welcome to the human experience podcast

the only podcast designed to fuse your

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feed it the most entertaining and

mentally engaging topics on the planet

as we approach our ascent please make

sure your frontal temporal and occipital

lobes are in their full upright position

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relax your senses and allow us to take

you on a journey we are the intimate

strangers thank you for listening

[Music]

three years to the day after my total

complete meltdown I was standing on

stage at the mr. universe in Mumbai

India representing my country and I was

like wow this this really works when you

get rigid and you become dogmatic in

your belief in your methodologies you

stand you tend to stop paying attention

to the red lights going off in your life

right now it’s the heady days you know

it’s going up at this exponential rate

and virtually anybody you know gets in

and they’re like I’ve made 200 percent

or 300 percent or 500 percent or a

thousand percent last year or whatever

it happens to be and and what happens is

is greed can cause a loss of perspective

and so one of the things that I have

learned to develop is to look at diet or

look at training or look at anything and

stop seeing the differences but let’s

look at the commonalities and I discover

essentially it’s the drug called the

whole thing is as a drug culture at the

end of the day humans evolve and

contribute by adding value to other

people

[Music]

what’s up folks

Xavier katana here you’re listening to

the human experience and wow what an

amazing episode with mr. Wade light

heart a Wade is a three-time Canadian

all natural national bodybuilding

champion he’s a nutrition coach he has

explored health he’s explored fitness

he’s explored consciousness and even

cryptocurrency so we talked about all of

those things in this episode Wade is a

friend of mine and I was so glad to do

this episode with him and there’s so

much information on just meditation

connecting with yourself being able to

free yourself from the matrix and travel

and live the life that you want so I

really hope that you guys enjoy this

episode it was a really fun one thank

you guys so much for listening the human

experiences in session my guest for

today is mr. Wade light heart Wade my

good sir welcome to hxp

oh it’s a pleasure to be here Xavier

thank you for having me so Wade we’ve

been friends for a couple years and we

met at a biohacking conference a couple

years ago we talked about a bunch of

different things and you know I I know

you as having different facets of your

life and traveling wealthy backpacker

but people might not know who you are so

if you could just give everyone

listening a sort of background of what

you do who you are for the audience

please well thanks you know Ivan I like

to think that I’m an ordinary kind of

person that just stumbled into an

extraordinary life but I feel grateful

is the the prime thing but it’s like

everyone else we all have that

challenges but if I can try and make a

long story short you know I grew up in

Canada and northern Canada I was did all

the normal physical kids do play hockey

and stuff and then had a

transformational experience at fifteen

with my sister

you know diagnosis of cancer and we can

talk about that a little bit and I went

to study exercise physiology the

University New Brunswick because I was

looking at ways of improving my own

performance and health that led to your

career in the health and fitness

industry and also a career of kind of

traveling I got into travel and you know

my first plane ride was literally 22 and

I got hooked on it and after that I just

kind of went crazy and that you know

brought me to a lot of things you know

as everything from hanging out with

meditation masters and India and you

doing shamanic sessions with people and

standing on stage in front of 4,000

people given a talk on health and I had

the good fortune of being one of the

only vegetarians to compete in both the

mr. universe and the natural mr. Olympia

and yeah that’s it’s kind of the the

four one one and then you know I got

into the online space I had a friend who

was making money online and I couldn’t

believe that you could I thought he was

crazy at that time I had given up my

computer and all my electronics because

I was living kind of like a personal

trainer as a monastic at the same time

and we started a business and moved to

Panama in 2005 because it started taking

off and from there I think I spent about

seven years kind of traveling the world

living the lifestyle I always I always

joke around I said I wish I had a red

Tim Ferriss book before I started I need

like he didn’t write that soon enough

because what he outlined in that book

sort of said yeah I wish I hadn’t known

that at first because I had to learn

everything the hard way and then now

today I just work on a variety of

projects I have a nutritional company

which focuses on fixing digestion

because it’s such a big issue I have an

online business called the wealthy

backpacker which is teaching people

about online business and how to live in

the digital republic the new the new

world that is emerged that has is

changing everything it’s changing

countries it’s changing boundaries it’s

changing work and this evolution is

going to you know continue to accelerate

in my opinion oh yeah I can’t wait to

get into that with you you’re also an

author you’ve co-wrote a book called

staying alive in a toxic world you also

won was it mr. Canada that you won three

yeah yeah yes three times

Wow I mean that’s that’s quite an

achievement man I mean so you know what

do you find yourself doing the most in

your day what do you think is taking the

most of your management skills what are

you spending the most time on right now

well you know anything that I feel that

will contribute and raise the

consciousness of humanity whether that’s

helping people have more resources

whether that’s improving people’s health

well it’s just sharing tips about you

know some great spiritual stuff that

I’ve run into that mean that’s that’s

always the driver behind everything I do

if you understand if it’s in those light

relations I’m excited about it I want to

do it if it’s not in those lanes I don’t

have the energy or motivation or really

the interest because I’m just I’m on the

planet to try and evolve the best that I

can and by doing that it’s about

participating with everybody else on the

planet and I don’t have everything

figured out or anything like that I want

to be clear about that but I just love

humanity I’m fascinated by it but I

think if you look at a day to day basis

I spend a lot of my time online whether

it’s a webinar teaching stuff I think if

I had one scale it’s the ability to

teach principles in an in a layman’s

turns that people can understand and

provide things that can improve their

health or improve their business so it’s

a little bit of a split between those

two those two areas yeah I’m so glad

that you said that I’m so glad that you

mentioned the service to others and

service to humanity I think that’s so

important to all the things that you’re

doing with what you’ve established tell

us about the backpacking project that

you have running wealthy backpacker how

does this work how does a person travel

around the world on a limited budget

what is this new world that you were

just you were talking about just a

second ago that’s a great question and

I’ll try and summarize it as best as I

can basically the wealthy backpacker was

an idea that was born out of myself and

one of my friends AJ Harvey and what was

interesting is both of us love travel we

both made money not from a conventional

way of business he was a former hedge

fund owner had made his killing in the

markets and when everybody was getting

blown up in 2008 he was exiting the

market and living around the world and

carrying a couple suitcases and that was

it and you know even though he was

fabulously

and for myself I was able to build an

online business income that I didn’t

have to be in any particular location

working in Panama one month and I could

be in Bali the next month and I could be

in Vancouver the next month and I could

who visit my friends in California or

wherever happens to be and you know it

was a radical idea in 2005 now it’s much

more common so what happened is AJ and I

decided that you know we were really

lucky we felt we were very fortunate and

we had both achieved this lifestyle from

very different means where we’re like

totally opposite people and I believe in

partnering up with people who are of

opposite nature and opposite capacities

if you do have some conflict inside of

that but that’s that’s healthy conflict

if you know how to resort resolve that

because you get your own ideas and your

own values challenge and I think a lot

of people in the world of social media

today actually they do themselves a

disservice because they get blocked into

groups and ideas that just validate

their opinions as opposed to exposing

themselves to other groups or interests

so that’s the one negative I think about

social media is it just ends we really

deal with the confirmation bias before a

social media I argued with all my

friends and passionately and I didn’t

think less of them I preferred that kind

of you know that kind of sharing of

ideas and the passionate sharing of

ideas and then we laugh about it and we

we learnt to accept and love each other

for our differences and of course or

improve ourselves but AJ and I decided

to put this book together and we were

gonna combine two unique ideas one is

how do you make money online enough that

you could exit your day job or your go

to work job and part two is where he

came in is providing investment

education news bulletins that would

teach you the principles of investing

how to invest like the world’s

wealthiest people who you leverage

things like hedge funds in which he

owned one sure and so by combining those

two ideas and then also sharing with us

well guess what you probably don’t need

as much money as you think you do if you

can make enough money online get a

little bit of positive cash flow you can

move to a low-cost jurisdiction very

much like I did and like he did and

start accruing more wealth at a higher

quality of lifestyle and investing the

difference between your expenses and

your cash flow to make it simple and by

doing that after a few years you would

probably compound enough assets and

enough passive income that you could

of pretty much anywhere you wanted

anyways but the key was to create that

gap to create that that area of

resources financial resources that a lot

of people just don’t have they don’t and

they don’t know how to get that you know

they’re just making enough to get by and

to opening up the world to this what I

call the digital Republic that you can

live anywhere you can work anywhere you

can communicate with anybody you can

make money online I mean although the

largest companies in the world right now

our unlike knees I love this this idea

of traveling around the world I mean

this for me is actually a dream thing as

a personal goal I’ve set for myself to

have everything mobile which it pretty

much is right now and to be living in

country of your choice you know like

Bali somewhere like that and then move

to a different country absorb as much

culture as I can and do that for you

know several years and then sort of come

back to you know the states or wherever

I may end up but you know why do you

think people get trapped in the

nine-to-five of things and have so much

trouble sort of exiting the matrix great

question I would say two main things and

that is fear and identification with

possessions so how do we identify that

fear how do we turn that fear into

knowledge and then use that knowledge

for our benefit it’s a great another

great question I love your questions by

the way um well I think you have to

really understand how psychology works

you need to say I think a lot of people

focus on consuming information but

actually don’t consume information to

learn how their brain is and our brains

are relatively unreliable the more that

you study it so what you expose to you

tend to believe and what happens is most

of the mainstream media channels are

focusing on fear if you look at today’s

world it’s hard to believe that less

people are dying by war than ever before

less people are there’s less crime being

committed on the world people are living

longer than they have like there’s a lot

of great things but if you look at the

news or you look

these things you would never ever dream

that that’s happening right it looks

horrific and it’s terrible but the

statistics are absolutely the opposite

to what a lot of people think but our

brains are wired to self protect their

selves to be fearful all you don’t know

you don’t want to take that trip you

don’t want to go to that place what

happens I heard that you know that’s

really damaging over there I heard is

there’s a war gone over there I heard

there’s crime over there when the

reality is is that’s a very small

segment for a very particular time in a

place but that could happen in any city

and so people develop fears and they get

comfortable with their local environment

because it’s predictable in their brain

says this is safe this is secure can’t

imagine living anywhere else you know

what and then it starts what happens is

we start making rationalizations but at

the core is there’s a fear and we

rationalize away our lives to protect

their selves and how that ties into our

identities is oftentimes you know where

you live what kind of home you have what

kind of car you drive what kind of

friends that you have what kind of

events that you go in and that can come

at any financial range so it doesn’t

matter if you’re making you know twenty

thousand a year or two hundred thousand

dollars or two million dollars a year

there is an identification what I would

call product line with each strata of

income that just keeps you hooked into

that and what happens is we start to

develop an identity around those things

and once we build an identity into it

you know I think it was the Russians way

back in the 60s we’re doing

psychological research and they

discovered that the fear of death was

not the number one fear it was the loss

of identity huh okay yeah I find that

intriguing it’s really really

interesting how much we can allow fear

to dictate our lives fear to prevent us

from you know really living the life

that we want I think there is a sort of

romantic notion that is attached towards

traveling around the world it is a very

romantic idea to travel and live abroad

I really think that more people want to

do this but they’re simply afraid to

either they’re afraid or they just

haven’t done it yet

and it’s a procrastination thing that

keeps getting put off and and like you

said it ends up being something that

never really happens why do you call

this the revolution the digital

revolution why is that a term that you

use so often well here’s the thing if

you look at how humans have organized

themselves over these you know over the

centuries you know we started out at

kind of tribal cultures foraging for

food and doing whatever we we could and

then when the Industrial or the

agricultural evolution came in we

started organizing in cities and stuff

because we could actually grow food and

we didn’t have to travel very much and

that was you know that caused major

changes in society and then came the

Industrial Revolution which changed that

we weren’t working on farms we started

to working in factories and machines and

then and then cities got bigger and then

also as you know we assured in this last

century with the rising the the

devaluation of the dollar and the

increase of production of things the

demand for money increase in so people

started to move into the suburbs to have

bigger homes and commuting and you know

to cars and Pulaski kids and so all of

this started to change culture at a very

rapid rate then what happened is the

internet came upon us and the internet

changed everything because now today

you’re in a living in a condo for

example you don’t know your name

Bursar’s but you’re communicating with

people all around the world and you used

to go down to the to the five-and-dime

store to do your shopping

well now amazon has outputted

outperformed all of the retail shopping

in america they’ve made more sales than

all of the retail shop america in retail

shopping in america you have to realize

it’s got like a 300 year head start

amazon has been around what 20 years has

it been that long

and it’s now completely changed that

look at you know companies like Facebook

look at Google you know everybody

Google’s in a day everybody you know

will use Twitter or Facebook or take an

uber ubers in one of the big community

you know transportation companies and

they don’t even own vehicles Alibaba

doesn’t even

they don’t even own any stock it they

like they don’t own any inventory all

right and they sell things online so

we’ve moved into this age where people

are interacting with other people

through their screens through their

phones through this digital world and

what happens is it’s now going to affect

boundaries so if you look at the tribal

stay so we went to those tribal

countries and then we moved into

city-states and then we went into like

kind of we tried the mega nations with

the EU and all that sort of stuff which

you know United Nations which has had

mixed results but now you know where

countries used to make sense because of

geographical borders or because of

language and customs and cultures and

that sort of thing those barriers are

being tore down as those institutions

those governmental systems are trying to

keep things in line you know but what’s

happening is those lines are starting to

blow hurry and so it’s like well why why

do I call myself a Canadian why do I

call myself when or an American or you

know somebody from Cameroon aren’t I a

human first like aren’t I really a human

and when you start to strip away these

identities you know people ask you where

are you from well we automatically start

building a story about who that person

is and that’s not necessarily true but

we have maybe met you know a dozen

Americans or a dozen people from Canada

or whatever so we’ve said oh yeah

Canadians they’re really nice and play

well III know some unemployed Canadians

you know catched me on a bad day it’s me

so the bottom line is is I think this

digital revolution is you don’t have to

go to a job anymore you can make money

online you can invest online you can buy

all your stuff online and you can be

anywhere in the world doing it so I

think it will completely eliminate

boundaries countries and it’ll start

inviting some questions of like well why

are we fighting with each other what

other options are there and the more

that we expose each other to other

cultures I mean think of probably what’s

happened in the last oh I would say 10

years in the world of shamanic practices

these have been going on for hundreds or

thousands of years in South America

Chah and all of a sudden thanks to the

internet the use of

botanicalls as being widespread in her

facilitating different states of

consciousness in different states of

awareness for a lot of people and that

wasn’t possible before because people

couldn’t get to South America or they

couldn’t even hear about it they didn’t

even know that was there or they

couldn’t go to Leon ashram in India it

was too far away I mean I think it was

around 1900 one of the presidents went

to India it took him six months to get

there in six months to get back right I

can get on a plane and be there tonight

yeah yeah it’s it’s absolutely

fascinating and you know this isn’t

something that you’re just talking about

it’s not something that we’re just

having a conversation about this is

something that you live and do sometimes

we’ll we’ll have a brief you know just a

quick message and I’m like hey what’s up

you know how are you and you’ll tell me

something like you know I’m headed to

Dubai for the night and you know I’ll be

back tomorrow or something like that

it’s you know it’s very hilarious to me

because it’s not usual you know it’s

it’s not something that I see with other

people and I think you know this digital

revolution I think you really have

something there because they’re more and

more people are starting their own

businesses moving away from the

corporatized you know culture of this

nine-to-five job you know this cubicle

madness where you’re you’re literally

going insane and you know people want

out of what we’ve been sold and a big

part of something that you’re very

motivated by and in my opinion is is

cryptocurrency and you know bitcoin has

been in the news for forever now it

seems like lately you know Bitcoin has

has seen some huge huge gains I think

people sometimes they mix those two

things they they mix Bitcoin and

cryptocurrency together and they’re –

they’re these are two separate things

right yeah I think if you’re talking

about Bitcoin the currency or the

blockchain per se I think there is

extraordinary applications for both and

there’s extraordinary challenges for

both and right now we’re in what I call

the 1999

dot-com phase if I don’t firth of you

who weren’t around and what I see a big

rage in the crypto space is particular

people who may not bid him round in that

1999 they were born after it or born

just before it and if you remember there

was all the rage about the dot-com

industry and all these different

companies came into play and and it was

huge right there there was millions of

dollars I lived in Vancouver at the time

and I remember these startup you know

warehouses offices of people and

literally millions of dollars being

poured into them with no tangible assets

no tangible business model but they had

a great idea in a good pitch man and

that sort of thing and these things

started to emerge and I think with

cryptocurrency I think there’s a couple

things that’s really interesting about

it number one is the idea of a

decentralized Universal and private way

of exchanging value and and I think

where that comes from is a lot of people

are frustrated with the banking system

as it is and it’s concordant fiat

currency which tries it in which

certainly has its place and its means

and certainly up to this point I mean

it’s it’s funded transactions it’s a lot

better than trying to change you know

trade beaver pelts for shotguns sure you

know it’s a lot more convenient money

you know is a more convenient way to

exchange thing and people what’s the

value of Bitcoin well what’s the value

of your fiat currency well the fiat

currency is based on the idea that you

know the bank is gonna issue and the

taxpayers are gonna turn their labor

units and turn that over plus interest

to a centralized bank in the case of

Bitcoin it is encrypt those it’s like

okay we’re gonna do work on what’s

called the blockchain actual you know

computations by computers and that’s

going to be the value that has been done

and block chains are gonna pop out and

that’s gonna allow you and me to do an

exchange outside of the knurl own

currency system you know and that’s

really a layman’s term I don’t I don’t

want to profess that I’m an expert in

crypto currencies or anything like that

but I am fascinated by them can I like

the idea and I think it I think what

you’re gonna see is you’re gonna see

some cryptocurrency be put in place

on a global scale that will be leveraged

and maybe several of them whether that’s

going to be Bitcoin in the end or not

Ida I’m not so sure I mean if you look

at you know Yahoo at one time was the

largest search engine right myspace was

the number one social media very seldom

does the first one end up being the

final adaptation and so I have a little

bit of caution and when we talk about

Kryptos and our investment news

bulletins and aj of course is an expert

on these type of things and right now

it’s the heady days you know it’s going

up at this exponential rate and

virtually anybody you know gets in and

they’re like I’ve made 200 percent or

300 percent or 500 percent or a thousand

percent last year or whatever it happens

to be and and what happens is is greed

can cause a loss of perspective and

right now I think we’re in a very

speculative component do I think there’s

value in it yes do I think you should

put all your eggs in that basket no

definitely not do you want to put some

money aside and play that game sure but

right now it’s you know the applications

for Kryptos in a day to day basis um

haven’t really translated into the real

world

I mean a little bit you know people are

making some exchanges but the exchanges

are relatively slow and you know there’s

issues that haven’t been worked out and

I think are gonna run into some

challenges with governments I know that

the IRS asked coinbase recently to share

everybody who’s got you know twenty

thousand coins or more because what

happens is let’s say let’s say I bought

a Bitcoin at $1 way back in the day and

now for whatever reason Starbucks puts

in a transaction base for bitcoins or

any commercial agency but that Bitcoin

as we speak is worth like $15,000 over

but I buy my my $4 coffee well under the

tax laws of that particular country I’ve

realized a three dollar capital gains

here and so this is the part that people

have to recognize that as it gets

recognized as a currency these

government agencies are one are going to

they’re gonna go against it and that

doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t get

involved with it and I think it’s

something that everybody should you know

get some semblance of knowledge and

participate on some level but I I don’t

people to lose their minds about it

because at the end of the day humans

evolve and contribute by adding value to

other people and the more that we focus

on value based enterprise as opposed to

speculative base enterprise I think the

more security we actually build for

ourselves because at the end of the day

if we’re producing value people are

going to purchase it whatever the form

of currency happens to be or whatever

the medium or wherever you happen to be

I love the the broadness of your answer

because it leaves enough for

interpretation and I want to ask for

anyone listening to us speak about

cryptocurrency right now would you have

any advice as far as you know investing

specifically with Bitcoin right now and

and the price of Bitcoin it just seems a

little bit silly right now what’s going

on with Bitcoin would you agree yeah it

seems it seems pretty crazy and like I

said it seems a lot like 1999 the

reality is is probably 90% of these

crypto currencies aren’t gonna make it

they will fall away things won’t work

out or whatever but there will be some

that emerges and what that is and so I

don’t want to give financial advice I

can’t legally do that I think it’s that

you run into trouble but one of the

things I think there’s an old strategy

in investment worlds I think that really

plays out well first off never invest

anything you’re not willing to lose sure

number two don’t invest in anything that

you don’t understand I think those are

those are good rules number three one of

the things that I do so I’ll share what

I do as I’m not giving advice I’ll share

what I do is – I’m in an in a particular

investment when it doubles I take out

what I invested I ride that with

whatever or the game was so that allows

a person with a little bit of money to

kind of play maybe not even in Bitcoin

but maybe some of the alt currencies or

whatever but as soon as it goes up

double I pull out what my initial

investment was and and if it rises up

and if it goes down well you know I

didn’t lose anything so and that was

something I’ve learned you know I was an

athlete and athletes we take risks we go

against the odds and thanks to AJ he was

able to provide me some insight to my

own biases and my own biases as I want

to play

I want to go for the win so if I hadn’t

had that information you know maybe a

few years ago or even you asked me the

same question years ago I’d be like yeah

go all-in right you know but I’m all-in

but I don’t suggest you go all-in on

anything even though that was a pathway

for me and almost everything that I did

but as I move into a new season in my

life I’m looking at a little bit more

defensive strategy yeah yeah I like that

I you know I would just suggest looking

at you know like like you said all

currencies alts coins

wait I really want to talk about you

know none of this stuff matters if your

health isn’t on point if you’re if

nutrition for you isn’t there then you

know none of this stuff that you’re

traveling you’re not gonna be able to

travel and your investments you’re not

gonna care how much money you have

because yours your health isn’t gonna be

there so I mean a big part of your world

is nutrition staying healthy and fitness

in the way that you were competing in

these athletic competitions for

bodybuilding why was that such a a

powerful thing for your life there’s a

lot of reasons and those reasons evolved

over time but I’ll say when I was 15

years old my sister was diagnosed with

cancer and she was four years older than

me and she was very athletic strong and

you know played a lot of sports and was

quite successful at it and then I

watched over for years

through through my high school years as

as you know despite all the heroic

efforts of modern medicine and all the

treatments and all that sort of stuff I

watched her literally waste away and

eventually die within under you know

tragic and painful circumstances

particularly for my family and anyone

who’s gone through an experience of a

family member having cancer can

recognize that they they understand what

that is it’s a it’s a very helpless

feeling but having that happen to me at

such an early age there was a gift

within that and the gift was is I

realized that my health wasn’t a

guarantee and I think so many people

assume that they’re going to be healthy

and always going to be healthy and it’s

just one of those things we put off to

the side and suddenly at some point in

time oh I got a diagnosis so it’s like

you know gee how did that happen well it

happened over the last 30 years of

whatever you’ve been doing over 40 years

or 50 years or however long you been on

so that had a powerful impact on me now

it started off very innocent and silly

my sister had actually given me a

bodybuilding magazine I still remember

had Troy zu claw toe mr. kit had won

just mr. California on the cover and had

these two beautiful girls and I thought

oh wow man I guess you need muscles for

that and he looks strong and healthy

that looks great and I started getting

into Arnold Schwarzenegger as my first

kind of mentor in my mind and I read his

book education of a bodybuilder and he

said you know you can achieve anything

with hardwork self-discipline and a

positive attitude and that seemed like a

great idea to me he looked like he was

doing well so I started on that endeavor

to build up myself because I thought

that would make me healthier and I

thought it would make me stronger the

ironic thing was is I went off to

University studied exercise physiology

and you know I got a good background

information but it was like all these

pieces of the puzzle it wasn’t put

together and so I decided that I would

go under mentorship so what I did is I

found one of the best coaches in the

world in the world of bodybuilding and I

hired him to mentor me and that was a

great move on my part and it took me a

long time to get there to kind of

suspend my ego and make that step and

when I did it was transformational but

it also came with some challenges for

example in 1998 I went to the my first

national championship so this is you

know after ten years of training I go to

my first national championship and I

discover essentially it’s a drug cult

the whole thing is a drug culture so we

have this look of bodybuilding which is

this you know these beautifully muscled

men and women standing on stage and you

know almost nothing you know chiseled

you know cosmetic ideals of what we were

supposed to look like but then backstage

it looks like a a MASH unit or something

and so I realized at the time this is

not why I got into the sport you know I

got into the sport to be healthy and

strong and vital no listen I realized

that at the higher levels it’s become

everything that I didn’t want it to be

that’s not what I signed up for so I

left the sport I opened up my own

nutrition store but then I got involved

in you know what I call sex drugs and

spirituality basically my coach told me

the years later what it was and he said

you actually went through a grieving

process

so I went in and you know got involved

you know I went through an evolutionary

phase where I partied a lot and used a

lot of different chemicals and stuff and

then had a transformational experience

in 2000 that pulled me out of that world

and when I came out of it I got into

meditation and started practicing and my

teacher had told me that if something

didn’t exist for you and it was right

you could do it if you practice these

principle so I said okay I’ll put that

to the test I became a vegetarian said

I’m gonna win a national championship

with no drugs as a vegetarian and I’m

gonna meditate my way to that process

and literally three years to the day

after my total complete meltdown I was

standing on stage at the mr. universe in

Mumbai India representing my country and

I was like wow this this really works

this really really works he was right

this is true I can do this and you know

a lot of unusual circumstances happened

to that so I started to realize the

power of meditation the power of self

exploration the power of going inward

and today in the digital world which

everything is so outward and so coming

at us that is stepping back and going

within and realizing that no matter how

powerful digital technology becomes it

cannot compete with physiology the

intuitive and emotional capacities of an

individual human and then if you can

connect with a collective group of

humans literally anything is possible

but more importantly true inner peace

and true joy is possible and I think at

the end of the day that’s what everybody

is really secretly craving you know when

you see people practicing nutrition and

working on their bodies you know whether

it’s it’s weightlifting for competition

or just to stay healthy is there a

fundamental mistake that you see people

making that that you would advise

against well I’ve made all of them so I

could probably help people out along the

way the first thing I think is rigidity

of thought so if you look in martial

arts a rigid position is a position of

weakness

and I believe it is the same in every

endeavor the second we think that we

know we’re in trouble so the ability to

maintain an open mind the ability to

experiment and to track that experiment

whether you are a data based person or

you’re more an intuitive kinesthetic

feel kind of person those two ways of

interpreting how something affects your

body is great so I would say that my

first mistake and a lot of mistakes that

people make is they begin to identify

themselves with a certain diet a certain

training style or a certain philosophy

and what I have found is like life is

things change and there is an

evolutionary process so the right diet

for somebody at 15 years old might be

different than 25 or 35 or 45 or so on

or a competitive based diet which I you

know I fell victim to one time all right

and I say victim because I ended up

becoming you know I ran that program out

to a point that caused me to be ill now

that illness led to a breakthrough which

we can talk about but the bottom line is

when you get rigid and you become

dogmatic in your belief and your

methodologies you stand you tend to stop

paying attention to the red lights going

off in your life and that can be in any

endeavor it could be in health it could

be in relationships it could be in your

business life but I think what happens

is people get in there and I’m Kido or

I’m a vegetarian or paleo or whatever

the new fad is and oftentimes the change

produces the initial results but if you

look at life you look at everything

everything has seasons everything has

arisen rhythms the the Four Seasons the

changing the night today you know the

dry climate – the wet climate the hot

climate – the cold climate everything

has contrast in the world that we live

in and so by staying rigid we hold

ourselves back from experiencing all

possibilities and so one of the things

that I have learned to develop is to

look at diet or look at training or look

at anything and stop seeing the

differences but let’s look at the

commonalities and from the commonalities

we can compile some basic tenant

are some basic truths and from that

point we can do our experiments so what

I’m hearing is to really excel at this

at anything is to not to have a rigid

stance on whatever your understanding of

something may be and to have enough of

an open mind to accept you know the

changes of things as in like the seasons

and you compared it to the seasons as my

close and understanding what what you

just said yeah I think so and I think

there’s another piece that when we’re

relating to diet particularly that

people make a big mistake okay and that

is theyes you know the old saying you

are what you eat and that’s kind of

become a meme that is perpetrated

throughout the world and of course we

identify with what we eat or so we’re

socially or physically or culturally but

what most people don’t realize it’s a

single canal from your mouth to your

anus it’s like the food is in the tube

it’s not in your cells it’s not in the

actual body it’s not in your physicality

until it goes across you know it goes

through the digestive process and is

broken down and in today’s world I think

what happens is we are chasing our tails

because we make the assumption that if I

eat it it gets consumed and utilized and

absorbed and that’s not the case and

what we’re having developed now is we’re

seeing that but the fifth leading cause

of death is digestive related illnesses

in people who was that possible but yeah

well the root cause of cancer and the

root cause of heart disease and the root

cause of diabetes they’re all traced to

what we eat or what we consume but and

some of those things can be things that

cause us to be depressed some of those

things can cause us to have various

illnesses in the body whether it’s

diabetes whether it’s heart disease

whether it’s cancer these are all

related to our environment both

externally and internally and so what we

find is that getting ones digestive

health in an optimal state is a key

component to get the maximum benefit out

of any dietary practice and also over

the long term to maintain one’s health

and one’s vitality is our ability to

consume

and utilize the nutrients from our diet

and to eliminate the waste products and

today we have a lot of things like you

know chemical agents and you know

whether it’s pesticides and herbicides

and plastic they’re finding plastic all

in people’s physical tissues now you

know that the high levels of estrogens

and all the things that we genetically

modify through all these sort of things

that have been developed relatively

recently and our human bodies have not

adapted to them and although we have all

the technological breakthroughs that

life is brought to us we see an

increasing level of depression and what

I call treatable these diseases so we

have treatments for disease that’ll

extends people’s life but doesn’t extend

their quality of life and so for me I

want to live long and live strong in

order to do that I have to recognize I

need to put great fuel in my body and I

need that engine that digestive system

is how we convert fuel into everything

else in our body that needs to be at an

optimal level and from that we developed

a company around that because I had that

problem in 2003 when I went to that Mr

Universe contest never goes oh wow

that’s great and wonderful I followed a

extremely rigid diet for a long period

time eleven straight months I ate five

things and literally at the end of that

contest game 42 pounds of fat and water

I felt terrible I went from mr. universe

to mr. marshmallow and it was

devastating and I couldn’t figure out I

couldn’t I was like I’ve been doing this

for 16 years I’ve got the best coach in

the world I’ve got the best discipline

in the world I’m doing everything I’m

right and Here I am at the end of my

rope I’m having a disaster

from that perspective but that’s what

led me to finding the medical doctor

that taught me about how to build the

body from the inside out as opposed to

the outside in I had started a

meditative process at that time so that

made even more sense to me on a

psychological level but then it was

something I could use on a biochemical

level as well and and you know it’s been

that way ever since so I really want to

dig into your last statement there where

you felt you had been doing this for you

know 16 years or what were you doing

wrong that resulted in

this reaction what happened there a

couple of things one was an excessive

consumption of protein I think was the

first thing number two an extended

calorie restriction under you know an

incredible physical duress I mean

training for mr. universe contest is

annexed it’s challenging and run a life

and stuff and also I would compound

another thing onto that and going back

to my initial statement the first fear

because of an identification I was that

guy I was that guy that need to be at

single-digit body fat percentages I

identified with you know being that

champion being that athlete being best

student of my coach and not listening to

my own intuitive wisdom you know I felt

terrible the last six months I knew that

there was problems but I refused to

acknowledge them because I was so

focused that I was going to the mr.

universe no matter what and it didn’t

matter what the cost was and you know

when the bill came I discovered what the

cost was and the cost was my health and

the cost was my happiness the cause was

all that but fortunately I was able to

find another person to help me and

that’s what opened me up to flexibility

you know you will become flexible or

life will smash you ask anybody that has

kids right kids change everything yeah

absolutely this is why I wanted to you

know really bring you on the show is

such a diverse range of experiences that

you’ve had and there’s something that I

was reading about that I had to do a

double-take on when I was doing the

research for the show I think it was an

article that you wrote called what every

athlete needs to know about restructured

ionizedwater

is this an action this is a real thing

what is restructured ionizedwater why

isn’t so important to our health and our

bodies well again this was a another

fortuitous discovery that I made in 2007

ionized water or electrically reduced

water as it’s some kind sometimes called

in like scientific or technical

is basically a process where through

electrolysis you put an electrical

current through water and with a device

you can separate those waters into two

streams and this one stream will be

acidic and one stream will be alkaline

based on the mineral dispersion so you

had an occurring in a negative ion base

minerals will go one way and the

positively charged ones will go another

way and it was discovered in Japanese

hospitals back in the 60s that you could

use this ionized water and you could

treat a variety of different things and

there was a lot of different theories

about why this was had positive benefits

but I will list the couple that I

understand which has now have recently

been proven to be true and number one is

if you can I’ll start on the one side

that a lot of people don’t start on on

the acidic side when you create an

ionized water you’ll create two sides

one will be negatively charged which has

an antioxidant benefit and another one

is a positively charged which will be an

acidic effect now you can make a strong

acid using this water that you can kill

salmonella E coli mersa

any kind of bacteria in Japanese

hospitals we’re using that in order to

disinfect the instruments without using

antibiotic or antibacterial mechanisms

and so that has a massive benefit to

society from a you know you look at

hospitals today they’re the number one

source of you know untreatable

antibiotic resistant bacteria one of my

friends dr. Horace filter who was part

of the team that put the he’s a Harvard

graduate and he taught at the Harvard

Medical Center for 35 years and surgery

put the first stent in the body he says

that you know a large part of people who

die from surgery die from infection not

from the surgery and so he was testing

it because he thought it was it was

beneficial for untreatable wounds you

know people with open wounds and sores

and all these things that wouldn’t

respond to normal treatment so use it

for that and that’s what it was

originally used for in Japanese

hospitals but they also started to

realize that if you drank the negatively

charged ions what happens there was a

change to the structure a change to the

charge of the water a change to its

effectiveness and what it meant is it

reduced water to a level that was more

absorbable by the body

it was easier to cross into the cell

membrane so you had better hydration and

it also seemed to have a positive effect

on free radicals and that is free

radicals are the things that basically

cause inflammation in the body on every

level we’re all inflammation is the

number one killer of everything it you

know we get inflamed anything that’s an

itis inflammation is the silent killer

that we can’t feel or touch but it’s

part of what causes the aging and

degeneration process and so they started

using this in Japan quite widespread Lee

and then later on what happened is a

number of companies sprung up and they

were selling these household ionisers

that you could actually turn your tap

water into this I thought it was a bunch

of bunk guys like come on man this

sounds really far-out

fortunately you know I mean really and

what happened is I realized that I had a

rigid position and I went okay you know

what I have a rigid of the position the

scientific method is to put in a

hypothesis and test that hypothesis to

see if it’s gonna be what I find ironic

is a lot of people in the medical or

scientific professions quickly discount

this kind of technology without running

an experiment they actually break away

from scientific method they condemned it

before experimenting so it’s just one of

the the interesting points of the world

today so I didn’t experience it you know

I’m gonna try this stuff at the time I

was about 200 pounds I said

approximately 75% water I’m going to

replace if this really is that much more

absorbable and utilizable I’m gonna put

a little theory that I’m gonna drink as

much of this water as possible or a

short period of time and see what its

effects on my body Isis be like changing

the oil in my in your car in layman’s

terms I figured I would just flush all

the water that’s currently in the body

and put in this new stuff so I drank an

excessive amount of this water and I

trained and in a ferocious late cuz I

said if this is an antioxidant level

this is really has an ability to absorb

better it should reduce lactic acid

significantly and it did I couldn’t

believe it I was like wow I can’t

believe I’m training this hard and the

level of soreness I experienced is

significantly reduced to anything that

I’ve ever experienced before and so I

said well maybe it’s an antidote maybe

this isn’t true so what I did is I

literally Regan

turd into the national championships

which was only three and a half weeks

later I’ve been retired since my contest

in 2003 this was 2007 and I was like I’m

gonna compress four months of

preparation into three and a half weeks

and there’s no way I could possibly

survive this under normal circumstances

but I’m gonna apply everything that I’ve

learned over these last four years in

rebuilding my health and I’m gonna put

it out of an extremely high level in an

optimized level and I’m gonna train like

a crazy person and I’m gonna see if I

can produce a result that I know is not

possible and that is to get in shape for

this contest and potentially win it and

turned out I did win both my classes and

went back to the World Championships

three months later and placed better

than I did the first time and I said

okay that’s great now what was

interesting going back to the book his

people got wind of this story and as you

know when people get wind of the story

they oftentimes get it incorrectly and

so I came back I went to the contest was

in Greece at that time and after Greece

I went on a you know kind of a tour

around Europe and ended up all over the

world and then I got back in January and

I literally saw an article that was

produced by a particular company and a

quote about this and and I’m looking at

this and then I I found out from some

other people they thought I was some 70

year old guy that had went to the mr.

Knorr because he came to retirement and

there was all these stories and it was

this crazy and so I called up one of the

people that made the marketing brochure

and I said to them I said hey look uh

number one I think this is a wonderful

marketing brochure that you have it’s

really well done it’s very oh ticket I

love this design and the color we’ve got

a couple of problems though and I said

number one you use my picture without my

approval

number two you’re misquoting what

actually transpired and you’re doing the

world a disservice by telling them wrong

information and so he was kind of he’s

like waiting for a lawsuit I said look I

don’t want you to sue I think the water

is great for people I think I’ve used it

in my clinic I use myself I think it’s

got a lot of benefit but how about we

come together here and do something of

service how about I write a book on how

this affects athletic performance

because I think it’s gonna be such a

game-changer for athletics I think it is

an unfair advantage if you’re drinking

this water and you’re in an athletic

environment

on a daily basis or whether at the

highest levels of you know professional

sports it’s a game changer so we wrote

this little book what every athlete

needs to know about restructure dinah

has water and the next thing you know

that started a speaking tour as these

distributors of the product wanted me to

come and speak at their local events and

so off I went again and you know that

was the culmination of about seven years

on the road where I just kind of lived

around the world and I would be taken in

by people and get on stage in front of a

couple hundred people or a hundred

people or you know a thousand people

didn’t matter and I would share about

what I had learned and I would answer

questions from other athletes and and it

met a lot of great people and had an

amazing time and yeah it was totally

unexpected but it was out of service

you know just hey I think people can

benefit from this I saw it personally in

my own life and I saw it personally in

the with the clients I dealt with so

that’s how it went and then what was

recently happened is I just had a call

with dr. filter three weeks ago and he

also was very skeptical being a surgeon

about this technology but it had he had

found a significant benefit with his

arthritis when he had a drinkin which is

the bane of all surgeons he went on a

quest for ten years and nobody could

prove that it was actually having an

antioxidant effect and he reasoned that

was because the charts that are the the

mechanism they were using to measure its

antioxidant effect was incorrect and he

devised a test where he could do this he

could actually measure its antioxidant

effect and just recently published the

data in a 100% defensible experiment

scientifically valid put into

peer-reviewed journals that has proven

that this type of water increases

mitochondrial energy and has an

antioxidant effect in the body and is

absorbed by the body and also improves

red blood cell formation all things

which I experienced but it had no way of

sharing other than anecdotal in my own

intuitive nature so it was really nice

to have that scientific validation wow

this is really amazing really

interesting to read about this to learn

about this to hear about it from you Wow

I mean wait we’ve covered so much

information we’ve covered you know

finance

comics nutrition traveling the world you

know I really want to also cover because

it this is a big part of your life and

you mentioned it several times and I and

I glossed over it because I wanted to

cover these other things meditation and

just enhancing consciousness identifying

with our inner world connecting with

that which is inside instead of looking

on the outside for things how does a

person do that more how do we how do we

see within more oh that’s a that’s a

really loaded question um you know I can

only share my own experience because you

know I can’t always get inside of other

people’s heads and I had a couple I

think frankly I think I might have

gotten some advantages that allowed me

to discover the benefits number one when

when I was fifteen we moved to this very

rural areas five miles into the woods so

I had to spend a lot of time alone

without a lot of stimulus and so without

that stimulus you spend time in your

thoughts you spend time going in also in

a very peaceful environment even though

I wasn’t interested in that at that’s

being 15 I want to be with my friends

and having fun and all that stuff Here I

am in the munis pristine place so III

develop that capacity and also when I

was training when you’re building your

body that became a process where you

started to internalize so I do think

that athletics gives a person an

advantage that by doing athletics you

can start going within oneself as you

get a deeper connection and I’m not

talking about putting the headphones on

and going to the gym I’m talking about

actually feeling your body in itself

whether that’s through yoga practice or

whether that’s through bodybuilding

whether that’s through endurance

training you start to be aware of your

breath you start to be aware of the

physicality of yourself and then what

happens is you start to reflect on that

now

for me being experimenter as I as I have

been and I didn’t know anything about

meditation or internal environments when

I was 22 you know I was experimenting

with you know LSD and these type of

things and for whatever reason I had an

overdose at one point and

had the experience of dying and had the

life review and experience the universe

or God however you want to a near-death

experience and that completely changed

my life when I came out of that the

world seemed you know I was in

university at the time and it just

seemed like I was in kindergarten and

people were asleep and and I had this

whole new awareness and that spawned me

to you know get on a plane and go to

Santa Monica and follow my dreams and

become a body bill you know I met Joe

golden when training and all that sort

of stuff so there is a progressive part

and then that can be a side effect you

know years later when I left

bodybuilding and went through that down

period again I I fell into the pursuit

of you know trying all different sorts

of chemicals and things like that what

you have you know different experiences

and states of consciousness but I got

into the dark side of that and then you

know had a mystical experience coming

out of that where my teacher appeared to

me and you know the rest you know told

me I needed to start meditating and I

had been studying meditation from a

scientific point and from a pure

mechanical wave of playing music and

doing sensory stuff but then I got into

a serious practice at that stage in my

life and from then the internal

progression over time in its in it’s not

linear sometimes you go through great

periods of just unbelievable

realizations and sometimes you feel like

oh my god I’m not made any progress at

all and that is part of the journey and

that is part of the reflection and that

is part of understanding the seasons

within our own consciousness itself and

so I’m not here in advocating you know

using sort of all sorts of recreational

drugs or ethnobotanical –zz but I think

for me they triggered some experiences

that made these kind of Airy fairy out

there ideas that I hadn’t been exposed

to it at an earlier age become real and

tangible and something I wanted to seek

without those those chemical agents yeah

wow that’s so profound I love that

yeah meditation is important crucial

it’s an everyday practice for me it

keeps me sane as much as I I look at

at it as you know going to the gym for

the mind for me it keeps me in tune

things are very intuitive for me and for

me to keep that compass sort of in line

in check I have to have a sort of

grounded state and if that is add an

imbalance or if I if I’m not taking time

away and and doing that it’s not fun

it’s important to have all these in

check so that we can travel the world so

that we can conquer you know all these

business ideas and so that we can be so

at service to others is there anything

that that you can add to what I just

said yeah I actually I can and I think

I’m one of the experiments and why I got

triggered into kind of travelling the

world I read about the the wandering sad

who’s in India and these people would

stay and never stay in a place for more

than two weeks because I didn’t want to

tech develop attachments and patterns of

behavior or actions based on their

environment I thought well I wonder why

they would do that that seems pretty

radical so I said okay well why don’t I

try that why don’t I just go all over

the world I you know I had gone through

a major change in life and you know

didn’t have any possessions or anything

like that so I was like well this is the

perfect time to kind of you know the

world kind of help me let go of those by

just circumstance and so I got on that

path and you know Ike remember when you

first do it especially when you go to a

new place or a new area what happens is

it’s very disconcerting most people

don’t realize is that you develop once

you get you know in a certain area or

living in a place in the world that’s

familiar you just ignore a lot of the

things that are going on your brain goes

into autopilot mode and feeds in the

data but when you go to a new place it

seems there’s a lot going on and you’re

aware of so many different things and

all these tripwires and your brain start

become activated and oftentimes when

people travel it could be very stressful

it’s very challenging you know new

cultures languages you know going to the

store can be difficult cuz you can’t

communicate you don’t understand if you

know what the exchange is you don’t know

the social customs all of this stuff and

then I remember

there is a kind of a breakthrough moment

I think it was about three or four years

in where I realized that I could go to a

new place and not be overwhelmed and

what I felt it was doing is I was

increasing awareness of what’s my

peripheral vision and at that point I

was learning under a spiritual teacher

by the name of dr. David Hawkins and he

was talking about how meditation moves

to contemplation and in the bonner and

busy world that you can meditation is

kind of sitting in one place but in a

contemplation you would hold maybe a

spiritual thought or a universal thought

or a loving thought and you would take

that and apply it throughout the day in

a meditative process so you could be

going to the store and you could be kind

and loving under all circumstances while

someone smashes into your car well are

you gonna be kind and loving in that

circumstance or you get caught in

traffic and this becomes a a benchmark a

contrast point to see where am I at and

again I think that starts to bring you

back in to see am i stressed am I

overreacting am i angry having these

negative emotion States and we start to

realize yeah I am in a negative emotion

choice and I can totally relate to what

you said you know if for some reason I

don’t do my meditation or I forget about

my contemplation or I get you know out

of that pattern pretty soon it doesn’t

take too long and all of a sudden I see

a degeneration to my old patterns of

behavior my old stress levels all these

types of things coming up so you know I

don’t think you’re immune to it at any

level on the journey or any place in the

journey like I said it’s not a linear

thing is there’s no place to go there’s

not like all those sort of stuff it’s

it’s the letting go of everything and

which is kind of counterintuitive to how

we’ve kind of setup the Western world of

you know of more the more monster yeah

and we can start to wrap up here with

this and I think we’ve come full circle

with this and I really appreciate this

conversation it just flew by you know I

think for a lot of people there is you

know this fear of missing out and I feel

like we go through education we go

through this sort of training and we get

put into the so-called real world

and we’re not given any tools we’re not

given anything that’s beneficial my my

degree is you know a paperweight it’s

literally a piece of paper that I don’t

think I ever used I think all the

learning that I did post college is

where I developed my career where I

develop my passions do you agree with

this I mean do you agree with the way

that the system is set up that people

are sort of trapped in this sort of loop

this sort of cycle of school job work

chase money get married that sort of

cycle of life and death yeah I really

believe that that’s why I’m so

passionate about the idea of the digital

republic and living in this at the new

age where you can experience and express

more outside of that and recapture that

youth if you look back to history

history always gives indications of the

future if you look back to ancient

Greece and kind of like the great

thinkers 2,500 years ago who really

understood the psychology in mind they

talked about the connection between mind

and body the development of self

discipline within oneself and they

didn’t teach just science they taught

philosophy science without philosophy is

can be used for terrible things science

with philosophy can be transformative

for the world but at the end of the day

one can only apply philosophy or science

to one’s self and rather than express

oneself to force everybody to become

like you or to you what you do that the

better way with the great teachers of

the world where they reform themselves

to such a level that became so magnetic

and so attractive that their life took

on you know a different level I mean you

look at all these people that there was

hardly any books there is no internet

there was no these eyes but these ideas

and these values have transcended and

developed cultures throughout thousands

and thousands of years and for some

reason in the modern world and all this

busyness people have lost the concept of

self-experimentation the the concept of

the value of one’s physicality and

taking it and and creating it to be as

healthy as possible

so that you can experience the full

range of our sensory experience and

environmental experiences and and then

to leverage the technology of today to

take that plane trip to the other side

of the world to take that boat trip it

take up the artist course to go down

there and drink some juice in the jungle

and see what happens to you to go out

there and expose yourself to things and

you know of all the people that I’ve

seen do that I haven’t met one of them

that didn’t feel that their life was

enriched did all the things that go out

the way they expect no did you know they

end up having a fatter bank account

not necessarily did they experience a

greater level of joy and connectedness

almost every single time and some of the

most fascinating people I’ve ever met

we’re the people who were willing to let

go of the status quo the people that

were willing to break free of the social

conditioning that they found themselves

in the ability to not identify

themselves with the past but to learn

from it and to use that as a tool to

influence their present and ultimately

their future I love it Wade thank you so

much for being here man where can people

find your work where can people get a

copy of of your book and whatever

whatever you want to plug do it do it

now please

oh well thank you appreciate that well

um if they’re interested in the digital

republic can how to make money online to

kind of finance their traveling world

they would go to the wealthy backpacker

calm and you can download a free copy if

you’re suffering from health challenges

or you’d like the next level health they

can simply go to the human experience

slash the awesome health course we’ll

put that in the notes and I give away

literally a 12-week health optimization

course and inside that it’s little five

to fifteen minute videos of everything

that I’ve learned over the last thirty

years that can enhance the qualities of

one’s health and vitality and I give

both of those things away for free and

the reason I do that is I really want

people to freely enjoy my ideas but not

to say that they have to follow them and

I always tell people just read it if you

like it take what you like and discard

what you don’t apply what you think is

relative to your life right now and and

if it works out for you drop me

I’d love to hear it I’d love to hear

those stories from people yeah for sure

wait thank you so much for your time

guys we are going to get out of here you

have been listening to the human

experience my name is Xavier katana a

huge thanks to my guest Wade light heart

guys thank you so much for listening you

will hear from us next week