Mark Divine  0:00  

Hi, I’m Mark Divine, and this is the Mark Divine show. On this show, I explore what it means to be fearless by talking to some of the world’s most inspirational, compassionate, and courageous leaders. Guests from all walks of life, psychedelic researchers, entrepreneurs, motivational experts, and biohackers. Like my guest today, Mr. David Asprey, the King, the father of the whole biohacking movement. Dave has worked with world-renowned doctors, researchers, scientists, and global Mavericks, over the last two decades to research, uncover, and develop the most innovative methods and products to enhance mental and physical performance. This guy has literally developed protocols that have led to billion-dollar industries. MCT oil, collagen protein, functional coffee, through his company Bulletproof and now his company called Danger coffee. He spent nearly $2 million hacking his own body as his goal to live to 180. We’re going to talk about and continues to push the bounds of human possibility through his Biohacking Conference and through, his Upgrade Labs, and of course, as I mentioned, Danger coffee. Dave super stoked to have you here. We’re just gonna get right into the conversation. 

Dave Asprey 1:09

Yep

Mark Divine 1:09

One of my favorite spiritual teachers is a guy named Nisargadatta Maharaj. Now he didn’t try to be a teacher, but people recorded, wrote down his conversations, you know. People come to see from all over the world. And in one of his little vignette stories where you know, his talks or his conversations, he had a conversation with a 1000-year-old yogi who came to visit him because he heard about this great spiritual teacher. And Maharaj, he’s relating this he’s not actually conversing. In this story, he’s not conversing with 1000 year old, it’s related by someone else’s there. Maharaj was impressed right with the practices that had allowed this individual, you know, this Indian sage, to extend his life for so long. But he said at the end, and why, what’s the purpose? You’re extending your life in Maya in the dream, in the false reality of what you think you are, you know, why? What’s the point? And there was no answer because that was the point of Maharaja’s telling the story. What’s the point for you wanting to live to 180? 

Dave Asprey 2:07

Throughout this whole last 20 years or so, there’s been a lot of the spiritual work, you know, the whole Neurofeedback side of what I do. This stuff in Tibet and Nepal and different shamanic training and all you kind of know, that’s really what’s going on behind the scenes.

Mark Divine  2:21  

That’s the path that I’ve been on for last few years. And it’s a little bit scary because it does lead to this kind of, like, I don’t give a shitness it’s a weird concept that you do give a shit. But you don’t at the same time. And it’s hard to really convey that. 

Dave Asprey  2:34  

Well, the shit you give are different, I think, is a nuanced way of putting it. 

Mark Divine 2:37

I like that.

Dave Asprey 2:37

That was something I used to care about. It maybe isn’t as important as, as you were programmed to believe it was supposed to be.

Mark Divine 2:44

Right. 

Dave Asprey 2:45

I’m abundantly curious. There’s kind of two arms to my motivation there. And to be really clear, that’s sort of the gift wrapping or the simplification. The real thing is I’d like to die at a time and by a method of my choosing.

Mark Divine  2:59  

Yeah, well, that’s very Yogaish, of you, by the way, and I believe that too, and I’m in the same boat. I don’t want to be some kind of disastrous, old, cantankerous man sitting in a bed feeding through a tube.

 

Dave Asprey  3:11  

If eternal diapers are in my future, my future isn’t very long. I’m sorry. Like, that’s just how it is right? And there is no loss of nobility, or there’s no harm in deciding that I’m done. Like, like my, my grandfather. This is a very accomplished chemist, he co-invented the process we still use today for purifying plutonium. And when they told him, you know, if you do a lot of physical therapy, and you do everything right, you might be well enough to sit at home and watch golf by yourself. And then three times a week, you’ll do dialysis. And he’s like; I don’t want to do that much work for a life that I’ve watched golf for a long time. I don’t need any more of that. So he just started going on the wine diet. He’s a call the family, and he went home. And you know, we call the hospice worker, and he drank his wine until, you know, three days later, he was done.

 

Mark Divine  3:57  

I totally respect that.

 

Dave Asprey  3:58  

I do too. And you know, some people like, Well, what a waste. You have to fight to the end. I think those people, and frankly, a lot of the longevity movement, there are people who are afraid of death. I’ve gotten from all the neurofeedback and the just the esoteric teaching or not teaching but learning I’ve done around the world. I think birth and death are the same thing. And people can say what you know or do you believe in past lives. There’s an argument for that. I’ve seen enough of my past lives, things that I couldn’t explain any other way. But maybe that’s all just I’ve convinced myself. There’s a rational argument to believe in reincarnation, and it goes like this. If reincarnation is real, then there’s not a problem with believing in it. But let’s assume it’s false. If you tell yourself it’s true, every decision you make in this life will be made with less fear because you’re not afraid of dying. It’s starting the video game over again versus you never get to play over. So even if you’re wrong. When you die, you’re not going to know you’re wrong. So if you believe in reincarnation, you live this life with less fear, regardless of the actual existence of reincarnation. So I decided a while ago, you know, it’s rational to believe in it, whether or not you can prove it. And I think that there’s enough evidence that I would bet on the existence of it. In fact, I would bet all of my money on it, but I could be wrong still. But that’s all right.

 

Mark Divine  5:12  

And you know, what Maharaj would say is, it’s all a dream, anyways, what’s real reality is what is the source of this life in the next life and the next life. So if you can identify with that source, which is the yogic direct path of Jnana Yoga, you gotta identify with that, if you can uncover that, if you can remove the veil, you know, which is the Zen kind of path, remove the veil, and have that experience, the understanding, they call it, then fear goes away because you do recognize that you were never born and you never die. In the real sense of if that’s being real, not to say that this life doesn’t seem real. But you’re a techno guy, you know, that it’s all basically just energy and light, basically being organized in a way that our brains will organize to perceive this biological being that’s having, you know, this identity as Mark, right, or Dave, and then that’s a mistaken identity, because you really are is pure consciousness, God’s streaming through this biological being that then you, you begin to identify as a young child as David mark, because of the faculty of memory.

 

Dave Asprey  6:16  

You’re completely right. And one of the most impactful books I’ve come across recently is called The Case against Reality. And it goes through from a physics perspective, and a logic perspective, and a psychology, and just spiritual, all the different angles, you can look at it. And the theory behind the book that I can’t poke holes in, despite what I know, is that Mother Nature designs the way we evolve. It’s designed to give us the best user interface on reality. 

 

Mark Divine 6:44

Yeah.

 

Dave Asprey 6:45

Right. So by definition, we can’t know and see everything. We don’t see X-rays because it’s not very useful for us to see X-rays.

 

Mark Divine  6:51  

Point zero 5% of the electromagnetic spectrum.

 

Dave Asprey  6:52  

Right. And so we’re optimized for that, but there’s bacteria that can see 27 different kinds of things we can see. And so they have receptors that apparently give them a survival advantage. So it’s like, you don’t actually see all the electrons flowing through your email, you actually just see the icon on your screen, and then it’s your email. And you think of it that way. So our interaction here, even the perception of time, that’s just a useful interface on whatever’s really going on. And by definition, you can’t see everything, just like you can’t have a life-size map of La because then you would be in LA. You can’t represent something smaller than it is.

 

Mark Divine  7:27  

Well, I go further, there really is no such thing as LA. If you were to fly over LA, you wouldn’t, all you would see is a bunch of buildings, and you wouldn’t see any line around it. And a big sign that said LA, it’s just an idea in the mind of man. And so many of what we take to be hardcore realism, reality is just ideas. 

 

Dave Asprey  7:44  

You’re right, part of my mission, you asked me why I want to live a long time. Part of it is I’m curious, I want to see what’s going to happen. But part of it, too is I love breaking stupid things. And you could also say I like fixing broken things. Those are different sides of the same coin. And I think humanity needs an upgrade right now, like an actual probably hardware, but maybe it’s just a software upgrade. And if we don’t do it, we’re pretty much a failed species. And we’re kind of at the end of the experiment. So all of my company missions for the different companies that I run are around upgrading humanity in one way or another, whether it’s through the consciousness stuff with 40 years of Zen, and that or Upgrade Labs is my new franchise. And we’re opening this across the country, and my newest book called, Smarter, not Harder. It’s about this stuff that says, look, if your biology works well, these little antennae and your body, also known as power plants, also known as mitochondria, they do a better job of picking up reality. And that means you become more conscious. And I believe that as people become more conscious, they naturally become kinder to each other. Because that’s built into our meat. You don’t have to think about that. So people who are aware generally don’t torture other people. Like that, that’s kind of how it works. So what if we started with our hardware and we just made that work better? And that’s biohacking and biohacking blends into what about our software? What about our breathwork? What about our exposure to cold? What about exposure to brief bouts of pain to increase dopamine sensitivity? I mean, you know about that, when you’re in the cold water with sand wearing away, whatever parts of you, it wears away, like you got.

 

Mark Divine  9:18  

We have a lot of dopamine sensitivity in the SEALs.

 

Dave Asprey  9:22  

Right, and so you know, you you get that, that aspect, and I’m going my live to at least 180 thing in part because someone asked to say you can do it. So then we can do it just like breaking the four-minute mile. But also I think it’s reasonable. And if I get bored along the way, and boredom is an egoic act that if I fall victim to that, and I can’t fix it, and my friends don’t, you know, haul me out of that. Or if something really bad happens, like it’s not worth it, then I’m done, and I’m okay with that. But I think it’s possible, and I think it would give me enough time to fix things that I want to fix and to see the results to verify their fix, and I’m just kind of excited about got that idea.

 

Mark Divine  10:00  

I can’t poke any holes in that logic. I think that as long as we’re living the dream, so to speak, then an aware individual has the opportunity to improve their world. And when I say their world, I mean there’s one consensus world, but then there’s 8 billion individual worlds. 

 

Dave Asprey 10:20

Amen. It’s so correct. 

 

Mark Divine 10:21

You work on your individual world through the biohacking and the mindfulness and all those things. But when we can do it at scale, and you as a teacher can teach others who may not be exposed to this, do it through your books and or through an Upgrade Labs. Now we can get hundreds of thousands and millions of people upgrading their consciousness, upgrading their biology, and that’s what’s going to change the consensus world.

 

Dave Asprey  10:43  

It’s exactly how you do it. In some of the different either esoteric texts, or even some of the sociology texts I’ve come across, say we need about 15% of a population to swing into a different reality, and they’ll pull the rest of people with it. One of the reasons that I built Neurofeedback into Upgrade Labs is that when people come in there in the time that they would normally just go pick up heavy stuff, like sure we can put your muscles on, but that’s like a five to eight-minute problem. Oh, did you want your cardio? We’ll do it. Oh, six times better than spending an hour; it’s only going to take five minutes. So you have another half hour of free time left? Why don’t we work on your brain? 

The whole idea behind Smarter Not Harder is that whether it’s cognitive function, whether it’s resilience and ability to handle stress, it’s muscles, it’s cardio, or it’s just having more energy. These are domains where many people are asking for help. They’re different than just being healthy because it’s actually a definable goal. And we have new technologies that no one knows about, because they’ve only been discovered in the last sometimes five years, or in one case, two years ago, some of them 10 or 20 years ago, but we’re all picking up rocks, and running away from tigers is my primary ways of modulating it or eating less. And those are so terribly ineffective that I just know we can do it better. And sometimes it’s 10%. The difference

 

Mark Divine  12:02  

10% in six different areas is not just 10%, right? 

 

Dave Asprey  12:05 

It’s true. but, let’s face it, most people aren’t going to put an hour into each of those different domains every week because I’ve never done, but I probably come close is spending all of your time biohacking.

 

Mark Divine  12:20  

I tell you what, I’m a big trainer. I’m all for training, right? So 

 

Dave Asprey 12:23

Yeah, 

 

Mark Divine 12:23

So, I’m like an anti-hacker. But I know that there is a obviously it’s more semantics, right? So there’s an overlap there. 

 

Dave Asprey 12:28

Yeah, 

 

Mark Divine 12:29

I’m all into practice and training. And I still spend a good four hours a day training just because I love it. 

 

Dave Asprey  12:35  

See, that’s different. If you love it, I’m going to be a little bit disruptive here and say, I actually don’t love training. In fact, if I never had to train any of that stuff again, I’d be fine. I’m fine if I train yoga or martial arts or a skill. 

 

Mark Divine 12:49

That’s what I’m talking about. 

 

Dave Asprey 12:50

Okay, you’re not talking about just like lifting stuff and running.

 

Mark Divine 12:52

Meditation, my breathwork, my sauna, my cold plunge, my my functional fitness, my ruck, all of that is training.

 

Dave Asprey  12:59  

Okay, so if you call that training, I would say that there’s some biohacking mixed into there, or you’re just using highly effective training. And the idea is the old way is pick up a rock, set it down, pick up a rock, set it down. You can concentrate the rock into iron. And that’s the best innovation we’ve ever done. Pick it up, set it in, I don’t think you do that either. But many people, they go to the gym. And that’s what it’s all about. I have a machine that does it. But if you could find something where you did it in half the time, the extra half hour, that’s your meditation time. That’s your parenting time. And I really have a lot of stuff. I’d like to do, stuff that matters. It matters to me, I think it even matters to other people.

 

Mark Divine  13:38  

What’s the protocol like it, or at least your initial protocol? So I know it’s going to probably change every year as technology changes. What’s it like for Upgrade Labs, if I were to walk in tomorrow?

 

Dave Asprey  13:47  

Well, when you walk into Upgrade Labs, we have you stand on a medical-grade device that measures the electrical abilities of your cells. And it tells us where’s your fat? Where’s your bone mass? Where’s your muscle? Are you inflamed? Are you dehydrated at a cellular level, and based on that now we know where you are today. And then, when you sign up, we ask you a series of questions in a survey to figure out what you’re actually looking for. Because you may be walking in saying you know, I want my brain to work. I want it like polished like a diamond. And the next guy walks in and I say I want to lose 100 pounds like Dave had to. And the goals are totally different. Right? So we establish your goals in priority. We stack rank from those five areas using statistics and AI and things like that. And then from there, we look at your current state from your current data and your goal. And then, we use an AI-powered system to prescribe the fastest path to get you to your goal based on your current state. So if you’re like, I want to get swole, and you come in, and you’re blown out, and you’re jet-lagged and you’d stayed up late drinking, and you’re terribly dehydrated, you can’t get swole that day. So we’re going to put you on a recovery thing to rapidly recover your to get you to the state you need to be, so Working out would actually be functional for you. The idea is, is not the same every time you come in, it’s going to usually be the same if you’re in the same average state, but over time, you realize you met that goal.

And so then we say, alright, what’s your second goal and we match up the the protocols you use on each of the pieces of equipment. So you may come in if muscles your thing, we use an AI powered machine that resists your work, no matter what you do, it’s going to win. And it does that on an algorithm that keeps your body from kicking it safety systems in that would prevent you from exerting your muscles and you get three, maybe even five times faster muscle growth per minute from that versus picking up rocks. And for cardio, again, it’s driven by AI. And there, it takes five minutes. And it provably works better than doing a 70% capacity workout for 45 minutes, five days a week, you give me five minutes three times a week, you’ll get better VO2 Max outcomes. It’s crazy. 

 

Mark Divine  15:56  

What’s your assessment of how it does that? 

 

Dave Asprey  15:58  

Well, just by measuring VO2 Max before and after three studies from the University of Colorado that show that it works?

 

Mark Divine  16:03  

No, I know. But what’s the functionality? I mean? Why why? 

 

Dave Asprey  16:05  

Oh, here we go. So now we’re getting into some of the meat in Smarter, Not Harder. What we’re doing there is this new idea. It’s called slope of the curve biology. And we’ve known for a while that doing hard stuff is good for you. But the question is, how hard? And the reality is if you can turn on very quickly, a stimulus that pushes the body right to the edge of dysregulation but not into dysregulation. And then you can more quickly than is natural recover to baseline, very quickly. The body will adapt magically fast. Because it goes oh, I might need to do that. And now I have what I need. But if instead, you push yourself into disequilibrium, you blow yourself out, it takes a long time for the body to recover. So the amount of recovery you get is much less. And the faster you recover, the more quickly the body adapts. 

So I call that slope of the curve biology. And what that means is that high-intensity interval training is better than just normal chronic cardio by orders of magnitude. But high-intensity interval training it’s not optimized because it doesn’t allow you to recover as much as you should. And a few books ago, at the very beginnings of this idea, I wrote that if you do high-intensity interval training and you lay down on your back between intervals, that it works better. And that’s the very beginnings you lay on your back, you recovered faster than if you kept walking. So it’s the slope of the curve up and the slope of the curve down. And when we have an AI system that’s measuring your heart rate to be able to drive it up and down and tell you what to do in your headphones. Suddenly, magic happens and you adapt way more quickly. 

And there’s something else I write about in the book, there’s a section on just cardio stuff that works better than running for a long time. And that is something called zone two training where you actually need a heart rate monitor to do this. And that’s something that is time-consuming takes a couple hours a week. And if you train in this very narrow range of heart rate, you have to use the math in the book to calculate it, then that makes your mitochondria burn fat. If you run a little faster or a little slower, you don’t do it. So there’s like a magic Goldilocks zone right in the middle. These are invisible to normal humans without data. And the idea behind Quantified Self and biohacking is we’re just going to do what works. So this neat hack for fat burning is there is a fat-burning zone, but it’s not what most people think it is, which is just do more cardio. And then there’s another one for cardiovascular cardiorespiratory fitness, and that is turn it on almost instantly and turn it off almost instantly.

 

Mark Divine  18:32  

This is interesting because, you know, I’ve come to similar conclusions, just through countless and countless hours of working with Warriors, you know, through SEALFIT. So on the first what you call the zone 2 Training, we call stamina training, right? So stamina is not all out. And it’s also not strength training. It’s basically muscular endurance. And over time, you know, so you develop this kind of like, methodical, slow ability to do a lot of work with Special Operators have to do, but you’re not your heart rate isn’t elevated beyond maybe 60%, you know, 50 60% range.

 

Dave Asprey 19:04

You’re probably in that same range. 

 

Mark Divine 19:05

Yeah. And I think we’re the same range and you get into this basically, you naturally become, you know, combined with a keto diet, you’re just burning fat. I have a lot of critiques for CrossFit even though I think Glassman did some marvelous, good, you know, for just awareness because it’s just too intense for too long, and it’s just balls to the wall. 

 

Dave Asprey 19:22

Yep. 

 

Mark Divine 19:22

First of all, we train as a team, so we’re not trying to compete. Competition is for integrity and teams capability, right? Which also means that I have to optimize my performance. And so we would downregulate after every, you know, scheme or series of repetitions or sets or whatever you call it, your, your schema workout, through a breathing exercise, mindful breathing exercise. So everyone would just sit there, you know, do basically a mother’s breath, you know, slow inhale, soft or, you know, 5 count inhale 10 Count, exhale. And get your breathing back to where you can breathe through your nose, then we engage in the next repetition; not as probably powerful as just laying down in Savasana and then doing it, but it worked for us. And it’s I think it’s a similar principle.

 

Dave Asprey  20:03  

It’s a similar principle. And of course, in the SEALs, you guys have to figure out the things that work.

 

Mark Divine 20:10

We have the time we get paid to figure out the optimal training methods, right? 

 

Dave Asprey  20:15  

And also, if you do it wrong, and someone else does it, right, there are fatal results. So you’re highly motivated, you’re adequately funded, and you have the time to do it. Like you’re the perfect crucible for figuring out the stuff. What I find is that oftentimes, we intuit or some old yogic sage wrote about it, there is traces of evidence enough to pick it up, and then you do it. And then some of the things like the intermittent fasting protocols that were a part of the Bulletproof Diet, or the C 8 MCT works better than the other MCT. There wasn’t a study about CMC, but I could feel it. So I wrote about it. And five years later, this study comes up at University of San Diego. And like, there, I told you is more ketogenic, but it wasn’t data-driven. It was sensation driven, right. And you did the same thing with your work there, saying, well, this works better. So I’m just going to do it. And I don’t care if a university gives me permission. I don’t need permission to do it works better. I do my best in Smarter Not Harder to talk about the university studies behind this, but some of it like transcranial electrical stimulation for the brain. I have some, okay. Meditation is good for you. But what if you could get all your meditation done in 30 seconds?  And it was exactly as good or better than two hours a day? Would you sign up for it? I mean, I’m not claiming you can do that in the book. But as a use case, oh, it turns out that there are ways to meditate faster than just meditating in a cave. And they’re usually technology-based, but not always. And one you would probably agree with, there’s, you know, seems like breathwork, in combination with meditation, is more effective per minute, right? So let’s make that a goal of meditators. Not, oh, I meditated for a half hour every day, I’m so enlightened, like I did the most effective, efficient, and powerful meditation to get into the state of my choice in a half hour, because the return on investment can be ten times higher when you do it that way. So I go through all the different technologies that you can use to control the state of your brain that we know about today. And the pros and cons of each one. I talk about why I chose Neurofeedback in Upgrade Labs, and why I’d use some other technologies on top of that, and 40 years of Zen. I’m just teaching in here for these five big domains. Here’s what works better than the way we’ve always done it, here’s why it works better, and then give you a roadmap for here’s the cheap stuff. Here’s the affordable stuff that’s maybe 100 bucks. And here’s the stuff that might cost more. Even on the supplement side of things. Yeah, I take more supplements, and well probably anyone else. At this point.

 

Mark Divine  22:35  

I have a fair amount myself, but nothing compared to you.

 

Dave Asprey  22:38  

I have the most expensive pee in North America, I’m sure and I’m okay with that. That said, people don’t want to do that. In fact, most people can’t swallow 50 pills at a time. And I don’t know if you saw the thing with liver king, he got in trouble recently. But he had a thing. Well, I swallow 30 pills at a time. Anyone who swallows more is manly. And so I’m like, I don’t know. We’re here. Here’s 50. And I swallowed 50 pills. And they were calling him liver queen. Like I was just teasing you. But when it comes to supplements, there’s two things that make every other biohack work better or every other training if you want to use like the old tough word. What you get there is number one is minerals. People are so mineral deficient because if you’re on a plant-based diet, well it makes you weak in and of itself. But plants suck minerals from your body and our plants and our meat doesn’t even have enough minerals because our soils depleted. Your mitochondria cannot make electricity, your body cannot make harder bones and bigger muscles if it doesn’t have adequate minerals. Since everyone’s deficient. That’s something that I built into my new coffee company. It’s called Danger coffee, the coffee has trace minerals built in. So you drink the coffee, you’re repleating your minerals.

 

Mark Divine  23:47  

That’s interesting. Normally, you would think that caffeine would deplete minerals,

 

Dave Asprey  23:51  

No caffeine doesn’t deplete minerals. But coffee does have a small amount of something called phytic acid, which is a primary depletor, but it’s a very small amount compared to say any grain, any seed or any nut. So if you’re out there, you know, I’m paleo, I’m eating a bunch of nuts and seeds. Or if you’re just a normal diet, and you’re eating rice cakes and, and bread and things like that, they’re sucking minerals out of your bones. When you get your minerals in your body. And you also take the other most important supplement, which is vitamin D, A, K, &E. That’s D, A, K, and E. That’s all the fat-soluble vitamins together. And it’s something that we’re making for Upgrade Labs. And I’m not trying to sell it to people because you can buy vitamin D, A, K, &E from all kinds of places you can get mine or not. But if you get these these drives minerals into cells and keep them there. So if you have the combination of fat-soluble vitamins that come from animals in our normal diet, and you have minerals that come from animals and salts primarily in our normal diet, you end up with your meditation works better, your muscle building works better. Everything works better, even your stress-handling systems.

 

Mark Divine  24:52  

Yeah, no, I agree with that. One of the key tenants we talked about in Unbeatable Mind is if you want to upgrade your mind, right if you want to develop an Unbeatable Mind, start with the body. 

 

Dave Asprey 25:02

Yes.

 

Mark Divine 25:03

You got to optimize the body, optimize the brain, you got to dial in the sleep and the nutrition and the exercise and the movement in the stress management and get out in nature. All of that is just preparatory work. Because if you don’t do that, then any attempt to meditate is just going to be, you know, it’s going to be frustrating at best.

 

Dave Asprey  25:19  

It’s frustrating. And you get 10% of the benefits of coming into the meditation with a brain that can actually fire it synapses that will, instead of whenever it gets enough energy, that it’s not worried about some other crap. It’s why when I’m doing intense Neurofeedback with people, I just have an executive chef who prepares the food because otherwise, you can’t do the work if I don’t feed them, right. But here’s the part of Smarter Not Harder. And by the way, I have to show you the book cover because you’ll laugh at it. It says at the top warning may cause more results with less effort. Here’s the part you’re not going to like, though, I talked about the laziness principle in the book, and your body, it evolved to be lazy. And it did that for a very strategic reason. 

 

Mark Divine  256:00 

You’re talking about mine or general humans?

 

Dave Asprey  26:02  

(laughing) Yours in general, you’re an exceptionally lazy guy, I mean, just look at you. I can only say that because we’re in different rooms. And you can’t just throttle me right there.

 

Mark Divine 26:10

(laughing) Exactly. How long do you want to live? 

 

Dave Asprey  26:15  

So all right, the laziness principle, all biology is wired. Number one to have a user interface on reality, like we talked about before, that works for for keeping it alive. The second thing is energy conservation. And what that means is that we naturally, in what I call our meat operating system, there’s a third of a second for most people, it’s a gap between when something happens around you and when your brain gets the first electrical signal that it comprehends it. So during that third of a second, your operating system is doing a bunch of crap that’s invisible to you. And that’s a bit worrisome because it can be doing all sorts of things, and you think you did it, but it did it, and you just took credit for it. The best example you lean against hot stove, you pull your hand away, and take credit for it. But some other system pulled that hand away. That’s like one of those times when the operating system is invisible to us. But we always naturally take credit for it. So one of the things it does is it says if you can use less energy, that’s good, and you should use less energy. And that’s because there might be a famine at any time. So eat the whole pizza and lay on the couch. Because that’s a survival behavior because there might not be any more pizza. And you might need the energy to run away from a predator. 

And this is where a lot of that inherent laziness comes from. So what some of us do, is what you’ve done with amazing success, is I’m just going to fight against my inherent laziness, and I’m just going to learn to train the crap out of my operating system. It takes a lot of willpower to do that, and a lot of time and energy. And I’m going to posit that 90% of people listening probably don’t have the fortitude, the energy, the timing, or the other resources to do that, to the extent you have. 

And we’re all using our willpower in multiple ways. We’re trying to feed our families, we’re trying to be a good spouse, we’re trying to take care of kids, take care of our community, improve our lives. Instead of fighting against your inherent laziness, I suggest in a Smarter Not Harder that you actually embrace your inner laziness fully. And it’s a hack for motivation. So I’m not telling you to lay on the couch. If you buy a $500 pair of shoes, that used to be $900. You like yeah, I say $400 on my shoes, you don’t spend $500 on my shoes. So your body way amplifies savings. So if you want to motivate yourself to exercise, you could do it the way that you do it, which is I am tough. I am man enough. Like, I’m just gonna go get to it because that’s who I am. And you do it. And I think that’s badass. 

Many people aren’t doing that today. In fact, only 8% of people exercise as much as the government says, and the government is full of crap on anything having to do with your health anyway. So, okay, if we’re not doing it, well, that means it’s a motivational issue, or it’s a willpower issue. So here’s your motivation. If you say today, I’m going to save 50 minutes of exercise by doing 10 minutes of stuff that works phenomenally well. That gets me the same or similar results. If you focus on the time you save to do a little bit of exercise, you’ll be motivated to do it. But if you focus on the time it takes to do a little bit of exercise, you won’t be motivated to do it. And you’re literally like, look; I’m gonna save 50 minutes. I win. And that tells your meat operating system that this is actually something that’s in alignment with evolution, right, because the saving of energy is motivating the unconscious part of you. 

So you just told the unconscious parts of you using your consciousness, hey, you’re saving a ton of energy and this little action, and it’s like, Oh, thank God. So focus on how much you saved on the shoes instead of how much you spent but do that for your biohacking. Do that for your exercise? Do that for your meditation. I’m gonna do a 20-minute meditation using this tech or this soundtrack or this breathing technique. Yes, it saved me 40 minutes. I’m gonna use that 40 minutes to go scroll on Instagram. You can do whatever you want. That’s not a great choice. But you can do whatever you want because you’re buying time that way. And it turns out, this is a major motivational hack that I’ve never seen written about anywhere. Just focus on the saving For your exercise, but to do that, you have to know what works better. And that was what motivated me to write smarter, not harder. It’s kind of the ultimate biohacking manifesto about here’s what works. 

And, of course, it’s going to change five years from now. We’ll probably have better Neurofeedback techniques or some crazy guy in New Zealand is going to figure out that if you cross your eyes and stand on one leg, you know that you’d become Buddha, I have no idea. But we’ll find the data. And then what we’ll do that right?

 

Mark Divine  30:26  

If someone’s driving their car, and they’re like, damn, this makes a lot of sense. But I was a total turd 22. And now I’m all motivated in January, it’s January 23’, that we’re recording this. What would be the one thing you would tell them to do? Starting tomorrow, maybe you can expand that to like two or three. But like the one most important, do this before all else.

 

Dave Asprey  30:47  

If health is involved in your New Year’s resolution, like get healthier and things like that, just stop. Health doesn’t mean anything. There is no one who wakes up in the morning and says today, I want to be healthy. It’s not the first thing on your mind. If you’re profoundly ill the way I used to be when I had chronic fatigue syndrome, and I was 300 pounds, you do want healthiness but you know, you want even more?

 

Mark Divine 31:11

Feel good? 

 

Dave Asprey 31:12

Well, you want energy, for sure. You also want power, and you also want sex, and you want pizza. Because this is your meat operating system talking, you think that what you want is what you want. No, it’s what your meat wants. And it convinces you you want it. You don’t decide to have a pizza craving. It happens, and you think it’s you doing it, but it’s your stupid meat operating system. So it’s not going to prioritize health until you’re near death. And I know this from running an anti-aging nonprofit group. I can never get anyone under 60 to join, even though it’s a lot easier to not age when you’re 20. But when you’re 20, you’re like, I’m gonna get laid, and I’m going to live forever. 

So that’s what I’m telling you is don’t look at health. Pick a specific domain that you want to improve. And that’s why the book is structured that way. Okay, if your goal is around your brain, then set a goal around an activity that is going to make your brain work and set a savings goal. It says I am going to do 30 minutes of this kind of meditation, whatever kind you pick, and or maybe you’re going to use like brain tap with light and sound goggles and things like that, maybe we’re going to use a breath work. So one of the many different soundtracks that are out there, but whatever it is, you’re gonna do that. And in the book, I’ll tell you how much time you saved doing that versus doing it just with none of the hacks are the assists. And so your goal is, I’m going to spend this much time, and I’m going to save this much time. So if you set a goal, it says I am going to improve my resilience because I’m going to do 30 minutes of meditation with breath work every day. And that’s going to save me 90 minutes of boring meditation. You will stick to it better because you focused on saving 90 minutes every day, then on spending 30 minutes.

 

Mark Divine  32:53  

I’m curious since the last time I talked to you, which was Peter Diamandis’s event, is that I think like 10 or 12 years ago, when I met you at the same event, you had just taken some just take some financing for your amazing company Bulletproof. And you’re so proud of that company. And you did some amazing shit there.

 

Dave Asprey 33:10

Thank you. 

 

Mark Divine 33:10

But you’re no longer there. What happened? You didn’t really tell me what actually happened. You just said things went a little sideways.

 

Dave Asprey  33:17  

I’m off the board of directors. I am still a major shareholder in the company. And I really want bulletproof to succeed. You know, it’s my baby. But I don’t have any any control over what it does. I didn’t have any visibility into what it does. Like, I don’t even do financial statements.

 

Mark Divine  33:32  

Were you forced out, or where you have a conflict with the investors or what happened? Business people who are listening, I would be curious. 

 

Dave Asprey  33:38  

Yeah, business people are listening would be curious. And that’s, that’s probably not something I can I can really talk about, but we’ll just say it wasn’t my choice to leave the board. 

 

Mark Divine 33:48

Okay. 

 

Dave Asprey 33:48

But it got set up in such a way that it happened that way. And this is common when you’re dealing with with VCs and all that. And, you know, there’s a big chessboard that happens with entrepreneurs and investors, whether they’re family offices, or VCs or angels or things like that. And there’s an algorithm that governments actually have pioneered. And what a government will do is it’ll say, I just need you to do me a favor, I just need this one little right. It’s for your own good. And then they keep doing that until you’re like, Screw off. And then they stop, and they wait six months, or a year or five years, and they do it again. And each time, it’s like a potato peeler, they’re just taking off another layer, another layer, but they never put it back on. Right? Well, VCs are the ultimate experts at doing this with founders. 

And so over time, you just realize that you make micro-decisions that are for the common good. And then you realize, and I’m just generalizing this to all entrepreneurial investor interactions when the investors are operating like governments do is that the things you’re doing that are of mutual best interest have long-term effects that diminish your power and increase your investor’s power. And you know, now that I understand the system when I’m an advisor for entrepreneurs, and I do a lot of advisory work to help new biohacking companies get proper funding and to help founders stay in control for longer. I knew straight up when I took the first venture capital. I’ve worked for VCs, like, on the payroll, you know that you’re committing to sell your company. I’m very happy to sell Bulletproof and to help what I’ve built into its DNA, when it joins a larger entity. And if that happens, at some point, it’s going to change the DNA of the entity so that it’s more innovative and so that it’s more focused on stuff that people want to buy because it makes them feel amazing. That was my thesis on Bulletproof straight up; people are smart enough to spend a little bit more on food that makes them feel way better than what they’re currently eating, that also has to taste good. And ideally, it’s good for the planet. And it’s convenient and all that. The big food operating system is make food as cheap and as pretty as possible. Like that’s all they care about. Right? They don’t care what it does to you. In fact, I will argue to you make more money if you make an addictive food unquestionably. 

And that’s why you know, the crunchy and bad oils, and MSG and all that kind of nonsense that they do. But I also feel like if I can just say, Look, this protein bar is the first protein bar those four bucks for a protein bar, when I first launched collagen bars for bulletproof, we outsold the Kind bar and RX bar on a per SKU basis, even though our price was twice as high or three times as high. And it was because people like oh, I wanted the benefits of how this how I feel how it tastes. And so, I think it really sent a signal. And then there’s been a huge wave of companies focusing on the quality and type of ingredients. So that’s all good. And at some point, it’ll it’ll end up in the right hands. And it’ll be of benefit to the company that it works with. And I’m always available to help out with Bulletproof whenever.

 

Mark Divine  36:44  

Is Danger coffee seems like it’s a competitor now to your company, Bulletproof?

 

Dave Asprey  36:49  

Well, Danger coffee is a different concept. It’s not about butter and MCT. And you know, Danger coffee, right on the label. It says mold tested. And there’s a lot of coffees out there that use like a clean or some some kind of words, but don’t tell you what clean is. And there is no coffee. I know because I wrote the trademark stuff or the patent stuff for this. No coffee is doing the combination of trace minerals and coffee. And that is a very potent effect because it affects how the coffee is absorbed. So it’s a different concept. Upgrade Labs needed a coffee and Bulletproof didn’t want to be the coffee for Upgrade Labs. So there wasn’t much choice about it. And this is a new innovation I came out with since I left Bulletproof. It’s just it’s an evolution. It’s a continuation, but I love bulletproof coffee. It works. Nothing wrong with it. Danger is just something that I needed. Upgrade Labs has built in functional coffee. By the way I should say ownandupgradelabs.com is where people can go to learn how to like open one in your neighborhood. 

 

Mark Divine 37:40

What’s a franchise cost? 

 

Dave Asprey 37:43

Turns out in the US, it’s illegal for me to say how much your franchise costs until you sign in. 

 

Mark Divine 37:47

Are you serious?

 

Dave Asprey 37:48

It’s the most regulated, insane industry ever. Like I loved the cost of this range to this range. But seriously, my team has warned me over and over if I say it in public like this, I’ll get a call from the franchise, whatever the hell they’re called. And they’re like the SCC, but for franchises. So I would open ourselves up for what do you call it um, lawsuit.

 

Mark Divine  38:07  

By the way, this is my opinion. I think it’s a phenomenal opportunity. First of all, proven entrepreneur, you know, a genius who’s always going to innovate. And you probably learned from Bulletproof in terms of who’s backing it right. You’re not gonna bring on any sharp VCs? Are you gonna mess with you?

 

Dave Asprey  38:22  

I have learned a lot about how to choose the right investors for sure. And I have some great people who’ve backed me and Bulletproof that I’m really grateful for that. I can say I’ve made some strategic errors, you know, a few little decisions about adding board seats or whatever, but it’s on me at the end of the day, right? You know, I could have played the hand of cards different. It’s a very rich hand of cards. I mean, how many people started from scratch and build $100 million company like…

 

Mark Divine  38:45  

You’re bound to step in a ton of landmines along the way,

 

Dave Asprey  38:48  

I’ve learned so much and so I can’t blame myself for that kind of thing. The real reason Upgrade Labs is awesome is that I started the biohacking facility idea, the biohacking lab like I created it out of thin air. And I opened it eight years ago, and I’ve operated it, and I’ve tested dozens of pieces of gear and different business models. And it’s taken me this long to feel good about franchising because when I franchise it, I’m basically saying I know how to turn the crank and make money. And the vast majority of people who came in over the years and tried to copy what I’m doing, it cost me more than $10 million to learn how to run it as a profitable business. These guys are all doing what I used to do. 

They’re they’re already getting their asses handed to them because it’s actually hard to learn how to do this, so the select the training of people and the selection of the gear and the data models and all that. I finally got it, but I didn’t need to go franchise this until I thought that was the fastest and best and safest way to get it, to get biohacking everyone’s hands. I want people to say I only have one hour a week to improve myself. They don’t have an hour a day like you or me or four hours a day like you. That hour better count beyond belief. And this is cost-effective and. And people feel and see, and we even give them the data like, you know, you’re changing. You don’t have to just like believe I went to the gym, I flop some weights around sweat a little bit. I think I’m losing weight. It’s not like that. It’s prescribed. So you do this at this level and it’s monitored. Here’s your data. Here’s how you did. Here’s your graph showing you over time. And oh, that’s motivational. So that’s ownanupgradelabs.com.

 

Mark Divine  40:22  

Danger coffee, you know, I want to try some. I tried some at the, at your event cuz you had that little booth out there. Is it brewed coffee? Do you have it in pods?

 

Dave Asprey  40:30  

It’s in whole bean or ground, and I’m working on pods. I have a love-hate relationship with pods because of the environmental factor. There are some that are clean now that you can get that are compostable. So I’m working on a solution like that. I don’t feel good, you know, unrecyclable, even though they say the recyclable pods that could circle the planet twice. I’ve actually met the guy who invented them. And I don’t think I don’t know if he’s that happy about it. And there’s companies like, oh, here, put the pods in an envelope and mail them to us. Like how much, how much waste, do we need to go through with cars driving around shipping, little empty pause. It’s not that hard to pour boiling water over coffee, slosh it around and wait four minutes, and then drink it like, for God’s sake guys. 

 

Mark Divine  41:09  

Doesn’t seem like it’d be hard to create a biodegradable pod either.

 

Dave Asprey  41:12  

I think there just wasn’t motivation. Because if, this is the other thing that Bulletproof let me do. I have met the CEOs of the largest global food companies on the planet. The Indira who’s to run Pepsi, you know, sat down, and she’s like, well, if we were, if we were a country, we’d have the 17th largest GDP, like crazy size. And to get this out, and to talk like over dinner, where it’s not, you know, a PR public relations forum. These people usually, but not always, they’re saying, look, I want to make healthier food for people. But if I raise my costs by half a cent, then people just flock to my competitor because their stuff is is you know, slightly cheaper in the market. So the real problem is that we are trained, and we haven’t for a long time that the easiest way to save money is on food quality. 

In my world, the last place I would skim would be on food quality, like I live in a tent and eat good food versus live in an apartment, any bad food. Literally, I would make that trade-off in a minute because I know how I would feel. And I think if we shift our priorities as a society, it’ll help. But all these guys feel trapped. They want to make this stuff. But they know that if they don’t make the cheapest stuff, they might lose market share it. Same thing with Amazon. Amazon turned into a flea market over the last ten years. It used to be you could buy like normal quality consumer goods there. And now, everything on Amazon is just a race to the bottom. Because it turns out always the low price is the wrong goal, the best quality where you know what you’re getting, and you can choose your quality is the goal I want. And so that’s why I tell you this, this is grass-fed, it’s organic. This is why I lab test super high-end coffee beans, and then I add a whole bunch of trace minerals so that it actually replaces your need to take a supplement, and they vacuum up toxins in your gut, and they can enter your cells. I just think people are smart enough to do that. And yeah, my coffee is more expensive than Starbucks. And that’s okay, because it’s got like 50 bucks a month’s worth of supplements built into it. So Danger coffee is out there. But right now, I don’t have the pods. But I’ll probably come up with something here. And people are buying it by e-commerce dangercoffee.com. And the subscription rate is phenomenal because people try and like oh, I feel different just on black coffee. It’s a different thing. It’s not about putting butter and MCT you can I do that sometimes. But it’s not necessary. You just drink a cup of black Danger coffee, and something different happens because you got a big dose of minerals at the same time.

Mark Divine  43:32  

We got to wrap this up soon. I’ve been going for a while but um, the old Bulletproof Conference is now your Biohacking Conference, right?  I think you, 

Dave Asprey 43:38

Oh, yeah, 

 

Mark Divine 43:38

You kept that on and now you’re doing it put a lot of energy into that. When do you run that? 

 

Dave Asprey  43:42  

That is coming up in June in Orlando this year, and you got to biohackingconference.com, you save a lot of money when you go there now, because the earlier you buy a ticket, the lower it costs, just so I know how big to make it. We ran out of space at the Beverly Hilton with 2500 people. And we had about 3500 last year in Florida. So I would guess maybe 4-5000 people are going to come and spend three and sometimes four days completely like look, we have a full-on party like a real party with DJs and dancing. And we have so many events, and it’s been so it’s a chance to come together and to play with the toys. And there’s a lot of community building. 

This is where all the founders of the companies that I talked about that you talk about they’re actually there. So you can just talk to the founder about why they did it that way. And you can see who’s trustworthy, and I hope everyone there is trustworthy. I do turn away companies like multi-level marketing and things like that. But I do let some companies in were like, I don’t I haven’t vetted this product. So I don’t know for sure, but I know that they’re going to tell their story, and then people can try it. You can see it right there, and exactly is this worthy? So there isn’t a conference like it anywhere on Earth. It’s in its 10th year we are calling it the ninth annual it’s actually the 11th, including the COVID ones.

Mark Divine  44:49  

Do you have any fitness companies that join, like gear companies? The reason I asked is I just acquired Brute Force Training, which is unstable load system. You know, sandbag vests, sandbags, and kettlebell sandbags. 

Dave Asprey  45:01  

We absolutely have a whole bunch of fitness companies to come as long as you’re doing it better than the old way. And, like you said, unstable training is right in our alley. So you should be there and like how have your good there and put it on people and film them and have them doing it, totally.

Mark Divine  45:12  

Awesome, Dave Well, man, I really respect everything you’re doing and appreciate your your creativity and entrepreneurial spirit, you know, being the pioneer in some areas that not a lot of people are touching on. So that’s awesome. It’s really fun to talk to you.

Dave Asprey  45:26  

You know, Mark, I always appreciate your mindset. You’re curious. And you know, you have this fount of willpower and you’ve shared it with a lot of people. So true respect, brother, and thank you for the work you’re doing and inspiring and leading and let’s jointly figure out how long we want to do this and for why!

Mark Divine  45:43  

Exactly. We’ll work on that. Alright, hope to see you in June, Dave. And, Hooyah! Stay focused and get the book.

 

Dave Asprey  45:50  

Will do, guys Smarter, not Harder. Order now, please, because it’ll count more. If you do that. It’ll help other people Smarter, not Harderr. Buy wherever you like to buy him. See you Mark.

 

Mark Divine  45:58  

Boom. Take care Dave, Hooyah, thanks, buddy. What a fantastic conversation with my friend, Dave Asprey. We talked about all sorts of interesting things and, of course, his new businesses, Upgrade Labs and Danger coffee, so I’m going to check out both. So share it, enjoy it show notes are up on our website at MarkDivine.com. You can check out the YouTube there our YouTube channel, Mark Divine, on Twitter, I’m at Mark Divine@Mark Divine and on Instagram and Facebook at real Mark Divine and I’m on LinkedIn as most of you are as well. My new newsletter Divine Inspiration comes out every Tuesday where I have a synopsis of the weekly podcasts, my blog, the book I’m reading, and some other interesting tidbits in a practice. So check it out at MarkDivine.com to subscribe and share it with your friends. Thanks so much for my team, Jason Sanderson and Geoff Haskell, and Catherine Divine, who helped produce this podcast and bring incredible guests like Dave to you every week. Reviews are very, very appreciated. It helps other people find the show and keeps us easily searchable. So consider reviewing and rating us. Wherever you listen. Thanks for being part of the change you want to see in the world. As I say quite often, there’s one consensus world as I was speaking with Dave today, but there’s a billion individual Worlds First, change your mind to change your world. Dave says 15% of the population at scale, we can change the world we see around us, but it’s got to happen with you first. So thanks for doing the work until next time. This is your host Mark Divine out. Hooyah!

Transcribed by Catherine and https://otter.ai