Maximising the performance of your mind & body; Unlocking your Highest Potential l EP. 32 l

In this episode, I dive into the foundational pillars for maximizing performance in both mind and body. 

I emphasize the importance of being selfish to better serve others, the distinction between discipline and motivation, and the significance of understanding your 'why' and values. 

I also explore the role of the nervous system in performance and share strategies for managing stress and maintaining mental health.

Throughout this episode, I discuss the importance of regulating the nervous system, prioritizing quality sleep, optimizing physical performance, and fostering connections and community for overall well-being. 

I highlight how a calm nervous system leads to better emotional responses, quality sleep enhances decision-making and productivity, and maintaining physical health, along with strong social connections, plays a key role in living a fulfilling life.

Its my mission to help you maximise the performance of oyur mind & body so you can get more done in less time, have deeper relationships & ultimately have a more successful & fulfilling life.

Want help implementing this into your own life?

Book a call HERE

Download the Deep Sleep Blueprint 

Connect with the Uncommon Man Project

https://www.uncmp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/share/g/18vatbTGPZ/ 

Transcript

Harrison Orr (00:01.188)
If you're a driven human and care about performing at your best because you want to be fitter, make more money and have deeper connections and ultimately live a more successful and fulfilling life, then this episode is for you.

Welcome back to another episode of the Be Better podcast. I'm your host, Harrison Ohr. And in this podcast, or before that, I should say, why should you even listen to me? I've coached almost 500 people personally, and it is my mission and my role to help you maximize the performance of your mind and your body ultimately, so you can get more done in less time, be fitter, have deeper connections and relationships, and just be more successful in the life of more fulfillment. And...

In this podcast, I want to share literally the foundational pillars that I personally use and that I've used for my almost 500 clients to help them maximize the performance of their mind, then their body so that they can make more money, get more done in less time at work so that they can spend more time on themselves and their health and spend more time with their family and their kids. Because ultimately most of us don't want to spend our entire day or our entire life just working.

Even if you're lucky enough where your career or your business is your passion, most of us still want to have enough time for ourselves, for our hobbies or our friends and family, especially our family. And if we're not performing at our best, all the tasks that enable us to have that freedom, enable us to either create a business or an opportunity where we can make money without being paid for working 40 plus hours a week and consequently have

the resources like the money to be able to then go and do things that we like with the people that we love. Right? There's no point having all the time in the world if you've got no money. There's very few people I know on this earth that would be happy with that kind of lifestyle, right? Being complete nomads and having not needing any money for anything. So in reality, we're to need that, but we don't want to consume our entire being. And so

Harrison Orr (02:05.24)
It is my belief and I've seen this through my own practices, but also with all the people that I've coached, all the high performing humans, the business owners, the driven individuals that performing at your best is, is going to take some selfish behaviors. And I want to reframe this because being selfish, most people think, that's a negative trait. Like you wouldn't want to be selfish, but if.

part of your why, part of your drive in being your best is impacting other people as you know people that you may not even know or it's just impacting your family being a great parent, being a great partner then it is almost your duty to be selfish in some capacity because if we're not then even if we're giving other people everything that we've got we're giving our kids, we're giving our partner everything that we've got and we're depleting ourselves

We're just going to be giving them less and less and less over time. Whereas if we're able to pour into our own cup, we're able to give back to ourselves so that we can perform at our best. can feel at our best. We've got more energy. We've got more mental capacity. We're not spending 20 hours a day working. We're able to be more efficient and then spend more time with them and actually be present physically and mentally rather than physically there and mentally stressed out and off in la land. Then

it enables us to give more, right? We can give them a better version of us, which if you want to be the person that I think you want to be, because you're listening to this podcast and you want to be better, then I feel like that is our duty. And I want to share with you some actionable tips that you can do to maximize the performance of that mind and body in this podcast. So what comes first, mind or body? We've got to start with the mind, of course, because

doesn't matter what you do with the body, the mind is going to get in the way first if it's not in alignment with where we want our body to go, where we want our physical actions to go. Because ultimately we live up here, we live in our mind 24 7 365 until the day that we die. If that space is, if that talk is not our friend, is not in alignment with where we want to go, then it is going to be a tough ride.

Harrison Orr (04:30.054)
One of the things that you see everybody talking about, some people talk about motivation. Motivation is like fleeting, right? But discipline, having the discipline to do the things that you know you should and the things that you say you would, even when you don't feel like it. And this is not just your fitness motivation, but literally everything. Being able to take out the trash, even though you don't.

don't feel like it because you know if you don't you're have this stinky pile of crap for the next week until it gets taken out again hoping that you won't feel like it again next time right but this discipline is a show of your character

Because if you can be disciplined in forgoing some of those short-term feelings and overriding those feelings, then that is one of the most fundamental traits for success in anything because emotions are fleeting. So often throughout the day, throughout the week, throughout the month, we go in various cycles of being motivated, high energy, low energy, lethargic, can't be fucked, don't want to do it. And

relying on motivation in those times is not very wise. It's not gonna happen. It's not gonna get you through the finish line. So having that discipline is one of the best ways to counteract that, right? This is the best trait and skill set that you can have on your side. And I wanna break discipline down because most people seem to think that discipline is just in the muscle that you have or you don't have, right? Some people are more disciplined than others. But I would say that

That's true, but in different ways for different reasons. It's not some people can just endure more pain than others. But when we look at some people that are disciplined in a certain field, or we might see them as being disciplined, they probably don't really consider themselves as disciplined in that area because it's doing things that they just love doing. Right? When you look at most athletes or even just people that are generally pretty fit.

Harrison Orr (06:34.202)
Like I don't consider myself an athlete, but I'd say that I'm pretty fit. Like I have trained five to six days a week for the last 10 plus years. Right. Not because I'm hyper disciplined and I force myself to go even when I don't feel like it. It's because I just actively love training. I actively love moving my body, getting a pump on, getting a sweat on moving my body, being outside, being in the gym. Like it makes my day that.

60 or 90 minute window and so I Am of the other side. I'm not looking for excuses for to not train I'm looking for reasons to be able to train to fit it into my day to make it work to make it happen and so When there's something that you feel that you're not as disciplined as you'd like to be See if you can find that way to fucking love it Right. How can you find a way to love that process or find?

a way to get to that outcome that you want, whether it's being fit or it's making more money or it's being more connected with your kids or your partner or growing the business, whatever it is, whatever the task is, find a way to love the process. And then on the flip side, also hating the other alternative, right? Because as much as I love training, I would also hate and it would go against all of my values and my own.

maybe warped self-perception to be unfit, overweight and just unhealthy. Like I couldn't stand it. And so I've got that polarity of the pull towards, fucking love this and the push away from, I don't want to be that. I don't want to be fat, unhealthy, unfit, all those things. And Jordan Peterson talks a lot about that in his self-authoring process, like using both polarities to push and pull in the same direction.

And so it's easy to say like, I want to make that, you know, million dollars, $10 million this year. want to start this business. I want to start this thing. want to have this amazing kind of relationship. I want to have the six pack. I want to be this level of strong or, know, whatever it might be. But those things are often associated with that, those high levels of motivation, right? What is it that's going to get you out of bed to get you to do those things that you said you would even on the days that you don't feel like it.

Harrison Orr (09:00.876)
Even on the days that you're tired, that you don't want to, that you're like, I'd rather stay in bed. I'd rather just scroll on social media or procrastinating, you know, whatever your form of, you know, avoidance is. When we can find that push and pull, it makes it a very strong formula for success. Because this, and this leads me into my, it was going to be my first, but now discipline is pretty strong up there. My now my second point around.

the mental performance is having your why, right? And this feeds into that discipline of like, why do you want that thing? Why is it important to you to achieve this goal or to do this thing? Like that why is what's going to override those feelings of laziness of lethargy and help to instill discipline instead of relying on motivation. Knowing

Why it's important to you? Why do you want that thing so bad? Why is it worth the effort? Why is it worth the time, the money, the energy, the output? Why is it worth putting yourself through that pain or that discomfort instead of just settling for what you've got and continuing to get what you've always got? Why is it worth it? And that's not something that I can answer for you. It's not someone anyone else can give you. It's like your why.

Harrison Orr (10:32.006)
Because knowing that will massively help push you through those times of, don't want to do this. I just want to relax in my comfort zone. Why can't we just chill like, no, the job's not done. You said you wanted to do this thing. It's time to nut up or shut up.

what can help with finding that why and why things are important to you. Cause this is less about like the goal itself, right? This is less about the money or the physique or the status of the relationship or you know, whatever it is. It's more about the underlying reasons as to why that's important because it's like when you set a goal of health related, right? The goal isn't really for most people. It's not to just get to a certain

weight or physique and then tick it off the bucket list and be like, cool, I had a six pack for like a day. And then, or I had a million dollars, $10 million in my bank account for one day. Then I went and spent it all. Or I was married for a day and then we got divorced. Like it's not something that you tick off and then never do again. It's like reaching it, but then also maintaining it as well. Like the goal for most people with health isn't to just get healthy.

It's to stay healthy. Goal with marriage is to stay married. And there's ebbs and flows within that. But it's like, what is the macro, why you're doing this? And then what will help below that is your values. Your values can help you to be specific as to why that's important to you. So some of my biggest values are health. That's always number one.

I look back in my past decisions in terms of careers and relationships and other big decisions in my life. And the times where I've been the most stressed out and I guess I felt the most incongruent are the times where I've been sacrificing my health. Well, not even sacrificing my health, but like my health has come at a cost. You know, I was, I was a chef for about seven years. So we worked some pretty hectic hours depending on the

Harrison Orr (12:42.744)
place that you work and so at times I was finishing at 10 11 o'clock at night having to drive 45 60 minutes home and then having to be back at 6 o'clock in the morning and not surprisingly you know I had multiple seizures working at that place because I've got epilepsy and that sleep deprivation and stress are two of my triggers and I refuse to not train so even on the days that I had off you know I could sleep in till 8 9 10 o'clock because I was so exhausted

But I would still get up at six o'clock in the morning, double scoop my pre-workout, go to the gym, smash myself, fry my nervous system and my body for another two hours at the gym and go home and be an absolute wreck because I refuse to give that value up. Obviously, is that a great strategy? No, right? But my pigheadedness in living to that value and not wanting to change anything else is what put me in those compromised positions of continuing to have seizures until I left that job and moved on. So knowing

those values or your values can be helpful in distinguishing your why. Like why is it important to you? What do you value the most in life? Is it connection? Is it love? Is it freedom? Is it wealth? Is it career? Is it growth? You know, health, for example, whatever it is. Then when you know what those values are, it works two ways. Cause you can help to figure out why something is important to you. And then on flip side, if you're in a bit of a rut,

in life. You know, you're not feeling fulfilled. You're not really feeling congruent or aligned and you're not really sure why. You're not sure where it is. Like what's missing? Like on paper, the business is going well, you know, you're not financially stressed, know, health hasn't really changed. It's not immaculate, but it's not really changed. Relationships like, eh, it's kind of steady. It's not fireworks, but it's not like, you know, on the brink of divorce either. And you're like, everything is just kind of

average, like I don't really know why. When you know what your values are, it can be a lot easier to then pinpoint your finger on, that's what's missing. There's too much of this or not enough of this in my life, or I'm sacrificing my value here to do this. And that's what's eating at me. That's what's affecting this, this energy and this fulfillment and purpose in life.

Harrison Orr (15:05.572)
And so you're probably wondering on this, like, okay, cool. That all sounds great. How do I figure out my values? Cool. You can literally just type in value survey into Google and a stack of free value surveys will come up. You fill them out and then they'll give you a pretty, like a ballpark or a guide or a place to start. And then from there, what I'd suggest is look back into your past, look back into big decisions that you've made for things that haven't worked out well because of the decision that you made and look at

what you potentially sacrificed or what value you sacrificed in order to like as a result of that decision. And then on the flip side, times that worked out really well, what values were you living in alignment with? And that can give you a good starting point, a good test. Cause you ask most parents or most people like, cool, would you like to make $10 million? Fuck this year, this year in 12 months.

Hell yeah, that'd be gross, right? But if your highest value is family and your health, or they're at least up there, and okay, to make that money, I'm gonna need you to work 16 hours a day, seven days a week, you get two days off a month, and then so you can only go and see your family on those days, in which case you're gonna be freaking exhausted and drained. That's all you get for the next 12 months. Maybe even longer, maybe two years, five years, right?

Is that trade-off worth it?

And so for some people on a short enough time horizon, you're like, yeah, I can make that sacrifice for that kind of reward. But you got to know like, cool, where is that tipping point? Where does it not become worth it? Where does like, it's the money isn't worth, isn't worth me missing out on that time with my kids, especially if they're young in that developmental stage, right? Would I sacrifice a year with my son? You he's about to be two, God no, right? Because I'm loving every single moment I get to spend with him and I'm blessed enough to be able to have like,

Harrison Orr (17:06.64)
flexible work schedule and things like that that I get to spend so much time with him and it wouldn't be worth it. I'd find another way and same with my health.

And so in terms of maximizing the performance for your mind, if you can have your why, why you're doing anything, why it's worth pursuing these things, why it's worth the sacrifice, moving out of the comfort zone, why it's worth putting the time, energy, money, all that stuff into pursuing something that is aligned with your values. Then having the discipline to follow through with that becomes a hell of a lot easier.

Because with that discipline comes that resilience, comes that level of standard with your word. Like we become impeccable with our word. And we all love someone that is true to their word. Like the level of trust and respect that we get from knowing that, okay, cool. If Harrison said he's going to do something by this time, this date, it's going to get done. I can trust that. Like we all know that one person, you know, when you've got them on your team, when you've got them...

in your project or working on something together, you're like, cool, as long as this person's involved, know we'll be successful. I know the job will get done. I know the standard will be super high. It lifts everybody else around us. We all want to be that person. So starting that discipline with ourself and then being impeccable with our word and holding those high standards and having boundaries around that is how we do that. Because then when we've got

that discipline, that why, and we know our values, it becomes a lot easier to then implement the strategies around maximizing the performance for the body. Right? Because also before we go into the body, one last side quest for discipline, discipline is also being able to remain focused when it comes to work and communication and being present with our kids, being focused, having the discipline to...

Harrison Orr (19:08.878)
not check social media every five minutes, to not go off task and procrastinate is what's going to enable us to have that high performance mentally so that we can get more done in less time and not fuck around. And also focus on the highest ROI task, like focus on the thing that's going to make the biggest impact with the least amount of input. Because when we're, when we get distracted, we get lazy, we crave dopamine, right?

That's why we get distracted. We look on social media, we check emails, we check YouTube, we go check out some porn if you're even that bored or you crave sugar or you crave these other hits of dopamine that distract us from the highest priority task. And usually the highest priority task isn't the most rewarding task in the short term, right? If it was like, dude, if you make this call, you're to make a thousand dollars. Most people would make that call 10 times.

Out of 10, right? If there was that level of guarantee, but there's not. You might need to make 10 calls, 20 calls, 50 calls before you get that level of result. But there's a level of unknown versus the sugar, the porn, the social media, everything else. There's a pretty high chance we'll get that reward pretty instantaneously. So having that discipline to stay focused is what's going to help make that biggest impact so that you're not doing shit that you don't need to be doing.

Cool. Now, now we've got the mind aligned. There's so many more like practical things that I can go into frames around like NLP and ways of thinking and all that kind of stuff. But I want to keep this as concise as possible. Next, we're going to go into the body side of things, because even if the mind's right, if physically you're tired, you're stressed, you're not very, you're not sleeping very well, like you're unfit, like the body is just slowing down. It's going to be really hard to perform at your best.

Like I don't care what anybody says, no matter how good your mind is, you will not be performing at your best. If you're overweight, you're tired, you're relying on stimulants and caffeine and your sleep is trash. Like you might be good, but you're not going to be as good as you could be. And so with the body, we've got to, we just have to start with the nervous system, right? Our nervous system is the biggest factor. Like when we look at all the levers that you can pull for optimizing your health.

Harrison Orr (21:38.254)
nervous system has to be one of the biggest ones because it controls our autonomic nervous system or it's like our autonomic nervous system is a sub branch of this, right? And that's something that we really can't directly control. And our autonomic nervous system is what controls whether in we're in fight or flight, rest or digest mode. And the more time we spend in that fight or flight mode, then the higher our stress levels, the higher our inflammation levels.

the eventually the lower our testosterone and our sex hormone levels, the poorer quality our sleep is, the poorer our recovery is, so the poorer our sleep quality is, which means that we've got brain fog the next day, our memory's not that good. Try being a business owner or someone of importance rocking up and you met this person last week and you can't remember their name. Cool. That's a great second impression, right? You can't even remember this person's name, who you're trying to do a deal with, you're trying to collaborate with, whatever it is.

not a great impression versus imagine rocking up, you can remember exactly their name, their wife's name or their partner's name, something about their business, something they told you last week and it's like you just read it off a script. How important, know, flip it the other way around. If someone greets you like that, with that level of information, that level of care, how important do you feel? How special do you feel that this person remembered all that information about you? And so we want to be that person.

So with our nervous system, so there's a couple fronts here. Looking after our stress response, right? This comes into the mind side of things as well, like how we deal with stress. You can use practical tools like breath work to calm that nervous system down. But ultimately we want to reduce the things overstimulating that nervous system. reducing screen time before bed, reducing our time on social media or our engagement in highly stimulating.

high dopamine activities. So video games, social media, binging Netflix, all that kind of stuff that gives us those cheap hits of dopamine and makes it very hard to regulate our nervous system. High stress, a lot of artificial lights, lack of natural lights, sunlight, poor sleep quality are all going to fry our nervous system. So by incorporating breaks within the day to get in the sun,

Harrison Orr (24:04.198)
some breath work, something simple as box breathing, right? You don't have to be a genius to remember this one. Four sides to the box, four seconds each side. Four seconds in, four second hold, four second out, four second hold, and just repeat. If four seconds is too strenuous for you, you you feel like you're really straining to hold that, reduce it to three seconds, reduce it to two seconds. And as a hint,

if you're on like two or three seconds, that's a sign that your diaphragm and your nervous system is pretty fried. So we should probably do this more often to really calm that down. And as a result, by having a calm, more neutral nervous system, we're going to be able to respond to things with a lot calmer mind. We're not going to be so reactive and get so frustrated and irritated easily. Like I know we all get triggered super easily, but when we can...

taking the information or see, know, engage in a situation. Maybe someone gives us bad news. Maybe an employee says they're quitting or, you know, a deal is falling through or something undesirable happens and like, you know, you're the person they're coming to.

doesn't look, doesn't serve us to react emotionally and get frustrated and get agitated because when our emotions go up, our IQ goes down and then we end up making poor decisions that we end up to later regretting. And so when we can come into those situations with a regulated nervous system, calm mind, we can take that deep breath.

and then assess the situation for what needs to be done right now and then move on from it instead of taking things personally and then getting reactive and emotional about it.

Harrison Orr (25:50.992)
and then

Next piece for optimizing the body. Yeah, we looked after the nervous system because this will feed into the nervous system and this this neckline feed into each other. And that's sleep quality, right? We need to be getting good quality sleep. I once saw this guy a few weeks ago that was standing, you know, he only gets four hours of sleep a night. He gets up at two 30 and easy work is it worked by three and all this stuff, you know, and he was boasting about his work ethic. Cool. Amazing work ethic. You've got epic discipline, man. But my friend working.

sorry, getting that little sleep will, it's scientifically proven, it's not like my opinion or it's not just a myth, you will end up with dementia or Alzheimer's. You will end up with cognitive decline to the point where, you know, your kids are by your bed in the hospital and you don't even remember their name, you think they're complete strangers. And I don't care how successful your earlier years are, that's, I don't know anybody that would willingly take that path.

because then on the flip side of that, if we're adequate quality amounts of sleep, then we can make better decisions. We can pick the highest priority tasks, work on them, get them done faster with less input, and then progress at a rate that we can get more done in one day because we're in that flow state where functioning at a much higher level as opposed to someone that is just working like a dog for the sake of like working. And so

If we can flip that to boasting about the amount of hours that we worked to the amount of results we got in the shortest amount of time, then I think that flips that badge of honor of how hard I work, how many hours I work, how many like doing all these things. It's like, well, okay, cool. Congratulations. You worked 20 hours today, but what did you get done? Like, what did you achieve? If the goal is to make more money, how much more money did you make?

Harrison Orr (27:46.912)
or if it's to get fitter or if it's to have deeper connections. What quality of conversations did you have in that 18th, 19th, 20th hour?

Harrison Orr (27:59.152)
Right. And quite often, not quite often, I'll say again, it's even been proven that for people that work unbroken for that amount of time, especially sleep deprived, the quality of your work goes down. The time it takes to complete tasks becomes longer. The emotions go up. So the logic goes down. The productivity goes down. The level of distraction goes up. And so

then if we're getting distracted, if our output is lower quality work, then the chance of, know, if we want to maintain our high standards, we're going to have to redo that work. And so what is the time and the energy cost of having to do something two or three times, because you didn't do it right the first time, as opposed to just doing it once the first time, because you got good quality sleep and you exactly knew what to do and could smash through it.

Like that's efficient, right? But I know it's not sexy to get a good night's sleep. know, nobody boasts about, well I got eight hours sleep and I still got all this kind of stuff done. Why not? Tim Ferriss, like, you know, made the four hour work day and the four hour, four day week, I think it was, you know, popular. Why not carry that on? If you can do your work in four hours a day, you get eight hours of sleep, there's 12, you still got 12 hours to go to the gym, to spend with your friends, family, like to do everything else that you want. That's the kind of stuff that I'd be boasting about.

Or if you don't have a family, cool, use the extra time to get even more done. Or whatever phase of life you're in right now. And so when it comes to sleep, okay, I hope that's instilled the importance of sleep in you as to, now you're open to, if you weren't before, the idea that, okay, sleep should be a priority. I should be getting enough sleep if I want to perform my best mentally and physically and...

get more done in less time, get better results in the gym, better results at work, make more money, have deeper connections, be more present with my partner or my kids and just anyone that I communicate with. And so when it comes to sleep, I've got stacks of resources. I've even got a deep sleep blueprint that I'll add the link that you can download in the show notes here, absolutely free. But as a rough guide, what you want to start with is like environmental habits.

Harrison Orr (30:19.748)
the mechanisms within our brain that help us to get optimal quality sleep literally start from the moment we wake up. So within the first few hours of the day, ideally before like 9 a.m., we want to get at least 20 minutes of sunlight, 20 minutes of sunlight on our bare eyes with as much skin exposure as possible. That's going to set off all the cascade of hormonal changes and like everything within our brain that eventually 16 hours later, roughly, tell us that it's time to unwind.

time to get sleepy, time to get tired and go to sleep. so starting with some morning sunlight, then reversing that at the end of the day as well. So your environment in terms of being dark, being cool and not stimulating will play the biggest factor in you preparing for bed and consequently getting the best quality of sleep because other things, you know, whether it's meditation or breath work or journaling, all that stuff, super helpful, right?

not denying that and you know personally you use quite a few of those not all at once but you know in varying states what we want to think about is to like make the biggest impact or have the biggest change with the least amount of effort and so you can still do everything that you're already doing at night whether it's you know reading with your kids or your partner just talking you know doing the chores getting everything ready for tomorrow but just make those changes to your environment so we want to dim the lights number one

Either turn off all your overhead lights and just have either candles or rock salt lamps or yellow, orange, red lighting. Ideally without blue light below eyeline. Right? Think about nature, that setting of the sun, those yellow, orange, red, tinges, sunset below eyeline sun's disappearing. It's dimming, it's fading. It's getting dark. That really starts to set off all those cues of, okay, it's getting dark. It's getting cool. Next tip, start to prepare for bed.

your brain starts to release melatonin and then you start to get sleepy and then you know we're setting up all this so that by the time you get into bed you can actually just fall asleep when your head hits the pillow instead of getting into bed turning the lights off and your brain's like this is what we're doing now we're going to sleep right and then you waste the next 30 60 minutes actually trying to get to sleep not efficient and so the lighting next is nice and cool right

Harrison Orr (32:45.006)
scientifically around 18 to 19 degrees Celsius is the ideal temperature for our body to get a deep restful sleep. body, our core temperature needs to drop by at least a degree for us to go into a deep restful state of sleep. either having the windows open if it's in winter, having fans on, aircon on, you can have a hot shower. That's going to help. You and you're like, what? Hot? Yeah. Hot shower because

your body is going to have to try and regulate your temperature so it's going to try and cool you down. So you get out of the 40 degree temperature of the shower, jumping outside, that's going to be cooler. Dry yourself off and your body is going to help to continually try and cool your body down when you get into bed. That's another way. Or if you've got some money to burn, can look into things like an eight sleep, which is like a mattress topper that...

cools the mattress that you're on, can cool individual sides, great for partners that not everyone wants to be that cold when they sleep, especially most females that I've noticed anyway. So that can be helpful. So temperature and lighting. Next one is the stimulation. Even if you're sitting in the dark but you're glued to your phone, not a great strategy either. A, because of the blue light that comes from the phone which stops the release of your melatonin, but it also keeps us stimulated as well.

because it's keeping us engaged, especially the algorithm of social media, which its job is to keep us engaged. So it's going to keep showing us things that keep us on the app. Right. So it's not just the light factor. It's the engagement factor. If it keeps your mind stimulated, keeps feeding you dopamine. Sure. You might eventually get tired if you're sitting there for hours. Cause I know a lot of people that say, I need to watch TV to get sleepy or to fall asleep sedation and just like bashing your brain until it's

relaxed is not the best strategy, right? Finding those environmental factors, putting the phone away about 60 minutes before bed and either reading, doing yoga or stretching or having a bath, doing stuff around the house, preparing for tomorrow, chatting with your partner or your kids, whatever it is, I'm sure you can find something to do in that time that's gonna have a much greater impact on you getting to sleep than spending time on that phone, I promise you.

Harrison Orr (35:05.55)
Again, coming back to our mind element, this is where that discipline comes in. Being able to see the future consequences of this action. So sure, I could stay up for the next 60 minutes on my phone, but what are the consequences tomorrow? Will I wake up tired and I mentally can't perform my best? I'm not present. I've got brain fog. I'm not as focused. So I need more caffeine. And then the caffeine wears off and I need more caffeine. And then so I go up in these peaks and these troughs and then, you know, I end up irritable or it affects my next night's sleep.

whatever else and then that cycle repeats itself. So being able to look that far in the future and say, know what, I'm gonna be able to, I'm gonna thank my past self tomorrow by putting the phone down, getting a good night's sleep tomorrow when I wake up clear headed, energized, focused, determined, good to go. So there are a few tips when it comes to sleep. Obviously, not obviously, but.

If you want to check out the deep sleep protocol in the show notes here, I hope that's helpful. Then the next one for optimizing the performance of your body. And when I talk about performance, like I'm not talking specifically about say athletic performance, I'm just talking about like life performance, right? So overall we can get more specific in future podcasts when it comes to athletic performance or performance in the bedroom or at work or just as a father or parent, but

I'm going talk about as life, right? Generally, when it comes to physical performance, where we want to be is an average level, an acceptable level of body fat. So for guys, we're talking like 10 to 15%. Personally, I don't like to be more than 12%, but that's just me. know some guys function a little bit more, but we don't want to be carrying more body fat than is necessary. Right? We want to have enough energy that we can get through the day without relying on sugar.

on caffeine, on nicotine, on drugs, on anything else that has negative side effects. Or it compromises our values, compromises our sleep and nervous system, anything else. And then on top of that, if we've got a base level of fitness and mobility, it makes life a hell of a lot easier. It makes it easier to walk up and downstairs, to walk around and not get out of breath and sweat, dripping in sweat.

Harrison Orr (37:30.53)
If you've got a base level of mobility, it becomes a lot easier to move around, to play with your kids, to chase them through the playground, to have those fun moments that ultimately add to that fulfillment. So again, it depends how you measure performance exactly, but those base levels of fitness and body fat or composition, should say, result or contribute to energy levels, mood for guys, testosterone, which is a huge...

player when it comes to discipline, desire for challenge, desire for growth, for sex, for, and also improving or fast tracking results in the gym, getting more route with less effort, all that good stuff. It makes this effort desirable, right? We want to be challenged. We want to grow. We want to go through hard things to show that we've got grit, to show that we've got discipline, to show that, you know, we can do it because we're a strong, resilient man.

So having all those things massively plays up that testosterone. And so when it comes to having that health, having a healthy diet, nice and simple. If you struggle with that, use a calorie counter. You can go to my fitness power. can go to any calorie tracker, add in your, you know, your, your numbers, find a calorie deficit. And then ideally you want to aim for, I'm assuming you, most people are to be looking for body fat drop in this. So you want to go.

for a 10 % deficit, you wanna have two grams of protein per kilo of body weight, roughly one gram of fat per kilo of body weight, and then fill up the rest of your calories with carbs, right? That's your baseline, start there. And then after a couple of weeks once your body has adjusted, you drop the calories again, let your body adjust, let it drop the calories again, and then after three or four rounds of that, you go back up to the new maintenance level, right? Because we have to cycle this.

because you can't just keep coming down, down, down forever. Otherwise you'll end up with zero calories and your body will not like you for that for very long. If that's something you want help with, then I can direct you to people to help with that. I don't solely help people with that at this point in time. It's part of what I do, but it's not solely what I do. So if that's something you only want help with, then I can direct you to people that can help with that. But having that in play. Next one is having, you know, a general trading protocol, training multiple times a week.

Harrison Orr (39:59.28)
getting your heart rate up to your max effort at least once, two times a week, and then doing some strength training three to four times a week. Ideally training your main compound lifts, all that kind of stuff. Going to the yard is an epic way to get that balance in. You go Monday, Wednesday, Friday to hit all your main compound lifts and then do one or two turf sessions or the payday sessions a week and you will hit your cardiovascular training, your strength training, all those targets too. Plus it's an incredible community.

and some of the other lifestyle factors that are worth considering as well. We want some sunlight, right? Getting 20 minutes of sunlight a day as a minimum, more in winter is insanely beneficial for your energy, for your mood, for your testosterone, your hormone levels, for serotonin, like for everything, right? For your sleep, regulation of your nervous system, your emotions, everything. So find a way that you can stack that with something else. I don't expect you to sit in the sun, just do nothing.

sit in the sun and have your breakfast, have a meal, like your lunch break or something like that. Take a meeting or a call outside in the sun. You know, go and play with your kids outside in the sun, after work, after school, after daycare, whatever it is. The more that we can embed some of these habits, these lifestyles into other aspects, like into the things that we do with our partner, with our family or our kids, with even people from work, the more sustainable it makes it.

because I've tried before to have these routines of like, I wanna do an ice bath every day, I wanna do this sun, I wanna have this morning routine, this evening routine and doing all this kind of stuff. And I found it really isolating because I wasn't incorporating my wife into it or my son into it. And I was then getting frustrated when I was spending time with them or they wanted my attention and it was pulling me away from this routine, which is like not a good place to be.

Whereas now I found ways to incorporate them into that. They get the benefits too, because you know, they're not just selfish behaviors. They're actually healthy for everybody. They get the benefit from that. So do I. And then we get some bonding time and some quality time too. So everybody wins. And so I'd implore you to find ways to incorporate these into your routine, your day, your week, into your lifestyle that bring other people into it. So it makes it more sustainable for the long term.

Harrison Orr (42:27.024)
It's not just a six week stint that you go hard on this crazy regimented routine and block out everything else. Because for most people it's not sustainable. We need to have some flexibility with, especially when we've got kids, partners and things like that in life.

and

I think I'll leave it there. When it comes to health, actually no, the last thing I'll say on that health, and this is something that I don't think gets enough credit for when it comes to the health, because without this time, without this, we don't feel, we crave more dopamine, I think. And oftentimes when we're craving what we perceive as dopamine, whether it's social media or porn or anything else, sugar, foods, it's actually oxytocin.

It's actually connection, connection, physical touch, love, intimacy, sex. And so obviously some of those you'll get from your partner, but other elements of that, connection you can get from your special people within your network, like your, kids, your friends, you know, just from conversations because for all we're tribal creatures, we're meant to have.

friends, we're meant to have family and be in close proximity with these people. With social media, it's made it a hell of a easier to be connected with lots of people, but that connection is like an inch deep. It's wide, but it's not very deep. And so we've lost those people that we could call on at one o'clock in the morning when we're in a really shit space or that we can really open up to and be really vulnerable to when something's on our mind or...

Harrison Orr (44:11.748)
whatever's going on or even just share good time, share good news, you know, have a laugh and all those things. And so.

Sex is important, intimacy is important, connection is important, even if just calling a friend. Calling a friend, having a conversation.

whatever it is and that feels right for you. For introverts, and I classify myself as an introvert, then that's not always the easiest thing to do, know, calling people up, but find what it is for you that fills that oxytocin up. You know, if you've got a partner, maybe it's just a cuddle, you know, at the end of the day. If you don't have a partner, maybe it's a conversation, maybe something, finding ways to stay connected with the people that you care about, or finding that community, that circle.

for guys, you're looking for that community, we've got a community at the uncommon project. We've got a tight knit community of guys that are driven to be high performing men that run businesses that are all fathers and partners that just want to strive to be their best. And so if you want to be a part of that community, we'll see what it's about. I'll drop a link in the, in the show notes, but before I go, I don't have many, many callouts, many offers on this podcast, but if any of this resonates with you,

If any of this, maybe even it seems overwhelming or you want, if this all makes kind of sense, be like, my God, where do I start? Like, I feel like I want to implement all of that, but I don't know where to begin.

Harrison Orr (45:41.126)
I'm going put something in the show notes, reach out. We can have an absolutely free conversation. I'm not going to pitch you anything. There's no nothing to buy at the end of this. Even if you want to, it's literally just a conversation to help you implement some of this stuff so that you can start moving that needle forward so that you can start reducing that overwhelm, installing some of these habits into your lifestyle that are sustainable, that you can help to, will help you to think on that high level to identify.

that highest priority task so you can get more done in less time. Spend more time on yourself and actually have time for your own health and then still have time for your partner, for your kids, for your family and for things that really fulfill you and make you feel successful and accomplished in life. And so if you want a personalized tailored approach to that, click on the link in the show notes and we'll have a chat. Otherwise, if you got value out of this, then I hope

you can implement it now. So now you've got the actions, you've got the lessons I should say, and the tools, go and take action. If all that was overwhelming, pick something, start with one thing, and then go from there. Really listen to the podcast, pick another thing, go again. So I hope that's been helpful. Have an incredible day, and I'll talk to you soon.