Doctor Explains: Healing Your Gut Won't Work Until You Heal This

Dr. Will Bulsiewicz reveals a profound connection between your gut and your total well-being: 70% of your immune system resides in your gut lining. The quiet enemy? Chronic inflammation, which is silently eroding your energy, focus, and long-term health. You aren't just drained from a busy life; you're inflamed because your gut microbiome is compromised. This inflammation triggers a cascade of symptoms that many have come to view as "normal."What sets this conversation apart is Dr. Will's deeply personal journey. He shares how unresolved trauma, including a decade-long estrangement from his father, sabotaged his health even with a perfect diet. You will discover the specific foods that fortify your gut barrier and calm the immune system. Crucially, you'll also learn why spiritual healing and processing past wounds might be the critical missing link in your health equation. This is much more than a guide to better digestion—it's a path to finally feeling truly alive again. The Greatness Playbook: The Gut Health EditionDr. Will’s books:Fiber FueledThe Fiber Fueled CookbookPlant Powered PlusIn this episode you will:Uncover the surprising connection between your gut microbiome and emotional resilience, and why healing past wounds is as important as changing your dietDiscover why 70% of your immune system lives in your gut and how a weak gut barrier creates chronic inflammation that affects everything from brain fog to joint painTransform your energy and focus by eating the four "workhorse" nutrients that repair your gut lining and calm your immune system naturallyBreak through the cycle of fatigue by understanding how unhealed trauma keeps your body in perpetual fight-or-flight mode, weakening your gutMaster simple breath techniques that activate your parasympathetic nervous system and immediately shift your body from stress mode to healing modeFor more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1878For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Andrew Weil, M. D. Dr. Jessica KnurickDr. William Li Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  70% of your immune system is in your gut lining. That gut barrier, that single layer of cells, it protects the immune system. But if it's weak, things can sneak across that are not supposed to be there. Your immune system gets activated and that's chronic low-grade inflammation. You can't have a war without total destruction.

• 0:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 0:19Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? You're destroying everything around when you're activating your immune system to fight an enemy like if you just repaired the gut barrier, the enemy would have never got in in the first place.

• 0:28Lewis Howes?

  Forward-certified gastroenterologist, internationally-recognized gut health expert and bestselling author of many books. Dr. Will Bolsowitz.

• 0:38Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  There's absolutely 100% clear physiology that explains how our stress and our traumas ultimately will impact our gut. And when they impact our gut, they will impact our immune system and create inflammation.

• 0:51Lewis Howes?

  You could be eating all the right things and doing everything you can in your control to eat healthier, but if you haven't healed the trauma of the past, you still might have a weaker gut microbiome, a weaker immune system because of that.

• 1:04Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  You could sleep, you could meditate, you could try to do things. But if you don't heal the trauma, then you're not actually going to be well.

• 1:12Lewis Howes?

  A lot of people are sick. A lot of people are sick, and I think they're sick and tired of feeling sick. And the gut health is usually one of the main reasons why people are sick. And they're not even aware of it. They might think there's some other symptoms that's causing them to be sick. But based on my conversation with you the last time, some of the stuff that you talk about in your book as well, that a lot of the root causes of inflammation come from the gut, from my understanding, is that correct?

• 1:39Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  100%.

• 1:40Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:40Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah. Yeah, we could fully unpack that, but suffice it to say that in the three years that I spent like preparing this book, and a big part of that was me diving into thousands of studies. The book has over 1,400 citations that I will happily give to you. You just, all you gotta do is click and take a look and you'll see that I'm backing up my words. So, but I reviewed thousands of papers to basically try to understand what I see as the biggest health-related issue of our time, which is in one word, inflammation. Right? Because the problem is, Louis, you could go to five different doctors for five different medical problems. That you don't necessarily think they're connected. You see them as separate issues.

• 2:22Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? And they give you a symptoms based approach, which is basically like, here's five different medicines. And what they don't do is they don't take a moment to step back and tell you like, hey, there's a story here. There's a story because all of these issues are originating actually from the same place. Which is chronic low grade inflammation. So inflammation by itself, I mean, we can dig into this inflammation by itself. It's, I don't want to make it sound like inflammation is inherently bad. Inflammation is life saving. When you actually need it. But what we don't need is a forever war inside of our body. Which is what's happening with chronic low grade inflammation, which is what's happening in America right now.

• 3:03Lewis Howes?

  So what is the difference between good inflammation and bad inflammation?

• 3:06Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Okay, so let me install some, some specific terms. So acute versus chronic. So acute inflammation, you get sick, right? You get exposed to some sort of bacteria or some virus. Guess what? Your immune system is going to step up to defend your body. That is the entire purpose of having an immune system. Which is basically that's your little military. And they're going to take care of you and they're going to clear out that infection. It might take them a couple of days, but they'll get the job done and you move on with your life and you're nice and safe.

• 3:36Lewis Howes?

  That's acute inflammation.

• 3:38Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  That's acute inflammation. So you get your fever, right? You get your fever. You have extreme fatigue. You might have other symptoms. Sometimes people like you get the flu, you get joint issues, right? You get muscle aches, right? You're, you're experiencing acute inflammation. Or alternatively, another example is like, you injure yourself. You're playing handball, right? You injure yourself. Well, guess what? The, the repair process. To restore function to your body is inflammation.

• 4:05Lewis Howes?

  You sprain your ankle, it swells up or something, right? And that's acute inflammation to protect. That area, correct?

• 4:12Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Red, swollen, tender, right? These are classic symptoms of inflammation, but it's acute inflammation. It's time limited. The immune system will get the job done. And then it will go back to basically being at rest, being at ease, not fighting. Okay? Now that is a totally different thing. Then basically an immune system that is being triggered. 24 hours a day. And it's not actually fighting. Anything real, like it's not, it's not fighting a virus. It's not helping you to repair your body. Instead, it's just feeling threatened. It's a little bit like a dude who's so hammered. And he's just swinging and he doesn't even know who he's swinging at. Right? Like this is basically, this is basically, and then how does that manifest?

• 4:57Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So you manifest with these symptoms that you go to your doctor and you say these things. And you don't necessarily get a clear answer or a clear response. So you're experiencing like number one is fatigue. Fatigue is clearly the number one symptom associated with inflammation. Always is there. And, and just to be clear, I'm not saying that the only cause of fatigue is inflammation. Right. I'm saying that when you ever inflamed, you will feel fatigue. Right? So, but going top, you know, from like, from your head to your toes. Could be a headache, could be migraines. When your nose gets congested, whether it's during a sickness or that's seasonal allergies. Or you go to bed at night and your nose gets clogged up. That's inflammation. It's pretty clear right now. That's good. But we could talk about why that would be, because there's actually a circadian rhythm

• 5:41Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  element to why we get congested at night and why it clears up in the morning. Really? Why is that? Well, I don't want to fully divert the conversation into that, but basically it has to do, it has to do with, uh, uh, here's a quick little teaser. Your immune system is nocturnal. Your immune system is nocturnal. And then when you wake up in the morning and you get that glorious morning sunlight. Right? You actually are triggering the release of cortisol. Uh huh. Cortisol is your body's prednisone. It's an anti-inflammatory. So you wake up in the morning. This is why also you go and you get a good workout. And you go to bed and you're not sore. And you wake up and you are sore. Right? You feel that. Why is that? Because your immune system is active at night.

• 6:26Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So our body was actually very beautifully designed. Because if your immune system was like doing its, doing its maintenance work during the day, it would cripple you. Like you wouldn't, you, it would affect your energy levels, your focus, your ability to think. By the way, now I'm starting to like describe some of the symptoms that I was going to get at. Right? It would affect those things. And you wouldn't be able to really be optimally functioning as a human. So the way that our biology was designed, which is like, You know, to me, like awe inspiring, beautiful, is that when we're asleep during that time where we're not really moving around, that's when the immune system steps up to basically like take care of its maintenance work, which includes like if you exercise, it's helping

• 7:09Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  to basically build the muscle mass and restore those muscles because exercise is actually like a form of micro injury, right? To build it and make it stronger.

• 7:17Lewis Howes?

  And so when you're working out, you're causing acute inflammation as well?

• 7:23Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So like not necessarily acute, you're not gonna get a fever from your workout, right? So you're not necessarily causing that, but in a way, there is an inflammatory element

• 7:28Lewis Howes?

  You're right.

• 7:29Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  to a lot of the aspects of our life that we totally sit here and we say they're healthy, right? So exercise is clearly healthy.

• 7:35Lewis Howes?

  But it's creating inflammation.

• 7:37Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  It's creating a healthy inflammation. And that's like, that's like hormesis, right? So hormesis is when you sort of like take the step of pain for the purpose of future strength.

• 7:47Lewis Howes?

  Gain.

• 7:48Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah.

• 7:48Lewis Howes?

  No pain, no gain.

• 7:49Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Exactly.

• 7:50Lewis Howes?

  But the acute inflammation, or the other, what's the other inflammation?

• 7:54Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So the chronic, the chronic low grade inflammation?

• 7:56Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 7:56Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah, yeah, so you could have a headache, you could have a stuffy nose, you could have a sore throat, you get that cough at night, right? That's inflammation. It, it could, you could have skin issues, so like you're breaking out acne.

• 8:08Lewis Howes?

  Eczema.

• 8:09Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Eczema, psoriasis, rosacea, right? All inflammatory. It for women, so hormones are important, right? So for women, female fertility, perimenopause, menopause, 100% there is inflammation there.

• 8:25Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 8:26Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yes, for men, hormonal issues, so like some of the, some of the statistics around men are wildly disturbing. The drop in testosterone levels over the last 40 years, the drop in sperm counts over the last 40 years. I mean Viagra, Cialis, like all these things wouldn't exist if there wasn't a market because of erectile dysfunction.

• 8:47Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:48Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? So not to mention the energy drinks, right? So I'm not bashing them, sometimes I take them myself, but like I'm just saying that. You know, these things or like muscle soreness, joint issues, joint discomfort, difficulty recovering from exercise, difficulty performing exercise. Right? Like when you're more inflamed, go and eat a fast food meal. And then go try to work out and tell me that you can have a good workout.

• 9:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:12Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  You can't.

• 9:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Okay. So there's acute and low grade chronic inflammation, correct?

• 9:19Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah.

• 9:19Lewis Howes?

  And the low grade chronic inflammation mostly comes from the foods we eat? Or is it also our environment, our sleep patterns, you know, and other, and other things that we do?

• 9:30Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Okay. So one of the, one of the core ideas that I present in this book, and I will defend this position, is that your gut and your immune system are completely intertwined and inseparable. So just, just to frame this, our first episode, if you, if you haven't listened to it, go back and take a listen. But just to quickly frame, we have a gut microbiome, mostly in our large intestine, our colon, with 38 trillion microorganisms. Okay. Microscopic, we can't see them, but they actually outnumber us. That's more than we have human cells.

• 10:03Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 10:04Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yep.

• 10:05Lewis Howes?

  So there's more gut microbiome than we have human cells?

• 10:09Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  A hundred percent. You are less, you're definitely less than 50% human. And if we were to line you up as your genetic code, like if we were to like basically have a football field.

• 10:20Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 10:20Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Okay. And every single yard represented, like where does your genetic code come from? All right. One yard would be the genetic code that you inherited from your parents. And 99 yards, actually 99 and a half yards, would be the genetic code that you have from your microbiome.

• 10:36Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 10:36Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yes. 99.5% of your genetic code comes from these microbes.

• 10:41Lewis Howes?

  And where do these microbes come from?

• 10:43Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Our environment. So our environment and, and they're manipulated by our choices. So there's an entire story inside of you. We are getting to the point. We're getting to the point where we could take a snapshot of these microbes and start to basically say, hey, I know how Lewis has been living his life. Here's the food choices. Here's the sleep. Here's the circadian rhythm. Here's the exercise. Right? Here is his connection to his partner. Here is his trauma or history of things from the past that we discussed during the first episode.

• 11:22Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  That like basically your life is a story. And that story is actually reflected, it's told through your gut microbiome. So it's entirely unique to you.

• 11:32Lewis Howes?

  So how do we, if we're feeling exhausted, if we're feeling inflamed, if we're feeling in fight or flight due to what's happening within our gut? How do we start to heal our gut to get rid of inflammation?

• 11:47Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Okay, so the, these two pieces, they're so interconnected. And, and I just want to add real quick that between the 38 trillion microbes and the fact that 70% of your immune system is in your gut lining.

• 12:03Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 12:04Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Okay, so like the bone marrow is like basic training. They get trained up there.

• 12:10Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 12:10Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And then they get deployed and they go and take up and do their service in the lining of your intestines.

• 12:17Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. 70% of our immune system is in our gut lining?

• 12:21Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Is in our gut lining.

• 12:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 12:23Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yes.

• 12:23Lewis Howes?

  So if our gut is unhealthy, we are unhealthy.

• 12:28Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Because basically what happens is that there's a cascade where these microbes and that, and those immune cells, they're right next to each other. And the only thing that's separating them is a single layer of cells.

• 12:41Lewis Howes?

  Huh.

• 12:41Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Which we call the gut barrier.

• 12:43Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 12:43Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? And if that starts to break down, which happens when the gut microbes are weak and not be, not able to do their job. So they are the stewards, the gut microbes are the stewards of the gut barrier. They build it for us, they repair it for us. That gut barrier, that single layer of cells, it protects the immune system. So when it's fortified. The immune cells are at ease because there's no one to fight.

• 13:11Lewis Howes?

  But if it's weak.

• 13:12Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  But if it's weak, which I call increased intestinal permeability, but you will hear it referred to as leaky gut. And I have no problem with that terminology because it's actually correct.

• 13:25Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  When that happens, it's a weak gut barrier, things can sneak across that are not supposed to be there.

• 13:31Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 13:32Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And so then your immune system is like, yo, the bloodstream is right behind me. And I got my, like, literally age old, like, like this villain that I have been fighting

• 13:46Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  since before humans existed.

• 13:47Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:48Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? The immune cells recognize their enemy that they have been fighting for literally a billion years. That's my estimate. And they go, okay, cool. You want to come over here? We're, we're gonna fight you.

• 14:00Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 14:01Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah. So then they get activated. The immune system gets activated in response to something that got across the gut barrier. That's not supposed to be there. And there's, there's a term for this, by the way, for the people who are nerdy like me. It's called lipopolysaccharide. Lipopolysaccharide is the armor that surrounds like E. coli or Salmonella or Shigella, these nasty bacteria. This armor, they developed to protect themselves. And the armor became the way that your immune system identifies the enemy. Like, oh, you're wearing the armor? Cool. I gotta take you out.

• 14:39Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 14:39Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  You're not allowed to be here.

• 14:40Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 14:41Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So, but that process of I gotta take you out is the activation, not in a strong, powerful, you're having a fever way, right? Like, that's not acute. This is the 24 hours a day battle on the inside where your immune system gets activated and that's chronic low-grade inflammation. And the problem is that, you know, I mean, like, to be totally honest with you, I don't love the war analogy, but I feel like I have to do it because it's like, it's the only thing that really makes so much sense, right? But like, when we look at images of war in the modern world, you can't have a war without total destruction.

• 15:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 15:18Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right, you're destroying everything around, right? So when you are activating your, when you're activating your immune system to fight an enemy that just like, if you just repaired the gut barrier, the enemy would have never got in in the first place.

• 15:31Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 15:31Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? If you, if you were to address that, then we wouldn't need to like have these bodily, basically the immune system is causing bodily injury. Right? And so then this inflammation, in the writing of my book, there's a specific table that I tell the reader, you know, go to this page, you gotta check this out. Because I asked this a basic question, how many health conditions are there that are associated with inflammation where I could come on your show and tell you this, but I could also talk to a colleague who's a medical doctor and pull the paper? And I found over a hundred and thirty.

• 16:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 16:07Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And then I turned to the secondary question, Lewis, which is, okay, so if I believe that the gut and the immune system are rising and falling together, right? Then there should be a hundred and thirty studies that also show that the gut is unwell within the context of these diseases? And the answer is yes, categorically.

• 16:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 16:29Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Categorically.

• 16:30Lewis Howes?

  So if someone is inflamed in their gut and they have a weakened immune system, what are the main symptoms that they will have? Or, or they'll feel or their experience on their body with this weakened immune system and leaky gut?

• 16:46Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah. Well, so it goes back to, in, you know, again, like, what I'm describing are common symptoms, and sometimes we take those common symptoms and we turn them into a diagnosis, and that's completely appropriate, that's the way I practice medicine.

• 16:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:00Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  But but what I'm saying is like that the place that it's coming from is inflammation.

• 17:07Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 17:08Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And so it goes back to what we had discussed a moment ago, where it's like, it could be headaches, it could be brain fog, difficulty focusing, lack of cognitive endurance, like you can't get a lot done.

• 17:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:18Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right, easily distracted, like sort of ADD. Right, it can affect your mood, right, so like with clarity, depression, major depression is inflammation in the brain.

• 17:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 17:30Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Total clarity, right, by the way, so is Alzheimer's, so is Parkinson's disease. So these are ways in which the inflammation can affect your brain, but like we discussed, you could have, you could have a congested nose, you could have sore throat, you could have a cough, you could have skin, skin outbreaks, you could have joint issues, you could have muscle issues, you could have difficulty recovering, but of course in the gut, of course in the gut, there's symptoms, right, so bloating was the number one gut symptom that you could experience, could be abdominal discomfort, could be a change in your bowels, diarrhea, constipation, both, right, the manifestation, manifestation of your bowel syndrome. This is inflammation.

• 18:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow, now I'm curious about like, uh, someone getting eczema or breakouts in their skin.

• 18:13Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah.

• 18:14Lewis Howes?

  Is there a way, if you have a extremely healthy gut and a healthy immune system, can you get outbreaks, like can you get eczema or these other kind of rashy outbreaks, or is that all linked to a weakened immune system and a leaky gut?

• 18:28Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So I, I don't want to go so far as to make it sound like the root, the only cause

• 18:34Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 18:34Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  of all of these health issues.

• 18:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:36Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Is exclusively your gut being like basically impaired, right? What I'm saying is with clarity, for all 130 health conditions, this is a contributory factor.

• 18:48Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:49Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And I'm saying that we have an opportunity, because what we're seeing is the gut is unwell.

• 18:57Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And what I'm offering is that we can make it well. And if we make the gut well, then the immune system falls in line with it.

• 19:04Lewis Howes?

  And then other symptoms start to fade away, hopefully.

• 19:06Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So these, these, these skin issues, whether it's eczema or acne or psoriasis, they're all inflammatory. There's inflammation on the surface of the skin. Okay. And the skin has a microbiome too. So it's not just the gut microbiome that's contributing. But there is this element where like basically in that specific area, right? It's not necessarily your whole body. In that specific area, something is off. And it's created inflammation that results in the manifestation of that specific skin issue.

• 19:38Lewis Howes?

  Eliminate inflammation. And it seems like you eliminate a lot of your issues.

• 19:42Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I mean, we can't totally eliminate inflammation, but what we can do is we can, it's like, uh, having your sound system on and it's pounding so hard that it's giving you a splitting headache. Right? And you're not really enjoying yourself in that moment. And taking the dial and being like, yeah, we can turn this down to the point where even the same song.

• 20:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:01Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Actually, you can start to.

• 20:02Lewis Howes?

  Enjoy it. What would you say then are the five foods that people should be eating on a daily basis to optimize their gut microbiome? And their immune system?

• 20:14Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Okay. So I'm going to give you the five foods and then I want to break down for you the specific levers that I'm, I'm seeing behind the curtain.

• 20:21Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 20:22Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Like, what are the things behind the curtain that make me choose these five foods? Okay. So, um, let me, let me go with, okay, I have to start with my classic. It may be controversial, by the way. So my apologies, but I'm going, I'm going straight to beans.

• 20:37Lewis Howes?

  Beans, any type of beans?

• 20:39Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Basically any type of beans. I will accept any of them. Okay. Because to me, beans, these are microbiome foods.

• 20:49Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  They're microbiome foods. The reason that people feel like they don't tolerate beans is not because there's something crazy that's happening inside of their body. What's happening is that their gut microbiome can't handle the beans.

• 21:01Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 21:01Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah.

• 21:02Lewis Howes?

  Why can't they handle?

• 21:02Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Can't handle the truth.

• 21:04Lewis Howes?

  Why can't they handle it?

• 21:05Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah.

• 21:05Lewis Howes?

  If it's good for you, why can't your gut handle it?

• 21:09Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Okay, so this brings us to like a, a, a basic concept within gut health. And it's like very slightly nuanced, not crazy, but it is a little nuanced. It's like exercise. All right, so think of your gut as being a muscle. Right? That muscle can be trained. It can be made stronger. But it also has a quite specific capacity for work. So you can't take a muscle, go to the gym and just like, of course I want to go and bench press 450 pounds and be literally the strongest person in the gym, but I'm sorry.

• 21:41Lewis Howes?

  Can't handle it.

• 21:41Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I can't handle that.

• 21:42Lewis Howes?

  You haven't trained to get there. Yeah.

• 21:43Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  No, I'm working on it.

• 21:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:45Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I'm actually quite, I'm quite happy with where I am at 45 years old. Like I'm lifting the heaviest weight of my life.

• 21:49Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 21:49Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? But to get to that level, it's going to take some time, right? So the same is true with your gut. If your gut is impaired, because it's not doing so hot, right? If your gut is impaired, that's conceptually similar to going to the gym with some sort of injury. Right? Like you hurt your shoulder. Okay, you're not going to go to the gym and lift the heaviest weight. You're going to go to the gym and honestly, it might be the 2.5 pounds dumbbell.

• 22:16Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 22:17Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Or it might be just body weight.

• 22:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:19Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And you're just trying to like basically restore function.

• 22:22Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 22:22Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  To that shoulder. And then once you restore function, you're back on track. And now you're growing and building, right? So this is, this, this is what's happening in the gut is like you take basically microbiome food. All right, so let me break that down real quick. So, so beans, they have fiber. They have polyphenols, they have resistant starches. These three things, none of them are digested by the human body.

• 22:48Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  They are the most clear evidence of a shared lifelong symbiotic relationship that we have with our microbiome. We have third-party sourced it. We have basically said, look, we as humans, we're not able to evolve fast enough to keep up with like the food supply across the globe.

• 23:09Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 23:10Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? You move from one place to the other. Your, your evolution is not able to keep up with that. So we basically said, well, if we could get the microbes from the environment that know how to break down the foods that are here locally, then we would actually be able to process and digest those foods.

• 23:27Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 23:27Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So what happens is the microbiome breaks down the fiber, the resistant starches and the polyphenols for us.

• 23:32Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. So our, our body or our stomach can't break down the nutrients in beans.

• 23:39Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So beans are not just these three things. But what I'm saying is I'm calling them, I'm calling beans microbiome foods because they're the most densely packed of these things. Like go look at the fiber content of beans, right? And you're gonna be like, yo, there's a lot of fiber in there.

• 23:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:53Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right. Well, so what I'm saying is that you are a hundred percent dependent on your microbiome to digest that fiber.

• 23:59Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 24:00Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So if the microbiome is not ready for that, that's conceptually similar to going to the gym and just like grabbing way more weight than your body.

• 24:07Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 24:07Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  You hurt yourself.

• 24:10Lewis Howes?

  So have a few beans, not a whole plate of beans maybe to start.

• 24:13Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Work your way towards it. Like I am, I'm in a place now today where I can smash beans as hard as I want to with no issues.

• 24:20Lewis Howes?

  No gas, no.

• 24:21Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Farting like crazy. Yeah, but no, no, but not in a bad way because basically, uh, in a, in, okay. There are some benefits to farting.

• 24:29Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 24:29Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yep, a hundred percent.

• 24:31Lewis Howes?

  What's the, besides releasing gas and feeling better, what is the benefit to farting?

• 24:34Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  The gas that is being produced when you, like for, for that kind of fart, a bean fart.

• 24:39Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 24:39Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Okay. The gas that is being produced is the product of fermentation from these microbes. So you have to understand that the reason why you get that gas is because they are simultaneously fermenting your fiber to produce short chain fatty acids, which are, so we're here to talk about inflammation and short chain fatty acids, which are acetate, propionate and butyrate are the, hands down, with total clarity, the most anti-inflammatory nutrients that I've ever come across.

• 25:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 25:07Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Like.

• 25:08Lewis Howes?

  And those are in beans?

• 25:09Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Well, you get that from fiber.

• 25:10Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 25:11Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  You get that from fiber. So.

• 25:12Lewis Howes?

  Fibers and beans.

• 25:13Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And fibers and beans. Yeah. So, so, so beans are like so jam packed.

• 25:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 25:17Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah.

• 25:17Lewis Howes?

  If you could only choose one bean, what would you choose? What type of bean?

• 25:20Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Give me the chickpea.

• 25:21Lewis Howes?

  Chickpea.

• 25:22Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Chickpea, chick. Here's why. The best bean for you is the one you're actually gonna eat.

• 25:27Lewis Howes?

  Oh, right, right.

• 25:27Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? So like, I love chickpeas.

• 25:29Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 25:29Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Do you have a favorite bean?

• 25:31Lewis Howes?

  Pinto? I don't know if that's good there or not.

• 25:33Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  All right, Pinto. You live in LA, so it's like in the food supply here.

• 25:35Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, yeah, yeah.

• 25:37Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah, so I'm like a.

• 25:37Lewis Howes?

  But if you're, if you're going chickpea, pinto, or black bean, all are fine?

• 25:42Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Oh, a hundred percent. Go, give me all three.

• 25:43Lewis Howes?

  Okay, gotcha.

• 25:44Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  What my wife does, for what it's worth, is, uh, cause you're, you're gonna, I'm gonna have to teach you some of these tricks now that you're a girl in your family.

• 25:50Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 25:50Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah. We get an Instapot.

• 25:52Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 25:53Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And we will basically like create a batch, batch of chickpeas, and then separately, batch of black beans, and create a big pot to start the week.

• 26:02Lewis Howes?

  Bean soup or just?

• 26:04Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Well, no, like throw in garlic and onions, right? Tastes good. Like actually the flavors are great.

• 26:09Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 26:10Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Salt it, spice it. Um, and then you put it into the fridge. And here's the cool part. When you take these starchy foods like beans and you put them into the fridge and you cool them down, you create what's called retrograde starch.

• 26:23Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 26:24Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Which is basically you have enhanced the quality of the food.

• 26:28Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 26:29Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So you have created more microbiome food.

• 26:31Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 26:32Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And that's incredibly healthy. So you get the same thing if you cool off your mashed potatoes.

• 26:39Lewis Howes?

  Cool, but then you can reheat it?

• 26:41Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  You could reheat it.

• 26:41Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 26:42Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  But there will, there will be, there will be new resistant starches that were formed, right? Or if you take your bread and you throw it into the fridge or throw it into the freezer, also is a trick that you can increase the, the value and, and the glycemic index drops.

• 26:57Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 26:58Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So if you were to take the exact same loaf of bread from room temperature, throw it in your fridge, and then eat it, the glycemic index has improved. Why? Because some of the stuff that was like basically a simple carbohydrate, you turned into a, a, a resistant starch that's gonna feed the microbiome.

• 27:14Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 27:15Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah. On the, on this topic of like great fiber, uh, sources and also a great source of polyphenols, which are the colors in our food. I love berries.

• 27:23Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 27:24Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And so you choose like, do you like blueberries? Do you like raspberries? I'm a raspberry guy. So if you could give me unlimited supply of organic raspberries for the rest of my life.

• 27:33Lewis Howes?

  You'd be in.

• 27:33Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I would take that over like many other opportunities for the, you know? Just give me that, I'll be very happy.

• 27:40Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 27:40Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So, all right. Uh, number three, I'm going, I'm going with avocados. All right, so avocados. I've met like, I think one person, maybe two in my whole life that don't actually like avocados.

• 27:53Lewis Howes?

  I didn't like them until two years.

• 27:54Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  You were the guy.

• 27:55Lewis Howes?

  I was the guy. I was the guy. I literally didn't eat them until two years ago.

• 27:59Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  You scared them or what was the deal?

• 28:01Lewis Howes?

  It's more of a texture thing for me. I don't know why. Yeah, I'm a weird, I'm a weird.

• 28:05Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  You don't like guac?

• 28:06Lewis Howes?

  I don't eat guac. No, it's the texture. I'll have avocado now if I put salt on it. It's like.

• 28:11Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Tastes great.

• 28:12Lewis Howes?

  I can manage it.

• 28:12Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah.

• 28:13Lewis Howes?

  And I'm actually enjoying it now, but guac, I don't know what it is. It's like, I don't know, too slimy or something.

• 28:18Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  You know, I have a rule that you don't go into someone's house and insult them. You insult them and I just did, so I apologize.

• 28:24Lewis Howes?

  It's all good.

• 28:24Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah, okay.

• 28:26Lewis Howes?

  I'm a weird eater.

• 28:27Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I hope you accept my apology.

• 28:27Lewis Howes?

  I'm a very picky eater, but someone once told me that if you're a picky eater, the pickier the eater you are, the more of a genius you are. So I try to just take that for what it is.

• 28:35Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Interesting.

• 28:36Lewis Howes?

  I don't know.

• 28:36Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  We kind of hear what we want to hear sometimes.

• 28:38Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, I'm like, I'll take that.

• 28:39Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah, exactly. All right, so avocado is the key here. Actually, the fiber content of avocados is wildly high.

• 28:45Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 28:45Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  More than anyone would expect.

• 28:47Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 28:47Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So like a nice, medium sized avocado might have eight to 10 grams of fiber. That's a lot.

• 28:52Lewis Howes?

  That's a lot, yeah.

• 28:53Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  But it also has healthy fats. So fat is good for us. We just want it to be good fat.

• 28:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:58Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right, so we can get that from an avocado.

• 29:00Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 29:00Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  All right, uh, number four, I would go with, let's go with chia seeds. So chia seeds, super high in fiber, but they also have healthy fats because they have omega threes. Right, and most of us, omega three fats. Are what we call essential, which means you have to get them from your diet. And most of us are not getting enough.

• 29:22Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 29:22Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So this is why everyone's taking fish oil supplements, which is fine. I don't have a problem with that. But like you could also eat the food that is the native source of these of these fats. And chia seeds are one of the ways, one among among many.

• 29:34Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 29:35Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right. To accomplish that goal.

• 29:36Lewis Howes?

  All right.

• 29:37Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  All right. And last but not least, I'm going to go with kimchi. All right. So here's the deal. Fermented food is uniquely beneficial.

• 29:47Lewis Howes?

  Gosh, it's another thing I don't like, but okay.

• 29:49Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  All of them. You don't like yogurt or kefir?

• 29:51Lewis Howes?

  I like yogurt, but what's the kem? What did you say it was?

• 29:55Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Kimchi.

• 29:55Lewis Howes?

  Kimchi? Nah.

• 29:56Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah, that's not for you. That's fine. So.

• 29:58Lewis Howes?

  But yogurt I do.

• 29:59Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  You gotta find what you like.

• 30:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:00Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah, you gotta find what you like. But like yogurt, kefir, Greek yogurt is.

• 30:04Lewis Howes?

  It's good.

• 30:04Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Super good.

• 30:05Lewis Howes?

  Okay. That's good to know.

• 30:06Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So it's a fermented food. And the fermentation process, it of course involves live bacteria. So like I want the listeners to see this the way that I see it. They just hear probiotic. I get that. But I see like a living ecosystem. Right? There's like this community that's there, a part of the food. They've transformed the food. And then you have your ecosystem inside of you. And you're gonna, you're gonna introduce them.

• 30:32Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 30:33Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And actually, the, there's now several studies to suggest that by regularly consuming fermented food, they can actually like integrate themselves into your gut microbiome.

• 30:45Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 30:46Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So that like, actually, last night I was at an event. And someone, a very nice woman came up to me and she says to me, how can I add more microbes back? My, my microbiome count is low. My diversity is low. And I told her that one of the ways that you can do this is by adding, increasing your fermented food intake.

• 31:06Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 31:07Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And we have clear research to show that out of Stanford.

• 31:10Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that's good.

• 31:11Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah.

• 31:12Lewis Howes?

  So if I do a, a little thing of yogurt every day, if I even avocado and if I had, I have chia seeds in some almond milk for breakfast.

• 31:23Lewis Howes?

  Is that a good thing if I do three of the five? But I don't do berries and I don't do um.

• 31:28Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Why are you rejecting the berries? I'm a bit insulted.

• 31:30Lewis Howes?

  Again, I'm like a pallet of a seven year old. So I'm like, it's like, I don't know the texture, the taste. I don't know what it is about it.

• 31:36Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Dude, the, because the thing is.

• 31:37Lewis Howes?

  Mulberries I like, but I don't know the mulberries.

• 31:40Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Oh, you're very specific.

• 31:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I used to have a mulberry tree in Ohio growing up. So I would like, I could find the right ones that weren't too juicy. That were like, okay for me.

• 31:50Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 31:51Lewis Howes?

  And what about dried berries? Dried mulberries, dried things? So those is good or no?

• 31:55Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah, like you like dried fruit in general?

• 31:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:58Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah, so there is still some retained nutritional value there for sure. But also they can, there's some things that also are enhanced. So for example, they're very high in histamine. So if you start eating like dried out fruit, you might notice your nose gets congested. And that can actually be the histamine content of your food.

• 32:16Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 32:16Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah.

• 32:17Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 32:18Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So, I mean, it's not, it's not like a horribly bad thing. But there are some people out there who have histamine issues that are not just a once in a while thing. It's more of a chronic problem for them.

• 32:28Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 32:28Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And so for them, they have to be careful.

• 32:30Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 32:31Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So, yeah, I mean, I look, if, if, if I had my way, I would, I would figure out a way to get you to love adding berries to your yogurt. Right?

• 32:41Lewis Howes?

  I have to get over it in my mind somehow. It's a mental thing for me.

• 32:44Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah.

• 32:45Lewis Howes?

  What would be an additional one then? We got beans, berries. We got avocados. We got yogurts. And what was the last one?

• 32:55Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Fermented food.

• 32:56Lewis Howes?

  Fermented foods.

• 32:57Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah.

• 32:58Lewis Howes?

  And so for me, what would be one other? If someone didn't like one of those things and there was an additional one?

• 33:03Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I'm gonna try to throw you a lob here. Make it easy for you.

• 33:05Lewis Howes?

  Chia seeds was one of them.

• 33:06Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah, I think you're kind of digging the chia seeds. So I'm gonna play off of that and we're gonna, I'm gonna go with walnuts.

• 33:11Lewis Howes?

  All right. Okay, I can do that.

• 33:13Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  It's actually kind of interesting. Like a walnut looks like a brain.

• 33:15Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 33:16Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And then it's like, it's high in omega threes. It's, God has played a joke.

• 33:21Lewis Howes?

  It's ready, right?

• 33:22Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  It's kind of cool.

• 33:23Lewis Howes?

  I'm, I'm down for all those. I could do all those every day.

• 33:25Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So in the book, I basically discuss that, because here's an important point, and I want everyone to hear this. That um, you can call diets different things. Right? Mediterranean, pescatarian, flexitarian, vegetarian, vegan. And what I actually wrote in the book is, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter which what you call it. What matters is the quality of your diet. So there's a lot of flexibility here. So the diet that you're going to eat is not the same as the one that I'm going to eat. But what I'm saying to you, Lewis, is that if you focus on four main nutrients, you will have an anti-inflammatory diet that will support your gut microbiome and make your immune system strong and healthy.

• 34:07Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And so, and the four nutrients, and we found those in the six foods that we just discussed.

• 34:11Lewis Howes?

  Okay, what are those?

• 34:12Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Are fiber, polyphenols, healthy fats, and fermented food. And so if you focus on those four things, fiber, polyphenols, polyphenols are the colors. So like eat different colors. They say eat the rainbow, right? Eat the rainbow is the same thing as saying what I'm saying right now.

• 34:29Lewis Howes?

  We're not talking about Skittles.

• 34:30Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Don't eat the rainbow of Skittles.

• 34:32Lewis Howes?

  Taste the rainbow. No, not that.

• 34:34Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  That was a taste. Just a taste. So, yeah, but like the healthy fats, you know, like you could throw extra virgin olive oil into the mix, right? If you're going to do oil, let it be that. Let it be extra virgin olive oil.

• 34:45Lewis Howes?

  Okay. So if you do those four things, I mean, if you eat those four things on a daily basis and you, or you add more of those to your, your intake.

• 34:53Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah.

• 34:54Lewis Howes?

  You're doing a lot of good for your gut.

• 34:55Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  A hundred percent. And, and, and the key from my perspective is that you should feel the difference. So it's not, this is not just like, hey, I trust that guy and so I'm going to do it. What I'm saying to you is take a chance.

• 35:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, do it for a week.

• 35:09Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Take a chance, try something different and then see how you feel.

• 35:12Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 35:13Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And if your energy levels pick up and your focus is better and you notice that your exercise is improving and like there's different, different things for different people, right? But like you're, you're going to experience the benefits. And when you experience them, then it reinforces, oh my gosh, I'm onto something here.

• 35:28Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 35:29Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Then you want more.

• 35:32Lewis Howes?

  So those are the four pillars.

• 35:34Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah, I call them the four workhorses because I have this mental image of like, imagine that, that you are, imagine that it's 1870.

• 35:43Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right. You and I are heading west. We're coming here.

• 35:46Lewis Howes?

  There's gold here.

• 35:47Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah, we're gonna get rich. And so we got this wagon, right? But in order for us to get across the plains, you don't want just one horse. You don't want just two horses. At some point, you're gonna have to climb a mountain. Climbing a mountain is like fighting a disease, right? Fighting that battle against this chronic illness, right? So you're climbing that mountain. You want to have three or four workhorses powering you to your goal, right? Because one or two would not be enough. So I call them the four workhorses because in my mind, I have this image of that wagon that you're trying to power up the hill for the person who's sick. Whereas when you're healthy and you're feeling really well, I mean, you could say, hey, I only want one or two horses, but that would be kind of stupid because why wouldn't you have all four Clydesdales rocking?

• 36:32Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 36:33Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And be a total beast.

• 36:35Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Yeah. Go for eight. Give me eight of them. Yeah, let's go.

• 36:38Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I'll have to come up with four more workhorses then.

• 36:40Lewis Howes?

  Double it up.

• 36:40Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I have to go back to the drawing board there.

• 36:42Lewis Howes?

  Stress seems to be like one of the biggest things, one of the biggest killers for a lot of people. It just holds them back from accomplishing what they truly want. And I'm curious, does bad gut health make us more reactive and cause more stress for high performers or high achievers? If so, what's a science-backed way that we can start to calm our nervous system with food that you like?

• 37:06Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Okay, so first of all, stress 100% is connected to our gut microbiome, like without a shadow of a doubt. And basically, what you've led us into is a conversation around the gut-brain connection.

• 37:20Lewis Howes?

  Ah.

• 37:21Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? So they are basically best friends. This is, by the way, chapter eight of my new book. And I have to tell you, Louis, this is the chapter that would resonate with a person like you, but I think it's going to resonate with the readers the most too. Like, this is literally the best chapter that I've ever written. So out of all my three books.

• 37:39Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 37:40Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah. And because there's a lot for us to unpack here.

• 37:43Lewis Howes?

  It's about the the brain gut connection.

• 37:45Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  The brain gut connection, which is the nerdy way of actually getting into the concept of mind body.

• 37:50Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 37:51Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? Um, because like the mind body concepts, allopathic medicine has rejected that as being woo woo. But there's absolutely one hundred percent clear physiology that explains how our stress, our emotions, our connections to other people, our our life of spiritual purpose, um, and our traumas ultimately will impact our gut. And when they impact our gut, they will impact our immune system and create inflammation.

• 38:19Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 38:19Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  A hundred percent. So to to lay this out, because it kind of is a two way street. I mean, you asked me about the role of the gut in the stress. And I'm kind of starting with the role of stress in gut.

• 38:30Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 38:31Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Okay. You know, imagine that you are uh in traffic and you have a near miss. You almost got into an accident, you barely missed it and like zing, like your eyeballs bug out, your heart rate's pumping, your blood pressure's up, right? There's a certain feeling that you get. Imagine that you uh are about to go on stage and while you are very comfortable with this because you've done it many times, um, for many people, that's like extremely anxiety inducing.

• 38:55Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 38:56Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? And so so they get these this feeling of butterflies in the stomach, right? They might feel a little nauseous. They might actually start to feel like bloated and then cramps and then waves of cramps. And then it's intense and it's crippling and folding them over, right? These are all manifestations of very clear physiology connecting the brain to our gut.

• 39:17Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 39:18Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So what's happening is that our environmental experience, basically, um, our brain was hardwired to react quickly to things that are happening around us, right? That way, we don't have to even process. We can just react. This is why you have a near miss in the car. Instantly, boom, you get that feeling, right? You don't think about it before you even process that you almost got into an accident, right? So that's your sympathetic nervous system.

• 39:44Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's interesting when you say that. I used to, when I was in high school, before basketball games or football games, it's like I had to go to the bathroom, you know, almost like ten, twenty minutes before.

• 39:54Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  You were nervous.

• 39:55Lewis Howes?

  Before I was like. Even though I was doing well and I was a good athlete and things like that and I was, you know, succeeding, it's almost like every time there was a game, I had to use, and I was like, almost running late. It was like, warmups are happening and I gotta go run to the bathroom.

• 40:11Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yep.

• 40:12Lewis Howes?

  And how is that connected to the brain and the gut? When you feel like, oh, I gotta go to the bathroom.

• 40:17Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Well, so this is your sympathetic nervous system. Okay, so this was, this is what was happening with you and it's parallel. It's the same as when I was in medical school and you take, you know, basically 200 people that were at the top of their class in college, you put them all into one class and half of them are, are less than average.

• 40:34Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 40:34Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? At Georgetown, right? So there was a lot of stress.

• 40:38Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 40:38Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So there was a line at the bathroom door.

• 40:40Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 40:40Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  A hundred percent. A hundred percent. You had to wait in line to get a stall, man.

• 40:44Lewis Howes?

  So what is the connection between stress and needing to go to the bathroom?

• 40:49Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah. Um, okay. So, so let's, let's play this out. So, uh, within the context of stress, which is basically leading to the activation of your sympathetic nervous system. This is one of two, uh, like yin and yang parts of your autonomic nervous system, which means that your body just reacts. You don't necessarily get to choose. It just happens. Right? So when your sympathetic gets activated, your brain will release a hormone called corticotropin-releasing hormone, or CRH. CRH comes from the brain and basically enters the pituitary gland and then sets off an entire storm throughout the body. Now, this was designed, if we go back to 99.99% of human history, which predates modern times,

• 41:31Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  right? This was designed where if there was something that was going to attack you, if there was some sort of serious threat, right? You, you instantly had the force that you need between your heart pumping, circulating blood, you're breathing heavy, circulating oxygen, your blood pressure is clamped down, so you're getting the blood to your tissues, right? And you're ready to go. Right? And whether it's fighting another tribe or some animal that's attacking you or whatever it might be, that adrenaline saves your life potentially, right? So it's an evolved mechanism. But the problem is, everything comes with a price. So you are accepting this, all these benefits, but you're sacrificing your gut. That's what happens. You sacrifice your gut.

• 42:13Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And so, so that, that like surge of adrenaline, that surge of cortisol, that's out of, out of synchrony, out of context of, you know, I said cortisol is good in the morning. All right. But what I'm saying is like cortisol is not good when it's some random time of day and you don't need it, right? It sacrifices your gut health. And then ultimately what that results in is when you sacrifice the gut health, the gut microbiome, number one, you feel it here. So you might have to go to the bathroom or you might get the cramps or the bloating or whatever it might be, right? So you feel that, that's your gut microbes. That's also your gut motility that has been adjusted by the surge of stress. But then it ultimately parlay's into, okay, so if the gut microbes are weak, then that affects the gut barrier.

• 42:58Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  When the gut barrier gets weak, then that affects the immune system. Now you've just created inflammation. Interesting. Okay. So that's, that's the way that it works with the sympathetic nervous system. All right. So, and then the gut gets weak and then that the gut actually sends signals back up to the brain, right? Through a number of different ways. But when the gut is unwell, our brain can't be fully well. Huh. Right? So if you want to be sharp, if you're a high performer and you want to be sharp, focused, have intense cognitive endurance, you have to nurture your gut. Right? That's a required step in order to get there. Now you can try to power yourself through using modern tools like energy drinks, right? Or, or like Ritalin or something like this. But you're not actually, you're, you're treating the symptoms.

• 43:42Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  You're not treating the source of your problem. Interesting. So it sounds like.

• 43:46Lewis Howes?

  Your brain also influences your gut in these these times when you're feeling anxious or stressed, or there's a pressure filled moment, whether it be a test or a sports game. It's almost like how you think about what's about to happen is influencing the gut or releasing these hormones or whatever to make you either want to go to the bathroom or have bloating or gas or whatever it is, right?

• 44:08Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So these people that have chronic gut issues and it's important like so what we just described was the impact of stress, which could be once in a while, right? We all have that, right? That's not necessarily a bad thing. Your body will adapt and adjust. You're okay, right? But there's also the people that are having it 24 hours a day.

• 44:28Lewis Howes?

  That's a lot.

• 44:28Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? And and in many cases, these are the people who have dealt with something that's trauma. So where the trauma basically like creates a wound in the non-conscious mind. So you are not thinking about these things, right? Because you're trying to push it to the side.

• 44:46Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 44:47Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Because it hurts.

• 44:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:48Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? So that's the thing I don't want to deal with.

• 44:50Lewis Howes?

  Don't think about it.

• 44:51Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah. So but it still exists. You don't you don't get to escape that, unfortunately. So that trauma exists in the non-conscious mind. And what what we have found is that basically this leads to number one, your brain activity is different. So people that have been exposed to trauma, they have hyperactivation of their amygdala, which is the fear center of their brain. So this is like this life of perpetual fear.

• 45:19Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 45:20Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? And then this leads to, you know, if the sympathetic nervous system and what I just described as stress, right, is putting your foot on the gas, then what I'm saying is within the context of trauma, the foot never comes off the gas. You got a lead foot. It's like, you know, Keanu in Speed.

• 45:42Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And you know, just like blasting speed blasting down the highway and you're trying to figure out like, how are we going to stop this runaway bus, right? So the way that you stop it is by ultimately healing the trauma.

• 45:58Lewis Howes?

  This is fascinating. Now, this is something I'm curious about. If someone has experienced trauma in their life in their past and or they've interpreted an event as traumatic, whether it actually was or wasn't, but they've interpreted meaning that it was for them. And it happened 10, 20, 30 years ago. And in their subconscious mind, they either try to stuff it or put it away, or they haven't addressed that trauma, that wound.

• 46:27Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yep.

• 46:29Lewis Howes?

  The mind is not in the body, right? The mind is like an energy around the brain, but it's not in the brain. Is that correct? I don't even know. But the brain is different than the mind. And if you're thinking something, then it's connecting to the brain signals and it's driving down into the gut.

• 46:54Lewis Howes?

  I'm trying to see where I'm going with this, but how much of trauma of the past that is interpreted as trauma that you have not healed? How much of that will impact your gut and really kind of consume your body?

• 47:07Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  We know with total clarity that people that have been exposed to trauma are more likely to have specific gut related issues.

• 47:13Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 47:14Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? So actually, it's my mentor, Dr. Douglas Drossman at the University of North Carolina, who's the one who discovered this. He was a professor of both medicine and psychiatry. It's a unique, unique intersection for being 1980s, if you think about it, right? That's very progressive.

• 47:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:28Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And he studied, you know, where are these people with these gut issues? What is like basically there from before?

• 47:37Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 47:37Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And he found a disproportionate association with prior trauma, including abuse, but not exclusively abuse.

• 47:45Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 47:45Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So the one, one, one point I kind of see as being a little bit important, I hope you don't mind, is that, um, so you use the word interpret. I actually don't think that you get to interpret.

• 47:57Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 47:58Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  It either is or it isn't. So to me, trauma is something that has occurred in your life that overwhelms your ability to cope.

• 48:07Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 48:07Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? So. Whether you think it's trauma or it's not trauma. Yeah. If there is something that has occurred in your life that overwhelms your ability to cope. You don't have the tools to cope with it. Right. So like in children, this is why children are much more vulnerable to these kinds of things. Cause they just aren't yet developed in a sophisticated way in terms of their cognitive capacity. Right. Their cognitive abilities, their abilities to cope with stress, things like this. Right? Yes. So there's a, there's a higher vulnerability there. So if you overwhelm the ability to cope, then you've created a trauma. And that trauma may be something that you know it happened.

• 48:42Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  But you don't necessarily want to acknowledge it. Yeah. In fact, the mind is quite powerful at repressing those ideas and thoughts. The other thing that I would argue Lewis is that there's some fascinating research. I would love to share a quick study with you to prove that the, the book, I don't mean to plug this book up. But I like, I can't help the fact that the title of this book is perfect. The body keeps the score. Right. Yeah, I love it. It's the perfect title for a book. I love it. I don't know if I didn't even read it. I don't even know if it's a good book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's good. Okay. I mean, it's, it's more academic, but it's, yeah. It's like New York Times, like. Yes, crushing. Yeah. For like 10 years, but um, it's the perfect title. The body keeps the score is so true.

• 49:20Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So there was a study that they did with children where they looked at kids who were adopted before age two. Okay. They have no recollection of these events. None of us can remember before age two. Right. Right? So I used to believe that if you can't remember it, it doesn't count. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But. Unless you've suppressed it. Yeah. Well, and I've, I've now learned both in my own life and in this particular study to prove it. I was wrong. Really? I was definitely wrong. The body keeps the score. So they looked at children who were adopted before age two. And they looked at kids that came from like a normal family and. Not, not adopted. Not adopted. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 50:04Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right. And they, and they tracked out, you know, years later. And they took a look and the kids who were adopted before age two. And again, they're like in a comfortable home. Like there's not. Good families. Yeah, yeah. Good families. Like there's not some other explanation for this. They look at the gut microbiome. Clear changes in the gut microbiome.

• 50:26Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 50:27Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah, more inflammatory bacteria, less protective bacteria, and a loss of gut diversity.

• 50:33Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 50:34Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah, so these kids, again, this is years later, they have lost diversity in their gut. That's basically moving towards a unwell, what we call dysbiosis, is what is occurring there. And they were more likely to suffer with digestive symptoms. They were more likely to feel anxious. And they actually did a functional MRI to look at brain activity. And they found that brain activity in these, in these, you know, these people who like were adopted at B4H2 was different. And their emotional processing and emotional regulation was out of whack.

• 51:10Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 51:11Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So they'd have, like, these are people, they've done nothing wrong. They don't deserve what they've received.

• 51:16Lewis Howes?

  They don't remember it.

• 51:17Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  They don't even remember it. Right? But here are these things that continue to sort of

• 51:22Lewis Howes?

  Man.

• 51:22Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  echo into adulthood that they can't even remember.

• 51:28Lewis Howes?

  So it sounds to me like, correct me if I'm wrong, you could be eating all the right things and doing everything you can in your control to eat healthier. But if you haven't healed the trauma of the past, whether it was in your control or out of your control, you still might have a weaker gut microbiome, a weaker immune system because of that. Is that correct?

• 51:50Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  This is 100% correct. I would even extend it beyond the food, beyond the plate, because there's other elements of our life that are really important to our health, to the health of our gut microbiome. Exercise, right? You and I both love exercise. I could, I could break down for you why exercise is good for the gut microbiome. But the point is, you could do that. You could sleep. You could meditate. You could try to do things.

• 52:11Lewis Howes?

  But if you don't heal the trauma.

• 52:13Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  But if you don't heal the trauma, then you're not actually going to be well. And I've seen this, yeah, so this is, and you know, if you look to, trauma is disproportionately also associated with autoimmune disease.

• 52:23Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:24Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? So because basically that chronic activation of the immune system.

• 52:28Lewis Howes?

  That's what it is.

• 52:29Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Gets that immune system to the point that it's just like totally confused.

• 52:32Lewis Howes?

  Because I guess in the, in your mind, if you've experienced trauma, you know, and for me, I experienced different parts of trauma growing up. If you experience some type of psychological, sexual, emotional trauma, physical trauma, and you don't learn how to heal that psychologically or emotionally or spiritually, there's some type of underlying like guilt, like resentment, anger, sadness, loss, that you are just living with, that you haven't figured out how to process, particularly if you're five, seven, 12, and you don't have the tools on how to process, whether it be some type of therapy or something else that allows you to grieve, to rediscover your identity, to mend that emotional wound. And so when you live with this

• 53:19Lewis Howes?

  feeling that you are not enough for decades of your life, or that you're unworthy, or that you're unlovable, or that you're bad, or that you're wrong, or something's off with you, if that is your unconscious mind ruminating 24/7, that is building this, I guess, inflammation in your mind and your body. It's weakening you in some ways, which again isn't weakening your gut is what I'm hearing you say.

• 53:44Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah, and I, so a few things. Number one, I have seen this in many patients, right? That the, like, the greatest moments of my career as a medical doctor, and I, I was trying to figure out like, how many patients have I taken care of? And I landed on, it's somewhere in the range of 75 to 100,000.

• 54:01Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 54:02Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? And in all of that, the greatest moments were the moments where I took a person and discovered that there was this thing, right? Like a trauma that they were trying to ignore because it hurts.

• 54:16Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 54:17Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So you don't want to deal with it. You'd rather not talk about it.

• 54:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:20Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? And so you have to get to a trusting place.

• 54:22Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 54:23Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Where you open up and you have that conversation.

• 54:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 54:25Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  But the other thing too, Lewis, is what, part of what to me makes chapter eight, my greatest chapter that I've ever written, is that it, actually the chapter plays out and shares my personal journey of self-discovery, where, you know, I have shared in the past that I changed my diet and therefore I got my health back. And the truth is, I wasn't fully telling you everything that was going on in my life.

• 54:49Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 54:50Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I wasn't ready.

• 54:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 54:52Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I would, there was too much shame.

• 54:53Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:54Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I had a complex relationship with my dad.

• 54:58Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 54:59Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  That. Unfolded from the time that I was seven years old when my parents got divorced. And unfortunately, our, the divorce of my parents was, it was not, it was not amicable.

• 55:16Lewis Howes?

  It's traumatic.

• 55:18Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Well, I was the oldest of three boys. I have two younger brothers. And basically, I was in second grade and one day, didn't know this was gonna happen. My mom shows up and the car is packed fully. And there's like a little spot, basically earmarked for me.

• 55:38Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 55:38Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  That I slide into and we drive seven hours away.

• 55:42Lewis Howes?

  With your younger brothers too?

• 55:43Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  With my younger brothers and the only person that wasn't there was my dad.

• 55:48Lewis Howes?

  Wow. You're seven?

• 55:50Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I was seven. And so we moved seven hours away, but eventually the court system says you gotta come back to.

• 55:56Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 55:56Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Syracuse, New York. So we go back and the way, this is the 1980s. The way that the court system back then, I don't know what they do now. I have no clue. But the way that they dealt with it back then was to basically say, well, the oldest son, you know, he's, he's old enough to be able to kind of like give us answers.

• 56:19Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh. Seven?

• 56:21Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Oh, seven. And so then that what basically unfolded from there was like a series of like psychologists and court appointed. Counselors and I would like do these sessions where you're sitting there with a psychologist and they're like, draw me a picture of this or. And so, and this was like an ongoing, like this is not like a short term thing. This was like an ongoing. Yeah, like maybe a year and a half of this kind of stuff. And during this period of time, I know obviously that my parents are not together, right? And I know that, that like they're not getting along. And I also know that this is court related. So basically like the words that I provide are ultimately going to dictate

• 57:01Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  what happens with these parents. So within that context for me, I like, I, I think, I mean, I may be wrong. But I think that there's like this natural psychology that takes over, at least it did for me. There's this natural psychology that took over me of basically being like, well, you gotta pick the winner.

• 57:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 57:21Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? Who's the good one and who's the bad one? Cause one of them is good and the other is bad. It's the way it has to be. So I chose my mom. And my dad, I turned to, and I was the oldest boy, right? So I think like you can appreciate this, I think on some level.

• 57:41Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  That like you're the defender, you're the one who stands up for the younger brothers. You're the one who protects. And so I, I basically psychologically turned towards my dad. I never actually said this to him, but this is the conversation that was in my mind as like seven, eight years old is.

• 58:00Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  How did you allow this to happen, Dad? How could you allow this to happen? You were supposed to be the man of this house. You were supposed to be the one that takes care of us, that makes sure that everything is okay. Look at our family now, we were poor, we were poor, right? We were poor, all the money was going to the attorneys.

• 58:21Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Look at, look at what we're going through. Look at how horrible this is for us. You allowed this to happen, why didn't you fix it? Why didn't you take care of us? Right, I held him accountable for the whole thing.

• 58:32Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So.

• 58:35Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  This led to a rift between me and my dad. I'm sure, your whole life probably. Well, yeah, basically, so I, I was, I was a good athlete. So I played three sports in high school, I was the captain of two teams. And for those of you who can't tell on camera, Louis has me by one inch and he's very tall. He's six foot five. All right, so anyway, I was a good athlete. And so the issue though, is that because my parents were divorced and we lived two and a half hours away. Like on the weekend, I had to go to see my dad. But like, that was tearing me away from my sports teams, that was tearing me away from my friends. So like the level of resentment just escalates, right? Frustration, yeah. And you get to a point where.

• 59:20Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I, I just cut it off, cut him off. Like I was basically like, I don't want to talk to that guy. Wow. And, and we didn't talk from the time that I was in college. Until, if it's okay, I'll share the story. Okay, that we didn't talk until I was in my early thirties. Wow. So. Like 10 years maybe. A little more than 10 years. Wow, I mean, that'll cause some gut issues. So like what you described a moment ago of like shame, sadness.

• 59:50Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  That's how I felt.

• 59:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 59:53Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And so then the way that I dealt with it, I think other people handle these things in different ways. So for me, it was like, I'm gonna show you.

• 1:00:04Lewis Howes?

  Achieve.

• 1:00:05Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I'm gonna show you with such ridiculous achievements that you won't be able to deny.

• 1:00:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:00:12Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? So I mean.

• 1:00:13Lewis Howes?

  Anger fueled.

• 1:00:15Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah, kinda.

• 1:00:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:17Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So I, I, um, I accomplished everything and more that I could have possibly accomplished. I, I went to the number one, my number one choice for residency for internal medicine, Northwestern. I, out of sixty brilliant doctors that I would beg to be my own doctor if I needed someone. I actually won the highest award out of all of them. And then I went on a grant with the NIH at the, at like arguably the number one school of public health in the country at the University of North Carolina. So I was like working at the school of public health on this grant from the NIH. Right? So all these things are happening. Well, you know what?

• 1:00:55Lewis Howes?

  While you're not talking to your dad. Yeah.

• 1:00:57Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  While I'm not talking to my dad, but you know what? None of it made me happy. I was sad. I had extremely low self-esteem. And then simultaneously, the work of the hospital, it caught up to me. You know, I was working eighty to a hundred hours a week, sometimes thirty hours in a row. And, uh, and when I, when I did have free time, I ate junk food because it tasted good.

• 1:01:22Lewis Howes?

  Quick. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:23Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And it was quick and it was cheap and, and I liked it. And, and when I had a day off, I got drunk.

• 1:01:32Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And, and it was just, and I look back on it and I didn't even understand, it's like so obvious how sad I was. So anyway, what changed? So I, I wasn't comfortable with sharing the story in Fiber Field, my first book, which came out in twenty twenty. It was super easy for me to be like, yeah, I changed my diet.

• 1:01:50Lewis Howes?

  Everything's good. Yeah.

• 1:01:51Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Everything's good, right? Like, like this, this change. Okay. Don't get me wrong. Changing my diet was.

• 1:01:56Lewis Howes?

  Helps a lot.

• 1:01:57Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  A lot.

• 1:01:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:57Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right?

• 1:01:58Lewis Howes?

  But there's still something that's underlying that you know that you haven't addressed.

• 1:02:03Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I had a lot that needed to be dealt with.

• 1:02:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:02:06Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And so.

• 1:02:07Lewis Howes?

  When did you start dealing with it?

• 1:02:09Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Not by my own choice. And if I did, if I didn't, if I wasn't blessed with a person that truly loved me. I don't know if it ever would have been dealt with. Wow. So my wife. Now, here we are, you know. Um.

• 1:02:28Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Twelve years later. Mm hmm. And you gotta get that right.

• 1:02:33Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  My wife, she comes into my life. And she is an angel. And she's exactly the person that I needed to come into my life at that moment. Hmm. And she says to me.

• 1:02:51Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  You gotta call your dad. When was this? This was like probably like early fall of twenty thirteen. Okay. Yeah. So it had been more than ten years. Wow. Graduated college in two thousand two. Mm hmm. She says to me, you gotta call your dad. You gotta, you gotta reconnect with him.

• 1:03:12Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So I pick up the phone and I call my dad. And.

• 1:03:20Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Louis, he accepted me back instantly. Wow.

• 1:03:25Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  He was so happy to hear from me. I'm sure. Totally caught off guard. Yeah. I hadn't heard his voice in more than ten years. Holy cow. And so the first time that I saw him. Was actually at my wedding. Wow. The first time I saw him in ten years. Holy. Alright, so. We reconnect. Um, I, I need to mention this.

• 1:03:51Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  My dad was always a great dad. Yeah.

• 1:03:55Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  There are things that I didn't understand. Of course. Until I had children of my own. Of course, yeah. That like he would take, I had two younger brothers, as I mentioned. He would take the three of us, like every time there's a vacation from school, you get some sort of break. We're hopping in the car. We're either driving into Canada, because I was in Syracuse, New York. Or we're driving down the eastern seaboard and we're going out, exploring the world. We're doing stuff together, right? Three boys, just him.

• 1:04:22Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:04:23Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right. Weekends. We lived forty five minutes from the Ederondec Mountains. Okay. Friday, Friday evening, cars packed, hop in the car into the mountains, enjoy the weekend camping together, doing all kinds of fun stuff with him. Right. But by himself. Right. No one to support him, no one to help him. Right?

• 1:04:43Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And the other thing that I never really picked up on until I started to go back and and and revisit

• 1:04:50Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  experiences from my childhood. The other thing I never picked up on is he never actually said anything bad about my mom.

• 1:04:56Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:04:57Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Not even once.

• 1:04:58Lewis Howes?

  Not everything's so black and white, you know?

• 1:05:01Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And I remember one time that my grandmother, my dad's mom, she started to say something and he squashed it.

• 1:05:08Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:05:08Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  He said, you don't talk like that.

• 1:05:10Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:05:11Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And so, so anyway.

• 1:05:13Lewis Howes?

  So you reconnect.

• 1:05:13Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I reconnect. And we had a couple of great years together. So you have to understand, like, part of our connection is through sports. So I grew up in Syracuse, New York, sports town. Syracuse orange. So like, we reconnected on that and like different things. And in the summer of twenty nineteen, I, I don't know if you've ever had this feeling. All I can say is, is what I experienced. Which is that I felt compelled to go and see my dad.

• 1:05:40Lewis Howes?

  I had the same thing in twenty nineteen.

• 1:05:43Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah. So in the summer of twenty nineteen, I can't understand why, where, why this came over me, but it did. It came over me in a like very powerful way where it's like, your dad's getting old. You just don't know how much longer he's going to be here. Why don't you go see him? And so in September of twenty nineteen, I hop on a plane, go up to Syracuse. And we had this really amazing weekend together. So we, we first went to a Syracuse football game. They played the number one team in the country and they almost beat them.

• 1:06:14Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And then we hopped in the car and we drove up into the mountains and we went to all of our favorite places.

• 1:06:18Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:06:19Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Favorite places that we had been to. And then it's Sunday and we're coming back down from the mountains and he's supposed to take me to the airport. He diverts the car. And we go to Rome, New York, which is about an hour outside of Syracuse. And this is where my grandparents lived.

• 1:06:37Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And he takes me to this road and he shows me this

• 1:06:43Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  six hundred square foot house, right? He takes me around a couple of blocks away. He shows me another six hundred square foot house.

• 1:06:55Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And he tells me, this is, this is where your great grandparents lived. This is where your grandparents were kids playing in the yard. This is where our family, Polish immigrants. This is where we started.

• 1:07:12Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  He takes me to the airport. That's the last time I saw my dad. In January of, of twenty twenty, I got a phone call from the police department. He didn't show up to work. And he had passed away over the weekend. And so, um, the thing about it is, and I share this partially for the people who are at home, because I think that like coming out and discussing these things is important for other people to hear. Because I think for some of them, it may impact them. But I also share this for you on a personal level, uh, because you're a new dad. And I've, uh, been through the

• 1:07:57Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  time that you and I have gotten to know each other. I've been pretty vocal about my love for being a dad and my children. And there was a moment in my life when everything changed. And, um, it was the birth of my oldest daughter, who is eleven now. And there were a few things that happened in that moment for me. So part of it was to feel the love that I had instantly. That was unlike any love that I had ever experienced in my life. It was so natural. It was so authentic.

• 1:08:38Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And it, I don't know that there's anything that she could do that would make me not love her. And you feel that instantly. It's a very special feeling. And that allowed me to realize that that was the way that my dad. Felt about me. Right. And the other side to this is I think that there are aspects of our life that mature at a different pace. So like for nutrition, it was like a super quick and easy for me, you know, 2012 to like 2015. I was like a new man. Yeah.

• 1:09:19Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right. Had like really drilled down and figured out what works for for me at least, right?

• 1:09:26Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  But like being willing to realize my own mistakes is part of the personal development that was necessary. To accept that maybe part of this issue here was actually me. Right. But also I'm holding this child and like.

• 1:09:52Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I don't know.

• 1:09:55Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Where she came from.

• 1:09:59Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  But she came from somewhere. There's a breath of life that came into this child that is completely undeniable. And science will never actually be able to explain that. That's true. That's true. And so that sort of experience leads you into some bigger questions. Yes. Of like.

• 1:10:28Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Understanding who I am within this broader story of everything that's unfolding and what is my purpose? Why am I here? And what does it all mean? And what will happen after I'm gone? And so this led me on what was a very slow spiritual journey. Where I was like against it and closed off for a very long time. You're in your head, not in your heart. Yeah. And also, yes, that's actually a beautiful way to describe it, but also,

• 1:11:03Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I wasn't open to the possibility. No, no way.

• 1:11:07Lewis Howes?

  You're based on science and facts and show me a paper on this and this is what you knew probably.

• 1:11:13Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Well, and I was raised, I was raised Catholic and we went to church and it was just sort of the obligatory hour.

• 1:11:20Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:11:21Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And it was completely uninspired.

• 1:11:22Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:11:23Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And

• 1:11:24Lewis Howes?

  And also if your parents who took you there, they weren't able to figure things out and they kind of ruined your family dynamic. You're like, well, this didn't work for them. So why am I going to do this?

• 1:11:34Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yeah. And I had a thing happen where because my parents were divorced, so we would, we would drive, you know, and this is upstate New York where like snow can drop hard and fast all at once.

• 1:11:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:46Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And because you can get lake effect snow and things like this.

• 1:11:49Lewis Howes?

  Like one foot and then a couple of hours.

• 1:11:50Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Exactly. So it can be next level. So, um, so my parents were two and a half hours apart. So on Sunday evening, I would come back, but if there was a bad snowstorm, instead of taking two and a half hours, it might take four hours. Right. To get home. And so I was going to be confirmed. And there was a rehearsal for the confirmation for the ceremony. And I showed up late because no one did anything wrong, but like because my parents are divorced.

• 1:12:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:18Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right. So I show up late and apparently the, uh, the priest, I'm not going to name his name, but he had given instructions of like, this is what I need you to say when you come to the altar. And it was very explicitly said, like, you better know this.

• 1:12:33Lewis Howes?

  And you didn't know it because you got

• 1:12:34Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I didn't know it. I wasn't there.

• 1:12:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:36Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So I go up to the altar and he says, what do you have to say?

• 1:12:39Lewis Howes?

  And you're like, oh.

• 1:12:40Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I have no clue. Whack.

• 1:12:43Lewis Howes?

  No way. Oh, man.

• 1:12:46Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I mean, honestly,

• 1:12:47Lewis Howes?

  That's rough.

• 1:12:48Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I've never had an adult hit me

• 1:12:51Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:12:52Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  This hard.

• 1:12:52Lewis Howes?

  How old were you?

• 1:12:54Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Probably sixteen, fifteen. Oh, man, that's unfortunate. That's sad. Boom. That is unfortunate. So, so for me, it was kind of like. Trauma there for sure. Huge trauma there. Well, I mean, I don't, I don't know if, if, if like. Or is it embarrassment? There's a. There definitely was embarrassment. Something wrong with me. There's a shame. Yeah, all that stuff. I mean, but at a minimum, at a minimum, it set me so far back spiritually because it was basically like, yo, I'm not like, I'm good. Yeah, yeah. I'm good. Right? So where are you at now? So, yeah, so for me, I think like between the birth of my child, between building this family, and then these bigger questions, and then having to process and resolve the, the death of my father. Right? So where did my daughter's soul come from? But where did my dad's soul go? Right.

• 1:13:39Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Where is he? And why am I here? Right. Yeah. So, um, that actually has led me to actually a wonderful place. And yes, and I, um, I share this because in the chapter, I do talk about trauma. I do talk about human connection and our need for human connection, which was really exemplified in the story of me and my dad. Right? Like there was, it was a broken connection that I, I, in order to be healthy and happy and, and my best version of myself, I needed to reestablish that. But the other, but the other, the other factor here is that I actually think that for me, I'm just speaking for myself,

• 1:14:17Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  that I haven't really felt fully like myself until I started to lean in and open up my heart. And as I've done that, and I'm not telling people what to believe, because the truth is that like outward organized religion is not actually what I'm talking about right now. Right, right. What I'm talking about is an intimate conversation between you and something bigger that occurs during the quiet times by yourself. Yeah. Right? Wow. Because that's what really matters. That's what really matters. And then all of the other stuff you can use to support that relationship. Of course. Right? So for me, it has just been this beautiful healing. Wow.

• 1:15:00Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Season. And so for me, so like Lewis, as a medical doctor, I mean, I, I acknowledge that there's. Uh, absolute barriers to some of these conversations, right? Where it's like, people see it as a big risk. Rich Roll's like, whoa, like, I did not expect that.

• 1:15:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:20Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? You're taking a risk there. And but what I said to him, and what I, what I'm saying to you and the listeners is, I'm a medical doctor. I am here to heal. That is my mission. That is my purpose. I'm completely aligned on my purpose. It's a beautiful thing for me, right? But if I, if I'm going to fulfill that purpose, then I have to follow through on these things, even when it's hard to say.

• 1:15:43Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:15:44Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And so, so this honest conversation is really about helping people to heal and the acknowledgement that healing comes in many places, and it can be the four workhorses.

• 1:15:54Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:15:54Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? Or it could be circadian rhythm, or it could be supplement stacks. These are all chapters in the book. But what I'm saying is, there's also healing that comes for your soul, from your, from your connections to other people, the ones you love, right? And to lean into that.

• 1:16:09Lewis Howes?

  What is the chapter in the book called?

• 1:16:11Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Uh, so.

• 1:16:12Lewis Howes?

  Chapter eight?

• 1:16:12Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  So it's chapter eight, and, and basically it's called mind-body healing.

• 1:16:16Lewis Howes?

  Mind-body healing.

• 1:16:17Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Mind-body healing.

• 1:16:18Lewis Howes?

  Now, where's your relationship with the Catholic faith or your faith now?

• 1:16:23Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  It's in an amazing place.

• 1:16:24Lewis Howes?

  You feel like you've healed that moment, that trauma from that priest that did that? And you feel like you've reconnected to that faith, or is it?

• 1:16:31Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I've connected to it. I don't, I don't consider myself Catholic, and, but I actually don't have any problem whatsoever with the Catholic Church.

• 1:16:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:39Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Where I have come to is that organized religion, we have to be willing to see that on both a micro level like this, getting slapped by a priest.

• 1:16:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:48Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? Or on a macro level, like cover-ups and things like this, right? Or, or there's history, right? There's tons of history.

• 1:16:55Lewis Howes?

  Tons of history, in every religion.

• 1:16:57Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Yes. Uh, we have to be willing to see that these are the flaws of humans.

• 1:17:04Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:17:04Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? That humans that are trying, they, they may think that they're right or whatever, but they can make mistakes, right? But that has nothing to do, nor should you allow that, to stand in the way of something that's so beautiful, special, that you absolutely need in your life. And I'm, I'm, I'm of the belief that people are starving for this, which is a relationship with a higher power. You should not allow those outward things. So then, once you cultivate that inside of you. There's going to be a natural desire to express it outwardly. And that comes through these forms of like, you know, spiritual practice.

• 1:17:44Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:17:44Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? So for me, I don't, I don't, I don't consider myself Catholic, but I do consider myself Christian.

• 1:17:50Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:17:50Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I do, there's, it's a whole different conversation that like, is not really what I came to talk about.

• 1:17:54Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:17:55Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Of like my belief in the Bible, right? My belief in Jesus, right? So I have my, I have my, my feelings there.

• 1:18:01Lewis Howes?

  Do you feel like your, your immune system and your gut microbiome are healthier because you have a strong belief in Jesus and God?

• 1:18:09Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I know.

• 1:18:11Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  It's not, I think, I know. And, and it's completely backed by science.

• 1:18:17Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:18:17Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Lewis, a hundred percent. Yeah. So, so let me be clear. I am not proposing a health hack where you find God for health.

• 1:18:24Lewis Howes?

  No, no, no.

• 1:18:25Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? This is not a transactional thing.

• 1:18:27Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:18:27Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Right? This is so much more beautiful, special and powerful. But if you look at people who are more faithful, they are less depressed. They are more optimistic for the future. They have better emotional processing. They're able to deal, they're more resilient. They, they live longer. And there's many different forms of disease that are associated with lower risk. And, and to bring it full circle and not to like turn this into a, a science lesson, because I, I actually love where we went with this. But there still is like the, the faith in the science, they're both there and that's okay. Then, because they can both exist.

• 1:19:07Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:19:08Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And, and the science says that what's happening, whether it's through our spiritual practices, reading the Bible, attending a service, singing in synchrony with other people, right? Spiritual music, dancing.

• 1:19:24Lewis Howes?

  Chanting, things like that.

• 1:19:26Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  All these things, they're activations of the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest, digest, and I feel safe.

• 1:19:33Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:19:35Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Part that is the counterpoint to the sympathetic. So we talked about the sympathetic being activation. Now I'm saying safety exists, safety and healing exists in your parasympathetic. So those are examples, but then in our human connection. Holding hands, hugging, right, feeling bonded to your partner, intimacy with a partner that you actually love, not just, you're not just, it's not sport, right? These things actually are also activations of our parasympathetic nervous system. So, and then like, uh, the question that you asked me that has taken me an hour, this is the most divergent answer of all time. You asked me like, what is the thing that you can do? And you asked me about food, but I'm actually going to divert away from food.

• 1:20:18Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And what I'm going to say is like, in the moment of stress, where your sympathetic nervous system is firing, you can breathe. So all of these different forms of breath work that you hear people talk about, whether it's, um, whether it's Wim Hof, or you hear Andrew Huberman talk about techniques, or it's in, in my space as a gastroenterologist, we use techniques called diaphragmatic breathing, right, which are basically meant to really force your diaphragm to pull air into your lungs with deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the lips. These, breath by itself, has the ability to activate our vagus nerve, which can take the foot off of the gas and put it on the brake and allow you to get into rest and

• 1:21:03Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  digest and safety mode.

• 1:21:05Lewis Howes?

  To recap and acknowledge what I'm hearing you say, is that we can apply all the strategies in your book, Plant Power Plus, to activate the power of your gut, to tame inflammation and reclaim your health. There's lots of supplements, foods and strategies that we can't implement, but it sounds like if you're looking for ultimate health, ultimate freedom and healing, then revisiting and healing the traumas of the past and integrating them in a healthy way in your life, so that you feel you've resolved them and they don't hurt you anymore, along with connecting to

• 1:21:46Lewis Howes?

  God or a higher power and having a beautiful relationship and faith in God or a higher power. Those two things are just as powerful, if not more powerful than any type of food, hack, sleep, sunlight that you can get in your life.

• 1:22:04Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  For a lot of people, that's the healing that they so desperately need.

• 1:22:07Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent. I know what your next book is about. It's about that whole chapter and going deeper on science and faith. I feel like that is what you said people are starving for. Obviously, they're starving to eat healthier foods because people are sick. But there is an underlying root cause of that sickness, that disease that I feel like, which is a lack of faith, a lack of spiritual connection.

• 1:22:33Lewis Howes?

  And a lack of healing, the emotional, psychological, sexual traumas that people have faced in their past. And when we can heal the past and when we can find meaning of our faith and find a relationship with a faith. I feel like that's when true freedom comes in people's mind body connection. That's when the immune system relaxes, like you said, that's when you aren't on fight or flight mode constantly. It doesn't mean everything's gonna be perfect, but you can have more tools to address life's challenges. And so I hope that is the next book you talked about and research, because that is the thing that people need the most. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna count on you in three years to have.

• 1:23:15Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Don't be mad at me if I don't, but.

• 1:23:18Lewis Howes?

  It's funny because I had Andrew Huberman on my show a couple of months ago and most of the conversation was around his spiritual practice and how it's actually helped him heal and feel better.

• 1:23:27Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I think it's a game changer. I think it's a game changer. I didn't expect it. I did not expect it. But it has changed my life and it allows me to be actually a far more resilient person.

• 1:23:37Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:23:38Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  And, um, and the best version of myself show up every day.

• 1:23:42Lewis Howes?

  I hope more medical practitioners listen to this and start applying this to their practice for themselves. So that they can also. Just communicate better and see people differently and connect with people on a spiritual level even and also bring the science and the medicine to it as well. Hopefully, hopefully, people listen to this and watch it and start doing that. Your book, Plant Powered Plus, is a powerful reminder on how to activate the power of your gut to tame inflammation and reclaim your health. I hope everyone gets a copy of this book because a lot of people in the world are sick and we need people to get healthier and there's tools that they can do here that'll support them.

• 1:24:22Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  All of the tools are laid out. They are evidence-based and they're available so that you get to choose, right? It's on the table. You pick and choose what are the things that you're going to pick up off that table and introduce it to your life. And if you do that, if you have the audacity to try something different and you do that, you will feel, I promise you, you will feel the difference. And when you do, you will know you're on to something and you're going to want more and there will be even more for you.

• 1:24:52Lewis Howes?

  You can keep doing it. Yes. They can get the book everywhere books are sold, your YouTube channel, The Gut Health MD, also The Gut Health MD on social media and theguthealthmd.com. You've got a great newsletter. You have recommendations for, you've got a great supplement company that supports people that can help them with their gut as well and so much great content that you have online. What else can we, where else can we follow or support you with this journey?

• 1:25:20Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Well, you've quite thoroughly laid it out. So I do appreciate that. Look, to me, this is about an opportunity to continue the conversation beyond this show, right? So I would encourage people, completely free tools, come to my website, sign up for my newsletter. Grab the book. If you borrow it from the library and you read it, trust me, I'm not upset at all. Because what I want is I want your time. I want your time. I want your attention. I want the opportunity. I just want that chance that I could change your life, right? Because that's what like, that's what I'm trying to do here. So, and then, once you do that, then just know, like, I'm here for you and I want to keep working

• 1:26:04Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  and I got, there's many years in front of me. I'm 45 years old. So let's keep rolling.

• 1:26:08Lewis Howes?

  I'm telling you, that next book, before you're 50, that's got to be on somewhere in your journey. I'm telling you, it's gotta be. If you're saying that's what people are starving the most for, then you're perfectly positioned to serve people with that journey with your own personal experiences.

• 1:26:23Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Well.

• 1:26:24Lewis Howes?

  Maybe it's a, maybe it's a couple of articles to start or something like that.

• 1:26:27Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  See what happens.

• 1:26:28Lewis Howes?

  Before fifty.

• 1:26:29Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  You know what's interesting is that all of the conversations that as I've been

• 1:26:32Lewis Howes?

  Are leading into this.

• 1:26:33Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  Are leading into this, right? Because this is what ultimately like.

• 1:26:37Lewis Howes?

  What are we waiting for?

• 1:26:38Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  What people want to talk about.

• 1:26:38Lewis Howes?

  That's what they need, man. That's what they need. Well, I asked you this the last time. I'm curious whether it is now, after this book is out and after this conversation. But what would you say if you get to live as long as you want, but at the end of the day, you only get to share three lessons with the world and we don't have access to your books or your work or your newsletters anymore, but it's many years in the future, last day on earth for you and you get to leave behind three truths. What would those truths be for you?

• 1:27:06Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  To me, number one, you need to figure out who you are and what your purpose is. And once you identify that, you should never stop, never stop in the pursuit of that purpose. That's who you are. That's what you were meant to do. So that's number one. Number two, don't forget where you came from, right? The people who have supported you, right? The people who made you who you are today. There's an entire story there. It's not just this moment. There's a build, generations of people before you who led up to who you are. Never forget those connections. Never forget the importance of the other people

• 1:27:50Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  in your life, because honestly, all the other bullshit, sorry for the profanity.

• 1:27:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's fine.

• 1:27:57Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  All of that, the money, the fame, the power, it will never bring you the joy that you get from those people.

• 1:28:05Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:28:06Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  That brought you to where you are today. And last but not least, no. Know with absolute clarity that you are a part of something bigger, better, and it is gorgeous. It is beautiful. So even the idea, Louis, I mean, I don't want, we're at the end. So I don't want to like introduce a new topic for debate or discussion, but even the idea of living forever. Look, I get it. But at the same time, where my dad is right now, one day I'll be with him. I'll be able to say the things that I need to say to him. And you know what else? He'll meet his grandchildren.

• 1:28:44Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's beautiful. That's beautiful, man. Well, I want to acknowledge you, Will, for opening up the way you have been. And I think, again, I hope you keep sharing like this because I think this is what people are starving for. To hear these types of conversations and stories specifically from a medical professional like yourself at the highest level, who is used to research and, you know, studies and data and science. To hear spirituality come from you and how this is the ultimate level of healing, based on what I'm hearing you say for you, and the ultimate level of joy and fulfillment and love. That's what we want. Sure, we want to be healthy and happy, but it's like the ultimate levels of joy come from what you just talked about.

• 1:29:28Lewis Howes?

  Because I think it's where we get ultimate peace, freedom and healing from is that connection. So I appreciate you. I'm grateful for you. And my final question, Will, is what is your definition of greatness?

• 1:29:41Dr. Will Bulsiewicz?

  I think I go back to this idea of living your life of purpose, right? If you are aligned with your purpose, anything that you do, anything is greatness.

• 1:29:53Lewis Howes?

  There you go. Well, thank you, man. Appreciate it. Powerful. That's great. It's awesome. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcast. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you

• 1:30:37Lewis Howes?

  are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.