389: Random but Important Ideas to Enhance Your Life NOW

Hal Elrod: Hello, and welcome to the Achieve Your Goals podcast. This is your host, Hal Elrod. And thank you so much for tuning in today. I really, really appreciate you being here, you listening, investing your time. I know your time is valuable. You only get so much of it. So, thank you for choosing to engage with the podcast today. And I will do my best, or I did my best as I just finished recording today's episode to make sure it was valuable and relevant for you, for just about any human being that would listen.

 

There are three things I covered today. The three kind of random, unrelated, yet as you'll listen, there's been quite a bit of overlap throughout these three topics. The first one is I shared the four really profound lessons that I learned on my most recent vacation. I went on a first vacation I had in a long time, but it was the best vacation of my life. And so, if you follow me on social media, you saw me post about this, but I went really deep today in how you can apply it to your own life. How can you apply these four lessons? When I reflected on the vacation, that's what made this the best vacation of my life, these are the four lessons. And then, in this episode today, I really talk about, translate how you can apply these to your daily life to really enhance your life and make it better, to really optimize it.

 

The second thing I talk about today is the food supply chain disruptions that are going on. So, this is a departure from topics. I've mentioned this before, but it's something I've really dove into a lot over the last year. And if you think about it, it's not that unrealistic. Last March, we had this happen with COVID where there were runs on grocery stores. And I don't know about you, but our groceries were empty. You couldn't get any produce. I mean, there were some stuff in the stores. They weren't empty, empty, but they were pretty dang barren. And so, there are quite a few signs that that could happen again. It might even be likely to happen again. And so, I just share some ideas on what you might want to do to prepare and some resources to look deeper into that.

 

And then, last but not least, sharing a new book that I am reading called The Inner Work. And I talk to you about– well, actually read the introduction to you and share with you why this book may have led me to the decision that I am no longer writing a book. The book that I am currently writing, I may not finish it and publish it because of this book. And today, I will share with you why that is.

 

Before we dive in, one of the things I go deep in today is health. I talk a lot. It was unintended when I started, but I ended up going really deep into health and specifically, the foods that you eat and how those impacts your health and the criteria that you are using to decide what you put into your mouth and what you put into your body. And if you've got a busy schedule, I want to take a second to mention my sponsor, Organifi. It can be hard to get all your nutrients on the go, even if you had the time to juice vegetables or eat massive salads and make the morning smoothie that I teach you today in the episode, you may not love the taste of dark leafy greens. And as we all know, a lack of nutrition can lead to low energy, bad moods, all sorts of long-term health issues. And that's why Organifi makes it easy to fill your life with more nutrition using delicious superfood blends. All you do is add a scoop to a glass of water or your favorite plant-based milk or your favorite smoothie. I put it in my smoothies, and it nourishes your day with carefully picked adaptogens, fruits, vegetables, medicinal mushrooms, and more. It's one of the easiest healthy choices you can make each and every day. And if you're interested in that, check out Organifi.com/Hal, that's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I, Organifi.com/Hal. And then, if you decide to get some Organifi, use the code Hal, H-A-L, at checkout. You'll get 15% off your entire order. That's an additional 15% off of all the sale prices they have going on right now.

 

And then, last but not least, I want to thank Self-Publishing School, my friend at Self-Publishing School. I've been good friends with their founder, Chandler Bolt, for over five years. He's a good friend of mine, and Pedro and the rest of the crew as well. And Self-Publishing School is for you if you have a dream or a desire or a little voice in your head that says, “I want to write a book. What if I wrote a book? What might that be like?” Whether it's to create an extra stream of income for you or leave a legacy for your children or make an impact in the world or to boost your business and attract new customers, whatever the reason is, you want to write a book or just for fun, head over to Self-PublishingSchool.com/Hal, that's Self-PublishingSchool.com/Hal, and you'll learn how to turn your dream of writing a book into a reality of being a published author. So, without further ado, my musings today on all the things that are going on in my life that are important, that I hope add value to your life as well.

 

[INTERVIEW]

 

Hal Elrod: Hello, my friends, welcome to the podcast. Today, we're going to talk about three unrelated topics, but important topics. The first is I'm going to share with you my recent vacation, and not just my vacation, to tell you my vacation, but it was the best vacation of my life. And I was really present to that while I was having the vacation. So, I want to talk to you about, I really reverse engineered the vacation. Why is this vacation so meaningful? Why do I feel so good? Why do I feel without any stress? How am I so present? All of those things so that you can apply them to your own, not just vacations, but to your daily life.

 

The second thing I want to talk about today is our food supply chain. And I won't spend a lot of time on this because I definitely don't consider myself an expert, but I've spent the last year, quite a bit of time, I'd say dozens of hours, well, over hundreds of hours studying topics relevant to my family, but dozens of hours specifically studying our food supply chain. And there are some real concerns on the horizon that are looming in our ability to have our grocery stores stocked the shelves and in restaurants, having food available. And so, I think it's worth just me spending at least a few minutes to bring it to your attention in case it's not, maybe share some resources if you want to dig deeper, but worst-case scenario, if the food supply chain indeed broke or was severely severed, and you had a limited ability to get food, I’d feel really bad if I didn't at least give you a heads-up because I've taken actions for my family as a result of what I've learned.

 

And then, last but not least, I'm going to share with you, actually, I’m going to share with you, where is it? It's a new book I started reading that it's kind of interesting. I'm blown away by, I'm pleasantly surprised by, and because of this book I'm reading, I might not write the book I've been writing, I might not finish it, because as I'm reading this book, it's almost exactly what I was going to write about. In fact, if I wrote the book that I was planning on writing without having come across this other book that I'm going to share with you today, and then those authors found my new book, it would have looked like I plagiarized their book, even though I had never read the book because somehow, we're writing about the exact same things. They're using the same verbiage that I use. And so, yeah, it's wild. So, I thought, man, I may not need to write my next book. I might just start promoting the heck out of this book and helping them share their work because I think that they've already said what I was going to say, or at least in their own words.

 

So, those are the three things that we're going to touch on today. First, taking the lessons I learned from my vacation that you can apply to your everyday life that made it the best vacation of my life. Talk about the food supply chain, some of the challenges and some of the things you want to take action on to be prepared for what may or may not be coming down the pipe. And then, we're going to talk about The Inner Work. That's the name of the book that I referenced a minute ago, The Inner Work: An Invitation to True Freedom and Lasting Happiness.

 

So, first of all, my vacation, and I don't even like framing it that way because I'm not trying to tell you what my vacation. I'm really wanting to extract the lessons, though. And the vacation was seven days. Me, my wife, our two kids, we flew in to Seattle and we went and visited my mom in Tacoma, Washington. And this is the third, third time's a charm. The first two times we have this vacation scheduled, we had to cancel it. And first was two years ago. We had a trip scheduled to visit my mom, and I had chemotherapy. I was still doing chemo for my cancer. And after the chemo, I got really, really sick. And sadly, I had to cancel the trip. And my mom, she was supportive, but devastated. She was looking forward to us finally getting up there. It was the first time since my son was born who at that time was seven. We had never visited my mom with my son. I felt like I was not being a good son myself. So, we finally had the trip scheduled, canceled it because I was sick.

 

Then last year, we had the trip rescheduled for the second year, and COVID hit, and we had to cancel the trip. Flights were canceled during that time. We couldn't even get up there if we wanted to. And then, this year, finally, we rescheduled the trip, and third time was a charm. We got to go see my mom. And that was the first thing that made the trip valuable was really spending time with my mom, the person who gave birth to me, and just family. And I think that's the first lesson, is really spending time with family. And I've really asked myself, you know what? What do my mom and dad specifically, what do they want that they may not be saying? And there's something for you to consider. Would your parents, and not just parents, it could be friends, it could be any loved ones in your life, would they like you to call them more? But maybe they don't want to be needy so they're not saying that to you, like, both of my parents don't want to burden me, but I've realized when I'm really honest during my meditations actually is when I get clear that I go, you know what? My dad would probably want to talk to me every single day if he could. My mom, yeah, maybe a couple of times a week, but once I had that realization, I started selflessly looking out for what would serve them and reaching them, like now, I call my dad at least a few times a week, call my mom two times a week. And I know it means a lot to them. And so, this trip, going out there and seeing my mom meant a lot to her.

 

And then, the second part of it was we went saw my grandma for two days and kind of the same thing, we haven't been out there since my son was born, and it meant a lot to grandma. So, first thing is just for you to consider the people in your life who love you. How might you add value to their life in really simple ways, right? Maybe even shooting him a quick text message or taking a video of your kids. I’ve been sending my parents videos of my kids a lot more because, again, they don't complain, they don't say anything. In fact, I think it was my sister that brought it to my attention. She goes, “Hey, mom will never say anything, but she really misses you guys. And she really would love to hear from you more. And you know, same with dad.” And it was my sister, I think, that helped me to realize, “Oh, you're right.” And so, giving that attention selflessly, adding value to the people in your life that love you, just asking yourself who in your life might appreciate hearing from you more, or in what ways could you add value to your loved one's life in a really simple but meaningful way?

 

The second thing that made the vacation great, and again, this applies to everyday life is how active we were. We went on daily walks. We went to the zoo, which was a very long walk, like three hours walking around the zoo. We went out and did karaoke at my mom's Elks Lodge. I have a video of my mom and my daughter doing, Hey, Mickey, you're so fine. I think that's the name of the song, but you get what I'm talking about. And it was like, that video is legendary, like seeing my mom and my daughter up there just in the moment entertaining, it was really incredible. We rented a five-person bike and we rode along the waterfront up in Tacoma on the sound where the ocean comes in. We went to Pike's Market where they throw the fish. And we got like a psychic reading for the kids and we threw a big party together. We did a ton of stuff.

 

And in the past, I think my family, we've succumbed to being lazy on our vacations, staying at the hotel, just laying by the pool. And it was so nice and really fulfilling to be active. So, I'd encourage you not just on vacation, but to ask yourself, in your life, how active are you? I know for me, I can fall in the trap and I haven't in a while, but I've definitely, in the past, fallen in the trap of like doing the minimum I need to do to get by, meaning like show up to work, do the minimum work I need to do, to check the boxes, and then go home and veg out or lay around or do nothing. And what you find is, at least for me, when I go out, this morning, I went for a bike ride, rode to the basketball court, played basketball, rode back home, got a killer workout. I love shooting hoops. Like you got to do something that it energized me. I felt happy. I felt alive. I was present in the moment on that bike. I was in nature. I was in sunshine. It was incredible.

 

So being active, and I know same thing on the weekends. The weekends for us can often turn into lazy time, but when we're active and when we get out of the house and we do something together, it lights us up. I feel more fulfilled and I know my family does, too. Another thing that we started doing recently, simple low hanging fruit that you can model is every day after dinner now, we go for a family walk or a family bike ride. You could Google, see some studies on how it's really beneficial to move your body after you eat, help boost your metabolism, digest your food quicker or more effectively. And yeah, so just that, but it feels great that going on that family walk. It checks off a lot of boxes. There's multiple benefits, not only digesting food, but connecting as a family, getting exercise, getting fresh air, so on and so forth. So, again, going back to the vacation, it was being active that made it one of the best, if not the best vacation of my life.

 

The third was eating healthy food the entire time. A lot of times when I travel, depending on where we go, it's tough to find healthy food. At home where I live here in Austin, Texas, we're blessed that there are countless grocery stores, Natural Grocers and Sprouts and Wheatsville and Whole Foods, all these stores. I have unlimited supply virtually of healthy food, but when you're traveling, it can be challenging. And so, that was for me, whenever I land, I always go open up Yelp. Whenever I land, meaning, get to my destination, open up Yelp, I type in organic restaurants, organic smoothies, farm-to-table restaurants. And I immediately create a– I save a list of all of the options in the area that are healthy. And so, for me, I was able to find healthy organic food for my entire trip. And that made a huge difference.

 

And of course, you can apply that to everyday life. And it's a whole nother topic, which we've done we've talked about in the past, but eating like, why are you eating the foods that you're eating? Or what's the value? What's the criteria? Is it eating for taste? Because often, if that's our criteria, eating for taste and period, like, don't get me wrong, I like good tasting food, but my number one priority is the quality of the food and the impact that it's going to have on my body. I want food that contributes to my cellular health so that will have longevity, long-term health that I want food that doesn't have toxins or genetically modified organisms in it, so that I'm not putting cancer causing chemicals in my body, pesticides, for example. Like, I will not eat food that's not organic. And I don't mean to sound like a food snob, but again, it's not being snobby. It's just I've had cancer and so, I've spent dozens of hours researching how diet impacts our physiology, our biology, right? Our physiology, I guess, is better. And so, for me, I won't put GMO foods in my body. I won't put preservatives in my body, unless I have to, unless I'm in a situation where it's like, alright, I'm starving, I'm really hungry. I haven't eaten, and many, many, many hours, six hours, whatever, and the only food available is this not so high-quality food, but I've heard people say and I know I used to argue like, oh, but the organic food, the healthy food is so much more expensive.

 

And then I got hospitalized for cancer. And my hospital bills were outrageous. I think my first month, and thankfully, insurance paid some of this, but we came out of pocket tens of thousands of dollars, we had to, because the insurance I had was not set up to cover what I got, but my first month, the hospital bill was $260,000 for one month, the first month. And I was in the hospital for eight months.  It was pretty well over a million dollars, but the point is, if there's anywhere that I'm going to invest money, even if it means cutting back in other areas of my life, my highest priority is the food that I put into my body. And so, I'm just sharing that just to invite you just to consider that. And for many of you, you're probably nodding your head going, yep, Hal, I'm with you. Same for me, but yeah, so just something to consider and that your everyday life.

 

Here's what I'd encourage you to consider is the consequences of your food, valuing the consequences of your food above the taste, and then taste can come in second. For me, it's got to be adding value to my cellular health and energy by the way. I did a podcast, you can probably find in our archives called Eating for Energy. And that's one of my high priorities, too, is I eat foods, living foods typically that have a high, energetic vibration. I mean, you can measure it, right? The food that's sitting in a can or in a cardboard box, it's dead. When food's growing, you literally can measure the energy in living food that's growing out of the ground. I've shared this before, but I was at a Tony Robbins event in 2000, so, gosh, 21 years ago. And he brought a device out on stage and he was measuring, can't remember the device, and it's been two decades ago, but he was measuring the energy from different foods and he had a bunch of different foods laid out on stage on the table. And he put this device. He could hold it up to any food. It would actually measure how many megahertz of energy the food was emulating, and he basically said in layman's terms, the amount of energy that the food is putting off that is being absorbed into your body and it's giving your body energy. And he essentially said that when you eat, you are either in an energy surplus or you are in an energy deficit.

 

So, if you're eating foods, by the way, the way to determine that surplus or deficit is are the foods you're eating, do they contain more living energy, do they contain more energy than they require to digest? So, all food requires energy to digest. Some food requires more energy to digest, but the amount of energy that's being put off, is it giving you more energy than it is sucking than it is extracting, it's requiring to digest? And again, it's been 20 years, but I believe, don't quote me on these numbers, but he held the device up to raw broccoli, and it was putting off something like 2,000 megahertz of energy. And then he held up the device to cooked broccoli. And it was putting out something like, I don't know, 700 or 200 megahertz of energy, it was far less. And then he held up the device to a piece of cooked steak, and it was putting off like 12 milligrams of energy. Again, don't quote me, I'm sure I'm off, but the general ratio here is it's close.

 

So, the raw broccoli that was alive, days before when they cut it and brought it in, it was putting off thousands of megahertz of energy. And when you consume it, your body is now absorbing and converting that energy into energy that you can use. The cooked broccoli, interestingly enough, required less energy to digest because the raw broccoli gets into your body, it's harder to break down raw living food, but the ratio, it was still far greater in terms of how much it was adding to your body. The cooked broccoli added less energy to your body, but it actually was easier to digest, but you were still winning with the raw broccoli. And then, the cooked meat, of course, required the most amount of energy to digest to break down that meat, and it gave your body the least amount of energy.

 

So, the idea is that if you eat raw living foods, like a salad or a smoothie, you are giving your body foods that contain measurable energy that your body converts and uses for energy. And if you eat dead food, if you will, that's either been cooked to oblivion or it's crackers or chips or cookies or it's been sitting in a can, canned food, whatever, typically, the energetic profile is very low. And so, all of that is just sharing for you to ask yourself again, what's the criteria that you decide what you eat every day? Are you eating for taste or are you eating for health? Are you eating for taste or are you eating for energy? And again, you can have your cake and eat it too, meaning you can eat for health and eat for energy, the impact that it has on your cellular health and the impact that it has on your physical energy, the foods that you're eating. And if that's your top criteria, those two, then you go, okay, what are the best tasting foods that fall under that criteria? What are the best tasting things I can eat? And I'll tell you for me, I'll just run through. I start my day, I usually start up with a green tea in the morning, and you can put a little oat milk in the green tea, organic oat milk and organic green tea.

 

And by the way, if you want, here's a little bonus tip for you. Actually, I used to brew green tea and then I don't know where I found these. Somebody introduced me to Pique green tea. So, you can get actually green tea, Earl Grey, they make all different kinds of teas, P-I-Q-U-E, you can head over to Amazon, or I prefer to order directly from every company that I can and skip the Amazon middleman. So, I order directly from Pique Tea. In fact, I literally just got 12 boxes of organic jasmine green tea in the mail yesterday from them, but Pique green tea, it's ground-up organic tea leaves into a fine powder. And so, all you do is, and it dissolves in cold water as easy as hot. So, I love these for travel because if I don't have hot water or whatever doesn't matter, I'll just grab a water bottle, take a sip out of it to make a little room to shake it. So, then I empty the green tea powder. Again, it's not artificial powder, it's ground-up green tea leaves, and then I put that in there, shake it up, and then it gives me a great boost of energy, by the way, and mental cognitive energy and focus because green tea contains L-theanine.

 

And L-theanine is an amino acid that balances out, and I'm no scientist to explain how this is happening, but from my understanding and my experience, since I drink this every day, the L-theanine balances out the caffeine. And so, when you drink green tea, it impacts your body in a way different from coffee. Coffee, to my knowledge, does not contain L-theanine. And so, with coffee, you have that spike and crash. We've all experienced that before, or with an energy drink, spike and crash. When you drink green tea because of the L-theanine, you have a more balanced energy and balanced cognitive benefit, if you will, without the crash. So, I highly recommend that.

 

So, I start the day with green tea, then I make my, call it the Miracle Morning smoothie. The recipe is at my MiracleMorning.com, if you want the recipe. And it's a pretty intense recipe, it's got like 30 ingredients. And I say, on the PDF, it's free. You can download it on the PDF. I say, look, you don't have to use all of these, but this is what I put in my smoothie, and you can take and leave some of them, but I have a smoothie. It's got an organic orange in it. It starts out with organic lemon juice. That's the base. It's got a garlic clove. It's got ginger in it. I actually put real organic ginger in there. It's got a handful of pecans. It's got two scoops of organic chia seeds. It's got– what else do I put in? I put a handful of spinach in there, and then it has a ground-up ginseng powder. It's got matcha green tea powder, again, for that a little bit of energy, a little boost. It's got Organifi vanilla protein powder. As you know, Organifi is one of my sponsors, and I was using the product before they offered to sponsor me. So, it was an easy yes, but I use Organifi vanilla protein powder and a bunch of other stuff. So, you can go to my MiracleMorning.com. So, I start my day with that smoothie and I make a big blender full. It's like 32 ounces or maybe 24 ounces, I think it's 32, and I split it in half in two large cups. I drink one at 9:00 a.m. and then I have my lunch and then I drink the other at 3:30 p.m., the other half of my smoothie. So, it basically makes two large smoothies.

 

The lunch, the salad I make, it's again trial and error, figuring out okay, what tastes really good that will also give me energy? And I know I'm going deep into this health piece, but I feel like it's one of the most important things, to eat a diet because without our health, we have nothing. Nothing else matters. All of our goals fall to the wayside if we don't have our health. There's that famous quote, which I don't know exactly how it goes. It's something along the lines of, he who has his health, has many goals. He who doesn't have his health, has but one goal, to be healthy. And so, for me, diet is always one of my highest priorities. And it's why when I travel, it's every day of my life, but it doesn't go away when I travel. I don't go, I'm on vacation, I want to eat like crap. No. And I know a lot of people do that. I don't even get that. I'm on vacation, I’m going to eat like crap. Therefore, I'm going to feel like crap. I'm going to get food coma. I'm going to get sugar spikes. I'm going to– no, I'm on vacation. I'm going to keep eating healthy so that I can be in an optimal physical, mental, and emotional state so that I can make the most of my vacation. And that's why this was the third piece of it being the best vacation of my life, is I was able to keep eating healthy.

 

So, that salad I make every day, I use organic. So the dressing, let me give you my secret dressing recipe. You ready for this? My secret dressing recipe. This is exciting. Like to me, your dressing kind of makes the salad, right? And so, here's what I do, And I don't measure stuff. I just eyeball it so I can't tell exactly how much, but I put in quite a bit of organic extra virgin olive oil. So, I probably put in, I don’t know, six tablespoons. I mean, I just pour them, I just fill the bottom of my bowl. Then I cut a lemon in half, an organic lemon. I squeeze a bunch of lemon juice in there and then I put quite a bit of pepper on there, organic pepper, and then Himalayan sea salt, just a little bit. Not a lot, just a little bit. And then I put in cayenne pepper. There's a lot of health benefits to cayenne. You can Google what those are, if you want to search. And then, I put in organic hummus. That's the key ingredient. So, instead of like a very liquidy dressing that just kind of slides off the leaves, I create this creamy dressing using hummus as the base. And my favorite hummus is, I believe, the brand is called Hope organic hummus, and they have original, spicy avocado, jalapeno, cilantro, they got a bunch of different flavors. And that's how I change the flavor of my dressing is I have– my two favorite flavors are the spicy avocado and the sea salt and olive oil hummus. And so, I just alternate between those two and in one day, I'll use one and the next day, the other. So, my dressing, the flavor slightly changes.

 

And then, in the salad, I use red leaf lettuce. And I'll tell you the secret ingredient, other than dressing, there's one more secret ingredient to feeling energized, which I'll give you in a minute. I use red leaf organic lettuce. You can use whatever you want, organic spinach, organic romaine, spring leaf mix, whatever. I use one organic avocado in the salad. I use one organic– actually, usually half of an organic Granny Smith apple. It's kind of that salty and sweet flavor palate that I like. And then I top it off with roasted and salted organic pistachios, which I get from Braga Farms, B-R-A-G-A. They make the best organic nuts. That's where I get my pecans for my smoothie from. I also alternate between pecans for the smoothie as well as walnuts.

 

And again, actually, I've been meaning to create a sheet because this is all part of the Miracle Morning smoothie, that smoothie recipe I gave you a minute ago. I've been meaning to make a sheet that actually just gives you like a synopsis, a paragraph on the health benefits of each of the ingredients, but I don't have that created yet. But for the salad, so I put in the pistachios and there's, I don't know about the health benefits as much as those, just they taste really good, but the secret ingredient that I mentioned, and I would invite every single one of you listening to this to give this a try if you haven't yet, it's also one of my favorite emergency foods, which we're going to talk about here shortly. We talked about the food supply chain, but the secret ingredient is sprouted mung beans. Now, if you watch The Office, you may have seen that scene where Creed comes in and somebody goes, “You, what's that smell?” And it's Creed eating mung beans.

 

Now, I don't know what they're talking about. Like, as long as you rinse your mung beans off, and I'm going to tell you to do this in a second, but they don't smell bad. They taste great. In fact, my buddy Mike McCarthy was over at my house a few weeks ago, and I said, “Have you had mung beans?” And I explained them to him, he goes, “No.” And I gave him a bite straight up with nothing, no sauce, no salt, nothing. Then he goes, “They're actually pretty good, even on their own.” So, here's the reason. Here's the point of mung beans. You sprout the mung beans. What that means is just get a jar and you pour in some of the mung beans and you can buy organic mung beans on Amazon or any health food store and you soak them for 12 hours and then you pour the water out. And then, that's when I encourage you to rinse them. The water can get kind of stale so you can rinse them off, but after you've soaked them for 12 hours, you let them sit in the windowsill or on the counter, and they start to sprout within, I don’t know, another few hours. They start sprouting. You see like a little tail growing out of the mung beans.

 

And the benefit of this, it goes back to the energy of the food that you're eating that we talked about a little bit ago. So, imagine this. When you buy produce from the grocery store, even if it's organic, that organic broccoli that Tony Robbins measured on stage, it's dying, right? Meaning it's living food, it still has living energy inside it, but every day, it's dying. It's decaying because it was cut from its roots days ago, if not weeks ago. And it's been dying ever since it was cut off from its roots and cut off from its water supply and sitting in the grocery store, in your refrigerator. So, yes, living foods that to me is my dominant, that's my primary source of food because it gives me energy. It contains the energy within it, but imagine when you are sprouting mung beans, they're not dying. They weren't cut from their roots days ago or weeks ago.

 

Sprouting mung beans literally, they are living. They are growing. Life is sprouting from that mung beans. So, the energetic profile of that mung beans, that's the ultimate energy. Energetic food that you can eat is food that is still alive, that is actually living. It's growing. It's not dying. It wasn't cut. It's living. And mung beans, by the way, when you buy them, they're rock hard, but then when you sprout them and they start growing a sprout, they become soft. And then what I do is that goes into my salad and I put– again, I just eyeball it, I dump in some mung beans. You can play with how much you like in your salad. So, that's my lunch every day. So, I've got the green tea in the morning. And first thing in the morning, I eat a scoop of coconut oil, and that's because fat is fuel for our brain. And so, I used to drink bulletproof coffee. I'm sure many of you are familiar with that or you might have drink that where you put in MCT oil, which is derived from coconuts, as well as if you follow the original bulletproof coffee recipe, it's got organic grass-fed butter in it, unsalted butter. I'm also just giving you that fat for your brain to operate off. I don't do the bulletproof coffee anymore. I do the green tea. And I've made bulletproof green tea, it just kind of tastes weird, at least to me.

 

So, first thing, when I wake up, I brush my teeth, I drink a glass of water, and then I go into my pantry and I eat a giant scoop of coconut butter. So, it's coconut butter. It's got a really great taste. It melts in your mouth. And then I go right over and I make my green tea. So, that's actually, starting the day is the coconut butter, then the green tea, then the smoothie that I gave the recipe for, then the salad I gave you the recipe for. And then I drink the second half my smoothie at 3:30. You need the whole rundown. And by the way, I'm just sharing this with you for you to take bits and pieces of what you might go, oh, that's a good idea. I might apply that to my life. I might try that. I kind of want you to think of today's episode as a buffet. In fact, every episode is a buffet, right?

 

You go to the buffet, you don't eat everything at the buffet. You don't have to. Every idea doesn't need to apply to you or you don't need to resonate with or implement it in your life. It only takes one idea to change your life. All you do is start doing that smoothie, it’s a game changer, total game changer. If you start drinking green tea instead of coffee, that might be a game changer for you. You start every day with a scoop of coconut butter and you go, wow. I'm able to really think clearly. My brain has the fuel it needs first thing in the morning. I don't give it carbs, empty carbs. I give it fat, good, healthy, organic fat that's easily accessible and can enhance your cognitive ability, especially in combination with that green tea.

 

So, anyway, and then last but not least is dinner. And dinner is usually whatever my wife makes. My wife made grass-fed steaks last night and so that we had for dinner. So, I eat organic and vegan and mostly raw all day long and then have small amounts of grass, that means she usually will make– she'll boil some broccoli or whatever. So, I just eat whatever she makes for dinner. And then, I do like dessert. I have a sweet tooth, but I also minimize sugar, so I literally have like three to four small bites of ice cream. Like I buy pints of Nada Moo!, which is an organic coconut milk ice cream. I buy them in pints. And one pint will last me for like a week, if not longer. I just have a few scoops off the top, get that flavor, satisfy that sweet tooth. And that's it. And the last thing I'll say is I eat usually between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. because it can take anywhere from three to four hours for you to fully digest your food. And so, for me, I want my food fully digested by the time I go to bed. And I usually go to bed around 9:00, 9:30, get up at 4:30 in the morning. So, for what it's worth, that's hopefully something in that buffet of ideas around eating for energy, eating for longevity over taste, those specific foods I shared with you, the timing of the foods, etc., hopefully something that really resonated with you. I know I went really deep into that topic, but that saves us from doing a food episode. So, there's your food episode.

 

And then, lastly, and I believe this is the most important lesson that I can share with you to apply to your daily life in terms of what made this the best vacation of my life. And it was simply that I made it a point to be consciously present and grateful in– I wouldn't say every moment because you drift sometimes, your attention wanders, but in virtually every single moment that I was aware, that I was present to. I made it a point to be consciously present and deeply grateful in each moment. And so, I found myself, and this is not just on the vacation, I do this every day, but I found myself thinking things to myself, such as I'm so grateful to be able to be here. And I’ll put my hand over my heart and just breathe that in, go, I'm so grateful to be at my mom's house. I'm so grateful to be with my mom, so grateful to be eating my mom's home-cooked meal. I'm so grateful to be looking at the ocean. My mom has a view of the sound, which is like the inlet of the ocean in Tacoma, Washington. Her house is high up on the hill, and she looks out to beautiful view. And I can't get her to move to Texas because she has the view that is captivating. She won't leave her view, but I sit there and look at it. I'm so grateful to be here.

 

The other thing I would consciously think is this is the best moment of my life. And if you listen to the podcast I did a few episodes ago, How to Make Every Moment the Best Moment of Your Life, it's the idea that you decide this is the best moment of my life. Why? Because it's the only moment of my life, because I choose to experience every moment of my life is the best moment of my life, but because I was so present, I was so grateful, and I was consciously choosing my inner dialog in a way that allowed me to make that the best vacation of my life.

 

And then, there's one thing I haven't shared before. Actually, before I go into that, let me close this out. I'm not only grateful for vacation and that it was such a great vacation, but I'm even more grateful that you and me, that every single one of us has the ability to choose what we think and say to ourselves and thus determine how we experience life each day. It goes without saying that what we think and what we say to ourselves impacts and even determines how we experience life. And most people, I would go out on a limb to say most people aren't consciously choosing what they're thinking and what they're saying. They're just unconsciously reacting to the stimuli in their life. They're watching the news and they're reacting to the news. They're on social media and they're reacting to what they see other people posting. They’re interacting with other human beings and they're reacting to what those human beings say or do or don't say or don't do. Most people are not consciously choosing how they experience life. And that's been my focus the last, I don't know how long, six months or so, is really mastering your inner world, your inner experience, attaining what I call inner freedom.

 

And by the way, we're going to go deep, or not deep, but we're going to talk about that one, I share this passage from the book I'm reading, The Inner Work. That's the third thing we're going to talk about today. And we are, what? About 40 minutes in right now. So, I would encourage you to apply that to your life, to realize that you have the power to interpret life however you want. Something goes wrong, you could say this is the worst thing ever, or you could say this is the greatest opportunity for growth I've ever had, and I'm grateful to grow.

 

My son yesterday was a great miniature example of this. He is eight years old, my son, Halston. And Halston has this bow and arrow. It's this little plastic bow and arrow that shoots a– the dart is plastic and it has a little round suction, like one-inch suction piece on the end of it. So, he shoots it and sticks it to windows and mirrors and that sort of thing. And he has been using this for, I think, it was a gift from my dad when he was visiting probably a few weeks ago, a month ago. And my son has been shooting it every day. In fact, he wore out the bow, the string. So, I had to retie it. And he's really been putting a lot of miles on this thing. And when he first started, he wasn't good at it, he wasn't proficient. He couldn't get it to stick to anything. He couldn't shoot it straight. And he's been practicing every day. It has been so cool to see. He'll pick it up, and he's like Katniss in The Hunger Games, if you ever saw that movie, like without even thinking, he pulls it back and shoots it, and it sticks every time. And now, he's challenged himself to stick it on like ceiling fans and small little surfaces and all these things. So, it's been his number one toy that he's been playing with.

 

And yesterday, he goes, “Dad, watch how far I can shoot it now when I pull it back really far.” And again, this is a cheap plastic toy. And he pulls it back really far, and it snaps. It snaps into it, breaks it. The plastic broke. It was not really fixable. I mean, you could try to superglue it, but it would probably just break as soon as you pulled it back. And I go, “Oh, buddy, I'm sorry.” And he goes, “Haaa.” And he took a second and he kind of looked at it and he like kind of looked to the side and he goes, “Dad, I know.” He said, “I might have broken a bow and arrow, but I just made nunchucks.” And he grabbed one side of the broken bow. And now, there's a string in the middle and then the other side of the broken bow, and he starts whipping it around like nunchucks. And I go, “Halston,” I said, “Do you realize what you just did?” He said, “No.” I said, “You just took an experience that you could have been upset about. In fact, most kids, I mean, you love that bow. That's like you’ve been playing with that every day. You've gotten so good at it.” I said, “And most kids, in fact, most adults probably would have experienced emotional pain over that bow breaking.” I don’t know if it is exactly what I said to him, but I'm translating it for you. “They would have been upset. They would have been mad or sad or disappointed or upset, and it would have ruined their day possibly.” I said, “You, within less than a minute, you turned that experience, that broken bow, you found the positive in it and you turned it into nunchucks. And now, you're having fun with nunchucks.” And I said, “You can apply that to everything in life. Things are going to go not the way you want them to. And you can immediately get upset or you can immediately go, hmm, what could I learn from this? Or what can I do now that I couldn't have done before this happened? Or how can I use this experience to grow as a person?”

 

Again, he's eight years old. I probably said it in different words, but it's just an example of no matter what happens to you, you get to choose your perspective. You get to choose how you view it. The worst thing that ever happened to you could also be the best thing that ever happened to you. It's the exact same thing, but you get to decide. I think I said this on the last podcast episode we did. And the episode, by the way, if you didn't listen, I've gotten a lot of notes from this. In fact, some people, even friends of mine that I haven't heard for a while, go, “Wow!” My buddy Tony Carlston, who I haven't talked to in probably a year, text me a picture of the podcast. He said, “Hal, this is a really good episode” or whatever, but it was called Optimism vs. Pessimism vs. Delusion. So, if you want to go to the podcast, you can go search for that one. It was episode 3– let me tell you, I don't want to mess you up. I think it was 388, Optimism vs. Pessimism vs. Realism, which is better, but the point is that you get to choose how you perceive life, what paradigm you choose to view things from. You can view– the same thing happens to two different people. One person views everything that went wrong with that experience, the other person views everything that's right, and that's beneficial. And the first person is distraught and the second person is inspired. Same experience, same tragedy, same trauma, but our perception, our interpretation, the meaning we give to it determines how it affects us.

 

So, those are the four big lessons for me. The factors that when I reflected on what made this the best vacation ever? It was that I was spending time with people that I love, my family. We were really active, including physical activity. We were going to the zoo, doing all sorts of stuff, going on walks. Number 3, I was eating healthy. I maintain that healthy eating. And number 4, I was totally present and deeply grateful in each moment for the experience that I was having. And again, I believe you can apply all four of those lessons to your life, spend time with people that you love, be active, do thing. Don't just sit around and veg in front of the TV, exercise, move, go do fun stuff, explore this beautiful planet that we've been blessed with. And then, three, eat healthy foods, eat foods that give you energy and that benefit your cellular health that will provide longevity for you. And last but not least, be present, consciously present in each moment. Don't wish you were in the past. Don't stew over the past. Don’t worry about the future. Be in this moment and be grateful for every moment that you have. This one life we've been blessed to live, may we all be present and grateful as much as humanly possible.

 

Alright. That's the vacation stuff. The rest of this is going to be a little shorter, a lot shorter. I want to talk about food supply chain disruptions. And I am not a details person. So, because I've spent dozens of hours on this one topic researching, but I don't take a lot of detailed notes. And so, mostly, I take actions that I want to like go, “Okay, what am I going to do from this?” But I don't take notes on the data and all of this stuff, but I research the data, so meaning I'm sharing all that because I'm not the guy to turn to, and it's like, “Hey, give me the data, give me the stats, give me the studies, give me the research.” I just read it, I consume it, and then I'm just going to share with you at a high level just so you can do your own research like, again, that's the point of this.

 

So, being that I'm spending a lot of time researching topics that affect my family, food and water, those are the top two. I mean, there's nothing that's more pressing. If you don't have food and water, yeah, you're kind of in trouble. So, our food supply chain is one thing I focus a lot on in the last year. And just at a high level, here in America, I can't speak for the entire world, although I know this is affecting other countries as well, but here in America, we are experiencing severe disruptions in our food supply chain. So, from farmers that are being paid not to grow their crops to countless crops that were destroyed during the freezes, we had this past winter, to animals that were slaughtered and disposed of during COVID and didn't provide food for anybody. Grocery stores and restaurants are stockpiling food right now in anticipation of potential shortages on the horizon. I can't tell you why they're doing it, but that may be why, or it's inflation, kind of one of those two would be the common-sense assessment of either they're anticipating that food prices are going to be a lot higher so they're going to buy it now, or that there's going to be shortages so they're going to buy it now.

 

And again, maybe there's a third option that I'm not thinking about. But all of the issues that I've seen could lead to major food shortages. So, meaning, us not having the ability to get food in grocery stores and restaurants. And I want to share this, too, by the way, mainstream media, from what I can tell, they're not reporting on this. Local media sources are. I found that if you look like local sources in different cities are talking about how grocery stores unable to get, food restaurants are having food shortages, but it's not being reported in the mainstream media. I believe the reason for that, again, my guess is to not create panic. And that's the thing is if this gets out nationally, widespread, there's news of food shortages, then there's going to be a run on grocery stores and think about it, there's likely to be a run on grocery stores. I can't tell you for sure what will happen, but there's likely to be a run on grocery stores. And if you think about it, we saw this in COVID. You're looking at 24 to 48 hours before stores are barren, especially all the produce. There might be some canned food left, but all the produce, like it's gone. We saw this happen with COVID. We can be 24 to 48 hours away from grocery stores being cleaned out.

 

So, what sparked this for me, by the way? I've been studying this for a year, but what got me to bring this up to you and go, I have to say something? Like I've mentioned it before. I've mentioned this before on podcast, like briefly, but I want to spend just a little more time, make a little more of an emphasis on it today, because the other day, a friend sent me a video, it was from Tim Pool. Tim Pool is the host of the podcast, Timcast. I didn't know who this was. So, actually, I googled him on Wikipedia. Wikipedia describes Tim Pool as an American citizen journalist, I don't even know what that is, a podcaster, a YouTuber, and a political commentator. His YouTube channel, which is where I saw this video, he has 1.2 million subscribers, and his channel has over 340 million views.

 

And so, the video that was sent to me from a friend, the title of it was Stores Panic Buy Food in Fear Something Big is Coming, Food Shortage Gets Worse Amid Economic Crisis. So, if you want to go watch this video that my buddy sent me, or not just, I mean, a buddy, he’s a good friend, Stores Panic Buy Food in Fear Something Big is Coming, Food Shortage Gets Worse Amid Economic Crisis. I think it’s a 25-minute video. I watched the entire thing on 1.5 speed. Again, I'm not endorsing Tim Pool. I don't know enough about him. I'm just telling you that for me, I try not to– people say, well, pay attention to the source. I usually look at what's the source saying and what is the research that they've done that they're showing me, that I'm seeing on the screen. So, you see a lot of articles and stuff that Tim compiled, but that was the video that made me realize there's got to be some urgency in this. And I shared it with my dad. I shared it with close friend. I shared it with my circle of influence. And so, now, I'm sharing it with you.

 

So, my recommendation, what I'm doing, and we started doing this a long time ago when I started learning, actually, the other YouTuber that I've followed for a long time, and I've recommended him before is Ice Age Farmer. And Ice Age Farmer, all he does is focus on the food supply. That's it. Like he just goes deep into one aspect of the topic. One, what's the food supply issue between here in China? What's going on in the meat industry? So, he'll do like an hour-long video on just the meat industry, on just soybeans. In fact, that's the video that a friend sent me was a video he did on soybeans probably eight months ago, but anyway, so, it's real simple. Just stock up on some food in case there's any food shortages. If there's not, you just eat the food, right? Like there's nothing to lose by grabbing some extra food that has a long shelf life. And for me, I just order organic black beans, organic rice, and organic mung beans. Those are like my top three.

 

And then, we have a freezer full of– we order some meat, put in the freezer, so that we have some protein in that way and chicken and that sort of thing, but I will tell you this, by the way, another reason mung beans is one of my favorite foods, not only is it providing living energy when you sprout mung beans, and by the way, mung beans don't provide a living energy if you boil them, only if you sprout them, but mung beans, listen to this. Mung beans have 7 grams of protein per ounce, per ounce, and I'd say probably three ounces a day in my salad. So, that's 21 grams of plant-based protein just from the mung beans, not including, what's it called, the pistachios that are in my salad and the nuts in the morning, and it's a nut, right? Anyway, so that's something to be aware of, is that you're getting a lot of protein from those mung beans as well.

 

So, that's what I would recommend. Again, do your own research. I am not the source. Again, I'm not the end all be all. Just consider me a friend that's giving you a heads-up that I've spent dozens of hours looking into the topic of our food supply chain. And I'm concerned enough about it that I'm willing to share it on this podcast and even risk, I know people are weird, like I'll probably get emails that go, “What are you, a prepper?” Or like, I don't know, maybe I'm just projecting or whatever, but I think that's why I've hesitated because I'm like, I don't want people think I'm crazy, but I'd rather, if one person on this listening right now, grab some extra rice and beans off of Amazon and some mung beans or whatever or canned goods, whatever you want. And then, there's a run on the stores, like there wasn't COVID. There was already a run on the stores. This isn't like a conspiracy theory, like this happened, I think, it was last March or April 2020, I don't know about you, I couldn't get toilet paper, I couldn't get any organic produce. It was gone. The shelves, it was gone. So, this has already happened once. Could this happen again? Could it? Absolutely. Will it? I don't know, but I don't want to be the person that was like, no, I'm not going to– I'm just going to plan on everything going perfectly according to plan. And even though history has shown that this could happen again, I'm just going to ignore it, like, no, I'm not going to be that guy. I wanted to be person that, especially having a family, even if I was single, I’m a person, that's like, hey, no, I got a pantry full of– I got six months’ worth of black beans and pinto beans and basmati rice and brown rice. And I got mung beans because Hal told me to sprout them, like, I don't know. Like, I want to be the person. It's like, I got a ton of stuff, I don't have to– I'm good. So, just something for you to consider and go do your own research.

 

And then, last but not least, I saved, I don’t know if this is the best for last, but whenever I'm writing a book, I read blogs, I do my own research, I order books on what feels like related topics to what I'm writing about. And books that have inspired the book I'm writing are books that I've mentioned in the past, like The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer, Michael Singer's other book, The Surrender Experiment, Loving What Is by Byron Katie, Who Do We Choose to Be? by Margaret Wheatley, The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible by Charles Eisenstein. So, these are some of the books that have inspired my thinking around the book that I'm writing right now.

 

And the other day, I was on Amazon and I found this book called The Inner Work: An Invitation to True Freedom and Lasting Happiness. And I thought, oh, well, it's The Inner Work, and my book is focusing on how to achieve inner freedom or what you call true freedom, whatever you want to call it. And so, I read the description. I thought, oh, this seems really similar to what I'm writing about. I’ll get this book as part of my research. And then, when I started reading the book, it was kind of weird. I go, wait a minute, it's like these people, maybe they got the same message from the universe, I don't know, but the authors– the authors, by the way, are Mat, M-A-T, and Ash. I don’t know their last names, it just says Mat and Ash, but their online social media handle is The Yoga Couple. So, if you want to follow The Yoga Couple, you can find them, but the book is called The Inner Work: An Invitation to True Freedom and Lasting Happiness. I'm just going to read to you the opening. This is a message from the authors.

 

And if you've listened to the podcast for a while, you'll hear a lot of what I've talked about in this, it's a short two-page introduction. So, here we go. With a book such as this, it is important for us to clarify that, by all means, this book is meant for us as much as it is for you. We're reading, too, in a sense. We humbly bring this message forward and hopes that The Inner Work may bring you the same utter satisfaction and joy it has brought us. The Inner Work is for those who are ready to understand themselves on a deeper level and are yearning for true freedom and lasting happiness. It is especially for those who have read countless books on self-improvement and spirituality, but have yet to make lasting progress. No matter where you are in your journey, this book will help you to acknowledge and overcome the obstacles would prevent you from experiencing optimal state of existence. To be truly liberated and happy, we have found that the practices shared within these pages must be applied consistently with conscious effort in order to prove effective. There is no one and done prescription here. All true healing and change must come from an inner transformation of the soul by shedding our old limiting self in order to embrace our greatest destiny. This may bring about lifestyle changes that will reflect the inner work being done. It is important to understand that the truth of our joy is not something that has to be learned, gained, or acquired, but rather something we remember and awaken to. The fullness of our potential is already there and waiting right now. We just have to do our inner work to reveal it. And for most of us, time will provide to be the greatest gift throughout the healing journey. It is with the sincerest love and humility that the rituals within this book will help you and your spiritual awakening and return home to true freedom and lasting happiness. Lastly, a caveat to be aware of, know that more than likely this book will trigger you, become curious about your resistance and their origins, and have the courage to lean into them for your freedom is just beyond the boundaries of your discomfort.

 

So, that's the introduction. I was going to read Chapter 1, but I'll let you guys, if you want to check out the book, I actually am going to reach out to the authors and invite them on the podcast because, again, as I'm reading this, and I'm probably about, maybe a little less than half the way through the book. So, I'll let you know. I'll give you a report back when I'm finished with it completely, but so far, like I said, I'm blown away because this is exactly what I was going to write for the most part. Like, this is what I was going to write. So, both, it's kind of weird going, wait, do I not need to write the book I was going to write? Or do I need to write a different book? Or I don't know, I'm not exactly sure what to do from here. So, once I finish their book, I'll probably have more clarity on what my next step is, but I want to share it with you because it's made such a huge impact on me. And again, it's the book I was going to write, for the most part. So, I encourage you to check it out on Amazon or wherever you buy books, The Inner Work.

 

That covers it for today. So, three kind of random, unrelated, yet in some ways related topics that I hope from something of the buffet that I brought today, hopefully this was valuable for you. Yeah. So, thank you. Thanks for tuning in. I love you. I really do. I love you. I appreciate you. Thanks for being a listener of the podcast. And until next time. Choose to be free, choose to experience every moment of your life as you want. If you want to be happy, be happy. If you want to be at peace, be at peace. Realize that you have the power to choose how you experience your life, and it has little to do with what's going on around you and everything to do with what's going on inside of you. So, choose love, choose freedom. I love you all. I'll talk to you next week.

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