that affected the way it was a an event that he said, his father overreacted. And he realised he probably didn't mean to do it the way he did it, but had an effect on on him.  Lisa: And then you add to that whole works, your genetic predisposition to either having you know, the warrior gene or the worrier gene, you know, in the, whether you hold on to adrenaline and anxiety and have more anxiousness. And in general, you know, and, like, I remember, as a kid, my mum saying to me, ‘You were just such a sensitive kid. You would cry at the movies if Bambi got,’ you know, she just couldn't take me to any movie, or anything, because I was just very sensitive, always-trying-to-rescue-the-world kid, you know. And trying to atone for everybody else's misdemeanors that they did, and you know, I probably still am.  And that, you know, so you have this genetic thing that you come in with, and then you add on some of these things. So while somebody may have had a much more traumatic childhood, you can still react with that, those, you know, if you've got the disposition much more violently, or much more strongly to those as well. So we're very complex, little, little beings. It's a wonder any of us managed to do anything really. Dr Don: Well, what do I refer to that when I start talking is your atmospheric conditions. Your atmospheric conditions, your Joe Polish, who there’s that saying is he goes, ‘I love the way you say that because your atmospheric conditions are different than my atmospheric conditions.’ So if you grew up in very dark, stormy atmospheric conditions, and I didn't, but then, of course, I'm going to see the world differently, because I'm going to filter through those. Lisa: And you know, what Joe talks about too, as a mutual friend of ours is an incredible guy. Addiction and taking away the shame and the guilt and all of that that's associated, then the blame for and seeing people for actually what's happening instead of apportioning blame. And that stuck with me what he said about that. I think it was a film that I watched that he made. Like, let's remove some of the judgments that we have on people who are dealing with drug addictions or alcohol addictions. We may not like their behaviour, we may want to help them get out of that situation. But judging people when we never walked in their shoes, when we never had any of those experiences that that person has, how the hell are we, any of us really, able to judge other people? Dr Don: And that's what I talked about in the program too, because what I get to, as I say, think about it, if our brain is a filter, right, and we take water, which are our thoughts and we pour the water through the filter, and it comes out clear, right? But if we pack mud into that filter, and we pour the water through it and it comes out, muddy, we say, well, what's wrong with that water? There's nothing wrong with the water, it filtered through the mud. How is it not going to be muddy, which is your thoughts? Yeah. And so if you've had a lot of packed mud into your filter, right, and your thoughts come out very dark, right and very muddy. Right? How could you not do it?  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: So when I sit down with somebody who's in addiction, what I say to them is I said, ‘It's impossible for you to not have done what you did, based on the way your mind filters. So that doesn't— there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with your mind. All you've done is you've had a certain set of experiences and your mind filters through those.’ And I said, ‘I've never had a drink of alcohol in my life. I've never had a drug in my life, but I've never experienced your pain. So if I had experienced your pain, and you had experienced my life, you would be sitting where I am. And I'd be sitting where you are.’  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: How could I have done it differently? Yeah, it's not what I say is addiction is not about character, willpower, morals, or ethics. Right. And so you take that that's what Joe and I've talked about, you take away that shame and guilt, because shame and guilt is what got them into it, and probably keeps you there. And so you take away that. So there's a young lady, Michelle, who, when I met her, she's 33, 17 years since she was 16 in active addiction. I mean, everything you can imagine. And the first thing I sit down with her, and as I say, ‘Michelle, there's nothing wrong with you. You don't have a disease. You've built up a series of codes to protect you from the pain.’ And I said, ‘You've had a lot of trauma.’ She goes, ‘Well, how do you know I’ve got a lot of trauma?’ And I said, ‘I can it in hear your voice. Your voice is shaky. And so I can hear the trauma in your voice.’ And I said, ‘What I'm going to do is show you how we're going to update and reset that so that you now can then filter properly. And then that's going to stop the need to feel better, so that's the only reason that you wanted to feel better.’ So she was smoking cigarettes as well, as well as the drugs within four days, she completely stopped smoking. She hasn't smoked, since. It's over two years, has never touched the drug since. Lisa: Wow. Dr Don: She had zero withdrawal. When I said the withdrawal is coming from the mind saying, ‘You better get it or we're going to die.’ So I believe the mind creates the physical pain, which they call withdrawal. Because it's saying, ‘If you don't get this, we're going to die.’ So it's going to create physical pain to make you— it’s like bending your arm up your back. Because I've talked to drug addicts who will tell me that as soon as your dealer says they're on their way to bring the drug, the withdrawal stops. Because they know they're gonna get it. Lisa: So the brain just shuts up because you're going, you're getting it.  Dr Don: That's in the mind, because how could the mind crave heroin? I said, if the mind could crave anything, what would it crave? Water. Or if the body could crave anything, what would it crave? Water. But we don't have waterholics, we don't have water rehab centres. That’s what people would be craving. And with you running, right?  Lisa: You’re only craving water.  Dr Don: But you didn't have a problem drinking too much water. Lisa: No. And when you're, when you're in the sands, like a desert, like across lots of deserts. And there was one day that we only had two liters of water a day, you're not hungry. You're not anything else but thirsty. That's the only thing you can think about, and it's the only thing that you want. And then you know, the addiction to chocolate that I had in my normal life is gone. Dr Don: Sure. Survival-based, your brain is survival-based, and it wants more. And so if somebody says, ‘I'm going to take away your drug.’ Your mind says, ‘But we'll die.’ It's an error message. And so that's why we'll create the physical pain to get you to go get it. And then as soon as you get it, you feel better. Right? That says nothing about your character, willpower or morals or ethics, that’s just biology and chemistry, right? And the brain is so powerful to survive, it will do amazing things to stay out of pain. Lisa: Yeah. And this is why the evolution of how we've evolved in, you know, where our DNA has come from. And then you stick us in this artificial environment that we've made for ourselves, you know, like looking at food addictions, for example, you know, you're going to McDonald's on every street corner and fast food everywhere and ultra-processed and with our old DNA, we’re programmed to go and look for fat and salt and sugar. And that's what we’re wanting to get. Dr Don: It makes us feel good.  Lisa: It makes us feel good. It stops the pain, it stops temporarily, you know, unfortunately, and it's available now everywhere. And this is where, you know, we get into this whole problem with you know, obesity and all sorts of degenerative diseases and the follow on from that. And we're really just fighting against our biology, you know? Dr Don: And when does it stop the pain? Right now— Lisa: For five minutes. Dr Don: When I eat that Big Mac, I feel better right now.  Lisa: And afterwards I feel like— Dr Don: Logically thinking about, if I continue to do this, I'm going to destroy my gut? No, because all I want to do is stop the pain.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: So I'm working on a smoking cessation program. And this is really, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it explained this way. But this is how I explained smoking. I'll say to somebody, ‘What do you think you're addicted to?’ Most people will say it's nicotine. And you know, nicotine is harder to get off of than heroin. Right? And I'll say ‘So you think you're addicted to nicotine?’ That's a yes. And so what if I tell you you're not addicted to nicotine? ‘I'm not?’ And I said, ‘No, you're not addicted to nicotine.’ I said, ‘What happens is that when you smoke a cigarette, the nicotine enters your bloodstream and goes to your brain.’ I said, ‘Now nicotine has almost the exact chemical compound of a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine.’  Lisa: Oh.  Dr Don: So when that nicotine hits your brain, your brain thinks it's acetylcholine. Acetylcholine is the neurotransmitter that's the precursor to the release of dopamine.  Lisa: Oh, wow. Dr Don: So what happens is your brain then starts releasing more acetylcholine to start releasing dopamine. I said what you're addicted to is feeling better. Lisa: Yep. So God has some eggs instead because that’s a— Dr Don: But you've trained your brain, to recognise, to associate the associative memory is what's creating the addiction. And it says, ‘When we take that, we feel better.’ It doesn't understand the chemistry that's involved. That's all you're doing. So now, you're, that your best friend that you sit with all by yourself right outside that building because nobody wants to sit with you while you're smoking, right? Now, this cigarette becomes your best friend and somebody says, ‘Well, you can't hang out with your best friend anymore.’ Right? It's like, ‘Oh, no, I'm not giving that up.’ So what you have to do is we have to create a replacement for your best friend. The reason why it's so hard to quit, is because somebody is coming along and saying, ‘Lisa, you just can't hang around with Debbie anymore. Debbie is not good for you.’ And you say, ‘But I don't have any other friends. I feel better when I hang out with Debbie.’ Yep, we've got to find a replacement for Debbie. And another way to do it. And then your brain will then create another way, right, to feel better. Wow. Which is healthier. That's how you break addiction. Lisa: That is fascinating. So how do you do that with something like heroin though? What do you replace it with? You can't, you know, there isn't, was there— Dr Don: Here’s the best thing is once we get that unresolved trauma cleared, you automatically start feeling better. Lisa: because you don't have the pain and therefore you don't need them. Dr Don: Then we work on the associative memory. So you have to go through our four hour program, we have a series of audio. So if you are an addiction, I have a 30-day addiction audio series that is basically getting your mind to reset the neural pathways of the behaviour. But it's a lot easier to do that when we don't have the pain activated.  Lisa: Wow. Okay, and now you’re establishing new rituals. Dr Don: Now all we have to do is work on the pathways, new pathways and start questioning, ‘Why did I use to do that? I remember I used to do that, but it didn't make any sense.’ Now your logical part of your brain can get involved and help because there's no pain involved.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: And now you can use that intellectual part of your brain to say, this doesn't make any sense, let's come up with a better way of doing it. It couldn't do that before when the pain said, ‘Shut up, get out of the way, we're gonna die.’ Lisa: So you're taking that whole piece of the puzzle layer away and then retraining the brain after the fact, after the four hour program. But so that is an essential part of it as well to reestablish new neural pathways and grooves in the brain to do, have behaviours that change. But without that first piece of the puzzle, all of that— Dr Don: A variety of very, very difficult system to override. Lisa: Yeah, we— Dr Don: And almost sometimes impossible. Lisa: Yeah, I’d say impossible for him for many, many people in many different situations and people are dying left, right, and centre of addictions and you know, the follow-on effects. And they, yeah, we can't stop them.  Dr Don: And they're told that they're broken.  Lisa: And they're useless.  Dr Don: And they just surrender, and then understand that they will never ever be better. And you're, you know, you're a world-class supreme athlete. Can you imagine, with all the training that you did, if I was your coach, and I said to you, ‘Lisa, you're gonna have to put in this tremendous amount of hard work, but you will never win a race. You'll never accomplish anything. But you've just got to put up the hard work.’ No, I'm looking for the little medal at the end of this. I'm looking for some reward at the end of this. Yeah. And what they're telling you is ‘No, you'll never be able to get it.’ Lisa: You’ll never get it, and they take away all your power. You know, they take away all you’re disempowered, and you're like, ‘Oh, well, you're never gonna, you're never gonna do this.’ See, I mean, I never listened to any of that rubbish. Dr Don: I don’t believe you’ve trained any human being to accomplish any goal by telling them that they can surrender to it.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: That they're going to just have to accept the fact that this has control of them.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: I, no, I'm not going to argue that they haven't helped people because they have. So, but I just say, wouldn't it be better to take the approach of, that you can defeat this?  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr Don: And you can overpower it. And you can take back control, because now you understand the science behind it. Lisa: Exactly.  Dr Don: And why it happened. Lisa: I love it. That's my approach, you're singing from the same core sheet there. Because I, you know, like, in, whether this is an addiction, or whether this is a diagnosis for something, and you're told, there's no chance, and there's no hope, the amount of people that I get writing to me, because of my story with my mum, telling me I was written off, I was told I'd never do this. Oh, my loved one was, and now look at us go. You know, how many times have people been written off when they didn't need to be written off? Because some expert has told them that there is no hope? No, that means that you don't know. Somebody in the world that doesn't, that knows. And that approach I think, in you know, whether it's addiction, or whether it's dealing with a big health crisis or problems, you know, we've got to take this approach.  Somebody out there, like Dr Don would, might have a solution for my problem. And it's the whole point of the show is to be able to bring those people and the messages to, to people who need it, so they can connect with those people and maybe get help with a problem. And I certainly want to get help with some of the trauma that I've been through recently, and hope to get over it. Because, you know, no matter how many, like I've always, have had a strong mindset. In some ways, I'm incredibly strong when it comes to sport and overcoming obstacles and taking on big challenges. But I am completely weak in other areas, and I know, my own weaknesses, and my own, you know, I'm very self-aware of my limitations and stuff. And we're all working on different areas of our lives. And I might be a black belt at doing this, but I'm very much a white belt at doing that, you know. And finding new information and new things that can help you improve different areas in life, I think it's just, you know, just absolutely gold.  So Dr Don, can you tell us where can people find you? What courses do you have? What books do you have? And you know, how do people reach out to you and work with you? Dr Don: Well, I know, I think we were gonna do something for the listeners who are listening to your show. So if you go to get G-E-T tipp T-I-P-P, that's the name of our program, T-I-P-P dot com slash Lisa, I think you'll get all the information. So it's www.gettipp.com/lisa, and then all the information on how to get the program, learn more, I think there's some offers, I think that you're doing in there as well for information. Lisa: So that's absolutely brilliant. So gettipp.com, with two Ps, all the information about Dr Don's work, his courses, books, you know, we'll make sure that people can get access to that. Dr Don, thank you very much for your time today. It's been very, very valuable over the last few weeks of, you know, really been enjoying studying some of your work. And it's given me a little bit of a hope for my horizon after you know, going through some pretty traumatic things in the last five years that I need to sort of work through and you know, realising that on a day-to-day basis are half of my energy now. Like I often look back because I'm no longer doing the ultramarathons, and I don't have the energy to do them anymore. Not because of my age or anything else, I think because a lot of my energy is just going into you know, fighting a lot of demons. Yes, the trauma of losing my dad, going through what I did with my mum, losing the babies. There's a heck of a lot of stuff that's gone on in that time. And all of us are facing these types of situations. Your situation may be different than mine. But at some time in life, life's gonna come along and give you bang over the head. Dr Don: Your mind is not okay with some of those things and it wants to— And so when people say to me, ‘Oh, I sabotage myself,’ right, or, ‘I'm doing these things and it's, it's interfering.. I say ‘You can't sabotage yourself. The brain is not designed to do anything but survive.’ And so it, some people say, ‘Well, why would I go and do this crazy thing over here that would sabotage my career or sabotage my relationship?’ And it's not trying to sabotage; it’s trying to protect you from pain. So it will go into crazy areas to protect you from the pain that looks like sabotage. And that's how people describe it. I say it's impossible. That, your brain cannot sabotage yourself. Even when people say, ‘Well, how do you explain somebody taking their own life or committing suicide?’ I said, ‘They're not trying to die. They're trying to stop the pain.’ The pain is more powerful than death. That's the way— did I tell you the story about the German sniper?  Lisa: No, do tell me that.  Dr Don: This, I know, we're trying to wrap up here. Lisa: Oh no. Dr Don: This was fascinating when I read this story. It was about the German sniper from World War II, that when they fought against the Russians, he said the Russians had almost no weapons, but they had a lot of people. So their plan was to charge at the German stations, right, and try to overwhelm them with people. You know, they were carrying sticks and shovels or whatever they had. And he says, ‘And they would—’ I remember, somebody I knew, told me about that they were a German during the war. And they said the Russians would just overwhelm them, get into the bunkers, and then just, you know, take their weapons and try to kill them. He says, so this sniper, for the Germans, he said his job was to shoot them. And he said, ‘But every time they would shoot them, another wave would come.’ He says, ‘And it was just endless, endless.’ He says, ‘And then I figured out how to stop them.’ He says, ‘I shot them in the stomach.’ He says, ‘Then what happened was, is when the next wave would come, they would see all the comrades lying on the ground screaming in pain.’ And he says, ‘And that was the bigger deterrent than to actually dying.’ And he says, ‘And that’s what slowed it down.’ This shows you the power of the mind not wanting to be in pain, what it will do to go to avoid pain.  Lisa: And this is the desperation that some poor people get into. And that's what they're trying to do when they commit suicide is just stop the pain.  Dr Don: Stop the pain is so overwhelming that they would rather stop the pain. They're not thinking about dying, they're thinking about stopping the pain. Because the brain won't try to die, it will try to stop the pain before that. Lisa: Wow. And this is where the biology is just too simple in the fact that it doesn't think through the logical stuff. It just works in the here and the now.  Dr Don: None of that stuff is logical. Lisa: Like you see the future prediction. Yeah, there's no, the consequences of me doing this are X, Y, Z is they don't think that far. Dr Don: They can't, because the reason logic are overwritten every time by survival. Yeah, by the survival in this exact millisecond. Lisa: This knowledge is just powerful on so many levels. And it's just given me a new dimension of how powerful this is. And again, it's about taking the blame off people, and let's find ways to fix this. And to work through that and to help people so that we don't, so just apportion blame and you’re a person lacking willpower, you’re a person with addictions, and you are lesser than me. We all have biology, and we are all struggling on some level. You know, most of us are just better at, you know, doing the day-to-day stuff. But, yeah, I think you're a humanitarian, and the work that you're doing is really, really helping people, Dr Don. So thank you very much for the work you do. Dr Don: Thank you. When I first met you and Joe introduced us, I saw the work you're doing, you're doing phenomenal stuff. So I was so excited to meet you and get an opportunity to share with you, you know, and work together because we’re better, have our message out there. Lisa: Absolutely. We're both going to get messages out there. We're both got to help spread this to a few more people around the world. And this is what this episode’s done. So thank you very much for your time today. Dr Don Wood. Dr Don: Thank you. I enjoyed it. That's it this week for Pushing the Limits. Be sure to rate, review and share with your friends, and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com. The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.