Parasympathetic MAXXING For Optimal Gains! Ritualization, Habit Stacking, And Productivity Hacks

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🎓 ABOUT THIS VIDEO 
Unlock practical insights on establishing effective recovery rituals, maintaining a calm mindset, and aligning daily routines with your health and performance goals. This episode shares real-life strategies, mindset shifts, and lifestyle anchors that promote balance and resilience.

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🧠 TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Introduction to the episode's focus on recovery rituals and mindset

00:29 - Overview of how Nathan differs his approach from theoretical advice

01:52 - Nathan’s personalized wind-down routine and the importance of transition time

02:45 - Walks and outdoor time as mental reset tools

03:10 - Using walks to reinforce learning and reflect on health questions

05:10 - The concept of “landing zones” for mental and task closure

06:22 - Structuring the end of the workday for clarity and readiness for tomorrow

07:15 - Transition rituals (changing clothes, putting on sneakers) to shift mental states

08:09 - Managing boundaries to avoid work intruding on personal time

09:02 - Meal timing, prep, and how routine supports dietary consistency

09:54 - Using shared activities (cooking, watching shows) for relaxation

10:51 - Supplements and pre-bed rituals for optimal sleep and recovery

12:10 - Habit stacking strategies for medication and daily tasks

13:00 - The importance of planning and sequencing routines to create ease

13:57 - Overcoming friction with identity-based habits and self-perception

15:05 - Using technology and environment to support habits and routines

16:29 - Restructuring your day for seamless transitions and easier routine implementation

18:13 - How mindset impacts consistency and the importance of internal identity shifts

19:35 - The metaphysical and psychological benefits of grounding and nature

20:56 - Practical insights on massage, yoga, and their roles in recovery

22:15 - Handling illness and avoiding stimulants during sickness

23:34 - Effective management of workflow and focus via task prioritization

25:00 - Developing an identity that aligns with success and health goals

27:00 - Strategies for building and reinforcing new habits without relying on willpower alone

29:00 - The importance of long-term perspective and incremental change

30:56 - The therapeutic impact of outdoor time, nature, and grounding practices

34:36 - The benefits of massage and yoga in recovery and relaxation

36:13 - How to respond when feeling fatigued during workouts

38:02 - Handling exhaustion and stress before crucial training sessions

39:43 - The dangers of caffeine dependency and long-term stimulant use

41:48 - The importance of personalized protocols for health and recovery

43:42 - Final words on creating sustainable, easy routines that support high performance

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome you guys to another episode of the Opticast QA every fucking Wednesday with fucking banging questions coming out from my clients. What do we do on the QA that looks a little bit different than the other episodes? Well, I'm not teaching you shit. I'm basically just talking to my clients and I'm letting you see what my approach is when I deal with them. So on Monday, you get the theoretical side of things on the coach's brain. Here you get a little bit more on the practical side of things so we can start becoming a little bit more familiar with one another. And this episode today, man, it's uh it's gonna be a hard one for me. We're gonna be covering recovery rituals as well as calmness and the mindset that comes with that and the uh the lifestyle anchors that support these things. So wind down routines, outdoor time, massage yoga, like the lifestyle episode that's basically gonna like balance some of the PD stuff that we talk about. So I know that it sounds like, oh, I'm not fucking listening to that. You are sure as shit listening to that because there's so much value out of this. Honestly, when I tell you this is one of the hardest episodes for me to make, is because I struggle with this so fucking hard. And I'm gonna show you a little bit of the strategy that's been working for me. Because if it works for me, dude, it's gonna fucking work for you. Because, like, honestly, I am the absolute fucking worst when it comes to these things. So uh if it's it's has been working for me, it's gonna work for you. And also, um, by this point, we're gonna have found out if Brazil is still on the World Cup or not. But Aubrey still represented Brazil. I'm fucking representing Brazil just with my jersey that looks like a fucking NASCAR race. But this is from indoor soccer. I love indoor soccer. It's also so much better than outdoor soccer, it's so much faster pace. Like it's more like hockey on a on a pacing setting. It's also way more physical than actual soccer. So uh yeah, dog, I hope Brazil fucking wins, man, because uh we've basically been going to like steakhouses, Brazilian steakhouses or like Brazilian bars for every game, and I don't want to stop going. And I have no I don't I don't have any reason to go unless it's like watching the game because I'm like I just eat at home every single fucking day, you know? But uh yeah. Let's start with the first question here.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

What's your window routine?

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Okay, so uh to to be a little bit like uh more helpful for people, not just my window routine, I'm gonna give you some context because uh like my window routine is significantly longer than it is for most people. Reason being, it takes several hours for me to downshift into like recovery mode, into like parasympathetic mode and stuff like that. So um this here is is basically like the the context that I want you to walk away with. So for myself, this usually means I'm gonna stop working uh at whatever time I stop working, which is it it it it tends to be at the same time every day, but it kind of changes. But in theory, what should be happening is like 6 p.m. we're not work anymore, right? Like we're just basically calling it a day. There's no more questions that I answered, there's nothing else, we're just fucking relaxing, right? In on paper, what it turns out to be is like, hey, I go to uh well, we're gonna answer the on paper a little bit more uh a little bit later. So I I want to tackle just like how it goes. We stop working sometime like six to seven something. We go for a walk, which like resets us for the next phase, right? We just like get some sun exposure, which is still the summer. We get uh a little bit of like time together where we're just talking. It's not so much like work-focused stuff. I'm usually sharing what I've learned in this day with her because that like solidifies that learning process in my brain. So every day she's learning some new shit. She's quizzing me on stuff. What were you quizzing me about this week?

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Thyroid. Yeah, but you were like T it was TSH. Yeah, TSH, T3, and T4, and like where it's created, where it's stored, where it's converted, what it's used for.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

It was really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Let's see, let's see if you learn. Let's see if you learn something. Okay, we'll we'll get back to the routine, but let's see if you learned something about thyroid hormone. Okay, you see someone's blood values, okay? Okay, they're all in range, they look pretty good, they feel like shit. Why? What could possibly explain that?

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Because maybe their cells aren't able to receive the T3 that is being that's being created. Or well, yeah, that's the only really one one that I remember. I mean, I know that the T4, there's something about like the free levels matter, but the the other levels don't matter. Total. The total doesn't matter. I know T4 is what's converted into T3, that your body naturally like in your organs, they create their own T4.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

You know that too.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

And then so that's where it's created, but it's also created somewhere else in the pituitary gland? No, somewhere else. I can't remember what.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

You got right. So the interior pituitary gland actually produces its own local supply of T3, not even of T4. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

So um And the T3 is what's floating around. And then I know there are things that can like pick it up and like it can get inside a taxi and it can TBG. Yeah, and then but sometimes when it's picked up by other things, then it becomes like unhelpful, like it can't actually enter your cell anymore.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Yeah, because it's bound, it's protected, it's inside of a taxi, so it can't get into the cell, it's just moving around. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

And that's and the fact that I can remember that speak says a lot because that was at the end of the long work day talking as we walked.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

You guys don't understand. This bitch doesn't remember. If I asked her like how many dates she just had in the kitchen before we clicked record, she would be like, uh, I don't know, I forgot. Like, that's how her memory is. So the fact she was able to remember that, I'm fucking gross. I'm so fucking out. I have a heart on right now. My I've fully fucking boned out, brick the fuck out because this was so beautiful. But yeah, we just uh it just gives me opportunity to like explain because when you explain something to uh someone that is like very much a beginner, they usually create a confusion in your own head. Like they start saying, like, wait, but what about TSA? Like, what about TBG? What about the the thyroglopsin? What about like albumin? Like, what about this and what about that? And like, and they start using wrong definitions for the things, and you start like buying into that price, it's just so fucking complex. So if you're able to like verbally walk someone through the process, like like not on a video, but like in real life, like life time, uh like face-to-face, you literally fucking know this shit. So that's why I use that time for this. It just it basically wraps up my work routine. So you see, like the way that it's built is like there's literally an endpoint. What we call in our relationship, we called landing zones and uh well, takeoff and then landing zones, right? So for us, we are not taking off. Taking off happens early in the morning. For now, we are actually landing. So that means that we are finishing something. We are actually telling our brain, like, hey, this task is done, is concluded. We're not touching it anymore until tomorrow. So like I don't struggle a lot with the stuff that people talk about, like, oh, I can't like stop checking my messages. I can't stop doing this, I can't stop doing that. I'm like, no, I literally go through a process that I finish everything. I answer all of my messages before I'm done with work. I answer all of my emails and all of the WhatsApp or like every client, like all of these things inside of the engine. I answer everybody before I'm done. And then I just move on and I'm fucking ready for the next day. So my mind is already clear from this like set point, from just the way that I organize a fucking walk and how I approach the walk. The walk is just not just me like trying to get my mind off of work. I'm literally concluding everything that I've done in that day.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Yeah, and I think that I typically am doing something until he's like, Okay, I'm done. Yeah, you know. And so I I used to just be like, okay, I just hop up and just go and just try to transition really quickly. Well, yeah, it didn't even feel like a transition. So I've started being like, okay, I'll be done in five minutes, or I'll be done in 10 minutes, so that I have time to do that. It gives her time to land. Yeah. And then having transition time. Like, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna put on my sneakers, like probably change my clothes because inside the house I'm wearing sweatpants. Outside it's 95 to 99 degrees.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Yeah, it's like a hundred degrees outside, and I keep the house at 57.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

It's so cold, y'all.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

I got that T3 in me, dog. I need to make a T3 dog and make a shirt. Fucking make millions of dollars off of that shit.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Okay. But yeah, the transition time from activity to activity, that take that landing zone and then that kind of takeoff. That can be before any activity, by the way. So, like if you're thinking about this is like going off track, but you're not. Uh if you're gonna be going to say a wedding or an event or you're going out, like those takeoff zones can be really helpful to transition from whatever you're doing and get your mind in the right place and make sure you have all your crap that you need.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Yeah, like just imagine like how bad it is when you don't have any transition in between, right? You're like, you just get this phone call from your boss, you're in the middle of a date with your friend, you decide to pick up the phone call because you have no fucking sense of boundary or self-worth. And you pick up the call from your boss in the middle of a fucking date night, and your boss just gross the fuck out of you and says, On Monday, we're gonna have a fucking talk. Now you're worried, okay? How much time do you have to transition from that clusterfuck of a mess to sorry, babe, you were telling me about the new hair tie that you bought? I am so interested in that. That is definitely a priority for me right now. Like, good fucking luck doing that. That's not gonna happen. So you establish these boundaries and you and you organize your life, your schedule on a day-to-day. I help with clients with this as well because it supports the overall goals that we have, right? So, how is it that I'm able to give my meal on time? Like my last time, and my my last meal is the most consistent meal. My last and the first meal are the most consistent ones. Why? Because they're anchored in specific portions of the day. In the between the middle of the day, it gets kind of rough. But uh, in the end, the beginning of the day, that's how it's set up. After the walk, what we're gonna do is we're gonna prep our food together. So uh, like uh we will we we don't really do the whole like she cooks for me or something like that. It's mostly like we both cook, we both like do shit at the same at like all times. She does most of the dishes now that I'm working my fucking ass off on making some incredible shit that I can physically cannot contain myself. I want to talk about these things so fucking bad about what we're gonna do at an optolab for you guys, but I can't right now because I don't want to, I just I can't, okay? Just boundaries, okay? Like I just talked about. So we're gonna be cooking together, just fucking chillaxing and talking and hanging out, and then we're gonna move over to the front of the television and we're just gonna watch a show. Watching a show for a lot of people can be very stimulating, so it's not something that I always recommend people do. For us, dude, it's literally the most powerful thing for like transition time. Like you literally just relax. Like we finish eating, we just set up, like we leave the food aside, we just lay down on the bed and we're watching because we eat in the bedroom because we don't have a uh uh a living room. Uh yeah, we have an office for her, which used to be my gym, you know? You see the leg press back there, the heck squat. Uh yeah. We used to have a full gym in our living room, like battle ropes, uh, leg extension, leg curl, pull down machine row, like landmine rower, fucking uh a full rack, deadlifting platform, dumbbells, mirrors. That used to be our living room. So I kind of like this whole, you know, optimization thing a little bit. I I like this whole space a little bit. Uh now it's just her office. But uh so for us, like we we found an activity. That's the point. We found an activity that lets us downshift very, very rapidly. So like I will, as soon as I'm done eating my meal, I pop my night pills. So I don't take anything that will inter like food would interfere with because I'm gonna take it right after that because it works better for my schedule. For some people, they should take their pills like like several hours before they go to bed because that that tiredness is what's gonna make them realize, oh, I should probably get the fuck to bed. So, like for myself, I take it like three hours, sometimes four hours before going to bed, because unless I'm physically feeling how tired I am, I will not be able to lay down in bed.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Yeah, and I don't do that. I don't take them like two hours. I tried that one time before we go to bed and I was dying.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah, like 30 minutes into it, she's exhausted.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

I'm like, but it's terrible because I'm not done eating or we're not done hanging out, and I'm like, I I need to stop. Like my body needs to stop, and it's telling me to stop. And I can't. So it's kind of overwhelming for me. So I don't take I take them, I'll take them at the end of my meal.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Just because yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Yeah. So uh I'll I'll take them and then uh I'm gonna finish watching TV. After it watches TV, she usually, you know, goes take a shower or whatever, and I just stay with the dog, just hang out, or maybe cook food for tomorrow, or maybe just like prep my bag or prep my mit my meal for my pre-workout meal. I prep my shaker, I I move my stuff around so like my work is set up for the day and stuff. I just since I work from home, like I just set everything right on my desk and all of these things. I usually already started smoking in the afternoon. Like, I'm I'm like, I'm fucking chillaxing. There's a progression I'm gonna walk you through it. But like I at this point, like once she comes out of the shower, we're gonna do our shots. So we do our shots together as well because we're a fucking team and we love each other. It also helps with adherence because I don't want to inject myself anymore. I'm fucking tired, just being completely honest. So I don't ever get I don't you haven't been injecting five times a day for three years, so you will get there. There we are. Yeah, you'll you'll get there, believe me. Uh, but you you just you just roll with it, you just fucking do it, right? So you find you find us so habit stacking is uh one of the things that I teach in the uh identity protocol, which is a protocol that I have every client do whenever we join. It's the only thing that we all do together, but we do it as a team. So it's uh it's like uh habit stacking just means that it's it's it's to counteract a big problem, right? How do you start a new habit or how do you maintain a habit? Well, the the hardest way to do it is to just like, oh, I want to start meditating. Let me do it at 3 p.m. in the afternoon, no matter what. You're not gonna do it, okay? It's just not gonna fucking happen because you're gonna be in the middle of something else and it never fucking fits. So what do you do? Make it fucking fit. You know when you like, okay, when would it fucking fit? Oh shit. Like when I when I'm about to go to bed, I first set up my like CPAP, like I finished taking my shower. I set up my CPAP, I pull my earplugs out of the drawer. Uh, I'm gonna be plugging in my phone and just sitting in the bed to like put on my CPAP and everything. I could just do fucking five, 10 minutes of meditation sitting in bed right there. So I'm gonna stack these habits together. One that it's already automatic for me, and it's not a habit that I'm trying to build onto something that's very easy. So my strategy here is for us to do our shots together because that basically means that, like, hey, she's gonna pull me to do it, and I'm gonna pull her to do it. So we do it at the same time. After that, she goes to bed, I go take a shower, dude. I'm fucking in the shower. It depends on the day. It may be a day that I have to watch something, and those are usually the days that I notice like I'm way too fucking creative. Like my mind will not stop. And you don't understand, like, I have a lot of like it's so weird to say I have a lot of creative ideas, but I am constantly creating things in my main in my mind. I am a creator. I make shit. I create stuff, I create courses, I create videos, I create content, I create protocols, I create like like community, like relationships is what I do. So like if I'm too into that mode, I just have to get my mind off of it. So I'm literally gonna watch something, like a YouTube video about something fucking random, like some some fucking like uh video about uh like kill Tony, or I'm gonna watch some memes, or I'm gonna watch like uh someone talking about like a prep or a cycle that they did or something like that, or maybe even a deep dive, or maybe like it's never a lecture, but it's like a YouTube deep dive or something like that, uh, just to refresh my memory on something, or if there's an interview that I've really been watching, or something like that. I spend a lot of times like watching people's interviews because they I know how much work it goes into them. So, like for a lot of interviews, I literally like space them out on only when my brain is working. But yeah, so I do that and I'll go to bed, or sometimes I just don't have anything. My bathroom, my bathroom is just like red lights. I already have my blue light glasses from the moment that I left to go on a walk. Uh, you know, like the light, the house is already very, very dark, regardless of what the house is outside. The light is outside, and our house is very, very cold as well, so that we are able to sleep better because you know, sleeping when you're hot is absolutely miserable. By the way, we need to wash our sheets because I've been sweating like a motherfucker in bed. Very curious to see my blood work. So that's basically my routine at night. And you gotta understand that it goes to a rhythm. So as soon as the day starts, I'm fucking 100 miles per hour from the moment that it begins. Like I'll literally have my adderall, I'll have my adderall, I'll have my shots, I'll have my supplements, and I'm gonna take my pre-workout, eat my food, take my pre-workout, go for a walk, go to the gym, fucking train, come back home, shower, more pre-workout or more caffeine of some fashion, work my fucking ass off. In the afternoon, I'll have another short dose of another like compound that's usually not caffeine, that's usually gonna be like Samax or Selink, because in the afternoon, I'm starting to downshift. So my full work is like the full mode of production and everything. It does happen like in the beginning. So you see how I'm pairing everything up, like, let's start full fucking boar and then let's like end in this window like like uh fashion. I feel like a lot of people they're so focused on like building a night routine that it's just like set up an alarm to do this, set up an alarm to do that. And it's like you don't understand how to structure your life so that these routines can stop feeling like a fucking thing that you have to wide knuckle through. When in reality it just could be so much fucking easier. So that's that's how like my window routine is structured. It's literally structured from the moment that I wake up. Like I have bright fucking lights in my eyes, 10,000 fucking lumens in my fucking eyes, okay? I'll sometimes even go outside and just be staring out into the fucking open, get all of the sun exposure that I can. I'll do all of my shots, I'll take my caffeine, like I'll I'm ramping the fuck up from the beginning. You know? I go to my workout, I just fucking destroy myself. Dude, I I couldn't even finish my work, my leg workout the last time. One, because I hurt my back. Uh, so that was fucked up. I tried to do Bulgarian split squats. Fucked you. Never doing Bulgarian split squats ever again. But uh yeah, my leg was were fucking fucked. And then just like ramp up work and then just start downshifting. So it's uh, I feel like that fluidity helped, it's it's much more uh the the curve is is is is less about you like whichever point you are, just like bringing it down as fast as possible. Because that's what people try to do when they think night routine, they think like the last 30 minutes before bed. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about how you change your like how you structure your whole fucking day, dog. And you do it in a way that's gonna feel like, oh my gosh, I was meant to live this way. This is literally the easiest fucking way to live. This is one of the things that I teach in my sleep course. It's how to build off a night routine, right? That that that sleep course is just for clients. I I know you guys want to see it. I will build a client uh a course on uh a disp eventually, but it's all like together with my method and stuff, so it wouldn't really be useful for you because we're not talking about these things constantly on a day-to-day messages, on a weekly basis, on check-ins, on our monthly calls, on our weekly group calls, and so forth and so on, right? Like we're not seeing these things with you, so it's it wouldn't be so helpful. I want to give you guys something that is actually helpful. So uh, but yeah, I feel like that's uh that kind of covers it. Like the way that I do it, you know, it's it's less about like here's how to answer this question. It's more about like, here's how you should think about this. Uh, because I hope that's more that's more useful.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Yeah, it's I kind of think about it, or you can think about it in categories. So your mindset and having the transition times, resetting, like resetting your stuff, your physical objects and stuff like that. Good one, Aubrey.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Good one, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Light. Think about it in terms of light. So don't turn off all the bright lights in your house. Um, use lamps, use your glasses, the temperature, and even even the types of topics that you'll talk about. If if you are we both can really like our brains can start rolling very nonstop about different things, and so we purposefully like won't talk about certain things at certain times because we know it'll like ramp up our brains. So if you yeah, correct.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

We have like I'm I'm I'm able to do this at any time, and she's able to do this at any time. It was like, hey, we're not talking about this right now. And we're like, okay, cool. It's not a stab at the other person, it's not like fuck you bringing up this shit again. It's always like, oh, I'm not in the mental space to deal with. So, like the the the way that I approach this with coaching, I I uh I was uh dealing with my coach. Uh he he basically sent me a cycle that I'm like, oh, this is gonna crash my estrogen. I know how it works. He's like, don't worry about it. If it happens, we're gonna fix it and stuff. And I'm like, no, no, no, you don't understand. It's not about like you fixing it. I trust you to fix it. It's about me not being in a mental space where I feel like I can deal with the consequences of crashing my estrogen right now at this point in my life. So I I just it's not within my risk tolerance, right? So that's an another way to think about it. But we're we're gonna get dive a little bit deeper on this one. Let's read the next question here.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

What does your ideal day look like between workouts, subs, workflow to success, all while maintaining cool, calm, and collective mindset?

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Yeah, so that last part there, there's a lot that can be said about that last part, right? Because I maintain a collective mindset, a collected mindset very, very well. I'm very, very resilient uh when it comes to that. But I am like flying a million miles per hour a day. I honestly haven't cracked how to like be productive without being cracked out of my mind yet. And that's something that I'm hiring a mindset coach to work on. It's just not something that I developed uh very, very well. And it's it's an area that I'm working on right now. So we're always gonna have things that we're working on towards improvement, and this is one that I feel like it's a it's a bottleneck for me, right? So, like, but from an ideal perspective, what an ideal day looks like, honestly, if I could choose, right, I would wake up in the morning, do fasted cardio, come back home, shower, eat, get to work, work for about like four hours, okay? Eat another meal in the in the hour three or whatever, my pre-workout meal, go to the gym to train in the middle afternoon. Come back home and do a different type of work, a more like lay-down type of work, type of like answering stuff and like coordinating stuff, but the creative portion would be earlier in the day. And then after that, doing the night routine where we uh watch TV, go for a walk, we also do some uh grounding and meditation uh as well. And uh just being able to like, I would probably end up in bed like two hours earlier than I normally do. Just being honest, right? Like if we, if we, if I did peptides while uh she was, well, it's because I have to eat another meal, but if I did peptides while she was about to go take a shower together with her, that would allow me to take a shower earlier and be in bed earlier. The thing is, like, it kind of throws me off when I walk into the bedroom to sleep and she's awake. It just feels like, oh, we're still doing this thing. Like, let's fucking go. So, like, I just honestly prefer to just go to bed a little bit later. Plus, I always wake up without an alarm, anyways. So it's not like I am forcing myself to like stay in the schedule and just ruining my sleep. It's like, no, it just really fucking works. So this would be ideal, but ideal doesn't fucking work in reality, which is why I A lot of you guys are failing your goals right now. And uh one of the things that I do is help you figure out how to build a routine that actually works with your goals, not against them. So for myself, like it's my routine is pretty much like lay down before for you guys. Like, how do I maintain all of it together? I don't have a choice on going to the gym. She's going to the gym, I'm going to the gym. I just have to fucking go. I'm feeling fucking exhausted. Yeah, bro, you're gonna be in prep one day and you're gonna be fucking exhausted. And guess what? You're gonna have to do it for another 16 fucking weeks. And the last four are gonna be brutal. They're you're gonna experience fatigue that you'll never experience in your life. I'm like, okay, fuck. Then I just have to fucking do it. You know, unless I'm hurt or something like that or or or whatever. But uh when it comes to my supplements, my supplements are all late, they're prepped for the week. So I prep them once and then I never have to worry about them. So I just have like all of my supplements where I need to take them, okay? So as soon as I start working, I take my Adderall. It's right here. In the middle of the afternoon, I take paracentine, it's right there. I take my my pills that I need to take with food, with food. So guess where they are? They're sitting in the fucking counter of the kitchen. I take my night pills right after dinner. Guess where they are? Where I eat dinner. I take my morning pills as soon as I like fucking weigh myself. So after I weigh myself, I drink water for the first time. Where am I gonna do that? I'm weighing myself in the bathroom. So my pills are in the bathroom. So you see how I basically structure everything in habit stacking so that it's basically impossible for me to not see these things and not do these things? That's how I help you structure your own like life, so to speak. So, like for my workflow, I do work best in like bouts of intense and focused work and one thing at a time. If I need to do managerial tasks, I'm gonna be usually multitasking and doing multiple things at the same time with multiple workflows at the same time. I'm able to manage that pretty well, but it's very tiring. So, what I try to do instead is uh, did you call the restaurant for the reservation? Okay. What I try to do instead is uh what was I saying? Oh, my workflow. So what I try to do instead is just put a lot of like uh a lot of time where I just focus on one uh task at a time. So like uh if I'm working on one big project at a time, you cannot spread yourself too thin. There's several books that talk about this. There's some productivity books I I don't remember off the top of my head, but I think it was Carl Newport who was talking about productivity as uh the power uh as basically saying no to more projects because every project comes with a compounding set of burdens that is not built into the project itself. What does that mean? As you pick up a task of like, oh, I'm gonna work on uh two courses at the same time, at the same level. I'm just gonna be recording back to back one lecture of one, one lecture of the other. Okay, number one, uh that you're gonna make mistakes, right? So that's not gonna work for me. Uh, you're just gonna start jumbling things together, regardless of whether you're using like a material to go off of or not. And two, dude, you're gonna have to like make handouts for every single one of them from two courses and two separate workflows. You're gonna have to uh verify the claims from like everything that is in those things for two courses at the same time. So you're gonna you're gonna have to send emails to ask for papers from other people to verify some stuff that could counterdict what you just taught. And you need to rework a lecture, and now you're off full of like it just comes with so many micro tasks that it's easier to focus on one major task at a time. So, like this month, we are working on a major task, which is an umbrella task, and then there are major projects that live on a week-to-week basis. So, like this week's priority is fucking finishing this, next week's priority is doing this. Next week, that's how I structure my business at least. Uh, and I find that to be the best because it allows you to uh basically move significantly faster as well. Now, on the maintaining like your mindset and stuff throughout all of it, you're I'm gonna flip this question. So if you started working through the identity protocol, you already know that this question is like, oh yeah, shit, that that question's kind of fucked up. Because every action that you do is coming out of your identity. The fact that you eat overnight at night, like it has nothing to do with binge eating. It has everything to do with who you believe you are and the shit that you've been tolerating because you have beliefs about yourself. So, like, if you are someone who is just consistent, you are going to act consistently. If you're not, you're not going to. So, in the big, how do you become a consistent person? Two things. One, fake it till you make it, two, become that person. So, on a fake it till you make it, you literally have to force yourself to do these things in the beginning. Why? Why do you have to force yourself? If I'm so against wide knuckling, why do you have to force yourself? You have to force yourself because literally habits are just the easiest path for your brain. So you built a lot of neural connections and synapses when you are performing those actions, which is why you are able to like be completely fucking blacked out and still end up home when you're driving and you had no idea what the fucking happened, right? Like that is a clear example of a very ingrained pathway. It's not just motor skill, it's literally a brain pathway that's there. If you had to get to a different destination, you probably wouldn't arrive. You'd probably be getting a fucking accident or something like that because the context changed so much and you have to use so much force and willpower to be able to make that action happen that you have to be sober-minded. So, like for this case here, um, what what we would have to do is like basically like an understand that for a period of time, and it's not 21 days, that shit is bullshit, just like 10,000 steps is bullshit. Okay. Uh that that's just another, it's another thing that people people just want a quick fix and an easy number that they can chase after. It's like people ask me, what do you think about my thyroid based on my numbers? I don't give a shit about your numbers. I don't know you. I can't tell you that. That's why I asked for an intake form whenever I'm doing consultations with people. I need to fucking know you from the inside out. So when I'm when I uh when in the beginning of an action, you have to force it, but you can you can downshift the amount of force you have to do, especially if it's later in the day because willpower takes a lot of like energy and you already burned through a lot of the energy throughout the day, is habit stacking, right? Or sequencing things in a way that makes sense. There's a bunch of different strategies that I cover in that course for clients.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Body doubling.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Body doubling, for example, is a good one as well. Uh, but you have to do that. Now, as you are doing those things, you're gonna you're going to notice a lot of like dissonance, a lot of like anxiety and like friction between what you ought to do and what you want to do. That is down to your identity. What's gonna win is whichever one you're feeding the most. Are you feeding your old identity the most or your new identity? Okay, so you need to develop a new identity. Who the fuck are you? Like you need to understand that at a fundamental level, you always act out of a place of alignment with yourself. The friction that exists of you having to wide knuckling habits from the beginning is because there is tension within yourself. You are not yet the person who does those things. But what does that person do? How does that person live? Right? Like for myself, I have to backwards engineer my life. I was like, hey, I have some very particular goals with my business. I have some very particular goals with bodybuilding. Build an image of this person. What the fuck is this person doing right now? It's Sunday. It's 2 p.m. in the afternoon. I want to be fucking hanging out. Guess what I'm doing? I'm working because that's what that guy would be doing. And that guy already fucking made it in life. So I'm copying what that guy is doing. The same way with bodybuilding. Like, oh, you don't want to eat your meals? Who gives a shit? Has any bodybuilder ever done that? We're eating two or three meals a day. It doesn't fucking happen. You have to eat your fucking meals. I don't care. Now, is it gonna like contradict my other goal of like the business and stuff? Yeah, so I understand that it sets limits, but that limit is also shaping the identity of the person that I'm building so that I'm not constantly frustrated by the fact that, oh, I can't do bodybuilding perfectly, therefore I shouldn't do it at all. I can't do business perfectly, therefore I shouldn't do it at that's just fear, bro. That's just fucking fear. That's just you being overwhelmed by realizing that there's a lot involved. But guess what? You're still gonna eat, you're still gonna train, you're still gonna walk, you're still gonna work. So might as well do that in a way that shapes the person that you want to become, right? And you do it in a way that that person would do. So that's how you pair your identity with the habit formation side by side. That is basically how you maintain it all while you are working and doing all of these things throughout your routines and everything. I hope that was helpful.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

And I think realizing your limits is one of the most powerful ways of pushing your progress.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Yeah. Like I never pull an all-nighter. Why? Because for me it would be so detrimental.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Put everything you have to do into your calendar in time blocks. You're gonna find out real quick, shit, I don't have as much time. Do everything. But if you do that, guess what you are gonna start doing? You are you're gonna start actually getting stuff done. Yeah. And you're gonna know when you're gonna get it done, and you're gonna get it done at the time you thought you were gonna get it done.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

And also, also you can get people to help you. Like I had a mentor literally look at my calendar and be like, this task shouldn't be taking you this long. You need to learn how to do it faster. This task you should stack with this one because it basically like feeds if it into a DMX one. For your training, let's switch this, this, and that, right? So you should work with someone that can help you optimize. If you're if you're feeling like, man, I can't do both things at the same time. I can't be a mom and like fix my thyroid at the same time. I can't be a dad and and fucking work night shifts and and uh still like do bodybuilding. Those are all limiting beliefs that you have based off of the framework that you've been given. But guess what? There are different people out there. You tried everything, no, you probably didn't. So you didn't try everything, and you also didn't try everyone. You didn't try doing it from a place of a new identity. So until you tried everything and tried everyone, do not fucking quit. Yeah. Next question.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Do you prescribe outdoor time to your clients? What's your experience with spending time and nature and the impact it has on mental health?

SPEAKER_01 30:57

Yeah, it's huge, man. So I do I do prescribe light, I do prescribe downtime. Uh, well, I don't prescribe anything because I am just a coach, right? So coaches cannot prescribe anything, so nothing that I say can be a prescription. So I don't prescribe shit. I recommend. I recommend, strongly recommend that people do grounding. So grounding has been kind of misused by the functional health space, in that they they they believe that what makes grounding powerful is the fact that uh you are feeding off of electrons off the surface of of whatever it is, right? So as long as you're feeding off of a surface, uh you're feeding the electrons, you're basically like getting the benefits of grounding in the parasympathetic system. Problem is that when you actually look at these like grounding mats, they just transfer the electrons, but people don't report the same benefits. Why? Y'all missed the fucking point. It's about this metaphysical thing of being in contact with the universe that you are a part of. It's about connecting yourself with the things that make us us, that makes us living things. It's about connecting us to the living organism that is the earth. So this is the powerful thing. It's a metaphysical shift that is happening whenever you're using grounding or spending time in nature and things like that. When you're spending time in nature, you're you're also grounding, right? Like at the beach, you're you're your feet are touching the sand, it's touching the water, you're feeling the sun. Those are so many good things stacked up. So, like I'm looking forward for a beach trip. We try to do one like once a year, but it hasn't happened in the past like five years or some shit. But well, we try. But yeah, I think it's uh I think it's very, very beneficial. It can ground you, it can, it can, uh, which is one of the reasons we walk outside, right? It's just like the the just the sun and looking at the birds. We have so much nature around where we live. So we see the deer, we see the squirrels and all this stuff, and it's just like, man, it just kick you into different gear. It just makes you more like an observation and just like absorbing and internalizing it all almost like photosynthesis, you know. It's just uh it's just a very nice experience, and I find that uh it calms me down a lot. And not in an inebriating way like THC, but more in a like really long hug. But we also do that with one another. Like we also like, hey, I need a hug. And then we hug each other for a long time, or like, hey, can we sit like just shirtless uh close to each other and just hold each other? Yeah, uh, I ask her to like basically treat me like a fucking baby sometimes. And I I I treat her like a baby sometimes. Like all of this care, it it's like whether you're doing a grounding or with your partner or whatever. I think it's all part of like just trying to bring in that parasympathetic system uh and uh just being in a more well in a in a place of well-being, not being so like trapped in the rat race or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

Yeah, I think that that metaphysical idea is really powerful because for me I love being out in nature, especially where I can see like big chunks of sky or a ton of stars or like really tall trees, something that contextualizes me because I feel like if you're going through your life, especially if you you're in a very stressful period of life or your work's really stressful, everything seems big, like all of the problems seem so big, and you feel like you're God and you have to like freaking figure out solutions to all these problems and solve everybody's whatever. But then when you go out and you're like in nature and you see how small you really are within how vast the universe is, then you're like, Okay, my problems are small. Like the things that I was solving, they're important, but they're small in comparison to the entire universe, and it just helps kind of shift your mind out of that I have to try to control and fix everything mentality.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Yeah, yeah, very good. Very good. Next one.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

Is massage helpful for muscle recovery? Is massage helpful for overall recovery? What do you think about yoga being a part of a routine for a person that is focused on building a physique?

SPEAKER_01 34:44

The benefit of massage does not come from the fact that you are like manipulating the muscle fibers in any way. The benefit of a massage comes from the fact that there is a human being touching your skin and taking your mind off of absolutely everything that is not just it's just focusing on your body. It's a form of meditation. That is why it's helpful. And it's very relaxing because it also relaxes your muscle and you accumulate a lot of that tension with your muscles throughout the day. So, in that sense, is it extremely fucking beneficial for muscle growth and recovery? Why? Because it puts you in a parasympathetic state. You will not recover and you will not do well in this physique development uh uh uh uh uh uh environment if you are constantly on high gear. So, like, that is why it's so beneficial. When it comes to yoga, I think that it could have a benefit in terms of this, of this context, but uh it it would like it wouldn't have a direct effect on building your physique, right? Uh like it it doesn't do anything special when it comes to your muscles. So I would only approach it from the standpoint of like, oh, it's a very relaxing thing that I do. But you also want to make sure that you're not stretching so much because especially if you are enhanced, you are like putting your connective tissue into in a pretty like demanding position. And remember, your muscles are much more strong than your connective tissue is. So just perhaps a little chance of injury there, uh, just something to uh look out for. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

What is the best thing to do when I feel like I'm getting sick? Are stimulants bad to take when I'm sick?

SPEAKER_01 36:13

So the best thing to do when you're feeling sick is to message your coach to get a personalized protocol for what we are about to do. Um, because it's gonna change a couple, it's gonna be different from person to person, which is why I don't have a quick guide on like, got sick, take this protocol for my clients. Like, we don't do that. I find it's ridiculous that coaches have like different protocols and shit. But like that is the first thing that I would do. And then stimulants, yeah, I wouldn't really take stimulants because they are going to just put you in that pair in the sympathetic state. In the sympathetic state, you're not gonna be focused on recovery. So if you're thinking that you're fighting from a lion, you're not, you're not basically your priority is not to fight off a flu. Like it's gonna be fighting off the fucking lion. So like I wouldn't, I wouldn't do that. Now, getting a little bit sick, like, or you're just like your nose is stuffy or something like that. I mean, if you gotta fucking work, you gotta fucking work, you know? So there's there's that. But when it comes to like, okay, when I am getting sick, what do I do? And what does she do? So I do, I do a little bit different than her because I just have a little bit more support that's needed. But uh, what I'll do is I'll do a very large bolus dose of thymusin alpha one. I'll do a large bolus dose of vitamin D and of zinc, and then I'll do a large bolus dose of glutathione, and then I'll play the second day by ear. So that that helps a whole fuck ton. And then like rounds of thymogen, uh thymolin throughout the year, those help with regulating your system so that you're not like sick for days. So when I'm sick, it's usually like a day or two max. Like it's never more than that. It's not even a two, it's like half a day to a day, just being honest, yeah. And for her, it's usually just the timus and alpha one is able to handle it for her. So it's it's really it's really, really good. But it probably comes down to like the fact that I'm always revved up and she's not. You know, she is she she can downshift, she can downshift very, very well. But even before you could put in like in a lower gear with ease. And if for me it always took a long time, you know, we used to like fight over it and stuff, but yeah, it's wild.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Yeah, I think that this I personally don't take stimulants when I feel like I'm getting sick because I tend to just ignore and brute force.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

That's another good point.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

And try to go through. And I'm so since I'm already not that aware of like how much rest my body needs, and I think rest is boring, and I'm you know, like all of these different reasons, I won't, you know, take a bunch of caffeine or anything. So because I want to be able to focus on recovery and oh, you're too tired. Well, that probably means you're just too tired and you need to go take a nap or you need to go, you know, cut leave work early or whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

If I'm too exhausted to work, think, focus, etc., but I don't have the opportunity to rest. Is it okay to rely on caffeine to push through for six months or so? I'm pretty sure I wrote this question.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

Yeah, for si and you guys you gotta understand she was exhausted, right? So when I when I got this question, it was in the context of what we were dealing with with her at the time, what we were managing with her coaching. So uh like my answer to this was like pretty much fucking no, right? Like, why? Six months? Are you insane? Like, just you're you're too exhausted to think and to focus. And you're like, can I just push it with caffeine for six months? Number one, your receptors are gonna downregulate so fast that in six months you're gonna be taking five grams of caffeine. Number two, caffeine's just poor for focus. So you stop using the fucking sledgehammer. There's so many good better tools for the job than this. So, what we did instead is I I we asked the question, okay, what is it causing you to be exhausted and just not be able to think and not be able to focus? Let's look at your blood work. Let's look at like how your actual symptoms are coming. Is your cycle coming in? Like, what is your what are your temperatures look like and stuff? What do your bowel movements look like? And we started mapping out like in basically like, okay, this is what it is. And when it was like, okay, it's pretty conclusive. This is a case of like adrenal insufficiency. So uh in this case, so I built the protocol for her, and we had to only make one minor tweak. She stayed on this protocol for a really good time. And uh, we titrated caffeine down. We eventually got rid of caffeine entirely, and then now she pretty much is fucking great. Like she just has it, like she just doesn't have anything like that. So, like now this question wouldn't even make any fucking sense. It'd be like, why would you spend six months like that when you can start feeling better in two weeks and then not have to deal with this? You know, so for you, depending on what stage of adrenaline insufficiency you're in, it's gonna that's gonna dictate how long it takes, but also the approach that we're gonna take. So, like stage three is significantly more involved than stage one, right? Like stage one is just a little bit of an easier move that sometimes can even do it with just lifestyle interventions. For her, she needed like lifestyle interventions as well as like some boundaries, as well as like some new habits, as well as like some uh the protocol itself, and removal of a lot of things from her life as well, of her job being one thing as well. So, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

It was a fun time. I can't believe that's where I was.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

I mean I can, but I can't. Like I'm not drinking I'm not taking any caffeine at all. At all. Yeah. To get through my days. And and I can work and I can think and I can focus and I can breathe. I would literally be short of breath from the stress. And I'm in such a better place now. So grateful. I still made progress though, which is insane. Like I still made progress. My entire first year of bodybuilding was not of training, of bodybuilding. Of bodybuilding, yeah. Was in that that type of environment. And thank god I had a coach to help me get through it and then to help me make some pretty major decisions about who I wanted to give my time to and my energy. And uh yeah, I'm glad I decided to give it back to myself instead of somebody else.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

I love it. Caith.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

What's the best way to deal with feeling weak, heavy, fatigued when you still need to do your workout? Pre-workout, is that the only answer?

SPEAKER_01 42:02

Again, I would like to go back to why this is happening. Why is it that you feel this way? Like, do we need to bump your calories up? Do we need to like give you more rest days? Do we need to like give you some different supplements? Do we need to run a peptide course here? Like, is there something happening with energy production? Uh like is there something going on with inflammation? Uh, do we have a chronic issue going on here? There's so many angles of where this is coming from. Like, um, so like if it's if it's a one-off, uh, yeah, it's fine to push it for a one-one-off. But if it's not a one-off, it's just like consistently how you feel. It's like, okay, something here is is is it's your body's literally trying to tell you something. It's trying to tell you that unless you fucking take as much caffeine like a fucking couple lines of coke, you can't train. So, like, maybe the load that you're carrying a little bit too high for you. You know what happens when you carry a load that's too heavy for you for too long? You break. Like, some shit goes wrong. So uh yeah, you like going back to our burnout episode, you basically like need to fix this shit before it just stops you dead in your tracks and just says, you're fixing this now. Because that's how I crashed several years ago. When I crashed, dude, gone. Like my life was gone, dude. Nothing. I couldn't do fucking nothing. Like I had no energy to work, I couldn't even brush my teeth. It was horrendous. It was fucking horrendous. So please don't get to that state. Uh, let's actually address the address the root cause. Uh, and uh that's where I that's where I think this episode it like it really boils down to. Like, it's like let's actually like find the best way possible and the easiest path towards implementing the changes that are going to make it so that you don't feel like you have to force through every single fucking thing in your life. That is what I'm here for for you guys. That is what uh I try to offer with my with my with my uh with my content. Uh, but mostly it's what I do with my coaching because I have uh significantly more hands-on than other other people are. Uh, not in terms of micromanager. I don't I don't fucking like that at all. But I do like to teach you the principles and the tools and to give you the tools that you need in order to become a good client, like someone that's actually gonna be good doing good work and so forth and so on. So uh thank you guys so much for sending the questions. I am now in a parasympathetic state officially. I am relaxing. I am chillax, so it's time for me to chillax a little bit more and just fucking ride the wave and then hopefully watch Brazil absolutely crush uh Norway. I believe it's Norway. Yeah, let's uh let's fucking hope because uh there's a chance Brazil might play Argentina. And if that happens, uh yeah, that's gonna be brutal. But I I still I still need to fucking watch it. Anyways, I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace the fuck out. Let's go.