Dan (0s):
If you look at H two oh, H two is hydrogen. Oh is the oxygen. That's what creates water itself. But there's a lot of fake hydrogen water out there. And there's different types of water. There's also dirty water. Most water we do drink is dirty and our system is made to have its own internal ability to separate out the contaminants obviously. But we know, and I just take this slightly different direction, at a high performing level, 3% dehydration can lead to up to 20% under performance. Think about that 20% under performance and 3% dehydration. That's because our hydration feeds our brain, not just our body. In fact, about 25% of everything we breathe is consumed by the brain.
Dan (44s):
And it's same when we go to drink as well. As far as taking like salt in there, you don't wanna do that all the time 'cause you can over sodium the body if that's the right way to say it. And that can cause a dehydration effect on its own. However, doing that is really
Brian (1m 2s):
This week I interviewed the Founder of Born SuperHuman Coach and keynote speaker Dan Metcalfe. We discussed the importance of mindset when it comes to high performing athletes along with Dan's pillars of health such as oxygen, sleep, hydration, exercise, nutrition and overcoming challenges. Dan's deep study of neuroscience and natural healing, a lot of 'em to develop protocols that merge brain optimization with physical wellness, helping people reclaim their vitality at any age. Really enjoyed my interview with Dan. I know you will too. Thanks so much for listening and enjoy the show. Alright, Welcome to the Get Lean, Eat Clean podcast. My name is Brian Gryn and I have Dan Hon.
Brian (1m 42s):
Welcome to the show.
Dan (1m 43s):
Thanks so much for having me here. Brian,
Brian (1m 45s):
Thanks so much for coming on. Founder of Born SuperHuman and author, speaker. You got a podcast and a mentor and much more. So what, what led you down this path maybe for people who don't know who you are, maybe a little bit of background on how you got into health and wellness. Yeah,
Dan (2m 3s):
It's a fascinating life that we live in. Born Superhuman actually comes back from the moment, Brian, that you or any of your listeners were born and the doctor didn't look at you and go, okay, you ready? We're gonna cut the umbilical cord. They just went ahead and cut it. And at that specific moment, for the first time since conception, you were on your own to survive. And we were brilliant. Our system is made to heal, our system's made to thrive. But I didn't realize that because obviously we're not conscious of it. We just get on with life until I had an accident on stage and then a secondary accident a number of years later. So a little bit on my background, I went from being in professional sports back in England, did eight years training with the Royal Marine Cadets.
Dan (2m 51s):
My family was military and from the background and then suddenly because of one lady turning around and saying, you should become a dancer, I was suddenly a ballet dancer and you don't suddenly become a ballet dancer. But at the age of 18, I was offered a full three year scholarship to go into a dance school, found out I could sing an act and Andrew Lloyd Weber who does all the shows, Phantom of the Yacht, produces Christ Superstar Cats. I ended up playing the lead in his shows and touring the world. So performed in front of more than 5 million people live. It was an amazing journey until in Las Vegas on stage during the show, I fractured my spine, I was paralyzed and the doctor said that I'd be disabled for life.
Dan (3m 34s):
That was the first time I was conscious of my physical abilities because like we said, we'd just get on with life. In 2018, having fully recovered, I went on to become a head coach of the Olympic development program for soccer. I opened my own sports performance gyms and out here in Los Angeles we'd have international sports athletes flying and train. Very, very successful. And I was out on a bike ride 'cause I raced the Iron Man and a metal gate was brought down on my head by a security guard at 22 miles an hour. Jesus. I was knocked unconscious immediately and had a secondary impact. My helmet broke open and part of my brain died and I had to learn to talk again, learn to function, learn to move.
Dan (4m 20s):
And everything that I had gone through helping others was suddenly put back onto me. And so it was a gift. And that's really where understanding the human body, understanding the importance of mindset and commitment and discipline to ourselves to do what we know we should do became my personal journey. Both for myself as an example 'cause it's very easy to preach to others, but also how could I help others understand before they went through a major accident to invest in themselves.
Brian (4m 55s):
And I know you wrote the book Born Superhuman. When? When was that written? What year?
Dan (4m 60s):
2024. It was last year. I finally wrote it. It was one of those things, we all say we're gonna write a book or we're gonna do something and it just, you know, drags on. But the timing was right and I'd had enough experience having lived it and trained tens of thousands of people to say, now it's not just a theory, it's proof.
Brian (5m 20s):
And how many years did you perform for?
Dan (5m 22s):
Well I went on to movies, shot a bunch of movies out here, but on stage about eight years I was performing on stage and then I switched over, went into movies, but I would still go back on stage when I could as well.
Brian (5m 36s):
Oh, do you miss that doing that? I
Dan (5m 38s):
Miss the stage, the theater. It is funny. I left England and the tour of the world done everything thinking that if I went to Hollywood I'm gonna be this big celebrity and I'd have all the, you know, movies and everything. I never got the satisfaction shooting TV shows and movies that I got on stage. So yeah, live performing and being engaged with an audience really has that energy that I feed off of and hopefully feed them.
Brian (6m 2s):
Yeah. And so the things that you learned from performing, how did you, how did that spill into like helping, I know you said you opened up a facility or helped with athletes that were, were these Olympic athletes?
Dan (6m 14s):
Yeah, I trained everyone from world record holders to Olympic athletes. To my specialty was really soccer, you know, football backing. That was my background and how can we get the highest level of performance with the talent that we've got? And people will say, well you're just talented. But I have that 2% factor that's our character, our courage that would turn around and say this is what I should be, but how can I exceed? Because there's I saying people say, just be the best you can be. Well the only way you can find out to be the best you can be is by trying to be the best. 'cause we can settle under our highest level. So if you are, if you settle for second, you can never finish higher than third because somebody is still chasing first.
Dan (7m 0s):
And I'm talking about in the game of life. So challenge yourself. But the lessons that I learned on stage was rehearsals. You've got to practice. If you want to have the greatest performance, you've gotta invest the time into the end result that you're going for. 'cause the journey is often much better than the result you get to, it's putting in your own work, it's making sure that you get onto schedules and you commit to them because everything you remove will end up coming back to bite you later. Or if you're doing something wrong, removing it will come back and reward you later.
Brian (7m 36s):
What would you say, I mean, working with like high performing athletes, like what sets the great ones apart? You know, and I know this gets talked about a lot, but you know, I mean I'm, I grew up in Chicago so we've, we've had some great ones here, you know, Michael Jordan and and so on and so forth. What would you say like sets the, the great athletes apart?
Dan (7m 55s):
Yeah, it's really interesting. We, there's studies that have been done and I'm a huge believer that when you get to the highest level, athletic ability is not the determining factor because they're pretty much all good. And I got to work with Mike Dicker for a little while, which I know you'll be very aware of there. And then Willie Gult, I dunno if you know Willie Gult. So I worked with him and when you look at the lowest or the low performing professionals that don't stand out, but they made it and you look at the highest performing amateurs that are way more talented, the difference between a low level professional and an amazing amateur is really decision making because the decisions you make will determine the outcome.
Dan (8m 38s):
Both getting onto the field of play and also whether you actually get to be a good performer on the field. A lot of times amateurs will look and say, I've got to be special all the time. I've got to keep proving myself. Whereas I'm a huge believer, simplicity will reveal the moments of brilliance. I'll say that again. Simplicity will reveal the moments of brilliance. If you are always looking for that special moment, you'll never see it and then you're forcing it. But if you turn around and just do what's right, do the simple think tactically of what you're doing that moment to show your individual brilliance will emerge.
Brian (9m 17s):
Yeah, I mean you see this like this like high level performing amateurs that don't quite make it or you see individuals that even like let's just say that come out of the draft the NFL And you know these, all these professional scouts are scouting these guys and they don't even know if they're gonna make it. And it's like, it's such a fine line when you get to a certain point for high, you know, high level athletes And you know, I'm a big golfer so I, I, you know, there's a fine line between being really good and just being like, you know, great. And it's just, that's an interesting topic.
Dan (9m 49s):
Yeah. Dustin Johnson used to come and work at my gym. Wow. And train there. And it is, it's a very specific mindset and if you look, we're all in the game of life and we look at high performing athletes, but all of us have that potential. And within the seven pillars that I have for natural health and exceeding expectation, mindset is one of them. And when you watch those high performers, they're so focused when they train because they know that they're training for a reason. And
Brian (10m 20s):
Yeah,
Dan (10m 21s):
It's just incredible when you, when you look at their daily routines and discipline and there's a saying that I love, the magic we seek is in the work we avoid, the magic we seek is in the work we avoid, we know we should be doing it. And yet for some reason because we don't enjoy it, we don't want to commit to it. You know, I used to say if you want to be a soccer player, you've gotta love to run. And if you don't love to run, you gotta pretend you love to run 'cause you can't get around it. So if you want to be a pro, do the work and find a way to understand you have to love it because it is part of what you want to achieve.
Brian (10m 60s):
Do you, do you find like some athletes just burn out And you know, I know one of your pillars is, is it recovery or mindset? Exercise, nutrition, sleep, hydration. Yeah, sleep. I would call that recovery, right? Like you see that sometimes where athletes are like obsessed with something but then they just become sort of burnt out. Yeah,
Dan (11m 19s):
I think it depends on seeing the big picture. Because often they'll isolate something that becomes obsessive and then you either get bored, like you said, you are burnt out because it's no longer serving your energy. And so much of that, as you said Brian, is because we are not recovering, we don't take time to step away. I'm a huge believer in youth of cross training. We're so obsessed these days especially. And I think a lot of burnout at the younger ages comes from parental push rather than personal passion. And we see that in all sports. But I think at the higher levels I'm seeing this transition of celebrity over passion.
Dan (12m 5s):
And a lot of that's down to, I believe, agents pressure on commercial exposure. When you look at the greats of all time, they weren't out there focusing on other things as part of their glory. You know, Kobe Bryant was a classic example of someone that loved to be on the court and training and everything else fit into his system. There's a great story back at Manchester United. I'm not a Manchester United fan so I don't, I hope I don't offend anybody, but Wayne Rooney was the big celebrity in Sir Alex Ferguson as the coach was very demanding. That's why they were so successful. 'cause everyone understood the system. But Wayne showed up and said, I've got a commercial, I've gotta go shoot and Alex fer, you don't do that.
Dan (12m 47s):
You don't fit. I don't care if Nike's coming in and paying you millions of dollars, you are here to train and this will always be your first commitment. I think people get distracted and find other things.
Brian (12m 59s):
And I think now more than ever, right, like so many distractions. I mean even in the college game, you know the whole, I don't know if you're familiar like NIL, where they, you know, they're getting paid for their likeness and their, what they're doing on social media and this is just pulling away from them, you know, mastering whatever they wanna master.
Dan (13m 18s):
Yeah. Think about most players would mature and start be their greater self between 26 and 30. Yeah. You know, because they've gone through the, the training, the learning, the re rising to the level learning off of older experienced athletes and then they come into their own and really take over, you know, maybe 26 to 30 is what I, I believe in soccer where now you are looking at these great kids that between 18 and 22 are doing unbelievable things and then they disappear. By 23 you don't see them anymore. No. And there's very few that last because they suddenly, at a bad game, I'll go by myself, a new Lamborghini, I don't feel good, all, all these different things instead of get back on the, on the field.
Dan (14m 3s):
And it's hard because that's the way society's gone and it's very easy for me to say when I was younger, it's the worst thing, you know, we used to do this, well we're living in a different world, but how do we navigate that world to continue to allow talent and passion to flourish later.
Brian (14m 20s):
Yeah. And so do you have any good stories of some athletes you've worked with or just you've, you know, you've had a li a lot of life experiences, any, any good stories Stand out?
Dan (14m 31s):
I got so many stories, all different ages things. Taken a 12-year-old soccer player, Danny Barrera, who my team beat his team 13, nothing. But I saw this incredible talent even though he didn't shine that day. And I said, come play for my team. By the time he was 15, he was the number one ranked soccer player in America in his age group. Went to the US national team and went on to play professionally as well. Brilliant talent, but it's the right person. And here it sounds egotistical. I was just the right person for him. I wasn't right for everybody. But finding the right mentorship. Then when you start getting into high performing players, there was a guy called Michael Laud who played in the MLS.
Dan (15m 16s):
He went to the championship, played for a number of different teams from Philadelphia to New York, Cosmo captain in Miami. And my favorite story with Michael was that he had kind of peaked in his own mind at around 27. And I started coaching him and really going back into the basics of mindset of commitment, of keeping the dream alive. And he was fantastic. I remember he called me from, he was with the New York Cosmos at the time. He had been taken on, this isn't the old NASL, north American Soccer League. And he called me on a Saturday and said, Dan, I've just been transferred.
Dan (15m 56s):
I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, well I didn't know Philadelphia owed my contract. I thought that the the cosmos had had bought me, but they actually had loaned me. And now Philadelphia's just sold me to Miami who were bottom in the division of the NASL. So I've gone from top team to bottom team, what am I gonna do? So I mentored him through that. There was a lot of transitions mentally, and this is a guy at the time was around 29, I believe 30 and frustrated. He ended up guiding Miami to their very first championship and winning the NASL. But again, he would fly in, he'd kinda stay at my place or stay here in southern California. I trained him for a few weeks.
Dan (16m 36s):
But then mentally it was really the mental training of how do you overcome the obstacles that you are seeing as a block. And I'm seeing as a growth, there's a great saying, I love Brian, that every level has its own devil. So if you think about it, every time you get to a certain point, we don't just naturally rise in level. There's something we have to learn, discover about ourselves so then we can view the opposition. And that could be an incident accident opponent. How do I take them down so that I can elevate? And when I say take 'em down, I'm talking about beat them in a performing situation in competition.
Dan (17m 16s):
We'll never get there if we don't look at the lesson we need to learn.
Brian (17m 20s):
Now are you, what's your time like now? Are you mainly spent doing it like speaking and are you still helping high performers or is that something that you know? Yeah,
Dan (17m 29s):
So I went on, I created a balanced training system after I had my brain injury and had to learn to talk and walk properly and function properly. I understood the power of brain to body connection. And this is for everybody When we're kids, we didn't go to a gym to learn how to walk. We got up and it was our brain connected to our body and the speed of thought to action, to sensory information going back to the brain to either confirm we're doing great or we need to alter 'cause something's off. So I have a company called Total Balance Company, which trains brain to body connections, which is actually where I was working with Willie G.
Dan (18m 10s):
And so then I ended up moving on and training a lot of seniors, older people, people with ms, Parkinson's, Axia, stroke survivors, but then a lot of youth that just wanted to be better in movement, which was great. So I have that Born Superhuman, I'm doing a lot of time talking training people. I have a six week training program coming up that will increase the quality of your life. But I work with a lot of older celebrities. I've just been outreached to go and train a very, very famous person. I won't say his name, but Ozzy is a great guy and, and so it's really not convoluted, it's really focused on how can we maximize everyone's potential.
Dan (18m 50s):
We are born to live and fully function at a cellular level for about 122 years. So why are we expiring earlier and why aren't we performing longer in life? So that's my passion that I'm really invested in now.
Brian (19m 5s):
Yeah, it's, you know, you have your pillars maybe we can touch on on those. Oxygen, hydration, sleep, nutrition, you know, we talk a lot about sleep, nutrition, exercise, a bit about mindset and then challenges, which is interesting. Perhaps we can, you know, highlight some of those And you know, for just the general population, individuals who are just looking to, you know, just be the best they can be. They're not maybe performing in at the Olympics or doing anything, you know, like that. You know, what are some of those high level, you know, sort of tips that you could give those individuals?
Dan (19m 37s):
Yeah, so the seven pillars came in because I looked at what's most important in life and health shouldn't cost money if we want to excel or go to a higher level, sometimes we'll take supplements or you know, eating organic food is way better than going in and obviously just grabbing fast food and there is a cost or a price along those. But natural health shouldn't cost a thing if we're willing to commit. We tend to pay for comfort or ease rather than the discipline we need and save the money. So number one, oxygen. If we don't have oxygen between three and five minutes, our brain goes into a decline. And at the same time, if we breathe correctly or increase our quality of oxygen or SPO two intake, it's amazing the energy that we build because our oxygen feeds the energy into our cells.
Dan (20m 29s):
And I don't know, some of the readers may be surprised if you breathe through your right nostril, you can hold your left nostril, breathe through the right, it connects into the left side of your brain. That's your sympathetic system, which will actually help you get even more energy. There's so many things about breathing that can increase the value of our content. So that's for me, oxygen health, it also includes air quality. So many people are living in toxic environments in your home. If you have mold, if you live, if you park your car next to your, you know, back windows and you're turning on, it's coming in. It affects our ability at acellular level. So be smart. It's almost like going back to when we didn't have things we were still good.
Dan (21m 12s):
Second one, hydration. This is probably my biggest one. Most people don't realize that they're under hydrated 'cause the body is brilliant at adapting to the situation that we are in to survive. A study just came out that said that 75% of adult Americans in a chronic state of dehydration, 75% in a chronic state, that means we are underperforming in everything we are doing because when we are dehydrated, the oxygen can't get around the body as easily. Our body has to work harder to go. And part of the reason is we're either not drinking healthy drinks and whatever goes in, if we're taking these high caffeinated energy drinks ca that are making up for lack of sleep, lack of recovery with faking our body into a system that will catch up with us.
Dan (22m 6s):
If you have any questions, just jump in.
Brian (22m 8s):
I'll just move on. Yeah, no, I was just, I was a couple, couple thoughts for one, the, it's interesting, the oxygen one, I, I bought these nose strips and I was like, oh, I, I've obviously seen them and I've had some issues with some snoring, so I'm trying to work on that. But, so I bought mouth tape and I bought nose strips and put those on at night and it takes a little while to get used to, but what I noticed with the nose strips is, I mean my level of oxygen intake from my nose so much better. Like I, I never even knew what, you know, why everyone would wear, not everyone, but why pe you know, athletes you'd see would wear them. Now I can understand and we all know the importance of, you know, breathing through your nose versus your mouth. Is that something you, you worked on or you talked about with athletes and stuff?
Dan (22m 51s):
Yeah, I, I tend to do a lot of nose breathing and recovery time when we're high exertion it's about getting the oxygen. So I'm a big believer in dual breathing. Try and get both your mouth and your nose going when we're working at, you know, 90 to a hundred percent max. Sure heart rate do it when you're wanting to recover. Nose breathing I found encourages more of an intake and often a deeper breathing as well.
Brian (23m 17s):
Yeah. And then hydration. When you talk about hydration, I mean some of that can come from the foods we eat, right? Like if, if we're eating, obviously, you know, fruits and vegetables, you're getting hydration that way as well. But drinking is that more so around like mineral water and things like that are, are like, you know, putting some salt in your water because I know that like just water, I mean obviously you want a quality water, but hydration is, you know more than just drinking water,
Dan (23m 45s):
Right? Yeah. There's different types of water. There's also dirty water. Most water that we do drink is dirty and our system is made to have its own internal ability to separate out the contaminants obviously. But we know, and I just take this slightly different direction. At a high performing level, 3% dehydration can lead to up to 20% under performance. Think about that 20% under performance and 3% dehydration. That's because our hydration feeds our brain, not just our body. In fact about 25% of everything we breathe is consumed by the brain. And it's same when we go to drink as well. As far as taking like salt in there, you don't wanna do that all the time 'cause you can over sodium the body if that's the right way to say it.
Dan (24m 32s):
And that can cause a dehydration effect on its own. However, doing that is really good. Just you can just put a, a piece of salt, Celtic salt or pink Himalayan salt or something on your tongue and then just sort that it does help. But I'm a huge proponent for hydrogen water. If you look at H two oh H two is hydrogen. Oh is the oxygen. That's what creates water itself. But there's a lot of fake hydrogen water out there and the pH stands for potential hydrogen in water. And so when you start looking at anything at a pH 9.5, we're getting close to now a toxic water.
Dan (25m 13s):
So you 9.5 is fine, but when you take hydrogen water, add more hydrogen, it can actually lead to a toxic water we're going in and our filtration system in our body now gets overloaded, which means it can't work on other things. I'm a big believer in sipping water, not drinking water. We've all been there, we are really thirsty. Oh feel dehydrated. By the time you felt dehydrated you're already dehydrated. So we'll grab a bottle we'll down the bottle and suddenly we feel our gut expanded, we feel bloated and we then go And you know, urinate most of it out 'cause our body can't dissolve or dilute that water into cellular effect that quickly. And we can actually drown cells so we can overload them.
Dan (25m 54s):
So I'm a big believer in here, Brian, first thing in the morning when you wake up, have a bottle of water by your bed and sip that bottle of water as soon as you wake up and then sip it through the first hour. Because we will have gone through, if you're sleeping for eight hours, that's eight hours of dehydration that's going on. But even more importantly for me is drinking before you go to bed. And people would tell me, what if I drink before I go to bed? I'm gonna wake up and we need our sleep. You wanna sleep before eight hours and then that can disrupt my energy for the next day. Well what you do is you work in mouthfuls. So an hour before you go to bed, take one mouthful of water, 45 minutes before you go to bed, take one mouthful of water, not big mouthfuls, just a bit 30 minutes, 15 minutes.
Dan (26m 39s):
And the last thing you do before you go to bed, take a mouthful of water. Because when we're sleeping we are dehydrating. But when we sleep is when we recover. If I break it down even more, our blood we're thicken. When we are dehydrated. Which means that now it's harder to get the oxygen, which is our life force around our body. And when we sleep at night, that's when the brain detoxes is when it takes its memory of the day puts into different areas. But people don't, I've only recently discovered that when people sleep, it's the only time the brain actually flashes completely on and completely off. 'cause normally it's firing all over the place a bit like, you know, Christmas tree lights going on off, on, off.
Dan (27m 23s):
We still don't know why it does that, but there is a moment when we sleep, the whole body is put into a paralyzed state just for for many seconds. But that's when we freeze the body. The brain goes, I can go to work. But it also is where it fixes the body. Now if we are dehydrated when we sleep, the body's now working really hard to try and pump that oxygen around the body. So the thicker our blood, because we are dehydrated, the harder the body works at night. So I'm a huge believer drink before you go to bed in sips. 'cause you can absorb it, it won't be urinated out, it's a little bit the body will take. And then when you wake up in the morning, most important time to drink to get your system after eight hours of not being hydrated to feed you through the day.
Brian (28m 12s):
Got it. Yeah, that was the first thing I thought of when you said before bed you should drink. I said I'll be peeing, I'll be, I'll be peeing all night. But I guess if you do a little bit at a time, probably, probably not too bad.
Dan (28m 23s):
Yeah. And your body will adjust to it. But again, I'm talking just a, a mouthful. We'll like you said, we can get hydration from food without a doubt. We just have to understand that still has to be broken down and shared rather than the media uptake within the body.
Brian (28m 38s):
Okay. We've hit three of 'em. Nutrition, this could be the wide gambit. I've had a lot of different, you know, guests on the show talking about nutrition And what are your thoughts around that And you know, for high performance? Yeah,
Dan (28m 50s):
I'm a, well this is a really tough one because everyone's different and this is where we get so many opinions, right? I would suggest if anybody's interested in finding out what they should be taking to get a DNA test, there's, we are all different. I had no idea that I don't have the gene that transports heat out of my body. I'd always, I'd race bikes. It's my passion and I couldn't understand why when it went over 75 degrees out here in England, it was great. It was barely over 75 anytime I can remember. And on those days I would suffer. But out here over 75, I can't race on the bike as well.
Dan (29m 31s):
I just feel terrible. I didn't know I was missing that gene. I'll bring this back to, to food. Yeah. But once I got my DNA and understood that I didn't have that gene, it made sense. My body's overheating. And so I'm like what can I do to be able to reduce the so colder water? Do I have to have ice packs? Do I have to find some way to assist? But at the same time, there's different things that you can take that will help remove that, the heat as well. So I needed that specifically. No one ever told me that. 'cause they didn't know once I got my DNA test done, I'm not talking about a 23 and me or an ancestry.com, that's just base level.
Dan (30m 11s):
I'm talking going into a full on DNA test that will cost around $400 to do. But you get back every one of your gene makeup. And that would determine, I found out I was gluten intolerant. I didn't know that. I thought that, you know, eating pasta was great for me. I don't absorb pasta very well. So they'd give me specifics just for me. And there's an amazing company that I'm working with that has a personalized test without even having to go and do blood work or anything in there, or even saliva work. So if people out there go search, they will find what is the best food for them. If you're missing certain genes, a Mediterranean diet will actually make you worse.
Dan (30m 56s):
I am a big believer in fasting to then absorb more food, or I shouldn't say food to absorb the, the body's potential to maximize your intake. But I'm not a big fast or as fast as people go, oh, I fast 12 hours a day or yeah, you go to sleep at eight and you wake up at eight or you don't, that's not really a fast because the changes in the body come from fasting. But I will say that the biggest change for me when it came to performance and with my athletes was, when you're hungry, don't eat when you're hungry, nourish. It's a whole different way of thing because when we're hungry, we just grab something and put it in to feel full and to, and to have that connection from brain to gut that we're doing better.
Dan (31m 40s):
So it's a really hard one for me to talk about nutrition specifically. Sure. And I, I've listened to your podcast. I know you talk about how important breakfast is. I know you talk about, you know, the, the bigger at breakfast, the smaller at lunch, and then the smaller at dinner. And that tends to go from our metabolism point of view and feeding the energy needed for the day. But I go more into nutrition on the nourishment, but I urge people, if you really want to perform at a higher level, get a DNA test done, it's worth, because the DNA you're born with is the same. You'll die with. You're not doing something that would change over time. You'll then get the ideologies and real for you.
Brian (32m 20s):
Yeah, no I, I mean I agree. I think that, I mean we hear it all the time, but everyone does is is different and it's different foods effective different people. And then, you know, DNA testing is something I noticed on your website. Is that, is that the through kna? Is that Yeah,
Dan (32m 36s):
K Kashif Khan. Kif
Brian (32m 38s):
Khan. Okay. There's
Dan (32m 40s):
Another company I'm working with that does it even simpler, not to the same level as Kashif, but I was blown away by what they're doing. And that one's a less expensive option. You'll see them on my website as well.
Brian (32m 51s):
Yeah, there's a gut test as well. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, nowadays with all the testing, it's, it is, it is pretty remarkable what you can find out. And yeah, I mean, nutrition wise, I mean people are wanting like the magic, you know, the magic pill or this or that. And I think a lot of it just comes down to self experimentation and just figuring out what works. I mean, I've changed things up numerous times throughout the years and when I've clients it's not always just like a, you know, a perfect system right off the bat. You gotta sort of explore and see what works best for that, for that person. Yeah,
Dan (33m 22s):
I think there was so much convoluted into sales as far as it's all marketing, it's all money. And you see these fads that come in and this is the sale. There is no one thing that is the miracle. Right? And it's having a, a diverse option to keep feeding the body in different things. You know, we have all these supplementations that I think are great sometimes to help boost the system, but if we are relying on something that's not natural, it's also not giving us naturally what we need.
Brian (33m 56s):
Yeah. Yeah. I think I, I mean I, I used to spend more on supplementation. I feel like I've scaled back quite a bit on that. 'cause you know, you gotta make sure you, I mean, for certain purpose I think it's great, but you can throw a lot of money into supplementation and it could just be sort of this endless circle of, you know, maybe throwing money down the drain. So
Dan (34m 16s):
Think, think about when we go to the doctor, they'll do a blood test and see where we're at. So you need more iron, you need more zinc, you need this. Well then you're taking the dailies. But then when, how often are you doing your blood tests? No, am I just peeing it out now? Do I even need it? Have I boosted, our system is made to be brilliant and then we have some assistance. But once we kickstart the system, is it now back producing what we needed? Was it because we were not sleeping And now we're sleeping Now our body's producing or making again what we need. So the only way to know is to constantly be doing blood tests, which is ineffective financially, right.
Brian (34m 54s):
And stuff. Yeah. And a blood test is just a snapshot in time too. Yeah. So it's like, you know, who, you know, one day it could be obviously quite a bit different. I mean I'm sure there's some consistency over time, but you know, I usually do blood tests maybe once every six months, give or take. You know, some people do 'em every, every, I know some people who do m much more than that. I think you could drive yourself a little bit crazy with that.
Dan (35m 16s):
Yeah, absolutely. I think again, like you said, go off a feeling, get some data information, but trust yourself. Nobody should know your body better than you know it. And that comes from feeling and adjusting before it becomes a problem.
Brian (35m 32s):
What about exercise? I mean obviously, you know, if you have an athlete and they're training for something specific, then it's a little bit different. I mean, we talk a lot about just the, the, the basics of just resistance training. I'm a big fan of, you know, avoiding hyper, you know, avoiding a sarcopenia and, and at least maintaining or growing some muscle over time. What are your thoughts around exercise?
Dan (35m 57s):
Yeah, I think it's critical. It's, when we look at the life expectancy of people, we can re relay it back to the investment they've put into their physical health. It was crazy when I did my DNA test with Kashif Khan and then I went and did a, a study. I studied with him as well, extensively. And it said that I shouldn't be doing cardio as much as I should be doing weight training. My body is made for weight training and and resistance training. And yet here I am racing bikes. That's my passion. I'm like, no, I didn't want to know that. Yeah, right. But getting back into the gym, my body changed. We're all different. And again, that's where DNA test would tell us. But we know that hand strength has a direct relationship to longevity.
Dan (36m 38s):
In other words, grip strength. And you get that with resistance training. It directly affects the heart. I'm a big believer, Brian, for about the last five months I've been doing blood flow restriction training.
Brian (36m 52s):
Cool. Yeah, I've seen some people do that. I've not done it myself. How's that been going?
Dan (36m 57s):
Incredible. Yeah, it's absolutely incredible. Especially as we mature in our bodies. I'm, I used to use 40 to 50 pound bicep curl dumbbells and stuff like that. I'm now down to using 15 to 20 pounds and I'm getting so much more results. Blood flow restriction gives you a growth hormone increase right away. The muscle stimulation, the restriction of the blood flow, the immediate increase of capillaries or capillaries depending on where you come from, the longevity of the effect of the workout. After I, I, I always resisted it 'cause I didn't, whatever we were just resisting blood.
Dan (37m 37s):
What's the big difference? There's a story of a lady who was in a coma for months. They started doing blood flow restriction training with her in the coma. She put on 20 pounds of muscle in a coma. And here we are doing, you know, most guys and a lot of ladies now as well that I watch and working out harder than ever are working so hard to put on muscle. That's what we want. And the stimulation of the growth hormone through blood flow restriction is something that I'm a huge fan of. But again, it's gotta be done right. You can actually stop your cells from functioning if you do it wrong. So it's making sure that you, you have the right system and and doing it right and not getting egotistical, getting educational.
Brian (38m 19s):
And the advantage of that is too, you can, like you just said, you can use less weight and get the same results. And I think as we get older, like I don't try to lift much heav, you know, I don't try to really lift too heavy anymore. You know, I'm not 25 years old and it's all about just a lot of times just making sure I'm not getting injured. So that's where the cuffs. Is there a certain company that you like for the, for the blood flow restriction?
Dan (38m 45s):
Yeah, there's the one that I use. It is the most expensive system. I've always gone in and, and paid for what I do. But I'm a big believer if it's something you wanna invest in, invest the money. Don't go cheap. It's the same with hydrogen water. Find the best company, don't find the cheapest company. 'cause the cheapest ones normally are feeding off of somebody else's technology to try and make money rather than serve you. And Kasu is the one that I personally use right now. But Saga is the other one as well.
Brian (39m 14s):
Saga, I was just SAGA,
Dan (39m 16s):
Correct. Yeah. I have the CEO coming on to, I've got a podcast with the CEO of Kasu, which is when I first heard about it and he let me try it during the podcast. It was pretty crazy.
Brian (39m 28s):
Oh that's cool.
Dan (39m 29s):
I did that and then, and then I got the CEO of Saga coming on as well. 'cause I really want people to understand the education, not the product. And if you do then you'll decide, is this for me or is this not?
Brian (39m 40s):
Yeah, I, I go down to Florida quite a bit and Paul O'Neill, he used to play for the Yankees. I don't know if you know with baseball, but he, you know, they won the World Series winner. He is been the all-star games and he's in his fifties but he looks great and he's, he's he swears by blood flow restriction. He's been doing it for a couple years now.
Dan (39m 59s):
Yeah, I'd encourage anybody of any age if you really want to, you don't have to do it all the time. Right. 'cause I think it's sometimes good to go and just have those workouts where you let go. 'cause when you're doing blood flow restriction, your muscles will be so pumped up that it's actually not painful in a bad way. Painful in the way that we try and work with heavier weights, as you were saying. We want that ego. But again, it will increase your oxygen intake as well, which means that you can recover quicker. It's great for recovery, not just from when you're working out. I'll be here sitting at the computer working and I'll have my, you know, leg blood flow restriction straps on and know that I'm getting a recovery and an impact while I'm sitting here working.
Dan (40m 41s):
Yeah,
Brian (40m 42s):
I'm gonna check out. I was just looking up saga to, looks like a pretty, pretty top high end nice product. Yeah,
Dan (40m 49s):
I'm gonna do, I just partnered up with, I, I shouldn't say partnered up with, I'm working very closely with Dan Solomon who's the president of Mr. Olympia. I'll be there with him this year at Mr. Olympia and working some of the protocols as well that we do. And it's really an incredible, I got Dan Solomon on my podcast as well. So if anybody's interested in checking it out because information for me is everything. Not everything we hear we have to do. We have to decide what's right for us. But that's why it's all about sharing information and you'll make the right decisions for you on the right things to do.
Brian (41m 23s):
And last couple pillars, mindset and then challenges. What? Yeah.
Dan (41m 28s):
Yeah. So mine are in order right of survival. Our brain is only created to keep us alive. And that does it by keeping us safe. The brain is actually very lazy. It wants us to sit down and do nothing. 'cause then it's safe. Our mindset will determine what we do with our life. So when I teach, even though mindset is number six in my list, it's number one that I teach. 'cause if you don't have the right mindset then you won't stick to the other things in there. You've got to be invested. And that comes from your desire. You know, our brain and our mind are two separate things and our mind will determine the impact our brain will have on ourselves. I think it's, for me, you can overcome anything with the right mindset.
Dan (42m 12s):
And I don't believe in hope. This is a big thing for me when I'm training people, working with people or listening to people. If anybody says, well I hope it I do this or I hope this happens, I already know they're a procrastinator because hope means I'm waiting for something to come to me to then benefit me. I always talk about belief. If you believe in you, that's a proactive non procrastinating word. Because if I believe I'll do it, there has to be a force behind the belief. If you hope it's you will never overcome. So don't. And people say, I hope I have a great day. You are leaving it to everybody else. I believe I'll have a great day.
Dan (42m 53s):
You are already in a different energy state. So mindset does cover many different things. It's not just the way we think. It's the power potential is only as good as the force behind us. The force will be the mindset. We have to have goal setting, we have to have many different things involved with our mindset. And then that also involves discipline. Because remind me to, to talk to you. There's one little nugget I'd love for people to think about when it comes back to exercise. It just came to me. Oh sure. But we will never overcome or achieve what we don't believe And what we see. But our character is who we are. I don't believe we have choices in life.
Dan (43m 33s):
And people say, well, hang on a minute. Of course we have choices. I can choose to work out. I can choose to stay in bed. I, I say, well if you are really dedicated to working out, try staying in bed. Lie there and say I'm gonna choose later to not go work out. I'm not gonna work out. And you're like, you know, I can't do that. I have to get up and work out. I know it's good for me. It's not a choice. If I said, Hey Brian, here's some cocaine. It's a nice line of it. It's top quality. I got it in from Columbia. It's supposedly the rest. Here take it. Are you gonna go down and take that cocaine? No. Why not? It's a choice. You see right away your character says, I know it's not good for me. I'll suffer from it. Even if it supposedly gives me a high.
Dan (44m 15s):
I've never done drugs. But even if it gives me a high and I feel great, it's only gonna bring my life down. It's not even a choice. It's a character decision that determines the path you'll take. So when you are committed to working out, it's not because you choose to work out. There's something in you that's your character and says, even when I don't want to do it, I'm going to do it when I feel great. I can't wait to do it, but I stay committed. And when we waver, it's because we make it up that it's our choice. We waver choices. Or an ego or an excuse. Look at what I did. Look how great I made that choice. We take the credit. As soon as it goes wrong we blame something else. 'cause we don't wanna look at ourselves.
Dan (44m 55s):
Whereas character can't be avoided. This is who we are. And when we make a decision, if somebody, one of your listeners is in a place I'm wavering back and I keep putting on weight, I lose weight, I put on weight, I'm not feeling good. I'm not, it's not because you're making the wrong choices. It's 'cause you haven't set your character yet. Because you are more powerful than any obstacle that's gonna face you. And when you make the decision that this is who I am and nothing's going to waver, you will get the results, you'll be tested in your character, not in your decision making.
Brian (45m 30s):
So it's almost like a, like a self-identity thing, right? You know like, 'cause you know some people just don't like to work out. Right? They find any excuse in the book. And you're saying it's not about that, that day-to-day decision. It's more or less how they identify themselves. Is that so
Dan (45m 48s):
Yeah, it's even more, I, I think it's more than self identity. It's really just who am I? If I sat down and said who I, it's not about lifting. If someone doesn't love lifting weights, they shouldn't do it. But they should be committed to something that provides a physical health. So maybe it's going hiking, maybe it's swimming, maybe it's going out and just walking every morning at sunset for 20, 30 minutes. That's giving you a physical action. When you sit down on the sofa and say, I'm not gonna, I, I don't care anymore. You know, I, I should be doing it but I'm not committed. To me, that's not a decision, that's a character. And I'm not here to criticize your character. I'm here to say if you want to have the best in life, which will include, which will come onto challenges, you have to have the character to say, this is who I am.
Dan (46m 38s):
And no one's going to waver me away from my pride, self-pride, self-love, which is not selfish. And be everything that I'm born to be. And a lot of it comes from laziness or lack of confidence, but lack of confidence is a character trait. How do I turn that around? By going inside of me and saying, what are my non-negotiables? What are the things that I will be proud to stand here even if everybody put me down for it? Because misery tends to love company. And when we step outside the box, people pull us back in. Not because they don't want us to succeed because we are exposing them. When we can have our own character and stamp it down and say, this is who I am, no matter the environment I am in, I'm proud of me.
Dan (47m 26s):
People would turn around and secretly admire you even if they admonish you. Yeah,
Brian (47m 31s):
No those are great points. And I like a couple things came to mind is one, I think what helps too is who you surround yourself with I think can go a long way. I'm sure you'll, you see that with high performing athletes. I mean if they're around people who are, if not their level or better, it can help push them and, and then the other thing I, there was one other thing I was thinking about that. But environment I think is a big, like if you can put the, put yourself in an environment and that'll help you thrive, I think that'll go a long way. Yeah,
Dan (48m 2s):
I love that you brought that up. It's a great point Brian, because we do become our environment and there's a say out there, I'm not a hundred percent behind, But it makes sense. We become the median of the five people we spend our most time with. Sure. Like we've all heard that you don't wanna be the smartest person in the room 'cause it pulls you down at the same time. You don't want to be the least in the room in your own perception because then you don't feel like you fit. But for me, the number one environment you need to put yourself in is your internal. Until you figure out who you are, you will always be swayed. 'cause I can go into an environment that I don't fit in and still be myself because I will remove myself at the right time before I'm affected.
Dan (48m 48s):
'cause I know it's not my environment. But until we establish our own, it's the most important environment is the one that we build inside of ourselves. And it's incredible. My, my passion is the brain. I studied the brain because of my brain injury and mirror neurons. These are the things when I talk to you Brian, when you connect with someone, when we look at someone we're walking down the street and there's someone really angry, we feel that off of them. And it sometimes can pull us down. So I'm very conscious of my mirror neurons. If I see someone not full of energy, I raise my energy. And even if I make contact and I go good morning, as I walk by them, I notice they're a little shocked and oh good morning.
Dan (49m 28s):
It suddenly gets them out. Whose mirror neurons, whose energy is the highest to impact or not take down the other person. So our envi environment, our internal know who you are and be brave enough to be proud to stand up for your commitment. Don't let other people take you down.
Brian (49m 47s):
And speaking of the brain, this brain tap I noticed on your websites is something that you like. Are you back?
Dan (49m 52s):
Yeah. Incredible. Dr. Patrick Porter, he is a guru when it comes to brain science. And he created this headset that includes light therapy that will give you ural beats. It has different frequencies 'cause our brain is made up of different frequencies. We've got alpha, beta, delta, gamma, theta, different brainwaves, zeta brainwaves that are in there. And our sympathetic, which is our stress system and our parasympathetic will go through different changes during the day. And after my brain injury, I met with Dr. Patrick who then saw the system that I had built brain to body training. And he used my system.
Dan (50m 33s):
I tried his, it was fantastic. It's great, helps with sleep. But even more during the day, it can take you out of a stress system, your, you know, sympathetic system into a parasympathetic system, which allows you to think clearer and not let emotions and stress take over. It does much more than that. But I have the system here. I use it. I, I actually do brain training where I could sit here with you, Brian, and I could put these electrodes on you. I could see exactly how your brain's functioning, tell ya what your, what different, whether you're in a parasympathetic state, whether you're in a stress state. And then I could have the brain tap change the way your brain slowly is functioning to give you better function.
Dan (51m 19s):
It it, it's dynamic. But I don't sell products. That's one thing I wanna say in here. I only promote what I use, what I use with athletes, what I use with my family, what I use with regular people. But if I'm not using it myself, I won't promote it. And I buy everything myself because if I'm not willing to pay for it, why should anybody else pay? I, I don't, nobody can buy me to sell a product that I don't believe in.
Brian (51m 43s):
Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I'll check that out. And then you wanted me to remind you of the fitness? Yeah.
Dan (51m 49s):
So this is what was fascinating for me to learn because it was against what I always believed. And again, going into the brain And what we're discovering changed this, have you ever heard of muscle memory? Okay, yes. There's no such thing as muscle memory.
Brian (52m 3s):
Right.
Dan (52m 4s):
And people will go, well of course there's muscle. I'm, I was a head coach on the Olympic development program. Of course there's muscle memory. I did my whole life from being a dancer to lifting until I started studying into the brain. A muscle on its own can't move unless it has an electrical stimulation that comes from our motor neurons, which start with our thought process of what do I want to do? Then it goes into our motor cortex. We have our upper and lower motor neurons that then fire together that then say, I want to straighten my leg. There's an electrical impulse and the muscle then contracts. So it straightens. So if that's the case, then what we don't have is muscle memory because it can't do anything without an impulse being sent.
Dan (52m 47s):
So where does that come from? It comes from neuron memory, our neurons. By consistently having that action and connecting the thought to the action. Now impulses, the more we practice it, the faster the muscle we can get. Now we have muscle consistency or repetition of doing the same thing that can make us better. So, you know, I played darts with my girlfriend was, you know, constantly throwing those darts. There's a action that's repetitive, but it's the brain neuron memory. Memory and, and directives that are creating that action. So our strength comes from challenging the muscle, but our repetitive motion comes from the brain telling the muscle what to do and we adapt and adjust.
Dan (53m 33s):
If something isn't right, which means we are sensory in the brain, information is now changing how we're telling that muscle to place itself or react. So if we break it down and look at it and say, if we don't have muscle memory, we've heard, if you don't use it, you lose it. If we don't train, we get worse. That's the muscle strength. But we're also taking away the messaging from the brain to the muscle. So really do things that challenge the brain to constantly be aware. So I see people in the gym all the time. They'll go in there, they'll do their bench press, they'll do the stuff, they're not even thinking, they're listening to music, they're totally inactive.
Dan (54m 16s):
When we are doing exercises that don't challenge the brain's conscious awareness, we are not actually keeping that connection of brain to body. So I urge people do things that challenge you. Mix it up
Brian (54m 29s):
Well. I always encourage like learning as an adult is different. I've been learning to play guitar and it, I, I'm really enjoying it. I think as an adult you can, you say as a kid you just sort of do it and like, I'm sure it probably comes fairly easy to some kids, but as an adult it's, it's first of all, you gain respect for people who can actually really play guitar. Yeah. And also you realize how much you actually learn while you're not doing it. Like, I would play something one day and, and then, you know, go to bed, wake up and like I'm playing it better the next day. And maybe that's a little to talk about what you were just saying, how you sort of gain these neural connections while you're not even doing it as well.
Dan (55m 10s):
Yeah. So we know this comes down when a baby's born, it has roughly all the brain cells it will ever have. We have roughly 86 billion brain cells and a baby's born with pretty much 85 to 86 billion brain cells. What it doesn't have is the connections of how they're going to function together, right? The synapse, the thought process, which is why one baby brought up in one environment will learn a different way than another In another. We, we become what we're taught, what we see, what we feel. But the brain is only created to keep us safe. So once we stop having to explore safety, then it turns round, the brain goes good, I can actually shut that down.
Dan (55m 54s):
I don't have to continue to learn. So there's a thing, if you learn a lot of languages when you're a kid, that part of the brain stays open because it's part of your learning process. But if you learn one language and you don't then continue to push the language thought, the brain goes, I know how to survive. It actually closes the door. That makes it much harder to learn later. And so it's the same within, when we get to roughly 26, 27, the brain says, I know everything I need to know. It begins to shut down what it doesn't need anymore. And we have to open that up, right, to get the brain to think again. So you are going through that process, which is brilliant because our brain can always learn, we can always agree, we can always create new neural pathways.
Dan (56m 40s):
It just gets harder. 'cause the brain goes, don't need to do that. I'm gonna shut it down. I'll focus on what I need to stay alive. And I think it's brilliant what you're doing. The hippocampus that I love is my favorite part of one of my favorite parts of the brain, which is where memories store, where we create new memories that then shares it through the brain, is what you are increasing. And we can increase the size of the hippocampus by doing new things and challenging ourselves. How's your fingers by the way? I, when I start to, oh they were hard.
Brian (57m 11s):
You know what? I thought I was actually gonna be worse and I was a little worried 'cause I, you know, I play other, do other things, golf And you know, some basketball toxic, but you, your fingers adapt. You get used to it. And I just try to practice a little bit every day. So it's not like I'm playing for hours. But yeah, it, I always encourage people to learn things as an adult. I think it's a, it's a neat sort of, it's a different experience than, you know, 'cause I used to play some music when I was younger piano And you know, it's just, you don't, you don't appreciate it as much I think when you're younger as opposed to, you know, as you get older. So you know.
Dan (57m 44s):
Yeah. And keep doing it. Never stop doing it. Even if it's a new exercise in the gym. Something you gotta think about. Dr. Daniel Amon, who obviously is a brain specialist as well, talks about racket sports as being the best for the brain. Hmm. And I certainly wouldn't go against Daniel. I trust and believe what he says. It makes sense, everything he says. And I love table tennis because it keeps us constantly changing. There's no repetition. Exactly the same. Yeah. That's going on. So I encourage people to get out, whether it's handball, whether it's just throwing a ball against the wall and catching it. Anything to do with hand foot brain coordination. I strongly, even if it's just 2, 3, 4 minutes a day, get out to it.
Dan (58m 27s):
'cause it's great for your brain and movement. The other thing in here, Brian, is with exercise, they say that once, was it 70% of people over the age of 30 were never sprint again. I think there's something great about getting that sudden increase. There's a direct payoff and I, I do a lot of treadmill training, very different than I've seen other people do. I created this for the MLS soccer players that I was doing as testing and training. But learning how to get on and off of a treadmill while it's moving and then increasing. So you can do 10 minute sprint, I mean 10 minute, ten second sprints, six second sprints, even two second sprints, just to get it going. I think is really important for health, everyday health because we never know when we have to make a sudden acceleration movement for our own safety and falls over the age of 50 are the number one cause leading to death in seniors.
Brian (59m 21s):
Yeah, yeah. We've talked about some, you know, doing some high intensity like intervals or I had got a, his name is escaping me, but we talked about like high intensity repeat training you can do where, you know, quick sprints of, you know, it could be on treadmill potentially maybe even on a bike. I have a rogue echo bike, which is like a more of a CrossFit bike. It's the one with the fan on that thing's really tough and you could do like six, eight, second sprints, rest, but the rest and the recovery is just as important. Making sure that you can come back just as strong and not, you know, cause burnout from that. But yeah, it's something that I have to remind myself to do 'cause it's, you know, it's not easy and sprinting, not everyone has access to that, but you can do sprinting in all different kinds of sort of forms.
Brian (1h 0m 5s):
You could do it in the pool, you could do it on a bike or a row machine. And I think that's a, that's a, that's a good tip. Yeah.
Dan (1h 0m 11s):
I think that there's a saying that I love, which is aging is the excessive pursuit of static comfort. Yeah. Aging is the excessive pursuit of static comfort. In other words, we like to sit down and do less and less 'cause it's comfortable. And again, the brain wants us to do that. It keeps us safe. But I'm a huge believer to challenge your system. Like you said, push in, recover and then maybe the recovery time becomes shorter as we go. And we're not talking about excessive, we're just saying you want to feel that challenge. Which brings us onto the seventh pillar. If you are not challenging yourself and feeling the benefits of success, you will stop pursuing greatness.
Dan (1h 0m 55s):
And people say when you age, what's greatness? Well, greatness is being able to do whatever you want to do. And that only comes from challenges. I'm a huge believer, as I said, there's mental challenges, physical challenges, emotional challenges. And you know, people will look at spiritual challenges as well. Set the goal, the highest go for the biggest dreams. When we were born, we unknowingly signed a societal contract that said this is where we are and who we are. And when we stepped outside that box, when we challenged the system, we got pulled back in. We didn't even build the wol, what we are told. So when someone says, oh, I'm 60 years old, people say, oh, then you should be retiring.
Dan (1h 1m 35s):
Oh then you should be this. Oh you should be declining. And again, we talk about age living to 122 at full ability. We're not talking about full speed, we're talking about full ability. And we see all this stuff with blue zones and coming out now, well, it really comes down to ourselves and the telomeres at the end of the cells and how they get worn away from what we are doing to abuse ourselves or strengthen them up. But it's also our mindset which says, well I'm just gonna retire or I'm just going to stop retire. Rhymes with expire for a reason. Yeah. So I'm a huge believer, challenge yourself. Set goals. If you said, Hey, I wanted to play in the NBA, but I never made it. Doesn't mean to say you can't say, I'm gonna play on the best team, amateur team in my league and get the same emotional feelings because I've given up on the dream.
Dan (1h 2m 24s):
Or I wanna go climb this mountain. Or for someone that can't walk anymore, I'd love to walk around my block one time. That would be like a dream. Well, don't set that as the goal. Set something amazing as the goal. So if you just wanna walk around the block, say, I'd love to go to the beach and walk from this point to this point on the sand, if you never achieve it, but work towards it, you'll walk around the block easily,
Brian (1h 2m 49s):
Right?
Dan (1h 2m 49s):
If you've got, I want to put on 50 pounds of muscle and I want to compete in Mr. Olympia, maybe a hundred pounds of muscle that set that as your goal and target. If it's something that's passionate about you, you may never get there. But you will always be better by pursuing the greatest dream than you will by minimizing the challenge, which really is a cop out. It's a way to turn around and say, well, I'm not fully committed to myself. I'll just see if I make it. Go for it. Whatever you want. You look so much closer to achieving it if you commit to yourself.
Brian (1h 3m 26s):
Great place to to finish up, Dan. I appreciate it. Best place for people to find you Born
Dan (1h 3m 30s):
Superhuman dot com, both on Instagram and on our website. Our website has a ton of information and I have some programs coming out which are really about building you six week programs. And then I'm working on a retreat as well. I love being around people that are online. And then also my own personal is Instagram is Dan Metcalf official. Awesome.
Brian (1h 3m 54s):
Yeah, I'll, I will put Links in the show notes so everyone can find you. And glad we could collaborate and come onto to the podcast. So thanks so much again, Dan,
Dan (1h 4m 4s):
And thanks for what you do, Brian, because it's so important that we continue. I'm always learning, always. And anybody listening, I urge you. Keep listening to Brian. I've listened to many of his guests great information. We don't always accept, people won't accept everything I've said today, but keep learning, you'll find what's best for you. And my my wish is that everybody lives a life they're proud of and love waking up to every day.
Brian (1h 4m 31s):
Thanks Dan. Appreciate you coming on. Thanks for listening to the Get Lean Eat Clean Podcast. I understand there are millions of other podcasts out there and you've chosen to listen to mine and I appreciate that. Check out the show notes@briangrin.com for everything that was mentioned in this episode. Feel, feel free to subscribe to the podcast and share it with a friend or family member that's looking to get their body back to what it once was. Thanks again and have a great day.
