Sean McCormick is the host of the Optimal Performance podcast, and he is all about optimal performance in many different areas of life.
This is a wide-ranging show that delivers a ton of precise and actionable tips, with particular focus on overcoming self-limiting beliefs. Sean is a life coach and cutting-edge biohacker from the Seattle area who blends a variety of different expert strategies to help clients be the best they can be. This interview will seem like a real live free coaching session where you get to ask yourself some hard questions about what’s in the way of optimal performance and happiness. One of my biggest challenges is the distraction presented by the email inbox. We tackle that particular issue head on at one point in the show! You’ll also learn what Sean’s eight categories are for evaluating where you’re at in life, and four steps of the STOP method.
TIMESTAMPS:
Good coaches are masters at getting the best out of you through penetrating questions and challenging you. [02:09]
There are eight categories that evaluate how things are going in your life. [05:10]
Sean talks about how his podcast is unique. Conversation is what moves the needle. [06:57]
There is so much information bombarding us every day, it is easy to get overloaded. [19:04]
It takes a lot of courage to slow down. [21:29]
Coaching is in four different categories: personal development, biohacking, professional development, and spiritual development. [26:23]
One can assess their life by looking at categories that are health, family, money, your environment, spiritual development, romance and intimacy, life purpose, and fun and recreation. [31:00]
Changing “I need to….” or “I should…” to “It’s important that I ……” makes a difference. [32:31]
Ninety-seven percent of all of our decisions throughout the day are directed by the subconscious mind. [36:09]
How do we get rid of negative emotions like anger? There are four steps to the STOP method. [40:55]
If the STOP method steps are not followed, we need to look deeper to find out where the resistance is. [54:15]
Learning to “email batch” is a good way to be organized rather than overwhelmed. [58:40]
Useful biohacking tools include blue blocking eyewear and X3 bar. LED lighting is flickering even though only our brain perceives it. [01:04:04]
The X3 bar is a game changer. And turn off your Wifi when you go to sleep at night. [01:08:56]
Blood restriction restricts the flow of blood to your limbs and makes your body work harder. [01:12:14]
LINKS:
QUOTES:
- “Conversation is what moves the needle.”
- “Slow Down. Pump the brakes.”
LISTEN:
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B.Rad Podcast
Brad (2m 9s): Hey listeners, we’re going to talk to a very interesting, optimal performer in life by the name of Sean McCormick. He hosts the very interesting Optimal Performance podcast. He’s also a life coach. He’s an expert in plant medicine and he’s all about peak performance, biohacking, living life on the edge. And I especially love his approach to coaching. If you go to his website, you’ll read the most thoughtful and well-worded coaching presentation that really captivates you. And as we get into some of the messages that he uses for personal coaching, you’re going to be really fascinated and we’ll have some really awesome takeaway tips for free. Brad (2m 52s): Just for listening to the show. Maybe it’ll compel you to want to hire this guy to work with you. One-on-one personally because he really some amazing things going on. Let me just read you a little bit of his coaching presentation. It’ll stop you in your tracks. If you’re surfing the internet and browsing things quickly. He says, good coaches are masters at getting the best out of you, but it doesn’t stop there. Performance coaches also help you find effective ways to keep you accountable to your highest self, your true calling, your highest level of love and happiness. Your best self are inside you. And how does the coach help you get there through penetrating questions, through challenging you on your terms, through identifying words, habits, nonverbal, cues, and trends that you don’t even know are limiting you. Brad (3m 41s): Through tools, exercises, and techniques that have proven effectiveness and through suggested work between sessions that will build new habits and move momentum in your favor. Oh man. And so as we go through the show, he talks about the four different modalities that he coaches to. One of them is classic personal development, you know, getting your daily schedule optimized. We have a nice conversation near the end about being more efficient with email, which was so interesting to me. I raised my hand and volunteered to be the Guinea pig there because I still struggle with the distraction. He said is one of the number one distractions on the planet for your productivity and your daily existence, because it’s other people dumping their shit into your life. Brad (4m 29s): What a great description there. So he talks about batching. He talks about kind of prioritizing or segmenting emails based on the ability to reply on how long it’s going to take really, really helpful to me. So anyway, there’s classic personal development that he coaches to biohacking things that are in and around and inside you, I guess that would mean food, your, your environment, you know, optimizing your home. He’s talking about switching from LED lights to incandescent lights, a very fascinating conversation about the negative effects of blue light artificial light, especially after dark. His third area of coaching is professional development and then finally spiritual development. Brad (5m 11s): And the starting point are these eight categories to evaluate how things are going in your life. And it’s going to be really interesting just to listen to him, narrate the eight categories and give you a quick consideration of how various things are juggling and working together well, or maybe how some, like a dogged pursuit of a material success in the workplace is compromising other areas of your life. But his specialty really is helping you destroy and reframe self limiting beliefs. And he talks about Bruce Lipton and how we’re operating from flawed subconscious programming, 93 to 98% of the time. Brad (5m 51s): He clarifies that. So you can really understand what that insight is all about. And then he gives you step-by-step in this show a way in which to interrupt these negative patterns that have harmed your life with a method, he calls the stop method, a four stage method to overcome self limiting beliefs or behavior patterns such as getting triggered and stuck in anger or fear or anxiety. You’re going to absolutely love the show. And here we go with Sean McCormick host of the Optimal Performance podcast, Sean McCormick, the Optimal Performance man of the planet. I am so happy you could join us. And we got all kinds of things to talk about cause we’ve been burning up the email exchanges. Sean (6m 34s): Yeah, yeah. It’s so I’m so happy to be here after, you know, I just released the day that we’re recording this. I just released my episode with you and then a post-production process. It is so packed with so much great information. I, people are going to get so much from it. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having me on your podcast. This is rad. Well, let’s hear about the Optimal Performance podcast so we can plug my show. Brad (6m 58s): The listeners can go over there and listen to that. But then as you scroll through the guests and the content, it’s pretty optimal, man. It’s, you’re pretty out there. I got to say, you’re, you’re really pushing the edges in, in so many different directions and we’re going to get into your life coaching and the things that you do to help others, but give us, give us a rundown of what it’s like hosting that podcast and some of the highlights of know favorite guests and the journey that’s been for you. Sean (7m 26s): Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And, and any opportunity to plug to plug the podcast is, is, comes with great gratitude. You know, I, I really just, I follow breadcrumbs. The stuff that is interesting to me is the stuff that I go seek out. And in podcast, podcast land, sometimes your, your pitch to guests from a book publisher, sometimes you are pitch guests from PR companies. So sometimes I have people coming in to me that, that, you know, cellular health or, you know, the communication of, of cells between each other, that falls into my bucket. I’m fascinated by that. And so I, I, I roll with it and other things, you know, that, that I’m just really fascinated by. Sean (8m 13s): So looking over the bat, the past number of episodes, I did an episode on running with the host of another podcast called Brody Sharp. It’s called run smarter. Before that I did a two-part episode with a fellow named Steve Rio, who is a fascinating guy. We talk about his platform called nature of work, which talks about how to really structure your working from home environment. Bookending the days starting at the same way, ending at the same way. That was first half of the episode. The second half of the episode is dedicated completely to the power of the most powerful hallucinogen on the planet, which is five MEO DMT. Sean (8m 53s): Why we should care about it, why we should be interested in it. So, you know, I’ve had Robb Wolf on the podcast. I’ve had, you know, Sean Baker or from, you know, the carnivore movement. I had an episode about weighted blankets. Have you, have you ever tried a weighted blanket, Brad? Brad (9m 13s): Just generally? I think I gave my daughter one as a gift and, you know, gave it, gave it a test run and read some of the, some of the benefits about, I guess, the there’s material inside that’s magnetic or something to do with helping your cellular flow or something. Sean (9m 30s): This, this is specifically a quilted blanket that has glass microbeads in it. That creates a weight, which acts like a deep pressure touch to relax you quickly. And I was super interested in it. I had read about it a little bit. And then I did an episode with Elizabeth Grojean, who is the founder of a company called Baloo. And it is incredible. I need to buy like five more of them because everybody in my family loves them so much. So I, you know, I’m, I’m constantly looking for ways to get the most from the least. So if that’s how you structure your workday at home, cool. Sean (10m 10s): If that’s, you know, responsible use of psychedelics to reach a greater state of consciousness, then I’m into it. You know, breath work, sleep health, you know, you mentioned the X3bar on your episode, your appearance on, on the, the optimal performance podcast. And I’ve been using that for two years. And it’s basically all I do now, because it gives you the biggest effect for the time, you know, 10 minutes, 10 minute exercise, like totally works you out. So all of these different ways, ways of thought devices, personal performance, frameworks, ways of thinking about the self, you know, I’m interested in all of it. Sean (10m 57s): And we’re at such an exciting time in the, in the world where we know so much, like we can get, we can get the data done to support these, these ideas of like really a wholesome, like natural biohacking. And so that’s, that’s really what I focus on and it is amazing. Cause I’ve been able to speak to people that I’ve been admired that I’ve admired for a long, long time date. It’s awesome. I love being a podcaster.. Brad (11m 24s): Yeah. Yeah. That’s the, the greatest joy is the opportunity to connect with these people. And I tell my listeners, you know, one of my favorite shows was with Dr. John Gray Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. I think you had him on. And we discussed, I listened to your show and he gave like entirely different insights and fresh stuff that he never mentioned on, on three of my, I had interviews with them three times and the guy is just like the greatest bundle of energy force on the planet. But I remember our very first show, you know, I’m, we’re, we’re in the zoom scene. So we weren’t face to face, which is even more rich of an experience, but you know, at least we’re looking at each other on the screen. And at one point during the interview, you know, he kind of, he kinda cracked a little bit, he broke down, which is so rare for him, right? Brad (12m 10s): He’s, he’s a motor mouth, but you know, he was talking about losing his partner of 33 years. Bonnie who’s featured in all the books and you know, was right alongside him through this wonderful journey of helping people optimize their relationships. And it was a really touching moment for me because, you know, here’s this guy spewing his story, he’s got so much energy and excitement. And then, you know, he’s dealing with this loss and it was, I think, a year or more after the loss. And he was saying like, Hey man, asked me another question. I got to keep going. I’m trying to move past it. And you know, I was compelled the very next day to propose to my girl Mia Moore because I’m like, he’s describing ideal partner here during our show. And I’m like, she’s sitting right here. Brad (12m 51s): What am I waiting for? Life is so short. And so I just kind of had this burst of energy and inspiration thanks to John Gray. And I know you’ve probably had so many of those on so many different levels with your guests, but yeah, it’s pretty, it’s pretty fantastic. And I hope the listeners are right alongside, you know what we’re doing our best. We’re working hard to, to share that information like you say. Sean (13m 12s): Yeah. What you’re speaking to is, is a level of humanity that we are missing. You know, we’re missing campfire conversations and, you know, coffee afternoon coffees that lasts four hours. You know, that, that level of connection we just don’t have. And my favorite podcasts are the ones that are open and honest and vulnerable. And, and in that way, you feel like you’re in on the conversation, you know. How many episodes of podcasts do I listen to where I just feel like I’m in the room with those people. You know, if there are stumbling to think of this one thing, I’m always, I, you know, you always remember the thing that they forget, you know, like who was that one actress from that one show? Sean (13m 58s): It’s like, oh, no, I know, but, but yeah, I mean, the transformation can happen in such a short period of time. And when you have an opportunity to, to get downloads from truly inspirational, super wise, people who have been there before and have experimented and have something really important to share to, for us to be able to host podcasts where just a little, just a little nugget of wisdom can, like, in your case, you know, strive, elicit some action that changes your trajectory of your life. You know, if it’s, if it’s a relationship wise or it’s a, it’s a new way of eating or, or a new way of exercising or something that will help you really take care of your sleep. Sean (14m 47s): Like just that little spark can totally change lives. And I take it really seriously. And it’s, it’s, you know, just as well as I do, it’s a lot of heavy lifting, man. I mean, to be able to, to come into, to bring it every single episode to, to ask great questions, to have great conversations, but it’s, it’s when I get feedback from listeners that are like, Hey, this was amazing. It’s like, oh, okay. I can keep going. I can keep going. You feel the same way. Brad (15m 11s): Sure. Yeah. You gotta bring it. Every episode. It reminds me of a comment Seth Godin made in one of his newsletters, you know, is the marketing guru performance optimization guy. And he says, you know, we use this word authentic all the time. Like I want to be the most authentic and honest podcast, or I can. He goes, we’re not really authentic because we’re performing and we’re interacting with the public. And in almost every interaction you go through is throughout the day, it’s not truly authentic because if you had a crappy morning before we got on the air to record this podcast, I’m not seeing any of it, nor are the listeners or the viewers on YouTube because you’re, you’re having to bring it. And so he kind of like repositioned the concept to, you know, be sort of honest, vulnerable, all those other things. Brad (15m 58s): But we do know that we’re putting on a show and we’re trying to maximize the impact for the listener. And that means that we’re not going to hear about Sean’s in her interaction with the grocery store where someone cut in front of him and he was all frustrated and, and ran seven minutes late because we don’t care. It doesn’t, it doesn’t help us. So I like that distinction. And I think about that a lot, because, you know, sometimes you hear people kind of, I guess, overdo it in a way and you know, you can get too drawn into drama rather than, Hey, you know, I have a limited attention and time. What are you going to give me that’s of the best value? Sean (16m 35s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s an excellent way to think about it. I you’re right. It is, it is a performance and it’s, it’s coming from an act of service, which inherently suggests that you’re giving of yourself. That you’re, even if you’re tired, even if you’re cranky, even if you’ve had a bad day leading up to this, the fact that you’re stepping up to the plate and giving of yourself that gives for me, just gives, it, gives me the juice. And I try, I really try to live as transparently as possible. And I’ve had, you know, it’s this, this year, you know, some of the episodes that I’ve done on topics that are very controversial have, have been challenging for some of the people closest to me, you know, friends and family, that, that don’t like some of the stuff that I’m talking about, I feel compelled to share it because it is because conversation is what moves the needle. Sean (17m 38s): Like this suppression of ideas, just doesn’t this cancel culture stuff just doesn’t help anybody. Cause we have to, we have to talk our way through it. We have to, we have to be able to verbalize to disagree and to continue moving forward. And so, so for me, that, that level of that level of truth, maybe not authenticity, but that level of truth, I try to bring into every single interaction I have. Brad (18m 0s): Yeah. Well said. And I think this is what’s great about being alive today. One of the first examples that comes to my mind is the great decathlete Bruce Jenner, who was my hero when I was a kid. And now she’s Caitlyn Jenner. And to think like, it just, it’s just so mind blowing that this, this picture of masculinity and athletic excellence lived his whole life in that pain and suffering and struggle, and then had the courage to come out and do what she did in the public forum and talk to Oprah or whoever they, that the groundbreaking interviews were. And to think about how many people, that whole story has touched in such an amazing way, counting me, who was inspired by his ability to pole vault, high jump, throw the discus and be on the Wheaties box, but you know, whatever 50 years ago, or, I mean, how long ago was that any one he almost 50 years ago, you know, that all we saw was that tiny glimpse, that tip of the iceberg of the guy who was an amazing athlete. Brad (19m 4s): And so, especially with podcasts, what you’re describing is like we’re getting past the six minute book interview on good morning America where Brad Kearns comes on and says, yeah, eat less food. And you make really good choices and it’s really healthy and you also have to exercise, okay, we’ll be right back after the commercial. And so now you and I got to got to further talking about our new book and all the other, all the other great shows. I was wanting to ask you, like, you know, there’s so much content out there where the ball is moving so quickly. We’re exchanging information so quickly. We’re bombarded every single day with the opportunity to optimize and future further optimize after we optimize. Brad (19m 47s): And I wonder if you ever have an experience of kind of burnout or frustration that we’re overloaded in these ideas. Sean (19m 58s): Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Oh yeah. This that’s a great question. Yeah. I mean, when for, you know, for your listeners who I assume are, are proactive, health focused and want to do a good job in their life, they want to, they want to, they want to live a high quality of life and give it their best. There are lots of opportunities to become inundated with, with options, options of supplements, options of workout, options of nutrition. And it’s, it can, it can definitely become overwhelming. Sean (20m 39s): And especially, I mean, we’re talking about like the west coast of the United States of America is probably the, the, you know, the epitome of the, of go, go, go, go, like, go get her lifestyle. And, you know, that’s when I begin to think about like purpose and mission, because is it for a show? Is it for attention? Is it for, you know, achievement? That’s great. But how far, what is, what goes beyond that? Right. When, when you have either put a lot of pressure on yourself, or you have a lot of pressure on you by teammates or coaches or coworkers or bosses to perform at a high level, it’s really important to like anchor it to your why? Sean (21m 29s): Like, what is this all for? Why are you, why are you working so damn hard, man? Like, why don’t you, why don’t you slow down and chill out? And you know, it kind of gets, this is a, this is a, an issue that, that I’ve talked about a lot with my coaching clients, which is, you know, I, I had, I had one client who he was, he was really high up at Amazon I’m in Seattle. So I have lots of Amazon and Microsoft employees. And he was doing so many things well, professionally, you know, he was really highly successful. And at the same time, like his health was failing a bit and he was pre-diabetic and, and on antidepressants and, you know, estranged from his wife and wasn’t really talking to his kids and he was sort of anchoring his, his, this narrative that he built in his mind that this is all for them. Sean (22m 23s): Like, why, why are they so mad at me? Like this is I’m working hard so I can have, so I can provide them, you know, with the lives that, that, that they want. And, and it takes a lot of courage to slow down and really think about if that’s true. Is it true? Is this really all for them? And is there a point of diminishing returns at which you’re pushing so hard that it’s affecting your spiritual growth, it’s affecting your health and your relationships, your money is good, your money’s good. Your professional trajectory is good, but if it’s all these other things are getting in the way, and this guy, you know, tons of resources, tons of options, corporate coaches, but when he’s really slowed down and took an assessment of why he was doing what he was doing, what this was really for, and it allowed him to sort of reassess the, the plan that he had been hammering on for 20 years. Sean (23m 22s): And, you know, the same thing goes for, for so many of us is you have to, you have to really ask yourself hard questions or hire a coach that will, that will help you ask yourself those questions so that you can understand yourself on a deeper level and make the positive adjustments. Maybe it’s just taking more vacation. Maybe it’s dialing, you’re dialing in your sleep. Maybe it’s writing that book that you told that yourself you were going to write 10 years ago and you haven’t even started. So it’s, you gotta pump the brakes. We’re, we’re super dope. Dopamine acetylcholine. So talking about neurotransmitters, dopamine, acetylcholine, a lot of us were dominant in those, those two traits and gala and serotonin. Sean (24m 4s): A lot of us are deficient in for, for like type a go getter. And, and it’s, it’s essential for us to have that sort of wellness and an anchor to like a mission that we, that we create for ourselves. Brad (24m 15s): Wow. There’s a lot there very well said. And I’m reminded of a quote that Dave Rossi shared, I think on our interview, maybe it was off, off camera since w he talks so much, but he said, you know, basically everything we’re doing is in pursuit of some kind of hormonal experience. And so we’re very familiar with the dopamine triggers, Dr. Robert Lustig wrote that great book, The Hacking of the American Mind. And I think he listed 10 different ones that are just overwhelmed society and turned us into dopamine addicts at the expense of, and flooding the pathways such that we’re not, you know, adapted to, you know, do these serotonin promoting activities, oxytocin, you know, long-term satisfaction of a richly lived life, instead of just going for the instant trigger. Brad (25m 6s): Sugar is his main area of focus in life. But he also goes down the list of like excessive exercise, pursuing, you know, competitive success like at Amazon and seeing your stock go up and engaging with the one-two punch of video games and porn for the young American male satisfies their main dopamine drives that, you know, by their biological drives to the great detriment of their, their journey through real life, because they have all their needs met in the comfort of their bedroom. And it was a pretty heavy reflection to think that, you know, everything we’re doing has some form of drive and motivation. And we have a great ability now for the first time in history to be constantly entertained by a mobile device or by a digital device, to the extent that we don’t have the four hour meandering conversations at the coffee house, or, you know, the, the time that we engage with nature that we might have when we were little kids in, in our old days or whatever happened, you know, generations ago now it’s just like, go, go, go all the time. Brad (26m 10s): The brakes man that I might have to title the show, Sean McCormick pumped the brakes. I love it. That’s a great, that’s a great takeaway. If you’re going to take one, pull, quote away, people pump the freaking brakes. Sean (26m 21s): Yeah, for sure. For sure. Brad (26m 24s): So that was a great transition to your coaching operation. And I really wanted to focus on that. Cause if you look on your website, it’s one of the most beautiful presentations and the very careful languaging that you share to acquaint the person with what your coaching services are all about. And the engagement, if, you know, getting pretty deep asking the penetrating questions, challenging the client to really look deeper than the guy’s pop off. I love that pop off line. It’s for, it’s for it’s I’m doing it for them. What’s their fricking problem? Yeah. So let’s, let’s get further into some of the things that you like to do with people to kind of expose peel the onion. Brad (27m 9s): You talked about NLP, which is great of great interest to me. And I think we can go into a lot of different directions there. Sean (27m 16s): Yeah. Yeah. The what I’ve, what I’ve found is, I don’t know, part of me is sort of averse to frameworks. You know, I think it helps people understand important information and, and follow a plan. And, and at the same time, what, what makes a good, effective coach life coach and would you, and so I coach people in basically four different categories. One is classic personal development. So that’s goal setting mentality. That’s neuro-linguistic programming that is, you know, the classic you think of like Tony Robbins style coaching to like make, make progress in your life. Sean (28m 3s): Go do go, go do the thing that you, that you want. I want to go do. Yeah. Brad (28m 7s): Write your book. Finally. Quit making excuses. Sean (28m 9s): Okay. Got it. Yeah. Personal development. Okay. Right. The second category is biohacking. And the biohacking, as you know, is, is, is an important element of, so that we are able to perform at a high level. And I use the term biohacking as, as what, what goes in you? What goes on you and what goes around you? So how, how can you, how can you come to terms to control those three variables so that you can sleep better. So that you can digest better. So that you can exert better? And there’s, I mean, that will hold the hope. Most of the podcast is really focused on, you know, the 307 episodes are, are really kind of focused on, on that area. Sean (28m 55s): And the third area is professional development. You know, you have to have money to do the things that you want to do. And most folks kind of feel stuck with where they’re at professionally. And there are many different things that you can do really quickly to help move the needle, whether that’s to get more money in a position that you’re in, or to advance yourself into a, into a, into a higher position that you’re in or cut bait and go find another career. And then the fourth category is spiritual development. And the way in my, my approach to spiritual development is, is nondenominational. So whether you are agnostic, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, whatever your thing is, there is a way to connect deeper to that reality. Sean (29m 39s): There is a way there are, there are things that you can do, whether it be the use of the Touro or through meditation or through psychedelic practices to actually make some inroads, to develop a deeper sense of your, your spirit, your soul, to, to connect you came from somewhere and you’re going to go somewhere before and after your life. And, and to come to terms with that fact is, is something that a lot of people kind of kicked down the road, they kick that can, and they kick that can, and they kick that can, and then they get nervous about it later in life. Brad (30m 13s): So then they go, oh shit, what was I ignoring? Sean (30m 18s): Yeah. Right, right. They, they, it’s, it’s something that when, when you can develop a practice around it to deepen your experience, it improves all the different aspects of your life. So those, those are kind of, those are the four categories that I, that I really work with people in. And my approach is, is unlike a lot of other life coaches, performance coaches, because the, the, the lack of a framework, I’m not gonna put anybody into a, this is your protocol. You gotta, you gotta read these books and do this breath and eat this food and do these journaling exercises because not everybody’s there and not everybody wants to do all that stuff. Sean (31m 0s): So it’s really a custom process. Oftentimes it starts with a, with a tool that I call the life positioning system. And so of, of the, as I say, I don’t like frameworks, but here’s this one framework. But the, the life positioning system is an assessment that most of my clients do in the first session or two. And it looks at eight core categories of your life. And those categories are health, family, money, your environment, spiritual development, romance and intimacy, life purpose, and fun and recreation. So w once you have a, a subjective assessment of those eight categories of your life, then you can begin to think about, okay, well, which of these areas do I want to nourish? Sean (31m 48s): Which of based on the timing of my life, whether I’m, you know, 24 and just jumping into my professional life, or I’m 64, and, you know, my kids are grown and I have different consideration sets. That is an excellent tool to short sort of show people to themselves, just hold up a mirror and say, this is where you say that you’re at. What would you like to begin working on? From there it jumps into, you know, a lot of folks, especially now, their habits are totally different than they were a year ago. You know, because of COVID, we have our, our sleep habits have changed our, our, our eating habits and our exercise habits. Sean (32m 32s): And the way that we interact with our, with our friends and family have changed radically. So what habits are, are serving you in these categories and what habits are not serving you in your category, in those categories? And then it’s little by little, you know, I pay really close attention to the language that people use. One thing that, that is that, that everybody should try is count how many times they say need to, or should in an hour or a day. Right. Right. Like, think about how many times in a day you say to yourself, you know, I really need to, I really need to go grocery shopping or, you know, I really need to work out, or, oh, I should, I should call my mom. Sean (33m 21s): When you use language like that, you’re sort of detaching from your agency. When, when you are saying, oh, I should, then you’re, you’re not really taking responsibility for that stuff. And so as simple reframe from, I should work out today, which sounds like a pain in the ass, and you feel like, oh God, now it just, now it’s God. Now it’s baggage, right. Instead of saying, I should work out today, you can reframe that. And this is another NLP technique is to reframe that into a statement, which is it’s important for me to work out today. Even that subtle shift that change in language is it gives you agency and responsibility over what you’re going to be, what you’re going to choose to do during that day. Sean (34m 12s): And then it becomes not this thing that, that you are beholden to because somebody is going to, you know, if you don’t do it, you’re going to get in trouble, but rather your reorienting, the way that you decide to live your life. So I encourage everybody today for the rest of the day, do it for a week and make a little, take a little notepad with you. And every time that you say it out loud or into yourself, I need, or I should just make a little tick mark very quickly within a day or two, you’re going to be so aware of your overuse of those terms, shoulding all over. You’re shoulding. You’re shoulding all over yourself all day. And, and it’s not, it’s not serving you. It’s not building you up. It’s, it’s keeping you down. Sean (34m 52s): So that’s, that’s another example of, of, of, of how I apply these sorts of these sorts of custom techniques that I’ve learned over years and years of, of experimentation that really sort of break people out of their, their little box that they put themselves in. Brad (35m 8s): Yeah. I also feel like when you use those terms, it’s sort of a way to slough off the responsibility. So I really should write my grandmother a letter. She loves receiving letters in the mailbox, and there goes another day that I didn’t write the letter, but at least I care enough to say that I should write her a letter and therefore I can, I can put it off detaching from my agency of just doing it and quit talking about it and bullshitting myself and others. I need to get better about my, my budget. I spend too much on my credit card. Oh, is that so, okay. Interesting. And how about last month? Brad (35m 49s): Oh yeah, I needed to do better than last month. And we go through our entire life telling that story. And I guess, I don’t know, protecting our self-esteem or our self image, because we have all these should statements that would indicate we’re a better person. And we know it. All we have to do is say, should this, should that should this? Sean (36m 9s): Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s, I, it’s a little bit of a form of like self virtue signaling a little bit. At least it leaves, I at least I’ve thought about it for sure. Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s dangerous. And, and there are those, these, these are really too low hanging fruit examples of a lot of things that we do just automatically, you know, Bruce Lipton is, is one of my heroes. I was lucky enough to have him on the podcast. And, and we talked a lot about the subconscious mind, you know, the fact that, you know, 97% of all of our decisions throughout the day are directed by the subconscious mind. Sean (36m 52s): They’re they’re these should statements. Well, where’s that should coming from? Is it coming from, from you or is it coming from what you grew up learning about how to operate in the world that you just sort of observed absorbed during when you were in a feta brainwave state from zero to seven years old, when you just sort of learned culture. You learned how adults talk to each other, rather than being really cognizant of it. And then that stuff, those narratives, those stories, they just keep building and building and building all throughout your life. And so pretty soon you get to a point where you feel like you’re not really making any decisions for yourself at all. There’s this free will, you know, conversation wrapped into this, like, do we really have free will, but if your subconscious mind is telling you you’re not good enough, or this will never work, or, you know, don’t take a risk, you know, you need that job because you need the insurance and all of these things, these narratives, they just, they get bog us down and working with, with a really skilled life coach that can help you identify those and then either reframe those or purge those through, you know, some other sorts of practices that, that I really like. Brad (37m 56s): Listeners have heard me talk about that assertion from Bruce Lipton and he’s done great, respected, scientific work. So it’s not just some guy’s opinion. He’s looking at cellular energy and the, the Petri dish in the lab that grows mold and stuff, because you’re, you’re talking mean to it and all this crazy stuff, but it was hard for me to grasp that concept that were, you know, 93 to 97% of the time operating from flawed subconscious programming. And maybe I’m reading the book going, yeah, I’m probably about 60 to 63%. Cause I’m way more woke than whoever average is talking about, but the way just described as, as a little bit of distinction there. Brad (38m 38s): So the, the actions that you’re taking, I’m sure you’re purely conscious right now and you’re walking up the stairs and you’re having a conversation or you’re you’re folding laundry or whatever, but they’re emanating from a subconscious programming, even though you you’re completely clear and focused on what you’re doing right now. But that part, that, that starts to make more sense to me. Sean (39m 1s): Yeah. Your, your you’re choosing to fold the laundry, but the, the, the background narrative that’s happening while you’re folding laundry is a, what night, 90%, the same shit that was going through your mind yesterday and 80% of it negative are those stats. Right. Brad (39m 18s): And some trippy thing like that. And when I first heard that. Sean (39m 22s): Yeah, those statistics really blew my mind and I, and I, I had to think really critically about it. And, and in, in, in the episode when we talked about it, it was, it was, it’s like layers and layers and layers and layers deep, you know, be beyond what your free will is allowing you to do, or, or is giving you the option to do underneath all of that there are, there are these narratives and frameworks that you’ve built up in your mind, you know, while you’re folding your, your, your clothes, you know, you may be thinking about, you know, how much you hate doing this, or, or how, how much of a burden this is, or, or you’re not folding it correctly, or your clothes aren’t very nice, right? So it’s like these onion layers that go deeper and deeper and deeper that are, that are, that are really clouding how we see ourselves. Sean (40m 9s): And you know, that that default mode network is real powerful. And if your default mode is safe and I need to play, I need to stay alive, protect, and, and you’re uncomfortable there, and you want to move out of that place, then there’s things that you can do. And a lot of them are done quietly by yourself, you know, but you just gotta have these, these techniques, you know. Brad (40m 38s): So really the, one of the first objectives I imagine is to get rid of these self limiting beliefs that we’re walking around largely emanating from a childhood programming. So what do we do there, Sean? What’s the, what’s the way to attack this, this issue? Sean (40m 55s): Yeah. So this is one of my most favorite neuro-linguistic programming techniques that, that I’ve ever used. And I honestly, I, I don’t remember where I found it. I think that it was maybe even have been from like an NLP book of Barnes and Noble one afternoon, and it’s called the STOP method. And the STOP method uses a pattern interrupt and which basically short circuits, these pathways in the brain, these thought processes in the brain. So this is a way to get rid of a negative emotion forever. And I use this one before I tell you exactly how this works. Sean (41m 37s): I’ll tell you a story about one of my clients that use this. So he was going through a divorce and he was in a custody battle with his wife. And he had two boys and she cheated on him and she cheated on him with a coworker. And she was really going quickly with this new guy. And she was going to like move in with him. And the old version of him, he hated her. I mean, he had, he had good reason to be upset. You know, he, he, for all intents and purposes, he, he, he got, he got down and dirty. He was so consumed by anger for her that it was consuming him. And it was messing with his sleep. It was messing with his health. Sean (42m 19s): It was messing with his relationship with his two boys. And he threw a session that we were having. He’s like, I’m just so angry all the time. And I said, okay, well, how was that anger working for you? And he’s like, I don’t care how it’s working. It’s just, I I’m fucking mad. And I was like, okay, well, you know, when you, when you let that out, when you express that emotion of anger, you know, your boys see it. You know, when you talk to your mother and you’re talking to her, like she’s a child, they see that that’s their mom. And then that makes you look bad and that doesn’t help like that. We have to do something around this anger. We can be pragmatic. I can help you sort of strategize the custody stuff and getting your life on track and all that, all that good stuff. Sean (43m 5s): We can work on that stuff. But the anger is the first thing we have to deal with. So we use, so we did this technique and it was happened over the course of two weeks. And again, I’ll tell you exactly how it goes. We worked on this one technique. And at the end of two weeks after he had done this thought method, like religiously, he was all over it. At the end of the two weeks, they met up to do for his, the, his ex-wife to pass the kids off for him to, for the weekend. You know, dad, dad got the boys on the weekend and they met up and she, she said, you know, what are you going to do with the boys this weekend? He’s like, oh, you know, we’re going to go to the zoo. Sean (43m 46s): We’re going to, you know, we’re going to get ready for a barbecue. It’s going to be a great weekend. And she’s like, you seem weird. And he’s like, okay. He’s like, she’s like, what’s wrong with you? Are you stoned? And he’s like, no, I’m not stoned. She’s like, if you’re high, I, this is totally unacceptable. Like, you are too relaxed. This is fucked up. I I’m going to call your mom. And I’m going to tell her that you’re smoking weed. He’s like, I’m not smoking weed. I’m just not angry. I’m choosing not to be angry anymore. And she’s like, what the fuck does that mean? He’s like, I’m just, we can figure out our stuff. I just want to have a great weekend. Cause she was doing the thing she was trying to get under his skin. And that was the dynamic that they had. Sean (44m 27s): And, and, and after she realized, after a few minutes of prodding him and, and, you know, poking the bear, she realized that she couldn’t get under her skin. And then she softened and she said, well, I hope you guys have a really great weekend. Totally diffused the situation. And he came back. He called me right after he’s like, my boys are in the car. This going be a two minute conversation. I just wanted you to, I just want to say, thank you. The stop method has helped me like really turn a corner. This is incredible. So here’s how this tool works. So what you do is there’s four steps to the stop method. Step one is to go there. Step one is to actually feel that emotion of anger, you know, there’s, there’s different cycle psychotherapists that will agree or disagree on whether or not it’s, it’s healthy to go into that emotional state. Sean (45m 19s): But in this framework, this just really works. So you’d go there. So for him, it was obvious his anger, he was angry. He had good reason to be, so you’d go there. And then once you can identify that you’re actually in that state of consciousness that you want to reprogram when you want to stop that once you’re there. And you’re like, oh yeah, I definitely feel it. I’m thinking about her. And I’m angry. Then you stand up out of your chair and you say, stop out loud. So you change your physical state, change your posture. You stand up step forward into it and you say, stop. And then you replace that negative emotion of anger with a more positive emotion. This sounds so simple, but this is, it just works so well. Sean (45m 59s): You’ve interrupted that pattern of anger and then you’ve replaced it. Now, before you begin the full method, you will have practiced this replacement emotion. This replacement emotion that you prefer to anger. In his case, it was gratitude, gratitude, lots of signs done gratitude, lots of studies that show people are happier and live longer and healthier. And so he had a couple of different anchors that he was using to attach to that emotional state of gratitude. The fact that my kids are healthy was it was his number one. My boys are healthy. You know, my marriage didn’t work out, but my boys are healthy. That was his gratitude anchor. Sean (46m 39s): And then once he could get into that state of gratitude, effectively replaced anger with gratitude. Then you have to integrate that somatically by doing some sort of physical motion, some sort of celebratory gesture that signals to your central nervous system that I prefer this better. So for him, this was back when like Dabs were cool. So he was, he would do the Dab. So that was his, that was his celebratory, like, you know, people, some people do fist pumps. Some people do burpees, but you signal to yourself central nervous system. Like I like this better. Sean (47m 19s): And then you start again, you sit down, you go into that negative state of emotion for him was anger. You when it’s there again, you say you stand up and say, stop, you replace with gratitude. You do the celebration that somatic work. And then you sit back down, you do it over and over and over and over and over 20 times a day. Now building up to this, you have to practice that, that positive emotional state that’s really key because you have to pull it up really quickly. Brad (47m 47s): Also you have to practice without that pressure of the actual meeting with the, the, the ex-wife that you’re in dispute with. Right? Sean (47m 56s): Exactly. Brad (47m 56s): In your bedroom before bed or first thing in the morning. Got yes. Sean (48m 0s): Yeah, exactly. There’s there’s you’re yeah. You’re not confronted with it. It’s not, you know, it’s not right in front of your face, but you can, you can, you can get yourself into a place of gratitude and feel it somewhere in your body for him, it was like in his chest, he was like, that’s where he felt it. And what happens is after if you’re really diligent about it and you do it, you know, you do a set of 20 and you do 20 of those reps and you do that like seven times a day, a lot. I mean, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re also looking, you know, a little cuckoo because you’re talking to yourself and sense getting up and down out of your chair. So you’ve got to do it privately, of course. And what happens is, after a couple of days, you get to a point where you don’t even, you can’t even feel that negative thought you can’t even feel that emotion. Sean (48m 51s): It’s like, I don’t even, I don’t remember what that feels like. Like it’s hard to get into that negative state and that’s when you have to just keep going. You have to try really hard to really get to the bottom of it, to really identify it so that you can rework that narrative, that emotional state, and you do it over and over. By day six or seven, it’s, it’s really tough. And it, it lengthens the time that you actually do this exercise because you have to like, find where that anger is. You have to seek it out like, oh, what is that? I can’t remember like, oh, I can think of one thing that she said that doesn’t really bug me. And I go a little bit deeper, a little bit deeper, a little deeper. So you’re actually doing this heavy lifting. Sean (49m 33s): You’re digging into this emotion at its depths. It’s getting deeper and deeper and more wounded and more rooted until you can get, get really to the very bottom of it to get like, okay, I’m angry again and then stop and do it again. So it was two weeks that he had been on this, on the stop method. And that’s when he saw, saw his ex wife and his kids again. And he, he launched from there. I mean, that, that one thing, that one exercise totally launched his life in a completely different direction. Like he was happier with himself. So like though, that’s just one really powerful example of a technique. That’s, that’s worked for clients of mine. Sean (50m 13s): I’ve used it on myself and that I’ve seen work time and time again. Brad (50m 18s): Oh man, I love it. And I’m, I’m thinking that this can apply to anything. Maybe something less extreme, a flaming dispute. That’s a custody battle with kids. I mean, that’s pretty high on the scale of gnarly, but what if you feel stressed about your bills and the coming month, and you go into that mode of fear and anxiety, you could work on it in, in all different directions or whatever. Maybe it’s, you’re, you’re having trouble adhering to your diet and you’re feeling like a failure. So you can just plug this STOP method into, I guess, any area of life really. Sean (50m 58s): You really can in, in the key, the key point is, you know, that the fear and anxiety of not being able to, able to pay bills is, is, is keeping you focused, right? That’s like the butterflies before a race, right? It’s like, Ooh, I’m feeling this nervousness. That’s signaling to me that this is important. I need to really kind of get this thing dialed in. Same thing that, that, you know, when you’re sitting down to pay bills and it’s, and it’s really, really challenging for you. But if that fear and anxiety is taking over and is clouding your judgment, then that’s, then it’s no longer serving you. It’s not doing its, it’s not doing its its desired effect. Sean (51m 45s): And that, that plan around the bills and anxiousness around not being able to pay them also has to come with a plan. The plan around how you can better your environment, how you can better your situation. You know, whether it’s a side hustle or changing careers or whatever. Like there’s, there’s life strategy that needs to come along with being pragmatic so that that issue doesn’t keep coming up. But if, if you are just totally overwhelmed by this emotional state, and it’s tough for you to do anything else other than, you know, freak out over and over and over again, then yeah, you can, you can use it just about anywhere. Brad (52m 23s): I like that pairing of the strategy with redirecting to something that’s productive. And so that in the case of the, the, the spouse that was angry, he’s going into a feeling of gratitude. Hey, this is the mom. I’m glad she birthed my boys. We can certainly agree on that if we disagree on everything else. But then you have to plug in a different example, such as the person’s stressed about the budget can go and do their exercises such as reviewing their spreadsheet with more scrutiny or whatever they, wherever they’re falling short. So we really have to zero in and identify what, what do we need to do to get back on track? Brad (53m 4s): Same with the, the, the failed dieter can wake up the next day and you know, skip breakfast. And then they’re, they’re kind of back on track and they have a miniature success and something, they can hold their hat on. Sean (53m 17s): Exactly. Yeah. You know exactly. W you, you can, you can make adjustments, you can make improvements in. If the emotions are getting in the way you can use it for, for anything, but then it has to be followed up by some sort of action that actually corrects course. Yeah. Yeah. Brad (53m 31s): Hmm. So you’re giving permission and you’re saying it’s okay that these emotions are riling me up because that indicates that it’s important to me and that I want to change rather than flagellating myself from the outset, because I’m not perfect. And I have a negative emotion. Sean (53m 47s): Yeah. I mean, you’d feel, feel those feelings. Like, you know, honor them recognize them, acknowledge them. Thank thank them for, for being there. And then if there’s a point of diminishing returns with those emotions, and they’re no longer serving you or helping you in any way, but freaking you out and sending you into a, you know, a sympathetic response and, you know, keeping up at night, then take care of that and then find some action plan to correct course. Brad (54m 16s): So what happens when you recommend this to your client? You want them to do it several times a day for a week. And we come back with our coaching call a week later and, sorry, sorry, Sean. I kind of blew it off. I got really busy and I’m still angry and I can’t let it go. What’s the intervention at that point when the, the technology is there and it’s not being used? Sean (54m 38s): Yeah. Great question. There, there has to be some reason why this has not bubbled up to number one top priority. You know, they’re either, you’re not actually committed to change because a part of you actually is still kind of connected to that emotion. Brad (54m 52s): You kind of like feeling a payoff of some kind. Sean (54m 55s): Yeah. I feel vindicated when I feel anger for her. Yeah. Well, Brad (55m 0s): I get to be right. Sean (55m 2s): Yeah, exactly. Right. Well, she’s, you know, she’s a bitch. So I mean, what are you gonna do? Or, you know, and when it comes to nutrition, you know, you’re doing it around your, your lifestyle and it didn’t make its way to top priority. There has to be an some, some reason why. You know, if, if this, if you say that this is important to you, if you say that this is really getting in your way of thinking clearly and making strong actions towards the life that you want to create for yourself, then, then it will, it will get done. If it’s, if it’s of enough importance to you, then it will get done. Now, if it doesn’t get done, it’s possible that you just don’t have the energy to do it. Sean (55m 43s): It’s possible that you are gassed out and you are, you’ve been gassed out because you haven’t been sleeping for the last two or three weeks. Well, then we gotta figure that out. It’s possible that you’re just not very good at structuring the time of your day. And if you’re can’t prioritize, you know, four minute chunks of doing this exercise to, to overcome this debilitating emotional state, you don’t want, well, then we need to look at some, you know, the way that you strategize your day. We need to look at your, you know, we need to give you a prioritization tool or, you know, this, this is so beautiful because this does this, this does kind of play into a bunch of different stuff that, that I work people with. Sean (56m 25s): You know, if you don’t have a plan of action every day, if you don’t have things on the to-do list, you’re going to be guessing you’re going to be flying blind just about every day. So we’ve all got meetings and we’ve all got, you know, phone calls we have to make. And you know, we’ve got to show up and turn, flip the laptop up and, and have a conversation with one or more people. We’ve got to do that. But if you are not sure what to do when that stuff’s over and you’re just like guess I’ll focus, oftentimes you just pick the simplest easiest, most convenient thing. You, you gravitate towards the things that you’re familiar with. The things that are easy, that can be done quickly. Sean (57m 5s): Oftentimes as email, oftentimes that’s social media. Brad (57m 9s): So that’s me raising my hand, man. The email inbox is always awaiting. Yeah. Sean (57m 16s): So let me ask you this. Do you, do you, do you have like an email strategy? Brad (57m 21s): Not a good one. Okay. I certainly have the, the, I embrace the suggestion to batch your responses and get your brain in that mode, your reactive mode for an hour, and then depart and go into highest cognitive function, peak core responsibilities, and highest expression of my talents. And it seems to leak out regularly. And I talk about this a lot of time on the podcast cause you know, here’s my show on jumping into the cold freezer or freezing Lake Tahoe in the winter. And I can bet you I’m the only guy on the 72 mile shores of the lake. I’m the only guy swimming in it when it’s 42 degrees. So what a bad ass Neville, 10 bad-ass to go swimming in Lake Tahoe. Brad (58m 5s): I usually go to the tourist beach and people are pointing at me and taking pictures like, dude, that’s pretty hardcore. I’m like, yeah, thanks. I enjoy it. You know, I’m patting myself on the back. And so I’m begging someday of wishing that that will translate over to being the most bad-ass disciplined email inbox person on the planet. And I haven’t made that strong connection yet. So this is, this is where I sit, man. That’s that’s your answer. Sean (58m 28s): Oh man. That’s thank you for, thank you for speaking that truth out. That’s that to our earliest early. Brad (58m 34s): It’s true. I’m the only guy in that lake when it’s 42 degrees. There’s no fricking way someone’s swimming. Sean (58m 41s): So email batching is, is always, always strongly suggested another technique specifically for email because emails signifies is everybody. Else’s other everybody else’s shit. Hmm. It’s not my shit. It’s everybody else’s and everybody else can insert themselves into your day at any given time, by sending you an asinine email that wasn’t necessary. And because you like to please people. Because the, I like to please people, this is something I’ve had to do a lot of work on. I like to please people. I like to get back to them really quickly. Like within like within 12 hours, this is kind of where I like to stay. And what I’ve found is this technique where yes, I do email batch and also I use this for, and this is, this is for highly, you know, people who are highly functional and get a lot of things done is when your email batching, if there are emails in your email box that you can reply to right away. Sean (59m 48s): Reply to them right away, low hanging fruit. If it’s a one sentence, reply, just get it done. Just get it off your plate. Yep. That sounds good. You know, send me a counter invite. You know, boom, that’s done. You can do 20 of those in, in, you know, in a minute for those other emails that either need more thoughtful consideration and response, or you just don’t know yet, or they need to be delicate delegated for other people’s input. I’ll open it, I’ll read it and then I’ll leave it as unread. Sean (1h 0m 28s): So I’ll leave it as unread. So I know that I’ve got to go back to that email, like either in, in 10 more minutes or in the second email batch portion of the day. So I’ll go back to it for things that are not passing my sort of, this is important meter and you know, there’s a number of those things that I, that I, I want to respond. I I’d like to respond and I don’t want to spend a bunch of time on it. Oftentimes I’ll just email back and say, Hey, just wanted you to know that I saw this email. I appreciate it. Sean (1h 1m 9s): And if you don’t hear back from me in three days, email me again to remind me. So you’re kind of giving that back to them. Yeah. Right? It’s not on you anymore. You’ve acknowledged you got the email. You don’t want to leave it on red. You want to honor that with a, with a sh with a quick response to acknowledge it, then you say, Hey, this, this needs some additional thought from me audition. I need an additional time. Get back to me in three days. If I don’t, if I don’t reply, just, just send me another email because then that way the people who are, if, if, if it’s not that important, they won’t email back. If it is that important, then they will email back. Sean (1h 1m 49s): And oftentimes their second email is shorter and more to the point. So it wastes less of your time burns less of your important calories coming out of your brain. So then you can be faster. So then this four paragraph email that you skimmed and said, Hey, this is cool. Get, let get back to me in three days. If I don’t email back, the next email is now three sentences with an ask and I can say, okay, yes or no. And then I reply back. So for me, that that’s really worked and it’s also worked for a lot of, you know, a lot of, you know, high-level clients, people who are, you know, super productive and on top of their, on top of their stuff. So I don’t know hope, hopefully that helps. But th those, those sorts of distractions will always be there. Sean (1h 2m 31s): They will always come into our lives. And if that’s keeping you from moving forward in your life, the little minutiae of the day, that will always be there. Little note, push notifications and emails and stuff like that is to get as, as fast with those as possible so that you can, like you said, focus on the stuff that you’re really good at and that the stuff that you love to do, Brad (1h 2m 55s): I love it. Yeah. I think I’m also acknowledging that dopamine hit, that comes from launching into the inbox and getting all this fresh variable stimulus to the brain. And it’s more exciting than having to grind to finish another chapter of a book. And so, you know, the high cognitive demand tasks tend to get pushed aside, even though they should be the first priority, first thing in the morning when we’re the most fresh. So I think, you know, more acknowledgement and then taking those, taking those baby steps. And I think that’s what’s good about your advice as like, you know, the 60 second rule, I guess if you can answer or take care of something around the home, like sort out the junk mail from the regular mail. Brad (1h 3m 40s): You do that right away every time cause it only takes a minute and then opening the mail and considering it is something that you set aside to do when you have the, you know, more time and energy to devote. So yeah. Good stuff, man. Okay. I’m on it. I’m making a commitment to Sean and all listeners that we’re gonna, we’re gonna, we’re gonna up up the priority here. Sean (1h 4m 4s): Nice, good. Brad (1h 4m 5s): So I’ve got to let you go and you’ve got probably people lining up for your, your coaching services and you can plug those at the end, but I am also curious since you are really big into that so-called biohacking space and the physical optimization and the environment you said in, around you, on you, in you, all those kinds of things, maybe you can share some of your favorites that have really been fun and exciting and worked well for you. Sean (1h 4m 33s): Yeah. Yeah. So, oh man, there’s so many that I love. For me, the two most useful biohacking tools that I’ve ever come across are blue blocking glasses that I wear every single night and oftentimes during the day. Just the short one on that. I mean, does your, does your audience know much about blue blocking glasses? Am I gonna be beating a dead horse? Brad (1h 4m 56s): If I see it, I don’t think we’ve had dedicated shows to it. And I think it’s definitely out there and people are curious and participating at various levels of commitment. So I’d love to know more. Sean (1h 5m 8s): Yeah. Yeah. So the long and short of it is when you stay up at night after the sun has gone down and you’re looking at screens, the blue light that’s coming from these screens and blue and green is through your eyes that it’s daytime. So you’re you’re, the sun has gone down and your circadian rhythm should be beginning to wind down, lowering the lights in your house, switch that this is counter to what most people think and what we’ve been told. I don’t have any LED lights in my house anymore. I switched all back to incandescent. Cause I can, I’m sensitive to that flicker that comes from led lights. Brad (1h 5m 45s): Well, I don’t think that’s widely known. So just briefly the LED, which is taking over the, the lighting industry, I guess, because they’re cheaper. They last longer whatever. But at a microscopic imperceptible level, they’re flickering like crazy. And your brain knows, even if you can’t identify it from staring at it. Sean (1h 6m 4s): Right. Right. Right. So the feeling that you get when you walk into like an office building or a dentist office, and it’s those super bright, like white lights that are, you know, nine feet above your head, those are terrible for you. They’re terrible for your central nervous system. They’re terrible for your eyes. There’s, there’s science that now shows that you have light receptors on your skin. So if you’re wearing a t-shirt in your house at night and you have your lights on and are LEDs, we’ve, you know, we, a couple of years ago they’ve rolled back the LED requirements. So now you can actually have incandescents in your house, they are a little bit more money. They are a little less energy efficient. And I, I like to think that, you know, that my lifestyle is, is doing some other things to help benefit the planet. Sean (1h 6m 48s): And in other ways, you know, chickens and a garden and composting and recycling and all that stuff. But Brad (1h 6m 54s): Another point score. Sean (1h 6m 55s): Yeah, try. I’m trying now, you know. So your at nighttime, when you’re surrounded by LED lights that are, that are literally flickering, they flicker on and off at a really at a really high pace that you can’t even see your brain notices that. And different people have different sensitivities to that, but we’ve all felt that feeling where you walk into an office building and the lighting is terrible and just feels like, like it’s draining your soul. That that’s, that’s bad for you. That’s bad for you combined with light exposure after dark. For me, I’m in Seattle. So, you know, sunset now is like five o’clock. Sean (1h 7m 36s): So it’s still, it’s still fairly early. It’s going to get up to like nine or so in the summertime. But for awhile it was like 4:30, you know, four, 4:30 sundown. So if you’re watching TV or screens or laptops or your phones, and even if you use the filter on there the little night filter that makes it a little bit more yellow, it’s still doing the same thing. That’s not helping at all. Are there studies that show that that doesn’t actually help whatsoever. Blue blocking glasses are my favorite blue blocks. They are, they’re stylish. They’re really high quality. And when you wear those, your it’s blocking out that blue light that’s coming into your brain. Sean (1h 8m 16s): And so your brain is able to start creating melatonin later. Indogenous melatonin that you need to get into phase two and phase three sleep into REM sleep. So when you wear your blue blocking glasses at night, you can still look at screens if you wish. And you’re not suppressing that melatonin production, and you are beginning to establish a, a circadian rhythm that is more appropriate to the area of geography that you live. So there are two types of two types really there’s, there’s like the, the exogenesis circadian rhythm, and then there’s an indogenous. So we all have different sleep cycles and types and stuff like that. Sean (1h 8m 57s): So for me, blue blocking glasses has been an absolute game changer. The second, my, my second most favorite is the X three bar. Brad (1h 9m 7s): Wow. Sean (1h 9m 7s): I realized a long time ago and I’ve done, I’ve got grounding mats and plasma generators, and biosignatures, which is this really incredible energy, energy purification system for your household and for your body. If you want to have a really great episode about healing through shape, Daria Karim, K A R I M from Biosignatures. She’s an amazing, brilliant woman. Daria. Her father had developed this, this technology, but for me, I want to, I want I don’t, I want to work out. s (1h 9m 41s): I want to gain muscle in the shortest amount of time possible. And I realized that that X three and one gram of protein per pound of body weight was like the thing I was missing to really change my physique. You know, I was a college athlete, college scholarship soccer player, and I played Olympic development program growing up. And I’ve played in leagues and done jujitsu since then. And I’ve never had the body that I thought I could really have and an X three, and literally in 10 minutes a day has just totally changed my physique for the better. So those, those are my top two. There are a lot of environmental factors to consider. If you’re not turning off your wifi, when you go to sleep at nights, start doing that. s (1h 10m 25s): You will be amazed how your sleep improves, how the quality and the depth of your sleep improves. Sean (1h 10m 31s): If you turn off your wifi, when you go to sleep at night or have you just have it on a lamp timer, if you want, but these are all things that are part of things you can control that will help you be your best so that you can be at a baseline to make bigger decisions about the life that you want to lead and the relationships that you want to nourish, and the, the, the, the vision that you have for your life. So you gotta kind of take care, take care of the physical stuff, and so that you can continue to grow beyond it. Brad (1h 11m 6s): I love it, man. Those are two distinct and, you know, random biohacks, but fantastic. And, you know, I feel the same about the variable resistance training. That’s promoted by Dr. Jaquish, the X three bar. And of course you can also do any resistance to being, or like, I use stretch cords. I’ve used them for 20 years, the stuff that swimmers use, but, you know, particularly the, the X three, allowing you to get this total body workout in such a short time, it’s hard for people to imagine. And, you know, you hear a lot of scoffing and detractors saying, oh, 10 minutes a day, come on. That’s ridiculous. But the only critique I have of it is that I actually was dabbling in it a little bit too much because I love my micro workouts. Brad (1h 11m 53s): And I really fried my muscles because the workout is so tremendous. And it stimulates the muscle to a level far beyond a standard weight training where you’re pushing around heavy weights and constrained by your weakest point of force production with the heavy weight. But, oh yeah. So this guy is on the ball, people. Sean (1h 12m 14s): I’ve been tweaking with that a little bit. I don’t know if, if you, do you experiment at all with blood flow restriction? Brad (1h 12m 21s): No, but I’ve heard about it. And it sounds pretty interesting. This is, describe a little bit what that is. Sean (1h 12m 27s): So, so, but blood for blood flow restriction training is, is restricting blood flow to your, to your limbs because then it increases white blood cells. It, it, it makes your body work harder. So you get to fatigue faster and it’s, doesn’t occlude the blood. It’s not like a blood pressure cuff where it stops blood flow. It’s not like a, like a, like a strap that has no give where it’s like cutting off blood flow, but it restricts it to a, to a, to a large extent. And Dr. Jim Stray Gundersen, I’ve had him on the podcast. He’s the creator of be strong bands, which is based on what I can tell the highest quality blood flow restriction. Sean (1h 13m 11s): But you basically put a, put a cuff just underneath your shoulder, above your bicep on both arms. And then you put cuffs at the highest point, you know, on your upper thighs, you know, just below the butt and you pump them up until it’s, you know, it’s tight. It’s, it’s, it’s pretty tight. And then you just go about your workout. Now there’s great studies around the, the original, the original is called Kaatsu. Kaatsu is kind of the, the origin of BFR and they did it with Japanese populations. It started with Japanese bodybuilders and they started experimenting with elderly populations and the elderly can get really good exercise, like, like really good deep exercise with very little time and very little exertion, because when you are doing light workouts with these bands on, you’re getting the benefits of, of a longer-term high-intensity training session and the science is the science is amazing. Sean (1h 14m 11s): So, so to your point with that, with the X, I’ll do a BFO, I’ll put the BFR cuffs on, but then I’ll do three sets of 30 with the white band or the, or the light gray band. So I won’t go to the variable resistance. I won’t do the full exertion at that full range, middle range and a mini range. So I’ll do three sets of 30. And I find that, that it does a little bit of a different thing and works, Brad (1h 14m 38s): Optimal performance, people. Thank you so much, Sean McCormick, definitely go check out his podcast and tell us where we can learn more about your coaching services and beyond listening to optimal performance podcast. Sean (1h 14m 49s): Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. I just want to say thank you, Brad. I, I really liked your style, man. I like your enthusiasm. I like your, I like your attitude to the work that you do. Your podcast is wonderful. Your guests are great. I’m not just saying that because I’m a guest now. But I like, Brad (1h 15m 6s): I, the greatest lineup of guests we’ve ever seen. Sean (1h 15m 8s): Yeah, yeah. Just keeps getting better and better. Yeah. Find me. Yeah. It’s the Optimal Performance podcast. And then you can find my coaching site is my name. It’s Sean McCormick. S E A N M C C O R M I C k.com. Sean mccormick.com. And then on Instagram, it’s real Sean McCormick and really active there. That’s where I’m the most active. And I love talking with people. So if anybody has feedback or questions or wants to call BS on anything I’ve said, like, let me know, bring it on. Brad (1h 15m 36s): Bring it on.Thanks everybody for listening. Great show dah, dah, dah.
