119. Devon Lévesque: What Facing Death on Everest Taught Me about Living

“The closest a man comes to a calm mind, the nearer he is to real strength.” This profound insight from Devon Lévesque’s journey might just change how you think about personal growth forever. In this episode, Gary Brecka sits down with Devon Lévesque who reveals the raw, unfiltered truth about what it takes to summit Mount Everest and bear crawl an entire marathon. But this isn’t just another adventure story – it’s a masterclass in understanding how pushing your limits can transform your approach to business, success, and life! What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done, and how did it change you? Share your story in the comments below – let’s learn from each other’s experiences! Special citation from Joe Rogan’s podcast on the impact of physical conditioning on mental health: https://bit.ly/4ik6plQ Connect with Devon Lévesque: Website: https://bit.ly/3AZjaBR YouTube: https://bit.ly/4g0n6RV Instagram: https://bit.ly/3B0DYca Facebook: https://bit.ly/4eXhqXB TikTok: https://bit.ly/3BbCFHq LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/49gEAH2 00:00 ​Intro of Show and Guest 03:05 ​Who is Devon Lévesque? 07:03 ​Three Words that Changed His Life 08:34 ​The Bear Crawl Marathon Story 12:53 ​Importance of Community 17:50 ​Going Back to the Basics with Nature 20:47 Partnership with Jesse Itzler 23:38 ​​Impact of Physical Conditioning on Mental Health 24:10 Hormesis & Types of Fun 28:27 ​How to Wake Up & Feel Content 32:20 ​Preparations & Climbing of Mt. Everest 50:51 ​Reaching the Top of Mt. Everest 54:00 ​Debacle between Nepalese & Westerners 56:15 ​Lessons Learned from Pushing to the Absolute Limit 1:03:30 ​Why Should You Do Hard Stuff? 1:16:49 ​Final Question: What does it mean to you to be an “Ultimate Human?” GET GARY’S WEEKLY TIPS ON HEALTH AND LIFESTYLE OPTIMIZATION: https://bit.ly/4eLDbdU EIGHT SLEEP - SAVE $350 ON THE POD 4 ULTRA WITH CODE “GARY”: https://bit.ly/3WkLd6E BODY HEALTH - USE CODE “ULTIMATE20” FOR 20% OFF YOUR ORDER: http://bit.ly/4e5IjsV BAJA GOLD - 91 ESSENTIAL MINERALS PER PINCH! 10% OFF USE CODE "ULTIMATE10": https://bit.ly/3WSBqUa ELEVATE YOUR WORKOUTS WITH THE ULTIMATE HUMAN STRENGTH TRAINING EQUIPMENT: https://bit.ly/3zYwtSl THE COLD LIFE - BOOST RECOVERY & WELL-BEING WITH THE ULTIMATE HUMAN PLUNGE: https://bit.ly/4eULUKp MASA CHIPS - GET 20% OFF YOUR FIRST $50+ ORDER: https://bit.ly/40LVY4y PARKER PASTURES - GET PREMIUM GRASS-FED MEATS TODAY: https://bit.ly/4hHcbhc SHOP GARY’S TOP-RATED PRODUCTS & EXCLUSIVE DEALS: https://theultimatehuman.com/amazon-recs Watch the “Ultimate Human Podcast” every Tuesday & Thursday at 9AM EST on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RPQYX8 Connect with Gary Brecka: Website: https://bit.ly/4eLDbdU Instagram: https://bit.ly/3RPpnFs TikTok: https://bit.ly/4coJ8fo Facebook: https://bit.ly/464VA1H X.com: https://bit.ly/3Opc8tf LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4hH7Ri2 SUBSCRIBE TO: https://www.youtube.com/@ultimatehumanpodcast https://www.youtube.com/@garybrecka Download the “Ultimate Human Podcast” on all your favorite podcast platforms: https://bit.ly/3RQftU0 The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka Podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice, and no doctor/patient relationship is formed. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast is at the user’s own risk. The Content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I saw my dad struggling with some mental health thing and he didn't have an outlet. And I come to find out that day after he dropped me off, he killed himself. And then when I saw what happened, my goal was to help people wake up happier.

• 0:10Gary Brecka?

  It's very impactful to know what someone's driving force is. And it's not that somebody has to have that major of a catastrophic event in their life, but we don't have a lot of time to waste.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  I realize my why is I want to live my life without my hands in my pocket. Everyone on this earth is going to go through transitions. The best way I've found for people to transition is to have a good community around them. And that's all I'm trying to foster.

• 0:33Gary Brecka?

  I feel like a lot of people are just disconnected from the basics, mother nature, community. You're meeting people where they are and giving them a space.

• 0:40Speaker 00

  That's my goal is to calm people's tension in the world by providing these communities.

• 0:45Gary Brecka?

  When you sat down, you were telling me a Save My Everest story for this podcast. Tell me about that.

• 0:49Speaker 00

  We go up out of nowhere, you're in this blizzard, you're like, holy shit, I might actually die right now.

• 0:54Gary Brecka?

  And how were the guys that were with you?

• 0:56Speaker 00

  People are dying.

• 0:57Gary Brecka?

  People literally in that condition.

• 0:59Speaker 00

  It was terrifying.

• 1:00Gary Brecka?

  Get to the top. You could hear a pin drop at the top, perfect weather. It's so next level. It's a feeling of this crazy energy.

• 1:06Speaker 00

  I'm happy I did it, but I wouldn't, I would never do it again.

• 1:08Gary Brecka?

  Grinding through the pain of Everest, pushing your body to the absolute limit. You call it do hard shit. Why should people do hard shit?

• 1:16Speaker 00

  The thing with the brain, bigger is better. And I'll tell you one thing.

• 1:30Gary Brecka?

  Today on The Ultimate Human, we're honored to have Devin LeVake. He's an extraordinary individual. He's hilarious. He's one whose life exemplifies resilience, endurance and dedication to mental health advocacy. He's known for bear crawling an entire New York City marathon, which set a world record and backflipping on top of Mount Everest. He pushes his physical and mental limits and Devin's journey is so inspiring and so transformative. He's a very successful entrepreneur. He's the founder of Sweet Honey Farm, which I love, and an advocate for sustainable, family-centered wellness. Devin's here to share his philosophies on building resilience, supporting mental health and his vision for holistic health. We are so excited. Excited to dive into the powerful stories and insights that define his approach to life and wellness.

• 2:15Gary Brecka?

  Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brecka, where we go down the road of everything anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. And today's guest is a guest I've, dude, I've been wanting to have you on here for a long time. And we narrowly missed each other. He was actually on the summit down here on a cruise ship and I narrowly missed him. But I got him, captured him. He's on the podcast today. Guys, welcome Devon Levesque.

• 2:41Speaker 00

  Or no, it's fine. How?

• 2:43Gary Brecka?

  No, not Levesque. You said it. Love ache. Love ache. Love ache. Devon Leveque.

• 2:51Gary Brecka?

  I memorized it differently. Love ache. Devon Leveque.

• 2:56Gary Brecka?

  You know, I was, first of all, man, I'm super pumped about the message that you're putting out in the world. We ran a whole podcast before we got on the podcast, you know, talking about your regenerative farm and, and you know, some of just the amazingly phenomenal physical feats that you've accomplished. Climbing Mount Everest, bear crawling an entire marathon. But there was something about that marathon bear crawl. When I was actually really figuring out who Devon Leveque was, and I went down the Devon Leveque rabbit hole, you know, I stumbled on a talk you did and it actually just really hit my heart. Because I feel like very often on this podcast, the most impactful people in the world that are really making great change and really, really affecting a lot of lives,

• 3:41Gary Brecka?

  have solved the problem in their life. Maybe it was drug addiction. Maybe it was the loss of a loved one. You know, maybe it was a bad breakup, whatever it was, you know, Lyme disease, they solved the problem. And they basically turned that into the most impactful message ever. And you were doing a talk on stage and I heard you say, and I want to dig into this, but I heard you talking about, you know, you, you're going to bear call a marathon. You set a world record for it. And the two questions were how and why? It was your explanation for the why that really brought things home for me because I like to know what's the driving force behind people. And now I know why you're so inspired. You're so passionate. You're so purpose driven. But if you wouldn't mind, share that with us.

• 4:25Gary Brecka?

  I mean, not just the overwhelming physical feat to bear crawl a marathon. That had to be one of the most difficult things you ever did.

• 4:34Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 4:34Gary Brecka?

  But it was the how and the why.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, man. Well, one, thanks for having me on here. Appreciate you. You live it. You breathe it. You're doing it, which I respect. Thank you. The how is easy. It's the how is probably a lot of, a lot of humans listening to this right now, yourself. The how is so easy, man. Guys, we don't quit. You just don't quit.

• 4:53Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 4:53Speaker 00

  Don't quit. Whether it's your company, you know, founders, companies don't fail. Founders give up. Don't quit, right? Us as humans, we can't quit. That's the how. Just don't quit. But the why is, is, is the purpose. The why is a little bit more in depth. And I'm glad that caught your attention because that was a, it's been a core of mine since I was about 16. And, and, you know, I'll take you back. I grew up in a small town in New Hampshire, 1,500 people. You know, you had to make your own fun. I had a, I had a ski lift half mile from my house. I grew up fishing, snowboarding, riding my mountain bike. Kind of took it for granted. It was my natural, you know, milking cows. I grew up on a farm and I took it for

• 5:36Speaker 00

  granted. And I, you know, you'd have to make, you'd have to make your own fun in whatever you did. And so me and my buddies, you know, would, it would cause problems, cause ruckus, cause, you know, whatever we could to, you know, keep ourselves occupied. And, you know, I, one night on July 17th, 2008, my buddy Matty and I went into my parents liquor cabinet and said, Hey, let's go grab some alcohol and let's drink with the girls tomorrow night. I just turned 16 at the time. And I was like, you know, just trying to have some fun as a kid. Of course. And so I remember I was going, I went into liquor cabinet and like any kid, you know, you have this Nalgene bottle and I'm putting like Goldschlager and Jameson vodka.

• 6:19Gary Brecka?

  I remember Goldschlager, dude. Is that even around anymore like with the gold flakes in it? It's it's literally the worst liquor in the world.

• 6:27Speaker 00

  The worst and I was just mixing it in and we were so excited and fast forward to the next day. It's summer. So my, you know, I wake up early 5am. I go to work with my dad. He was a drywall contractor. So, you know, my job at 16 was, you know, go pick up all the scraps, you know, screw, screw the, you know, screw into the wall, the, you know, the drywall, um, you know, just pick up, help them out, go grab lunch. And he was always, he was my coach. He was my football coach. He was, you know, he's my best friend. Um, and he was always like, Deb, keep your hands out of your pocket. There's always something to do constantly. Get your hands out of your pocket. Go pick this up. Get your hands out of your pocket. Go grab lunch. Get your hands out of your pocket. Help me with this. And so, you know, fast forward, he drops me off at driver's ed.

• 7:08Speaker 00

  Four hours go by, my friend Maddie's mom picks us up and she said, you know, three words that changed my life forever.

• 7:16Gary Brecka?

  When you got in the car?

• 7:17Speaker 00

  Right. When I got in the car, she said three words that changed my life. And you know, when, when your friend's mom picks you up, you know, you just got in trouble. And so I had the alcohol and I'm like, shit, this is it. Like we're getting in a lot of trouble. And instead she said, three words, your father's dead.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  And, and he, and I was like, what? I start, I was just in shock, man. And I'm like, man, what did I do? Where is he? I start calling him. He wasn't answering and I, he just dropped me off four hours ago. I was just working with him. I was, I was just working out with him yesterday. He was a professional weightlifter and, and I was just like, what the heck just happened? And I, I mean, I must've called him 300 times. I get home and, uh, you know, there's friends, families, everyone's around our house. And I come to find out that day after he dropped me off, he went and jumped in front of a truck on the highway and he killed himself and.

• 8:14Gary Brecka?

  Took his own life.

• 8:14Speaker 00

  And so that was the hardest part I've ever gone through in life. When your best friend, um, takes our life and you don't know why. And I, and I was just so confused. And as a 16 year old boy, um, it was, it was a pivotal point in my life. And so now, you know, fast forward, you know, to 2020, October 31st, um, when I started the bear crawl in New York City, started in Brooklyn and I went the exact route of, um, the New York marathon. And I'm at about mile 20 and I s- I I remember stopping and I'm like, man, I got six, six point two miles left in this bear crawl.

• 9:00Speaker 00

  And I was doing this bear crawl for suicide prevention and mental health. That's, that's why I went into it.

• 9:04Gary Brecka?

  That's your why.

• 9:05Speaker 00

  Right? But at mile 20, I realized something. I realized, look, mental health and suicide is a massive cause. But my why is actually how I want to live my life. And I want to live my life without my hands in my pocket.

• 9:25Gary Brecka?

  I love that.

• 9:25Speaker 00

  I want to live my life maximizing my time. I want to live my life being curious. I want to maximize my life, seeing what's out there in the world and helping others. And there's always something to do. And so I wanted to live a life without my hands in my pocket.

• 9:40Gary Brecka?

  I love that.

• 9:40Speaker 00

  And so as I went in with a purpose, an intrinsic motivator, I had extrinsic motivators coming from around, I, I realized what, what mattered to me, what really mattered to me. And that, that was living a life without my hands in my pocket. And I was just, I was just talking to you outside of, I've formed this, this mindset, you know, really in the last five, five years of the closer a man comes to a commune, the nearer he is to real strength. So the closer you and I can be here now, talk and not think about the camera, think about what's going on afterwards, think about this, that, the, the closer you and I can

• 10:23Speaker 00

  come to that commune, I, I believe that's real strength. And that's a quote from Marcus Aurelius. I'm not just making this up. It's, it's, it's something that's, that's been around and, you know, I really believe if we can be in the now, we can maximize our time and we can truly live with our hands outside our pocket.

• 10:41Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, I love that, man, because it's, it's such a metaphor for life. And I'm, and I'm sorry I took you there in that story. It's just that, because for me and, and for my audience, you know, it's, It's very impactful to know what someone's driving force is. You know, I had a very, you know, tipping point moment in my life too, and it changed the direction of my career. And then I've had so many blessings bestowed upon me because I became very authentic. I lived a very inauthentic life and now I live, you know, a very authentic life. I'm very conscious, very aware, try to be present. But it told me so much about you and it gives, I think, people a window into what's driving somebody's passion. And it's not that somebody has to have that major of a catastrophic

• 11:25Gary Brecka?

  event in their life. But we don't have a lot of time to waste. And we gotta get our hands out of our pockets.

• 11:33Speaker 00

  You have 24 hours in a day. I don't care how you split it. If you say I'm working for eight hours, I see my wife for two, I see my kids for the other two, I'm eating for two. You're not getting that, you're not getting it back. If you want to break it down and say, hey, I'm working a certain amount and family time a certain amount, cool. It's still 24 hours. There's still 24 hours. You're not, it's not all of a sudden 20 hours or 24, 23 or whatever. It's 24 hours in a day. We're not getting this time back. Do it fucking now. What are you talking about? It's 24 hours you have to maximize. And how can you create a life to where you're happy, to where your purpose, you have a why, what makes you happy? What's your, what are

• 12:14Speaker 00

  your values? You know, so many people have companies and, you know, my mission statement, my, you know, my pillars of my company. But what about you as a brand, you as a person, you as a human? What are your values? I live life off of five values and I don't deviate outside of these values and it helps me de-risk my time and decisions I make. Family, community, health, freedom of time and giving back. I do not deviate outside of those five and it allows me to de-risk decisions I make and where I go and who I meet with and the people I'm surrounded by by simply having, these are my core five. If you're about it, cool. If you're not, that's okay.

• 12:49Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 12:50Speaker 00

  Like, I just don't have time to waste right now, though.

• 12:52Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 12:52Speaker 00

  You know?

• 12:53Gary Brecka?

  And you, you know, and one of the things that I noticed, you know, just sort of following your trajectory and, you know, as your impact has grown, you're big on communities, like, you know, regenerative farms, you have a run club with Jesse Itzler. You know, you're, I think you're a co-founder of Pro Mix.

• 13:07Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 13:07Gary Brecka?

  An accurate statement, a co-founder of Pro Mix, and you've been really militant about your ingredients, and I think there's a community forming around, you know, that. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about, you know, building communities, because you really do foster this communal sense. And it's like, you give people permission, I think. They don't have to be a super athlete, right? You like to do really hard shit, climb Mount Everest and bear crawl a marathon. But you're meeting people where they are and giving them like a space to talk a little bit about. I was really fascinated and I happen to be very jealous of your regenerative farm, but

• 13:45Gary Brecka?

  that's my, that's my next dream, dude.

• 13:47Speaker 00

  That's right, Sweet Honey Farm, we'll talk about it.

• 13:49Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 13:49Speaker 00

  You know, community, when, when I was younger, and I don't want to bring it back to this, but I will. You know, when I was younger and I saw my dad struggling with some mental health thing, he was the happiest human on earth I've ever met, man. Like, he was such a, man, he was such a giver. He was always giving to people, helping, donating, like, he was such a good guy. And the last year of his life, I saw him really depressed, and he didn't have an outlet, and I would watch him, and he was reading the Bible, and he was praying, and he was trying to do the right thing, and I was just seeing the sorrow on his face. And then when I saw what happened and how that happened, my goal was to help people wake up happier. That was, that's really my goal right now on earth, is to help humans wake up happier.

• 14:35Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 14:35Speaker 00

  And so. Everyone on this earth is gonna go through transitions. We went to elementary school for four years. You go to middle school for four years. You go to high school for four years. You go to college for four years. We are taught by society to transition. But what do you do in those transitions? What happens when you enter the military for eight years and you have to go back into civilian life? What happens when you're an Olympian or an athlete and you're making it to the Olympics? And all of a sudden 18 years goes by and you get third place? And no one remembers you and now you don't have a place in society all of a sudden because well, you didn't get first. And you're not in the military anymore. And you're not at this job anymore. What do you do at transition?

• 15:17Speaker 00

  The best way I've found for people to transition is to have a good community around them. And that's all I'm trying to foster. Whether it's with Pro Mix, you know, farm to table supplements and vitamins. Whether it's with Sweet Honey Farm, making an area, a real space where people are welcomed in. And not welcomed in for, hey, let me charge your credit card $50,000. I'm saying, hey, what are affordable ways that everyone can have access? Health, mental clarity, community should not have a barrier of cost. It should have a welcome, open arms feel, you know? And that's really what I try to encompass with everything that, you know, I create or co-create is helping people wake up happier.

• 16:01Speaker 00

  I think with Pro Mix, it starts from within and we'll talk about it, but it starts with your gut.

• 16:05Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, dude, I had your, I had your, um, your gut, the, the pre, yeah, the D-blot, the pre and probiotic was amazing. And, and, and sweetened with organic peaches. Yeah, it was amazing.

• 16:16Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 16:16Gary Brecka?

  It was delicious.

• 16:17Speaker 00

  So it's like, hey, how can we start from within? Let's get your gut right. Let's, let's get your, your blood flowing. Let's, let's get your body right from within. Cause we all know that your gut impacts your brain. It impacts your mood. It impacts how you're reacting to conversations. It, it impacts everything, your skin. So let's get your, that right. And then once we, once your body gets right, what type of, uh, you know, environment can you be around? And that's why I created Sweet Honey Farm, you know? Less than 1% of Americans right now farm or grow their own. Food. That's crazy.

• 16:48Gary Brecka?

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• 17:33Gary Brecka?

  That's 8sleep.com/gary and use the code GARY, G-A-R-Y, for your discount. Transform your nights and elevate your sleep. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast.

• 17:44Speaker 00

  That is, that is crazy.

• 17:46Gary Brecka?

  Less than 1% of Americans.

• 17:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:47Gary Brecka?

  See, that's, that's my, eventually that is my dream goal. I actually have a map, you know, to get there. I actually plan to sell this beautiful penthouse in Miami and exchange it for a regenerative farm. I actually have a piece of land already picked out.

• 18:00Speaker 00

  I can't wait for you for that, man.

• 18:01Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, dude, I can't wait either in Colorado and have, you know, head of cattle and, you know,

• 18:07Speaker 00

  Heck, yeah.

• 18:08Gary Brecka?

  This particularly piece of land's got a beautiful stream, glacier-fed spring water. And just bring people there because I feel like a lot of people are just disconnected from

• 18:16Speaker 00

  Disconnected.

• 18:17Gary Brecka?

  The basics, Mother Nature, community, you know, other human beings like, like we vibed when you first walked in the door.

• 18:26Speaker 00

  We had a hug or good.

• 18:27Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, we actually did the hard hug and then we had a really good regenerative meal and then we went and did some pull-ups. You actually did some muscle-ups. I didn't do the muscle-ups.

• 18:37Speaker 00

  We're doing it.

• 18:37Gary Brecka?

  But yeah, we're doing it, but it was, it's just so awesome. And I, and I feel like the temperature. In this country would come down if people were back in touch with nature a little bit, really in touch with, you know, humanity, not looking for, um, you know, what's, what's different about your opinion from mine, but you know, like what, what are the things we have in common? Like you were saying here earlier, it made me laugh my ass off. You're like, pet a fucking cow, you know, like, you know, you're

• 19:03Speaker 00

  For real?

• 19:03Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. You're out in the garden, just shoveling in, you know, um, um, raw spinach. People forget to like, act like a kid and

• 19:10Speaker 00

  That's, that's a rule I have. I have a rule. Do one thing every day you used to do as a kid. You know, it keeps you young.

• 19:16Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 19:17Speaker 00

  The, the vibes people get when they leave Sweet Honey Farm is clarity, is calmness, is less anxiety. And it's not that I'm, you know, having them do any, you know, crazy drugs or, you know, some, you know, crazy bio hack. And I'm all about the future. I'm just saying, take off your shoes. Go ride a horse, you know, jump in a sauna, jump in a cold plunge, move a little bit.

• 19:46Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  Go, go just walk around without your phone. Go walk through the garden. You're going to feel the grounding ripping through your body. And then when you leave and you jump back into society, you're like, wow, this is, I feel a little bit calm. And, and you know, that boss calls you and they're all pissed off. You're not going to react in a negative way. You're going to respond in the right way. And that's my goal is to calm people's tension in the world by providing these, these, these communities. Promix has an amazing community.

• 20:20Gary Brecka?

  Does it really?

• 20:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. My values, the health, the freedom of time, the community, the giving back, all my family, the values are the core of Promix. My values are the core of Sweet Honey Farm. My values and Jesse Itzler's values are the core of all day running. Like our, the values are being ingrained into these brands to hopefully build a community and help people, you know, just wake up happier.

• 20:46Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. And how, how did you, um, how did you get into business with Jesse and, and start All Day Run Club? I mean, I see those all the time.

• 20:52Speaker 00

  And I'll, uh, I'll, I'll give a quick high level, but Jesse, uh, messaged me after I bear crawled the New York Marathon. Um, and then, you know, I went out to his event 29029 where you climb the height of Mount Everest in 36 hours. Um, four, four laps into this climb.

• 21:07Gary Brecka?

  It's like up 5,000, down.

• 21:09Speaker 00

  It's, yeah, you're, every mountain's different. But you're hitting the 29,029 feet of Everest. By the way, Everest was 29,029 feet 10 years ago. It's now 29,032 feet. It's, it's, it's gotten taller.

• 21:24Gary Brecka?

  So if you were there a few years ago, he beat you by two feet.

• 21:26Speaker 00

  Correct, correct. So just want to throw that little snippet out there. But I was out at his event in, in Sun Valley, Idaho. He's a partner and owner of the Hawks as well, and it'll come full story. And so Hawks on one side of the country, this event on the other side. Four laps in, he texts me, Dev, meet me at the lodge. I meet him down at the lodge. He goes, look, we have about 20 hours left in this race or so. If we take, if we take the jet across the country and watch the game, game six of the playoffs, Hawks. Watch it, we can make it back in time to finish the race. And I'm like, I love some adventures, man. Let's go.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  And so me and some buddies, Jimmy DeSico, Jake DeSico, Dan Churchill. We all jump on the plane with him. We fly out to, to Atlanta. We watched the game. We may or may not have had some tequila. We, Jesse looks at me and he goes, back on the plane. We get back on the plane. We land in Sun Valley, Idaho at 3 a.m. We finished the race with 30 minutes to spare.

• 22:35Gary Brecka?

  No.

• 22:36Speaker 00

  That was the first 36 hours I ever met Jesse.

• 22:38Gary Brecka?

  That's so cool, man. Awesome.

• 22:41Speaker 00

  Talk about bonding.

• 22:42Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 22:43Speaker 00

  Talk about like, we were just kind of how I came in here and we kind of just clicked. You know, that's how Jesse and I were and we're, we've always been on the same page. And all day was never about, it's, it, it wasn't about money. It's about us having a canvas to bring people together and communion and not creating a running company that has first, second or third place, but rather creating a running community. And a community that says, hey, everyone's welcome. Let's just have a good time. You know, let's take the seriousness out of running. We don't, at Running Man, the festival we do every year, we don't pick a first, second or third. Matter of fact, everyone's together, helping each other finish their marathon.

• 23:23Gary Brecka?

  Sometimes your things are circular too. So they can't really tell who's winning.

• 23:26Speaker 00

  Right. Yeah. And so, you know, we're, him and I are just on the same wavelength of. You know how how we want to impact people in a positive way. And I think that's that's kind of how we went into business together.

• 23:37Gary Brecka?

  You know, it's it's really interesting because there's a lot of research out now about, you know, the impact of physical conditioning on mental health and like the just this is the impact of a simple walk, right?

• 23:48Speaker 00

  Right.

• 23:49Gary Brecka?

  And and versus an antidepressant like an SSRI like, you know, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are not as powerful as movement for depression.

• 23:59Speaker 00

  Interesting.

• 24:00Gary Brecka?

  And, you know, Joe Rogan's talked about this. I'm happy to put it in the links to the research and in the show notes. But I so totally agree with you because if people would move more, speak more, have more eye contact, get better, you know, back in touch with nature, not all the time, you know, not everybody has to move to a regenerative farm. But no. Once in a while, instead of taking a vacation where you just like go to Vegas and get blasted and you come back more exhausted than you left and you need a vacation from your vacation, take like a selfless vacation where you actually go and put some hormetic stresses on your body. And, you know, hot, cold contrast therapy, you know.

• 24:38Speaker 00

  What is that word hormetic?

• 24:39Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, hormesis.

• 24:40Speaker 00

  Or hormesis, cool.

• 24:41Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, so hormesis is the, you know, the, you know, it's what happens. It's this scientific term for stressing the body and it strengthens in response, right? I mean, you you tear a muscle, it gets larger. You load a bone strengthens.

• 24:54Speaker 00

  Hormesis.

• 24:54Gary Brecka?

  Challenge the immune system. It right. It strengthens. You know, so hormesis is the act of like strengthening through

• 25:04Gary Brecka?

  cold plunges, right? Activating brown fat, you know, shivering peripheral vasoconstriction.

• 25:08Speaker 00

  I call it type two fun for me.

• 25:10Gary Brecka?

  Dude, I love that term, too. Tell me about that.

• 25:12Speaker 00

  Type, type one, type two, type three, type one fun is what we were just doing. We were drinking D-blow, eating some of your food or laugh or a joke or have a good time. We can laugh about it. Now we are laughing during. We're always going to laugh about it. It's immediate fun. Type three is when I was coming off the summit of Everest. All right. And I'm coming down. I just I'm at 28 and a half thousand feet. There's 50 yards to go, but, you know,

• 25:41Gary Brecka?

  Coming down.

• 25:41Speaker 00

  In that 50 yards, before I go over the next cliff, there's 100 people in between and there's two inches to step on and my oxygen's running out. And all of a sudden I say in my head, Devin, you're likely going to die. This is not fun during. I'm not laughing about it. It is. Um, what's, what's my girlfriend Nina gonna say at my funeral? What's my mom gonna say at my funeral? This is it. I wonder what jokes they're gonna make. I wonder, you know what, what, what my buddies are gonna say? That is, it's not fun during. I'm looking at death in the face. I'm seeing where my head's gonna hit the rock. I'm seeing where my body's gonna end up. That's not fun. That's type three fun. And maybe in a year, and I'm laughing about it now. Maybe that now it's type three.

• 26:24Speaker 00

  Type one is what we're at before this. Type two is right in the center. Type two is the cold plunge. Type two is, I don't care who you are. Cold plunging isn't that fun during. You're like, holy shit, this is cold.

• 26:38Gary Brecka?

  Nobody likes the actual.

• 26:38Speaker 00

  No one's like, oh my God, I love freezing everything off right now. It's not that fun, but right afterwards, that dopamine rush, that feeling you get of like, that was so fun. Everyone wants to post about it like, oh my God, I'm Superman. I'm the ultimate human. I feel good. That's type two fun. And I think every single day, every single week, every month, every year, everyone should add a type two fun into their life.

• 27:02Gary Brecka?

  Hmm. I love that, man. So add a hormetic stress, type two fun.

• 27:06Speaker 00

  Add a hormetic stress.

• 27:07Gary Brecka?

  And so do you see these, when you're in these communities and you, you know, you host these events or people come out to your farm? I mean, do you see transformational change? Like, what do people, what do they say to you? Like, besides, thank you, but what do they?

• 27:20Speaker 00

  For sure, man. You know, there's, everyone, everyone has a story. All you have to do is ask.

• 27:24Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 27:25Speaker 00

  It's one of my favorite things to say to humans. Every single person has a story. You guys are listening, we're talking, everyone has a story. All you have to do is ask. And if you can put an environment together where people can open their mind a little bit outside of their normal routine. They're not taking the normal route home. They're not going to their normal weekend bar, et cetera. Then their brain is actually going to expand and they're gonna feel good. So what happens when it expands? Well, relationships are cured. Relationships form, right?

• 27:54Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 27:55Speaker 00

  All of a sudden, you're sick. You're not so sick anymore. All of a sudden you have anxiety. Well, man, this, this event opened my eyes a little bit and I'm, I'm not even doing what I love. I want to go work with so and so, or I want to go start this, or I want to do that. Or man, I'm gonna hit up that girl that I was so afraid to talk to, or I'm gonna hit up the guy that I was nervous to message, or you know, relationships happen mainly. I would say relationship building and that can be personal. That can be professional. And that's the main thing that happens. The second thing that happens is you're, you feel better.

• 28:24Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 28:24Speaker 00

  You know, you feel good. You've. Too many of us and too many, too much social media, I think, tries to put out, "Hey, you have to wake up ecstatic every single morning, super stoked, happy." I'm a pretty happy guy. I don't wake up ecstatic every morning.

• 28:44Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 28:45Speaker 00

  And that's just life.

• 28:46Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 28:46Speaker 00

  But how can you wake up content? How can you wake up and be like,

• 28:51Speaker 00

  "You know what? Life's okay. You know, I'm good. I'm alive. I'm breathing. I have oxygen. I'm okay." And that's what I'm trying to instill. And people are like, "Hey, guys, it's okay. Take a deep breath." And so from the relationships to how you feel, I think of the two major takeaways from our events, from Sweet Honey Farm, is just like, "Hey, let's bring it back to the basics. People are good. Surround yourself with some good people. Here's some good people. And hey, this is what feeling good and content and happy looks like."

• 29:22Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 29:22Speaker 00

  Try to remember those two things.

• 29:24Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 29:24Speaker 00

  And I think-

• 29:25Gary Brecka?

  And at least know that you can feel them.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  Right.

• 29:27Gary Brecka?

  I mean, I think for some people, like I say this all the time, like I think the majority of people have forgotten how good normal feels. Right? And I liken that a lot of times to nutrient deficiencies, the absence of whole foods, the absence of, you know, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, you know, nutrients of all kinds. And so you get, you get them out. It sounds so simple, but you get them off to a farm, they're touching the ground, they're petting a cow, they're eating spinach out of the garden. They're in a community, but, but what it does is it reminds them of what normal feels like.

• 29:56Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 29:57Gary Brecka?

  And, and so often when, you know, clients of mine are like, "Oh, my God, Gary, I feel amazing." I'm like, "You know, you actually don't really feel amazing." Like, "What?" I'm like, "You just feel normal." That's how good normal's supposed to feel, dude. I mean, that's how God wants us to feel. He wants us to thrive. You're supposed to have it all.

• 30:12Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:12Gary Brecka?

  And, and it's just so, you know, so amazing when you see that breakthrough.

• 30:15Speaker 00

  There was a doctor I was talking to, and he said, I was asking him about TRT, and I'm curious on this, you know, from you. Not that I, I would take it. I was just curious on his, his perspective on it.

• 30:27Gary Brecka?

  And-

• 30:29Speaker 00

  And he said, well, you know what I tell patients? I say, hey, one, are you having regular sex? Are you getting sunlight? Are you moving? Are you doing the things and taking the things into your body that are going to make them healthier? And then come to me and see if your testosterone is low, you know, try those things first versus just TRT, TRT, TRT.

• 30:50Gary Brecka?

  I totally agree with that.

• 30:51Speaker 00

  You know?

• 30:52Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. And, and, and the reason why I agree with that is because again, you know, hormones, uh, and I don't want to flip the podcast here, but you know, hormones are one of those things that need raw materials to, to be constructed. Like if you're deficient in DHEA, you're going to be, it's going to be hard for you to build the hormone testosterone. If you're deficient in vitamin D3, it's going to be hard to build the hormone testosterone. If you've got rampantly high, um, insulin, you know, um, which is going to lead you to be estrogen dominant. So you're, when, when you do, when you get the basics right, yes, rarely there's true testicular hypofunction, right? Testicles for one reason or another, damage, radiation, you know, um, lots of, lots of abuse that can't produce testosterone. And by all means,

• 31:35Gary Brecka?

  you should replace it. Um, in 2018, the Journal of American Urology updated all their clinical guidelines on, on hormone therapy. It is, it is, it's actually really good for you and can substantially extend your life.

• 31:46Speaker 00

  Wow. Cool, cool.

• 31:48Gary Brecka?

  But people also want to start it to quick fix and, and do it before it's needed. I mean, no matter what anyone tells you, there's no better hormone than one your body produces on its own. So if you can be high on your own supply, healthy levels of growth hormone from your pituitary, healthy levels of testosterone, if you're a male from your testicles, healthy levels of, of, of hormones, cyclic, cyclical hormones, if you're a female, that's, that's the best life has to offer. And it's usually the absence of the basics. One of the reasons why I really, you know, love, you know, love so much, you know, identify so much with the mission you're on. Um, you know, and, and, and we've been talking about that. I mean, when you sat down, you were telling me, um, uh, and I'm very flattered by it. You were like, really, I, I saved my, my Everest story for this podcast because you haven't really

• 32:30Gary Brecka?

  gone, gone out the, the, the story yet. So I first, I deeply appreciate that. I think my audience is just going to love your message, but, um, Tell me about that because

• 32:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:40Gary Brecka?

  Uh, I've never climbed Everest. I'm actually going on an extreme race with my son in three days where he's doing seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. Yeah, it's gonna be a blast for him. 184 miles in seven days. But the cool thing is it's on every major continent in the world. So I'm literally gonna see the world in eight days and, and it's astounding to me. The negative responses that I get from so many people and I just start to talk to them about like, oh my God, I would never do that. Oh my, I could never do that. Think about all that time in the air. Dude, he's gonna be, he's gonna be torn to shreds. Not gonna be able to move when he gets home like, dude, we're going to seven continents in seven days. This is living, brother.

• 33:22Speaker 00

  This is the ultimate living, man.

• 33:24Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 33:24Speaker 00

  You guys are gonna have a blast. Antarctica is beautiful. I'm so excited for you to go. If anyone's listening and you have the chance to go to Antarctica, you should go. It's, it's, it's, it's quite remarkable, but you know, Everest, it goes back to that Marcus Aurelius quote, the nearer man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to real strength. And I've been really trying to get deeper and deeper of what that means. You know, am I meditating? Am I working out regularly? Am I, you know, is it the gut health? Is it, how can I calm my mind so I can be that, be here now? Right? It's, it's something I'm really passionate about. So I went to this thing in February called the Hoffman Institute, which is seven days, no phone. It's a total reset. Highly recommend. Changed my life.

• 34:07Speaker 00

  And so I did that and I went into Everest with a clear mind. Now it's taken me about four, four or five years to train for Everest. Just understanding gear, understanding layering, understanding climbing, understanding just topography, just understanding everything about a mountain. Because mother, you have mother nature, you have your physical ability, you have your gear, you have other people on the mountain you have to worry about. So like, there's a lot of. There's a lot of variables that go into it. And so finally this year I felt comfortable. I'm like, I'm gonna go attempt to climb Everest. And I didn't go in with an expectation of I'm gonna stand at the top of the world, but rather than intention to calm my mind. How can I get closer

• 34:48Speaker 00

  to a calm mind? How can I just be me and just be on my own? I didn't take any sponsors on. I paid for it fully out of pocket and I was just using it for a time to get away. And I was also using

• 35:00Gary Brecka?

  you out solo, fully solo?

• 35:01Speaker 00

  I was with Dr. John, who's an amazing guide. He was introduced through a couple mutual friends, Jesse Itzler, Mike Posner, etc. And then Jen Jen, our Sherpa, who's amazing guy as well. He's awesome.

• 35:15Gary Brecka?

  They're special humans, man.

• 35:16Speaker 00

  Special. So, so, you know, I went out there with that intention, not expectation, and just fully took it in. And you know, what I noticed at Everest is there's not that many people on Everest. You know, that's, that's number one. There's, if you have one hot restaurant in New York City and it's only open one time a year, it's gonna look busy because everyone's waiting in line to go up to that one restaurant. The other thing about Everest is that you only have a couple times, if any at all, to summit. There's not that many summit windows. Sometimes four, sometimes three, sometimes one, sometimes zero. And so when there is a summit push and there is an open window, naturally people are gonna go up and a lot, a lot of people. And when I say a lot,

• 35:58Speaker 00

  I think there was 300 permits this year, which you go to a restaurant tonight in Miami, there's gonna be 700 people there. So there's not that many people on Everest.

• 36:06Gary Brecka?

  They're all on the same path.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  Right. Everyone's on the same path. And if you deviate outside that path, you could, you know, you could cause an avalanche. You could get someone hurt. You could get hurt. Like it's, you stay on the path and quotes path, right? They put new lines in every year. When I say they, it's, it's, it's the locals. It's the, it's the Nepalese team. There's about six to eight guys that go up and, and try to put new lines in and those lines aren't guaranteed. And so everything has to go right on Everest if you're gonna summit. Everything. You can't get sick. A lot of people gets, a lot of people have a cough. Gary, I'm, I'm not kidding, man. When I, when I'm chatting with people on Everest, it's, it's Gary, yeah, I'll be on your podcast. It's bad. Yeah, a lot of people are coughing. They have.

• 36:54Speaker 00

  Colds and these, these, these chest colds going on, altitude sickness, maybe your gear is broken, you're too tired, mother nature, avalanches, ice falls, falling in crevasses, food, nutrition, altitude, right? Like the altitude, just having oxygen alone, you don't have oxygen up there. So there's a lot of variables that come into being able to sum it. But again, I was looking at it as calming the mind and, you know, education. I'm a very curious guy. I dropped out of college. I use climbing the highest point of Antarctica, highest point in South America, Africa, now Everest as my school. That's my education. I think it's important for people to know how they learn. You know, society doesn't

• 37:37Speaker 00

  have to tell you how to learn. You decide how you want to learn. Are you good at listening? Are you good at writing? Are you good at reading? Are you good at feeling? Are you good at touching? Like, what is your optimal learning levels? And mine is curiosity and traveling and seeing and touching. That's me and listening. I'm a sponge. I'm not on out on Everest saying, hey, Colin O'Brady, I, I'm going to tell you what to do. Hey, Dr. John, I'm telling you what to do. I'm listening. I'm like a total sponge and I'm just taking it. I'm seeing, I'm listening. I'm, I'm like, yeah, I'm SpongeBob on Everest, man. I am, I'm up there. And so, you know, it took me 47 days, you know, you have to do rotation.

• 38:18Gary Brecka?

  Forty seven days.

• 38:19Speaker 00

  Forty seven days. I was out there.

• 38:21Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. Cause you're, you're going to different levels and then

• 38:23Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 38:24Gary Brecka?

  Hanging out there to acclimate.

• 38:25Speaker 00

  Heck, yeah, man. Tracked into base camp with my girlfriend, which is amazing. That's, I recommend everyone do adventures with your girl, man, or your partner.

• 38:32Gary Brecka?

  You left her at a certain altitude, right? Like she

• 38:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, just left her there. Never saw her again. No.

• 38:37Gary Brecka?

  She's still there waiting for you.

• 38:39Speaker 00

  She's still there.

• 38:40Gary Brecka?

  She's gonna see this podcast and be like, damn it, he's back.

• 38:42Speaker 00

  What the hell? She, no, she came to base camp, which is no joke, man. It's about seventeen and a half thousand feet.

• 38:48Gary Brecka?

  That's a seventeen thousand?

• 38:49Speaker 00

  Seventeen and a half.

• 38:50Gary Brecka?

  Dude, I got a cabin at 10.5.

• 38:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:53Gary Brecka?

  And I go on these ruck walks, just a straight walk. I put a 20 pound ruck and I go out of this little route in the woods. When I come back, I'm, I'm significantly winded. I feel amazing.

• 39:06Speaker 00

  Oh, man.

• 39:07Gary Brecka?

  Um, but I'm also not just pushing straight up a hill and it's, it's a 10.5. My son actually did a half marathon from like, almost a half marathon in pieces from like 10.5 up to 13 and a half thousand feet and back down to prepare for this race. But man, you, you, you get a hundred yards and you gotta take a knee.

• 39:26Speaker 00

  You're winded, man.

• 39:27Gary Brecka?

  If, if nobody's been to that altitude, it's hard to respect what it's like when the ambient oxygen goes from 21%, which is sea level, at 10.5, it's about 13.7. And it doesn't sound like a big deal, a 7% drop in oxygen, but you, you dead sprint 100 yards and you're taking a knee. Hey, everyone, if you've been tuning into the Ultimate Human Podcast for a while now, you know I'm very selective about the products that I endorse. I only feature items that I personally use daily to enhance my own health and wellness. One product I use daily is the Echo Go Plus. This portable hydrogen generator is a game changer. Simply take the top off, pour your bottled water in, and with the push of a button, it transforms into high concentration hydrogen water. You'll see the bubbles rising.

• 40:10Gary Brecka?

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• 40:48Speaker 00

  You're, you're doing it. And that's, and that's what causes the lines on Everest. It's not a line due to people are going too slow because of someone in front of them at traffic jam. It's due to what you just said. You have to take a knee. You're exhausted, even with altitude or even with oxygen tanks. You have about five levels on each tank. Some, some tanks have six. Each level. Level one drops by 1500 feet, drops you down 1500 feet. If you're at 20,000 feet, you're going to 18,5. If you go to level two, you go to 3000 feet, it's just 1500 per level.

• 41:25Speaker 00

  But the issue is, if you go all the way max out to level five, your oxygen tank might only last 15 to 45 minutes. Those oxygen tanks weigh a lot. You can't just bring up a ton of oxygen tanks. You have to know how to regulate. You have to acclimate and you have to make sure that your body is, is, is, is recreating these cells, right? And so, and so with that being said, I, you know, for, that's why it takes 47 days. Right? You want to trek into base camp. That takes a couple of weeks. You hang out at base camp. You might even go all the way back down.

• 42:02Speaker 00

  To Kathmandu, you will then go back up.

• 42:07Speaker 00

  To base camp and you wait for a weather window. And once you get that weather window and you, and you, after you've done a couple of rotations.

• 42:14Gary Brecka?

  So you're back down, you're back up, you're back down, you're back up. You're just getting this acclimation.

• 42:17Speaker 00

  You're acclimating. The problem with the Nepali side and not a lot of people know this, but Everest is split, um, split in half. Half of it's China and half of it's Nepal. The China side doesn't have the Kumbh Icefall, the Nepal side does. And so what happened was we, China didn't approve our permits. They approved them and then they took them away. China's funny with that stuff, man. They, uh, they, they let their locals go up first and you know, they're, they're not that inviting to Westerners. And that's just what it is. It's, it's a pretty known fact, right? You know, um, and if it's not, well, this podcast will tell.

• 42:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's crazy how they treat, um, how they treated us, but anyway, so we, we somehow managed to get a permit on the Nepal side. We get to base camp. And now we have to redo all of our logistics because we don't have a team out here. We don't have our tents. We don't have, we're, you know, it's kind of a free for all, you know, we don't have support. And so we were kind of, uh, we were, we were in a little ruckus for, for a week or so. Finally get a window to go up the Kumbho Icefall. The Kumbho Icefall is one of the scariest places on earth because you have these thousand foot deep crevasses. Ice can fall at any time. There's avalanches all around you. You have to go in the middle of the night because if you are middle of day,

• 43:39Speaker 00

  it, it could cause melting, which would then increase the likelihood of icicles falling on you. So a lot of variables are going into it. Go up the Kumbho Icefall at say 11:00 PM. Um, takes about five, six, seven hours to get through it. Exhausting. There's cliffs. There's, I mean, it's, it, the first time I went through it, I, I messed up and I, I told myself, uh, I was like, I don't need to eat that much. Like, uh, I can't like, I'm just gonna get sick at altitude. And so I didn't eat and I, I got really, really sick for not eating. So nutrition's big on out, on, on Everest.

• 44:14Speaker 00

  Uh, finally we get out of the Kumbho Icefall. You go up to camp three, you hang out there for a sec. You come all the way back down. That's rotation number one. If you do it correct, you can acclimate and then you make for a summit push, maybe a week later. It's pretty wild, man. And so I come back down to base camp. We go up, uh, from camp two to camp three, which is 22 ish thousand feet to 23 and a half. There was a big storm that came in. And so a hundred people were making a, you know, a jump for summit that day. And everyone started coming back down and I told Jen Jen and I, and John, I was like, man, let's just go up. I was like, I think the storm's gonna pass. John's like, I kinda do too. Jen Jen's like, it's up to you guys. Let's go.

• 44:59Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 44:59Speaker 00

  And so we all, we all proceeded up, uh, ended up getting to camp three safely. The storm did pass. But I mean, it was 50 mile per hour winds. It was, I mean, it was terrifying.

• 45:08Gary Brecka?

  And it wasn't storming.

• 45:09Speaker 00

  It wasn't supposed to storm in the weather forecast. It just boom out of nowhere. 50 mile per hour winds, negative 10, 15 degrees. And you're just, you're in this blizzard. And at that point, again, it's type three, you know, you're like, holy shit, I might, I might actually die right now.

• 45:24Gary Brecka?

  And how were the guys that were with you? I mean, what was their state?

• 45:27Speaker 00

  You know, they, they're, they're somewhat indifferent. Jen Jen was so cool, man. He, you know, he summoned multiple times before and he was, you know, he's a family guy. I was never trying to risk anyone's life and neither was he. So like, we were always, we always were on the same page. And I would ask him like, are you comfortable? And he said, yes. John, you comfortable? Yes, I'm comfortable. Cool, guys. Everyone's on the same page. No one has to be a hero. If, you know, if, if we feel unsafe, let's get out. So finally get up to camp three. Man, I'm in the 10 at camp three and there was a group that went up before us. And all I hear in camp three at 11, 12 AM. Man, and then it started, it just went on all day. People are coming back down to summit that didn't make it because there was a storm.

• 46:11Speaker 00

  The blizzard that I was in at camp two to three, they were in at the summit. So imagine how bad it was up there. So people are dying. People can't breathe. People are being, trying to be evacuated off, but helicopters can't go above camp two. And all you hear is, give him oxygen, give him oxygen. He's not breathing. CPR. Nepalese people yelling, American, British, like all these yelling intense. It sounds like I'm in a war zone. And I'm supposed to go for summit the next day and I'm just sitting here in my 10. I start getting emotional.

• 46:46Gary Brecka?

  People literally in that condition.

• 46:48Speaker 00

  Dying. And I'm like, this is crazy. Like, what am I doing here? This is not a place I should be. And it's not like there's an ambulance or a, you know, like I said, a helicopter. There's nothing around. If you, if you break a leg up there, you're probably going to die. If you're, if you, if you, you know, stop breathing, you're dead. Like it's not, you don't have resources. So we then had to make the decision to go up. And so we then, I didn't sleep that night because I was terrified. And so we then went up and pushed the next day. It is so slow trying to get up Mount Everest after camp three. You can't move. I'm saying you might be not even half a mile an hour. I mean, you might be going point two miles an hour. I mean, it's so slow because you're so exhausted.

• 47:31Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 47:31Speaker 00

  Even, even if you do have a little oxygen, so. Fast track to Camp Four. Somehow we get there exhausted. People start thinning out. You start seeing people turn around. Imagine being out there for 47 days, going for summit and then all of a sudden, weather comes in. You're like, I gotta turn around and that was your only chance, maybe in your lifetime. And someone just spent $250,000 to be out there and their, and their, their life and, and their time and everything. And all of a sudden they turn around. So that's kind of what's going on. I'm watching it. We get to Camp Four, you know, super bright outside. And by the way, there's a lot of trash at Camp Four, a lot.

• 48:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I'll tell you why, you know, you know, as I was coming down, I'll tell you after, but, um, so anyways, get to Camp Four. We then make the summit push, try to get ahead of everyone. And what happened was my guy, Dr. John, was trying to help facilitate me and Jen Jen. And so he put an extra oxygen on himself. And so he got stuck behind, which I didn't know about. And so he has a little bit of double the weight on him. He's behind us. So now I get separated from him. So now I'm just with Jen Jen, me on Mount Everest. Climbing. How did you get separated though? You just climb faster? You can't even, you can't run, you can't walk faster. Everyone's going pretty much the same speed.

• 48:56Speaker 00

  So yeah, I mean, he was just behind and when I say behind a couple of hundred yards and it wasn't, he was trying to do us a favor. Which John's amazing. One of the best guides out there. He's a great guy. Highly recommend. He does, you know, a ton of, a ton of climbs around the world, Kilimanjaro, at Conca, etc. But, you know, he got stuck behind. We then make the summit push.

• 49:19Speaker 00

  I fell asleep. I fell asleep on the summit push on the side of the mountain, negative 20 degrees out. I was exhausted, Gary. I like, I couldn't breathe. I was tired and I just fall asleep on the line. And all of a sudden my tank stops oxygen and I go. Jen Jen, my Sherpa, turned my oxygen back to level one. It was at level three.

• 49:44Gary Brecka?

  Oh my god.

• 49:44Speaker 00

  And he turns it back. The problem was when you go to level three, you start to get relaxed. Cause you're like, ah, I got a little bit of oxygen.

• 49:51Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 49:51Speaker 00

  But the problem when you get relaxed and you're that tired is you fall asleep. When you fall asleep at negative 20 degrees, you freeze.

• 49:56Gary Brecka?

  Hmm.

• 49:57Speaker 00

  And that's what happened. That's what happened to the two Mongolians before us. They froze on the line. It was in the news. Um, that was the day before us.

• 50:04Gary Brecka?

  That was the day before you?

• 50:05Speaker 00

  Right, day before us. Um, and then, so the guy woke me up.

• 50:09Gary Brecka?

  How do they get the bodies down from there? They just leave them?

• 50:11Speaker 00

  You can't.

• 50:12Gary Brecka?

  Oh, you can't. You're just there. So you have to hike past them?

• 50:14Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 50:15Gary Brecka?

  So you actually saw dead frozen bodies?

• 50:17Speaker 00

  And you know, these, these bodies, man, they're, they're wax figures. They look like wax characters. They're, they look perfectly preserved. Sometimes their eyes were open. There was a guy, his eyes were open. He had a, a blue, uh, black diamond helmet on. He had a, a red north face. Onesie on, you know, the, man, and he was just there. And it looked like he was alive. And I'm looking at him like, man, this is, this is someone's brother. This is someone's maybe father. This is a child of someone. Like this is wild. Multiple, multiple people. So then we proceed past these bodies. Um, it's starting to get scary. You're approaching 29,032 feet. Get to the top. You could hear a pin drop at the top. Perfect weather.

• 51:03Gary Brecka?

  Really?

• 51:04Speaker 00

  Blue skies. Get to the summit at 505. I had a little extra energy because I took that mini 60 second nap. Did a little backflip on the top, which is really fun. And proceeded down. Up there for about 30 to 45 minutes.

• 51:20Gary Brecka?

  So you stayed right at the summit for 30 to 45 minutes?

• 51:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, man, just taking it in.

• 51:23Gary Brecka?

  All the flags stuck in there and like.

• 51:25Speaker 00

  Man, when you stand on top of the world and you just look around, you're like, man, I'm, I'm the tallest point on earth. There's no one higher than me right now. It is, I mean, it's giving me the chills thinking about it. It is, it's so next level. It's a feeling of this crazy energy of just, okay, I did it, but I didn't do it. I gotta get down now.

• 51:47Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 51:48Speaker 00

  And that's the hardest part, man. That's the scariest part. I go down.

• 51:53Gary Brecka?

  Why is that?

• 51:54Speaker 00

  Well, you know, it's, you're, you have to go past people. It was what I was saying earlier in the podcast. You have to literally, Harry, I have to, I have a. I have a carabiner attached to the line and I have to my stomach to your stomach. I have to come around you and put my other carabiner around every person, hundreds of people. You have to go around and you have this much to step on and guess what? It's a 5,000 foot drop if you fall. So it's terrifying. You're just, um, there's no way I'm getting down right now. And it's not just a walk in the park. You're going down, you know, the, the size of buildings, just, you know, trying to pass people rappelling down. I would go over the Hillary step after some and I'm at about 28 and a half thousand feet. I go over the Hillary step 30 minutes later behind me. Boom, the whole thing collapsed.

• 52:39Gary Brecka?

  No.

• 52:40Speaker 00

  Multiple people fell dead.

• 52:42Gary Brecka?

  No.

• 52:43Speaker 00

  Dead. And I'm just like, John, we gotta get the fuck out of here. Chen Chen, I'm getting out of here, my man. Like I'm not staying on this mountain. I know, you know, people take three, four days to get off Everest two. If you're good, I was like, we're out.

• 52:59Gary Brecka?

  Thinking one day.

• 53:00Speaker 00

  Went down the whole freaking mountain in 20 hours. We were like, see you later.

• 53:03Gary Brecka?

  And when you say collapsed, the area that you were walking, is, is that because it's pure ice?

• 53:07Speaker 00

  Ice, snow, mother nature.

• 53:09Gary Brecka?

  And it just cracked off and down they went.

• 53:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:12Gary Brecka?

  And, and the Caribbean didn't, didn't hold them to the.

• 53:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, it, it must've, it must've came out. And so, and if any families are listening, man, I, you know, and, and you lost someone on Everest, like serious condolences. Cause it's like, it's, it's, it's scary, man. I would never go back there. I, you know, and my blessings go out to everyone that tried, but like, shoot, man, it's, it's really sad. It's, it's, and they, there's good climbers out there. You're not getting to the top of Everest as a bad climber, you know? These are experienced people that have trained their life to do this. And it's just, it's a sad, it's a sad, sad thing. And I don't know, I think if you have a family, if, if, you know, you have a wife or a husband and man, I wouldn't recommend going to Everest. I just wouldn't recommend, I'm not going back, you know?

• 53:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's also, there's also, there's a debacle between the Nepalese and Westerners. And I'll be the first to say it.

• 54:08Speaker 00

  There's, there's a little bit of a, it's a debacle, man. It's, they'll cut your lines.

• 54:14Gary Brecka?

  No.

• 54:14Speaker 00

  They will cut your lines, man. I'm not kidding. I was standing, coming out of the Kumbu Icefall, John and I, standing there. There's 20 Sherpas locals around us.

• 54:27Gary Brecka?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:27Speaker 00

  And they're all jamming in front of us to get their carabiners on the line ahead of us. And I'm like, brother, like, can I get in? And they're like, they're just pushing me out of the way. And I go to shove in and just put my carabiner on so I don't fall off this freaking cliff. And John's like, no, no, no, chill. And I'm like, why? He's like, they'll cut your line. I'm like, what do you mean they're gonna, he's like, they'll cut your line, they'll push you off. He's like, don't fight with them. He's like, it's two versus 20. And I'm like,

• 54:54Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 54:54Speaker 00

  Got it. And I'm like, and, and I believe this goes back to 1953 when Tenzing Norway, Nepalese, and Sir Hillary, he, they both summoned it. And some say that Hillary, Edmund Hillary summoned it first. Some say Tenzing Norway did. Some say they summoned it together, but the world puts Hillary on this pedestal, which probably isn't the right thing, you know, if they did summit together. And so I, I think ever since 1953, there's been a little

• 55:23Gary Brecka?

  Ah.

• 55:24Speaker 00

  chaos and confusion and debacle between the Westerners and Nepalese. You know, it's their mountain. It's not ours. And so it's, you gotta watch out for that. You gotta watch out for who's guiding you. You gotta watch out for your health. You gotta watch out for Mother Nature. You gotta, there's so many variables.

• 55:41Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 55:41Speaker 00

  If you have a family, I would not recommend climbing.

• 55:43Gary Brecka?

  Who wants to be a guide doing that? I mean, dude, forget it. I'll be a river guide or something like a little less dangerous.

• 55:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. But I've, I've found a little bit more calmness in my brain. I'm happy I did it. And, um, man, what an adventure. You know, I, I probably wouldn't, I wouldn't be talking about this if I didn't do it. And I think it's, uh, it's, it's something cool. I can, um,

• 56:08Speaker 00

  I can, I can always have my back pocket and know that I accomplished. So yeah, I'm happy I did it, but I wouldn't, I would never do it again.

• 56:14Gary Brecka?

  That's amazing, man. How, how did those experiences like, you know, the grinding through the pain of a bear crawl, grinding through the pain of, of Everest, you know, pushing your body to, to the absolute limit, even into the zone of the unknown, right? Because, um, you know, I feel like when you do, you know, you prepare for a race, like a marathon or a distance race, you kind of know what you're getting into, can manage your exhaustion. Um, like, look, my son's never done seven marathons on seven continents in seven days, but he knows what a marathon is, right? And, and if he gets into trouble, he can slow down a little bit and bring himself back. And, but these are like, sort of black holes that you're going into.

• 56:59Speaker 00

  Black holes.

• 57:00Gary Brecka?

  Right? I mean, they're, they're not pre-planned. Um, yeah, obviously you can train, but you're also in that black hole. Like what has, what has that done? What did that experience do to shape you? What, what, what was your big takeaway from, from those?

• 57:17Speaker 00

  It.

• 57:19Gary Brecka?

  Cause nothing prepared you. You didn't like prepare to look at frozen dead people.

• 57:23Speaker 00

  No.

• 57:24Gary Brecka?

  You didn't prepare to have somebody maybe, uh, cut your line and actually take your life because

• 57:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 57:29Gary Brecka?

  you butt in front of them in line. Like that wasn't part of your training.

• 57:32Speaker 00

  Right.

• 57:32Gary Brecka?

  Um, so.

• 57:34Speaker 00

  I think, and I'd love your, your, um, your perspective on this, but you know, the, the thing with the brain bigger is better.

• 57:43Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 57:44Speaker 00

  Right? And I, I believe when you activate your brain in different scenarios, like I said, not the routine in and out, you're expanding your brain and I can take that, my brain and things I learn and I see and I push through. I don't start a race until I get to last 10% of the race. That's when the real race starts. The first 90% is guys, we're having fun. This is type, type one, type two fun.

• 58:12Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 58:13Speaker 00

  The last 10 is the type, damn man, this is a 2.5 fun. This is some shit. I'm, man, my heart's beating, my head's gonna explode. I'm dehydrated. I have a blister on my foot. Jesus, man. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I need this to stop like freaking out. That's where you learn about yourself. How do you, how can I, for me, handle chaos? How can I handle exhaustion? How far can this body go? And I'll tell you one thing, this body can do a lot. Our bodies are so, so, so, so smart, man. And they're, they're, they can, they can recover fast. They, they know when they need hydration. They know when they need protein. They, they, it knows. And understanding my body on all fours, I want to understand it.

• 58:58Speaker 00

  And I wanted to be as comfortable on twos. You know, I wanted to be as comfortable on bear, like literally crawling on all fours as I was walking in two feet. And I wanted to see what's that like, right? I wanted to be as comfortable on Everest as I am walking around Central Park. I wanted to be just as comfortable. And I want to see how can my body adapt? And how far can this body really go? Not to the point of death, but to the point of like, all right, knocking on that door real quick, you know? And I think I, I believe in what's helped me in my business career, my personal life, my friendships.

• 59:33Speaker 00

  Everything is when I push my brain a little bit past that uncomfortability. I can handle all those other scenarios so much more easier. Like, you know, people are, you know, they flip out about the most basic. That's what I mean. Things. And I'm like, man, like, have you ever stood on a cliff, man? Like, have you ever, have you ever ran a marathon? Have you ever like really been in a situation where, you know, you know, death's knocking on your door? Cause if not, then put yourself in a position where it's really hard and you need a test. Do a Masogi. Do something that you don't know if you're going to complete or not. 50%, you're going to complete it, 50% not. And go put yourself out there, because that's where your brain's going to expand. You know, I was reading in a book, take a different route home every day from work.

• 1:00:18Speaker 00

  Don't take the same route home. Don't take that same subway back and forth, back and forth. Take a left turn, take a right turn. Go to that coffee shop you've never been to. Go to that restaurant. Try that workout place. Try different things, expand your brain. And that's what these races, the marathons, the bear crawls, the Everest, the Antarctica, the trips, the, these, these adventures, I put myself riding across America.

• 1:00:40Speaker 00

  That's where my brain expands. The other part, you know, like riding across America. In New Mexico, people are living in tents, Gary. They're living in tents and they're chilling and they're former doctors.

• 1:00:52Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, hot water.

• 1:00:53Speaker 00

  Guess what? They don't have bills. They can go, they can go to the store and get food once a week. You know, they don't have that nagging girlfriend or boyfriend. They're chilling, man. And they're, and they're, they're doing their life. They're riding their bike every day. They're running and they're living out of their tent. They're jumping in the river. They are living and they have reset the standard of what they want. And you know what that did to me? That made me think, man, we add the stress to our life. We're the ones that keep stacking up. Well, I want this and I want that and I need this perfect. Well, guess what? This is the standard. You can live it. We can all live in a tent next to a river somewhere on this planet. And that's the very simple life, if you want that. But if you want to start a company, expect stress. If you want to run a race,

• 1:01:36Speaker 00

  expect you're gonna have to get in shape. If you want to do this, you're gonna have to sacrifice that. We're adding the stress to our life. You know what I mean? We got, I can have a simple life, man. I asked to be on this podcast, right? You wanted me to be on this podcast. I was, I, you know, the last 24 hours, I'm like, all right, let me look at these notes. Let me listen to Gary. Let me, I put that stress on me.

• 1:01:57Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:57Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? If I didn't want to do it, I would, hey, I'm gonna back off.

• 1:02:00Gary Brecka?

  I'm gonna chill in my tent at the river.

• 1:02:02Speaker 00

  In the, right.

• 1:02:03Gary Brecka?

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• 1:02:43Gary Brecka?

  giving you a natural hit of minerals that keep your cells hydrated and your energy steady. So don't just snack. Reach for masa. It's real food, real health, without any of the junk. Grab a bag and I promise you'll feel the difference. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. Yeah, I think that's such a great metaphor for life is like, you know, you talk about finding that calm in your mind, but being calm under stress, you know, it's like if you've ever done like a really hard yoga session, they wrap you into the candlestick pose or something and it should be like called the torture pose. And, and you know, you're there, you're half squat and your hands are together, your, your butt's firm, you're holding in your abdomen and you just start shaking in pain and like, and you know, the sweat's coming off of your head, but

• 1:03:27Gary Brecka?

  you're just trying to calm your mind in that scenario. I feel like you can condition yourself, condition your mind. It's like, why, why I tell people to, you know, if your morning's hard, your day will be easy. And I'm not saying you have to go in and do a workout that just taxes your joints every day of your life. But I, um, you know, a few, few months ago, I was like, you know, I really freaking hate Y-Grip pull-ups and I really suck at them.

• 1:03:53Speaker 00

  Do them.

• 1:03:54Gary Brecka?

  And so I'm just, that's why I got a David Goggins in my mind all the time. Like you pussy, like do it now, do it now, do it now. And, um, and what was crazy is I went in and started doing, I was like, whoa, hold myself, hold myself, hold myself down. You know, and then, you know, and then I just started working through them. Now I'm in there rolling them out and I'm like, you know, it's, it's such a metaphor for life. Like, you know, you call it do hard shit. And I think the reason why you want to do hard shit. Well, I'd love to hear your reason. You know, why should people do hard shit?

• 1:04:24Speaker 00

  Expand your brain. That expands your brain. It makes, it allows you to enjoy the good times much, much more. Yeah. Man, that Memorial Day weekend, when I came back from Everest, I was the happiest guy on earth, man. I was so happy. I enjoyed that burger and I enjoyed my friends and I enjoyed my hugging my mom and I enjoyed it so much more than before Everest.

• 1:04:46Gary Brecka?

  That's so cool, man. You know, I, I took the family on a extreme Costa Rican vacation about two years ago and my, my daughter, my, my two sons, my youngest daughter and, you know, my wife and my son's fiance. And we all went down there. And was really cool. When I say extreme vacation, it wasn't like, definitely not like have Everest or bear calling.

• 1:05:11Speaker 00

  You didn't take your family to Everest?

• 1:05:12Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, no, no. Only one of us would make it and that'd be my, my son. But, um, but what was really cool is, you know, we rafted the Pecory River. We did spelunking. We did, you know, rappelling, um, you know, we had ATVing out in the, uh, you know, we, we stayed in these lodges that didn't have any running water, freaking bugs everywhere. And, um, in the last night, we were in the, uh, uh, the, the Pecory Lodge and, and the next morning I had to leave. If I left the family there, I'd leave the jungle at four 30 in the morning because I had to get to town and take a flight to Miami because actually I had just speaking engagement in Miami and it was at Live nightclub in Miami. And, um, you know, somebody had rented, it wasn't a nightclub thing. It was like they rented the nightclub and it was, it was actually, um, uh, Dan's, Dan Fleischman's, uh, uh, mastermind, hundred million dollar mastermind.

• 1:06:05Gary Brecka?

  So anyway, but, but the, the whole point is I, I woke up in the jungle. I'd only been there for seven days. I take this flight. I land in Miami and as I'm like getting to the speaking venue, it all felt so surreal. Like I was looking around, I'm like, none of this is necessary. Like these fucking buildings, that Ferrari, this crazy gorgeous nightclub, all these clothes, these fancy clothes you guys are wearing, that $20,000 bag that just passed me in the lobby. I like.

• 1:06:34Speaker 00

  Doesn't matter.

• 1:06:35Gary Brecka?

  It was, it was super perspective for me. Like I was, I was almost like, I don't belong here. Like I wanted to go back to the Costa Rican jungle so bad. And so I, I really identify with what you're saying. And I think that by doing really hard shit, you know, people understand that, you know, life's, you know, take it a little easy. Like.

• 1:06:58Speaker 00

  You're taking it easy on yourself.

• 1:06:59Gary Brecka?

  That's serious. You know, I got a hater on Instagram. I don't even know who this freaking person is.

• 1:07:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, man. It's not, you know, I don't, I don't want to sound like this, but you know, in. I think we'll live to 180. I really do.

• 1:07:11Gary Brecka?

  I do too.

• 1:07:12Speaker 00

  Um, I think in 150 years, none of this is, I don't think any of this is really going to matter. It's, you know, that, that, that person that, you know, you thought was mad at you or that stupid little fight you got in with your girlfriend or that it's not really going to matter. It's really not.

• 1:07:30Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:30Speaker 00

  Take it easy.

• 1:07:31Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:31Speaker 00

  It's not like, relax.

• 1:07:33Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:33Speaker 00

  Everyone take a chill pill. You know, the other reason I like doing hard stuff is because it, you know, Stephen Kotler from, um, uh, his book on flow state, you know, speaks on, there's three ways to re-tap into flow state in our brain. You have to do something mindless. You have to do something hard and you have to do something calm. And with those three things, you can re-tap.

• 1:07:56Gary Brecka?

  You have to do all three of them?

• 1:07:58Speaker 00

  You should do all, you have to do all three of them. Flow state only lasts in the brain for 75 minutes, according to studies. 75 minutes, you can be in that state of not understand, not understanding time, being in the zone and just being in your own world. That feeling of, oh my God.

• 1:08:17Gary Brecka?

  Hyper focused, laser concentration.

• 1:08:19Speaker 00

  I just got that shit done that I wanted to get. It's 75 minutes. Can't have flow state, Gary, for 10 hours in a row. It's not possible. However, the way to maximize it is by doing hard shit, cold plunge, by doing something mindless, meditate, doing something calm. Maybe it's a sauna. And so that's why, like at Sweet Honey, that's what I do every 75 minutes. And that's why I encourage members and people.

• 1:08:44Gary Brecka?

  Every 75 minutes?

• 1:08:45Speaker 00

  Every 75 minutes.

• 1:08:46Gary Brecka?

  Dude, that's so cool. I never.

• 1:08:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so then I get to, I get to reset and I re-tap into flow state. And so if I'm taking calls or meetings from say, 10:30 to three, I'm doing it multiple times in between. And by my three, four o'clock call or meeting, guess what? I'm at a hundred percent, baby. I'm good to go.

• 1:09:05Gary Brecka?

  That's awesome.

• 1:09:06Speaker 00

  Cause I'm re-tapping in.

• 1:09:07Gary Brecka?

  Three saunas, three cold plunges and.

• 1:09:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I just lay there, meditate. I'll do a Hoffman meditation. I'll just listen. Sometimes I'll just go pet a horse and I just do something.

• 1:09:15Gary Brecka?

  I love that.

• 1:09:16Speaker 00

  I just chill. And guess what? By the end of the day, I'm. Hundred percent on the call. I'm not, hey Gary, how are you? Sorry, man. I'm so tired. It was my last call for today. That's not Gary. Let's go, baby. What do we got going on? Yeah, I'm in it. Let me focus. I'm you and me, baby. Let's get this call done, you know? And, and I think that energy is what we all need in our life. It's not the extra caffeine. It's not the cocaine. It's the good, real energy that we can give to ourself. It's the real dopamine. It's the real flow state. And that's, that's just what I believe in, man, from doing hard shit.

• 1:09:47Gary Brecka?

  Dude, that's so good, man. I think it's, like I said, I think it's such a metaphor for life. And I, I remember back when I, I first started doing CrossFit. Cause I, I've always tried to meditate. Um, yeah, I do, I do breath work every morning now, which really, um, helps, but I, I never was able to really, really quiet my mind. And I found CrossFit and the thing that I loved about it was if, you know, if you, if you're ever doing a CrossFit WOD and you actually don't want to quit, you're just not doing it right. Right? Like, yeah, 70% of the time you should really want to quit. Like it's, and

• 1:10:19Speaker 00

  It's brutal.

• 1:10:20Gary Brecka?

  It's brutal. And like, you know, whatever the AMRAP is that you're doing. Um, but afterwards.

• 1:10:25Speaker 00

  By the way, as many rounds as possible.

• 1:10:28Gary Brecka?

  What's Gary doing? Yeah. Yeah. And he's got next to you.

• 1:10:32Speaker 00

  E moms are a walk in the park. It's like, all right, I get a little rest. These are fun. And rap is just

• 1:10:37Gary Brecka?

  They're am raps are torture because you're trying to condense time and, and I realized, you know, over the long term, that combining speed and heavy weight was a bad idea. That's why I stopped doing it. I never had a problem with heavy weight or a problem with speed, but I think the combination for like deadlift for time, 400 meter sprint, deadlift for time.

• 1:10:52Speaker 00

  No good.

• 1:10:52Gary Brecka?

  Me is, yeah, that's, that's

• 1:10:54Speaker 00

  It's that room.

• 1:10:54Gary Brecka?

  That's a recipe for disaster.

• 1:10:55Speaker 00

  It is, right?

• 1:10:56Gary Brecka?

  But

• 1:10:57Speaker 00

  What do you, so what do you think of these hybrid athletes then that everyone's like, yeah, the deadlift and then run the mile or whatever. And is, is that, is there longevity to that?

• 1:11:05Gary Brecka?

  I think there's, there are athletes that, you know, can condition and, and participate that. But, you know, compound Olympic lifts. You know, like, like a real overhead snatch, right? Or, or a squat snatch. I mean, That's not something that your average soccer mom should just do twice a week, you know, after she drops the kids off at school, right? I mean, just come in, you know, fresh out of bed, had a cup of coffee, dropped the kids off at school, you know, pulls in and now she's doing compound Olympic lifts and it's, it's not that I have any problem with those activities or even the CrossFit Games, but it's, you know, what, what I saw and I owned a CrossFit gym, it was, it was called Real Fitness in Naples. And we had great programmers, but, but I, I did see

• 1:11:48Gary Brecka?

  a lot of people get injured because I think you were taking people too far, too fast, you know, just getting somebody to understand the mechanics of, of deadlift and safely deadlift, real weight, or overhead snatch, or clean and jerk, or, or just clean. I mean, those are, those are complicated movements for you to master 15 of those as someone who's not dedicated to that craft, you know, is, I think is a risk for injury. I actually watched, it was terrible. We, we had those, they call them the GHD setups where you kind of lock your knees.

• 1:12:21Speaker 00

  I love the GHD. I have one. Yeah, we have one at Sweet Honey.

• 1:12:23Gary Brecka?

  Um, I love them too, but I saw, I, I saw, uh, it was like my fifth day owning the gym too. And I was just like, I was like, I'm so excited, man. I just put this big investment in and you know, and, uh, um, you know, this guy comes in and he, and he, we didn't have, we didn't pre-test him for his level of conditioning and he jumps in the water and he gets him on the GHD and he goes flying back and splits his lineal from like the base of his sternum to the top of his pubic bone. And he just saw everything come out through, through, through the skin. And he ended up getting surgery and being fine, but it was like 18 months of recovery for him, you know, stitching that all back together. But it just came, came right out and it was just laying

• 1:13:08Gary Brecka?

  outside of his abdomen, inside of his skin.

• 1:13:10Speaker 00

  I did not even know that was possible.

• 1:13:12Gary Brecka?

  I'll never forget that. But, um, now he must've had like a hernia or something. Uh, but in any case, I, I, that was the worst thing that I, that I'd seen, but like lots of knees, hips, shoulders, rotator cuffs, you know, you know. People don't work on their shoulder mobility and then they're trying to do a snatch and

• 1:13:31Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:13:32Gary Brecka?

  You know, just those kinds of things, but I, I'm not dishing on CrossFit at all.

• 1:13:35Speaker 00

  What is, what is your, what is your daily?

• 1:13:37Gary Brecka?

  But it was my meditation.

• 1:13:38Speaker 00

  Oh, that was your meditation?

• 1:13:39Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, it was my, it was my meditation because when I was done that workout, because there was that period of time where all you wanted to do was quit, there was nothing else on your mind, but trying not to quit. And at the end, I always felt this incredible sense of zen calm. Like I actually got addicted to, it's like the, the, the post cold punch feel.

• 1:14:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:03Gary Brecka?

  Like I got addicted to what was coming after, right? The workouts always suck, but the after was, and you know, now that I look back, it lasted like, you know, 75 ish minutes. I always remember that by a certain time in the morning, you know, it would, it would wear off. But I clearly remember that, which much must be what, you know, you're.

• 1:14:23Speaker 00

  No, a hundred percent. Yeah, the flow state is, you know, when, when you just lose, lose track of time, man, and, and you're, you're in this zone of just zen, getting this done. Some, some people can tap into it easier than most, but Stephen Kotler has that book, Stealing Fire.

• 1:14:42Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:42Speaker 00

  And it's, uh, it's good. It's, it's a great book and talks about Navy SEALs and, and, and how you kind of integrate flow state. But, you know, I, I do think if you can tap into that, you don't need a, again, you don't need caffeine or anything else to do that. You can do it yourself.

• 1:14:58Gary Brecka?

  That's so awesome. And I had, I had a cosmetic surgeon on here one time, Dr. Cameron Chestnut.

• 1:15:04Speaker 00

  Oh, cool.

• 1:15:04Gary Brecka?

  And what was really cool about him, I'd never heard a physician say this or a surgeon say this is, he, he's, he doesn't allow himself to schedule more than a certain number of surgeries a week. And I think he only operates two or three days a week. And the reason is because he puts himself into a flow state before every surgery. Cause he's like, I want to be so present for that patient. I want to be so present for that procedure, for that, you know, and. Being a patient, you gotta be like, that's the guy that I want. You know, I mean, if you're cutting my eyes or redoing my nose or whatever you're doing on my, on my body, I want you in a flow state too.

• 1:15:38Speaker 00

  Hundred percent.

• 1:15:39Gary Brecka?

  It was just really cool to see that he actually used that as his superpower.

• 1:15:42Speaker 00

  My surgeon, Dr. Sam, Sports Doc Sam, he's amazing. He's not quick to cut. He's not a guy that's like, all right, your, your ankle hurts. Let's, let's cut that thing open, baby. Let's go. He's a peptide guy. He's a stem cell guy. He's so, he's functional health, but he, he jumps in a cold plunge every morning. Before he goes into surgery, like that's his jam and he just, he rips, you know? I, that's the other thing I think with, with, with this whole health world is having a doctor, having a biologist, having someone that you can really go to and, and, and trust. And, and, and they're going to provide you the information or the peptides or the functional way of going about your, you know, your injury or, or your disease or whatever you're dealing with. I don't know.

• 1:16:27Speaker 00

  I, I think it's really important. I have this guy on speed dial. You know what I mean? Like, I, I think everyone needs that and, and especially someone that lives, kind of lives that life as well.

• 1:16:37Gary Brecka?

  But yeah. Well, um, first of all, this has been amazing, man. Um, I mean, your, your, your story is inspirational. And I mean, it's just the way that you're making an impact in a world and building communities is, is incredible.

• 1:16:48Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:16:48Gary Brecka?

  I, um, you know, I ask every guest that comes on, on my podcast, the same questions. And there's no right or wrong answer to this, but, uh, what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?

• 1:17:01Speaker 00

  To be an ultimate human?

• 1:17:07Speaker 00

  I think for me to be an ultimate human, it is to develop my own patterns, not patterns that were passed down from my parents and their parents and their parents, but develop my own about who I am. I think it's understanding what values you live by, you're absolutely no matter what.

• 1:17:33Speaker 00

  And I think it's.

• 1:17:37Speaker 00

  I think it's to be kind to others and do the right thing when no one's looking. I really do, man. I, I, I believe in that. And I think if we can just, if we can just put a little bit more love out in the world, and I don't want to sound too woohoo, but a little bit more love, you know, I'm gonna hug you when I leave, man. I'm gonna hug her, I'm gonna hug him, and I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna put that love out in the world. And I think if more of us could do that, we can be an ultimate human. The energy you put out in the world is exactly what you're gonna get back. Yeah, you know, and I'm gonna spend every second of my time on earth, putting out positive energy and putting out my values. Because guess what? The people with similar

• 1:18:19Speaker 00

  values are gonna be attracted back in. So true. You know, that's so true. And the last thing I'll say about being an ultimate human is maximizing your time for what you want, not what your boss wants, not what your mom wants, not what your girlfriend wants, what you want. What do you really want to do? If you're not gonna control your time, someone else will. Yeah, so true. And so I would say that's, uh, that's how you can be an ultimate human.

• 1:18:45Gary Brecka?

  That's a great answer, dude. I've had a lot of answers, but that one's awesome. Dude, I cannot thank you enough for coming on, brother. You're, you're, you're a bright light in this world. I mean, and you're touching so many lives, and I'm gonna continue to follow your mission. I hope you'll come back on again.

• 1:19:01Speaker 00

  Hundred percent, my brother. I appreciate you. Thanks for having me. You're awesome. Awesome what you guys are doing. Thank you. And as always, guys, that's just science.