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Features guest Julien Smith
Robb Wolf is a former research biochemist and 2X New York Times/Wall Street Journal Best-selling author of The Paleo Solution and Wired To Eat. Along with Diana Rodgers, he co-authored the book, Sacred Cow, which explains why well-raised meat is good for us and good for the planet. Robb has transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the world via his top-ranked iTunes podcast, books, and seminars. He also co-founded the 1st and 4th CrossFit affiliate gyms in the world, The Healthy Rebellion community platform, and is the co-founder of DrinkLMNT Electrolytes.
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Really enjoyed this one. Thanks guys and have a Merry Christmas! Gonna be 86 degrees in Perth, Australia. Jealous? 😛
Thanks for the episode, I will definitely check out the book.
In a way is what I am doing since I stopped smoking since Feb. I do with friends 30 days challenge every month and it’s lot of fun. Every month I try to do something difficult. It’s works wonders.
Also regarding coffee, I used to be very dependent on coffee, now I am in my 30 days ZERO coffee. Just to know, is almost like quitting smoking (easier) but I sleep WAY better, and my digestion is much better as well. Strangely enough I think I put some fat on the belly, and I think I did not change my eating…
I knew upon reading that The Flinch is just as *Paleo* as Wolf’s book, it’s just not about Paleo diet or exercise. It’s all about evolutionary mismatch: the flinch is leftover from a time when it was useful for survival, but now it just gets in the way of very undangerous but important things like quitting jobs we hate or talking to attractive women. A ery helpful book if you take some of the suggestions seriously.
Interesting episode. Listened last night when I woke up at 4AM AGAIN. I know I know Robb, I need to put up better light blocking curtains. On my list. Too bad you guys weren’t more boring to put me back to sleep. Wow I gotta read that book! I already used your idea about facing the temptation to re-wire my circuits today. It kind of reminds me of setting an intention in yoga. Since I can’t avoid unhealthy crap because it’s everywhere, I need to re-program my response. THANKS!!!! Hope it helps with the evil pastry devils that appear in the conference room at work, especially this time of year.
I also like your thing about how even the experts make mistakes. Duh! I use that when I teach physics. I prefer to not make my lectures perfect because it’s good for them to see me reason things through and sometimes even screw up in front of the class. It’s uncomfortable for me and them and may even make my evals worse, but I think it’s good for their learning. Thanks for reminding me this is even the case with the paleo experts. Since I’m pretty new to this I’m still learning so it’s ok to screw up occasionally as long as I learn from it.
It sounds like this auhtor has stumbled upon something much of the combat arms and SOF community already knew… in order to be hard, you need to live hard. Embrace the suck; and you break mental barriers. The first time you run a marathon its hard, next time its doable regardless of your physical capabilities… you effectivly push your perceived limit farther back each time until you encounter an actual physical limit.
To quote an old ranger: Hard times don’t last forever; but hard men do.
Thanks for the comment KCC.
Can you point me to some of the things you’re talking about, where would I be able to read about it?
Thanks.
Great episode I was woundering about the survivalist guy u talked about. That said he was looking to get a group together Sounds petty sweet icavemen like any info would be great
Second the military comment.
Once you’ve been through a live fire exercise (real bullets!) or jumped out of an airplane on a static line then it’s pretty hard to get stressed out by the humdrum dramas of everyday life.
No lives are at stake with anything I do these days.
Great episode, probably my favorite podcast ever. Thanks guys!
Robb,
I noticed you mentioned something about how a specific tribe (Kalahari San Bushmen I believe) who have knowledge about arrogance, and how they have their own ways to avoid such behavior. Doing so stops them from potentially murdering somebody. Were you reading “Eating Christmas In The Kalahari” by Richard Borshay Lee?
Basically, no matter how successful of a hunter you are, tribe mates never admit this. Instead, they’ll do the exact opposite and say you did a shit job to keep you from getting a high head. But I think it’s not only to keep you level headed, but a way to keep pressure off you. When people say you are a “genius” or “the best”, that could put tremendous pressure on you to never fail, which is very unhealthy.
Link to Eating Christmas: http://windward.hawaii.edu/facstaff/dagrossa-p/articles/EatingChristmas.pdf
NELSON episode!
Really enjoyed this one a lot. And Robb a word of advice: when scanning resumes for pool cleaners skip over the Rauls and Franciscos. Hire a Sheldon.
The Gnoll Creedo (http://www.thegnollcredo.com/) and Stanton’s site (http://bit.ly/rt3ZAs) deal with a bit of the ‘lifestyle’ part of all of this.
The creedo (weaved in story format via a book Stanton wrote)
1)We are born and we die. No one cares, no one remembers, and it doesn’t matter.This is why we laugh.
2)Our pack, our children, our territory, the hunt, the kill, the battle. Health, full stomach, sharp weapons, your packmates next to you under the stars, seeing your child kill her first prey. These are important.
Anything else is needless complication, no matter how much fun it is.
3)If you can’t eat it, wear it, wield it, or carry it, leave it behind.
4)Plan before hunting, discuss after hunting, hunt while hunting.
5)Lead, follow, or hunt alone. Success—first meat of kill, greater trust. Failure—less trust. Disaster—survivors eat you.
6)Expect trust outside the pack to be betrayed.
7)Two are much stronger than one. Three are much stronger than two. Ten are barely stronger than nine. Fifty are much stronger than ten, but barely stronger than forty.
8)An archer, a swordsman, and a scout are stronger than three swordsmen.
9)Stay alive. Hopeless battles are hopeless. Dead is dead.
10)Stay alive. Once you decide to kill, use all your skill, strength, and deception. Nobly dead is dead.
11)Die biting the throat.
The concept of this book is useful, but not new. Henry Hazlitt wrote a similar concept back in the 20’s. Available for free in PDF and ePub below.
http://mises.org/books/willpower.pdf
http://mises.org/books/WayToWillPower.epub
Wow, I’m a little behind on the podcasts, but again…wow.
This is probably my favorite Paleo Solution podcast ever, amazed this didn’t spur more comments.
The Main Thing I Liked: Lengthy discussion on the “framework” of the Paleo Diet/Lifestyle.
I find when I teach this stuff, the better I lay down the framework, the better understanding my clients have:
1) We are animals, we are designed to survive and procreate.
2) We are pack animals, we will emulate the behavior of the most dominant (alpha male/female) as well as the pack. There is a balance between pack and leader.
3) Our system is both delicate and robust. We will survive almost anything, but seemingly minute stimuli can dramatically alter our biochemistry. Hormesis, diet, sex, love, socialization (all things you’ve discussed before and especially in this podcast) are critical to our well being.
When I consistently lay down these ideas, I start to see the lights come on in clients. They get past the 20-30 years of headline intake:
Fat is bad
Blueberries are a superfood!
Yogurt is good for your gut!
and other vast amounts of bullshit if they buy into the framework.
Anyway, loved the podcast. More on the pack mentality would be fascinating to me. Weirdly, after years of studying Neuro Linguistic Programming, the thing that made this click for me wasn’t some arcane psychology or anthropology tome, but watching “The Dog Whisperer”.
I’m ashamed to say it, but Cesar Milan knows something about pack behavior. His whys/hows on how this applies to humans is way off IMO, but the pack stuff is gold.
Looking at pack behavior versus “rational man” is a bottomless topic that I’m really working on understanding, especially as it relates to changing client habits, and like you mentioned at the end of the podcast: our own habits.