Finding a Higher Level Consciousness Through Extreme Biohacking and Spirituality, Part 2 of 2 with Luke Storey

In this Episode

• [02:44]Stephan asks about something that Luke touched on in the previous episode: that he had a sordid past. Luke and Stephan then discuss disempowering beliefs, and Luke explains some of how his mind works.
• [07:07]Luke jokes about needing friends like Stephan, who is willing to call him out and challenge him. He and Stephan talk about different kinds of memory.
• [11:39]We learn about StrengthsFinder, which Luke and Stephan have both mentioned already in this conversation.
• [14:47]Luke tells us what his top five strengths are according to StrengthsFinder, and goes into more detail about what some of them mean.
• [18:50]Luke’s fifth top strength is being a relater, which is in alignment with what he does professionally. He also talks about the potential benefits of understanding other people’s top five strengths.
• [22:38]Stephan suggests that listeners buy the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book to get the StrengthsFinder code and then go take the test.
• [27:02]For Stephan, Luke’s mention of getting people in the right seat on the bus reminds him of the book Good to Great by Jim Collins. He and Luke then talk about another kind of assessment.
• [32:18]Luke was recently in New York City; he shares a story about something that happened to him there.
• [34:28]How did Stephan learn to catch people’s unproductive words about themselves?
• [38:32]Luke flips the interview around by asking Stephan what have been the most meaningful tactical things he has applied when learning to observe one’s speech and thoughts?
• [41:00]We learn that Luke has an affirmation on the mirror that he reads to himself every morning.
• [44:13]Stephan returns to the topic of the DiSC Profile to wrap up that part of the conversation.
• [46:44]Luke found the book The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks to be very useful in his journey.
• [49:04]What are some of Luke’s favorite sleep hacks? In his answer, he discusses temperature, light, and noise.
• [53:31]Luke discusses how he tracks whether he’s sleeping well.
• [57:14]We learn that Luke doesn’t take sleep supplements now, but used to make what he called “knockout punch.” He also talks in depth about different kinds of light.
• [65:52]Stephan recommends a couple other episodes that listeners should check out.
• [66:54]Luke talks about f.lux as opposed to Iris. The consensus, he says, is that f.lux doesn’t do enough and Iris is superior.
• [71:11]Stephan offers a couple closing resources to listeners, with suggestions for earlier Get Yourself Optimized episodes to listen to.

Jump to Links and Resources

Luke, it’s great to have you back for part two.

‏‏I’m stoked, dude. There’s never enough time whether I’m the guest on a podcast or the host. I tend to run out of minutes. I’m glad we got to come back and do some more.

‏‏Yeah, I really want to get into the biohacking stuff. We had such a great conversation in part one. Listeners, if you heard part one, listen to it again. It’s that good. If you haven’t heard part one at all definitely go and listen to it. Stop listening to this recording. Go to part one with Luke and just enjoy that and then come back. Assuming everybody has listened to part one and they’ve gotten their dose of all the stuff about authenticity versus being vulnerable, the EMFs, and that sort of stuff. What else did we talk about? We talked about the 99%, the 1%, the physical realm versus the spiritual realm. We talked about mindfulness. One thing that you touched on and I really wanna delve into, I don’t know, you tell me where the line is, because we’ll go as far as you wanna go and not any further. You had mentioned, just in passing, in the previous episode that you had a sorted past. I got really intrigued. I wanna hear how sorted it was.

‏‏That’s funny. First off, I wanna commend you. I’m really impressed with the fact that you remembered even five solid bullets from our prior conversation which was only a week ago. I always find it interesting when people have memory recall like that because it’s something that, for whatever reason, has always eluded me since I can remember, no pun intended.

‏‏Wait a second, I gotta stop you here because this is gonna be powerful for you and for all of our listeners. You’ve just created a powerful kind of mantra in relation to your identity, saying that you always have a problem with your memory.

‏‏Right.

‏‏That’s not true. Nobody always or never has anything.

‏‏You’re going into Byron Katie territory here, “Oh, really? You always have a problem with that?” I love it.

There are no true beliefs, there are only disempowering beliefs, or empowering beliefs. – Tony Robbins

‏‏It doesn’t serve you. As Tony Robbins says, ‘there are no true beliefs, there are only disempowering beliefs, or empowering beliefs’ and which one is this?

‏‏Disempowering, yeah. Thank you for catching that, because that’s something I work on a lot, not only my thought processes but just my language. There’s another one I do like that too which is I always talk about how I’m so bad with numbers, and math, and taxes, and money. I wasn’t born for that realm and I think it does self-perpetuate more of the same. Thank you for catching that.

‏‏Well, even in your explanation, you added more disempowering beliefs in there.

‏‏You’re NLP-ing me, dude.

‏‏It’s true though. You just said something about how you weren’t wired that way from birth, is that true?

‏‏No.

‏‏Can you know with absolute certainty that’s true? I’m using the work of Byron Katie’s stuff.

‏‏I love it. I love it.

‏‏How does that thought make you feel?

‏‏Right. It doesn’t make me feel awesome and powerful.

‏‏No. It’s not true even.

‏‏Right.

But in actuality, this isn’t even true. You have this faulty belief that you’re bad with numbers, that you’re bad with your memory, that you’re bad with money. These aren’t true things. You are creating that reality for yourself by believing that and the most powerful force in our personality is our desire to be consistent with our personality, with our view of ourselves with our identity, this is according to Tony Robbins, and I completely believe it. If you have this as part of your identity that I’m not good with numbers, that I’m not good with my memory, that I’m not good with money, or with financial stuff, you’re gonna find lots of evidence to back that up. You’re gonna ignore your reticular activating system is gonna be fine-tuned to find all that evidence.

‏‏Right.

‏‏It’s gonna ignore all that stuff to the contrary.

‏‏Well, you know what’s funny, is looking at that in reality too is that because one of my top five strengths is input. I’m just constantly obsessed with digesting data, and taking in data, and just learning, and learning, and learning my inputs are really high. It’s funny that I think of myself as someone who has a bad memory because, I think, what my mind does, probably in somewhat of a reaction to having that propensity to just wanna learn more and take in more information is it tends to dispose of CPU space that’s not necessary. In other words, there’s no reason for me to remember the bullet points of our last conversation so my mind just goes, “Oh, we’re done with that,” and moves on to memorizing something that is useful in this moment or that I can take in a long term. When I do my podcast, I interview people or I’m interviewed as we’re doing now or about to do, I actually know a lot. I’m one of those guys that knows a little about a lot of stuff. I actually do have quite a memory and that I’m a very rich source of information.

‏‏You are a rich source of information. It’s not true that you know a little about a lot.

‏‏A little about a lot.

‏‏Obliterate all these disempowering language patterns from your vocabulary.

‏‏See, I need friends like this. I’m always kind of the one who’s leading the charge and many of my friends are people that I’ve worked with as a mentor and that kind of capacity. I don’t have a lot of people in my life that call me out when they spot things. I’m the caller out to others. I appreciate the observation, that’s great.

‏‏Find a new peer group then who’s gonna challenge you. If you’re the smartest one in the room, you’re in the wrong room.

‏‏Absolutely. I do actually have quite a few brilliant friends but I don’t think any of them are as finely tuned to kind of call me out on that. Yes, thank you for that, for all of that, dude. It’s amazing.

You’re welcome. I wanna let our listeners in on what we’re just discussing about your top strengths. One of your top strengths being input. I think many of our listeners are not familiar with StrengthsFinder. Let’s clue them into how you found out that input was one of your strengths and incidentally, that’s one of my top five strengths too.

‏‏Oh, cool. It’s also one of Neil’s, the kind gentleman that I learned about that book from. I think a lot of people that I gravitate towards as friends and colleagues have that too just this thirst for knowledge. I’m not skirting the question about my sorted past, by the way, listeners.

‏‏I’m gonna come back to that and by the way, I need to come clean on something. I actually referred back to my notes from the previous episode so that I would know what we talked about because I didn’t feel the need to retain that information either.

‏‏That’s great.

‏‏Input isn’t about being able to remember every minute detail about everything. That’s the didactic memory and there are very few people that have that. If you do, that’s an amazing gift but it’s also kind of a curse because you’re retaining all this useless rubbish like things, I don’t know, people’s license plate numbers, and you’ll never see them again and stuff. It’s a blessing and a curse. But what you have is a real gift and that you can discern what is worth maintaining, and what’s worth keeping in your long term memory, and the stuff that’s not valuable long term, you shed it. Short term memory’s there and then it’s gone because you don’t need it. You gotta have good garbage collection and that’s what you’re able to do. If you change that languaging and that belief around your memory, I used to believe my memory was not so good and it was getting worse over time. How empowering of thought is that? Not very, right?

‏‏Right.

‏‏I realized that this was not leading to a very good destination so then I found a better truth which was that actually, I’m very good at remembering numbers. I can remember phone numbers, and addresses, and stuff from my childhood, from…

‏‏Woah.

‏‏If you think about the way the brain works or actually more than half dozen or dozen memory gadgets in our brain. Different parts of our brain remember different kinds of information which make sense, our visual cortex is for remembering visual memories. Well, numbers go into a different part of our brain. I’m really good with that. When I was thinking that I actually am not very good with my memory, that was denying the truth that I’m actually very good at memorizing or remembering numbers even if I don’t need to remember them.

‏‏That’s cool.

When you remember people’s names, that conveys that they’re important to you.

‏‏That started me down this new journey that, “Okay, now let me find this new belief system around my memory getting better and better.” Then I learned another piece that really helped which was when you remember people’s names, that conveys that they’re important to you, I care a lot about people, so I should really care about remembering their names. I didn’t use to. I would actually have this disempowering belief that I’m not good with people’s names. That doesn’t serve me and it also denies the value of the person that I’m in communication with. When I had this new paradigm shift that, “Alright,  I’m gonna make it a point to remember this person’s name because that’s gonna help them know that they’re important to me.” Then I became amazing at remembering people’s names.

‏‏Wow. That’s cool.

‏‏Now, I’ve got this empowering belief that my reticular activating system is fine-tuned to find more and more evidence that my memory is actually getting better over time.

‏‏Right, totally. That’s amazing, dude. Speaking of memory, I remember that you wanted to cover not only my sorted past but then subsequently StrengthsFinder, I wanna give the audience a heads up to that because what it is is a personality assessment test in a short book that goes along with that. That and the DiSC test, and Myers-Briggs, and anything like that that I’ve found, has been extremely useful. But that was the entry point for me with StrengthsFinder 2.0, I think it’s called. Maybe there’s a later iteration of it now.

‏‏It’s still StrengthsFinder 2.0.

‏‏It is? Okay. It was given to me by our mutual friend Neil Strauss as part of the mastermind group that I know we’ve talked a lot about. It was just something that, I don’t know, I think was passed out and it was part of our kind of homework in one of the intensives or something. I took it and it’s a multiple choice kind of check the boxes little landing page essentially that you get when you buy this book for $20. They give you the code and you access the test. But the answers that came back was so spot on, it was like I’m looking over my shoulder thinking…

‏‏Spooky, isn’t it?

‏‏Yeah. I’m like, “Has someone been hacking my Gmail? How the F did these people know my personality so well?” It was so spot on. I think mine were empathy, input, relater, I can’t remember the other ones offhand, not to give power to not having a memory but…

‏‏Well, you just didn’t consider it important.

‏‏No, no.

‏‏See, I do. I can rattle mine off. Futuristic is my first one, and then input, and then ideation, and strategic, and learner.

‏‏That totally makes sense for your personality.

‏‏Yeah. For people who are familiar with StrengthsFinder, they’ll be able to get the power that. The way I present it, the reason why I remember it so well is because it’s important to me when I’m pitching prospects on SEO engagement or online marketing engagement. I tell them, “Hey, you’re working with somebody who has this unique mix of being able to come up with creative campaign ideas like Ad Agency Creative Director but also to get into details and the technology. Somebody who’s such a tech geek. I taught myself assembly language when I was a little kid and your program did hexadecimal on stuff.” I’m like, “Woah, that’s super, uber geek.” I’ve got both. Here’s how that manifest. I got the strategy through my strategic. I’ve got ideation. I’m able to come up with all these different crazy ideas but I have this huge file cabinet in my brain of all these past campaigns that other agencies did, and other brands, and so forth that I can pull from, that’s input. Then my futuristic, I can see their future, it’s like my superpower being able to look into the future, and see where things are heading, and give you the campaigns, those link building strategies, and techniques that will get you to where you wanna go in the future because I can see where the future’s heading. I have this whole thing around my top five strengths in StrengthsFinder.

‏‏Right.

‏‏If you had that, if you had that kind of a story that you could pitch, you would remember all five.

This thing about StrengthsFinder is you’re not looking at the things that you have less aptitude for, you’re finding the things that you have strengths in and you’re capitalizing on them.

‏‏Right. Well, you know what, I actually do now that you’re talking. I know my number one is empathy, it’s like, “Wow, what a great quality to have as a great podcaster.” As someone who’s having conversation with people. Input is number two. Then the one that I didn’t think of was adaptability. It’s funny that didn’t come to mind because that’s so inherent to my personality. For example, how adaptability goes for me is say we have plans and I’ve gone out of my way to prepare for a weekend trip that we’re gonna go on, “Hey, we’re going on with some buddies over here, over there. We’re going camping,” let’s say. I’ve got the car packed. I’m all ready to go. I’m looking forward to it. You call me in the last minute and say, “Luke, man, you know what, my wife’s about to give birth, I gotta be at the hospital. I can’t go to the camping trip. It’s canceled.” I would immediately be like, “Okay, cool. Whatever.” I would just go back in the house just like nothing happened.

‏‏I’ll just turn on NetFlix.

‏‏Yeah. I’m actually relieved when people cancel or are late because then I can be more fluid. I got the same thing from my Myers-Briggs whatever. I actually don’t remember those whatever initials I am or the acronym that describes me. But the main point of my Myers-Briggs was also that same kind of adaptability where I actually feel confined by any sort of plan that I just literally make life up as I go along. I used to think of myself as a loser because I can’t keep my schedule on my calendar together. This thing about StrengthsFinder is you’re not looking at the things that you have less aptitude for, you’re finding the things that you have strengths in and you’re capitalizing on them. Rather than putting myself down, “Oh, I’m so bad at calendars and making plans.” It’s like no, I’m actually highly creative because I’m so spontaneous and I am making up life so I’m exciting to be around.” As long as you can roll with that. I really annoy people that have a strategic as one of their top strengths for example. Then the other one was connectedness.

‏‏But see, I have strategic as one of my top strengths and the last thing I would ever think of you is annoying. I think that’s another disempowering, untrue belief.

‏‏That’s funny. Well, I’m going based on feedback from people around me. They are like, “Hey, I thought we were doing this thing at this time.” I’m like, “Oh, let’s just wing it.” They’re like, “No, dude. We have a plan. Let’s follow the plan.” I think it’s only been annoying to people that are predominantly of the opposite trait.

‏‏If they are rigid, then you need a new peer group.

‏‏Yeah. Well, when it’s your business partners, sometimes, you don’t have a choice.

‏‏We won’t go there.

‏‏The other one’s connectedness. That one is so true also because that’s about understanding that there’s an unseen hand that’s making moves in the universe from the macro to the micro, and that every person in every situation, and every aspect of life is interconnected. It’s the way that I see things as kind of a web. One of the ways that that plays out socially and professionally is that I’m a really good connector of people. I think you have that trait too. You’re always like, “Hey, I got a great guest for your show or you should meet this person.” I really enjoy connecting people. I also see, in terms of a marketing perspective, because this is an area of your expertise. It’s sort of like that. How you see into the future of trends that are going to come or things that are going to be of value in the future whether it be a scale of service or whatever. I see the way things are connected. It’s been really good for networking, for me especially with the podcast, because, I don’t know, I just see how myself and other people that are seemingly unrelated, are actually related if you zoom out enough, and how each of us can benefit from mutual support.

‏‏Yup. Well, it’s like a superpower to be able to create relatedness with another person by finding the attributes that are in common with you and the other person so that you make them feel you get their world.

‏‏Right. That’s my fifth one is relater. I am able to actually fit in and relate to a very broad spectrum of people which again, going back to being in alignment with what I’m doing professionally, and what I’m really cut out for. The cloth I was cut from, so to speak, is being able to get on a Skype call or sit down with someone and interview them. I have the feeling where they are emotionally in a conversation and being able to preemptively make moves according to the mood and the feeling in the air, and that sort of those subtleties. But in the relater, I can talk to people from all walks of life, and I’m so fascinated because of the input quality, that I really wanna know where they come from. I can relate to them by sort of putting myself in their shoes. It’s been interesting working with those strengths and seeing how they’ve sort of, as I‘ve allowed them the knowledge of them, and the understanding of them, to really capitalize on those instead of frustrating myself sitting around trying to do algebra or computer coding or something. I don’t wanna limit myself but would not be one of my top strengths. It would be a few tears down let’s just say perhaps. But seeing like, “Man, the more I really focus on those strengths, the more success I have in every area of life.” But not only that. It’s what’s been maybe equally if not more valuable is, every person that I date, all my friends, anyone that I hire for one of my two companies, I like demand that they take the StrengthsFinder test so that I can understand them better.

‏‏Yeah, me too. I do this sometimes.

‏‏You do, yeah. Then I can encourage their strengths rather than being frustrated by the areas in which we’re different. This was, speaking of my partner, Lauren, that we mutually know. I joke around. We’ve had a long history. We used to date. We’ve managed to stay together as business partners and friends for nine years. We’ve been through a lot of stuff. This book was really useful to us because we’re so opposite. I have her top strengths. I have a copy of that book with a couple of close people in my life. I have their strengths highlighted. If ever we’re having a lapse in communication, I go and look at them like, “Oh my god. I’m expecting them to be someone that they’re predominantly not.” I need to remember what value they bring and really celebrate that rather than being like, “Why can’t you be like me and just be more adaptable?” Like, “What? Just roll with the punches. What’s wrong with you? Why are you so uptight?” Then, I look, and they’re like strategic, and achiever, and futuristic, and all the stuff. I go, “Oh, okay. No wonder.” Then having them also, learn my top five, I think it creates more compassion and just improves communication because my partner could be like, “Oh, yeah. He’s really adaptable and just lives in the moment.” I am a planner, and futuristic, and strategic, and all that stuff. Of course, our wires are gonna get cross, but if we have that understanding, then we can weave both of those top five strengths into ten strengths, and sort of maximize our effectiveness and our power because we have an understanding of that. It’s like, rather than our differences making us more conflicted, our differences can actually serve a higher purpose if they’re unified and interwoven with intention.‏‏

Like the power of the mastermind.

‏‏Right.

‏‏As talked about in the book, Think and Grow Rich. A whole chapter dedicated to that.

‏‏Right. Love it.

‏‏The power of the mastermind where you bring all these great minds together and these different strengths and they all support each other to the common goal. It’s synergistic. It’s a one plus one equals five scenarios.

‏‏Right. Absolutely. That’s that piece.

‏‏What I wanna give to our listeners is an action from all that. You guys that are listening, you need to go on Amazon or wherever and buy that book StrengthsFinder 2.0. You could either get it in hardback or you could get it on Kindle, either way, you’ll get the code. It’s a one-time use code, takes you about 20 minutes to take the test, and you’ll get your top five strengths. Every single new staff person even a really qualified candidates that I’m thinking of hiring, I’ll pay the $14 or $16 whatever it is on Amazon to buy that book for them, and then have them take the test. They send me the PDF of the findings, their top five strengths, and that gives me such insight into them. At least do it for yourself and as a bonus, get your intimate partner to do it.

‏‏For sure, man. For sure.

‏‏get your colleagues, your direct reports, your boss, if he or she’s willing to do it, so that you guys can work more synergistically together.

‏‏That’s a great call to action dude. What I’ve found with people, I’ve never had anyone kind of give me any push back on this, because I think most people inherently are interested in themselves and wanna learn about them. It’s a lot tougher buy in and be like, “Hey, buy this book and read about my top strengths so you are easier to be around.”

‏‏Or to, “Hey, take this test, this personality assessment, so that I can identify all your weakness so I know not to hire if there are too many of them.” No, this is different. I wanna know what your top strengths are so I can keep you working in your gift. That’s a win-win for everybody.

‏‏I’ve built an org chart, not like I’ve had a huge company, but my business School of Style, you’ve consulted with us, and at any given time we’ve had five or six employees or something. If something’s not working, we’re stuck or we’re just meeting resistance with our objectives, and then we’ll go, “Oh, man. We never had them do StrengthsFinder,” say, it’s the person in customer service or whatever, we have them do that, I’m like, “Oh, damn. They’re totally on the wrong seat on the bus,” and we’re getting frustrated with them when meanwhile it’s an upper management issue. That we didn’t really properly assessed their strengths. We just threw them into a role. Then started adding on, in our case, just because it’s been a habit of ours in the past that we’re getting over now, thankfully. It’s like putting someone in one role and that is the company growth rather than hiring two more people to fulfill the newly acquired roles that I’ve developed, and do them a StrengthsFinder, and really assign the right people to the right role.

StrengthFinder is a really great way to build intimacy and connection even in the early stages and hopefully set a foundation for more longevity.

We’ll just throw a three or four roles on one person and then we get frustrated with their performance and they become miserable because they’re doing things outside of their wheelhouse or outside of the top strengths. It’s been huge just as a business owner to do that upfront. Say, someone says, “Oh, hey. I wanna come on and do your social media, and your marketing, and your Facebook ads.” “Okay, cool. If that’s what you think you’re good at but let’s try StrengthsFinder.”  We find out, “Okay, they have XY and Z qualities. Let’s never have them interface with people publicly.” They need to be on the backend because that’s not what their top strength is or whatever. You know what I’m saying. I think I just love that call to action because it can save you so much grief, and like you said, to get your romantic partner on board with that, is really fun. I’ve actually done that one. I’ve just first started dating someone even before we’re exclusive or serious. I’m like, “Hey, you wanna do something really fun?” Things like that, it’s sort of just like a neat experience to share together.” It’s like what a great date night. Order in some take-out and do StrengthsFinder and then talk about your results and learn about each other. It’s a really great way to build intimacy and connection even in the early stages and hopefully set a foundation for more longevity.

‏‏Yeah. What you’re describing with like, “Oh, this person is not gonna be in the right seat on the bus. We need to move him here because they shouldn’t be interfacing with the public.” That’s not really StrengthsFinder that you’d learn that from. That’s more like DISC.

‏‏Right.

‏‏Or Myers-Briggs or something where you’re finding more about their personality and what doesn’t work for them. That’s also useful but it’s a different thing. The DISC we should briefly mention to everybody too. But first off, I wanna say that when you said get them on the right seat on the bus, of course, for me that triggered the book, Good to Great which is where you pulled that from right?

‏‏Oh, you know, it’s funny. I’ve heard of that book but I’ve not read it.

‏‏Oh, okay. One of the precepts in that book is to get the right people on the bus. When people invest like angels and VCs into a company, they invest in the management team. You could have the most stupid SaaS model or Software As A Service model on there, and like, “Okay, we can live with that. You need to modify it. It needs different ways but we love your management.” They’ll invest.

‏‏Wow.

‏‏But if you got a mediocre management team and the best product idea or the best product, “I think we’ll pass.” You gotta get the right people on the bus and they have to be in the right seats. That’s the kind of the foundation of that book, Good to Great. 

I have to read that book. I think I’ve picked it up probably from listening to the Dave Ramsey EntreLeadership podcast and kind of following their work because I came into business not really knowing anything about corporate structure. I guess this will segue nicely into my sorted past that you wanted to cover but rather than going – I was thinking about this morning actually, just in my trajectory and how it seems in some areas of life I’m developing different skills later than some people that I know. I was thinking, “Well, what does everyone else do? Oh, they go to highschool then they go to college.” Most people that’s kind of the thing. Then you get out of college, you’re on your own, your parents cut off, and you start becoming an adult out in the world.

Well, for me, I didn’t go to college. I dropped out of highschool. Moved to Hollywood. Got into drugs. Played in rock and roll bands. In my formative years in my 20s when other kids are developing in other ways, I was kind of going through the school of hard-knocks. But I listened to a lot of business podcast and read business books because when you mentioned terms like, angel investors and VCs, I kind of know what that means but not really. I’m the guy that owns a successful company, we gross $1 million a year, not huge, but my fashion school has been around nine years and we’ve done okay. I would say it’s a successful venture. We’ve never lost…

‏‏You’re well respected in the industry too.

‏‏Thank you. That’s true.

‏‏You’re seen as a leader in that space.

‏‏That’s true. But it’s been fun, and interesting, and challenging to kind of become a business owner, and an entrepreneur, and a CEO. I remember when I got CEO on my business cards when we made them, I didn’t even know what that means. I literally didn’t even know what it stood for or let alone if I knew what it stood for what my actual job role was supposed to be. There’s been a huge learning curve for me. It’s kind of having a great idea, and having some drive, and enough smarts to really launch something, and then to get a great partner to help me do the things that I was less good at. But, oh my god. Thank god for books like and people like you to turn me onto stuff so I’m sort of learning retroactively instead of going to business school, getting out, and then launching a startup. I just launched a startup and then put myself through business school for the past nine years.

‏‏I totally get that. You bootstrapped your way to success and that’s awesome. You got a successful business. I believe, this is my hallucination here, take it or leave it, but if you were to change your beliefs, we just talked about a little bit ago, about you’re not good with money or numbers or whatever, and change that like I did with my belief about memory, of my own skill and capability with memory. You could have a 10X business. You could get to $10 million. You could’ve already been at $10 million if you had that different paradigm about your skills with money, and with building wealth, and building a huge successful business. Take that or leave it, take it for what it’s worth. The other thing that I think would be really helpful for you and for our listeners, for that matter, is the Kolbe Assessment.

Thank God for books and people like you to turn me onto stuff I’m learning retroactively instead of going to business school, getting out, and then launching a startup.

‏‏Interesting. I’m gonna write that down.

‏‏Yeah. Somebody who’s very bullish on the Kolbe Assessment is Dan Sullivan who we were talking about prior to the recording here. He’s got an amazing podcast with Joe Polish called 10X Talk. I’m a big fan of that podcast. They’ve had Kathy Kolbe on. She’s the creator of the assessment as one of the episodes. Check out that episode.

‏‏Ooh, cool. Okay.

‏‏It’s such an amazing type of assessment. Different from StrengthsFinder, from Myers-Briggs, from Disc, from all these other assessments out there. You’ll learn, for example, you might be a 10 or a 9 or something as far as fast start. Dan Sullivan is a 10 in fast start. He’s all about creating new stuff but he’s not a finisher.

‏‏Oh my god. Me too.

‏‏He gets people to kind of follow him around and clean things up and finish things up which is not a weakness. It’s just that he knows where to focus and that’s his gift.

‏‏Right. Dude, that’s great. You just reminded me. I was in New York City and I was staying at The Standard, it’s a great hotel. I checked in and I had a nice room. It was probably $400, $500 room, it was decent, beautiful view, and then the AC went out when I was about to record a podcast in my room, so they said, “Oh, sorry sir. We have to move you.” They moved me up to the suite called the Empire Suite which is, I think, it’s $2500 a night. It looks like something out of Scarface. Just 80s opulence. You basically get high on coke just from walking in there. It’s just a really strange amazing boon that I had. I was like, “Oh man, I’m gonna record a bunch of content.” I had my video stuff, and all my podcast gear, I decided to make some content around biohacking your hotel room and all the crazy stuff that I do when I travel on airplanes. I shot this thing and then came back and realized I had over an hour of edited footage which was some intros, outros, a little extra contextual video bits, and PDFs.

I had my first online course which I thought was maybe two years away but my partner Lauren’s like, “Dude, you’re gonna put that up on YouTube for free? What’s wrong with you? That’s your whole life’s work on biohacking. An 1 ½ hour worth of video, that’s a course, dude.” I was like, “Oh, ****.” Now, just going back to your point of starting, I did 15 episodes in a 12-day span in New York. I recorded a whole online course. I produced so much content but then I wanted to just move on to the next thing and just have someone take that video footage and just do the rest of it. The sales funnels, the Kajabi, the editing, the PDFs. I really don’t wanna finish it. I’m held back from finishing it because I’m just always onto the next thing, onto the next thing. I’m so glad that you contextualize that as a strength.

‏‏Well, again, you gotta watch your language because you weren’t held back, you just wanna stay in your gift. You wanna stay in the flow.

‏‏Yeah.

‏‏When you have these language patterns which, you should listen to this recording again, so that you can hear yourself like, “Oh yeah. That’s another thing I said that was disempowering.” You’re not held back. You’re not stuck. When you’re talking about your calendar, I was thinking, “No, stop talking about that way.”

‏‏How did you learn how to catch this stuff? See, because when I’m self-deprecating, I don’t catch it but I’m really good at catching, putting other people down, which is something I used to do a lot. I was constantly putting people down, finding fault with them, and this is a long time ago, and I was very resentful, and hostile, and argumentative, and angry. I was not good with other humans. I’ve worked to overcome that. Now, I rarely have an unkind thought about anyone, and if I do, or word for that matter, and if I do, I catch it usually so fast and stop it before it snowballs into some sort of actual resentment or something like that. Like a feeling or energy behind it just the thought like, “Who’s he think he is? Why did he say that to me? I’m gonna show him. Oh, no, no.” I’d just tiptoe out of that room and like, “Oh no. I’m not going there.” But I’m really good at catching when it’s against others but when it’s against self, I think it, I don’t know.

‏‏It slips through the cracks.

‏‏Yeah. A lot more difficult for me to catch those. It really is.

‏‏Well, it’s just you’re not tuned to catch it yet. Your reticular activating system is not tuned to find that stuff, only in others, because you have assigned importance to finding it in others so that you can help them and you cannot hurt them.

‏‏Right.

‏‏So you can avoid harming them.

‏‏Also, it makes for a really miserable life to constantly find fault with people and put them down. I think, as I’ve become more aware of the tendencies of the ego to try and position itself above others or just above reality in any given situation by putting it down, therefore becoming superior to it. It’s an unattractive prospect and it’s counterproductive to a contented life. I’ve been very motivated to eliminate those thought forms and speech forms from my life.

It makes for a really miserable life to constantly find fault with people and put them down. Share on X

‏‏If you just find that same desire, that same motivation for finding those language patterns directed towards yourself. That’s it.

‏‏Right.

‏‏It’s very simple. When it’s important to you, it will just become front and center for you. You’ll be able to retain it. You’ll be able to identify it. For example, you said earlier that, saw my Myers-Briggs, I don’t remember that. You don’t consider that as important as StrengthsFinder. I challenge you, you probably do remember something that’s important to you, and he’s like, “Oh, yeah. No. I actually know. I do remember all five of my top strengths,” and you did. I bet you could resurrect from your brain, your Myers-Briggs.

‏‏Right. It’s in there somewhere.

‏‏If there was something that was important about it. For me, I remember it because I know that these different four-letter codes, correlate with a different type of person. An INFP which I am is a healer. Once I identified that, “Oh, wait a second, I am a healer. Ohh, that’s profound. I’m an INFP which maps on to a healer. I’m a healer. I identify with that. That makes a lot of sense.” Now, no problem retaining that I’m an INFP in Myers-Briggs. You just apply that – we’re meaning-making machines, you apply meaning to this thing of I wanna be a detective for disempowering thought patterns and language patterns that are directed towards myself because if I am unkind with myself and empathic with myself then that’s going to impact everybody around me. Whatever the thing is the leverage for you. Somebody who would never quit smoking and then their kids comes up to them and says, “Daddy, I don’t understand why you keep smoking cigarettes. I want you to be there when I get married. I want you to be there when I graduate. Why are you doing this?” “Oh, okay” Last cigarette they ever take.

‏‏Right. Yeah, that’s good stuff. Would you say that you, in terms of that, not so much the motivation to observe one’s speech and thought in that regard, the inward-facing ones, would you say that in terms of practical tools for that like NLP, or doing Tony Robbins courses, what have been the–I’m turning the interview around here for a sec. What have been the most meaningful tactical things that you’re applied in order to be able to do that?

‏‏Well, Tony Robbins has been hugely impactful for me. Unleash the Power Within and Date with Destiny. You’re doing Unleash the Power Within in what, two months, three months?

‏‏Yeah. In March. I’m excited.

‏‏I’m excited for you.

Self-worth, self-love, and self-acceptance are my number one target.

‏‏Oh, dude. Yeah. It’s great. I’m really looking forward to it. What we’re talking about right now really is towards the middle of 2017, and moving into this new year of 2018, the self-worth, and self-love, and self-acceptance is my number one target because I have so many opportunities just professionally and interpersonally that have become available to me, and have found it difficult to show up for some of them, because of those limiting beliefs. I think for years I’ve really been working on myself but also been focused a lot of being of service to other people. As I said, just mentoring a lot of people, and coaching people. It’s been wonderful. It’s really rewarding obviously to help people in a meaningful way, and really turn things around for them. But I think some of that inner work like this has eluded me because I haven’t had people around to really call me out until I go through a rough patch and I seek professional help for something, and they go, “Wow. You realize you really don’t think very highly of yourself. For someone who’s as accomplished and has made such a contribution as you.” “I have? What? Really? I’m successful?” I’m the last one to know.

‏‏Well, that sounds like an Impostor syndrome which is a whole other thing.

‏‏Well, yeah. There’s that. But also, the Impostor syndrome is also perpetuated by these limiting beliefs, and these thoughts, these things, “Oh, I’m not good at this. Oh, I could never achieve what those people achieve. How am I even in the room with these people? I don’t deserve to be here.” It’s all sort of has the same base. It’s really cool to talk about this stuff because it’s so pertinent to where I am in my own development right now.

‏‏You and a lot of people,

‏‏Yeah. It’s funny. I have this really great Zig Ziglar affirmation that I read in the mirror hopefully every single morning. I miss some days. As I read that thing and look in my eyes, I’m just like, “God, I can’t wait until I really believe this on a deep level, everything that I’m reading to myself,” because I get to some lines and it doesn’t quite sink in yet. I’m doing everything to really come into my own power and my own worth to be even more effective and impactful.

I’m doing everything to really come into my own power and my own worth to be even more effective and impactful.

‏‏Yes. You’re gonna learn how to do these affirmations in a way that you really believe. It rewires your internal wiring.

‏‏Awesome.

‏‏The Dickens Process is one such way of rewiring yourself. This is something that Tony will walk you through in Unleash The Power Within. By the way, just a quick tip for you and for our listeners, if you are planning on going a Date With Destiny which I will recommend, it’s 10X the value of what you get in Unleash The Power Within. Unleash The Power Within, UPW is amazing, it changed my life, a lot of people who have been long term listeners on the show know that that’s where my journey started where I did the firewalk and that was the beginning of my complete, total life reboot.

‏‏Right.

‏‏Date With Destiny is 10X the value and the insights and everything that you get in UPW. If you’re committed to doing Date With Destiny, it will sell out faster than you could believe because of the NetFlix documentary and all this other stuff, Tony’s super famous, you may not even get in if you wait until March. Sign up now.

‏‏Oh, wow. Okay. Noted.

‏‏Go to the same person that I recommended for the – It’s Kelly Phillips, at Tony Robbins’ company. Just say that, and this is for listeners too, say that Stephan Spencer referred me to you, Kelly Phillips, and Kelly can you get me a good price on Date With Destiny, I wanna sign-up now because I know it’s gonna sell out. It always does. It sells out many months in advance.

‏‏Wow.

‏‏It’s only once a year here in the US.

‏‏He does that one in Florida, is that right?

‏‏Yeah, in Florida in December.

‏‏Noted.

‏‏It’s great. It’s where I met Orion. It’s where I met my wife.

‏‏Ohh, that’s a good sign. Maybe I would have the same good fortune.

Powerful intention gets powerful outcome.

‏‏Yeah. Well if you have a powerful intention, you’re much more likely to get it. If you show up at a say, a family reunion, and you just show up, and you’re like, “Oh, this is fun. I get to see family I hadn’t seen all year.” That’s fine. But if you show up with a powerful intention like, “I want to reconcile with somebody who I had a rift with for the last two decades,” whatever “in my family.” Or “I want to tell somebody that I’ve never told I love them, tell them I love them at this next family reunion,” a whole other level. Powerful intention gets powerful outcome. You go to Date With Destiny with that kind of intention, “I wanna meet my soulmate there,” who knows.

‏‏Right. I love it.

‏‏Back to this thing of – We had all these open loops here. First of all, we didn’t close a loop on DISC. DISC, this is an amazing assessment as well and it will identify if you or the person you are looking to hire, or your partner, or whatever, is not very good detail. If they’re high with attention with detail. If they’re reliable and steady. If they’re outgoing and gregarious or they’re dominant, they’re out there getting stuff done, or if they’re just waiting for order from you. That shows you how you’re wired. You can take the test for free. It’s on Tony Robbins website, tonyrobbins.com, you can take the DISC assessment for free.

You can send your prospective new hires there to take the assessment and just have them forward the PDF to you to review. That’s one thing. Let’s see, what was the other one? The Dickens Process. I also have a great article that I wrote for the Huffington Post some years ago about the Dickens Process which is at UPW, on the third day. Tony walks you through it. It will just obliterate all sorts of disempowering beliefs. It’s very, very amazing. Oh yes, and then the Impostor Syndrome thing. I know we did not get to the biohacking stuff yet.

‏‏It’s okay.

‏‏Impostor Syndrome, I wrote an article on Huffington Post about this as well that I think will be very helpful for you, Luke, and for any listener who, at all, resonate with this idea, “Oh, geez. I don’t really deserve to be here,” or “This is too rich for my blood.” This is a whole other level that I don’t deserve,” or “ I hope I don’t get found out that I’m not really that good,” or whatever. Any of those kind of thoughts sound very much like an Impostor Syndrome. I have it. It’s actually Comparative Success Syndrome. Its kind of related form of Impostor Syndrome which I didn’t even know existed until I interviewed Elissa Fisher Harris. That’s really a fascinating listen to hear about Impostor Syndrome and Comparative Success Syndrome. I think this is an area, Luke, that you should really delve into because if you need to take proactive measures to address Impostor Syndrome, the glass ceiling will be broken. Ou will reach new heights.‏‏

Awesome. I love it, man. I’m glad that you touched on that. I just actually brought up my DISC test while you were talking about it, “Man, do I have that PDF?” Yes, I’m organized. It’s in Dropbox. That’s stuff’s amazing dude. I think another thing that was really helpful for me along this journey is a book which talks about, I can’t think of the title offhand, but it talks about the upper limit. I didn’t even know that I had this sort of – if I get too successful or too happy, I’ll do something, usually minor, but nonetheless, they kind of sabotage that because I’m not used to things being this good. It’s by Gay Hendricks. What is the title of that book? I’ll think of it. I love this whole line of thought. It’s just a perfect time for, I know myself and so many other people.

‏‏The book is?

‏‏The book is called The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. It’s all about, not only limiting beliefs, but this concept of the upper limit where you hit a certain threshold of success whether that be external or internal and then there’s this subconscious sort of limiting valve that stops that success because you’re not comfortable with actually being that happy, and that free, and that successful. It’s a really, really great book. I got a lot out of that. I listened to the whole on the way to Tahoe at one time.

‏‏Oh, nice. It’s very similar to what Tony teaches. Tony Robbins talks about having a thermostat, it’s an internal thermostat of kind of money that we’re willing to make. Outside of that thermostat, too low, and we work to make more money so that we get back into that comfort zone. If we make too much money than what we’re used to and we’re sort of like, “Oh, that’s more than I’m used to making.” That’s why some people can never break into seven figures because they don’t believe that they are worthy of that or that they’re capable of that. Just like the four men at mile. How that’s not even humanly possible. Nobody can be a four men at mile and then somebody runs it and everybody breaks it.

‏‏Right. Yeah. That’s great. I love that stuff.

‏‏Okay. Let’s just do a lightning round here for the next 10 minutes or so of some biohacks because we promised to do this.

‏‏I know. That’s so funny. The last time we ended up just having a great conversation and not getting to any of that but I have a lot in the chamber that I can definitely fire out.

‏‏Let’s start with sleep. What are some of your favorite sleep hacks?

‏‏Oh man, that’s a great one. You know, it’s funny, I’ve worked on so much. There’s the sleep environment, and then there’s your internal environment, and neurotransmitters, hormones, all that kind of stuff, blood sugar, ketones, all the things that affect your sleep. But I’ve worked so much on this and then just recently just added two new things. I can’t tell which one is really crushing my sleep but I got something called an Ampcoil and another device called a Joovv. I’ll get to those because I was doing all this other stuff, and supplementation, and just really trying to optimize, and I got pretty far with, but then I added these two new devices at the same time. Now, my sleep is insanely powerful. Unfortunately, I do so many things all the time it’s difficult to quantify. But back to the environment. Number one is, the room’s gotta be cold. I use two different devices to make sure that happens. Of course, I have an AC but I don’t really wanna waste the energy, and money, and the no-ways of running my, I have a two-bedroom apartment, I’m in the back of the apartment but I don’t have a thermostat.

When we’re cold we tend to sleep deeper.

It’s one of these old Spanish buildings that are very common in, we’re on Beverly Hills in West Hollywood. I have to run the AC in the entire apartment all night which is just like, “God, it’s such a waste of energy.” I just don’t like being wasteful. I found two other solutions to keep my bed cold. One of them is called the ChiliPad, that’s a pad that runs these veins of cold water underneath you. It goes under the fitted sheet. There’s another device that blows cold air either into a custom comforter that you can get from them or I just have it under my comforter, and it blows cold air into the bed. That’s called a BedJet. If people ask me which one I like better, I don’t know, I like them both. They’re both also awesome because you can get a couple’s version where you have two units and then each side of the bed has its own customer temperature, and both of those go from hot and cold. I would never warm my bed unless I was in sub-zero temperature. My room in the Winter in LA at night it’s probably, I don’t know, 50 degrees, 55 degrees, something like that.

‏‏Oh.

‏‏Yeah. That’s just perfect for me. I sleep like a baby. But we’ve evolved to sleep outdoors essentially. When we’re cold we tend to sleep deeper. The other thing, as I mentioned, was of course the light. The only night we would have evolved to see at night would be moonlight, starlight, and that would’ve, of course, be okay because our circadian rhythm would be in sync with our biology and the planet. That would be this communication between the two but because there are so many interrupters of that communication of our biology to the stars, and sun, and moon, and everything like that, we kind of have to hack it now. I keep my room pitch black. I cover any little LED lights, any funny business like that, I cover everything with black electrical tape. My room is so black you can’t even see your hand in front of your face.

That took a lot. I actually had to do it, you’d be surprised, surprising how difficult it is to actually eliminate all of the light from the room in the modern home context. It’s crazy. I had to build these custom-inserts that I put in my windows every night. It’s exhausting. But you know what, it’s paying off in sleep, Environmentally and the noise, I think a lot of people don’t realize how much they’re being woken up at night, and their sleep is being interrupted by noise, especially when living in the city. I use currently, because I live in a really loud neighborhood, right in the middle of LA, I use earplugs. I have an air purifier which is another really important thing to have in your room not necessarily to optimize sleep but just to optimize your health. But I have this really loud fan, and the air purifier, I have earplugs, and then I also have a spare iPhone, just my old iPhone, of course on airplane with no EMFs on the nightstand doing white noise which is in the opposite corner of the air purifier. If you don’t have earplugs and you walk in my room at night, it’s like, shhh, it’s really, really loud.

I have an air purifier which is important thing to have in your room not necessarily to optimize sleep but just to optimize your health.

‏‏That’s funny.

‏‏That’s what it takes to drown out the Harley-Davidsons, and the freaking ambulances, and the trash trucks, and everything in my neighborhood. I’m just in an area that’s really loud. Having silence is also of course really important.

‏‏How do you track that you are getting a good night’s sleep? It’s not just how you feel, you wanna track your deep sleep.

‏‏Exactly. I think there’s a ring that’s called the Oura ring. I’m working on getting one of those but I think that’s, from what I understand in the biohacking community, everyone’s kind of onboard with that, as the most accurate assessment. I’m still using an app called Sleep Cycle. Just an app on my iPhone which I’m sure isn’t terribly accurate but it’s accurate enough where if I wake-up and subjectively, I know I had a really crappy night of sleep, I’d get a 68, and I’m like, “Well, yeah. I already knew that.” If I wake up going, “Damn, I don’t remember waking up at all. I was just out.” I’d get the high 80s or low 90s or even the 100 sometimes.

‏‏Yeah but the thing is with an Oura ring or with the Sleep Cycle app, it’s estimating your deep sleep not based on actually scanning your brain waves. But just your movement and that’s pretty dubious. You’re better off using something that is scanning your brain. I know you tried out the NeuroOn, neuro on, which is an eye mask that has the sensor that’s on your forehead. Did you learn anything interesting about your deep sleep from that?

‏‏It’s interesting. With that, I don’t recall the actual results I got with that. Yeah, I don’t actually recall the data there. But you’re right in that I know the tracking that most of us do for sleep is somewhat vague. It’s not an exact science. But I think even just getting some feedback like that, for me, it’s been encouraging to put more energy into working n my sleep. Because it’s that inner competitive nature that we all have to a lesser or greater degree that makes me like, “Oh man, I wanna beat that. I wanna get my…” My average right now is seven hours and 23 minutes which is, for me, is not enough. I do really well with eight, eight and a half hours. I am on fire. But unfortunately usually, on average, it’s seven hours and 23 minutes. Just seeing that average over the course of two or three years that I’ve been tracking it makes me want to get more sleep. I get closer and closer. Maybe, a year ago, my average would have been seven hours and 15 minutes or seven or whatever. But I think just even seeing, not necessarily totally accurate data is still better than having no data where you’re just kind of floating, and hoping that whatever you’re doing is working.

Not totally accurate data is still better than having no data.

There is the tracking. There’s the environmental. I’m thinking if I’m missing – Oh, the other environmental thing is, oh my god, I’m so glad I thought of this is, man, you gotta get as much electronics out of the bedroom as possible. Now, for me, it’s one of those things, do as I say, not as I do. As I mentioned, I have these two cooling devices, those are putting off, I’m sure a magnetic field. I’ve got my air purifier across the room that’s a magnetic field. I’ve got my cell phone plugged in on the side of the bed although it’s definitely on airplane mode. If I lived in a more rural or remote area, I would probably turn off the breaker to my bedroom, and not have any of that crap going, if possible. It’s tough to totally cut the power off because I want it really cold in my room. Depending on where you live, and the seasons, and stuff like that, but what you definitely want to avoid is having a Wifi router anywhere near your bed, at all. This I noticed a lot when I visit people in New York because the housing there is so, everything’s so small. A lot of are people, I walk in their place and they have their router literally next to their bed because it’s a small one-bedroom…

‏‏I actually think we talked about this in part one.

‏‏Okay good. I won’t be redundant there. That’s the environment. Then in terms of supplementation, I don’t take sleep supplements now, because I’ve got it dialed from some of the technology. But for people that are really having insomnia, there was a drink that I was making there for a couple of years called the Knockout punch. I literally gave this to people just who were like, “Oh man, I’m so stressed out,” and I say, “Well, let me give you my Knockout punch to relax you.” Then they have a difficult time driving home. It’s almost borderline intoxicating. In the Knockout punch, I would use tryptophan. I would use collagen protein powder which I don’t understand the science here, but it’s definitely true, is that the collagen maximizes the effect of the tryptophan. I would say like five, eight, ten x. It’s definitely a noticeable difference when you mix a drink with tryptophan and protein powder. Then either phenibut which is a form of GABA that’s kind of more accessible to the brain, or just regular GABA. Then all of the different roots or not roots, I’m sorry, but herbs like kava-kava, valerian, lemon balm, those types of drinks actually in the drink. Then also doing a probiotic to really get the neurotransmitters that are built in the gut, to make the gut bags, the good bugs happy, and giving them some probiotics whether that be, the other one that I use is non-GMO cornstarch, and then also eat some probiotic food, like fermented food or take probiotics at night as well.

Just keep that gut really happy during sleep and help to promote that. I think that’s it probably for supplementation. With technology, there’s a couple of different things that I’ve found really useful lately, as I was saying where I’m just like, “Oh my God. I don’t know what’s going on. But I sleep so well, it’s amazing,” and that is the AmpCoil which is a pretty substantial self-healing device that was really built to rid you of Lyme disease which it’s very effective at doing. But there’s a number of other applications, we would have to do a whole show about the AmpCoil, it’s pretty intense. But essentially, it’s a combination of biofeedback technology and PEM, Post Electromagnetic Field. It’s a good magnetic field, it’s not the harmful ones. Since I started using the AmpCoil just for a number of different applications, my sleep was just insanely improved. The other one that I mentioned is called the Joovv. That’s a red-light therapy device that’s got near, I think it’s near-infrared and far-infrared lights, which are really, really bright. It’s essentially this big panel. It’s about 5 feet long and you hang it on a door and you stand in front of it naked for 10 minutes a day, twice a day, That does incredible things to your endocrine system. One of which being really boosting your testosterone which, of course, has a cascade effect on your other hormones, and raises your serotonin, and dopamine, and heals wounds faster. It’s just recovery from exertion, from working out that it’s scientifically so viable.

Gett rid of the blue light at night.

There are tons of studies about the use of red lights. One of the benefits I found has definitely contributed to improving my sleep. I also use red light in the form of 8/10 nanometers from a company called Lie Light. That’s an intranasal application of near-infrared, in this case, they have few different spectrums, and models you can get. I plug that thing up my nose, stand in front of this red light, I don’t know, there’s this symbiotic relationship between mitochondria, neurotransmitters, hormones, whatever that soup is inside the body seems to be really, possibly, affected by those spectrums of red light. Lastly, in terms of technology, almost every night I do my infrared sauna. I’ve got my Clearlight sauna sitting right here behind me as we speak, and I’ll do anywhere from 30 minutes to 60 minutes in the sauna. I kind of have a nighttime sort of light routine. The last piece of the sleep which is probably, I don’t know, what the most important but definitely in one of the top hacks I’ve really built into my lifestyle, getting rid of the blue light at night. I have a setting on my iPhone where I can triple-click and turn the light red. I use a program called Iris. I think it’s around $10. I have that on my laptop which I’ve used in the living room a lot, and on my iMac in my office where I am now.

That has a customizable spectrum of light that you can use in your computer. It has a really, really red one that you can put on at night. I think it’s called Biohacker, the BioHacker setting. Even right now, I have that with the setting, it’s called Health on Iris, even the LED light that shine in my face as I’m on this microphone is not that really dangerous and harmful narrow spectrum of blue light. I’m looking at a much warmer tone of light. Now, if I need to retouch photos or do something like that, or someone that was a video editor, you can just turn it off, and do your work, and then put it back on. But the way I did that, so I’ve adjusted my devices at night, and then also I’ve changed the lighting in my home. Again, these are all things that, to some listeners would sound like, “Oh, what a pain the ass,” but once you adopt these changes, in terms of controlling your lighting at night, and you get the results in your sleep, and your mood, and energy, and all that, then you just get used to them. It just becomes automatic. In my apartment, I have of course, floor lamps, and table lamps around.

In some of the rooms like the kitchen and bathroom, for example, there are commonly, this is the case in my home, there are two lights which is on the wall. One of them will control one set of light, say under the kitchen cabinets, or one of them in the bathroom is the vanity, and ones in the overhead light, and the fan. In any case, where there’s a double light switch, I just have two versions of light. A day time light with very bright, full-spectrum, bright white light or blue light. Then at night, I have my other switches in my other lamps that are only amber bulbs. Essentially, everything’s orange and red at night. It’s really easy. When the sun goes down, where I live in Los Angeles, it goes down around [5:00] PM now. At [5:00] PM I don’t turn on blue light anymore, because, guess what, outside there’s no blue light anymore. I’m using just the natural light cycle of planet earth. I’m aligning my brain and my biology with that. It’s actually pretty easy. Then I have glasses that I wear if I go out, and travel, and fly, or drive around. I actually got prescription glasses made that are specifically the spectrum of 550. It’s called BP550. I got those made by a company called Ra Optics. I think it’s raoptics.co or something like that. If you just put in Ra Optics, blue-blocking glasses, you’ll find it.

‏‏Cool. Yeah. That’s been really, really honing in the blue light at night, and switching to red and orange after dark, has been huge, huge improvement to my sleep. I’m sure a lot of your listeners and people are becoming more aware of this. But essentially, the whole issue is that when your optic nerve takes in blue light which is basically any light that’s not orange or red looking, like specially the worst are LED and fluorescent light, because they have such a cool spectrum of light because it takes less energy to make cool light than warm light, go figure. But when your brain sees that light, even for what they say, the study say even I think it’s one second of exposure, which is kind of a long time, you could blink and it would be less than one second.

Sometimes I do that, like I accidentally click the wrong switch, I’m like, “Oh my God! I don’t wanna go longer than a second.” But what happens is it shuts down the production of melatonin, and ups the production of cortisol for up to 4 hours after you last saw that light. If you lay in a bed looking at your fully blue iPhone at 11 PM, and you fall asleep luckily, you say [11:30] PM, and you’re tossing and turning all night, and you wake up at [3:00]AM wide awake, or whatever your sleep issue is, dude, that’s because, if you go to sleep at 11 PM, you might not make melatonin to bring about that really deep, restful REM sleep. You might not get any REM sleep or if you do, very little of it, because your brain still thinks that it was noon two hours ago at 11 PM or whatever. You see what I’m saying?

‏‏Yup.

You have to trick your brain back into thinking it is the time it actually is, and that is really powerful.

‏‏It’s like we’ve tricked our brains by having the convenience of incandescent, at first, incandescent lighting at night, and now all these other really toxic spectrums of light. You have to trick your brain back into thinking it is the time it actually is, and that is really powerful.

‏‏There’s a great episode on this podcast, episode 122 with Chris Keane where we talked at great length about blue lights and how that exposure is harmful to your sleep. He’s the guy who runs the Biohacked division. Dave Asprey has a number companies. Dave is another guest that is definitely worth listening to. He’s like the godfather of biohacking, but Chris Keane is one of his valued team members who is not only an expert on blue light exposure, and heading up the Biohacked division which makes TrueDark glasses. You can just wear those glasses at night to limit your blue light exposure. That’s one option. Another option as you said is to just make everything in your room not emit blue light at night which is a lot more work.

‏‏Yeah.

‏‏Your lighting, your devices, all that. But you mentioned Iris. Do you not like F.lux?

‏‏Well, you know what, they’ve done some tests. I interviewed Jack Cruz and we were talking about how to optimize the light temperature on your computer, and I was like, “Oh, Im good. I use F.lux.” He’s like, “Dude.” Jack Cruz. I’ve heard Mercola talk about it too, Joseph Mercola, that they did whatever some kind of geeky test, and the F.lux really doesn’t cut enough of the blue spectrum out because it’s really tricky with the temperature of lighting. But even what you see to the naked eye that appears to be amber has still a lot of green in it, and green also to a lesser degree, but also suppresses the production of melatonin. It gets very nuanced pretty deep into the science for me. It’s a little bit challenging to grasp the whole thing but the consensus amongst the blue light experts that are highly skilled at comprehending all of this is that F.lux doesn’t do enough.

You’re still suppressing melatonin, and that Iris is in fact superior in just its basic settings but also in its ability to allow you to customize exactly which spectrum of light you wanna cut out. You could essentially, in Iris, if you learn the nanometers that you wanna work with it and that you don’t, you can adjust it accordingly. Even some of the, just native settings in Iris, you can tell there’s no blue. Your whole back screen turns black and then everything else has a red tint. It’s like zero blue light. It kind of depends on how strict you wanna be, but I’ll just add to that, that saying, this is a lot easier for me because I happen to be single at the moment, and I’m not cohabitating with a girlfriend or wife at the moment. As you said, I’m gonna manifest that, this year, if it’s in the divine plan, but some of this stuff is a difficult buy in.

You can kind of become a, based on my experience, kind of a crab and a buzzkill, if you’re like, “Don’t hit that light switch.” If your partner’s not on board with all this crap, which is not crap, it’s actually really science and prevents cancer, but because melatonin is also the biggest fighter of cancer within the human body, it’s another conversation, but if you can’t get your partner on board, then yeah, the easy answer is you get your TrueDark glasses and you can get a little prescription insert even for those. Your partner will be less annoyed with you, they just might not wanna have sex with you because the glasses are kind of dark.

‏‏You’ll look like a bug.

Yes! It’s like either you’re annoying or attractive to your partner. You gotta pick. But hopefully, I think, what just happened in my experience is, some lifestyle things like that when I’ve lived with a girlfriend, they don’t adapt to all the stuff I’m into, because listen, man, they’re an autonomous human being, but there are some of those things like, I found, they actually start to like the amber lighting in the house at night and then it’s not such a big fight.

‏‏Springwater and all of that sort of stuff.

‏‏Yeah. My last girlfriend was cool with all the orange lighting but then when it came time to watch, to binge-watch Walking Dead or something, she’s like, “Dude, we’re not putting the TV on the orange setting or whatever,” She’s like, “Wear your stupid glasses.” Because I would wanna have, not the TV, but my laptop, I would have my filter in there. She’s like, “Really dude? I wanna watch this for real. I’m not gonna watch a red screen.” Then I’d put on my glasses. You make concessions in order to accommodate whoever’s around, but I think, really optimizing the lighting in the house is not that big of a buy-in once your roommate or whoever gets used to it because it actually, will help their sleep, and it’s so relaxing in the home at night to have lighting that is congruent with the lighting outside. You have this innate sense that you’re at home and it’s just cozier.

The last thing I’ll give on that is if you do decide to go whole hog and change the lighting inside your home, don’t forget that light inside the refrigerator. Now, mine is just a bulb that you can screw out so I replaced it with an orange LED bulb. Some lighting in really modern refrigerators are just too crazy and you can’t stop it which sucks. But I would, in fact, not buy a refrigerator unless I had the capacity to somehow put a filter or just change the bulb inside. Because you’ll have your place all dialed in, you’re like, “Sweet. I’ve been building up my melatonin for two hours, it’s 10 PM, it got dark at 8 PM, I got it all,” and then you open the fridge and you get blasted with what your brain thinks is noontime sunlight at the equator. Do you know what I mean? It sucks. That’s the last tip I’ll give on that.‏‏

Alright, this is whole awesome stuff. We gotta close out the interview. I wanna give a couple of resources to our listeners first. One is the Dave Asprey episode, which is, let me tell you the episode number here. It’s episode number, okay, we’ll fix this in editing here. First, I wanna give the Dave Asprey episode to our listeners. That’s episode number 38. The second one is an episode with Dr. Michael Breus, who is the sleep doctor. He’s awesome. He’s got a great book called, The Power of When, it’s all about figuring out your chronotype.

‏‏Oh! That’s another one of those personality tests. I took the test and I got the result that they knew I would get.

‏‏Yeah.

‏‏Which was whatever the night one is, I’m like, “Oh yeah, I hit peak time at midnight.” It’s just always been that way, but then, I didn’t wanna find that out.

‏‏You’re the wolf. Yeah.

‏‏Yeah the wolf, but I didn’t wanna find that out because I think of that as a limiting belief because I wanna turn into a person whose in sync with the rest of the damn planet and goes to bed at a decent hour, and wakes up at [7:00]AM, and is ready to do stuff by [9:00]AM. I’m literally not ready to interface the world until [11:00]AM but preferably by [12:00]PM or [1:00]PM. I’ve been fighting that my whole life because I’m not in sync with society. No one else is really on that schedule except drug addicts or losers, you know what I mean, like sleeping all day.

‏‏Yeah. That’s definitely disempowering what you’re thinking there. I took the quiz and I ended up getting assessed as a wolf, as well. I don’t see it as a limiter. I don’t see it as I’m in sync with the drug addicts and the losers. That would all be disempowering beliefs. Instead, I see that as just more information.

‏‏It is. It’s useful but dude, it’s annoying though. I’m telling you. To me it’s very irritating because I don’t want to be behind when I wake up. It actually adds more stress to my life because I get up and I’m ready to start to work at [12:00]PM, well, all the weirdos that are not morning people have been up emailing me since [6:00]AM. They’re waiting for responses. I’m kind of always a day behind because the rest of the world is up seemingly doing stuff early especially the people on the east coast.

‏‏But then, you could still say the same thing about people being on the east coast emailing you all morning if you got up and started working. I make my calendar available starting at [9:00]AM.

‏‏Wow! How do you do that?

‏‏Well, it’s fine. But if I felt compelled to please people on the east coast then I might make it [6:00]AM or [7:00]AM. Now, why am I gonna do that? I am in charge of my own happiness, and so I’m in control and it’s my boundary to set as far as what I’m willing to tolerate because you get in life what you’re willing to tolerate.

‏‏Yeah.

‏‏Anyways, with that, I’ll just leave the episode number with you guys. Michael Breus episode is 58. Of course, you guys all need to subscribe and listen to Luke’s podcast. The Life Stylist. It is awesome. As you can tell, I’m sure from just our two conversations that we had on the show. The URL for the Life Stylist is what?

‏‏Well, if you just go and do the, or if you just search for the podcast, The Life Stylist, or you put my name Luke Storey, it’ll pop right up. All the stuff that I do can be found at lukestorey.com. My site has all my podcasts. I guest on a lot of podcasts and host a lot of them. Those are all there. I do tons of videos and all kinds of things that live there. On social media, the one that I am most active on is Instagram. I do tons of very, I think, engaging Instagram stories and Instagram lives, because I have a real freedom with Instagram live, because I know it’s disappearing in 24 hours. I do a lot of self-experimentation and just very authentic content there because I don’t risk it staying alive in the interweb forever. Yeah, those are the three places best to find me.

‏‏Alright. Awesome. Well, thank you, Luke. Thank you, listeners. We’ll catch you on the next episode of Get Yourself Optimized. This is your host Stephen Spencer signing off.

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