Health Secrets of Pro Athletes and Navy SEALs with Brad Davidson

Today I speak with my friend Brad Davidson, coach to millionaires, Navy Seals, SWAT and pro athletes. And today, Brad is going to blow your mind with the level of tactical ideas he gives you on optimizing your human performance. You can show up and be a better entrepreneur, a better salesperson, a high achiever, and an overall have a great life. He buss the number one myth that everyone thinks about when it comes to performance. He talks about the number one metric you need to actually know that will drive everything in your life for your performance. He talks about how you actually look at each meal so that you don't have meal pressure and cheat meals. We go deep on how to hack sleep and he's the very foundation of high performance. And he even drops the magic supplements that pro athletes and Navy Seals use. I'll tell you, this is a not to be missed episode because Brad has helped me in so many ways over the last many years. And I trust his advice implicitly, you're going to love this extremely tactical episode with my coach Brad Davidson. One thing is for certain, just because it's tried and true doesn't mean it's working right now. So the big question is this, where can you learn what is working right now? The strategies, the tactics, the psychology and the exact how to how to go your business. How to blow up your personal brand and supercharge your personal growth. That is the question and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Sharon Trivata and welcome to Business School. So Brad, I want to read something that you always say, which is the if only's of life. And you say, if only I looked fitter, I'd feel happier. If only I proved myself intellectually, I'd feel valued. If only I made an Olympic team, I'd feel successful. Only there's only you of all people will say something like, if only I made an Olympic team, I'll feel successful. And for the person that's listening right now, I think that the Olympic team story, I know you really well, I want you to maybe take us back to that time where you were crazy enough to jump in an aluminum can be like, that's what I want to do. I'd love for you to take us back to that Bob's that story. Which made you see, if only I made an Olympic team, I'd feel successful. Yeah, I'll be honest, I'll be driven by insecurity. I always have this in my head. I can only get to this next level and be more valued, I'd be more appreciated, I'd be more successful. And got all the way to the point where I'm 32, 33 and if only was, you know what I need to feel super valuable? The people actually want to work with me is I'm going to make an Olympic team at this age. And that for some reason is the thing that will make me valuable to people. So I pursued it. At the time, I remember I was 165 pounds, I jumped on the internet, I started googling all the different Olympic teams are out there. And I came across Bob's lead. I came across Bob's lead, I came across Skeleton. And I thought Skeleton, that's psychocrasy. Head first down down the ice, no way. Bob's lead. It takes you to be explosive, strong. I was 20 pounds underweight for minimal weight category. I'm like, okay, I'm not going to put weight on. But this is perfect. I'm going to reach up in this coach. I'm going to talk my mind with a tryout. I'm going to make this team. I'm going to go all the way to the Olympics to show how good my nutrition and training is. And then, and then, I will have made it and people will hire me. And I'm going to go to the best of the best. And that's going to my head what I was going to take. So, I went through the whole process. I called the coach to convince him to try out. I show up on the old guy by about 10 years. I make the team. I don't be honest, I'm a super scrub on the team. I'm going up to be there. I'm like the breakman that can handle the new up-and-coming drivers. Which are the ones that crash all the time. But they need a breakman to help them learn the process. So, I'm on the team. It's awesome. Over a 10-month period of time, I put on 52 pounds of lean muscle mass. My vertical jump goes up 10 inches. I'm running a 4-4-40. So, imagine this. I'm in my early 30s. I am 5-9-2-15. I have a 42-inch vertical jump in around a 4-4-40. I would be like top 1% at the NFL Combine. Every year. Like, it was incredible. On the outside, I had the physical image. I remember I had to get a photo shoot done. They wanted to do a spray-10 on me. And the girl turns around and she's like, "Oh my God, your body looks like a teenage mutant and a turtle body." So, I was super jacked. I was really lean. I had like an 8-pack. I wasn't even at 6-pack. It was incredible. And I thought that I was doing this great stuff. I was training twice a day, six days a week. Because I really bought off what my Anderson says. Like, the more you train, the healthier you are. The more fit you are, the healthier you are. So, I'm thinking, I'm super fit. And number two, I was eating perfect. Like, I caught on real quick when I'm working with these younger kids. Like, if I could just out-discipline them, I'm going to beat them. And so, that was my mentality. So, I ate perfect. Back then, it was the paleo-data, what did you carve like the plague? I mean, if you pay attention to my industry, they still tell you carbs are bad for you. So, I was doing all these things perfectly. And on the outside, it looked like it from a physical output standpoint. It looked like it. There were signs and symptoms I was dealing with that I was ignoring. Because I kind of started getting addicted to how I looked and the teacher I was getting for how I looked. I'll be super honest with you. I remember I always had a couple of coffee in my hand. I remember I had to drink red bulls between workouts. I couldn't sleep. I was battling crazy cravings. I was probably the biggest A-hole in the face of the earth to be around. Because I was super grumpy and irritable. But none of that stuff mattered. I just thought I was part of the process of sucking it up and willing my way through it. And that's what we have to do to be successful is just grind through it. Right? The grit and the grind. We think it's all about the grit and the grind. And I committed that 100%. And everything was going really well until one morning I woke up to a baby girl. And then I recognized, oh, I'm going to an aluminum can going 90 miles an hour on ice. We're in a Kevlar vest, the bulletproof vest. Because when you crash it prevents the clothes from melting into your skin. So it's less surgery. And I'm not even being paid to be there. I'm like, this is stupid. Like, there's nothing in there for those little girls. So I pulled the plug on it. But I thought to myself, you know what a great data I am. Like no dad bought here. I'm super fit. I'm super healthy. But everything I'm supposed to do, like I'm going to be a great dad. And that lasted about a week and a half. And then one morning I just couldn't go out of anymore. Like it just my whole body shut down. My hair started falling out of my face. I wanted to hide from the world. I had no drive, a sex drive. My whole world just shut down. And I remember kind of being begged to go to the doctor. And I just thought I was, oh, no, I'll get past this. I'm the fit this guy. At that point I thought maybe any more of the doctors was stupid. But then I got to point my couldn't function anymore. And I finally, I got to literally just lay in a dark room. And I finally went to the doctor. And I went to him because my hair was falling out of my face. I can't explain this. It looks really bad. I had just big patches of hair just falling on my face. So I got to run some labs. I don't really know what that is. And he calls me a couple of years later. And you know, I'm very good friends with a lot of doctors in the area. And this is a friend of mine. He calls me the person he says. He's, I mean, he totally lied to me. And when he comes out of my life, he's like, the hair is falling on my face. He's like, yeah, that's the least of my concerns. You feel horrible, don't you? I'm like, yeah, I mean, I'm a little tired. And he goes, no, you feel horrible. And I talk, I get it. I feel horrible. What are you saying? He's like, well, I'm going to tell you this. I'm shocked. Like you are one of the sickest people I've seen in a long time. I do not understand how you look the way you look. Like I'm almost wondering if I have the wrong labs. Wow. And I was like, what are you talking about? I said, well, first things first, you tell me you eat perfect. You've been the pain that you've wanted carbs. I don't believe it because you're a type to diabetic. I'm like, what? He's like, yeah, your blood sugar, they want to see them. They're so high that you should be on that foreman. And you got to change this. So I'm going to eventually have to put an insulin all of a sudden, like Jesus, like, I swear to God, I haven't done to a car in like 11 months. Like, what is wrong? And he said that my thyroid was completely shut down. I was an extreme hypothyroidism. I got an eight pack. This isn't hypothyroidism. Like, what are you talking about? I'm supposed to be overweight and all that stuff to have this, you know, this diabetes thing and this hypothyroidism thing. He goes, yeah, well, the kicker is you're an andropause. I said, what the hell is that? Well, it's male menopause, right? You're in male menopause at 33 looking like this. Like, your metabolism and hormonal system is just completely shut down. He's like, this usually happens when you're like late 60s, early 70s as a man. He's like, I don't understand what's happening. You just must have bad genetics. So I walk out of his office. I have my blood sugar meds, my thyroid meds, my testosterone injections. My system is just shut down. And here's the kicker. I was like, I came before my face and you've given me no drugs for that. What do I take to get my hair from falling out? He said, well, that's interesting. This is the first clue I said, that's interesting. That's an autoimmune disease from too much stress. I said, Doc, I handle stress really well. I drive on stress. Right. That's what I thought. Then, I'm like, the more stress, I can just handle a lot of stress. Like, obviously, I could train like that. I mean, it was 2008-2009. I was running a business that bad economy. I'm training an international level. I'm like, I'm child-coming. I didn't need sleep. I pride myself. I don't need sleep. That's for whooses. I was doing all the things we'd tell you, grit and grind. He's like, yeah, the only answer to that is just to stress less. And that's what I walked away with. All my drugs in this prescription to stress less. And I honestly had no idea what that meant. And I was kind of put stress in the box in the corner. I knew it was bad, but like, you just work through. The stress is due. You get me, you're kind of weak, like just suck it up. It's kind of my mentality. Yeah, it didn't work out very well for me. So it took me about six years to kind of figure out what I had done. And at that point I realized it was all self-indiflicted. I did it to myself. It was the how I was choosing the train, how I was choosing to eat. For example, I came off my blood sugar med. I talked to Rob Wolf, the paleoidact guy. - Yeah. - And he's like, "Oh man, I don't write this diet for people like you." He's like, "I wrote a per six people that are on the couch, they ate exercise, like you feed those people carbs, didn't have much stress, you'll kill them." You're gonna be opposite of that. Like you're training that high level in a ton of stress. If you don't learn how to control the stress hormone, you're gonna end up with the same blood chemistry as that person over there eating carbs. And so how you win this game is you eat a lot of carbs. - You know what's fascinating is it's easy for someone listening right now to say, "Well, here's Brad, Mr. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, has an eight pack, is doing this. He's got everything, well I'm not like that." Right? - Yeah. - But I am like that. - Yeah, you know, like you literally, you and a couple of doctors, you kept me alive. And people don't know that where I was the kind of guy that said, "Well, I can out grind out hustle everybody." Like I'm unbeatable because not because I'm smarter, not because I'm sharper, it's because I can outwork everybody. And it was to the point where I remember that I would drive, I would leave home at 420 in the morning to be in the gym before the gym opened. You train with your partners at 455. And then you were like, dude, six months later, you're like your labs are worse, you're more stressed. Like literally you've worked harder to be worse. And I remember the advice you gave me, you're like, you said to me, "Hey, just go sleep. No more 5am, no more 5am workouts." You're done with this. And I said, "No, this is the way of the warrior. This is the way of the world." I don't have a 6.5, but I need to wake up and work out because the world says that you have to swallow the frog first. You have to do the hardest thing first. And then you said, "Well, how much are you sleeping?" And I was like, "Who cares? Like I'm here at 440." And I was like, "Is it my commitment being questioned here?" And this is fascinating because now it's like, okay, well, if the answer is not working out harder, if the answer is not, like you said, keto or paleo, and our bodies are breaking down, as entrepreneurs as high achievers, our bodies are breaking down, whether you're a, whether you're, whether you're built like you or built like me, our bodies are still breaking down. So there has to be a correlation somewhere. If it's not the nutrition and if it's not the exercise, there seems to be, there's probably another answer. So what's that answer? - Yeah, you know, it's funny, you brought up the way of the warrior. That's why I went and studied. I'm like, how can these men and women on special forces and SWAT teams, and like, you know, kind of what we like, are trying to build ourselves around, right? Like there's all these programs around, trying to make a Navy SEAL, and so, you know, over a course of the last 10 years, I got to work on a lot of them. - Yeah. - So what we're going to do is, we're going to do a lot of things, we're going to do a lot of things, we're going to do a lot of things, So everything that I work on now is applying tools that will drive heart rate variability up over time. We want to get those numbers typically above 80 with everybody we work with. That's at a very high level. I've even had one Navy Cillow's 102. I thought 100 was the highest, but he was like over 102. So I was like, wow. And so, example, things like drinking more water drives up HRV, vegetable intake drives up HRV, organic foods, grass-fed free range meats, drive up HRV, certain types of training. I've really gotten into them, I'm studying a lot of things called COTSU. And while I got into it, it's blood flow restriction training. It's a high in tool. It's really being used by the wounded warriors and things like that. And I spent a lot of time studying under a high level X Navy Cill use it at. And you guys what they're finding is this COTSU tool allows drives HRV better than most training. So everything I'm working on now and doing now is to help people drive that HRV score up. Because the better I can help someone be resilient to stress, the more I can drive the reach, the more I can drive the recovery and the fatigue management, the higher you get that HRV, the better they're going to perform. Because it's correlated right to the brain. So the higher your HRV, the more optimal your brain is. They're super correlated. Brain waves and heart waves are the same thing. So if I get your brain waves up, I get your performance up, I get your body looking better because the things that make the body look better, healthy-wise, are driving HRV, sleep with driving HRV. It's just amazing. That's why I know rest and fatigue management are critical because training, lack of sleep, pushing too hard, cutting out food, all those things drive HRV down over time. So how does someone right now kind of measure their HRV on an ongoing basis? What is the first step that someone who's kind of newer have heard this before? What is the first step they take into saying, "Okay, I'm going to start to monitor this on an ongoing basis." What is the first step they should do? Where can they get it? Is there a device? How does that work? Yeah, the one that I like to start people off with, when I travel and speak to groups of CEOs, this one I always recommend, is called Elite HRV. It's a free app, E-L-I-T-E-H-R-V. All you need is one of the chest straps, the cardiovascular chest straps for heart rate monitoring, that has Bluetooth. An example would be a polar H7. So it's a free app that you do need the Bluetooth chest strap to connect to it. And all you do is you wake up in the morning before you get out of bed, put the chest strap on, turn on the app, go. Two and a half minutes later, you get a score. And why are Elite HRV is because it's very easy to read. It's a score of one to ten, and it's green, yellow, or red. Simply means green means go. It means you're in a great place, you're in a lot of stress today, go for it. Yellow means caution back off a little bit. And then red means, oh my god, don't go to the gym. Focus on your rest that day, take a nap, go for a walk. So when I tell people it's green, are your days to drain hard, yellow are your days to do more like aerobic capacity, you're like lower intensity level work, and reds are your day to go walk. Yeah, yeah. So what's happening is people are never blowing themselves out. We always use exercise to get better, but, Sharon, I'm seeing multiple studies now showing that one of 15,000 people you're dying working out in the gym. If you do it five days a week or more, it drops to one in 13,000. Repeatable studies are showing this. So like exercise is a killer. Yet we think the more stress I put on myself that exercise, the better I am. Yeah. So what this tool does, it eliminates, especially driven people, we think four o'clock in the morning is better to get the workout and to sleep in the extra hour. Like I've yet to see that work on H. to be for anybody. - Yeah, the one thing that I love about what you're saying is and to share a lot of vulnerability, you helped me through this over the years. I've figured out that I have late onset type one diabetes and my doctor has been telling me, "Hey, you need to live your life by the sensor." And I never knew what that meant. And so there are two numbers that I live my life by right now. So I wake up and I look at my HRV number. And then I manage my glucose number. Literally, if it's not benefiting my HRV number or benefiting my glucose number, like I'm not connected to that because what I've realized, Brad, is that we try to check the box a lot of times on the things that we should or should not do, the things that we should or should not eat, the things, so it's all about my cheat day, my this day. But when it comes to the fact of saying, "Hey, I'm gonna do something that has a result on a certain number or a certain metric that I can evaluate right away." And hey, if that number's good, I can do more of the numbers, that I can influence it right away. And just having that has given me, like I actually feel free. Yeah, because I know that a choice that I made has an impact on something that I'm tracking. You know, I have to feel guilty about it. Like, we've been so led to believe we are lazy to need rest, need downtime to sleep in an extra hour in the mornings. All of a sudden it says, "No, that's really good for you." Like, there's no more guilt involved. This is no longer a suck it up and grind. This is like, no, you can't afford to do that because that messes up your brain. And we're built on the mental workforce scenarios now, which is the brain is a lot more rest in the body. We're still running business and making people work like the physical labor force, the work of the mental labor force. Like research is real clear for every like 90 minutes of focused work, you're like a 15 or 20 minute break for your brain to come into play. And at about five hours of focused work, you're tapped. Like you're done. You're getting nothing done. (laughing) But I present that. I present that every time to CEOs. There's a great book called The Five Hour Workday and it says, "Guys, whole implementation of this and he's one of the top growing standup out of our companies in the world in the first shark tank companies. They're killing it. But they work five hours a day and they go home. All of them. All of them. So they had to have a very strategic and automate and things like that. But the success of his company's incredible and happiness, the health of all his employees is absolutely incredible. It's because they're paying attention to recovery and fatigue management versus the grit and the grind." - Yeah. Brett, a lot of times you told me this and I spent, I basically said, all right. So if I can focus on my morning, the rest of my day will be okay. And then so I focus on the morning, I wake up early and push myself through the day and then I get tired at like two o'clock in the afternoon and then I have some kind of, you know, some kind of stimulant, you know, whatever it may be. And I've given up the red bull and all that. But now I do a green tea or a little exercise or whatever and then I try to get a second wind. And then I push myself through the night and you said, "Hey, Sean, just start to focus on your evening versus it's supposed to focusing on your morning." And a lot of the, a lot of the hacks that you kind of shared on how to get good sleep, right? Which I thought was just just small things were super helpful. I'd love for you to maybe share a few things on where people can do right now, which small hacks can help them sleep better so that they're better in the morning. So if you were to talk to a high achiever and entrepreneur CEO and say, "Hey, how do I design my evenings so that I can be better the next day?" Yeah, love it. I want to start off with, I want people to think of a sleep as fueling the fire. That's what sleep is. It fuels the fire. There was a book I read about six months ago called Why We Sleep. And what I've discovered is that sleep is the only proven thing in research to show you sleep eight hours a night. You look better, you feel better, you perform better, you're more likely to live a long, healthy life. You cheat it, you're gonna affect one or all of those. Wow. And he's even proven that all societies, the all of history before being introduced to electricity, we slept the same way. Eight hours a night, it took a 30 to 60 minute nap in the afternoons. When you get tired in the afternoons for a reason, right? And as soon as we're introduced to electricity, we're gonna choose how we sleep. Even this day you look at societies that have been introduced to electricity, they sleep like that eight hours a night, 30 to 60 minute nap in the afternoons. So we are actually wired. If you want to be super healthy, I think if research is what drives you to look good, feel good, perform good, all those things, you're gonna sleep eight hours a night and take a short nap in the afternoon. If you choose to not do those things, and you want to talk to me about science and nutrition and science and exercise, I'm gonna tell you you don't care about science because the only thing it's clear about is sleep. 17 plus thousand studies have shown that, you sleep better, everything it's better, you sleep less, everything it's worse. Yeah. So I'll start with that. I think sleep is the most critical component. Remember, it's about recovery and fatigue management, sleep fuels the fire. So simple things, I like people that unplug from their days. Even if it's just 30 minutes before bed, I prefer like 60, but you gotta calm the brain down. So I call it a simple 12 minute brain calming activity. It's a 60 second brain dump, right? Then the three most important things I've to do the next day, a 60 second gratitude dump. What are, like, you know, three to five things you're grateful for, shift the subconscious from folks all the bad, all the good. And a lot of times you can just stop there, that's enough to calm your brain down. But I'm, I'm, I'm, some people just do a simple 10 minute meditation to really calm it down. So if you're somebody whose brain's going, 60 second brain dump, 60 seconds of gratitude, 10 minutes of meditation will slow that thing down. It's beautiful. Nothing is very critical. If you gotta make sure your room is a back cave, super dark and nice and cold. If you have children, same thing, 'cause one of the things that wakes up adults is their kids. If your kids fall asleep tonight, like, that's fine. But pull it, make sure they have blackout shades, make sure the room's pitch black. They won't wake up. You'll get much better quality of sleep by doing that than having lights on in your room, or anytime of life from the outside, or even the button of your team, like, I unplug, I have a TV in my room. I know it's not the greatest way to live healthy wise, but sometimes my kids like to watch TV where we're laying a bed, and I'm okay with that, but unplug that sucker, some of the lights are off, and you're room, like, I have blackout curtains, blackout mats on the windows, black, I shade, like, black. - Yeah. - And sleep quality is way better. So that's really important. I think we have a hard time falling asleep. I'm a big fan of magnesium. I am right now playing with a product called Magna Gel from Designs for Help. It's put about a dime size, rubbing it behind your knees. I love it, it drops into the skin, and gets to you quickly. And so I've been using it a lot in my programs now, and getting a lot of benefit for people from that. So as you've our time fall asleep, if you wake up, I find it to be a couple of things. Number one, if you're waking up between one and three in the morning, it tends to be from your liver. So something simply like melt piss will be for bed, can really help with that. Another window of time is three to five in the morning. Simply doing two to four ounce of tart cherry juice would be great for that. - Oh, since I have little kids, I have, they got monsters under the bed, and they're scared. (laughing) - They're scared. - But I'll tell you, Brad, the one thing on your advice, the one thing that I invested in was a eye shade. And I actually went, I actually went kind of catalog on it. I think I spent a total of like $14 and got like a satin eye shade. And I got one for myself. I got one for my eight year old son. And now I, you know, there's lights in the house that I just, I can't get out of it. I have, it's there because of my children, but I put my eye shade on and people weigh better because of it. And I've also realized that I bought a couple more, and I left it in my backpack. I left it in my travel suitcase. Now I have the same eye shade of the model, if you will, that I have everywhere I go. So I almost feels like a familiarity of me being home. And it's been, it's been super helpful. Let me ask you like a little woo-woo question. A lot of times people talk about this, you know, the, when you drift off to sleep, they're talking about this sub, kind of sub-programming the subconscious like, you know, if I put on a meditation of affirmations or Jota Spenza, where I can, the little data state, or whatever they call it, when I'm transitioning into sleep, right when I'm going to sleep and I'm waking up in the morning, do you have any thoughts or research around, should I be listening to anything towards the end of the day or what I'm waking up, or is there anything conclusive about that? - So I am not very educated on that, but I do love Jota Spenza. I've been paying attention a lot to that. And adding it in, I don't know yet, but I believe some consciously there is. I'm not kind of percent sure, I'm not smart enough on a deal to talk about it, but I am playing with it. - Yeah. - I'm totally playing with it. - So, and this could be, it's controversial in some states. What are your thoughts around CBD and things like that to help kind of support sleep or say, "Hey, I haven't slept in a while. Do I take something to, you know, kind of catch me up?" - Yeah, I take it every night. What I love about it is that it brings the stress response down. So why it works? It's not so much that it's making you sleep. It brings the stress response down, it calms the brain down. And so it shuts off that fight-to-fight response, allows you to fall asleep. It also brings down inflammation, and both those things can disrupt sleep. So it's really good. I have one that I really like by Dr. Winnie Monaco. It's called her CALM, C-A-L-N. It's really good. It's super high quality. She's one of the most educated people I've talked to about this. This is one I take. The thing I like about it is that you can take it during the day as well. Because it doesn't actually make you tired, it just calms your brain down. So a lot of times I'll do before I get on stage to present, to calm my brain down, to get my brain in a good place. So you can do it multiple times a day. The only thing that can be negative with it is if you take too much, it might give you loose tools with some people. - Got you. - That's the only negative response I've seen on it. But I like it calms the fighter, it might response down without making your brain tired. So you can function well. And it brings down inflammation, which can disrupt sleep as well. So it's an awesome tool to bring stress down and inflammation down before bed. - Yeah, you've told me before about, you know, kind of having a ritual at night and I started to do, I started to stretch because I'm just, you know, I think we all sit all day. I sit a lot of the day. So my hips and my glutes all get sore. So I was stretching for a little bit and then I started to do the foam roller. And then it's so painful, Brad. Like it's so painful. But I recently got the, my kind of the hypervote massage gun. And so what are your thoughts on either stretching or, you know, kind of like rolling, massage gun, except are do you think that's a morning activity, evening activity, people should do it, people shouldn't do it. How do you recommend around that? - I like to do like the hypervote gun, those types of things. I like to do those early in the day before exercise, like the foam rolling, the hypervote stuff. Before you exercise, I like that early. And then I like to do the stretching, calming yoga, that kind of stuff at night to make you lazy and lethargic. It's really nice. - Got it, got it. - Yeah, I find that whenever I stretch at night, it almost forces me to put my phone away. It almost forces me to say, okay, this is a part of my ritual. It almost forces me to take a little time because it's, it's actually one of those times when you're stretching. It's, it's, it's weird to be on a device because you're, anything else that you do, from sitting on the throne to like hang out in the car, to be in bed, like your, your device is so accessible, right? But I've noticed it, unless you are in the shower or in the pool, or, or like doing something exercising, like you, you need your, your hands are not free. And only then do you actually forcefully disconnect from it. So I almost like stretching has been super helpful for me. And I, I should do more of it, but doing that allows me to sleep way better. - It's, yeah, it's, it's a very calming, we call it, the in-based activity. It's like the long stretches. Like you hold it for longer periods of time, not dynamic warmups, things like that. But the long stretching calms everything down. It's a, it's a great way to make you lays in the targic. I, between you and I, I'll do it with my professional athletes that are, they're young, they're wealthy, they come to Orange County to, to live for the off season, to train and everything. So I will do things in the evening times, or have them do things in the evening times to make them lays in the targic, just been on the clock, you know, chasing girls and being idiots. And that's one of the things is that, sometimes I'll even hire like a really nice, a thucked yoga instructor to go meet them at the house as a group. And just, they think they're doing yoga, but what they're doing is like a Yin-based yoga, which is just long, slow stretches. Make some super lazy. So I'll typically schedule that like on a Thursday night or a Friday night, to wipe out one night of them going out. Because when it's time they're done, they just want to lay around and be lazy and go to bed. It's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. One thing that I have noticed a lot of my friends are doing, sometimes I do it too, is these melatonin gummies. Yeah. And so melatonin overall is, is interesting. When I showed, told you about it the first time, you said, "Hey, Sharon, before melatonin, I would do this the magnesium gel." Oh, and so I started using the creams on the back of my ears, back of my knees. And it's so strange that like, I fell asleep so fast with the magnesium. I never thought that possible at all. But melatonin gummies is that real, does it work? Some people tell me that they get kind of nightmares from it. What's your experience? So melatonin's interesting. It's very good. But it works best at least effective dose. So, and what's interesting is if you take one milligram over your effective dose, it'll have the exact opposite response on you. So for example, my sweet spot is three milligrams. At three milligrams, I sleep like a champ. But the first time I took it, I took one milligram. It didn't work at all. So like a typical American, I thought, "Well, if one's no good, I'm going to do 10. This is going to knock me out." So I took 10 milligrams and it was like speed. It was all night shaking. I took myself to the ER because I saw something really wrong. And that was the day I learned, like, I'll let you know, go ahead. It works best at least effective dose. So you got to start at one milligrams and go to two, then go to three. And until you get to that point where all of a sudden it has the reverse effect, you can go back one milligram. So that's, I guess that's the, we're probably bio-individual on figuring out our least effective dose. Yes. Yeah, so you always want to start with one milligram, then go to two, then go to three. That's the way you want to do it. So the people that are having nightmares, things like that, are probably taking a little too much of it. Oh my goodness. That's crazy. Yeah, but like, I'm going to be super honest how I like to use, I don't like to use it every night. What I like to do is use it with my people that travel a lot as a way to help them adjust to new time zones quickly. So I'll have them do melatonin the first three nights at a new city or new time zone to help them acclimate to the new time zone quicker than normal. But if people are taking it every night, they now go to the new time zone and it won't have the effect on them. Yeah. Yeah. So I would rather, I mean, like the ultimate way to do it is, magnesium every night, and then when you travel melatonin the first three nights and resveratrol the first three mornings and your system will kick in and avoid jet lag much better than if you don't. Oh wow, that's a, that's an awesome hack. Yeah. You've told me that you've, you talked about pro athletes. I thought this is super interesting. I've actually been with you while training these guys and it's funny. I remember when you said to me, you know, with our with our friend who was an awesome linebacker, you said to me, hey, shrines, like peak of shrines workout as this guy's warm up. And he's, and I'm like, literally you're doing the prowler as a warm up. That was my biggest workout for the day. But I asked you, like, how was he able to train five consecutive days sometimes? And you, you led me on to saying, hey, very strategically if we do kind of these banana bags or IV therapy, if you do it in a smart way, it allows them to recover better, allows them to train harder. Yeah. Question for you on just on the, on the everyday entrepreneur, you know, people are weirded out by sticking a needle in their arm and having, you know, getting, and getting, you know, getting a banana bag because they think that, hey, this is, I only get this one. I'm hungover in Vegas. But that itself should mean something to us because it works there. It should work other places. So I remember when I was struggling, you were like, hey, for the next three weeks, like, I just need to get you back. And IV therapy is probably really good for you right now. Yeah. What is your kind of philosophy on IV therapy, especially, you know, especially like with the little magnesium shot and it, et cetera. How do you kind of work a whole thing through that? I love IV therapy. It's just a high dose of vitamins and minerals, you know, quickly into the bloodstream because a lot of times, it's mineral deficiencies in the cause and issues. So if someone's very magnesium deficient, which we are, especially here, somebody that doesn't sleep well is under a lot of stress, you exercise a lot. I'm going to guarantee your magnesium deficient. So in the fast swathes to get your system is IV. So I like, just like a simple Myers cocktail, which has like the magnesium, the vitamin C, I started on the vitamin C, the magnesium, I can't remember what else is in it, but just getting a push about once a week will keep the magnesium levels in a good place. And magnesium is the middle of the off switch for the whole body. So most of us get stuck in a sympathetic stressed out state. It's just a way to keep that under control. I love using vitamin C bags with people because that's been proven to drive recovery. Vitamin C can help regulate cortisol and testosterone levels, which helps you drive recovery. But a lot of people, you know, can't handle taking it via mouth, you know, they'll get to 8,000 to 10,000 milligrams. And all of a sudden they get the nausea, spilling the rise. Yeah. With an IV bag, we bypass the gut. And now we're going to get like, you know, 20,000 milligrams plus in there bypassing the gut, really helping to boost the immune system to the drive recovery, all that stuff. So they're very powerful. I'm a big fan of also doing glute thion pushes, which helps you get the brain. It's one of my favorites is as a glute thion push to clean up the brain. Those are phenomenal. And it's really hard to get glute thion orally to be able to absorb it as well how it works. And then there's lots of there's lots of IV kind of lounges now, like, you know, there's the hydration room. Yeah. And there's lots of like lots of naturopathic doctors now have IV therapies they use. It's really a powerful tool. Yeah. Would you, I remember, you know, when I was going into a stressful time, you told you were you recommended the glute thion, which I was like, I don't feel anything and you're like, you don't have to feel anything like it'll make you feel better. But I, but on the on the travel, I never thought that, you know, the doctor introduced me, he said, Hey, you almost need like a, you almost need like a little armor before you get on the plane these days. Yeah. Yeah. And so I was starting to do a lot more of the, the, you know, vitamin C banana bags before I got on travel. I just felt, even if it was a, even even if it was a placebo, if I still felt like I had one layer before the germ hit me, which I thought was pretty awful. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of correlation between things like vitamin C, vitamin D. You know, they're very good at boosting immune system, protecting that. It's like, why wouldn't you want to do that stuff? So the other question I have is, so when, if I'm not sleeping well, do you have any recommendations on, is it worth getting a sleep study? What are your thoughts around going to a sleep doctor? How do you, how important is that? Yeah, I think that's always a good thing to rule out because if someone is having a sleep apnea, all the tools and tricks she uses, it doesn't matter, they're not going to get great sleep. So if somebody's really struggling with sleep or they're snoring really bad or someone's complaining about them not breathing throughout the night, I would go get the sleep study done to be safe, right? Because I'll be honest with you, I've seen a lot of correlation between sleep apnea and low magnesium levels and foodstrippities, but you got to get people on the CPAP to get them sleeping well and then start integrating all these other things to really drive sleep improvement. Yeah, so I put the velvet rope around sleep, but that's the thing we figure out and dial in first more than anything. I remember the reason I'm focusing on kind of the PM activities is because that was probably, I probably spent a year working on that. And it's not a immediate thing, but the one thing that you said to me that I just, I literally laughed in your face when you told me was when you said, hey, have carbs at dinner. And I was like, I was like, that makes no, like that makes no sense because I would just do, because I was like, hey, I would just do salad and like a protein or whatever at dinner. So I stayed definitely away from the carbs at dinner, but now I've kind of changed that a lot based on what you had shared and how it's really changed how I work on sleep. How did you kind of figure that out and what do you recommend from a carbs at dinner perspective? Yeah, so originally it was Rob Wolf telling me that by me avoiding carbs, it was driving my health issues. And to beat it, I should eat carbs because what carbs do is they bring the stress response down. So that was interesting. So I started studying because I always tell you, eat carbs at night, you're just going to get fat. I mean, I always care about it. That's going to make you fat. That's going to make you skinny. That's all we teach. But it's like fitness, nutrition, it drives your energy, your performance, it gives you everything. Not just a five pound weight loss or a five pound weight gain. Oh, that's good. That's bad. So I started looking at that. I started playing with the carbon take. And more and more people talk about this. And I found it early. I got lucky found it early on. I was like, oh, they call it carb backloading. That if you just weigh in your carbs later the day, your brain has turned on during the day, you run on a fat metabolism during the day. But actually eating carbs is what calms the brain down. It makes your ladies and the tharges because it brings your stress response down. The only thing that brings the stress response down fast in the carbs is alcohol. But there's a metabolic backlash to that. So it's like, what's the point of having no carbs at dinner and then a couple of glasses of white, right? What I learned was like, eat the carbs, bring the cortisol response down. And you know, without the backlash. And what happens is it calms your brain down which drives better sleep. If you want to become a diabetic quickly, just stop sleeping. That's the faster to become a diabetic. So what I've learned is you got to earn your carbs. So during the day, you're active, you're stressed, you're running off the energy, not eating carbs during the day, your muscle glycogen levels are going to get lower. And then you have the carbs at night. And now it's going to calm the stress response down. It's more likely to put on a sliver glycogen and muscle glycogen, not fat. And it's going to drive better sleep. So it's a whole run. It's a win-win. Now, I'll be super honest with you. Like, you know, with type one stuff, that's a whole different ball game. Right. And like, you don't have a blood sugar issue. You're maybe pre-diabetes or type two diabetes. These are very effective methods. So that's how I was able to come off my blood sugar man. And now I do it every day. I even have certain amount of carbs that dinner to bring my stress response down, replenishment of the glycogen, and it's get to a better place. Like, I am not carbophobic at all. Yeah. I'm only carbophobic if the wrong people eat them at the wrong times. I'm not like, I'm not keto adverse. I'm not, I'm not, I mean, fastened averse. I'm not carburest. It's the reality of there's going to be a system for each individual that's going to fit them the best. Right. Right. And I learned this from a mentor, my doctor, JT. Like, we all have our own individual desires and needs to function optimally. Yeah. Is there, so I want to, I want you to just maybe help us wrap up with this, which is, everyone seems to have, it may include it, seems to have this. When I look at a piece of food or when I look at food or exercise, whatever, I'm mainly food. I instantly go to a very binary way of looking at it, which is, right? Is this, is this good for me or is this not? And when I say good for me, good is really weird. It's like, should I be eating this or should I not? Like, should I be eating pizza or should I not? You know, is this going to put on weight or not? Am I going to get high cholesterol or not? It's a very binary thing. And so is there a way, like, what's your advice on saying, hey, I'm looking at a, I'm looking at a, you know, an omelette that I made, but having a slice of avocado with it, how do I look more robustly at what I'm putting in my body? And as opposed to just a binary on a decision on every piece of, like, every decision that I make. Yeah. First and foremost, you can't look at it in each food and think, good or bad for me. I just want people to get out of their head of like, oh, it's going to make me fat, that's going to make me skinny. Like, that is garbage. Like, that does not matter, right? And if people just recognize the fact that what matters most in life, those things are not dictated by how I look, right? So like, if I'm going to put two pounds on the scale, I'm sorry, but my kids aren't going to care, right? If my abs are shredded or not, my kids aren't going to care. All they care about is what is my energy, like, when I'm with them, right? How what can I play? How focused and how engaged am I? They don't not care about what my body looks like. And what I've learned is people are most important to us. It's the engagement that matters, not how the body looks. So I want people to stop looking at food. It's like, oh, game weight, lose weight. I want you to look at it and start documenting. I eat that meal. How am I going to feel in 30 to 60 minutes from now? Am I going to have great energy or am I not? Right? During the day, we want great energy. So what I've even found is if I eat the meals during the day that drive my energy, I can have the freaking pizza at night and not pay the price. I can have a stickers bar after dinner one night and metabolic, not pay the price because I've set myself up to be okay with that stuff. So, do I want to drive energy? Do I want to shut energy? I look at meals as performance meal, recovery meal. Ah, that's really good. Yeah, so, okay. So I'm sitting here. If I look at that cheeseburger, french fries, and a Coke, that is not going to be a performance meal. Everybody. And in an hour, I'm asleep. Yeah. Okay. So, I'm going to have a meal. I'm going to have a meal. And I'm going to have a meal. and they're going to do a sodium aducasia because they can't get water into the cells. So what the minerals do is you drink the water, the sodium volume goes up, the minerals, especially sodium will absorb water into the cell so the body can then use it. So the minerals actually feed the cell. So we like to use things like salt to see salt and land pink salt. There's now things like liquid IV and new, like these things have the minerals in them that when you drink the water, they absorb into the cell so you actually get the hydrating experience of the water. So if you're drinking water and you still don't have great energy, your brain's not working well, you're peeing all the time, the solution is honestly, just put a pinch of sea salt or Himalayan pink salt or concentrate minerals or liquid IV in your water to get the water into the cell. So you're actually really hydrating and driving the benefit of the actual hydration. - So good, man. It's so good. Yeah, I do, this is, it's probably the one thing that I do religiously. And I can tell the difference between not doing it and doing it, which is super fascinating. Brad, one last thing for you, I know that you spend a lot of your time dialing in and making sure that entrepreneurs, people that work in special forces, anybody that is a high achiever, you know them, you understand their DNA and you spend a lot of time working with them. How can people get in touch with you? What is the best way for folks to learn more about what you're doing and how you can help them? - Yeah, two places, my website, BradDaperson.com. That's right, I have all my coaches, my courses, my programs. I've really, since this whole over 19 things, I've really dug deep. I have a really cool, a couple of new programs coming out. My favorite one is called performancenutrition.live. It's all this high level nutrition work. I figured out how to automate a bunch and make it very individualized. And maintain a person's nutrition as supplementation needs to match their output requirements for like super cheap, under a hundred bucks a month. Include that, includes the supplements I want them taking. So that's what I'm super excited about it. That should be up in the next week or two. And then my Instagram coach_Brad_Davidson. Every day I'm posting videos, infographics, quotes all on this topic of high performance. And I want people to be super clear. Like here's what's important to me and why I do what I do and what I want people to get from my work. Is this reality as high achievers? We're doing this stuff oftentimes to give the people who love the most, the better life. Our families, our children, right? I mean, that's just a big driver for us. Or everyone have an impact on other people in the world. But what I learned through my process was I was exhausted myself at work and at the gym, trying to create a better life for the people I love the most. In my case, it's my children. And I would exhaust myself. And I didn't understand that I cared myself. When I get home at night, I was under so much fatigue. I would ask, I just get my children on the couch turn on the movie and fall asleep. And since then, I've kind of re-admitted the reality of, what matters most is this. And it's a simple question you can ask yourself. When I get home at night, are the people I love the most? Are they getting the best of me or the rest of me? The only way they get the best of you is to learn how to manage your fatigue and your energy. And you do that with nutrition and fitness. I don't give a ratch. You know what? How you look anymore? Nobody comes to me to look great anymore, because I will chase them away. You come to me because you want to optimize your energy, your overall performance, and you want to have something left over for those you love the most. And so my system, if that's what you want, that's what I'm not giving people. And as I will match a lifestyle to your performance, no matter how crazy it is, to make sure that when you get home to those you love the most, you have something left over to give them and to engage with them, because that's where great lives happen, I think. Yeah. Amen. For those that have been-- I will make sure-- we talked a lot about tactical stuff today. I will make sure everything is linked in the show notes, because there's no way you're listening, and you kept up with all this. I'll put everything in the show notes and a way to get a hold of Brad. But Brad, you don't-- I know you know this, but over the years, you kept me alive. You've gotten me to where I am. You've helped me with my health, my family, my fitness, my performance. And I appreciate you so much. Thank you so much for being on and giving so much value today. Hey, welcome. Hey, wait till we start playing with the Kotzu bands. That's my new tactical strategy for you that I think is going to be super valuable for people out in the world is these 20-minute workouts of Kotzu bands and it's a game changer. Can you always-- I always support the more my friends. Always something more. I appreciate it. Awesome. Thanks, Brad. Hey, well, welcome, buddy. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hey, Chiron. I have a cool gift for you. I took some of my best ideas from the last 20 years and created a five-day MBA. It's a quick connection pact that you could listen to on the go just like this podcast. And I want to give it to you for free. Just as a thank you for listening to the show. No fluff, no gimmicks, just pure actionable ideas for you to use instantly. You can grab it right now at businessschoolshow.com. That's businessschoolshow.com. [MUSIC PLAYING]