The Ageless Warrior Lab
Dave Meyer | Host, Ageless Warrior Lab podcast | President & Co-founder of Food System Innovations and Humane American Animal Foundation
Join BJJ coral belt, Gang of Eight and Dirty Dozen member Dave Meyer as we draw wisdom from Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and the martial arts and explore how it applies to your life, success in business, and your long-term health.
Dave Meyer is a pioneering American Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) practitioner, and accomplished non-profit founder and Philanthropist. He is an eleven-time world champion in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and is the current world champion in his age/weight division in the no-gi format.
Dave co-founded and served as CEO of Adopt-a-Pet.com for two decades, turning it into the world's largest nonprofit homeless pet adoption website and helping save millions of animals, before its acquisition by Mars Inc.
Today, Dave leads Humane America Animal Foundation and Food System Innovations, working on farm animal welfare and a healthy and sustainable food system. He frequently advises U.S. lawmakers on these issues, and has raised and deployed over $160 million in philanthropic capital as part of his work in the nonprofit space.
In his athletic career, Dave has risen to the highest ranks of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He earned his black belt from Rigan Machado in 1996 and ranked among the first Americans ("the Dirty Dozen") to do so. He was the first American to medal at the black belt level at the BJJ World Championships in Brazil in 1998. Dave is one of just several Americans to achieve the rank of coral belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a group now referred to as the “Gang of Eight”. He continues to compete at the world championship level, winning world championship titles in his age division.
As a martial artist and instructor, he taught at UCLA, Steven Seagal's Tenshin Dojo, and developed a globally used grappling curriculum with John Will, including customized material for Chuck Norris's UFAF association. He has written several books on Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, including "Training for Competition: Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Submission Grappling".
Meyer also played a critical role in post-Katrina animal rescue, co-authored books pet care, and co-founded a Haiti orphanage for children with HIV, exemplifying a lifetime of impactful leadership in both martial arts and philanthropy.
Dave resides in the San Francisco Bay Area, and continues to coach BJJ athletes and compete at the world championship level. He is the President & Co-Founder of Humane America Animal Foundation and Food System Innovations, of which the Ageless Warrior Lab is a project.
The Ageless Warrior Lab
Toughness: How to Get Mentally and Physically Tougher | Ep 35
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode, I break down what toughness really means—the ability to not give up or give in to something difficult while continuing to function effectively. I explore the different types of toughness: physical, mental, and psychological, and why developing toughness expands what's possible in your life.
I then provide practical methods to develop both physical and mental toughness: hard training, challenging workouts, cold plunges, multi-day fasts, and putting yourself in psychologically difficult situations. I break these into three levels—daily discomfort, controlled adversity, and real stakes—because toughness isn't something you have, it's something you practice. Life will test you, and being tough means you'll be ready.
Links for Show notes:
"Mental Toughness and Individual Differences in Learning, ...A Systematic Review" (2017) in Frontiers for Psychology
Adopt-a-Pet.com
Dave Kovar
https://www.kovarsystems.com/articles-and-resources/who-is-dave-kovar
Freakonomics "Upside of Quitting"
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-upside-of-quitting-3/
David Mitchell
Find Dave Mitchell on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dmitch442/?hl=en
Royce Gracie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royce_Gracie
Rickson Gracie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickson_Gracie
Douglas Wong
https://www.whitelotuskungfu.com/about-masterwong.html
Rigan Machado
https://www.theacademybeverlyhills.com/instructors/rigan-machado/
Jack Seki
https://budoshin.com/about-bjj/budoshin-lineage/jack-seki/
Swiss Cadet Study "Systematic review- Mental toughness across domains"
Iron Man Triathlon
Tabata App
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tabata-pro-hiit-interval-timer/id346432063
Juice Fast
Seishiro "Henry" Okazaki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seishiro_Okazaki
Danzan Ryu Ju Jitsu
Sig Kufferath
https://www.danzan.com/HTML/PEOPLE/kufferath.html
Bernice Jay
https://www.danzan.com/HTML/PEOPLE/bernicejay.html
Toastmasters
Music “Disambiguation” by Robel Borja https://open.spotify.com/artist/7j0DUZ79z4edeLkU2H1UoJ?si=eI
This episode was directed and presented by Dave Meyer, editor & coproducer by Ryan Turner, producer & marketing Robbie Lockie, music kindly provided by Robel Borja.
