0:00:00 - Speaker 1 Today I've got not only one but two great guests to be diving into really what makes us unique from the inside out our biology, our biochemistry, the neuroscience so that we can better understand what makes us tick, how we tick and why, so that we're not always struggling and applying certain behaviors to life towards our personal development goals, wellness goals, lifetime goals, whatever that might look like. The more you can understand yourself, you can finally, maybe will find out, take back the wheel of your life, of your body. So with that, gentlemen, welcome to the show, thank you. So Override is the book discover your brain type, why you do what you do and how to do it better. And, first and foremost, i would love to kind of lay the groundwork a little bit. get some definitions defined, get some terms defined, excuse me, and help the listener, the viewer, really just kind of grab hold of the core concept of the book.

I highly recommend the book, by the way, because not only is there a lot of scientific explanation, there are a lot of anecdotal, you know, sharing stories and experiences with patients and people that you know you are taking the science and applying it to and getting real world feedback to. There's really some unique quizzes in there as well And I'll just spoil it right away. I'll say I'm definitely a sword but I feel like I sometimes have shield tendencies. but you know, we'll dissect that more At its core. my takeaway, first and foremost, was we're really talking about an unconscious addiction to comfort, and that is where you know we're going to be defending ourselves, coiling in or we're going to be poking and probing and seeking out kind of thing Would you say. is that a fair statement? kind of this, this through line, this unconscious addiction to comfort we all have in, then ultimately deciding to figure out our bodies.

0:01:52 - Speaker 2 I think that's a very nice succinct way to put that together.

0:01:57 - Speaker 1 I think I'm paraphrasing your work, so that's your words, i'm pretty sure.

0:02:02 - Speaker 2 But it also comes from the comfort, comes from something very unique. So we are each, we are all, comforted in different ways And it's understanding where that comes from. And we went at this from in the neurochemistry, from brain chemistry that shows how we sort out into two basic types of neurochemical imbalances, and these are more deficiency syndromes than having too much. And it involves a stimulating side of the brain chemistry, which is the dopamine side, and a dopamine side and a calming side, which is the serotonin imbalance. And we all are hybrids. You mentioned that you've got a little bit of a shield in you, a little bit.

We identified the stimulating dopamine side as the swords. They're out there looking for stimulation And the shields are the serotonin deficient and they're more calming. And these two brain types, these two brain chemicals play out not just in human beings and throughout our evolution, but in other animal species, as we discussed in the book.

0:03:15 - Speaker 1 Go ahead.

0:03:16 - Speaker 3 Well, i just to kind of open that aperture a little bit, the abstract of why we're, i think, addicted to comfort is because we conflate comfort with stability, balance, homeostasis. I mean the body wants to remain in homeostasis. If you put it in an exercise modality, your heart rate is going to go up, your blood pressure is going to increase, you're going to breathe faster, your body wants to accommodate that, and then when you stop that exercise, your body, you know, resets to a balance. And so balance is the way I think we, we unconsciously want to feel and we miss kind of diagnosed balance for comfort. I mean when we feel comfortable, we feel like we're in balance. Well, sometimes comfort is doing something that's impulsive and stupid and it's self-destructive. Or sometimes comfort is in avoiding a difficult situation, which arguably is not balance right.

It's not balance right, so it's. The addiction to comfort is self-defeating in many ways.

0:04:41 - Speaker 2 Which is interesting because, to Khan's point, if you're doing something stupid and risk-taking and which is Which we never do right, not your balance, but it's actually pretty much swords.

It's a mechanism to reach equilibrium. because we're doing those things, the swords are doing these behaviors because they're looking for this kind of stimulation to put in a little more dopamine into their brain chemistry. Which is you take a kid that's hyperactive, adds in a classroom. He's running around making everybody nervous and not focused. Why would you give that kid a stimulant to get him back to balance? Because you're giving him in these stimulants. They have dopamine. That's the stimulant medicines, or their dopamine. So you're rebalancing them from And they're seeking their comfort by behaving that way. They behave that way because they're low in dopamine.

0:05:45 - Speaker 1 So I do want to get into We've already said some key terms here sword, shield But before I do, connell, since you brought it up, i had this concept towards the end of the book really stuck out to me that I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. But homeostasis you all say that it's really more of a concept than a constant. What do you mean by that?

0:06:12 - Speaker 3 Well, I mean, it's what the body wants to maintain. The body prefers to be in equilibrium And there are different things that cause disequilibrium. I mean, like what I was saying before, exercise causes disequilibrium. If you go outside and it's 32 degrees, you're going to want to put on a jacket because your body wants to be warmer.

0:06:40 - Speaker 1 So, would you say, any kind of internal or external stressor disrupts homeostasis.

0:06:46 - Speaker 3 It does. So we're always trying to compensate for that disequilibrium And in many I mean look, most of the time the body works beautifully. I mean it does that We tend to put on, when we leave it on our own. We just automatically put on a jacket when we're cold or the body perspires when it's hot. Where it gets into trouble is, i think, emotionally, because those things that are comfort driven can also be self-destructive.

0:07:25 - Speaker 2 And the world around us is in flux, so we're not operating in a vacuum. So life is definitely not a constant, that's for sure, no So homeostasis is a concept, but if there's three people in this room, we're already interfering with our homeostasis And, as Khan said, that comes out emotionally. We have to react to that. Physically We have to react to that, and why that happens is what's in the book.

0:07:55 - Speaker 1 Yeah, So then let's dive into, probably, what's going to navigate the rest of the conversation when we're talking about which one am I? Am I a sword or am I a shield? Can you break down, please for us these two concepts so that listener or viewer can really begin to understand and apply which one makes the most sense for them?

0:08:15 - Speaker 3 Sure.

0:08:18 - Speaker 1 Connell, how about sword and David's shield? Perfect, There we go. Okay, divide it and conquer here, I'll do it.

0:08:23 - Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, or did I get it right? You do me and I'll do you. I'll get perfect. There we go, okay, perfect.

0:08:30 - Speaker 3 Again, what David was saying is swords tend to be a little deficient on the stimulating side of their brain chemistry And when you're deficient on that side, the way you attempt to gain homeostasis again some sense of equilibrium is to build increase the level of central nervous system arousal. Okay, so it really has to do. I mean, if you look at arousal as a kind of vertical axis, there's some part of arousal that's too much and some that's too little, and some kind of goldilocks is absolutely just right. That's where we want to stay. Well, if you're deficient in on the stimulating side of the brain chemistry, you're going to want to bump that level of arousal up a little bit.

And the way you do that is with behavior. So the people who are swords tend to be tolerant of taking risks because risks are stimulating. I mean the danger is stimulating, I mean it kind of gets you going. They tend to be a little bit more impulsive. So they tend to have a more difficult time to land gratification. They want what they want and they want it now. They tend to process anger more externally. So those are some of the characteristics of the behavioral manifestations of having a little bit too little on the brain chemistry side of stimulation.

So, shields are really different animals.

0:10:25 - Speaker 2 Well, shields are the opposite. But before we get to the shields, we're all hybrids but we all sort of tend to be more one than the other. So you pointed out that as you read through the book, you saw that you had some shield tendencies. So just take everything that Connell said about swords and flip it upside down. So shields are looking for less arousal. They're trying to calm themselves. They have great impulse control. They bury their feelings. You don't usually know if they're mad. They're not the guy that's going to drive down the street and pull a gun out and have road rage. They are well more focused. They can you give them a project, even if they don't like it. They're going to do it and they're going to dissect it and they're going to get it right. And they are not reward oriented. They are more negative outcome. That's their motivation.

0:11:30 - Speaker 1 Someone avoiding a negative outcome.

0:11:33 - Speaker 2 Yeah, so you're going to have diabetes if you don't stop eating these candy bars. So that's enough for them. And whereas a sword is going to eat the candy bar because it's got sugar in it and sugar is going to release dopamine. So all these behaviors really are opposite. And shields don't need immediate gratification. They can delay gratification. They're not risk takers. That's way too scary for them. So as you look at the different behaviors that we're describing, you sort of see where you are reflexively with the way you react to these changes in your environment.

0:12:16 - Speaker 1 I'm kind of laughing in my head and smiling out loud here. I guess, especially when it comes to nutrition, that's where I really felt more of the oh, i kind of have some more shield tendencies. So it kind of makes me think of, i believe I'm more of a sword, but I'm a very aware sword. I'm very aware of my natural tendencies, my innate tendencies, but also I'm curious about I wanna learn the tendencies of the other side, the shield. What maybe has the most to offer? Where am I in my personal life and my biological life? Should I be leaning more into maybe trying to adopt some shield tendencies, or should I really try to let my sword tendency shine here? What is, i guess, kind of more situational, dependent and hopefully trying to better understand and navigate that accordingly, especially being so health and wellness oriented.

But you mentioned something that I wanted to get to in the book. That I think is we already touched on a little bit. But if you could expand a little bit more on arousal, how brain activation or arousal unconsciously shapes whether we are focused more internally or externally, kind of. I know you kind of mentioned it a little bit earlier, but if we could unpack a little bit of the different ways arousal might show up in our life, how it makes us maybe feel, where and how. Maybe we might be not fully recognizing this stimulation, as maybe we think it's something else And so hopefully we can understand that this is arousal, this is stimulation. What is my biology gonna do next?

0:13:54 - Speaker 2 So this shows up in several behaviors. If playing a slot machine, every time you pull that handle there's a little bit of arousal, There's that hope Could be could be.

And whereas and that's how a sword would approach the machine a shield would be thinking about how much they're gonna lose That. Why put my money into this, i'm gonna lose this. So again, they're opposite And we don't to what you said. We don't really get to change our brain chemistry. What we get to do is adapt and understand why we have these reflexes and then develop some behavioral changes around that, and the book goes into that. It does, yeah, and we have two ways to change our brain chemistry. One is to adapt to it behaviorally And the other one is to use pharmacology and add in serotonin for the shields, add in dopamine for the swords. But Con and I, being doctors of different training, we always refer patients to each other. We've been friends for quite a while And we were frustrated in that if I was having problems behaviorally with a patient, i would send them to Con. If he was having issues medically, they'd come to me, but we were still fighting this We had the MD here and the PhD here for everybody.

So we were still fighting the same issues. You know, why can't you lose weight? Why can't you stop smoking? Why can't you? And this is really what the genesis of this all the studying was about brain chemistry is there's got to be something bigger than Conal and me that are missing this. What are we missing? And that's where all this research came in. And there's a tremendous amount of research that identifies this relationship between the sword behaviors and dopamine deficiencies and the serotonins with those deficiencies and shields behavior.

0:16:04 - Speaker 1 So are you familiar with Dr Andrew Huberman? Heard the name, huge podcast now all around neuroscience And I've seen his I've seen his podcast, professor at.

Stanford. It's called his podcast, called Huberman and Lab. One thing he has brought up many times that I love is this concept that to some degree we can't change our brain but we can change our minds. We can't really change how the brain is gonna operate, but we can take control of the ship, so to speak, through the mind, and then get the mind to get the body to do something differently, to stimulate more of a change in the brain. How would you navigate that concept of can't change our brain but we can change our mind? Would you agree? or how would you kind of unpack that?

0:16:47 - Speaker 3 Well, the concept of mind is a very abstract concept. You know, it's kind of the like two entities living in certain philosophers and neuroscientists struggled with.

you know what's the difference. you know for a long time, but the concept of override which is what you know the book is titled is really that it's taking the kind of organic brain that we have. And let me open this up a little bit. There's a study that we mentioned in the book, done by a psychologist named Jerome Kagan, which I think is really an interesting one. It took infants these were all like around four or five months old and put them in highly stimulating environments meaning bells, noises, puffs of air, different visual stimuli And about 20% just kind of sat there and took it in. About 20% went nuts.

0:18:10 - Speaker 1 I mean, they cried, they screamed, they didn't like it.

0:18:13 - Speaker 3 I mean, they were highly reactive And about 60% were somewhere in the middle. That 20% on both sides probably are the most extreme sides of swords and shields. So, chase, which was the highly reactive, what would you predict would be the kids who were highly reactive? What did they grow up to? be Shields or swords, swords, no, no, no, the highly reactive kids grew up to be Highly reactive.

0:18:44 - Speaker 1 meaning is that they felt unpleasant about their relationship, Of course that would be more intrusive for them. That would be a shield. Yeah, excuse me.

0:18:52 - Speaker 3 So the babies?

0:18:53 - Speaker 1 that just took it in they kind of were.

0:18:56 - Speaker 3 They liked the stimulation, yeah, you know. So we either like it or we don't feel comfortable with it. And if you can like it, and then you can like it too much What?

0:19:08 - Speaker 1 does that look like?

0:19:09 - Speaker 3 Well, i'll tell you. let's talk about sex, for example, and sustaining a sexual relationship over a long period of time. How we learn is dopamine is intimately attached to how we learn in a very interesting way, because it all has to do with errors that we make, prediction errors. So we make a prediction when we do you pull that lever. that's a prediction. Maybe I'm gonna get four cherries, or whatever it is.

0:19:44 - Speaker 1 Talk about slot machine or sex here. Well, i'm talking about I don't know I think it goes away, i don't know why. I just a little bit about slippage there.

0:19:55 - Speaker 3 The prediction error. If it, if our prediction is better than what we thought it was gonna be, we get a dopamine hit. You get a little bit of a dopamine hit If the prediction that you made is accurate. It's baseline. And if the prediction you made turns out to be less than yeah, i mean what you get is less than what you predicted, yet the dopamine dries up. So how would you think that that would relate to sustaining a sexual relationship over the long haul?

0:20:37 - Speaker 1 Well, it kind of comes to mind. For me is actually. I'll even just say the example in the book is kind of I don't know if it was a study or with a patient, i can't remember but basically you've got a sword and a shield out at a bar or a social interaction And one is going to see someone of interest same sex, opposite sex, whatever your interest is there, and one is gonna wait for a cue like a flirt or locking eyes, and the other is just gonna see what they like, see what they want, have that prediction of what could be and they're just gonna go for it. And so I would say here, when it comes to sexual relations, they're just gonna be either go, go, go, because odds are, one of these has got to hit, it's got to be a cherry one time right, or I'm gonna do it, gonna get hurt and that's gonna cause me to retreat until I can get full confidence from the other person that this is gonna happen. Am I on par there?

0:21:39 - Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, but in terms of sustaining it over a long period of time Or sustaining it. Yeah, yeah. So people who it's gotta be better than you predicted to get that dopamine hit.

0:21:51 - Speaker 1 So I would say in that case probably swords, struggle more with that in a long time.

0:21:55 - Speaker 3 I think they do, and they're also more vulnerable to sexual addictions. For that reason They're very drawn to novelty.

0:22:05 - Speaker 1 Yeah, which addiction was a big part of that as well in relation to swords?

0:22:10 - Speaker 2 And a big part of this research came from research with addictive behaviors. And why is it? I always wondered this. I trained at UCLA. We had no training in addiction. This was 100 years ago. Not quite, not quite, but we practice in a community where we see plenty of addiction. I mean, every community does, but so one of the things that was really interesting to me was why is it that people aren't addicted to everything? Why are they addicted to this or that?

0:22:41 - Speaker 1 Yeah, if addiction is a constant, then yeah, why not everything?

0:22:45 - Speaker 2 So the drugs and substances choose us, we don't choose them. So, getting back to the slot machine, you pull the lever, you've got that dopamine rush. That's a sword behavior. Swords are attracted to it's a better word to stimulating things. So those can be anything from cocaine to methamphetamine, to caffeine, sugar. These are all the sexual addictions, because there's that constant variety, gambling, all of the speaking of this. Those are all things that provide a little dopamine, whereas the serotonin deficient, the shields, they're drawn to things that are more calming and more So opiate.

0:23:35 - Speaker 1 They're gonna be more constant.

0:23:37 - Speaker 2 Opiate addictions. alcohol, oh, interesting. okay, you look at, and again, this is a general statement, but it is borne out, certainly in my practice. clinically, alcoholics are more often shields, and alcohol being that calming.

0:23:55 - Speaker 1 Well, yeah, i mean it's a depressant for the nervous system. So it's that constant, calm, numbing sensation really.

0:24:02 - Speaker 2 So, addiction being one of the several things we relate this concept to, it's really fascinating how that and where that becomes important is how you treat people. So if somebody comes in and they're an alcoholic, you can withdraw the alcohol, you can do the detoxification monkey can do that, that's not hard to do But the trick to keeping people from going backwards is to get them to understand that, if you're a shield, these are the things that you can do behaviorally from those reflexes that will keep you comfortable And back to comfort. In all these behaviors that we discuss, you have to let yourself be a little uncomfortable, because it's not comfortable for a shield to be in a social situation where they're interested in somebody, but they're gonna wait until they're approached.

All of these things again. Get back to comfort and how we parent and how we are in a workplace and why we don't exercise regularly and why we have different eating issues. Both sides have problems with their eating and the sword is eats to stimulate the shield, eats to soothe their anxious feelings. So both sides can be fat and overweight, but for different reasons.

And so there's one of the things about the book that we thought was important was that this is not a generic self-help book. So if someone's looking for a diet book, that's gonna and you know this as well as anyone. With your training, you can understand what foods are good and what behaviors around that aren't good. But unless you know who your audience is, you can't really finely tune that therapy, so spot on.

0:26:06 - Speaker 1 And it does take me back to being in clinic and working with patients for years, day in, day out, and then even online for a few years after that. The initial frustration point I had and I know a lot of other coaches and trainers have had and will have is you know this plan is gonna work. You've got all the baseline information, you've got all the preliminary data and biomarkers and you know, here's your plan of action, here's the nutritional advice, here's maybe the actual diet meal plan, here's the workouts, here's the everything right. Some people just take off with it, others it's like pulling teeth, or it works well and then they slip off and then they come back.

And it's just frustrating because you know all right, well, i've done the due diligence enough to like weed through my maybe ideal client or the type of people I wanna work with or seem to be attracting. Why is this not working? And so for me, i caught onto that pretty quickly in my career and what I began to do was just I would, even I would get to that at the end, i would go weeks probably sometimes before ever getting into. Okay, here is your workout plan, here is your nutritional advice. We're gonna just spend time really going through the behavior change aspect. You know who are you, how do you feel, what do you present with when you show up to just even just making the decision for all the things we're talking about?

0:27:27 - Speaker 2 And what motivates you Exactly? Are you motivated by a reward? Yeah, gotta find the intrinsic motivation spot. Absolutely yeah. which?

0:27:34 - Speaker 1 brings it back to what we're talking about here, which makes sense. You know, if, the more we can understand the human experience ourselves at a biological level and neurological level, you know we've really got a much stronger starting point for whatever the thing is we're trying to change or even just to maintain, i think Shifting gears a little bit. talking about this concept, i wrote down of aging speed. You measured aging speed throughout these studies. you know, is there one that is gonna have a higher aging speed? when it comes to being a sword or a shield? you know, i think we'll just say in the concept of, you know, resilient aging longevity, if a person is like I'm a sword, i'm a shield, can they maybe learn more about their aging potential here?

0:28:29 - Speaker 3 I think they both have different vulnerabilities to that. You know, they, you know, as David was saying, you know some of the behaviors can be the same. You can have two people who are equally vulnerable to metabolic disease. You know. They're 40 pounds overweight, they have high blood pressure, they have a variety of markers, but they get there for you know very different reasons. You know so that their vulnerability toward longevity may be kind of the same, but they're the path toward that and the intervention toward changing that destination, you know is really very different.

0:29:22 - Speaker 1 So it's not as cut and dry as, like I'm a sword, more of a dopamine seeker. I'm probably gonna I'm gonna cut myself a little short, maybe whereas a shield might be more safe and protective and you'll have a higher longevity probability.

0:29:35 - Speaker 3 Well, i think if you look at occupation, you know the astronauts are probably not shields. Okay, race car drivers are probably not shields.

0:29:52 - Speaker 1 Entrepreneurs.

0:29:53 - Speaker 3 Entrepreneurs well no. Well, you know, you look at High risk, High risk, but success. you know, Warren Buffett is pretty successful. He's a notable shield So you can be successful. You know, and take measured risks. I think he's a smart risk taker, i would agree. But in terms of longevity, you know the high risk occupations, you know. You know adolescents is a high risk age range to go through. It's a wonder. Anyway, it's gonna be a lot.

0:30:33 - Speaker 1 In particular, guys can really do stupid things. Yeah, yeah.

0:30:36 - Speaker 3 So you probably have more vulnerability you know among swords than you do shields.

0:30:42 - Speaker 2 for those reasons, In a medical practice. To answer your question about longevity, i'm a big believer in preventative medicine, so I advocate for these newer tests and these biomarkers. If you are a We'll get along really well then. If you're a sword, this is all interesting. Generally, you're gonna learn about yourself. It appeals to a certain narcissism that might be there and that, and it's interesting.

0:31:14 - Speaker 1 I am obsessed about this stuff and I think a lot of my audience is as well.

0:31:17 - Speaker 2 Well and to a shield. I'm not having that test. They're gonna find cancer. I'm not, So I see this on that level. So if longevity is based on early detection and staying ahead of the game, I think the swords have a better advantage here, because they are more likely to take the bait and behave that way, Whereas the other side, our shields, tend to be, hold on a minute pal.

0:31:47 - Speaker 1 Taking action, even in the sense of not maybe making the smartest decisions in life, but taking action and wanting to gather as much information. There is definitely I can speak personally that dopamine hit of. I have a whoop here on one wrist. The physical activity tracker I got an Apple watch. He's a smart mattress. For years used to log all my food in, probably like eight, 10 years.

You're missing an aura And all the metabolic tests and genetic testing I can. I wanna know as much as possible to really know what I'm working with, for some good reasons as well. I've got diabetics in my family. My father passed away from a terminal illness non-hereditary ALS but you can still thank you.

That really rocked my world And I went and got every neurological test, every test that I could get cleared for, just to kind of like, do I got it or not, kind of thing. And that's why I'm such an advocate for everybody, no matter if you're a sword or a shield, if you're interested or hesitant, just getting basic annual labs and your annual physical, like you gotta know that, you gotta know that information.

0:32:56 - Speaker 2 Yeah, that was rough for you.

0:32:58 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it was, it was, but it's honestly the whole reason why I'm here now.

0:33:03 - Speaker 2 So you look at this situation as a sword. I'm a sword, by the way, and you wanna know what your risk factors are. You wanna know is this genetic? I mean, that's the number one question that we all ask when someone around us in our family dies, and the genetics to why we are a sword or a shield are clear. We develop these brain chemistry and balances from above, from our family tree, and so, getting back to a point you made earlier, but can we really change who we are? It's pretty tough to change your genome, right? But understanding that this does come from someplace that you can't control, and it's interesting where it comes from. It comes from your microbiome. You've probably studied this in your studies.

0:33:56 - Speaker 1 You've had a lot of great gut health experts on the show as well.

0:33:58 - Speaker 2 And there is a brain-gut connection. There's a direct connection between the brain and the gut, but all of these things are initially determined genetically.

0:34:09 - Speaker 1 What would you say then? that brings up an interesting point. Let's say we do want to, we've gone through the quiz, we've done this assessment, we've figured out all right, this is who I am. I'm a sword, i'm a shield, whatever. Which method or which approach would you recommend for someone to kind of lean into? first? I know this is gonna be like a big blanket statement here And going all right, i want to maybe focus on an area of my body, area of my health, a particular system. I wanna focus on my gut health. I wanna focus on brain health, i wanna focus on cardiovascular system, whatever that might be. Is there one system in the body, one targeted approach we can have to our health that might yield us quicker results or increase longevity, or just what would have the most, i would say, higher health ROI, dependent on if we're a sword or a shield? Is there one system, maybe, that we could navigate towards The gut?

0:35:06 - Speaker 2 is controlled by the serotonin system. That's where the vast majority is created right So peristalsis and the movement of the intestinal tract happens because of serotonin. People that are serotonin deficient have IBS irritable bowel, and so you'll see a lot of constipation in that group. So maximizing your serotonin in your life will help that. How can we do that? Well, there are foods, there are supplements, there are medications that provide serotonin, and then there are those behaviors for the people that are serotonin deficient, like hugs quality, meaningful time.

Yes, and to not react in such negative, cautious ways, but to teach people how to be a little more sortish. And in the cardiovascular system, that's primarily managed through your sympathetic nervous system, which is a dopamine system. And so, again, just take that conversation in reverse. If you're having trouble with your cardiovascular system and your heart rate's going too fast and all these different things, you need to pay attention to that. And how do I mitigate those chemicals?

0:36:36 - Speaker 1 Connell, what about psychologically, kind of going upstairs a little bit?

0:36:40 - Speaker 3 Well, listening to what David was saying, i think that well, let me you know if you look at the. let me come back to this, okay, yeah.

0:37:09 - Speaker 1 It just kind of popped up. I wanted to run with it a little bit.

0:37:13 - Speaker 3 Yeah, no, i had a thought in my mind, and then I was listening to David.

0:37:16 - Speaker 1 It was a great explanation.

0:37:18 - Speaker 3 It would have been great, all good, and I had a very specific kind of thought that made me think of that.

0:37:29 - Speaker 2 Cardiovascular dopamine, gut peristalsis, pooping any of these words bring them. Should one of us be pooping more for a?

0:37:38 - Speaker 1 disorder, i can tell you, as a sort, that area is definitely covered, that's for sure.

0:37:45 - Speaker 2 Yeah, no problems there.

0:37:51 - Speaker 3 I do think in terms of what you look for. I mean, i think you have to choose what feels most relevant to your life. I mean, for some people you know some of the things that we see these manifestations are in relationships shopaholics. I mean. It has nothing to do with physical health, necessarily, but it can ruin a life, it can ruin a marriage. So I think you have to pick what area you want to work on. If you're overweight and you're under-exercised, i think that that's a good start.

You said something earlier that I think relates to this, which is that it's in knowing yourself. The advantage of knowing whether you have shield-like tendencies or sword-like tendencies is that it gives you the chance to say how do I leverage what I know to work on what I want to work on? And one of the things that we've tried to do in the book is to come up with alternate strategies So that if you want to lose weight, it's not just calorie restrictions and that kind of thing. There are specific strategies that are more effective for shields than there are for swords, and so it's in understanding, kind of your most basic tendencies, which are habits. Yes, And habits.

The unconscious has been around for a million years in terms of kind, of the evolving, you know, a humanoid-like brain, from different you know, on up to Homo sapiens. But language is relatively recent And so we got along for a long time just with the unconscious making sounds.

So information processing information is still relatively new. So habits are really enormously important And the habits that we have are largely kind of fueled and determined by these slight brain chemistry imbalances, so that the habits are they're so kind of organic and natural feeling that we don't feel like we learned them somewhere, that we just kind of they're just who we are. So it's learning how you know, understanding who you are, accepting who you are and kind of honoring and going with the strengths and compensating and overriding the weaknesses. And what David said, that that requires being uncomfortable And the I'm sorry.

0:40:59 - Speaker 2 Yeah, no, but I'm conning me the point about knowing who you are. This is part of. This is the core of the book, but it's also and then you touched on relationships If you know that you're a sword but your significant other is a shield, you know that there are going to be things that they're doing that annoy you, and if you can understand it from this perspective, it's a lot less aggravating. And my wife is a shield on the sword. We went two weeks ago to buy a car And I'm walking out of there with a car. We're going to the ideas, we're going to get a car. She's walking in there thinking, well, there's some other car dealers, there's might be a different color. You don't want to. You know the price, you don't. So, taking everything into consideration, if we hadn't done this book, i might have punched her.

But you know, knowing well I wouldn't, because she would have punched that part. But knowing yourself and then extrapolating that to those important people in your life, whether you're working with these people or you're married to these people or your children or whatever it is, it's really important to be able to put a perspective on their brain chemistry.

0:42:18 - Speaker 1 It really does kind of bring the concept of know thyself into a whole new light, i think surface level, when we hear that or we think I'm getting to know myself, i'm figuring myself out, or I'm finally learning what I like, what I love, what makes me tick, who I am. There are the obvious surface level ways to acknowledge that, to analyze that, to kind of take inventory. But what I love about the conversation we're having here and at the core of your work and override is like knowing thyself is a multi-layered, multifaceted experience. But the more that we can know thyself we can know others in our proximity. That in my experience helps me be the best me that I can, not in a oh, this is who I am, i'm just going to run with it. But oh, this helps me make sense of things in my life, why maybe I do what I do when I do them. But then it helps me kind of get perspective of going outside, looking in.

What does Chase represent in the world? what does Chase present as in the world and especially in my meaningful relationships in my marriage? it kind of reminds me the concept years ago when my wife and I, before we got engaged I think we both read, went through the five love languages, and that was a very similar game changer as well, like, oh, i mean I'm not talking about my biology and neurochemistry here, but I'm talking about the biggest thing that I crave and want in the world and I think we all do and that's love. How do I want it? How do I give it? That not only helped that concept for me, but helped me understand from her perspective And with that information. I mean we are a sword packed with a shield going out into the world and I think we can be the best order of shield we could ever be.

0:44:12 - Speaker 2 It's also interesting when there's two swords in a relationship or two shields in a relationship.

0:44:16 - Speaker 1 I would like to see that I can't. Well, i won't speak for her She hasn't taken the quiz or gone through the work but I would kind of say my wife is definitely a shield And even just saying, hey, baby, are you a sword or a shield? Just those two words alone I'm pretty sure she would say shield. So it does allow for a pretty unique dynamic as well. I want to shift into a section in your book called Brain Types and how we can better understand ourselves and when we take ourselves into the workforce, adaptation to shifting workplace demands. How does this really represent in the workforce? I know we kind of touched briefly on maybe an entrepreneur, like they're all swords kind of thing, but with this information of this is who I am, this is how I operate biologically. How can I better apply it to what I'm doing professionally? Or maybe even the question is am I in the right profession? Am I even doing the right job, the right type of work, for who I am?

0:45:12 - Speaker 3 Well, i think it starts with what is work to begin with, and how ambitious are you? What do you want to do with the gifts that you have? How do you recognize them? How do you trust them? And I think that there are some significant differences there. It manifests in terms of how you manage people, and how you manage people in work is really critical. You're either managing peers, just coworkers, or you're supervising someone, so you're managing people who report to you, or you're managing up.

You have to manage a boss who is obnoxious or overly demanding or whatever, and these differences in terms of brain chemistry play out in all of those areas, and what I found in working with people in therapy is a lot of what people are dealing with. That they have trouble with are relationships, and to understand what you're like in that relationship, how you read other people and certainly how you read other people in terms of brain chemistry, can be really helpful to people in terms of knowing how to motivate them, how to create a sense of growing confidence. Just to give you an example, shields tend to be very in that they're very reactive, overly reactive. They're very susceptible to feedback. So if you're supervising someone who is a shield, giving them a kind of rich feedback environment is motivating. It creates better morale, it can inspire confidence in them. You'll get the most out of them.

Whereas swords are less responsive to feedback. They're more responsive to set points. So if you give them more structure I want you to do A, b and C and you land out in a really structured way. That's feed forward they're better able to do that. So in understanding your own brain chemistry and being able to kind of suss out brain chemistry in other people, and in reading the book, you see, you say you know your wife is a shield. We can look at the people that we know around us and we go oh, i know that's what they're like.

0:48:31 - Speaker 1 Which is a powerful tool. The more we know about ourselves, like I was saying earlier, from the inside out, but also outside, looking in, and the more we can attempt. We have to choose first to understand who this other person is we're interacting with. I mean, to your point, everything, every interaction is a relationship at work a peer, a superior, a subordinate, the person making your coffee. It's like you can have these tools in your toolbox too quickly, or maybe, over a period of time, develop this hypothesis of sword or shield, like you, automatically, i think, are way better in tune with who they are and who you are in that relationship and how to better navigate it And in a work relationship.

0:49:14 - Speaker 2 Absolutely, you need both. You need again from an evolutionary standpoint. We've evolved because there are two types and there's gotta be as close to equilibrium or homeostasis as you can get. So if you're the employer and you're a shield and you're managing someone that's under you, that's a sword, or vice versa, you need both in order to you can't just have one perspective and have people around you being okay with that, because they're gonna be half of those people aren't gonna be on your team. So it becomes very important that you know your audience.

0:49:58 - Speaker 1 Speaking of knowing my audience at the core of the show, we're very interested in taking care of our physical self. Physical activity, exercise, regular movement, and with that comes the down time, the rest, the recovery, which everyone should be prioritizing as well. And you have a section in the book about moving and resting gaining greater control in that area. How can we better navigate taking care of our physical bodies not maybe to the same level as you earlier, about which system should we be focusing on in the body, but in movement and in rest in exercise, knowing which one we are? how much more informed can we be really to never navigate training and down time? What does this really mean for us in the physical self?

0:50:45 - Speaker 2 Well, this gets back to your question about longevity. So our lifestyle behaviors have to involve getting adequate sleep, have to involve being on a good diet, getting regular exercise. These are all basic things to feeling better and living longer. So, to the degree that you're having trouble with your weight, let's just use that. We talked about this. If you're overweight and you're a shield, find some other ways, which we outline in the book. Find some other ways to soothe your anxious feelings other than food. We all know the premise that we have to eat well, exercise and sleep. So what is it that blocks us from doing those things, even though, intellectually, we get it? So my answer to your question would be understand who you are, understand some tools that will help you not react in the ways that keep you from reaching those goals.

0:51:49 - Speaker 3 I think that's true. One of the things that David and I have long since discovered is that information is not enough Powerful point Information is easy to access. particularly today, It's the doing. The doing that matters, and the doing is really what's our resistance to doing what we know we should be doing? And that's where changing habits come into play. How do you address those things that seem so powerful? unconscious It's just. I mean habits literally burn fewer calories.

0:52:43 - Speaker 1 Truly, wow, yeah, i've never thought about that. Well, it's the way the brain yeah.

0:52:48 - Speaker 3 I mean habits. The brain is wired in a way to look for chains of behavior that create clumps that it can put into the unconscious, because things that we just do we don't have to think about, we don't have to mull over, we just do them reflexively are more efficient in terms of caloric impact. Well now, calories are pretty plentiful. When our brain was being wired up, they weren't Right right, yeah. So habits are even more important today, because we need to have to learn how to change them, and what we try to do is to create ways to take the leanings that these brain chemistry imbalances convey on us and create strategies that are helpful, whether it's sleeping better, or it's motivating exercise in a way that you'll actually sustain it, or eating in a more healthful way.

0:54:08 - Speaker 1 I personally think that sleep is the most important thing anyone should focus on. I'll just make that blanket statement. If I had to give Chase what is the number one health tip here? What would you give or be? prioritize sleep, because I feel when we do that, the cascading benefits are almost immeasurable, at least for me, and there's a lot of new science and research coming out stating this and a lot of work, and I know you all hit on this in the book as well. Would you agree with?

0:54:38 - Speaker 2 that I agree 100% with you, because think about not when you sleep and how beneficial it is. Think about when you don't sleep. When you don't sleep, your body puts out cortisol the next day to keep you awake. You walk out of your cave in the morning and the T-rex is coming at you for breakfast. You've got this cortisol bump and you get out of there. Cortisol during the day agitates. Cortisol drives you to eating things that are carbohydrate based, that are energy based, calorie based. I mean, think about when you're really tired the next day Tire fat storage base as well.

Yeah, i mean, you'll eat, eating kind of cracker that's around the day after you haven't slept. Your body automatically is wanting to do that.

0:55:23 - Speaker 1 So your habits are gonna be out of whack. You're not gonna wanna make the same. Probably choices, or the level to which your ability is there to make the right choice for what you want out of your life, is just out the window really.

0:55:34 - Speaker 2 Yeah, so I agree with you. I think sleep is probably at the core of this.

0:55:40 - Speaker 1 As a sword or a shield? which one is getting better sleep, Or is that too hard to say?

0:55:48 - Speaker 2 Well, both have sleep disturbance. The shield can't fall asleep because they're worrying about everything The sword doesn't wanna go to bed because they don't wanna miss anything. So they've got that FOMO thing going, used to be true.

0:56:04 - Speaker 1 Now, i love sleep so much I can't wait to get asleep Again. the awareness theory. and I think for a lot of listeners here, once you learn like this fun fact about your body and there are a lot of fun facts about sleep it's like, oh, i can't wait to go to bed. But absolutely it's a lot of times I'm working right up to the cutoff or I have like a pretty in-depth personal sleep routine, so not all the way working up to like 10 o'clock when I'm going to bed, but right at that cutoff time for me in my day. But that's what it requires.

0:56:32 - Speaker 2 It requires a structure, and some people are better at structure than others. Everybody's on their electronics, which keeps you wired. So you do need some down time and you need to set your sleep time and you need to turn off all the electronics. It's easier said than done. Well, it just in terms of brain health.

0:56:58 - Speaker 3 I mean, if you don't get the proper amount of sleep, you know it's kind of a set up, for I mean it's a risk factor for dementia.

0:57:14 - Speaker 2 All those toxins that build up during the day and the cell debris that builds up during the day. it's at nighttime that these get transported into the ventricles, which then get ultimately transported out of the system through the kidneys. If you're not sleeping well, you're not getting rid of this stuff, and that seems to be the science behind why poor sleeping relates to dementia, because these neurons, these glial cells, are getting glom.

0:57:45 - Speaker 1 Yeah, the lymphatic system is not able to do its job and therefore you're not to your point washing out these things every night that you need to. That stuff builds up. What do we know about build up inflammation, chronic inflammation, Alzheimer's, dementia.

0:57:58 - Speaker 2 And your other organs have the same circadian demands.

0:58:03 - Speaker 1 The brain's so powerful, right, it's so unique. It takes up about 25% of our total daily caloric expenditure. Most of the time it's when we're asleep. This thing uses so much of our energy when we're, in theory, not doing anything. It needs that downtime. So this is another important concept here. To kind of get towards the end, i wanna bring home another concept of towards the end of the book here navigating the tightrope of stress And we touched on in the beginning. You know, we step out into the world, the world is gonna be stressful, our lives are becoming even more stressful. Maybe we're one of those babies subjected to noise and stimuli and we're gonna respond or we're gonna freak out or we're gonna be somewhere in the middle. How can knowing which of these types we are help us better understand the stress in our life, better navigate the stress in our life and hopefully diminish some of that stress in our life?

0:59:02 - Speaker 3 Okay, you know what makes me smile, because I think you know what is how you deal with stress is largely a matter of interpretation. There's good stress and there's healthy stress Excellent point And there's, you know, unhealthy stress. So we're really talking about unhealthy stress. I mean, that's the part that's hard on your body.

0:59:27 - Speaker 1 Like a sword might view this as not really that big of a stressor, whereas a shield might. We're looking at the same thing, right.

0:59:34 - Speaker 3 Can be the same behavior or there can be certain situations may create stress in the body, but it's healthy stress And that stress is usually short term. It's short lived. The brains are wired really well to deal with acute stress. You know, we know how to deal with that. What the brain is not good at dealing with in a constructive way is chronic stress, and a lot of people experience chronic stress.

1:00:11 - Speaker 1 The problem Like what? Sorry, can we get some examples of chronic stress? How would you define that?

1:00:17 - Speaker 3 Well, chronic stress would be. anything that kind of sets the stress mechanism in motion which is dumping cortisol into your system, the amygdala gets fired up driving to work.

1:00:38 - Speaker 2 Yeah, i was gonna say like real world examples like that, you know just environmental stimuli, chronic stimuli.

1:00:45 - Speaker 3 Pollution is stressful on the body.

1:00:49 - Speaker 1 Having the same annoyance as at work.

1:00:52 - Speaker 3 Yeah, it's. Having a bad boss is stressful And it's also having economic worries. I mean, people are we're talking about. Are we gonna have a recession? There are lots of layoffs that are going on. The Fed is raising the interest rates. What's gonna happen? Am I gonna get laid off?

1:01:19 - Speaker 1 And all this is gonna be interpreted so differently. By which type we are correct?

1:01:24 - Speaker 3 It's interpreted differently by each one, but we all need to learn how to manage our stress in a healthier way.

1:01:33 - Speaker 2 There's a subtle difference in how we express this on the two sides of the brain chemistry equation. Stress creates anxiety. So anxiety is worry, whereas the shields are worriers. On the other side of the coin, the swords. Their anxiety is more agitation. They're more physically engaged in that stress And that's the external manifestation. So anxiety, worry or agitation? Internally, all this stress is inflammatory to the system. So the inflammation to the system getting back to the aging issue is detrimental. It's subtle, it's there And we're really not aware of that. So managing your stress becomes very important. Again, we talk about this. But if you can exercise 20 minutes, 30 minutes a day, go for a walk You don't have to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, you can just walk for 30 minutes You're going to get 18 hours worth of an endorphin which is going to be calming. So there are a lot of things that you can do to manage the stress. That's a huge part of what this is and what we've talked about in override.

1:03:04 - Speaker 1 It reminds me of this new stress management technique I'm trying actually with my dog. She doesn't go in the car a whole lot except when, if I have time, i'll walk her. It's a fair walk to the rumors once a month. But now she knows, every time she gets in the car and I take her she starts panicking, high anxiety, high stress, because she just doesn't enjoy it. Oh hey, javi, we lost the background. It's my cue, my time. I get towards the end here And we're back And we're back. So what I've been trying to do is just incorporate more car rides and just not wind up at the groomers. And so it's that stress management system that just makes me think how easily applicable that could be for us.

We feel some kind of way about always going to this job or talking to this person or going to this place. It's the anticipation of we are here. It is there The inevitability of when I get there I'm going to feel some kind of way increased stress response. But if we can condition, get a little bit more exposure to that person, to that place, then it might not change it entirely, but hopefully it should lower that threshold a little bit and hopefully reduce that anxiety because your brain now knows we've been here before.

Not every memory we have with this person, place or thing, not every experience is that negative anymore, which I believe. I think is kind of the underlying theme and argument. You see so much now, so popular with cold plunge and ice baths. It objectively has a ton of great health benefits, but at its core it's very stressful. People freak their shit and it's unpleasant and you don't look forward to it, but it's the after effect that we're after. So this is what we're talking about here just really unique stress mitigation tools to get the mind and the body to really OK. We can handle this.

1:05:05 - Speaker 3 Well, I think, if you look at social anxiety, the stress there is to reduce the stress, which is you want to be able to have an experience that's a constructive experience, But you don't want to experience the anxiety that it takes putting yourself into that situation where it might have a bad outcome or a good outcome. You have to be willing to be uncomfortable, stressed to get the reward. So part of the path to, I think, a healthful existence is in having the will and the courage to be uncomfortable where you know that it serves a purpose, And if you're willing to do that then you get the benefit of having a less stressful existence. But sometimes you have to go through something that is a little bit more stressful to get there.

1:06:11 - Speaker 1 I agree wholeheartedly And actually I want to reference this book And I'm so embarrassed that I can't remember the full title right now. Huge Ryan Holiday fan And he has this book in his kind of series. It's like Ego is the Enemy, courage is Calling. There we go. Excuse me If anybody is looking for a great kind of extracurricular read on top of Override, of course, is Courage is Calling by Ryan Holiday. It's an incredible example of what we're talking about here, i think, but less scientific, it's just more real world and real world examples of people that have pushed through that anticipation Thought leaders, world leaders, presidents, historians, things like that. So Courage is Calling everybody.

I'm going to get to my last question before last question. Ultimately, the biggest question I had out of this book was well, am I really in control of my life, of my body? I should say. Is there a level of knowing thyself and understanding how I operate, how I show up in the world, and understanding my biology and neurochemistry and all of this? To what level do I really have control over the self? Or is it just more of better understanding it so that we can live more in harmony with it and we have less resistance to how this meat suit kind of just naturally shows up in the world. Do we actually have dominion over ourselves?

1:07:39 - Speaker 2 I think we do. I think we have a great ability to not only know ourselves but then to apply that. If you're honest and you recognize those behaviors that are reflex, if you're honest And you then extrapolate that into where does that get me in trouble? Where does that cause problems in my life? I like that And you then learn some tools to make that easier and not to have, not to face those problems as a reaction, someone as a sword. I speak before I think, and sometimes that isn't good. My impulse if I get angry, i'm angry Certain situations. It would be better if I count to 10 and think about what I'm going to say. It's simple, but it makes a difference And you get into less situations that are uncomfortable for you. So I think we have tremendous control over things Not everything, thank God, because then it would be boring But I think it's important knowing yourself, knowing what behaviors are reflex for you and seeing which ones are problematic and then developing a plan to mitigate them.

1:09:08 - Speaker 1 Well said, well said, connell.

1:09:10 - Speaker 3 Yeah, i think that's what David has said is really true. I mean, some things we don't have dominion over, some our DNA kind of speaks certain kinds of things. We have experiences that we learn from different things. Just, you were saying you had some real physical issues to deal with and struggle through. I mean you wouldn't recommend that for anybody, but I'm sure you learned and it changed your life, it shifted it, that's why we're here today, Yeah absolutely So I think the kind of dominion that we have if you're open to it, if you are a seeker, at all.

I mean, i may be kind of a woo-woo word, but it's a lifelong process. You continue to learn And as you go through stages of life. I'm a lot older than you guys are. I'm not a lot older than David.

1:10:23 - Speaker 2 But yes, you are All right.

1:10:30 - Speaker 3 You deal with different things. Different things come up, different challenges come up. Things that weren't challenging at one point become all of a sudden challenging Absolutely.

1:10:39 - Speaker 1 In my case, recently, painting a wall used to be easy Now it breaks my back.

Ok, well, that brings me to my final question. Living a life ever forward is really a lot of this, and this is why I bring on guests and experts such as yourself to kind of help us bring awareness to key areas of our life physical, mental, emotional, spiritual well-being, to truly know thyself, but more than that, to know and then to take action and to do to move forward. So, dr David, let's go with you. First, when you hear those words ever forward, what does that mean to you? How do you say that you live a life ever forward?

1:11:17 - Speaker 2 It means again understanding how we relate to stress, how we relate to things that are uncomfortable, understanding why that happens, letting ourselves off the hook a little bit because it is a reflex, but having the responsibility to change those things so that we can minimize the stress that we can. We become proactive, We become empowered, as opposed to victims.

1:11:45 - Speaker 1 I love that you use the word responsibility. Yeah, it's huge, dr Connell.

1:11:53 - Speaker 3 What occurs to me is looking for those things that are hard, are challenging and not easy, and trying to recognize ways that I try and cheat And try and then kind of do something a little bit different. Good on you. So instead of doing the easy thing, the comfortable thing, i try and do whatever it is that, I think, is the constructive thing.

1:12:33 - Speaker 1 Hard right over the easy wrong here.

1:12:35 - Speaker 3 Yeah, and it's hard And I do it really imperfectly, but as a kind of your mantra is ever-forward to me. if you look at critical path, the value of knowing how to get from here to there when it has a critical path is knowing when you've fallen off it And knowing you will fall off it. but when you have a critical path, you've got something to get back on.