Brian Keith - Food, Sleep & Systems
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
systems, people, eating, eggs, sleep, eat, brian, podcast, life, grocery store, health, business, red beard, thought, cholesterol, talking, ice cream, cheese, problem, bed
SPEAKERS
Jack Heald, Brian Keith, Dr. Philip Ovadia
Brian Keith
...do this first...
Jack Heald
no, no, no, you jumped into half a second too early. There you go,
Brian Keith
It's about the systems that are behind everything in our lives. And some of our systems are really obvious like you have an alarm clock, when the alarm clock goes off, you turn off the alarm clock, you either do not get out of bed, maybe you hit the snooze button. But you have systems that underplay all parts of your life. And some of these systems, we want to make invisible. And if they're currently visible, that's a big problem. Other systems we are currently invisible, but we want to make them visible. And what I see with a lot of business owners is that our health and happiness system where it's not intentional, it's like we're casually threw together like a jigsaw puzzle, it doesn't fit. And we just hope for the best. Instead of saying, well, actually, what should I eat to go have a certain a certain outcome in my life? Or how should I go and organize any particular system, including where I get my information from about what health really looks like?
Jack Heald
That's a fascinating way to look at it. And I'm going to say welcome to our podcast listeners, you came into the middle of a conversation that we started and we're having fun with, and we said, we're just going to record it. This is the Stay Off My Operating Table podcast with Dr. Philip Ovadia. And our special guest today is a man who both Dr. Ovadia and I consider to be a friend. He's also our business coach. The one, the only, the inimitable, Brian Keith. Hey, man.
Brian Keith
AKA the red bearded one.
Jack Heald
Oh, yeah, your online name is RedBeard.
Brian Keith
It is. So, we're talking about systems. And as you're talking with your Doctor Ovadia about metabolic health. One of the really interesting things about what Dr. Ovadia does, what you do is that you look at some numbers, but they're not the same numbers other people are even looking at.
Jack Heald
And that goes back to that thing you were saying about visible versus invisible.
Brian Keith
If you go to your primary care physician, they say, well, here's the five numbers, and here's what they mean. Okay, maybe they're right. But if they didn't look at these other five numbers, and then you're having some other outcome in your life, that's a problem.
Brian Keith
I went into the chiropractor yesterday. And I found out that I had some rotator cuff issues that I was unaware of. I became aware of them when this guy's digging his thumb into my rotator cuff, and I'm experiencing pain. And I gotta tell him, "six out of 10, seven out of, eight out of 10!"
Brian Keith
I knew I had some injuries last month doing some push-ups stuff working in my sailboat. But it wasn't until I got that information that it went from, oh, I thought I was just not on my A-game to oh, I've done some deep issues here. And now I have evidence. But because I wasn't looking because I hadn't been to a chiropractor. I couldn't diagnose. I couldn't change my behavior. I couldn't properly decide how much should I be doing tennis ball on a wall or something else to fix the problem.
Brian Keith
So, Dr. Ovadia, what you do is you help people understand the broader array of okay, here's something invisible, that might actually be a problem. And if you wait until it is so symptomatic that you're in a hospital, that is bad, it's really hard to fix it right then.
Brian Keith
But with the chiropractor yesterday, he was saying, well, how do you how does this or does that hurt? I said, well when it started to hurt last month, when I hurt myself working on a sailboat master of all things, I stopped right away. And then I stopped doing push-ups, I stopped working out for a few days, because I was listening really, really carefully. And that's part of what you do with the whole health numbers thing. It's for those of us who are non-experts. You say okay, well, what are the sensors that we should be listening to? And when that sensor starts flashing red, you address it immediately. Don't wait 10 years, 20 years until you're fat and sick and on an operating table.
Dr. Philip Ovadia
Yes, and it's great to be here with you, Brian. And I think this will fit nicely into a theme that we've sort of been running through over the past few weeks on the show with bringing on some people who might not have an obvious connection to health. But I think one of the things that I like to pride myself on is having a holistic view of not just health but your life in general. And along those lines that you were talking about, I probably won't surprise many or maybe anyone in the audience to know that. I might be a great heart surgeon and I might be a great doctor. But when I set out to launch a new path and a new business specifically, I know very little to nothing about business. And that's why I sought out advice from those who knew more about that than me and so While people certainly seek me out and come to me to help me help improve their health, I was very fortunate to start working with Brian to, for him to help me build and grow my business. And I know Jack has since started working with Brian as well along the same lines. So, I'm hoping that the audience finds this to be a great conversation, and we're going to talk some about health. And we're going to talk some about business. And we're going to talk about how the two are often very much related in people's lives. And let's just start, since we did sort of come in on the middle of the conversation, let's step back for a minute, and have you introduce yourself to our audience.
Brian Keith
Hello, folks, I'm Brian red beard, Keith. And I've been a business coach for approximately forever keep Certified Partner podcaster. My book “20 Easy Ways To Make Money With Plus This” helps you make that app work better. And what I do is this combination of copywriting and also deep technical understanding of things, which usually you can find techies, or you can find copywriters. Usually, it's not the same person.
So, my sweet spot is I have my RedBeard Accelerator, which is for business owners, from startup through six figures who want to grow. And then I also do this outsourced CFO thing where all your problems become my problems. And one of the things that I consistently see is these systems that aren't operating properly, where like, in your case, Dr. Ovadia we have where your Twitter account was that when he met, your Twitter account was like 1500 or so. Now, you don't know a lot more now than you did that. And that was less than a year ago, you're not way better of a heart surgeon than you were then. But the amount of output of your knowledge of your truths. And how much of that is getting out into the world through this podcast with Jack, through your book, through your Twitter account, through you're working with companies through you're working one on one with people, something like 1000 times more output is showing up.
Based on your same understanding you had nine months ago, you've not revolutionized anything in the last nine months. But the people who have been exposed your content have seen changes in their lives. And what would have a Twitter is we had these podcasts coming out, we had the book coming out. And we just started taking parts of what you're already doing. And then changing them around changing the format and sharing them with people or people could take these big concepts. And they took a little 32nd bit of it. They could take some they could actually digest they could do something with it, they could say, oh, I can actually change my life or change my habits changed my systems based on this little, tiny bit right here. I can do that. Whereas your big stories about “well, here's how you do heart surgery,” we could have started off, we could say, “well, heart surgery is a 5000-part process, part number 364.” It would have been worthless, no one would have cared, because that's way too complex.
So, what we have on your Twitter account on I Fix Hearts is just a bunch of little blurbs like little quotes for your podcast, little bits from your book, from podcasts, you've been a guest on where you're just telling this little bit of a story. And you're helping people look at these underlying systems that are invisible to them. Even things like cholesterol is bad. And you're saying well, well, let's talk about that. And even that idea that well, this thing I know, the cholesterol is bad, obviously, cholesterol causes heart attacks, obviously, I know that cheeseburgers are bad for you, because they cause your cholesterol to go up, which kills you. I learned that growing up probably was part of the food pyramid. There's all this crap I learned that's not true. And what I love about your content and getting to work with you is I continually unlearn some of the crap in my head that I in fact,
Jack Heald
It's the same thing for me, Brian to be with Doctor Ovadia. I've been working together now for what? 6, 7, 8 months, it may be longer than that. And I felt I thought I was pretty knowledgeable in terms of health and nutrition and all that kind of stuff. And in reality, I really was and even then, man, just getting to sit in and listen to him talk for the last eight months has been unbelievably educational and transformative for me. I feel like I'm when it comes to Dr. Philip of ADEA. I am by far the single biggest beneficiary of his work because bite me
Dr. Philip Ovadia
It's interesting to hear you both say that because I kind of feel the same when I listened to both of you guys and
Jack Heald
That we're the biggest beneficiaries of your work?
Dr. Philip Ovadia
Know that I'm the biggest beneficiary of your work and just drawing upon all of your great life experiences all of your stories. which is something I certainly want to get into, because red beard Brian has had one of the most interesting lives, despite the fact that he is not that old, young, younger than I certainly, and the interesting stories that we that you have from your life could fill many podcasts. And by the way, I have a feeling this will be the first of many appearances on this podcast for Brian, because there are so many aspects of life that we can bring him into.
But let's I'd like to focus a minute on the systems issue. Yeah, grounding those systems to life. And how obviously, as the audience has heard one of my principles of metabolic health is just think of your health as a system not as a goal. And I know, as, as we've been working together, we have applied that to my business and to really to life in general. So, so, give us a little bit more about that.
Brian Keith
Let's talk about food, that off and on, I've been incredibly healthy in my eating and other times, sort of a slacker, probably never full standard American diet. I'm gonna be prideful enough to say that. But still, a lot of times excellent times not Excellent. Well, so when I met my now wife, Carrie, I was eating a diet, which, according to Phil, how you now recommend is pretty reasonable. I'd have four eggs with some cheese on top, maybe some bacon or some meat or some kind for breakfast. Fantastic. Well, I got Carrie and I would occasionally it'll get a little bit itchy. But that's just sort of normal. And she said maybe your body isn't really processing dairy very well. Maybe you should stop having feta cheese on your eggs for breakfast and cheddar cheese with lunch. And I said, Hey, that's insane. But be I'll give it a try. She was hot. What can I say?
Turns out, I got a lot healthier stopping it in cheese. stopped getting itchy. I just felt I don't know more clear in my mind. This thing I thought I was doing that was really eating well was actually hampering me. Well, then then she takes it a step further. She says, well, eggs have a lot of histamines. What if you stop eating eggs, and I said you're crazy. But still hot and also a really smart food person. So, I stopped eating eggs, I get healthier again.
So, what am I eating? Now I'm eating mostly meat, some vegetables, and some bread chips, whatever. But I'm eating pretty good. I do this for years. No histamine reaction. Not itchy at all. Just feeling great feeling powerful, massive success in business investments, mountain climbing all kinds of good stuff. My system is perfect. Right?
Well, then I'm talking to Dr. Ovadia here last summer. And he does a blood workup. And he says, he doesn't say like this, he says my man, you don't have enough cholesterol, which is leading to you have not having enough testosterone, you should consider eating some eggs and some cheese. And I think to myself for goodness, and he would be very sad fatty cuts of meat too. And I think to myself, I used to do that. But I stopped and I felt better. And here we have a heart surgeon saying “no, man, those two things, you probably need to eat more,” and I still need to go get my blood tested. But in the last, since you have that conversation with me, I eat a lot of eggs, I eat a lot of cheese to go boost up that cholesterol number.
If you told me you're going to have anyone, much less a heart surgeon saying increase your cholesterol because you're eating too little of these things, I would say that's crazy talk. And yet we see that my system evolved to more cheese and eggs. This is good. And then no cheese and eggs. This is good. And then more cheese and eggs. This is good. And this idea that there is an answer a goal, where if only you do this, and you do it forever, you're done. That's this grade school fantasy that I was holding on to about my nutrition. And you've opened my eyes to the fact that Nope, there's no way out other than dying. And until then you're gonna have to pay attention and look at the system of your nutrition. And it's not going to be static. It just isn't.
Dr. Philip Ovadia
And one of the other interesting things around that is that in the past, it seemed that the cheese and the eggs were causing these issues, and you took them away and those issues got better. And so of course it's the cheese in the eggs causing the issue. But now that you've reintroduced those, you're not having those issues. And it turns out that it was some of the stuff that you were eating with the cheese and the eggs that actually was leading you to have probably some gut inflammation. And that then allowed I was certain proteins from the cheese in the eggs to cross the gut barrier when they're not supposed to and cause those reactions.
And in the interim, when you cut out those other things, mostly the bread and the pasta, whatever, your gut inflammation has gone away, and now you can tolerate cheese and eggs, without those same histamine issues. And that's again, that systemic approach that you can't just look at these individual components. And it's not cheese, and egg is always bad. It's that cheese and egg in certain content, certain context was bad.
Brian Keith
I still get some of those histamine issues, but it's maybe 10% of what it was. But I'm also now married to a woman who doesn't eat any gluten. Whereas that's not a life where I had before I was eating more gluten than I am now. But who you're living with, who you break bread with, that matters a lot for the impact of what kind of eggs and even what kind of eggs are you eating? That at this point we are - I don't know what the right phrase is - were egg elitists where we only eat eggs that a friend of ours grows on a farm, we've been to where the chickens running around in the sunshine, or from a different local farm. But even before that, we were eating only vital Farms Organic eggs, which is the highest quality of commercial eggs you can buy.
When I look at when I was having lots of histamine issues back forever ago, when I met my wife, I was not eating the highest quality as possible. I was eating sort of in the middle, I thought they were decent. I didn't understand. There's actually something like five grades of eggs and I was eating the second from the bottom. I thought there was like two grades and I was eating in the for the top shelf. I did not understand because I just I didn't get it. And I had to have an expert show up to say well actually, you know vital farms eggs, at least for where we are in the northwest. These ones these pastured eggs, these are way better. And organic vital farms are better. Oh, and your friends farm eggs, where you've seen the chickens running the creek, they hop over. Those are the best eggs.
Jack Heald
I love the idea that you introduced at the very beginning. And honestly if it had been somebody else, someone who wasn't wearing the hats that you wear, I might have missed it. But because my perception of Brian Red Beard Keith is Chief Operating Officer, a systems guy, have you put together systems to get things done better, I probably would have missed it. I swear I know I've heard this a million times. But this idea of treating your diet as just another system that you optimize and tweak and make it more efficient that that's lightbulb stuff for me. I haven't thought about eating is a system.
Brian Keith
Well as soon as you do that you have to look at when do you eat as part of the system? It's not what you eat growing up the food pyramid that was about what you eat. Do you remember the time of day part of the food pyramid? Of course, you don't didn't care. We said it was what you eat is all that matters. And it wasn't even what kind of carbs let's say it was six to 11 servings and there was pictures of pasta and pieces of white bread and whatever else. But now we know it's not what you eat. It's what you eat eats or what you eat, where it's grown. But it's also when you're eating but it's also where are you buying food from the store. Now on my podcast, I tell one embarrassing story for podcasts. That's just the rule on Redbeard Radio.
But Phil, I hope I can extend that to your podcast. And this is you’re the one person I don't want to tell this to. So, there we go. I mostly eat really good. Okay. And then, and then a couple days ago, I'm out and about. And I'm stopping by a little country grocery store thing in our house. And when I go to the grocery store is the primary determinant of what I buy. It's not it's not anything else, it's time of day. If I go 3pm or later, the odds of you seeing trashy carbs, sugar, treats, whatever are gonna go up. If I go to the grocery store at 10am or 8am I'm on it. I am disciplined. I am a mighty I am Thor. I got this. But I came home, and I don't even recall what my reason was. I was tired that I don't know what it was. I don't know what my excuse was okay.
But the outcome was that I got some now it's very high quality but it's ice cream. A root beer again, very high quality, only two grams of sugar, root beer. And then what was my third thing? Gluten Free honey grams. Now I was at the grocery store at 4pm Something like that. Okay, if I expose myself to the stimuli to the opportunity of grocery store, after a certain time, then my chances of taking junk into my system skyrocket and If I take those things home and they're in my pantry, well, at some point, if anything's in the pantry, it'll be in the pantry at the time where I make the worst decisions. For 9:30pm me who feels like snacking or watching TV before bed because I'm an idiot looks in the pantry. If there's nothing in the pantry, that looks appetizing, because there's no snacks in there. What do I do? Get some water? tossing some salt? I don't know.
But I'm not eating ice cream if it's not in the house. So, the systems are for me just on just the topic of food is when am I buying it? And then when am I exposing myself that being in my house? And those two things alone? Even getting into what kind of is your meat grass fed or grass finished? Like those details? It's even when do you go to the grocery store? So, question for you, Dr. Vidya. We all have all these systems around our food. And we talked I mentioned in the beginning of this, how to make the invisible visible now. The confession I just made that after 3pm My food choices at the grocery store plummet like I'm a six-year-old, how do you recommend people just look and notice and open their eyes so they can see if like me their six-year-old in their food choices after 3pm
Jack Heald
I just wanna make sure - it's 3pm for you?
Brian Keith
It depends on the day, and how good I am and what's happening at work and the rest of my life. Some days I have my podcasts I'm on I'm on phone calls for six hours. That's not a day where I'm going to be here. Oh 3pm Other days, maybe I've gone for a long walk, maybe done some weightlifting. Maybe I ate just meat for breakfast I'm on and I'm a hero 3pm No problem. Come at me, bro. I'm gonna have only real food. So, it depends. I'm not reliable.
Dr. Philip Ovadia
Yeah, I think what you said about I guess what I would say is I think the way to make things visible is to open people's eyes, and to have them start looking. And a lot of these things that I've learned along the way in my journey first to improve my personal health, and then to figure out how to better help the people that I was helping improve their health, it really starts with you have to want to look, and unfortunately in life both in regards to our health and so many other things in life, it seems that many people just walk around with those blinders on. And it usually just takes one, one thing to get those blinders off, and then you really can't help but to see all this stuff around you.
Once you start doing that, once you start thinking about these issues and analyzing them and looking at what why do I make the choices that I make around what I eat? Or whatever why do I make the choices that I make around how I'm going to run my business? once you start thinking about it, once you start being intentional about it, I find, that's what ultimately leads to success. And having that foundation is what allows you to be successful, through difficult situations. And sometimes that just means minimizing the damage, you might not come through things completely unscathed. But if you minimize the damage, and you minimize the times the frequency with which you are doing damage, you're going to end up much better in the end. an example was yesterday for me I was traveling home yesterday, I had long flight delay, I was going to be stuck in the airport for six hours. And as anyone knows airports are bits of health food deserts for the most part. And I could have and, in the past, I definitely would have.
Jack Heald
The healthiest food at most airports is coffee and booze.
Dr. Philip Ovadia
Yeah, exactly. And in the past, I certainly would have probably wandered around the airport for six hours and multiple times went to one of the fast-food places and gotten something to eat. And instead, I said, this is a good opportunity for me. And I actually reached out to someone who I had been connected with, on sort of in the internet, but never actually connected in real life who happened to live in the city where I was and said, hey, you want to meet for some lunch? And he said, Sure, and I ended up leaving the airport, finding a good barbecue place to go have a good barbecue meal with him. And then despite the fact that I spent a few hours in the airport, I now had lots of protein in me and was able to resist all of those horrible influences around me. But it's those It's that intentional approach to life instead of just passively taking, you know what life hands you, I think that this all really comes down to?
Jack Heald
I think it's interesting. The question that pops to mind for me, Brian, is your discussion about treating eating as a system triggered something for me? And so, I want to know, have you just did you just come from the factory with this systems approach to life? Was there something that has that? Was there a pivotable pivotal moment where you started thinking differently about things? Why are you like this? And I, I find, I personally find it really, really helpful. You've cleared some things away from me in seconds that I've dealt with for a long time.
Brian Keith
How's that sometimes for you? Sometimes I like to think that I'm responsible for myself. And then other times, I hear my mom's story that when nursing, I would want to finish my meal, get on the ground and go on adventure right now. And that literally, since before I have any memories whatsoever, I was the let's go do this thing. Let's go adventuring. And then I grew up with two business owner, parents, mom's CPA, who is one of the top tax return analysis trainers in the nation. And if you don't know what that is, that's okay. Because you're not a lender. And then my dad's a house builder, where one point running three times a House Bill, a homebuilder.
So, he was just managing a lot of people building three houses at a time. And we grew up with financial conversations, and how's each business doing being part of normal dinner table conversation? It was not until college, when I came to understand that that is really weird. But that I grew up just like that you're talking about staff and about clients and financial everything. And that's just normal. So, I don't know how much of why I'm the way I am is me versus the environment that I was put in, through no fault, or no volition of my own. I don't care to claim credit right from the important of my parents.
Jack Heald
So, was there a moment in life when this whole taking care of your body went from something you just took for granted to, to getting really serious? Like, you're clearly very serious about it?
Brian Keith
I'm not serious enough I feel like. I think when I started sword fighting, that, because I, I need to unpack that, obviously.
Jack Heald
We know that story, but the listeners don't.
Dr. Philip Ovadia
As I said, likely end up being the first of many appearances because of stories like that, that just happened to fall out of Brian's mouth.
Brian Keith
So, there's a culture out there folks of people that are doing mixed martial arts, except they're wearing 50 pounds of armor while they're doing it. And they have sticks in their hands between one foot and nine foot long, they're beating the crap out of each other with and they're reenacting medieval combat, like Dark Ages King Arthur kind of stuff. And I did that for about a decade. Now, the people who do this, there's some of them who are the exemplars of physical health, mental health, they train like crazy. And I used to live with a bunch of these people, people who paid so much attention to nutrition, and physical healing, and movement and breathing and everything. And I learned a lot from my teacher, a lot.
And from a lot of the guys that I fought with, who just trained me a lot, and how to go move, how to breathe. I started fighting in the US when I was about 22. And so I spent most of my 20s with this gang of people traveling all over the country and have been into Canada, doing sword fighting events, and training really seriously, where when you are at a high enough level, if you've been in for let's say at least three years, you start moving so fast that not only are you moving so fast that people can't even see I'm fast, your hands are moving. But you don't know what happened. Because you're moving so fast. Your brain can't process what happened. And I'd have to ask people after fights, so what happened? I might know who won? What was it? Like, what did I hit him?
Or people just they just give up and you go, why do you give me up and they said you hit me in the face. You don't know that you did that? Because you move so fast. Well, here's the thing to move that kind of speed. You have to have a physical body that's fairly free of debris. You have to have a mental and a spiritual body that's fairly free of debris. You have to it's slowing you down and get it out of your system or it's going to slow you down.
Jack Heald
Okay, what do you mean by will? It will we'll look at the spiritual the mental but the physical body, what do you mean "free of debris in your physical body"?
Brian Keith
Well, at a very basic level smoking, that there are some of us who smoked, and those people gassed out real fast that the best fighter in the world who smoked was they just couldn't last for very long. Some people drink alcohol and quit Have to tea the night before a big fight. And they never last very long because it got hot in there and you're wearing 50 pounds of armor, and they will just fall over fast, and no one wants to go running and 50 pounds of armor. And if it's 90 degrees out, you really don't want to go running. And if you're hungover, you really, really don't. And it just it destroys your ability to respond properly, even if you're a great fighter. Otherwise, we have crap food, we made a joke, quote marks here again, about feeding doughnuts to the opposing teams the night before a battle. Because if the doughnuts or pizza, oh man, the next day is gonna be a cinch. Because they're slowing themselves down. They're adding crap to their system.
So even before I really became aware of the whole carnivore thing, keto thing, whatever, this idea that there's some kind of foods that speeds you up. And really, it's not just that it's don't slow you down, which is meat and vegetables and fruit. And then there's stuff that slows you down, which is literally everything else. So, you can have small pieces like I used to make my own sourdough bread. Yeah, you can have sourdough bread is in small quantities doesn't slow you down. small quantities. But if you have significant quantities or on a regular basis, you're screwed. It's just going to slow you down. And then you're going to literally get hit in the face by people who are not feeding themselves crap. So, it's very competitive environment. And if you eat crap, especially Oh, no, if you eat crap for breakfast, the day the big fight when you're in are within, like for five or 10 hours that day. If you have a crap breakfast, you're doomed. So, what's breakfast, breakfast is always meet some potatoes on the side. And eggs. That's it. If you if you eat pizza, or leftover pizza, or you eat oatmeal or something, you're doomed, you're gonna go so slow.
Jack Heald
Okay, so the mental and the spiritual debris? What's that about?
Brian Keith
Yeah, a lot of us, a lot of us carry around a lot of crap in our heads, I was dealing with a significant amount of anger in my 20s, which I think probably is true for a lot of guys, I just got to get it out of me by going obedient. My friends were also beating me up. So, there you go. And if you are not present, you will get hit. And if you're not in the fight, yet you're not you're sort of hanging back. Yeah, you can let your mind wander. But at the moment of there's someone there with a sword, and they're trying to whack you in the face. And you're moving so fast that people can't even see your hands. If you are not present for a moment, you will get hit.
I remember once, where I was having some issues with the girlfriend started my 20s also. And my teacher said you need to get to fighter practice. And I didn't want to because I was being a whiny, little whatever. And we're talking about it. He said, Yeah, part of why you need to get to fighter practices, that's when you're not thinking about this problem. Because you can't be cuz you'll get hit. And I wasn't smart enough, wise enough, enlightened enough whatever to elevate myself otherwise, it was really when fighting, or perhaps when shooting guns or bicycling a high speed on rainy streets in Seattle, well, cars were trying to kill me, then I became present. And it's so common, at least for me to not be present and to be thinking about something else while I'm doing that, sure. And then sword fighting, you can't do that you're gonna get hit.
Dr. Philip Ovadia
And again, so just going back, just to stick on that for a second. that's not just one your sword fighting whether you're looking at your health the health aspects of your life, if you're looking at the business aspects of your life. I would say that that's a great quote, to keep in mind that if you're not present, you're going to get hit.
Brian Keith
You're talking about my ice cream consumption today. So, I can tell. And I'm blushing because of it. But it's true, because it only takes a moment if you are distracted for a moment. And that moment happens to be when your opponent is in front of you with their sword cocked back. They'll know they'll feel you spiritually distracted, and they'll whack you in the face, which is not that different from being at the grocery store, walking past the ice cream and thinking, I want that and then grabbing it. Because once you do that, that's like a third of a second experience. But now, how hard is it to put that ice cream back on the shelf after it's in your cart? How hard is it once you're back in your car to walk back into the grocery store and get a refund and put and like hand it back to them? How hard is it when it's in your freezer to not open it? How hard is it after it's open to not finish? There's all these it gets harder. That little bit of not being present.
This is what Jocko says right? To not be strong for that moment. When he's talking about discipline. Just that moment. We're all called to be weak for that moment. It just takes a moment. swordfighting makes it really obvious because you're suddenly on your back and you're in pain. Like what just happened while you're thinking about some girl that's what just happened. And then you got beat because you weren't present. Ice Cream takes a longer time to have that impact.
Jack Heald
I just love that we that we have tied together making bad choices at the grocery store, intense athletic competition, and eating well
Brian Keith
If you're talking about making bad choices, I'm your guy, Jack,
Jack Heald
Oh, I think I can give you a run for your money, Brian, but I've had twice as long to practice as you have.
Brian Keith
Fair.
Jack Heald
So many different ways that somebody replaces I want to take this, if we think about eating, and for me, this is the key differentiator here. If somebody said to me your diet is a system, think of your diet as a system, I would go yes, yes, of course, my diet is a system. But that's not what you said, think about eating as a system and you've broken it down into the all the individual decision points that go into eating and treating that as a system. That's for me, that's a real revelation that's really different. And my I'm going to, that's what I'm going to take away from here is everything from when I eat to the that that 1/3 of a second decision point at the grocery store where I reach and grab the ice cream. Yeah, that's what it would be for me too. It'd be ice cream.
Brian Keith
Well, I have an experiment for everybody to try at home. Asterisk, don’t try this at home cuz it'll be gross. Like your trash can in your kitchen. Dump it on the floor, separate everything in your trash can between the kinds of whole foods that you would eat if you were being your best self. And the kinds of things you would be embarrassed to show Dr. Vidya because he looked at you lovingly but would look at his eyes. And you'd be like, I know, Coach, I know. I just think about that. Now, you can do this when you're in the grocery store. And well, it's what's in your cart? Sure, but look in your trash can. That's one of the best evidences of what you're actually eating. Do you have paper wrappers of grass-fed grass, finished meat, you're a hero, dip box of crackers and boxes of ice cream? I'm talking about myself here again.
Okay, so your system is failing you. It's probably not going to kill you today. But it's not like sword fighting, where you actually are not on your back. And now you're like you're on the ground immediately. But if you park your trash can, and the evidence of how you and your family are choosing to eat like and that is that right there is headed for a heart attack. You are headed for a heart attack no matter what ideals you have. No matter what time of day you eat food, nothing else if your trashcan is telling you heart attack. That's where you're going. Ouch. But that's myself here, folks. You're just along for the ride.
Jack Heald
That's good, man. That's really good. Oh, all right. So, let's take this in a slightly different direction. On our coaching call this week, and this is full disclosure. Phil and I both employ Brian as a business coach. On our on our coaching call this week, we were talking about biohacking. Specifically, around sleep. Um, dig into that. Let's revisit that because I found your approach to it. Again, really helpful.
Brian Keith
So, it's like Phil says here, just don't hurt yourself too much. There's something like 10 things we can all do to have better sleep; we don't have to be perfect. We don't have to let the fact that we're not 10 out of 10 slows down everything of the 10 things that cause bad sleep or that really prevent good sleep, every one of the 10 if we can go ahead and reduce it or remove it from our environment. We're going to sleep better be happier live longer be kinder to our spouses, everything else. So, what are the 10 we got light, both our lights in our home, our lights on screens, but also the lights we're keeping out of our eyes through blue light blocking glasses or through the red lens to glasses that activate your will ops and sensors in your eyes.
Jack Heald
You have actual experience with that, right?
Brian Keith
Oh yeah, I don't wear them nearly often enough, because I'm definitely not doing everything I need to do. Like I'm in the I have a list of 10 things I need to do to have good sleep. And I'm doing like three of them because I'm an idiot. I know the 10 so many different places systems failure, right? If you don't know why you're getting bad sleep, you're like, I don't know what's happening. I feel tired all the time. That's one problem. If you know what to do, like, don't watch some trashy TV show before bed, and then you don't do it. That's a different problem. Now I'll have the trashy TV show I was watching last night was on my laptop, but I have a red-light filter thing on it so that once it gets dark outside there's only a red light coming from the screen zero blue light.
So that part of the system I'm a champion at I even look over my wife and if there's any blue light coming out of her phone I say honey, like why is it blue light? Come on? Because we're very good about that particular thing last night all salt lamps throughout the house. else we I think maybe one overhead light was really damn good a slit lamp there. I do I see that I'm proud of you, man proud of you. What else do we got sleep systems? How many hours between the last thing you eat and when you go to sleep? How many hours between what you drink and when you go to sleep? Last thing you drink for the day? How much exercise did you do that day? And how far between last exercise and when you go to bed? What information are you putting in your head? Confession time. This is a multiple embarrassing confessions podcast today. You're welcome, folks. And sorry. The show I was watching this terribly trashy.
Jack Heald
This is a great preview by the way for the for the Red Beard radio, because you'll get these kinds of embarrassing stories all the time.
Brian Keith
That's all it is. So, I'm watching the show. It's called a rookie. But it has Nathan Malone or Fillion - however you say his name - from Serenity and I love this actor. Okay, so I'm watching this cop show. It's sort of formulaic and dumb, whatever. I love the actor. And it's a distraction from various other things, whatever. But last night, I only watched one-episode last night, like I get to bed at a reasonable hour be less of an idiot. And it's a cop show. So occasionally, it has gruesome violence very rarely. It's not like NCIS that stuff's crazy, just a little bit, but it had this horrible violence thing. And I thought to myself, as I was watching, and I thought I could just turn it off. Or I could keep watching the episode till it gets completion.
So, my brain isn't like in the middle of the story, this violence, right? Well, joke's on me. It's a cliffhanger. It's not completed in one episode, which that's my own problem, isn't it? The point of the story was the information you're exposing yourself to whether it's on social media, whether it's whatever book you're reading, any TV, you're watching, that that's all going to be in you, as you're sleeping at a spiritual level, right. And just like, if you went ahead, and you drank a two liter of coke, feels gonna mute as he vomits. If you drink a two liter of coke right before bed, that's going to literally be in your body as you're sleeping. And most people would not expect to be drinking a sugary, caffeinated drink right before bed. Would you say? Will you extract them and get the best sleep? You could? No one's gonna say yes. Because we all know you put poison in yourself. Maybe they wouldn't say poison, but we all know it's poison. It's fun poison for some people like alcohol, fun poison.
So, what kind of other poison, whether it's light information, anything else are we putting into ourselves, and to what extent are recruiting a container for our brains. And that's one thing that Phil you can talk to more than I can about what's actually happening while we're sleeping. But a lot of us think while you sleep you need to get good sleep. So, you can be well rested, whatever. But there's a lot of data out there a lot of new studies about what's happening in the brain, and how your brain sort of takes the trash out while you're sleeping. But if you put trash in your body, right before you go to sleep, whether it's food information, light, you're preventing your brain from doing the whole cleansing thing that is a significant component of why sleep matters. So, I wonder if you could share a bit for folks who are new to the idea that sleep is when your brain takes trash out. And you can actually use your sciency words on that concept.
Dr. Philip Ovadia
Yeah, it's actually pretty interesting, when you look at studies that have been done on sleep deprivation, and sleep deprivation, it turns out is one of the most dangerous things that we do to ourselves, and that can be done to people in the short term we've all probably whether it's seen it in the movies, or read about it in the news or whatever. But if you want to torture someone and for instance prisoners of war one of the ways to torture them is just to keep this to sleep deprived them. And 24 or 48 hours of sleep deprivation is literally enough to bring someone kind of to the brink of death and to insanity.
So, sleep truly is a vital aspect of our lives. It's interesting I was on with a patient earlier today, and we came we had a very similar conversation, because he's been doing really great with his diet, and he's got everything dialed in. And we were reviewing I had a, had him wearing a continuous glucose monitor, and it looked great. And yet, he said, I'm still not losing weight as quickly as I want to. And I said, well what else is going on? And we talked about how he, he typically goes to bed late, wakes up after about two hours, because he's thinking about something about his business, and he's all stressed out about it. And that he says, he typically wakes up two or three times during the night, and he's not getting good sleep. And it was kind of that aha moment for him that that’s what we need to be focused on now. Next, is improving his sleep. And we talked about a lot of these concepts, but we again, the science shows that that is when the kind of neural pathways, the synapses get formed is in your sleep. And sleep, I agree is essential. And it's in my book as one of the other kind of pillars of metabolic health is making sure that you get good quality sleep.
Brian Keith
I'm gonna put words in your mouth, and you can throw them out if you want, you can do perfect at the other six pillars of metabolic health. But if you fail at the sleep pillar consistently, you're still doomed. Agree, disagree?
Dr. Philip Ovadia
Yeah, I think everyone knows that what you're eating is really first and foremost. But I would probably put getting adequate sleep as number two on that list in terms of your pillar of health, because you certainly can't outrun the bad diet, everyone knows. And if you're not sleeping adequately, you are going to have a very hard time maintaining good health.
Brian Keith
Storytime. Back when I was a private security guard. There, I was walking down the train uniform in my fake cop, a train platform or a fake cop uniform. And I opened my eyes, because I felt something shift. And I tried to figure out I'm walking like, it was this is the morning train shift. And this was after a graveyard shift, maybe on patrol. And I looked behind me. And there was one of those huge metal pillars the holds of train stations. And apparently, as far as I can tell, I was walking straight towards this pillar, my eyes closed, I fell asleep. As I was walking, kept on walking, my body noticed I was about to run face first into a big chart pillar, shifted me to the left and kept me walking as I woke up. That's astonishing. I got an intimate experience with myself working graveyard security.
One time, I almost drove off a freeway that was exciting, like into the gravel. And I got a really exquisite sense. And so, years later when I got into mountain climbing, because mountain climbing a lot of it as you get up at 10pm or midnight to go to your big climb. A lot of that is you're utterly exhausted by you're doing very hard labor in a foreign environment that's dangerous. And like, wow, I have a pretty good understanding of fatigue because I have been there for a long time while working graveyard security. It was actually a really useful adaptation. Which part of that story, Jack, do you want to dive into?
Dr. Philip Ovadia
I was just gonna say and on that note, if you want to know more about sword fighting, mountain climbing, working private security, and it can help not only your business but all other aspects of your life. How do we how do people connect with you, Brian?
Brian Keith
My podcast has something for everyone. I promise you That's it RedBeard dot AM like the old radio because I'm old. I realized after I chose that domain that some folks wouldn't get the choke. But
Jack Heald
You do not get to say, "I'm old."
Brian Keith
Well do you get the joke though, Jack?
Jack Heald
I have children older than you.
Brian Keith
Hush your mouth. Do you get the joke?
Jack Heald
Yes, I get I get it. I love it. It's great. Great.
Brian Keith
And then Twitter, Red Beard Brian, that's you're gonna hear me talk about the podcast about mindset culture, politics and times. All kinds of good fun values. Whatever else. Read your Brian there. And then those are really two best places to get a hold of me. If you're curious about what I what did we say off sword fighting, mountain climbing, private security. I didn't mention goat herding on this podcast that I had
Jack Heald
You also didn't mention blues dancing.
Brian Keith
No, that was a really big part of my life for a while too. That's it for podcast once again. Join red beard.com is the place to go to learn more about the red beard accelerator where we get together every week. We get together live we also have a Slack channel. So, for any business questions or questions about sleep deprivation and how it can make you into a zombie, or any aspect of your business or optimizing your life. Join red beard.com is the best place there.
Jack Heald
I can confirm joining red beard dot com has been one of the better decisions I've made here in the last well it was this year that I joined if you're serious about cleaning up your business life, cleaning up the systems that you may or may not have in place and making them more effective and more efficient. I cannot recommend it too highly. I have it's been a very I just got my invoice I guess yeah. Yesterday, and it's money that I gladly pay every month on what we what he's worth. I'm very pleased.
Brian Keith
On that Jack that there's being having some of your invisible thought patterns and systems exposed to you. But then there's the deciding to take action to change them and bring it back to metabolic health. Phil, you sold a lot of books now, some of those people have opened it up, read through and gone, holy smokes, and taking drastic action or even some action. Some folks who read through it said holy smokes and put it back on the shelf and reach for the ice cream that they bought in point three seconds yesterday. And so, it's this willingness to take action on new information, willingness to look at what are the systems that I'm using to operate my life with and being willing to change some of them that we all want, as once again, is Jocko says we all want freedom. Discipline is the only way to get it. And your book is what shows us like here's the here's an arrow pointing at the kind of discipline that people need to have - if they want to see change.
Dr. Philip Ovadia
Yeah, I think that probably was a theme of this discussion that if you want to improve any aspect of your life, the first step is being intentional about that aspect of life.
Jack Heald
Good stuff. Well, I think we've done our business for the day. For Dr. Philip Ovadia, I am Jack Heald. This is the Stay Off My Operating Table podcast. I recommend if you wonder if you might be amongst the 88% of Americans who are metabolically unhealthy you can find out for yourself, go to Dr Ovadia's website at I fix hearts.co That's I fix hearts.co He's got a metabolic health quiz there. It'll help you real quickly know whether or not you need to take some serious action if you don't know that already. You can also follow Dr. Ovadia on Twitter at I fix hearts. We'll talk to you next time.