What If It Did Work?
What If It Did Work?
Blair LaCorte on Entrepreneurship, Leadership, and Building Meaningful Connections
Join us for an enlightening conversation with Blair LaCorte, a pioneering business executive who has successfully navigated through the dynamic sectors of entertainment, aviation, AI technology, aerospace, and supply chain. Blair shares his extraordinary journey from humble beginnings to leading thriving companies like Loseh Technologies, Exojet, and Vertical Networks. Discover the true essence of entrepreneurship as Blair dispels trendy myths, spotlighting the integral roles of risk-taking and perseverance in the face of challenges. With reflections on his upbringing by entrepreneurial parents, Blair reveals how passion and resilience have shaped his path to success, while also sharing practical advice on leadership and personal growth.
We also uncover profound life lessons inspired by insights from a palliative care doctor, who shares wisdom gathered from his dying patients. As entrepreneurs, embracing love, authenticity, and the courage to take calculated risks are essential for living without regrets. The conversation emphasizes the importance of momentum and the need to recognize one's unique strengths, whether steering through turbulent waters or navigating personal and professional challenges. By aligning with our individual skills and embracing growth, we learn when to forge ahead or adapt, understanding that entrepreneurship isn't for everyone.
In a world where social connections are vital for health and longevity, we highlight the power of surrounding oneself with positive influences. Discover how our social circles can significantly impact our habits and well-being, and how auditing our time and relationships can lead to meaningful bonds. From the benefits of high-intensity interval training and understanding sleep chronotypes to the critical importance of community, this episode is packed with insights to inspire bold steps toward personal and professional fulfillment. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or seeking deeper connections, our conversation with Blair LaCour offers a wealth of inspiration and actionable insights.
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I never told no one that my whole life I've been holding back. Every time I load my gun up so I can shoot for the star, I hear a voice like who do you think you are All right?
Speaker 2:Another day, another dollar, another one of my favorite episodes of my favorite podcast. Yes, I'm biased, it's my own podcast with me. My guest this week, blair LaCour. Dynamic, dynamic business executive career spans the entertainment, aviation, ai technology, aerospace and supply chain sectors. Renowned for his insatiable curiosity, collaborative spirit and competitive drive, blair has successfully steered companies like Loseh Technologies, exojet and Vertical Networks from startup phases to IPOs.
Speaker 2:Blair's exceptional talent for engaging and motivating teams to achieve strategic and operational excellence sets him apart. His knack for transferring best practices across diverse industries has driven remarkable growth and substantial investor returns. Everybody loves the sound of that. Beyond his executive roles, blair's dedication to mentorship and team building shines through support for over 100 companies and nonprofits. As an investor and advisor at Dartmouth Tuck School, mba, recipient of the prestigious Glebowitz Award and a participant in Stanford's executive coursework, blair's academic credentials bolsters his impressive career, his journey to a powerful testament to the impact of innovative thinking and transformational leadership, and achieving extraordinary business success. Man, I can tell you're an Ivy Leaguer. All those three and four, I mean, I'm an LSU grad man, dude yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, if you dig a little deeper it's University of Maine. So you know, local boy does well. I think LSU is more exciting than University of Maine. I can tell you that.
Speaker 2:So how's it going, man?
Speaker 3:oh, dude, you know life is good, life is good. I'm actually tired after that intro. You know it's the award that wore me out just listening to all those things.
Speaker 2:I you know I, I, I see your, your hand, you're, you're married, but if you're single, let me tell you, talk about like an intro for a dating app. Man, you'd be like crushing it. Man, I was like floored.
Speaker 3:But welcome, man, I'm proud to have you, yeah, no, hey, listen, thanks for having me. I mean, look, I grew up with two entrepreneurs and although I tried to fight it, you know I have a great love for people who want to take risks, try things you know be unreasonable, and I think that's what makes our country great is that you know we have those people Right. So I'm glad to be here and, you know, share whatever I've learned in the process.
Speaker 2:So both parents, everybody had the entrepreneurial spirit then in your family growing up.
Speaker 3:Or we were very poor, and so you know. When my parents got divorced, you know both of them had to start up businesses to try to figure stuff out. But you learn an awful lot when you have to worry about making the rent every month. You know entrepreneurship means something different than this. You know the trendy, the trendy kind of that we talk about today know the trendy, the trendy kind of that we talk about today.
Speaker 2:Well, you mean like the trendy stuff because it's social media and everybody follows Gary Vee and you know, yeah, you know, or you know.
Speaker 3:I went back to, you know, actually talk to students maybe it was 10 years ago and all the questions I got were you know, hey, listen, how much money do I have to take, get in the bank before I can start something? You know, what courses should I take? You know what do you think the best you know, attributes of entrepreneurship are? And I'm thinking, dude, the only way you want to be an entrepreneur is it makes you sick that you don't want to be an entrepreneur because it's really hard. And if you look at the statistics, you know the statistics can be daunting when you know one company in a million makes it to $10 million. But the reality is, if you love what you do, you don't work a day in your life. And most of the entrepreneurs I know they may not have got it on the first time, but by the third time almost all of them did. So it's more of a you know. To me it's a way of life and a way of thinking that you don't have a choice about.
Speaker 2:I was an entrepreneur for 20 years. Most of those were with my partner, my ex-wife, which was another topic or another episode. But, man, the only reason why I wanted to become an entrepreneur was because, well, it was twofold I I had a degree in arts and sciences, mass communications. So you know that if I knew I had to get educated and live a vow of poverty, I would have just gone to seminary school and two like literally every time I, the jobs I had for like years, were just like none of these bosses ever believed in.
Speaker 2:Like reading a business or a personal development book, I mean, zig ziglar would cringe, john Maxwell would cringe at their leadership structure. And it got to the point where now my grandfather was an entrepreneur but my mom worked for Ma Bell for so many years and she was always like go to school, get that corporate job, which she hated. By the way, my mom always blamed me. She's like you better go to college and get that degree so I could, I can quit. And to this day, like my mom, still, no matter what, what are you going back to corporate America? Well, at 51, I think it's a little too late for that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, look it's, it's. It's the classic that we try to overcomplicate a lot of stuff. You know, zig Ziglar was a door-to-door salesman, right, and so was an Ogilvy, and so weren't a lot of these guys, I mean, the people who really invented the basis for a lot of corporate marketing, were entrepreneurs. They were killing what they eat and they were learning about people. And, at the end of the day, the only reason I say it has to make you sick is like you have to decide. It's. It's not the easy way, but the easy. The easy path is not always the path that makes you happy, but if you can be happy listen, I have nothing against someone who finds they want to do a corporate job and nine to five works and they're happy with what they're doing and they do things outside of work, I think that's great. But the country needs entrepreneurs. I mean, the reality is that, you know, small companies make up 85 percent of the job growth in this country today. So when you talk about GDP growth, you're talking about people who start up companies. You're not talking about the IBMs anymore. They don't even exist.
Speaker 3:In my past life, I bought IBM and we merged it to make a company called Lenovo. Okay, so it doesn't even exist anymore. Right, it's a consulting you know, consulting company. So big companies aren't growing. Now, there's a few tech companies out there that were growing and now that are shrinking. But if you look at what makes this company great and what makes our GDP grow, it is those people who decide. You know, I hate my boss, I want to do something. This makes me sick, or you know what? I just have this urge that I need to make something happen. So, if there's a listener out there, that that's what they're thinking. That's the first step. The first step is wanting it Because, again, the journey is varied, but it's not easy. It's easier to listen to your mother. Get a good degree, get a good job, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I mean the thing with entrepreneurship and this is coming from. I had war wounds, I survived the pandemic. Uh, the banking crisis is that when you finally achieve anything, people don't see the A through the Z, you don't A through the X, you see the Y and the Z. And my second book was called Vacation CEO and it was because it was a moniker that, yes, I would take trips with my wife at the time and our two daughters and like, oh my gosh, you're so lucky. And it was like you weren't thinking I was lucky when, you know, I had to become jack of all trades. Or you know, I had times where I was working 80, 90 hours a week and you know, I didn't have a day off or I didn't have two nickels to rub.
Speaker 3:But you know, or you didn't or you didn't know you were going to make the rent in two months.
Speaker 2:Oh, that too that's.
Speaker 3:But look that, you know that is the motivation, right, you know I always, you know, I ran a well, probably the world's largest live entertainment tech company, right? So I I got to, you know, and when I was at tpg, we bought, bought CAA, we bought MGM Studios, I bought Univision. So I've been, I've seen the entertainment industry. One of the things I used to say about it is you know it's, it's, you know, the best thing in the world and the worst thing in the world to be an artist, because, number one, you know what you want. That's awesome. I love this, I want to do this, I want to do this. The worst is, I need to do this and I don't want to do something else, and I, to me, entrepreneurship is kind of an art, right, it's you know. The good news is, you know you want to do it, and the bad news is you know that other things aren't going to be as satisfying, and so you're going to have to live through the ups and downs of it.
Speaker 2:But you know, honestly, I continue to go back to the fact that you know it takes a village and not everyone should be an entrepreneur. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 3:Because you know what Social media lies, doesn't it? It makes it look, it makes it look easy and shows you the end, but it doesn't show you. You know, the worst thing, the hardest thing, I think, is when you see someone and you know that shouldn't be an entrepreneur. But they're great people, like I can tell you, during their first Internet boom in the late 90s, every consultant was out there wanted to be an entrepreneur. And I'm thinking, wow, what makes you a great consultant is not what makes you a great entrepreneur. But there was so much money being made they thought I want to start a company. And I'll tell you, there's a few of them who made it, because they're exceptional, but the majority of them, you know, didn't, because consulting is different and if you're a good consultant, then you should be a good consultant. But I also will, you know, will say you know, I read a bunch of Omar, a bunch of your stuff.
Speaker 3:You know, look, at the end of the day, I had a buddy who was a palliative care doctor, which means he watched people die, helped them to die, and he had a thousand people that he helped die and then he had a birthday party, and so you walk in and he's got a big coffin in the middle. We thought it was a joke, right. But he gets out of the coffin and he said I'm done letting people watching people die. I'm going to go out and talk about what they told me, so other people can learn from that. And he basically said they all said of 10 things, four of them were the things they said over and over again who do I love? Who loves me? And then the other two were did I make a difference in this world? And the final one was I authentic? Did I do what I should have done? Did I take some risks? Did I come out to the world and tell them who I was? And that, again to me, is you know, if you're an entrepreneur, that's what you got to do, because if you wait till the end of your life, you know everyone goes to the same place Death is undefeated. We're all going to die, right, and so the only question is when, whether it's a bus or whether it's old age. But if you haven't finished your checklist and your checklist is to love and be loved and to make a difference and be yourself, then you're going to regret it. So let's get out there and try.
Speaker 3:Now, I have a lot of opinions being the kid of an entrepreneur or two entrepreneurs about how maybe to do it a little better than you know, taking all the risk, but that doesn't mean I don't believe in it, right. I just think there are just like every sport, there are things that you can do there that are make it increase the probability that you don't die before you get to the end. Increase the probability that you don't die before you get to the end. Right? Because you know, if you look at them, they've done a lot of studies on great entrepreneurs and they have two things that they have in common.
Speaker 3:One is quick start they're thinking, thinking, thinking, trying, trying, trying. But the other is fact finder they don't run out of money. Before they get there, they need to know where they stand and know whether they're losing or whether they're winning. They know that they're failing and they know to fail fast, but they know when they're winning and that they double down. Just like in poker, you can't beat the house unless you know when to double down. And so good entrepreneurs aren't just people who come up with ideas, they're people who actually listen and think and connect the facts so that they don't? They don't take too much risk.
Speaker 2:Right, you got to take enough risk to break something, but you don't have to take enough risk to break yourself well, blair, and I'll give you this analogy this was like years ago and was dating this woman and went, uh fishing with her son, rented a captain and he's out in the intercoastal and in florida in the summer it gets, you know, the weather can turn on a dime and it started pouring and the waves are like these huge waves and I could tell he's a good captain, but he didn't have to explain. But he said we have to move forward and we have to keep going, If not the boat will capsize and it will take us all under. And I think about that because, you know, being an entrepreneur, arts and science guy, writer of books and stuff, and I'm like you know what, that's a great analogy for a leader. That's a great analogy for an entrepreneur. Is it the entrepreneur, the leader that keeps on going forward when things look bad?
Speaker 2:Because a lot of times you hit a little turbulence and the first thing an entrepreneur is like oh well, we're going to have to cut marketing, which I don't know why. A mom and pop that's that's their first knee jerk is like, yeah, we need less customers, so let's cut that. But you know, they always want to retreat because human nature, it's like, oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, let me retreat. But all you're doing is really you're killing yourself. You're going under instead of going. Now I'm not saying go reckless, but continue on the path.
Speaker 3:Now listen, momentum is a powerful tool for survival and I had a girlfriend before I was married that was a Olympic gold medalist in the snowboard, and she would always say look, when I'm really scared I need to turn downhill, because when I'm really scared it means I'm losing control and I'm starting to slide. And the way not to slide is to get my edge into it and to be able to control it. And the only way to control it is to pick up a little bit of speed, because if I slow down to nothing, I'm dead Right, and you know so. I think there's many analogies in life that you know if you freeze, then you're probably more vulnerable than if you can put, you know, head into the waves or head into the wind. Right, I'm not saying do something crazy, but I'm saying you know you got to, you know you got to survive, know you got to survive, you got to move forward.
Speaker 2:Now also, though, going back to I love your analogy not everybody, or you know, when you said not everybody is designed to be an entrepreneur, and I tell that to people all the time. God, god, created people. You know, we all have said skills. I mean, I couldn't be an athlete.
Speaker 3:I'm five foot eight and you know zero athletic ability so thank god I'm five foot eight and a half, because that makes me feel better, you know okay, well, there you go, man.
Speaker 2:You're tall, I. You know short people. I take the half inch man, notice tall people.
Speaker 3:They don't know their height, but you know when you're you're very yeah, you know I, I always do it a half, half an inch yeah, you, you're like a half inch short of, I guess, average height, whatever, whoever creates that statistic.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's like there's. No, there's no shame in that, but there is a shame in what you said not living a life that you, on your terms, holding back. It's like those memes of oh, this is why you shouldn't. It's like they're on a gondola out in Venice, in the canals, and it's like two old people passed out on the gondola and the meme's like well, this is why you don't travel when you're retired. That's the same thing, though. People a lot.
Speaker 2:I'm planning on being an entrepreneur. I'm planning when the time is right. There's never. It's like buying stocks. Imagine trying to time the market. Well, I'm waiting for the third distribution day in the month or the quarter, and then that'll be my time. No, man, you can't. There's no perfect timing. That it's like what? Um? It's like what warren buffett said yeah, the the best time of plant and tree was 20 years ago. You didn't do it, so do it now. And that to me, yeah, I quit watching others, quit watching the parade, go by, jump in. You know, in your notes one I didn't realize that there was masterminds all the way back from from 1700s, business masterminds.
Speaker 3:So yeah, benjamin Franklin's the one who invented masterminds. I mean, he, you know, he invented a lot of different things, but you know, he was the second son, you know, which meant he was indentured to his brother. He had a shitty life. He took off to Philadelphia and because he took off and he was an entrepreneur and left his family, he actually saw things a different way. And one of the things he saw was that business is, you know, your family, is your life, but business is just a sport. And if you can't actually learn from life, but business is just a sport, and if you can't actually learn from other people, business is an apprentice game.
Speaker 3:So he would bring groups of people in the village together who had very different businesses and they would talk about things. They would talk about, you know, in this, you know, in this case, he had, you know, this guy was having trouble, you know, sourcing oil for his lamps and this guy was having trouble, you know, with being taxed on something. And they would all talk about it and they would learn from each other and it would make them all stronger because, again, basic business is not rocket science, it's an apprentice thing where you learn how to do basic business. Now to make something special, to innovate, to create, that is something special, but you still got to have the basic blocking and tackling. So I think masterminds are just a great way to realize you're not alone and to be able to ask the questions that are very difficult to ask when everyone works for you.
Speaker 2:Well, it's also easier when you're in a room full of like-minded people and successful people, because they're not going to judge you. People have this fear of being judged or ridiculed, but it's always. It's never from successful people, it's always like from that person that's still living with mom and dad in their basement wearing their underoos, like at 45. Mom and dad in their basement wearing their underoos, like at 45.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know, when you find those people, the other thing that is the reality is, no matter what their title is or who they are is you get away from them? It doesn't. Those people do not, do not help you. And you know I, you know I. Everyone has a hard time because we all want to kind of think it's it's us, not them. But I'm a huge believer that someone who tells you the truth, even if it's tough truth, is good to be around, but someone that's jealous or petty or narcissistic, that has no interest in helping you. You need to believe them and you know so. You may have to deal with them in business, but you don't have to hang out with them. That's been my learning in life, as I wish I had done that earlier on. There were some people in my life that were great business people but not good partners Because their business for them was all about them.
Speaker 2:Well, it's always about aligning with the right people. I mean, trust me, I've been in the right rooms. I've, I've. I've had the right business coaches. I've had the wrong business coaches. I've been in the right masterminds and I've been in those rooms that I'm like what? But at least do your best to get in these rooms. Everybody has this Well, I need to be in my comfort zone. I need I. I'm going to pat myself on the back because I hang out with the people that I grew up with. Well, how are you going to grow?
Speaker 3:That's the basic. It's the basic of biology. It's cognitive dissonance. You only grow through cognitive dissonance, which is pain. You have to stretch yourself and you have to feel pain in order to grow. It's truth in medicine when you rip a muscle, it grows. It's truth psychologically. When you actually push yourself in an uncomfortable place, you actually learn. That is the definition of cognitive dissonance and growth. So humans were made to keep growing. The second we stop growing. Again, it's like a ship who stops in the middle of the ocean. Now you're actually vulnerable to the waves, right, because you're not making waves.
Speaker 3:I sit on the board of the number one longevity institute in the world, the Buck Institute. If people hadn't heard about it, if you're a scientist, you'd know who it is. We invented autophagy, or at least the concepts behind it, which is reduced calorie. We invented autophagy, or at least the concepts behind it, which is reduced calorie. We invented ketosis, stenosis, cleaning out of the excess, misreplications. So we've done a lot of basic science on aging and what you'll find is the number one correlate.
Speaker 3:There's two correlates to living a longer, healthy life. One is that you have connection with people and the second is that you stress out your body. So 10 minutes of HIT is all you need a day, but you need 10 minutes of HIT and 10 minutes of LIT. It's not exercise, right, that's not what makes your body healthy. It's what your body wants to be stressed out. And look, I think that in business, that you don't want to be too stressed out, but you also don't want to be stressed out at all. You don't want to play the game and you want to get better. Every time you need to push yourself. Like my dad would say look, either you're learning or sometimes you're earning and you'd like to do both at the same time. But the big key is not to burn out so you can learn. You can earn, but don't burn, and in order to learn, you've got to actually push yourself. Beyond where you are today, very rarely do you take something you have and you don't need to keep moving it forward speaking of top 50, 25 hours.
Speaker 2:Is that the best time to fast Like once a?
Speaker 3:week. Look again autophagy is the extreme version, which is, if I cut you down to 600 calories a day, you'll live 10 years longer. It's one of the absolute. The research is absolute. Now, 600 calories a day you're going to feel like it's 20 years and you're going to hate yourself. Now, 600 calories a day you're going to feel like it's 20 years and you're going to hate yourself.
Speaker 2:It's really fucking hard, right? I've tried.
Speaker 3:But if you did it you would live longer. Now, why does autophagy? Why do we think or believe it works? What happens is we've been in starvation most of our history and cells want to survive and so when you don't give it enough calories, they go inward and the energy goes towards the core, which means that around the edges, the misreplications read cancer. The viruses die because they don't get enough energy. So it's a difficult way to protect yourself.
Speaker 3:Now, when you take a look at intermittent fasting, there is some debate, but in reality there's certain things that are clear. If autophagy or calorie reduction itself helps you, then only eating two meals a day is going to limit your eating because you're going to have less calories. Because you're only eating two meals a day. You just can't eat three meals and two meals unless you really try. The second is that there's a symbiotic relationship between bringing the energy in and maintenance to your body. So when you eat, your body has to take energy to digest food. So if, for instance, you only eat an eight-hour window, then you've got 16 hours for your body to repair itself. Now the best time to fast is in the evening, before you go to bed, right, so you wouldn't eat dinner. The problem with that is let's go back to rule number one. Rule number one is that the highest correlate is connection with other people, and if you didn't eat dinner, you probably wouldn't socialize, and that's worse than not having connection with people, is worse than eating too much food. So what we tell most people is you skip breakfast, not because it wouldn't be better to skip dinner, but because if people don't do it, it doesn't matter what you tell them. And really most of the things you need to do to live 10 years more healthy life are easy. We just don't have the habits, and so part of the whole thing is, if I said number one was connection, number two was that you needed to figure out how to stress your body and eat less. Number three would be you need to do it, and the way you do it is you find things you like and you find things that your friends will do, so that you develop a habit around it, like intermittent fasting. Once you've started doing it, if you've tried it, it's not that hard to do, unless you're going out to breakfast with your buddies every morning and then it's. You know it's hard to do, right? So you know part of this is developing.
Speaker 3:There was a study done on Facebook which is politically incorrect, but they looked at people and whether they were overweight, and they looked at them in two caveats and at the end of the day, they found when people got overweight, all their friends got overweight. Now how did they read that? Well, you could either read it that all those people were doing the same stuff and they were getting fatter, or you read it that once you get fat, you hang out with fat people because they do the same things you do, because you're not going and playing basketball anymore. Whichever way you read it, that's the reality is that what you surround yourself with is who you become, or what you become is who you surround yourself with. So be careful.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, we've heard it. Even if you're not into personal development, even if you're not into business development, you are the Jim Rohn you are, who you associate with. You are the average of five of the five people that you hang out with. Everybody knows it, but how many people really practice it Well, outside of the successful people in general, the masses like well, I guess that's my buddy. I grew up with that, we went to high school together.
Speaker 3:But you know, but your buddy is toxic to you. You know again how many people practice tough leadership Like I worked for Jack Welsh in the old days, right, and you know his attitude was get rid of the top bottom 10 percent. Now, when I first heard it I was like wait a minute. You know, there's reasons why. You know, and we know you know there's there's still good people and that's the truth. They're good people. But his point was, if you don't keep pushing really good people in, then you're not going to get any better. And that's who you're associating with.
Speaker 3:And I had and I had that experience later on in life the first time I took over a big part of a big company. We were doing 360 reviews and I remember this is my first general manager role and I wanted to be a good person because that's who I want to be. And there was a guy who had sick twins and he was not coming into work and they turned out to be fine. But I went and I helped him and I covered for him and I did a bunch of sales and when my 360 review came in, everyone in the group didn't say, hey, your brother's a good guy. When I need something he's going to cover for me. They said you spent all your time with a guy that you were covering for. You should have just given him a leave of absence and you spent no time with us.
Speaker 3:So again, it's really hard to say I'm hanging out with the wrong people. It's one of the highest correlates. When you get out of jail, they tell you don't hang out with the same people. Right, because it's not that they're terrible people, but they're gonna do the same things and you're gonna do the same thing. So you know, I do this exercise with people in the mastermind, where we do an audit of where you spend your time and who you spend your time with. And I don't know if we have enough time today, but I'll give you a couple of highlights. It's fascinating that most people spend 60% of their time with people that they don't want to, because it turns out those people who really want something from you find ways either to make you feel guilty or to be important, or to find ways to spend time with you, and when you really look at it, they're not doing you any good and it's not healthy for you, but they need something from you.
Speaker 3:The second point is you know, there's Dunbar's number about you, about 150 people you can share emotional energy with, which is why we used to start, we used to build divisions at 150 or no more. When you really look at it and you look at family and friends, you really have to be clear that your top 10 friends get at least 30, 40 percent of your time. And if you look at it, it's really hard and in fact guys are the worst. When I asked them, we've done a bunch of primary research to update this Dunbar number thing which is the state of the art in psychology is that when you ask a guy how many best friends he has, the national average is less than one. Ok, now, when you ask and when you actually look at how many times they actually talk to these people, they pick their best friend as someone they've known the longest, even if they only talk to him once a month.
Speaker 3:When you actually look at friends, most of Guy's friends come from business, which are really defined as acquaintances. You may be friends with them, but you have a single thing in common, but you tend to actually hang out with them and like them and that's not a makeup for friends, because what friends give you that acquaintances don't is. You can be vulnerable in front of friends and they won't reject you. It's really difficult to go into work and say to a couple of guys you know what I feel like I'm going to cry today and I don't want to work anymore. Okay, because they don't forget it. When you tell your parents that your girlfriend cheated on you, they still think she's a whore, even if you're still going out with her girlfriend cheated on you they still think she's a whore, even if you're still going out with her, okay, so you know.
Speaker 3:So, at the end of the day, it's really difficult, even if you have really good friends in business, to separate business from you know, from the vulnerability that you get in there. So you need some people who have no vested interest in what you do every day, maybe not even understand it, and that know you and care about you. And I'll give you one last fact, because I'm a big mouth, so I'm going to tell you my last fact, which is when I said the highest correlate to 10 years more healthy life is connection. There's actually a lot of research that talks about this thing called the dyadic relationship, which means that you have a relationship with one other person that they actually you know, that they are empathetic to you, that they like you, they care about you, they ask you questions, but most important is that you believe in your head that if you were in trouble, they would say something or do something. And that's called compassion, because compassion is a two-way relationship. Not only does someone empathize with you. A lot of people empathize with other people. They feel bad or they want to know what's up, but a lot of people won't take that next step.
Speaker 3:And if you believe that that's a superpower, because that allows you to take advice and to get saved by people, and that's the thing that keeps us whole, because humans are very different than any other animal in the world. We have a parasympathetic nervous system and the vagus nerve that goes from our brain to our mouth, to our stomach, to our heart, to all of our organs. The brain and the body calm down when you know you're loved, and that's the reality of how we survive through that tough day when the storm's out there and we say we got to keep going, I got to keep going. If I stop right now, I'm going to die. The way you keep going is you believe it's going to get better and that people love you.
Speaker 3:Bookended with what I told you at the beginning. Again, you can look what you. I can tell you the future by telling you what you're going to think about when you die, right, and what you think about when you're going to die is what you should be thinking about now, right, and what you think about when you're going to die is what you should be thinking about now. You've got to surround yourself with good people and you've got to care for them, and they've got to care for you. And then all this other stuff about business is just a sport.
Speaker 2:Just a sport we play. Blair, the thing is most people they don't realize that tomorrow's never guaranteed. Everybody believes that. I mean my grandfather's 100. Bless his heart. I know I'm not going to live to be 100 like him, but not everybody's going to live that. But we all act like we're going to be Betty White or we're going to be George Burns and you know tomorrow's guaranteed. That's why everybody, that's why procrastination is oh well, you know how many people already checked out. There's like four months, five months, like I said, arts and science, I can't count. Left in the year, plenty of days to just turn your life around. Short-term, mid-term goal, accomplish it. A lot of people are lying to themselves and saying 2025, blair, this wasn't my year. I'm more of an odd year type of person.
Speaker 3:January 1st, I'm with you and the reason we don't like to think about it is because it's scary. But the reality is, as I said earlier, death is undefeated. You're going to die. The only question is when you're going to die. And if you look at the probabilities, there are things you can do to change that, and we've been going back and forth between business and my stuff in longevity. But, yeah, there are things you can do to impact that and there's there's also bad luck that you don't impact it. So the reality is, you know I am a recovering Luddite and a, you know, an aspiring Buddhist. You have to be present, and being present doesn't mean you think about when you're going to die. It means that you optimize what you're doing today.
Speaker 3:And they're two sides of the same coin, right? If you optimize what you're doing today, when it comes you'll say I've done the best. When my dad passed away I think about it almost every other day. I must think about him, and it was 18 and a half years ago. But on his deathbed, one of the things I said to him was look, this moment does not really matter because we've lived our lives and loved together every day, and so the end is just another day. But you don't have to feel bad about today and that you can't talk or you can't do what you want to do or say what you have to say to me, because it's already done. But the only reason that I felt that way and that he felt that way is because we didn't take it for granted, right, and I think that's the. You know, the thing that I would again say at the I said at the beginning is if you're going to be an entrepreneur, then you know 99% of the people in this world get up every day and work and they have no choice about what they do. If you have any choice, then you are gifted. You have a gift, right? You have a gift, and even if you fail, you'll always go back and do something else.
Speaker 3:When I was at GE, when I mentioned Jack Welch, one of the things I was perplexed by was a lot of the guys that I work with would tell me you know, I'd really I'd like to, I'd like to leave and go start something, but I just can't. I have these golden handcuffs. And then I realized later they were just afraid, and it's okay, we're all afraid, but they were just afraid that they, that they weren't going to be able to do something because they all had boats and second houses, you know, on St George, lake St George, so weren't going to be able to do something because they all had boats and second houses, you know, on Lake St George, so they weren't destitute. They just really they were scared. So you know, part of our challenge again is to figure out how to do the things where you know that we're afraid of, because we don't want to be there in our deathbed saying damn it to be there in our deathbed saying, damn it, I wish I tried I could have, I should have.
Speaker 2:And there's, there's so much of that and there's, there's. So you know, there's books and there's ted talks on a person. You know the dying and their last wishes, but nobody lives like they're dying, nobody. Everybody takes the. Yeah, nobody lives for the now, which, being a buddhist, that's all. What we really should focus on is the now. Instead, they either focus on, you know, being victim oh my gosh, she dumped me, or oh, that guy took all my money or you know, venting over stuff that you can't change, or a future which is abstract, because we don't even know if nobody knows.
Speaker 3:Use that sports analogy, which is, you know if you worry about the last play and whether someone cheated, or whether you, you know your sneaker, you know, didn't grip or whatever, it doesn't matter. You know I've learned two experiences in my life you know, one in sports and one in the military. And the reality is that you go into theater or you go into the game and you play it with great emotion. That play is with great emotion. The next play, you strip the emotion and you actually remember the facts because you want to do better. So you don't want to, you know, you don't want to forget that you made a mistake there. But feeling the emotion of the mistake is not going to help you get to the next play. All it does is makes you afraid. So part of this is it's just a practice, and you know the practice in Buddhism is of not forgetting what's happened, but letting it pass through you. And I use analogy with the kids I coach which is look, mental is the same as physical. We have you jump rope, you jump rope, you get you're up to 185. And then I tell, and I then I have a stopwatch and I tell you how long it takes to get your heart rate down and that will tell you your physical fitness level, because your body readjusts from stress. It was very stressed. It comes down. If you can do it in less than 60 seconds, you're in good shape.
Speaker 3:The same thing is true of failure in life, in business. How long does it take you to get over it? It's not that it shouldn't hurt, it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt. It's going to hurt when you do something physical and it's going to hurt when someone cheats or you fail at something or you messed up in a presentation. Let it hurt, but how long is it going to be before you recover? Because if those short of the recover period, the more time you have to get onto the next play. And you know what, if you run more plays, you're going to score more points.
Speaker 2:It's all about winning. Always score more than the opposition.
Speaker 1:And we all in life. It's all about scoring.
Speaker 2:Yeah, usually, blair, this keeps on. Your publicist sent this and I need to ask because you know I'm playing the back nine, 51. But please explain, since you have this to add 10 years of a healthy lifespan, I'm 51. So what are the 10 things?
Speaker 3:So look before 60 years old, almost everything is reversible. And I'll say, within a context, only 7% of your predestiny is genetic and of that 7%, only 1% are things that, oh my God, we can't do anything about. So there are things you can do for the other 6%. So, if you know what it is Of the 93% of other things, what happens to us is this called phenomics. It's the expression of our genes. We smoke a lot, therefore we get cancer because our genes are stressed and therefore they present this way, or we don't exercise, and this is what happens. So 93% of this stuff is reversible, right? And so when you take a look at adding 10 years of healthy life, there's only five categories of things, and my attitude is you pick two things in each category and you do it every day, and what we'll show you is that that can give you 10 years of extra healthy life. So the first category is the most obvious and the ones that people don't want to talk about or believe.
Speaker 3:But every study, including the Harvard study, which was 70-year longitudinal every single study has shown that there's the number one thing in having a healthier life is having relationship. The number one cause of mental illness under 25 is loneliness. The number one killer of people over 65 is loneliness. We are designed to have connection. In fact, I said there was one difference between us and every other animal is our parasympathetic system. The second is that we have an imagination. Animals don't have an imagination. They don't make things up. So we can connect to people. You and I could be connected because you know, we both love business. So people who aren't book cubs live longer. People who join a political group that does something live longer. People who are married live longer. People who join a political group that does something live longer. People who are married live longer. So the number one thing is you only need one dyadic relationship at one time. You need one person to believe, cares about you, and then you need to have connection with a group that's bigger than just yourself and then, ultimately, you have to have some reason for getting up in the morning, whether that's woodworking or it's taking care of your grandkids or whatever, so that those things right there have a 10 times force multiplier on the other four things. So if you don't do, if you don't go out there now, if you're an introvert, it doesn't mean you need 100 friends, but it does mean that you have to have some things that you connect with people on and that you can either talk online or that you you go to a trading card show and you talk about trading cards. Right, it's a 10 times force multiplier on fuel, which is basically nutrition, exercise, maintenance, which is basically sleep, and then exosome is just looking at your environment. So let me tell you very quickly two things in those four categories that everyone on this call can do that can have up to 80% impact of what they would do.
Speaker 3:So in food, anyone who's never tried a CGM doesn't know what food they're supposed to eat. I owned a couple of dieting companies. I own the number one scientifically proven diet company in the world, itrim, and I was an early investor in Nutrisystem. Right, dieting is wonderful because it's the only product we can sell you that when you fail, you blame it on yourself and you're back 18 months from now.
Speaker 3:Diets are a joke. Eating healthy foods, non-processed foods, reducing calories, is not a joke. But any diet you talk about, no one knows whether you should be on keto diet, right? Unless you have a CGM, which is what we spend. We spent hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars developing for diabetics. It shows you what foods spike your insulin. Insulin causes chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation causes diabetes, alzheimer's heart disease, all of the illnesses that kill you, cancer, all of them. So the number one thing when you eat food is does that food turn to pure sugar and is not absorbed by your muscle? That will tell you. Now a CGM you've seen diabetics. They have it. They put a little thing on their arm and then they eat a food and it will tell them if their insulin spikes and then they'll take some insulin. If you do it before, you're a diabetic. What you're finding out is what foods spike your insulin. So if you go to your doctor, it's $125. It's easy to get. You do it for 15 days. You can actually find it anywhere on Facebook. A lot of diet companies are doing it. That's number one. Number two is you do a biome of your stomach, which costs 300 bucks. It tells you what foods you're allergic to. Okay, those two things will tell you what your diet should be. So, but those two things will make your diet will stop causing chronic inflammation In the exercise area.
Speaker 3:The number one thing in exercise is 10 minutes of HIT only 10 minutes to get your heart rate up, and then 10 minutes of LIT a day. And then the second is you have to move 15 minutes every hour. Because when they say sitting is the new cancer or the new cigarette, it's because when you sit for four or five hours the toxins stay in your joints and stay in your organs. So just getting up for 15 minutes and walking around the table every hour is more important than two hours of exercise. If you had to trade off between moving 15 minutes every hour and doing two hours of exercise at night, you would pick 15 minutes of moving every hour. It's five times more healthy for you. So again, if you do 10 minutes of HIT, you jump rope or you do whatever you want to do, you rest for 10 minutes a day in the dark and then you move. Those are two things in exercise.
Speaker 3:When you look at sleep the number one thing in sleep and it's all coming out. It's been here for a long time but they're now pushing on it. It's not how many hours you sleep, that's really important. It's what your chronotype is. There's three chronotypes. You're genetically wired for a chronotype that either you should be going to bed at nine o'clock, you should be going to bed at 11 o'clock. You should be going to bed at one o'clock. If you know your chronotype and you can figure it out with an aura ring or a watch or whatever. Deep sleep comes in the first two hours of your chronotype. That heals your body. Rem sleep comes in the last two hours of your chronotype, which means if you don't get up too early or too late, you're going to get your REM sleep, which heals your brain. So going to bed the same time for three to five times a week at the same time is the most important thing you can do, because not only does it go to your chronotype, but you have a maintenance crew that comes in and your body knows if it knows you're going to sleep, sends the maintenance crew in. That maintenance crew is 20% more effective. So if you're only sleeping seven hours, all of a sudden, I just gave you 20% more sleep than you would have before.
Speaker 3:And then the final one is just what you put in your environment. The easiest one to tell people is there's three ways. You absorb chemicals that destroy your body and then that you get phenomics your genes mis-express. The number one is you breathe it in. We all know about that. Don't smoke cigarettes or polluted air. You know you won't want to live in a city with polluted air. We don't talk about the other two ways you absorb chemicals the. The largest organ in your body is your skin. Okay, so what you wash your clothes with is actually what is going to be on your skin. So if you're not using a organic washing liquid and you're using dryer sheets which dryer sheets? Are pure chemicals? They're lotion that have never been tested but have terrible effects on you Stop doing those two things. Don't use dryer sheets and have organic. And the other way you get it in is through your mouth Guess what Dishwasher liquid or rinse liquid. So when I tell you there's these things, none of those will be tough to do. Those things can bind because it's a multivariate problem If you tried hard to connect and have purpose and you do two things in each category.
Speaker 3:That, we believe, is 10 years of healthspan. Now, lifespan is a little bit different. The last statistic that people don't realize is that America is 39th in the world in longevity, which is frigging horrendous, which we're behind Cuba. But the worst statistic in America is we die faster and slower than anyone in the world. The genetically gifted people who live to 100 die in the last 18 months. Regular people around the world die in the last five years of their life. They start getting illness, they fall down, they do different things. America's Americans 14 years. So if the average age in America is 73, that means at 60, our body is getting chronic illnesses and reducing the quality of our life and is irreversible. So when you ask me, at 51, I can easily add 10 years to your life If you're thoughtful about those five categories, because your health span will be longer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Health span. You know that that's the one thing, that's the one resource quality time that you can have a billion dollars, but if you've had a piss poor diet and you didn't follow any of those, you can't buy it. You can't buy health you. You can work towards so.
Speaker 3:So I used, I used to sit next to steve jobs, right, and so you know, when he died, I can tell you, the first time through he actually went and researched everything and figured out how to survive. The second time through, he actually had a bizarre, you know, kind of approach to it, which he did not want to actually take any acute interventions, and I can tell you he wanted to live. He had all the money in the world and there was nothing that was going to happen, right, because at a certain point it's irreversible. You know we spend 83% of all of our medical costs in the last year of people's lives, where it has the lowest impact and has the highest cost and the lowest impact At 51, 55, and 60,. I can actually spend money and the impact is actually a great ROI, a great ROI. And you know. One other thing that you know, I know we're pretty much done here today is I talk about the things. You know how you change, you know what you do to live longer. But there's also a great book called Scientific Wellness by a guy named Lee Hood who helped sequence the genome, started the company Amgen, the company, one of the most amazing doctors in the world and it's.
Speaker 3:And the premise of scientific wellness is predict and prevent. We have a lot of science today that you can test for things and prevent it before it starts. And the second is personalize and participate, which is what I just talked about. Personalize what you do every day and participate in your own health. Don't wait till you break 98% of what your doctor does not. Their fault is to actually find sickness when it's too late. Once you've hit sickness, you've already broken something, and 100% of what hospitals do are treat sickness. So by the time you get there, you want them, you want them to save you, but, dude, it's too late to avoid it. And so one of the tests that I've been pushing with people and there was a huge article in the Wall Street Journal six months ago, so you can go read that instead of just listening to me there's things like the Grail test, which is called the Holy Grail test. It actually screens out 50 cancers before stage one.
Speaker 3:Once you get to stage one of a cancer, it hits at least 14 methods and mechanisms, which means it's really difficult to treat because we have to treat all of these different little things. When you get to stage two and stage three, it grows so quickly. That's why we use chemo to burn every system. The Grail test it's a blood test and it tells you before stage one if you don't change your lifestyle in these areas, you're probably going to get this cancer. It's amazing.
Speaker 3:Now the downside is it's 800 bucks and it's not covered by insurance companies. Right, the reason it's not covered by insurance companies is not a conspiracy. They want to cover it. They're worried and this is just so.
Speaker 3:People talk about conspiracies. There's no conspiracies with hospitals. They make their money on treating things, so they spend money on treatments for things. That when people are sick, their business isn't preventive health because they don't get access to you when you're not sick. So there's no conspiracy that they're investing in cancer drugs or machines and things like that. Insurance companies there's no conspiracy. The average American, when you count hourly workers, changes jobs every two years and the average company bids out insurance every three years. So if I give you a test that tells you you're going to get cancer within the next three years, I don't know if you'll be with me, so I can't actually pay for it because you probably have changed insurance companies. So what I'm saying to you is, in the interim. Before we fix this problem, which we're trying to, there are tests you can take today that are highly respected, tests that can give you a head start, predict and prevent and then, the most important, participate and personalize your own life.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Now, Blair, you were talking about masterminds. I'm assuming you have a mastermind yourself. I'm assuming you have some sort of coaching, some sort of consulting programs. How do people get more information about everything that you have to offer?
Speaker 3:Sure, you know, for the mastermind, you can go to our website, which is PPE Pinnacle Performance Elite. I didn't make up the name, don't upset me PPE Mastermind, and I do it with a good friend, jay Abraham, who was actually Tony Robbins' mentor and Damon Jaynes' mentor, and if you want to, but if I can help you with something around your business, you can also just go to my LinkedIn as well and send me a message. I mean my belief right now since you know I retired from a big public company is that you know I can spend my time the way I want to, and what I like to do is I've been a coach for a long time and I'm very curious. I like to learn about things and that's what I'm doing and where I am. And if the PPE thing is for you, we have a great group, but if it's not, if I can help you, let me know.
Speaker 2:Sounds good. And one final question, blair what words of wisdom do you have to that one day? The entrepreneur, the person that keeps on setting things off in due time, the right time when I raise enough capital, etc. What words of wisdom do you have to that person?
Speaker 3:Look, you know my coach in high school. I asked him you know, like you, I'm a little, I'm on the challenged short side. And I said I said I want to be great. He said listen, this is the path. And the path is first is self-awareness. And he said once you become really self-aware, you're going to get disillusioned. And once you get disillusioned, you're going to have to take a next step.
Speaker 3:And so what we talked about I think hopefully all of this session is look, if you really look at yourself and you really are an entrepreneur and you want to be an entrepreneur, you can figure out a way to do it. And what you're going to find is it's going to be scary, but if you don't take a first step, you'll never know. So my advice to you is to really decide are you an entrepreneur or are you just entrepreneurial? And being entrepreneurial is freaking great, but go help people by being entrepreneurial, you don't need to start something. But there is a big difference between an entrepreneur, entrepreneur and just being entrepreneurial. They're both great, they just get applied in a different way.
Speaker 2:Thanks. Well, thank you for the time, man, and thank you for for everything like-minded people I could have. We could have had a beer and spoken for another hour or two, but literally, thank you for your time. And yeah, I myself who loves going to masterminds, I will definitely check it out. The PPE, it'll be all thrown up on the show notes and whatnot. And thanks, man, thank you for your time you are Sure?
Speaker 3:No, listen, I enjoyed talking and thanks for what you're doing. You're getting information out there and you're inspiring people. So, Omar, this is. You know, that's. That's God's work, dude. Thank you, brother, Thank you.
Speaker 1:Okay, take care inside of your purpose. What if it did work? Right now you can make the choice to never listen to that negative voice no more. The hardest prison to escape is our own mind. I was trapped inside that prison all for a long time. To make it happen, you gotta take action. Just imagine what if it did work. You.