The Top 7 Belly Fat Burning Hacks For 2026 That Are PROVEN To Work!

here's the most important question. people ask me this question all the time. they say Steve what is your favorite. ever episode on the DI ofo podcast and I. think the more important question is. actually what is your favorite episode. on the DI of AO podcast of all time and. so I went out to try and answer that. question what is your favorite episode. what is your favorite moment on this. podcast of all time and using a data. scientist and a big team of analysts.

we've found the most replayed moments of. all the hundreds of episodes we've. produced this year to show to you today. these are the moments that you replayed. and shared more than any other moment on. this podcast. theoretically this should be the most. valuable D of a CEO episode you ever. listen to because it's a compation of. the most valuable moments that we've. ever had on this show in 2020.

[Music]. three the seventh most replayed moment. is my conversation with jles yo where he. takes on some of the biggest myths about. Health weight obesity and he answers the. question do we have to get fatter as we. age is it genetic what are the easy ways. to manage our weight after I read it in. your book about us gaining more and more. weight his we age I Googled it and the.

healthcare research and quality agency. said that we naturally tend to gain. weight as we age to the tune of 1 to2. pounds per year according to their. review and that's from the agency for. healthare research and quality which I. found quite startling but but completely. accurate so the numbers so what what the. numbers that we have is yeah I think. that's right actually so between 20 and. 50 years old those 30 years intervening. the average person average will gain.

about 15 kilos in weight which is 32. yes 2 pound a year one to 2 pound a year. 15 kilos in weight is gained over 30. years on average some gain very little. others gain a hell of a lot more we look. at ourselves in a mirror I look at. myself in a mirror um but it's true I. don't want to be that. guy mate I don't know how much choice. you have what can I do to to to try and. stay CU for me it's not really about the. weight thing or how you look it's more. about like. I I am I don't know how to say this but.

there was this big set of stairs the. other day really really long set of. stairs leading down to this Lake I was. in Indonesia a couple of months ago um. and I I remember thinking about those. stairs and thinking God if I wasn't you. know athletic and strong and didn't have. good knees and things like that there's. no way I'd be able to get down this long. winding handcarved set of Indonesian. stairs so that I could go on this boat. trip that I was going to go on and I. just thought about how it was a weird.

thing I know this is kind of a strange. story to tell but it crossed my mind I. got to the bottom of the stairs and I. turned to the person I was with and was. literally like you know that's why I've. got to stay in shape for as long as I. can because I want to do these boat. trips and I want to go on this little. rafting thing but I won't even be able. to access it unless I can go down up and. down those stairs like 200 meters of. stairs down this Cliff um so that's what. I care about I care about being active. and strong and fit for as long as I. possibly can and I from what you've said. about gravity and weight um being. overweight is going to inhibit my. chances of being able to do those stairs.

so so that I think there are two. elements there first of all there is. doing the things that we want to do okay. like that because you're exactly right. these are the things which I can still. do that I can still walk up a mountain. or down a mountain because I'm still fit. enough to do that and I want to stay as. fit as long as I can to do that and. weight will inhibit that undoubtedly but. then there's a second element to. actually consider now that's healthy. look none of us are going to live longer. we. hopefully and anyway if we left lived.

longer but was unhealthy would you want. to live longer so you want to live. longer but healthier for longer okay and. undoubtedly the thing that is closest. related to health when you age is not. your total weight there's a role to play. there the amount of muscle you have it. is your muscle mass as you age. independent of how much fat you have. okay that will determine how healthy you. are as you age so as so now the moment. now I'm talking about going into the 60s. and the the 70s rather than when one is.

able to go down a 200 me set of steps. okay so now as you get older the most. crucial bit of information is to. maintain resistance training not lifting. and that's not what I'm talking about. sitting on a wall getting up and down a. chair because that the amount of muscle. mass you have really really really marks. the level of Health that that you're. going to get and then the the signs is. startling it is so so so related. independent of independent of weight you. know from from from the so muscle mass.

is the most important for healthy aging. the moment you get 60 70 plus. interesting okay so I'll keep I'll keep. doing resistance training correct always. keep resistance training and lifting. weights as long as I can lifting weights. as long as you can at some point you. won't be able to lift weights just don't. don't write me off don't write me off. John the hubis of Youth yeah that's the. naivity of Youth yeah you just assume. you'll always be able to do what you can. do now I I yeah it's something I think a. lot about and I think a lot of people. will watch this podcast.

because probably especially this time of. year we're in January they'll probably. be trying to find ways that they can cut. fat they want to be a bit skinnier you. said think you said half a stone you. want to lose I'm in the same place I. think most people want to lose a half a. stone or something what is the way that. you would suggest to do that the simple. way you know not the like. complicated go by this guy's course and. do three million sit-ups whatever the. simple advice you would give someone. that's H hoping to create sort of.

sustainable weight loss so the first is. the amount of protein you eat and you. need to try and focus on trying to keep. to about 16% of the energy in your day. okay from protein 16% and there's a. sweet spot so if you eat too much and. you're not lifting you're stressing your. kidneys because your kidneys have to get. rid of the nitrogen from the protein. okay so 16% is a sweet spot and it. doesn't mean steaks only it can mean. beans tofu any kind of protein from from. anywhere 16 % second is fiber we need to.

eat as much fiber as physically possible. okay 30 gr we want to aim for although. we're looking at the moment on average. in this country we're probably only. eating 15 grams we need to double the. amount of fiber we actually eat third we. need to limit the amount of added sugars. into our diet added sugars meaning. sugars not tied up in fiber powdered. stuff uh uh um maple syrup alav nectar. all those are added sugars you put in. keep it to 5% or less of the of the.

energy content in your day and those are. the three numbers that that that I want. you to think about so 16% of protein 30. gram of fiber 5% or less of added sugars. apply that to whatever you want what. keto um whatever you want to do apply. that and I think that will be a. sustainable healthy way to eat the sixth. most replayed moment is a conversation I. had with Dr Mindy pels who talks about. the belly fat burning diet nutrition is.

a huge thing at this time of year and so. she lays out exactly how to eat and. behave in order to reduce belly fat and. to improve your overall health you told. me about the first two styles of fasting. the first one was intim fasting which is. 12 to 16 hours which is good for weight. loss brain fog that kind of thing the. second is autography autophagy what did. I say autography but I like it I said. autophagy I said autophagy we can play. that back I definitely said autophagy.

and if I didn't we'll fix it with AI um. autophagy fasting which is 17 to 72. hours good for balancing sex hormones. and preventing illness yeah number three. we haven't spoken about gut reset fast. yeah what's that yeah so that's based. off uh a study that came out of MIT that. showed 24 hours without food and your. intestinal stem cells inside your gut. actually start to reboot themselves now. a stem cell is a cell that can go to. anywhere in the body and repair itself.

but at 24 hours you get a plethora of. them in your gut and in the gut we've. got a damaged microbiome from everything. that we've just been talking about so. what I discovered in this 24-hour fast. is I could take women that had been on. birth control pill for years um people. that had been on multiple rounds of. antibiotics people who had been eating. horrible food and I could actually put. them through a 24-hour fast once a week. once every every couple of weeks and.

these stem cells would come in there and. they would start to repair and so now if. I teach that person How to Eat Right. their food is actually starting to build. a better microbiome in the gut so that. 24-hour fast became this go-to in my. clinic where I could take all these gut. challenges and I could start to unwind. them just because I knew the body had. this capability of making these. intestinal stem cells and it was crazy. like we got people off supp ments we got.

people that were didn't weren't making. serotonin which affects moods comes from. the gut all of a sudden start to become. happier people who hadn't had bowel. movements in like three days all of a. sudden we started to put in these this. gut reset and it was like a miracle it. was incredible number four fat burner. fast so the fat burner fast is probably. my favorite for those people who want to. lose weight the research was done that. 36 hours without food followed by 12. hours of eating and then another 30 they.

actually did it over a 30-day period but. we've been using it in our community. just dosing it in that at 36 hours what. happens is that's enough time where the. blood sugars come come down where all of. a sudden the body it's so smart it goes. okay blood sugar is not common we've. been in this fasted State we've. triggered autophagy we've brought. inflammation down we've made you ketones. we're trying to go find food but this. extra weight it's not not serving you.

you cuz remember you got to go find food. so it drops weight and it's the most. beautiful way to get a person to unstick. any kind of weight loss resistance but. most importantly you know where it it. dropped the most amount of weight from. where does everybody want to lose weight. belly yep so it is the I probably should. have called it the fat burning belly fat. burning the belly fat yeah that would. have banged yeah but yeah and so that's. what they showed is that actually a 36. hour fast started to unstick weight loss.

and it was started with weight around. the. belly. compelling number five the dopamine. reset fast yeah so number five um I. found some research showing that when. people go without food for 48 hours the. whole dopamine system will be rebooted. so what's important to know about the. dopamine system is it is our molecule of. happiness it is the thing that it's. actually a motivation molecule and it's.

a neurotransmitter that allows thoughts. happy thoughts to go across from neuron. to neuron and so what happens and I'm. sure you've talked about this on your. podcast that we're so dopamine saturated. right now but specifically people who. are Overeaters they actually are finding. the study I quote in the book is that. they found that people who had food. addiction people who had extra weight. like obese. situations they were not getting as much. happiness out of their food because.

their dopamine receptor sites were. saturated so they had to eat more food. to get more happiness and a lot and you. know food is a state changer it does. make us happy so what they found is if. they put them into a 48 hour fast that. they actually rebooted the whole. dopamine system and new dopamine recept. toyes appeared so that when they brought. food back in to the equation they. actually got more enjoyment out of food. with less food this kind of got me. thinking about a conversation I was.

having yesterday with some of my team. here we were talking about how um it. almost feels like sometimes if I've. eaten sugar I can go into a bit of a. sugar cycle and what I mean by that is. I'll have some sugar and then like a. couple of hours later I'll have another. craving for sugar and then a couple of. hours later I'll have another craving. for sugar but then at other times. specifically for example when I did keto. I was I did the keto diet for about. eight month uh eight weeks bloody eight. months I wish um8 weeks and throughout. that period I didn't have any cravings. for sugar yep I we had some chocolate.

come into the studio and I walked over. to the chocolate and I smell it Y and I. didn't want any of it y it had gone but. then when I'm in my what I call like the. sugar cycle I'm eating sugar maybe you. know once or twice a day and I'm getting. like the craving for it where which I. just can't seem to resist yep well. dopamine's the molecule of more it's not. the molecule of enough so what it does. is when you get sugar you get this. dopamine rush and the Brain goes woo. love that give me more of that and so. you con you it's it's endless you will.

never be fully satisfied it constantly. wants you to come back for more and more. and more so when you start to go off the. ketogenic Energy System you're getting. the same Euphoria you probably felt the. same high the the same mental Clarity. but you've totally taken this molecule. more out of the out of the picture it's. it in fact dopamine will actually you. know you you get those receptor sites. that will be repaired but you're not. getting a big dopamine buzz when you're. in a ketogenic State you're getting. ketones I was I was mulling it with my.

team how long I had to stay away from. sugar to kind of get out of that vicious. give me more cycle yeah my experience. has been it's about three days three. days that's what I thought yeah I think. I said four or five but it's just from. experience as well if I haven't had. sugar for three or four days I mean like. a like a chocolate but something. significant in terms of sugar then after. 3 or 4 days the craving for it seems to. to vanish yeah yeah it's not it's not if. you think about that it's not hard if. you're trying to overcome a sugar.

addiction yeah like just bear it for 3. days and then that dopamine stops. barking at you and then if you attack. fasting onto it now you're getting. ketones and so you're not needing that. as much ketones kill hunger and they. make you so mentally mentally clear they. give you this euphoric feeling so you. don't have that urge to go for the for. the sugar and the ketones come from. fasting which is when your body switches. metabolic State yeah the last and final. fasting style immune reset fast yeah so.

immune reset was built off of Dr wter. Longo's work and he did a study on. people who had cancer and were going. through chemotherapy and one of the. challenges we know about chemotherapy is. that it wipes out the whole immune. system and so he wanted to see well what. if I put somebody in a fasted State as. they went through chemotherapy would. there be a difference and what he found. is after 3 days of fasting the white. blood cells in our system actually. reboot themselves so what they do is all.

old white blood cells are are sloughed. away and new white blood cells emerge so. people were able to come out of that. chemotherapy experience and have a. stronger immune system as opposed to. what we were seeing was that it was. wiping the immune system out so that. launched the whole three-day water fast. sort of craze at least here in America. we're seeing a lot of people that are. just going after 3-day water fast to. Prime their immune system but you also.

also at three days get stem cells full. systemic stem cells so all of a sudden. your body's got in surging with stem. cells going to all parts of the body. repairing it the great example I always. use on this one was I had an Achilles. tendon injury and nothing was nothing. was helping it so I threw a 5-day water. fast at it on the fourth day I felt this. buzz in my achilles tendon and I was. like oh wonder what that is. and it stayed all the way through I went.

five full days and um about the fifth. and sixth day so sixth day I was. entering food back in all the pain. completely went away and it never came. back I tried everything I tried. everything and that was the only thing. that repaired. it it does make again evolutionary sense. that if our body senses we're injured. because we're not eating or you know. some other signal that we are. on a course to not survive to put it.

nicely it does make sense that it might. set about to repair whatever needs to be. repaired you're getting it you know cuz. like if I was a wounded human back in on. the savanas of I don't know Africa or. wherever we came from um and I'm laid. there and I'm not eating my body should. probably go okay Steve might need. something fixed so that he can get back. to yeah hunting so you're getting it so. survival that that is the number one.

priority of the body so when you go. without food you amplify every resource. it has to keep you alive and if. repairing my achilles means I can now go. hunt for food it's going to do that it's. going to make me stronger and I in the. book I I stumbled when I was writing the. book I stumbled upon a really cool. hypothesis that's called the Thrifty. Gene hypothesis and it said that what. it's a theory obviously it's hypoth. hthis it's a theory that the people the.

humans that evolved out of the Primal. days had a very specific genotype and. this genotype allowed us to. metabolically flex and and be stronger. in a fasted State because we had to. survive and the people that didn't make. it from that time period didn't have. that Gene but think about this for this. moment so they think we all have this. Gene inside of us right now this Thrifty. Gene where we can go long periods.

without food and we can survive so what. happens when we're eating all day what. happens when we're ignoring and we're. not actually activating that genetic. profile so what they are now believing. is that diabetes metabolic syndrome all. of that is largely happening because we. are going against the G the genetic. profile that we are now seeing in humans. we're like on the opposite end of the. spectrum we're overloading our bodies. yeah. which is meaning that the survival Gene.

you referen there is not being activated. to help us that's right that's right. interesting the fifth most replayed. moment is a moment from my conversation. with Matthew Walker who is the world's. number one expert on the subject of. sleep he explains the importance of. sleep on our overall health on our. weights and everything in between but. most importantly of all he gives us a. road map for how to sleep better and I. know so many of you are struggling so. I'm not surprised that this is one of. the most replayed moments of the dire of.

a CEO of 2023 had a lot of Health. experts on this podcast recently but. none of them have really talk to me. about the role that sleep or sleep. deprivation plays. in. wait is there a. relationship it's probably one of the. most well defined relationships that we. know in all of sleep. science and it is at least a three-part. story so the first Emer evidence came in. terms of um hormones so there are what.

we call appetite regulating hormones and. the two principle ones of concern here. are something called leptin and gin now. leptin when it's released will signal to. your brain that you're satisfied with. your food you are satiated and you are. no longer hungry grin does the opposite. when grin is released it says no you're. not satisfied with your food you are not. full you still want to eat more you are.

still hungry and some of the first the. they started to uh just limit people. restrict people's sleep to 6 hours or 5. hours or 4 hours and what they found was. that um there. was firstly that signal leptin that says. no you're satisfied with your food you. don't want to eat anymore you're full. that signal of fullness satiation was. decreased by 18%. if that wasn't bad enough grin which is.

the hunger hormone that Leed up by. 28% overall hunger levels Rose by about. uh. 26% so firstly you are it's almost like. double jeopardy that you are getting. punished twice for the same crime of not. sleeping enough once by losing the. signal of I'm full I I don't want to eat. anymore and once again for the no I'm.

much more hungry and I'm just going to. overeat which is. gring so what that produces is a profile. of increased eating so on average. underslept individuals started to eat in. those studies about 3 to. 400 extra calories at each sit at each. sitting by way of insufficient. sleep then what they discovered is that. it's not just that you want to eat more. it's what it is that you have a craving.

for when you are. underslept and this is the problem what. they found is that when you're. underslept you eat more of everything. but you especially eat more of these. heavy-hitting stodgy carbohydrates bread. pasta. pizza the the next thing that you. started to eat have a preference for was. simple sugary Foods sweets and chocolate. and then finally you started to Crave. very salty food and high sodium food. intake will increase your blood.

pressure so that was the first of the. the three mechanisms then we did a study. where we said perhaps it's not just the. circulating hormones in the body the. brain is the ultimate Arbiter of your. food decisions so what's going on in the. brain so we took a group of perfectly. healthy individuals and we put them. through the experiment twice once when. they'd had a full 8 hours of sleep and. once when we deprived them of sleep and. then the next day we place them inside. an MRI scanner and we showed them images.

of lots of different foods that range. from being sort of you know very healthy. to being very unhealthy and of ice cream. and you know chocolate and pizza and. things to Leafy salads and nuts and. greens and vegetables and we asked them. to rate how much they wanted that food. for each item now we did something a bit. sort of dedly to make it more. ecologically correct so that they. weren't just saying okay they probably. think I should probably say that's how. healthy we said we're going to randomly.

select one of these images these food. images that you see and after you get. out the brain scanner we're going to. give you that food and we're going to. politely ask you to eat it all so it. made it a bit more realistic so the. choices were more you know as much as. that we could so what we found is that. when they were sleep deprived the Deep. honic centers the emotional centers of. the brain these desire centers these. reward centers um they ramped up in. their activity in response these highly. desirable highly unhealthy Foods so.

these more basic sort of you know. gutteral parts of the brain as it were. um these reward centers were lighting up. much more strongly when you sleep. deprived were still the impulse control. regions in the front of the brain what. we call the prefrontal cortex they were. shut down they were taken offline so as. a consequence you lost your impulse. control and that's why you start to then. say you know when I'm sleep deprived at. the food sort of buffet I'm not I'm not.

going to do salad I'm just gonna that. pizza looks awful good or that Pastor. with the cre I'm just going to go into. that all go so so your it's what we call. a pattern in terms of brain activity uh. in Neuroscience of honic eating that. your brain goes into this honic desire. profile so now we understood it's not. just hormones in the body it's also. changes in the brain then came the. finding that there's another chemical in. the body that's.

responsible and this comes on to. cannabis when people. um when people when people that you may. know have smoked cannabis they'll often. say I get viciously hungry I get the. munchies I get really hungry that's no. coincidence because cannabis will. stimulate appetite now we all have. naturally occurring cannabis compounds. in our brain brain and our bodies they.

are called endoc canabo Endo meaning. comes from insiders um whereas the. Cannabis that comes externally when you. sort of smoke it or um take. Edibles. so Endo canabo do many things for the. brain and the body but one of the things. that they do is control your appetite. and your hunger and what we found is. that when you sleep deprived individuals. these naturally occurring endoc canabo. rocketed up by over 20 % cranking up.

people's. appetite and so these three ways lead. you to start packing on you know when. insufficient sleep is occurring when. sleep gets short your waistline. typically starts to expand and we Now. understand the reasons if that wasn't. bad enough it is bad enough the yeah can. you just stop M honestly I'm really uh. the the last thing that we discovered is. that let's say that you're trying to be. really careful and you're trying to diet.

and you're trying to lose. weight if you're not getting sufficient. sleep then 60% of all of the weight that. you lose will come from lean muscle mass. oh God no and not fat not the muscle I. know exactly so in other words when you. are dieting but you are underslept you. lose what you want to keep which is. muscle and you keep what you want to. lose which is fat. so again it's I'm sold not an ideal.

situation sleep is important I get it. I'm sold how do I my question is what. are the things that in the modern. society are standing in the way of sleep. we've touched on some of them Loosely. but some of the like big obvious things. the things that you would suggest doing. very actionable things we could do. straight away to improve our chances of. having that healthy um deep sleep that. we need to be um optimal in every regard.

of our health and performance there's. probably I think five standard tips what. we call sort of sleep hygiene that you. can do and then I'll come on to maybe. just some unconventional tips uh that. we've sort of touched on and we've. spoken about many of these the first. thing I would recommend people to do and. this is why when some people say oh what. about this new sleep supplement or you. know it's it's 40 quid for this bottle. of these sleep new sleep natural. medications I'm going to give it a try I. would say try these tried and true.

things first before you spend your money. on supplements the first thing is. regularity go to bed at the same time. and wake up at the same time no matter. whether it's the weekday or the weekend. your brain expects regularity it thrives. best under conditions of regularity when. you give it regularity you can improve. the quantity and the quantity of your. sleep the second thing is get some. Darkness at night as I said we don't get. enough darkness in the modern world. and so the trick I would offer and I.

don't use it I don't like the word hack. but the suggestion would be in the last. hour before bed try this experiment for. everyone listening for the next week dim. down half of the lights or switch off. half of the lights or even a 34s of the. lights in your home in the last hour. before bed all of the lights in every. room in all of the rooms you know switch. off almost all of the light now I'm not. suggesting be unsafe and walk around in. the darkness in the last hour that's not.

what I want to saying just dim down you. know switch off half of the lights you. will be surprised at how sleepy that. Darkness will make you feel and it's. also an incredible behavioral. trigger to signal to your brain that it. is time for sleep that darkness is. around me that's the second tip is. Darkness the third T tip is temperature. most people sleep in an ambient bedroom. temperature that is too high and you.

need to aim for a bedroom temperature of. about 18 18 and a half degrees celus. around about 65 to 68° Fahrenheit if I'm. I'm probably butchering the the. mathematics there on that but um you. need to get cool now you can wear thick. socks you can have a hot water bottle. that's fine but the ambient needs to be. cold because you need to drop your core. body temperature and your brain. temperature by about 1 de Cel to fall. asleep and stay asleep and it's the.

reason that you will always find it. easier to fall asleep in a room that's. too cold and too hot so make your. bedroom cold make it dark like a cave. the the fourth question would be what. we've or fourth suggestion would be Walk. It Out and we've spoken about this the. 30 minute rule you know get up do. something different or meditate you know. don't lie in bed awake for too long then. the final two things we've spoken about. well we've spoken about caffeine we.

haven't spoken about alcohol but let me. just say as the kind of headline of it. alcohol is not a sleep aid many people. use it as a sleep aid it is not your. friend alcohol again is a sedative so it. knocks you out the second is that it. fragments your sleep so you wake up your. sleep is littered with all of these. small Awakenings most of them you don't. remember because they're too brief but. it makes for miserable lousy quality. sleep and the final thing is that. alcohol is very good at blocking your. REM sleep or your dream sleep which we. know is critical for many other.

functions as well so alcohol is not your. friend that's the sort of the final tip. again you know just every if you're with. friends have a glass of red wine just. know okay my sleep's not going to be. great and you know I'm not yeah. I'm whatever it's just you know live. life to of course I'm not saying that. the fourth most replayed moment is a. moment from my conversation with the. world leading neuroscientist the man who. has scanned more brains than anybody.

else Dr Daniel aan who is a favorite on. the D CEO and he tells us very very. clearly how to grow a healthier brain I. can change my brain it's the most. exciting lesson that I've learned you're. not stuck I'm not stuck with the brain I. had you're not stuck with the brain you. have you can make it better I can prove. it in fact every day what I've come to. believe you're making your brain better.

or you're making it worse let's start. there by what you're doing what things. make the brain worse what are the common. things that most of us do without. thinking that make the brain. worse when my daughter Khloe was in. second grade I went to her classroom and. I wrote 20 things on the board and I. went separate them for me good for your. brain bad for your brain seven year olds. they got 19 out of 20 right so most.

people. know the only thing they got wrong was. orange juice they put it in the healthy. category when in fact when is it. rational to unwrap fruit sugar from its. fiber source because it turns toxic in. your body so I'm not a fan of fruit. juice I'm a fan of fruit not fruit juice. what's bad about sugar for the. pro-inflammatory. which what does that mean it makes you.

diabetic but I mean as it relates to the. brain why is like orange juice or the. ice cream bad for my brain because it's. ultimately going to give you high blood. sugar levels MH which erode your blood. vessels and you're going to have lower. blood flow to your brain that's bad. thing I mean there's so many things. about it so it's addictive it's proin. inflammatory it makes it more likely.

you're going to have diabetes and. obesity so 72% of Americans are. overweight 42% are. obese I've published three studies on. 35,000 people as your weight goes up the. actual physical size and function of. your brain goes down that should scare. the fat off anyone I used to be chubby. but when I figured out that connection. I'm like oh no I'm it was that that gave.

me the motivation to drop about 25 PBS. and so. sugar is the gateway drug to diabetes. and obesity and so not to. mention. inflammation which is the cause of. depression and dementia so you want to. avoid things that cause low blood flow. caffeine nicotine caffeine caffeine. constricts blood flow to the brain what.

does that do to my brain Con well. constricts blood flow so you're going to. get less blood flow and remember I. showed you that progression with. age no you don't want that you want to. do things that increase blood flow to. your brain so exercise genko this one of. the supplements I'm going to give you. eat foods like um beets. oregano Rosemary. cinnamon they increase blood flow while.

we're on blood flow 40% of 40y olds have. erectile. dysfunction 70% of 70y olds have. erectile dysfunction what that means if. you have blood flow problems anywhere it. means they're. everywhere and. so like. no and it means either you're too. sedentary you're overweight you're.

smoking or having too much. caffeine or using marijuana because. marijuana lowers blood flow to the brain. and so just in that one of the 11 it's. exercise. genko for you not for everybody but for. you hyperbaric oxygen those three things. will make a big difference in blood flow. flow genko genko what is that it's a.

supplement what does it do uh increases. blood flow to the brain the prettiest. brains I've ever seen take genko there's. actually a spec study uh they gave uh. people 120 milligrams of genko twice a. day significant Improvement in blood. flow to the. brain and so in one of the supplements. I'm going to give you we have genko I. I've taken it every day for the last 20. years at least and then this is where.

the US government got an F for the. pandemic. loneliness accelerates dementia and. brain problems and so when they isolated. us the whole significant increase in. brain problems so get connected to other. people the eye in bright Minds is. inflammation so what increases. inflammation low omega-3 fat fat acid. levels and we are.

deficient 93% of the population is. deficient in omega-3 fatty acids. 93% so all of us should be either eating. more fish. or taking an omega3 supplement like fish. oil gum disease like who knew like I. wasn't really that good at taking care. of my gums until I started reading the. studies you have gum disease you have. inflammation you're more likely to get.

depressed and have dementia the third. most replayed moment is a moment from my. conversation with Gary Breer where he. lays out how you can become a superhuman. strip the fat off your body and get. yourself healthy with free easy simple. exercises that will cost you nothing at. all when I heard the story about Dana. White and I saw he had gone from. respectfully being a man that had a. little bit of weight to to having this. these six-pack abs on Instagram of. course the six-pack isn't the the.

outcome it's as you've said it's the. stuff going on inside him that's really. the transformation but what can someone. who's just heard that at home where do. they start with getting extending their. life by triple and getting the so you. know he also started something called a. superhuman protocol and superhuman. protocol is using magnetism oxygen and. light right so the only things that we. really get from Mother Nature the the. the big benefit we get from Mother. Nature is is we get magnetism from the. earth we get oxygen from the air we get.

light from the sun the truth is most of. us are not contacting the surface of the. Earth that much anymore so he bought. $150,000 worth of equipment a pmf mat an. oxygen what's called a hypermax oxygen. to do exercise with oxygen therapy and a. red light therapy bed and I had him use. that equipment every single day seven. days a week but if your listeners want. to do it for. free you can take off your shoes and. contact the surface of the Earth and I'm. talking about bare feet on soil dirt.

grass sand because earthing and. grounding is a very real thing we. actually discharge into the Earth we. actually human beings build up a charge. do you know that pH the acid alkaline. scale pH stands for potential hydrogen. it's a charge it's a complete fallacy. that you can get alkaline by drinking. alkaline water that's the biggest. marketing myth ever sold to the public. um but you can get alkaline by. contacting the surface of the Earth so. if you don't have 150 Grand which I. don't expect anybody listening to this. podcast to spend 150 Grand but he did I.

said you need a MAG you need a pmf mat. so you can be alkaline you need to spend. 10 minutes a day breathing um 95% O2. under mild exercise and you need to lay. in a red light therapy bed so in the. absence of the Superhuman protocol you. can become superhuman by contacting the. Earth and by learning to do breath work. let's talk about breath work I spend 8. minutes every day doing a very specific. series of breath work people do not. realize the power of something that is.

so accessible so free and so easy to do. right they they want things to be more. complicated but it's not and when I said. the presence of oxygen is the absence of. disease it's absolutely true remember. that every elevated emotional state that. a human being can experience actually. has in its molecular structure oxygen is. a component of that emotion so if you. look at the difference between passion. Elation Joy arousal libido and anger for. example it's usually only one. neurotransmitter and the presence of.

oxygen the reason why no human being is. ever woken up laughing is because you. don't have the oxidative state to. experience laughter right out of deep. sleep but can you wake up angry yes. because anger doesn't require oxygen so. every morning contact the surface of the. Earth and then spend eight minutes doing. I do a wimh off style of breath work I. give credit where credits do he's the. father of breath work as far as I'm. concerned so I do three rounds of 30. deep breaths. like obnoxiously deep breaths and I.

start by trying to take my belly button. and pull my belly button out towards the. wall imagine there's a string pulling. your belly button towards the wall and. then you you fill from the loes of the. lung to the apex of the lung and then. you exhale and just. relax did God knows what they think. we're doing out there right outside this. podcast they're like a bunch of freaka I. knew it was a cult um KN I knew he was a.

cult leader but um so you do three. rounds of 30 breaths on the 30th breath. you exhale and you hold allow the. carbohydrate rep receptor to reset when. you don't feel you can hold anymore you. take a deep breath. in you hold again and you let it out. slow and you start again I would suggest. that you start with three rounds of five. breaths then work to 10 15 20 25 and 30. if you get laded this is a good sign. that the oxygen tension is changing in. your brain if your fingers and toes get.

tingly this is a good sign that you're. changing the oxygen tension if you feel. some kind of heat uh temperature change. in your neck these are all Great Signs. you will get to the point where you can. actually hold your breath for two or. three minutes sometimes four minutes. between rounds of breath work um and. then the last thing is to expose. yourself to natural sunlight first thing. in the morning the first 45 minutes of. the day God gives us a very very special. type of light it's called First Light. there's no UVA there's no UVB rays in. this light um so that it's not the.

damaging Rays from the Sun it still. generates vitamin D3 it has a positive. effect on cortisol on vitamin D3 first. light is the best way to reset your. circadian rhythm so by contacting the. surface of the Earth doing breath work. and getting first light you can get to. the same place that Dana White did with. 150 Grand in equipment what about oxygen. masks cuz I I'll be honest when I read. when I read um about the Dana story I. went on Amazon soon after and I was like. I'm just going to buy an oxygen canister. good idea bad idea um so what you want.

to do is um you know you get an oxygen. concentrator which takes 21% oxygen from. which is what the concentration at sea. level it turns it into 95% O2 and it. fills this bag and it can refill this. bag over and over and over again okay I. use one called the hypermax you can see. it on my Instagram and um you turn you. plug it in you turn it on it fills this. bag and then you go in you put an oxygen. mask on and you exercise for 10 minutes. only 10 minutes cycle for 3 minutes uh. Sprint for 30 seconds cycle for 3.

minutes Sprint for 30 seconds cycle 3. minutes Sprint 30 seconds and you're. done and what this does is it raises. something called the partial pressure. the the storage of oxygen in your blood. the only two time two-time Nobel Ora. Prize winner in Medicine Dr otter. warberg won both of his Nobel prizes for. his work in exercise with oxygen therapy. you want to be a superum do mild. exercise every day while breathing 95%. O2 it's important that you're exercising. and then after that you move into a red. light therapy bed. photobiomodulation um so you know if you.

don't have access to a hypermax oxygen. machine just do the breath work get the. breath in you know exchange the oxygen. tension and the tissues and expose. yourself to First Light what about cold. cold with the plunging so I'm a huge fan. of cold water punching but probably not. for the reasons why you think you know. um I also sit on the board of the NFL um. uh lumni Association athletica as a. health services director you know there. there was a time when we used to think. that putting athletes in cold water. after exercise was good because of its. anti-inflammatory effects we know now.

that that's only about 15% of the. benefit the majority of the benefit. comes from something called a cold shock. protein if you really want to be. fascinated Google cold shock proteins. these are reserved proteins that are in. your liver they're dumped into the. bloodstream in effort to save your life. when you put yourself in cold water they. scour the body of free radical oxidation. they increase the rate of protein. synthesis muscle repair they are free. you get them when you put yourself in. cold water um I don't know what the. Celsius conversion is but I use 50° for. 3 minutes minimum 6 minutes maximum cold.

yes it's it's actually not that cold I. mean you know I see people getting in 37. 38 degree water there's no evidence that. I've read that shows that colder is. better you get a peripheral Vaso. constriction so it forces all the oxygen. into the core and up to the brain um and. you you get an activation of something. called Brown fat right um thermogenesis. comes from Brown fat and for the women. that are listening for some reason I. seem to insens snare the women when I. say this. remember that the definition of a. calorie is a measure of heat right I.

mean the definition of a calorie is the. amount of energy it takes to raise 1. cubic cimeter of water 1° Centigrade so. if if if a calorie is a measure of heat. then this means that when Heat's leaving. your body calories are leaving your body. so if there is nothing nothing no amount. of exercise hits cardio no type of. cardiovascular or weight training that. comes anywhere close to immersing. yourself in cold water in terms of what. will strip fat off your body fast if you. want to strip fat off your body get in.

cold water 3 to six minutes a day that's. fascinating because because the oxygen. rushes to my head that's why it has a. really profound impact on mood that's. why it has a very profound impact on. mood because if you think about it. what's the reason why we need deep sleep. what happens in deep Sleep that's so. special there's a secondary oxygen. transfer we transfer oxygen from the. periphery from the extremities to the. brain remember the brain's a. non-metabolic organ so in other words. it's unlike a muscle if I pick up a. weight wait and start to work out my. muscle my arm my body will send more.

blood more amino acids more oxygen to. that muscle because it's working well if. I'm sitting at my computer and I'm. watching reruns of The Simpsons or I'm. sitting in my computer and I'm solving. the most complex joint venture agreement. partnership agreement with all kinds of. mathematical equations my brain gets the. same amount of nutrients same amount of. blood flow same amount of oxygen so it. eats the same meal whether or not it's. in a dead Sprint or whether or not it's. just chilling on the couch except. in deep sleep and when you're in cold.

water because it's forcing the oxygen up. to the brain the second most replayed. moment is a moment from my conversation. with Dr Tim Spectre a favorite on the. Diary of a CEO and here he talks about. health more holistically and some of the. biggest myths that most of us believe. that are currently standing in our way. we've got a fitness group among some of. my friends there's about 10 of us in it. and um we've been tracking how often we. work out and how frequently work out and. the workouts that we do and one of the.

things I have to say is pretty much no. one in the group has lost any weight. we've been doing this for a. year and uh that kind of bucks what you. would think so the only time that I lost. weight was actually when I went on the. keto keto diet I went from 14 Stone 8 to. 13 stone 8 in roughly in several weeks. but exercise and exercising for almost. religiously for the last two and a half. years doesn't really seem to impact my. weight at all in a you know in the way. that the Fitness Experts might tell me. on Instagram what's your stance on the.

role that exercise play plays in weight. loss has very little role in weight loss. all the studies long-term studies show. uh it doesn't help uh weight loss and. it's been grossly exaggerated as an easy. fix for our obesity problem exercise. doesn't help weight loss no all the. studies show that the only caveat to. that is if you have ch ched your diet. improved your diet and you've lost some. weight at maintaining some exercise does.

help prevent it going back up again but. as on its own if you don't change your. Dart it's of no use and that's well. known Now by all the Obesity experts and. all the studies does sugar make us fat. is that the. culprit one of the main things that's. contributing to no again that's that's. reductionism you know we the. but the reason the reason exercise.

doesn't work it's important to realize. this is because we all know this that. you know you go for a walk build up. Hunger before a meal that's what your. parents told you you know and everything. about exercise is after it your body. slows down your your metabolism slows. down and it tries to. regain the energy that you've lost. that's just our EV Evolution and so. that's why it's a you're not going to. it's great for your health I'm in know I.

exercise fantastic for your mood um it's. great for your heart anti-cancer all. kinds of things we should all do it but. absolutely not if your goal is weight. loss you have to do something about. changing your diet and I think that's. that's the big a huge myth particularly. Peto by gyms and uh fitness apps and. everything else and it it is complete. nonsense I read that you um when you. look to studies over 30 years and you. looked at how many studies had been done. on the relationship of exercise and.

weight versus things like sugar and. weight there was 12 more 12 times more. studies done on the relationship of. exercise and weight versus sugar and. weight and why why is that why is there. less research done on the. latter um I think that's the influence. of governments and the food companies. and the drink companies so uh a lot of. the excise SI research done in the last. 20 years was sponsored by uh large.

corporations who wanted to make this. link between. uh exercise and weight loss so that they. could continue to sell sugary Ultra. processed foods and drinks and just say. it's you know childhood obesities. because we've we don't have playgrounds. and we don't uh encourage this and. that's why the Cokes and the Pepsis are. always there at the Olympic sponsoring.

Olympic events and associating. themselves with Sport and they gave. hundreds of millions to various. physiology departments Sports. departments nutrition departments to do. research in this area basically it was. very hard to get anyone to do research. into how sugary drinks make you uh gain. weight or cause problems because they. the amount of money for nutrition has. been abysmally poor you know in from.

from governments and that's why you know. we the only the first ever study of. ultra processed food in a controlled. trial was only about three years ago and. it's been around for you know 30 40. years so such is the power of that Lobby. that it it doesn't necessarily distort. the research in a sort of you know evil. way but they point it to make sure that. the researchers are working in an area. that they want uh people to work in and. distracting them keeping them away from.

talking about sugars or even artificial. sweeteners which in my view are nearly. as bad because they're sort of you know. hidden um and and deflecting us from the. idea that yes giving kids sugary drinks. or even artificial sweet drinks is going. to be bad for them and cause obesity. wait so I'm I've been I've cut my I cut. out sugar drinks about a year ago I. still have the same Brands but I have. the no sugar version oh dear oh.

what do you mean oh dear well all the. all the summary of the trials shows that. if you take uh young adult young adults. and kids and they would say on two cans. of you know full sugar sodas and you. change them to the diet version there's. no real difference in in weight or um. metabolic um changes in their blood um. the. you will go to the dentist less so you. don't get as many fillings.

but and yet you you should be gaining. 300 calories right if you doing two cans. a day so it doesn't work out as it. should do and that's because of the. extra these chemicals are not inert so. the sweeteners in kids they changed. their their brains to give. them they want more Sweetness in their. food okay so it it could reflect your. wish for your your late night milk. chocolate who knows um and it it makes.

it very difficult to train kids to have. more bitter Foods or sour Foods if. they've got these artificial sweeteners. in their diet all the time but they've. now shown that all these sweeteners. actually affect your gut microbes so. even Stevia you know these sort of. so-called healthy ones have an effect on. your gut microbes and they're not inert. so we know that sacarin and sucros is. also cause spikes in your blood sugar uh. when I did it you know have a.

trace they're not supposed to but they. they actually do things they're not. supposed to so we know very little about. these these products and my view is that. they are harmful probably not as bad as. having the sugar but they are absolutely. not a health drink and we should be. encouraging people to have you know teas. and kombuchas and uh more bitter tasting. interesting flavors and Foods than just.

this Ultra sweet uh chemical concoctions. it's this sugar conglomerate that have. been funding much of the research that. points towards um some of the things. you're talking about. there there that's also the conglomerate. that wants us to believe the calories in. calories out approach because if I just. view every all foods as kind of equal. and on this sort of calorie number then. I can drink some of the sugary Fizz. fizzy drinks and some of the processed. foods as long as I keep it within that. sort of calorie deficit I'll be fine and.

so are they is that Sugar conglomerate. is the processed food. conglomerate for the calorie model. absolutely they need that right they. absolutely it's vital you know zero. calories or one calorie you know on the. can that's what you see and you know. you're fooling people into thinking this. is a a healthy drink and oh you know if. I used to have full Coke or Pepsi and. now having the diet version I'm getting. 300 calories less a day I should lose. weight it's exactly what they've been.

doing and they're also desperate to show. that artificial sweeteners. are really healthy and they come down on. anyone who who tries to say that they're. you know could be any way dangerous and. yet they're not obliged to test them so. none of the none of the chemicals added. really go through rigorous testing on. how they affect our gut microbes and. this is. this you know their testing mechanisms. haven't changed in 50 years as you'll.

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and Whole Food sourced nutrients into. your diet the most important Point here. is I genuinely believe it tastes. delicious it's May my favorite heuel. product ever for all the reasons I've. described so if you want access to this. product you can sign up right now the. link is in the description below it. launches in the UK in January because of. the demand I'm pretty sure it's going to. sell out and here is the single most. replayed moment as it relates to health. on the Diary of a CEO of 2023 so the. first thing I came up against because.

this was around the time of the. financial crisis was the lack of. understanding of the brain Body. Connection so these high performing. Executives were kind of acting. like their body was just the vehicle. that was moving their brain around from. meeting to meeting and both. disrespecting their their physical. health but also not understanding that. what they were actually really being. paid for was to use their brain and they.

weren't creating the best conditions for. that brain to operate in um and I'm. talking about really basic things like. sleep and a good diet and hydration and. not being sedentary managing your stress. Etc so you know this tiny. organ if it's not in an environment that. is giving it the best chance of doing. its job it's not going to and a crack's. going to appear somewhere um and the. first time we really kind of had a big. confrontation with the bank was when.

people were dropping dead on the trading. floor of heart. attacks and they asked me to work more. in my capacity as a former medical. doctor to help with the physical stuff. and I said I can't do that if we don't. address the mental and emotional piece. because that's what's causing this and. they just could could not get that what. did you want to do with those people in. a specific and practical sense what if. you could have you know been in charge. of preventing them from dropping dead on.

the trading floor where would you have. started the understanding that stress so. everything that you're experiencing. mentally and emotionally that's. challenging and things like a lot of. travel which is challenging for your. body that that raises levels of the. hormone cortisol which comes from your. adrenal glands and that cortisol courses. around your blood through your entire. body and brain and the brain has. receptors for understanding what's going.

on in terms of threat to your survival. so in a 24hour cycle depending on your. age and your gender there's a normal. range for cortisol so it can go up and. down like this you know if something. challenging happens we need to adapt and. rise to meet that challenge but when. that level is above the top range all. the time these receptors in your brain. basically think that there's an imminent. threat to your survival so there's this. whole Cascade of. hormones and they basically cortisol.

causes inflammation in the body MH so. inflammation of your vascular system. inflammation around your heart and. everything else gut and you know other. things but particularly around that time. we were seeing a lot of heart attacks. caused by stress this was in the absence. of high blood pressure high cholesterol. smoking it was all stress once upon a. time I Googled um because I had a thesis. I Googled is stress contagious MH and it. came up and it said it was.

contagious is it contagious in what. circumstances do we need to be aware of. that contagion and more importantly how. and why is it contagious okay I will. tell you the answer to that but I'm. going to ask you a question first have. you ever walked into a room with someone. and by the time you've left that meeting. with them you just feel so. drained okay so yeah you know so you. know the feeling so I'll I'll tell you. how it works physiologically um I'm. going to start with something else to. like build you up to this story so did.

you know that women who live together or. work closely together will synchronize. their menstrual periods within two or. three months so whenever I want to. explain something that's complex or I. don't actually know the current. Neuroscience I always take it back to. what happened in ancient times so when. we were living in the cave the men. hunted and gathered and lived quite. nomadically so sometimes they would go. away for months at a time and in those.

days the most fundamental important. thing for the survival of the human. species was that the alpha male must. pass on his. genes so if he was going to be away for. months and he couldn't you know that. there weren't men there to defend the. women from predators maybe there was. going to be a spell of the Ice Age and. they would all freeze to death or they. wouldn't have food um he needed to make. sure that at least at least five women. were impregnated with his sperm at the. same time so that if there was a food.

shortage or there was like still birth. or miscarriage or whatever at least one. out of five would survive so to be able. to do that they had to be fertile at the. same time so that's why that mechanism. exists now we don't need that mechanism. now but it's still wired into the way. that we operate so those sex steroid. hormones like estrogen and progesterone. they leak out of our sweat about this. far around us and that's why if you're. living with another woman or if you know.

you're sitting across the desk every day. then particles of hormone from my sweat. would go into the through the skin of. the other woman if she's within what. distance I mean it's not you wouldn't. have to be sitting next to each other if. you live together that that means you're. interacting enough that it would happen. Okay so particles but not not if you. work together if you work together and. you sit right next to each other every. day then it does happen too. so you know in a a small office that's. got like six girls in it that that the.

menstrual synchronization will happen. interestingly it's led by the alpha. female so yeah so you can you can work. out if you don't know already who the. alpha female well if you you know. basically let's say My Cycles don't. change and everyone says oh I've got my. period early or I haven't had my period. yet but now it's started then that would. mean that probably I was the alpha. female how does the body know who the. alpha female is that will be to do with. levels of testosterone why why did the. body why does that matter who the alpha.

female is why does it matter that they. sync up with her I I don't I don't know. if it really matters I think it's just a. case of physiology so it's a little bit. like in the um troops of. gorillas the stress levels of the silver. backat gorilla affect the other gorillas. more than gorillas who are peers to each. other so there is we have a natural. hierarchy and it must be related to. survival as well so she was probably the. person who the alpha male was going to.

impregnate first probably so everyone. needs to kind of fall in line because. when she starts having sex they need to. be ready yeah okay and also it'll. probably be to do with things like you. know survival genes so it'll be the. people with the hardiest genes because. that's what you'll want to pass on as. well mhm okay makes sense most resilient. okay okay so where were we stressing. contagion done all the hormones and the. menal so basically cortisol is a hormone. that works in that same way so cortisol.

is the main stress hormone and this one. doesn't matter if you're male or female. but it does matter where you are in the. hierarchy of the organization as I just. mentioned. so usually in that conversation I. mentioned to you where you go into a. room and you just feel completely. drained afterwards usually the person. that comes out feeling drained is less. senior than the person that's had that. effect on them and that's why this is so. crucial to lead leadership because your. stress levels as a leader as a CEO are.

going to have more impact on everybody. else than the rest of the people um put. together basically so managing your. stress is obviously important for you. but it's important in terms of what. happens to other people and the first. issue I came up against was CEOs and. CFOs that said well I won't show them. that I'm stressed I won't I won't tell. them what's happening with the numbers I. won't display emotions in front of them. and I said they're still going to know.

physiologically it's going to impact. them so now you really have to do. something about. it um and the other thing about cortisol. which is quite funny well one of the. side effects is quite funny is that as a. survival mechanism it will help you to. store fat around your. abdomen so you know again in the cave if. you were potentially going to like not. find food for a month then if you had. extra fat around your abdomen you could.

digest that and survive till you could. find. food so with my clients in financial. services it got to a point where as soon. as I walked into the room they just lift. their t-shirt up and say now you know. how I've been in the last month so. stress causes belly fat belly fat that's. really hard to shift so again what I. would see with people is that they would. say oh I've put on a bit of weight. around the middle you know had to loosen. the belt a bit so I've started eating. less I've started like exercising more. and I still can't shift it and again. that's when I would explain this is the.

impact of cortisol as long as you're. still leaking out extra cortisol. nothing's going to change. so and like I said even exercising more. or eating better less or differently. whatever it is wouldn't shift that fat. you had to get to the root cause you had. to reduce the. cortisol for any of you that are still. here I have a bonus moment for you I. often get asked what is my favorite. episode of the dire of a CEO of all time. and I often try and avoid that question. because I don't want to pick one.

particular episode it's kind of like. picking your children however because. you've gotten here I'm going to reveal. it to you and I'm going to play you a. moment from that conversation my. favorite ever episode on the dire of a. CEO of all time is episode. 101 and it just happens to be the most. shared episode we've ever had of all. time time on WhatsApp and I know that. sounds a little bit obscure but the. interesting thing about WhatsApp is it's.

one toone typically so it's typically. one friend sending it to a family member. or to a friend or something like that. and for it to be the most transferred. between one person and another I think. is telling about the value of that. conversation here is one of the most. important moments from my favorite. episode on the Diary of a CEO of all. time to understand what happiness is you. have to understand the cause of it yes. and you write about that extensively and. solve for happy so what is the cause of.

unhappiness as you see it especially if. you're building sort of machine learning. applications that are going to you know. um solve you know make people arrive at. contentment or happiness in a. personalized way we must be able to know. what's causing this lack of allow me a. bit of time to explain it because it. it's simple when we get it but it's not. simple to get to it so so happiness is. very predictable okay if you look back. at any point your life where you ever. felt happy there is one commonality. across all of those moments that can.

actually be be documented in a. mathematical equation okay you've never. felt happy because of a specific event. in your life okay uh take for example. rain rain doesn't make you happy or. unhappy there is no inherent value of. happiness in Rain okay rain makes you. happy when you want to order your plant. and it makes you unhappy when you want a. sunbath right and so it's not just the. event rain it's the comparison between. the event and an expectation in your.

mind of how life should be okay if. you're worried about your plants then. life should be generous to me and get me. rain so I can water the plants and if. life does that then life meets your. expectations and you're happy okay and. so happiness in that sense becomes equal. to or greater than so it's really. mathematics the your perception of the. events of your life minus your. expectations of how life should be. okay and apply that to anything apply. that to anything so you know my favorite.

example is nature we're all happy in. nature why are we all happy in nature I. mean you go out there and there are ants. and there are flies and you know trees. are crooked and there are you know. shrubs everywhere and bushes and it's. just really not that hedged and. organized but that's what we expect so. you know Nature's chaos is what we. expect nature to be and so we feel happy. you know nobody ever sits in front of. the ocean and says I like the view but. please mute the sound okay you just take.

it you know it's it's the monotonous. sound and the view and the wind and and. the Sun and the whole experience right. uh and because of. that uh happiness becomes very different. than what was defined to us okay what. was defined to us is that happiness is. found in a a gathering at the pub or. party or a you know an activity or some. kind of pleasure or fun or Elation or.

whatever that is that's not at all true. these are I call these the state of. Escape okay happiness as per the. definition of the happiness equation is. events equal to or beating expectations. life going my way okay and so basically. happiness is that calm and peacefulness. you feel when you're okay with life as. it is it doesn't really matter what life. is okay what matters is that you can be. okay with it. right so so you take you know the any. example huh if your boss is annoying and.

your expectation is yeah bosses are. annoying this is what life is about they. become bosses because they're annoying. right and and so if if that's your. expectation you're going to look at it. and go like yeah I need to learn the. skill of managing annoying bosses okay. and if that's the case then you're not. going to be upset about it uh similarly. anything else if you look at it then. it's not just the event it's your. perception of the event so you have a a.

something to influence it's not just the. event huh your partner might say. something hurtful on Friday at 4. p.m. that's the event my partner said. something hurtful at Sunday morning you. tell yourself he or she doesn't love me. anymore okay that's your perception of. the event that's not actually the event. the event is something hurtful was said. but your perception of the event is your. work is your it's your brain adding. color to it and then you compare that to. your expectations right you compared my.

boss is annoying to my boss shouldn't be. annoying where did you get that from. right so we blur the happiness equation. we break the happiness equation because. of what I call the six and seven okay. six Grand Illusions and seven blind. spots which are the six Grand Illusions. are. basically uh call them. Pathways uh that the modern world. teaches us to navigate the modern world. that our Illusions are not true okay. take for example control everyone knows.

that to succeed in the modern world you. have to learn to control certain events. right so you start to believe that the. way to succeed in life is to control. everything but the truth is even if you. go down to the basics of physics that we. never are in control that the the. absolute design of nature itself of the. universe itself is entropy and Chaos. right that's the actual design and so if. you try to control it you're bound to be. disappointed a lot of events are going.

to miss your expectations okay and yes. I'm not saying don't control anything at. all but start to understand that you're. you're going to be selective because you. have a finite amount of effort and by. the way even if you're selective and you. you try to control everything sometimes. things will fall out of control okay and. that should be your expectation once you. get that right that was one that was my. biggest illusion okay I a mathematician. I'm a software developer I am a.

physicist I am an engineer and I am a. senior executive that doesn't get worse. than that okay I'm like the worst. absolute the worst I used to give my. wonderful wife I swear to you Stephen. don't judge me I used to give her a. spreadsheet that would tell her when to. wash the colors and when to wash the. whites based on our average consumption. as a family to save the environment and. poor Niel would would actually you smile. at me and say sure baby I will use this. right of course and ignores the hell out.

of me because that's how crazy you can. be when it comes to control now these. are the Illusions if you live your life. through the illusion of control good. luck finding happiness so six Grand. Illusions the illusion of uh of thought. the illusion the illusion of self the. illusion of uh knowledge the illusion of. time control and fear okay now that's. one side and that disrupts your your. entire view of what to expect from life. because you're expecting life to behave.

through a length of a a lens of an. illusion the other side of it is what I. call Seven blind spots okay and the. Seven blind spots are not really defects. in your brain as a matter of fact they. are the very design of your brain okay. your brain is designed to tell you. what's wrong okay it's not designed to. you know if a Tiger shows up right here. now my brain has no you you whatsoever. in telling me Oh my god look how. Majestic that animal is right yeah it's. a beautiful animal but my brain will say.

we're going to die okay and we're going. to die is the idea that basically makes. our uh our brain constantly look for. what's wrong blur the events of life huh. you ask a mother and and she will say oh. my daughter's been sick all winter no. she just had two episodes of flu 3 days. each but to the to the Caring Heart of a. mother that needs to be exaggerated to. the exaggeration is one of the blind. spots your your brain is trying to get.

you to take action so it pushes you it. pushes You by exaggerating the event a. little bit so that you jump in and take. action and accordingly the event you're. comparing to you're comparing the wrong. event to the wrong expectation and the. happiness equation falls apart isn't. this cool every single conversation I. have here on the DI of AO at the very. end of it you'll know I ask the guest to. leave a question in the Diary of a CEO. and what we've done is we've turned.

every single question written in the. Diary of a CEO into these conversation. cards that you can play at home so. you've got every guest we've ever had. their question their name and on the. back of it if you scan that QR code you. get to watch on your phone the person. who answered that question the next. guest we're finally revealing all of the. question questions and the people that. answered the question and we've just. released the updated conversation cards.

we released it the first time and it. sold out instantly we released. conversation cards again and they sold. out instantly for a second time we've. updated the cards put all the new. questions in and we've introduced a. Twist on the back of the conversation. cards now we've got different levels of. vulnerability so level one these are. more sort of surface level questions and. by the time you get down to level three. the questions become a little bit more. challenging a little bit more vulnerable.

and that's really where connection. happens to test the power of these cards. we invited 20 total strangers to come. and have dinner and the only thing they. had to do was answer a level three. question that was put in front of them. in a room full of strangers and we saw. unbelievable almost magical results. people teers people forming lifelong. friendships and people unlocking truths.

within them that they' been too scared. to confront vulnerability is the door to. connection that is what we've always. done here on this podcast and that's. exactly what these conversation cards do. you can play them with your partner at. home you can play them with your. colleagues at work or you can play them. with your best friend on the weekend the. stories we've heard about these cards. about a grandson playing it with their. grandfather to get to know them pulling. them out in the midst of a divorce with. their wife and saving their marriage as. you've often seen on this podcast.

sometimes one question and someone who. is genuinely open to answering it is all. it takes to unlock a truth that will end. up setting you free and that's exactly. why we made these conversation cards and. you can get them right now at the. conversation cards.com I'll put a link. to the conversation cards in the. description below they've sold out twice. instantaneously so if you are interest. in getting hold of some limited edition. conversation cards I really really. recommend acting quickly and let me know.

how powerful they were for you and or. for your relationships thank. you do you need a podcast to listen to. next we've discovered that people who. liked this episode also tend to. absolutely love another recent episode. we've done so I've linked that episode. in the description below I know you'll. enjoy it. [Music]. oh. [Music].