What’s up everyone. Welcome back to the fit to fat, to fit experience podcast. It’s drew and Lynn here hanging out with another awesome episode for you guys. We appreciate you guys tuning in each week and we hope there’s at least one to two of you guys who actually tuned in and listened to the whole episode. We can. Yeah, we pay our fellow citizen. No, we can check the analytics. We know there’s thousands of you guys and we appreciate you guys coming on each and every week. Um, today’s episode you guys. Oh man. So good, such good information. I met dr. Pedram. Shojai at a mastermind event down at Jim Quick’s place in LA with a bunch of amazing people. And I was super impressed by him. I had heard about him. I knew him by his brand, the urban monk. Uh, it’s a New York times best selling book. Um, and just the energy he puts out. You instantly fall in love with this guy and you feel a connection to him. Um, it’s just an amazing human being, to be honest with you. So he’s the creative well.org. He has written two books that are New York times bestsellers. He creates documentaries, um, vitality, and let’s see, what’s the other one called vitality and, um, origins. There are documentaries, definitely check those ones out.
Yeah. And the guys, what I love about this interview is that of course he has an amazing life experience and he talks about a very kind of the transition of how he became, what quote, the urban monk and all of his training. It’s at a beautiful and amazing story. Literally the book that fell into his lap. But what I like is that he applies so many great principles to help everyday people, everyday people like you and I, you don’t have to shave your head and move into a monastery and meditate with monks in order to find more peace and happiness and fulfillment in your life. And so through this episode, he really drops a lot of great tidbits on things that we can do. Simple things that we can do to really improve our life, to find our truth path, to reduce stress, to find more happiness. And those are things that are going to be able to apply in your everyday life.
Exactly. When we talked about things like meditation and religion and how those things can live, you know, um, harmoniously. And, um, we also talk about parenting. Um, we always talk about pumpkin pie and vodka because we dive into nutrition a little bit. Um, and you know, a little bit how, you know, the urban monk can really change people’s lives without having to like lends it changed their lives drastically, but just small little things that we can all do. You’re going to love this episode of guarantee it, uh, before we jump into the episode, though, we have to give a shout out to our show sponsors because without them, none of this would be possible. So we’re so grateful for everybody. well.com and quest nutrition.com. So Everly, well, if you haven’t heard me already talk about it, you definitely need to go check it out, go to [inaudible] dot com and basically what they do is, um, they send you any kind of medical testing that you want done as far as blood work goes.
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Yeah. And our other show sponsor, you guys is quest nutrition.com. Of course, we’ll put them in the show notes. Um, just like we always do trust nutrition, question, nutrition.com at this point, I’m pretty sure you guys see them everywhere. We have been using their products since the beginning of time by that. I just mean several years ago when they first started out. But now I was walking by in Walmart and I saw boxes of the bars. I had no idea they were in Walmart. I’m not surprised though. They are an amazing product. The biggest thing for me, you guys is that yes, eating just whole foods is always a great option. And you’re getting all the macro, micro and macro nutrients that you need in your day to day. But we don’t always have a full kitchen on hand, especially when we’re driving kids to soccer practice or just classes.
And we’re trying to, you know, run a business and we’re just running from place to place. It’s hard to always get all the healthy food that we need into our bodies. And when we’re on the go, it’s so easy to fall into the fast food trap. So for me, I always keep quest bars in my purse, in my car, in my office, and just make sure that if I’m on the go and I’m busy and I need to get in a great protein source, I have it and it tastes good. It helps curve. My cravings, everybody kind of knows. My favorite is their cookie dough bars. And I also love their quest chips. And for me, I put one of those into my daughter’s lunch every day, since her friends always get chips. Um, but I want something that’s a little bit healthier for her. They also have other products. They have protein, which is they’ve great proteins, great for cooking. And they also of course have some new KIDO products that you can check out as well. So quest nutrition.com.
Yup. And now we will go ahead. Uh, let’s
go hang out with dr. Pedram. Shojai all right, dr. Pedrum. How are you doing today? Thank you so much for joining us here on the fit Tibet fit experience podcast.
Doing great. Must be here.
Yeah, man. So you’re in sunny LA right?
Sunny LA. Yeah. About an hour South in sunny OSI, which is, which is sunny LA minus the traffic.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s, we’re from the sunny OSI. Well, I grew up in San Diego. Lynn grew up in San Demas, so we lived in Huntington beach for a while.
Aw. You know where I,
yeah, we were born and raised in California, but now we live in Utah. It’s a long story, but anyways, um, thank you so much for joining us, man. I’m super excited to have you on just so everybody knows. I met, uh, dr. Pedrum at a mastermind event out in LA at Jim Quick’s place. And, um, I had heard about him. I listened to his interviews, his podcasts before on, uh, the model health show and the fat burning man. And, um, but honestly, when I first met you, uh, Pedro, I was blown away with, um, just how genuine you are. I mean, honestly your energy radiates. Um, and I can tell you’re really genuine and I appreciate that
cheers man. Sure. Then both ways I am a, you know, it takes too much energy to be someone other than the guy you’re talking to pretend that you’re pretending and trying, man, I don’t got time for that.
No, it’s so true. It took me about 33 years to figure that out. Um, but yeah, it it’s, it makes a big difference living your life that way. Um, the first question I have for you, it was kind of a random was I’m curious to know, uh, first of all, how long have you and your wife been married and how did you guys meet if you don’t mind talking about that?
Sure. We’ve been married since 2008 and, uh, we met, we met because, uh, I hired her originally and
yeah, yeah. As I was running my medical clinic, I was running my medical clinics.
It’s in LA and as beautiful young girl comes in and I was just like, Oh
man,
fair. We didn’t even start dating until after she stopped working for me and, um, you know, get the clean.
But did you guys admit to each other that you guys kind of liked each other when she was working for you though?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, so she, she did
for sure. And then for me, I’m just, I have real strict boundaries, so I wouldn’t even let myself go there. But then after, after the game changed, uh, it made, uh, you know, it opened it up and uh, yeah, she’s adorable.
That’s awesome, man. And you guys are on baby, number two.
Yeah. Our, our baby turns, uh, one next week on the first, so yeah,
we’re just starting to sleep again. I got to say,
yeah, no, but we’ve been through that. Um, we have two girls, seven and five. Um, and that’s what I was going to ask you actually is how have you noticed having kids now, how has does that affect how you’re able to run your business? Um, you know, cause obviously it brings on challenges. You want to spend quality time with your kids, you know, how do you balance that or how do you, have you found that transition to be so far?
Well, I got to say at first it was a kick in the teeth, right?
Yeah.
To doing everything as you’ve been able to do it, you got this, uh, this kind of runway where it’s like, whatever, it’s eight o’clock, I’m still working, I’m in a launch and you do what you gotta do. Uh, and then, you know, you gotta get these guys fed, bathed, uh, you know, tucked in and you know, and so everything changed. Everything changed very dramatically. I had to adjust and really learn how to say no to way more way more things throughout the day, because, you know, especially if you run your own business, there’s always something to do and there’s opportunities everywhere and you know, there’s always something. And so for me,
really kind of throttle back and look at the 80 20 and what it was that was worth my time. Uh, because you know, to be Frank, I w my dad, um, has a special relationship with my son. Who’s my, my eldest. And, and I was like, yeah, dad, what’s up with that? Like, you know, you’ve got other, you’ve got other grandchildren, but what, you know, what is it with you and soul? And he says, you know, when you were this age, I was never around. Cause I was working so much and I can’t get those years back. So at least I promise myself, I’ll be here to enjoy your son at this age. And so, yeah, it was this really sweet bonding moment with paw. And then, you know, he leaves that night and I’m sitting there lying in bed. Uh, just kinda twist, just kinda like in my own thoughts. And my wife’s like, what’s up, I’m like, you know, I don’t want to have that regret.
Yeah. It’s cool that, you know, this happened.
I think, I think it stops with this generation. So, you know, come five o’clock daddy’s home, you know, I take them to the park and I spend time with them because, you know, look, that’s, that’s my lifeguard. And that’s a very powerful, you know, uh, thing in my life garden is his family. And I want that, that plant to be thriving. So if I’m not watering it with time, love and affection, um, then, then what’s going to happen, right. Is I’m going to go down the same road. So it just it’s dramatically impacted how I do business and how I, you know, just, just take on new projects. I always have to run it through the filter of all of these other things that are meaningful to me before I say, yes,
man, thank you so much for talking about that, because that means a lot to me. And I think all the other parents listening to this, because I don’t think anybody’s gonna, you know, sit there on their death bed thinking, man, I wish I would have just worked longer hours, man. You know, I don’t think anyone’s going to think that, but you know, they might have regrets of man. I wish you would have spent more time with my kids or more quality time.
Yeah. Well that’s what they show in those, in those reports. A lot of the different articles that I’ve read, they say when they pull people that are on their death bed, that is the biggest thing people say, they wish they would have worked less. They wish they would’ve spent more time with people
that they loved. And yeah, a lot of times we realized that too late when our health is deteriorating or, you know, we’ve lost that time. So it’s good to realize that now
it’s so true. We spend so much of our time trying to build our wealth while sacrificing our health. And then at the end of the day, we’re left with, yeah, we have wealth, but their health has gone. And then we realized we had it wrong the whole time. It was funny.
And on the other side of that too, I had the benefit, you know, when you’re a physician, you get to speak with a lot of people. And so I’ve had, you know, thousands of patients over the years and uh, you know, I had so many affluent parents coming in, uh, just complaining about their children and how they’re getting into trouble. And you know, they, they thought they were doing everything right. And they bought them all the stuff and they sent him to these expensive schools, but now they’re doing drugs and it was just like, wow, if you don’t pay it forward, if you don’t put those hours in early, when they really need it and you’ve got to connect with them and you need to be emotionally available, you’re going to, you’re going to pay it and double time anyways, down the line and it’s going to be drama time. So, you know, it’s just, if you’re, if you’re looking at it as like a, you know, as a business, it’s still a bad investment to not put those hours in. Cause you’re gonna, you’re gonna put it in, you know, chasing around wondering, you know, who stole your car.
Yeah. Oh, that’s so true, man. And, uh, thank you so much for talking about that because I think that, I think a lot of people will be able to relate to that and you know, as to, um, so it’s good to be reminded of that. Um, I kind of want to back up a little bit and talk about your story from your days at UCLA, to how you transitioned to, um, the urban monk and what was the idea behind the urban monk?
Hmm. So I was UCLA premed. I was, um, you know, kind of running and gunning to, you know, be a doctor and, um, everything was going well until I realized that everyone around me at the medical center was miserable. And I just, I just really didn’t like what I was seeing. And simultaneously I found a tight she teacher and was like, wow, that’s, that’s really cool. I’ve always wanted to be a Jedi. And so just started training and then, uh, started to get kind of confused about my path. And, uh, one day I was walking in the university research library and I was having a con internal conversation with myself and said, look, God, you know, what, if you’re there, I could share you some guidance right now. I don’t really know where I need to be going. Like, please send me, please send me some guidance. And about 25 feet ahead of me, a book fell out of a bookshelf, like a stack. And I was like, come on,
come on. I,
you know, I, I did I do the customary like poke head through trying to see who’s messing with me, whatever, whatever, no one’s there. It’s just me. And so it was a book on it. It was a book about a Chinese master. Who’s leading his disciples across this raging river by connecting his lower energy center to them and, and, and, and kind of towing them across. And I’m like, come on. And so, you know, look, I, I looked at it, it’s at the wandering Taoist. Um, I knew Dao. I knew of that was zoned, but that’s pretty much it. I checked out the book. Um, I read it that night. And then within a week I had went and found a Daoist Kung Fu teacher. And, um, basically that was it. Like we were off to the races.
Wow, man, that is so cool. So, um, I, it’s kind of interesting cause I remember you telling me that story and you know, not everyone has that kind of, uh, you know, miracle moment where a book falls out of a shelf for the perfect book falls out of the perfect book. Yeah. And so that’s where your story began. Right. And then that’s kind of, um, you, you trained under a Taoist, a monk, you said,
yeah, I trained under that was to habit Kung Fu master who basically, uh, you know, on food, tight sheet, she’d gone all of it. And then I ended up becoming a Taoist monk, um, uh, under that lineage. And then I basically worked, uh, I’m still, I’m still still studying with them. And so I just started doing that, um, uh, pretty actively. And then I decided to become a doctor of Oriental medicine. Cause it was very much tied in with the, uh, the universe that I was in. It was all kind of part of the same ecosystem. Um, came out, uh, went on sabbatical for about six months, got to study and, uh, sit with the Dalai Lama and the Karmapa Lama. And I, you know, I took a really nice tour through Asia, um, came back and started a practice, realized that healthcare was just so discombobulated.
So I decided I was going to try to fix it, uh, in my twenties. So I started an integrative medical group, uh, grew it to three offices. It was doing really well, but it was all starting to suck my soul. Um, because you know, patients now became cases and everything was so dang expensive that no overhead was killing us. And, and, and, you know, the third party payer system made it so that you could do all the work you wanted, blue cross would decide if they were going to pay you or not. And so I quickly started to realize, and by quickly, I mean, three years, cause I’m not that smart, um, is that this game sucks. And, um, the only way I could actually effectively help these people is to intercept disease before it happens and teach them how to not need me. And so that was it.
I started to do videos. I started to, I wrote my first book in 2009, did my first movie vitality in 2012, next movie origins, 2014. Uh, and then my, my second book, the urban monk came out in 2016. Um, and now I’m working on my third. I’m almost done with my third book and our third movie is in post production and our fourth movie is in pre-production. So, and then the urban monk, really just to finish out your, your question was really me stepping back into kinda my esoteric roots because, you know, I was out there doing a lot of health and wellness media trying to help people, but you know, kinda kept, kept my, uh, my narrative a little bit in the closet. Right. It’s just like, you know, I went and did all this crazy stuff. That’s not important. Your steamed vegetables. And then what happened?
Why people just started pulling me out going, no, no, no, wait, what did you say? Like, that’s actually way more interesting. So let’s talk about that. Right. And so that’s, and that’s what, that’s what really came in and look, it resonated, you know, it was a New York times bestseller. The book did really well. It’s still doing really well because it’s speaks to people where they’re at. I’m not asking people to like go off in some high Holy place and shave their head and like, forget about their mortgage. Those, those commitments are already there. So the question is how can you live with some sanity and find some peace in your life right now without changing your name and, you know, acting like you’re, you know, some new identity because now you do yoga.
So what, so what are some of those core things that you taught people about as far as core principles or core core practices to put into place to do that without grab magically changing their life?
Sure, sure. Well, I mean, one of the most effective ways to modulating your, your state of being is through your breath and it’s something that’s just not taught well enough. So I could control the quality of time, the perception of time I can drop into parasympathetic rest and digest nervous system, uh, operation. And I could really slow my roll and feel a hundred percent better within three to six minutes with just some lower diaphragmatic breathing, touching the tip of the tongue, to the roof of my tongue, to the roof of my mouth, breathing in and out of the lower abdomen. Nice and slowly. And you know, there’s a million ways you can layer stuff on around that, but you know, just the core of all of it is, um, using the breath to get in taking little mini breaks. One of the things that I do a lot, like, um, you know, I’m at a standing desk right now, one of the things I do a lot is I have a 25 minute timer.
So every 30 minutes I get a five minute break. So at 25 minutes, it goes off. I have five minutes, I’ll do some lunges, I’ll do some jumps, I’ll do some squats, you know, curl some thirties, whatever it is, go rinse water, run to the bathroom. If I have to come back up, get at it. And so even throughout the day, you keep moving because if you’re going to sit there and get crunchy, um, there’s no amount like, so you can’t spend eight hours a day getting crunchy and then go to the gym for an hour and just work it off the math, the math doesn’t pencil. And that’s assuming that everyone gets to the gym an hour, a day.
That’s so true, man. And all these things that you’re saying are very, very applicable. And, um, and at the same time, they make such a huge difference in people’s lives. Um, and, but there’s small things. And some, sometimes I think in the Western culture, we look at those things and we’re like, Oh, that’s too simple. You know, that can’t work until you do it consistently for 30 days.
Yeah. I was going to say, it’s like the simple changes that often make the most profound difference in my opinion.
No, but here in America, we’re just so obsessed with, okay, what’s the pill we take or what’s the new diet we do, you know, like,
well, and so many people are all or nothing,
you know, if they can’t commit to that hour in the gym, what can five minutes every hour really do for you? Or what kid? And the fact is, is all of those things add up. People don’t really take that into account. Yeah. Yeah. But I love that you talk about that stuff because I think, you know, especially for me, I think it is becoming more mainstream and that’s what I was going to ask you next is do you feel like there’s a shift in, and maybe not mainstream America, but for the most part, do you feel like it is becoming these techniques or, you know, of Eastern culture becoming more mainstream meditation breathing? Um, those types of practices are becoming more mainstream from what you see here in America?
Well, yeah, because we’re exploding, right? Because we are, we are absolutely at a, you know, an overfill level with stress and it’s just gotten to the point where it’s an epidemic and nobody feels well and everyone’s, you know, falling apart trying to figure out what to do and how to, you know, go about their days. And it’s just, it’s too much. And so everyone’s looking for solutions, but you know, to your point, I just want to kinda stay on this for one quick. Second is everyone’s looking for some, some complicated solution to their complicated problems. And maybe the, the answer is go sit under a tree. Right. And so w w w what we’re not doing is understanding that simplicity is missing and tranquility and silence. And so it’s like how many kale smoothies or burpees make this problem go away. Right. That’s just, that’s just insane. But that’s, and that’s also how the health industry sells all this crap, right? It’s like, no, no, no, no. See what, you know, I know you’ve tried everything, but you haven’t tried my super duper deluxe, you know, Bobby, Bob. And it’s just like, Oh man, that’s the answer I knew there was something I didn’t buy yet. Right.
Yeah. Cause that Bobby, Bob had chia seeds in it. So I mean,
and that was so true. I was talking to someone the other day and they’re like, wait, you work out just 10 minutes a day. I’m like, honestly, 10 to 20 minutes max, if that some days. And you know, and then they’re like, what you do and you, you don’t starve yourself. Like I know someone who is working out three hours a day eating 1200 calories, just trying to get this perfect body. And it’s like, man, we’re literally killing ourselves.
Well. And like, he was just saying, we’re searching in the wrong places. You know, most of the times when I’m actually working one on one with clients or I’m finding out what’s somebody is having health problems. I actually just got back from lunch with a friend. And she was telling me about the slew of health problems that she’s having. And all of them are hormone. And stress-related, you know, and so many people could benefit from more sleep from meditating, from reducing their stress and anxiety through what he was saying, those breathing techniques or other things, but people don’t want that type of simple answer. Like, Hey, why don’t you just take a few extra minutes for yourself in the morning, each day to decompress. And at night, you know, it’s to say, you got to work out harder. You gotta people just think, Oh, I gotta work out harder. I got to eat less. I gotta, you know, I got to cram in a 4:00 AM workout because it’s the only time I have people. Don’t don’t think that something as simple as meditating and breathing and getting a little extra sleep can make such a big impact because it’s not talked about enough, I think, especially in our industry.
Well, and it’s also, you know, people have tried it, like, I don’t, I don’t have a Pedrum meditation. I don’t have my own kind of version of all this. So it’s like, you know, it’s really hard. Like meditation has been around for 6,000 years. Um, that stuff works. And now every Tom Dick and Harry who like, you know, thinks they have to like, you know, build a brand for themselves, makes their own thing up and tries to sell it because you know what, meditation, isn’t something that’s, you know, really sellable. So yo here do this now, you know, you love to your family by. And so it’s become this weird thing where, you know, people who try to commercialize it oftentimes ruin it and commercializing, it has been a challenge, uh, you know, for, for, you know, anyone in this thing. And so it’s, it’s just, it’s a, it’s a sticky area to, to mess around with because the ancient stuff works.
As soon as you start messing with the ancient stuff, you don’t know where you’re at. And some of it’s really cool and, you know, I’m, I used to own a brain lab and do a lot of neurofeedback and all kinds of things, but you know, there’s a lot, we don’t know. And there’s a lot of people messing around who don’t know what they’re talking about or talking about, you know, things as if they’re experts and you know, so, so it does get a little dangerous too. And so, you know, for me, I, you know, also one of the reasons why I had to step out, because look, I’m classically trained under an Abbott and I’ve run the miles is just, you know, there’s just a lot of people out there talking a lot of things that I feel are unhealthy and potentially dangerous. And so it was one of those things where I was like, okay, you know what?
There is absolutely no quality control in this internet self-help universe. And so, you know, someone’s got to ride in and play sheriff a little bit and it’s not like I’m, you know, mr. Badass over here, but it’s just, you know, you just gotta call a spade, a spade and talk about things, you know, in a way where, you know, they, they are somehow legitimized by either clinical trials, ancient history, or, you know, thousands and thousands of people swearing by them. And there’s just too much new out there in a world where the old was just fine.
Hm that’s interesting. Um, so quick question about meditation, um, where would you send someone that asks you like, okay, well, where do I go? Like, you know, a typical American, yeah. There’s some apps now, right. That you can download. Where, where would you send someone that just wants to start meditating? I mean, is there a certain type of meditation you recommend for certain people and then there’s other types of meditation for other people? I mean, yeah. Yeah.
I have looked there’s one, there’s one called four count breathing, which I free on my website, which is a classic discount, counts your breath and breathe and stay counting your breath and breathing. And it’s just simple enough that we, you know, we just give away to everybody and it’s just like, start there. If you want to go heavy and you want to start like, you know, and get, get way further into it. There’s, you know, there’s a bit Pasana meditation, which I find to be incredibly useful and powerful. And that’s, you know, a 10 day sit on your butt, don’t talk to anyone silent retreat, which is, you know, difficult, but amazing.
Yeah. They have those all around. They have those like all around the world and they’re free from what I’ve seen or at least the ones that were near me were
yeah, yeah. They’re free. And they feed you and you hang out and you just get it. It’s not easy. I’m not trying to, I’m not trying to, you know, I’m not trying to, you know, undersell it or,
but it’s good for you. And yeah,
that’s something that I think is missing. And, you know, it’s kind of in line with what you guys talk about is, you know, the, the literal translation of the words Kung Fu are hard work. And so everyone’s trying to sell shortcuts in our industries. You know, it’s like, Oh, you know, six pack abs in 30 days,
three seconds, well, you got to do this, take out your liver. You know,
you know, these types of things are harmful because really what they’re doing is they’re convincing people that there’s no work involved in being in, in being happy and healthy. And sometimes, you know, you want to learn how to meditate, guess what you have to meditate on your button practice, and then it gets really good. And then you swear by it and it’s changed your life and you’re happy, but trying to meditate once or three times, and then quitting because it’s too hard. That’s like, you know, that’s like a kid asking for sugar cereal instead of broccoli.
Exactly. Exactly. Well, the thing is, is most things, if you really sit and think about it, most things that we ever try to incorporate into our life or learn or anything, it takes time and it takes practice and we get better at it. How many people jump on the piano at our Mozart? You know, how many people
only Mozart,
right. All we Mozart. And so it is kind of ironic that people get so impatient and that might be kind of today’s day and age, where everything needs to be fast and easy, but things take time and practice. So yeah, somebody might try meditation for two times, three times, maybe even a week or two, and they’d be like this isn’t working. I don’t feel less stressed. I don’t feel like it’s helping. And I always encourage people about habit stacking. I’m like, you know, you need to, to build that and get better at it and find what works for you and maybe yes, try a few different types of meditations to find what you like. But if you don’t give something at least 30 days, it’s, it’s hard to see if it’s helping at all or hurting. Cause you’re not giving it enough time to really, to really show any sort of improvement or show any difference. So
that’s it. And, and our, and our quick fix culture says, you know, all you gotta do is buy my online program. You don’t even have to do it, but give me your money and done. Right. And so there’s no work involved. And how, how are you going to get any better at anything if you’re not, you know, putting some time and effort into it. And so, you know, it’s, I mean, I’m sure I’d make a hell of a lot more money in life. If I, if I, you know, played, you know, played fly catcher with the parasites out there, but it’s just unethical. And so, you know, the, the moral of the story is do the work and you’ll, you’ll see the results.
Yeah. Yeah. That’s so true. I’m getting into meditation a little bit more. Um, and this is, you know, curious for me, um, because, you know, we grew up in a religious culture, um, and a lot of people out there do, especially here in, in America and for example, Christianity or other religions where it’s like, well, I pray, I do prayer. What’s the, why would I need meditation? Um, and I kind of wanted to get you to answer that what’s the difference in your opinion in meditation versus things like prayer?
Sure. No, that’s a great question. And it’s where a lot of people get hung up. Right. It’s just like, Oh, I can’t, you know, I can’t cheat on Christ. Right. And so you get into these weird kind of, um, you know, semantic tie-ups of, um, well, but I am this, and this comes from this and, you know, listen, you could do meditate. All of the contemplate of traditions have meditation associated with them. And a lot of it’s been just kind of like filtered out over the years. Um, and you know, kind of Judeo Christian traditions have stuck with prayer and, you know, song and, you know, different, different ways of kind of, you know, going through different States, uh, but the silent contemplation and the meditation and the observation of your essence, that’s, it’s built into all of it. I’ve studied hermetic Christianity, I’ve studied, cobble ism have studied all of it.
And so it’s there, it’s just not popularized in our churches now. And at the end of the day, it’s about understanding your fundamental relationship with one question. And one question only, which is who am I, and as you start, you know, observing your breath and slowing down and gathering yourself so that you’re, you’re not reacting to the monkey mind. And you’re just able to be in that calm moment. And you have a thought, you know, it’s really who, who just had that thought, who just, who just observed, who had that thought and really digging and digging back to finding your essential, true self. And most people, once they start that, that trajectory, that’s where they ended up finding, you know, quote unquote God and religion anyways, because then they get down to their true self and then they connect with that higher self and all those amazing things happen.
So, you know, prayer is a, what for me, I do prayer. I, you know, I’ll do gratitude, I’ll do contemplation. I will, you know, I will send blessings. I will do all these things out of my heart, but I’ll also sit down and really spend quality time breathing down to my lower belly and my mind, so that then my prayers can actually be done with clarity and I can actually drive, you know, I have just had that much better of an experience in prayer. So, you know, it’s kind of like a software hardware thing, you know, the, the religions really kind of an operating system. And so you just have to upgrade the hardware, the neuronal hardware. So you could be connected better with, you know, with whatever it is you’re doing in your faith tradition and meditation is never ever, you know, exclusively that it’s like, you know, I don’t, I don’t go, okay, well, this is a Dallas thing.
So therefore you’re not a Buddhist and you hate Christians, or this is a Christian thing, you know, that that’s where our culture goes, right? Anyone, anyone who’s done a, you know, run any, you know, serious miles in any of these traditions, let’s go of all that and just goes, Oh, wow. That was, that was a very useful exercise. You know, that, that really helped me. Thank you. Right. And so, you know, it’s just a, it’s, it’s a hangup that people get, because what happens is our identities start to latch on to our religious identities. And therefore, I, our external identities can’t let go of it because then who am I, if I’m not like, you know, Jake, the Christian Guy, right. Or, you know, or Solomon, the Jewish guy, like it, all, it all kind of gets in, it all gets intertwined in this self identity thing and that’s not, and I would put it to you that that’s not God, right. That you gotta get all that stuff out of the way who you think you are out of the way. So you can be closer to God. And so who I think I am, gets in, gets in the way of everything.
Yeah. I think that’s true with, with even other things in our life, you know, with career, you know, when someone identifies and becomes possessive, like I am this job, I am my house. I am this car, you know, even the possessive word of my people get. So, yeah, exactly. And we’re so much more than that. Like you said, uncovering, and just going down deeper to find your truth, quieting your mind, to find maybe your path and getting your answers. I always tell people the same thing when they asked me about, you know, meditation versus religion. I’m like, I see everything as a tool to be living my life and living my truth and being the best version of myself. And I take, I try a lot of different things and everybody’s different. So I just take what works for me and helping me live my life path.
Yeah. Like what you said in a different interview, you know, meditation makes you a better you, which makes you a better Christian or a better whatever your religion is. Um, meditation makes you a better you and I kind of find a similarity in health and fitness as well. And it took me doing fit too. It’s fit to realize that I am not my body. And, and that’s what I preach now to so many people who struggle with, Oh, I just want a six pack. I just want to be skinny. I just want this. I want that. We have to realize there’s more to us than our body. And it took me losing my six back and getting fat on purpose to there’s so much more to me than, than, than, you know, my 8% body fat, which is cool and all, but, you know, I freaked out when I lost that weight. When I lost my six pack in gained 75 pounds, I didn’t know who I was cause for 30 plus years of my life, I identified I’m drew the fit guy. Right. Or I’m drew this or that. And I’m, and the same goes for someone who’s been overweight their whole life. You know, they define themselves by that. So it’s a, it’s all encompassed together. And it’s all just there’s parallels between, you know, the physical side, the spiritual side emotionally as well.
Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and so those are the places where we waste a lot of energy. It’s like the, the wall street guy who won’t do yoga because he doesn’t want to dress like those people, or doesn’t want to be idea, you know, or, or, or vice versa, the hippie who, you know, won’t dress up in a suit to be a wall street person. And so that’s all social identity and ego and all these things that are disruptive to the actual purity of who we are. And it’s, it is BS, right? Like, you know, that, that’s the stuff that gets in the way of our vitality, our clarity in our, in our, you know, essential happiness. And so, you know, when we do away with all that, and we boil it all down, we’re just people trying to, you know, enjoy our children and, and feel better.
And, and, and, you know, hopefully get up to the park today, you know? And, and so the, the layers of complexity in our culture are leading to further and further layers of complexity in our psyche and who we think we’d be and all the things we need to do and all that. And it’s, it’s so exhausting that, you know, people just drink coffee all day, wondering why they’re still tired and it’s not more energy. Isn’t the answer. It’s, you know, writing with your, your foot on the gas pedal and the brake simultaneously. That’s no way to drive a car.
Um, I would probably beg to differ that coffee is always the answer
[inaudible]
here, but I’d like to say, I enjoy pairing meditation and coffee together. Yes, I do. And
so if you were with Dave Asprey about this, on this all the time, it’s like, I don’t want to go and say, don’t drink coffee. He’s like, dude, what are you doing?
He’s like, stop the badness.
Yeah.
Everybody, everybody was agreeing. And following everything you said until you got to coffee. So we’re just going to go pass that. And we’re going to go back to, I am wondering if you had to share some of the things that you do each day that you think make the biggest impact on your life, on happiness, on bringing you peace and clarity. What would those things be? I’m assuming one’s meditation, but I shouldn’t assume what are, what are a few of the things that you do? Stop it, stop it.
Yeah. And listen, I enjoy a cup of coffee now and again, but I don’t, I don’t live by it if I need it to have energy than it means I’m I’m addicted, which I don’t like to be to anything. Um, but I’ll get up and I will do chigong, which is Chinese energy yoga, which is, you know, I’ll do about 15 minutes of chigong looks like tight. She feels great in the morning. Uh, then I’ll, you know, basically, you know, I got two kids, so I’m already in, I’m in the whitewater, right? So like feed the dogs, walk the dogs, dress, this, kiss, this, that, and the other. And you’re, you’re, you’re going. Um, but then throughout my day, I take these mini breaks and I’m stretching. I have massage machines, I got dumbbells and cables and all kinds of stuff all over my office.
Uh, take a mid day break, uh, go work out, have a nice lunch, come back. Um, and so for me, and then I’ll go back and have some, some she’d gone the meditation after the kids go down in the evening. Um, but really for me, it’s about adjusting your burn rate. So every day is balanced within itself. So you’re not like sitting there on Wednesday going, Oh my God, it’s only Wednesday. I can’t believe I can’t wait till it’s Friday. I’m going to fall on my face this weekend. Oh, that’s how I’m going to find balance.
Right.
And so that’s what happens is we kick the can down the road and we live fundamentally imbalanced lifestyles during the week thinking we’re going to catch up on the weekend and that doesn’t happen because there’s a soccer game or a party or whatever. And so for me, it’s, it’s really about taking a look at your, your day and finding ways to bring balance to it in a given day. So that, that day you come home, you still have gas in the tank for your family. Uh, you know, to read that book, do all the other things that you want to do. And she gone has been a really powerful tool for me there because it really helps kind of liberate your energy. You know, I obviously don’t eat like an idiot. I don’t, um, you know, stay up too late, you gotta get good balanced sleep.
You got to eat. Right. You got to move. I mean, all those things, but if you build all those things into your routine and the way that you do your day, then it’s not a task. It’s just how you live your life. Cause most people in drew, I mean, like we chatted about this a little bit. When we met, as, you know, most people will be like, all right, you know, I’m going to, I’m going to go as fast as I can to get to six pack, take a few pictures for my social media and then go back like a schmuck. Right. And then you’re like, Oh, I don’t know what happened. I gained all this weight because it isn’t part of your operating system. It isn’t part of your lifestyle. It’s just this thing that you’re doing temporarily. So, you know, that’s, to me, the biggest thing is making an adjustment to understand that life happens right now. And there is no future that you could like, you know, plan for. That’s going to be different because your tomorrow’s pretty much going to look like your today. So how are you going to balance that?
Hmm. Yeah. So just more of living in the moment and, and obviously a big part of what you’re saying, ms. Balance is trying to explain to people that you do have to sometimes shift the things that are in your life. I was talking to the women at lunch about this. Cause they’re saying I hate nothing more than when people say that I need to distress or I need to get more sleep or I need to like all their, like all these things I know, but I can’t do it. I’m like, well, technically you can. It’s just that we choose not to, you know, we could say no to that when somebody asks us to volunteer, cause we really don’t have the time. We could say no to hanging out with certain friends because we aren’t getting enough sleep. We could say no to that party. We could say, you know, saying a lot of people have a problem with saying no. And I’ve tried to explain to people saying no is really saying yes to the things that are most important. And I agree that a lot of times that’s in order to balance your life, you do have to say no,
amen sister, that’s it? I mean, no is no is a word that we need to just make much stronger than our lexicon. Because every time I say yes to something, I’m effectively saying no to the things that I had already committed to, and that is my family and my career, my health and all these things. And so most of us are just really terrible at curating our lives. And so our little micro-commitments, um, get us exhausted and, and it’s, and it’s just, you know, like, like how many books do you have by your nightstand? And, and it is a rhetorical question. If you’re listening to this, how many books do you have by your nightstand? And how long did it take you to get through a book? So if it takes you a month to get through a book and there’s five books by your nightstand, every time you go to bed, you’re looking down the barrel of five months of work. You haven’t done. That is subtly, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausting.
Right. Totally
right. And so those are the, those are the types of things that we’ve got to look at that are also really heavy psychologically. And we don’t see it because it’s just a drop of water. But when the drops add up, we’re drowning.
Yeah. Yeah. That’s true.
You take Jim Quick’s speed reading course to speed.
I took Jim’s speed reading course. And I also trained my ear and my mind to listen to audio books on audible at three X.
Oh wow. Really fast. Oh my gosh.
I mean, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to run out of books to read. So I still have the same issue, which is, you know, the books can arrive way faster than I can read them. Cause it’s very easy to put your thumb on your iPhone and have something just shipped to your house. Right. Every time someone says, Oh my God, you gotta read this book. You know, how many conversations do you have? Like that a week. So for me, really about finding the simplicity and being like, okay, what’s the one book I really need right now. Right?
Yeah. I thought you had some really good advice on a different interview. I heard about you talking about, um, your son and uh, you know, parents, I see this all the time, you know, are trying to restrict their kids saying no, no, no, put that down. Don’t do this. Be quiet. Do that. And what is, I can’t remember the advice you gave, but it was really good. Um, on, on that, on that parenting tips, I think a lot of parents,
you know, just naturally you want to say a note to their kid all the time just to control them. Right. Yep. And what about, what are some, what are some tips that you’ve had or that you do with your kids so that, you know, you saying no to them, isn’t a recurring thing throughout the day, a million times over and over again.
Yeah. I mean, I noticed this at home, right. It’s just, you know, my, my son, he’s got all this energy and so I’d come home from work and he’s just, you know, like he wants to thrash around and do things and, you know, we have a house that has things that break and, you know, and, and, you know, and as childproof as you make it, he’s just like thrashing around. And so I was like, wow, this is exhausting. Because all I do is, is try to limit this kid who wants, you know, has an expansive energy. So now my routine is I come home. I Chuck them in the car, it’s a quarter mile or we’ll, you know, get the dogs and walk or I’ll just take them there depending on weather or whatever, and just go straight to the park and spend an hour just letting him be a month.
Right. You know what, there’s very few times I need to say no at the park. Right? Yeah. I’ll come up there with you
jumping on that thing while he’s, you know, doing whatever a two year old does. And so I’m just cruising around with them, you know, just kind of shaking off my day, doing what I do, hanging out with my son, getting some quality time, which then ensures that he’s going to get better sleep. Um, I’m going to, you know, not deal with the kid that you know, is getting more and more ornery because his life is about restriction instead of expansion. And, and you know, we’ve got some fresh air and we’ve got some, some sunlight and you know, the dogs are happy. So those, those types of examples, all the way around are, you know, leveraging, you know, your kid’s strength, um, and you know, their energy. I mean, he’s, he’s a fiery kid, he’s an Aries, he’s got all this energy. And so either I’m going to keep trying to like dump a bucket of it,
getting bad, or
I’m going to lean into it and be like, alright, fireball, let’s do this. Let’s burn it down.
Yeah. I love that. I love that. I love that. Yeah, definitely. Oh no. I was just saying, I love the advice that, you know, I’m, I’m a parent too, and parents it’s the same story. We could sit down together and it’s like the best job and the worst job. It’s so stressful, but so beautiful. And I agree that one of the best things is realizing my kids are both very different, how I paired them, needs to be different and trying to create some sort of atmosphere where you can allow them to be themselves and take some of those things that maybe are infuriating. Like whenever I’m really infuriated that my daughter is so stubborn, I have to sit and think to myself, at least she’s not going to be a follower. At least she’s not going to be a blind follower. It’s okay. But really I want to smack some sense under I’m just like lesson. So it’s like sometimes you do, you have to like, just kind of embrace what you’re, you know, those strong characteristics in your child
and create an environment where they can really let those kind of grow in a beautiful way. I like that.
That’s it. And, and you know, like a lot of the kids in our neighborhood go to these like Montessori schools and it’s all, you know, really high achieving kids that are learning math at the age of nine months and, you know, stuff like, what, what is what’s going on here? Right. And then my kids in this like kind of outdoor play, you know, they have a garden, they have animals. They’re just out in the dirt all the time. And they’re learning artistic expression. If people are like, aren’t you worried? You know that these little math geniuses are, you know, going to get ahead of your kid. I’m like, no, cause my kid’s going to have creative thinking and human skills. So he’ll be the CEO and he could hire all these.
It’ll be awesome. I love that. That is so cool. So we’re kind of running out of time here, but really quick. I did want to ask you about your diet and nutrition. How has evolved over the years, maybe from back in your premed days at UCLA to where you are now? I don’t know how long ago that was, by the way, when you were at UCLA,
um, ancient history. Um, I graduated, uh, 1997 from me.
Okay. So how has your personal nutrition changed over the years? And do you go off of, or has it been the same, maybe it’s been the same or do you go off of newer science that has made available to us, you know, throughout the years?
So back in the, those days when I was doing 30 hours of Kung Fu a week, I could eat the laptop in front of me. I could eat underneath you, you know, none of it mattered. I could eat anything and just metabolize it and do a standing back flip, uh, you know, and then, you know, and then I ran some miles and became CEO of a medical group and kind of, you know, broke, broke a few things, lost some hair. And then all of a sudden, you know, dairy became an issue. Gluten became an issue. And so, you know, I developed certain sensitivities to things as my cortisol levels went up and I went, you know, I had about three years of like high stress and forgot about all the monk stuff and just, you know, thought that the answer was to, you know, lean into it and hurt more.
Um, and so, you know, those years maybe pay the price. So now it’s like, I am, I’m gluten free and dairy free. I don’t really eat sugar. Um, I do like me vodka, but I, you know, but it’s not, it’s not a problem because I don’t get out to play enough. And when I do it’s, it’s, you know, it’s going to be a lot of them. Um, and it’s fine. Right. And, and so I just know you get the point where, you know, what your body likes and doesn’t like, like my body doesn’t like red wine. Um, and so I will have a higher protein breakfast, um, something, you know, try to do about 50% of every plate, B vegetables, um, and you know, a sensible dinner. We basically we’ve had our nanny learned, basically. We said, listen, you brought all these awesome recipes from your family in Mexico, keep doing that.
But here’s our ingredients that we’re going to get from whole foods and, you know, our CSA. So just cook it with these ingredients and use coconut oil and geese versus this, that, and the other. And, um, you know, we just get delicious meals at night. So, you know, I don’t really worry about it. I’m not like I’m not a health and fitness guy. Um, you know, I’m healthy enough. I feel good. I can climb up, you know, huge mountains and backpack for weeks at a time, you know, and I don’t really care about a six pack. And I just, you know, I just know that I have to eat for sustained energy and clarity and all the stuff that I do. And, um, you know, the foods that I eat that bring me down, they go off onto another list and they start looking at it and being like, yo, w what is it about this thing? My body doesn’t like it, so I should probably not eat it. Right. And, you know, I’d get to a place where I just basically have unprocessed food, lots of vegetables. And, um, you know, the occasional binge night of vodka.
I love it, my lifestyle. Yeah. So do you do any type of fasting?
Do, do I make, what
do you fast?
I do. I actually fasted on Monday. I’ll do 24 hour water fast, probably about once a month. Um, I spend a lot of times I’ll do. Um, so I have an infrared sauna. We’ll all, do you know, niacin, I’ll do kind of mid to high dose niacin jump some rope until I want to puke and then get in there and sweat out my guts, um, do that, you know, a couple of times a week, uh, really good cause I’m into like hormesis and all these things like Ari. Witten’s a good buddy and he’s been kind of leading me along the hormetic path. Um, so I’ll do like, you know, hot, cold, um, and, uh, you know, then do kind of, you know, more of my training will be explosive stuff from my martial arts tradition. So it’s like, you know, junk jumping, uh, you know, as high as I can onto a platform, jumping across stuff, sprinting and all that. Cause again, I’m a dad. I don’t have time to go to the gym. Okay.
Yeah. Same here. Same here. Um, you mentioned water fast for 24 hours. That me, you were fasting from water. You’re only drinking water during 24 hours. Okay. That’s 24 hours. Okay. And you do that about once a month, you said,
yeah, I do about once a month, you know, if I need more, I do more, but about once a month just to, you know, keep myself honest, you know, just make sure I kind of clear all the leptin and ghrelin levels and, and really going to get myself into a state where I’m, you know, starting to burn fat and go into ketosis a little bit more. Um, and then I’ll, and, and, and I’ve, and I’ve recently Kellyann Petrucci and a bunch of like my, you know, my health friends keep, you know, sending me broth, you know, so I’ve recently finally like,
okay,
that feels good.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, that’s awesome. Well, I know we’re running out of time, dr. Pedre. Uh, but, uh, before we go, we’d have a last few questions that are just really quick answers. You don’t need to go into these very long. We call this the lightning round lightning round. So we’re going to ask you questions that really in general, don’t have to pertain to anything important. So you just answer them as quickly as possible, as honest as possible. They’re harmless. He’s like, Oh, what pumpkin pie or vodka
or vodka.
Okay. We’re going to let them have that one and vodka. That’s awesome. Okay. A guilty pleasure. Guilty pleasure of yours could be
guilty. Pleasure back to pumpkin pie. That’s my, that’s my
yeah. Pumpkin pie for real. So we’re coming into your season. What about as far as
tronics goes, do you have a favorite game TV show? You know, that you’d like to waste time. You’re like, you know what, I’m just going to unplug and let something else entertain me electronically,
man. If, if I ha if I had the opportunity in my, my career and my children, weren’t like swarming all the time. There’s a, there’s a strategy game called civilization civilization. Um, that I got into in college. That’s on its fifth iteration. That’s just so good. And so genius. And it’ll, if I, if I really want to like check out, I’ll be gone for a day and a half,
but it’s so funny. Okay. Okay. Last funny joke that you heard or that you can think of last funny joke. Yeah. The last funny joke that
terrible. Okay. This is, this is okay.
Even if it’s inappropriate, it’s fine.
Yeah. Okay. The thing that comes to mind is after the last presidential debate, all the females from the Trump team were standing with their hands in front of your crotch. And it said, hashtag protect your pussy.
Great. It is the greatest it’s made my whole day. This is now my favorite part of the entire interview. Okay. Okay.
Really, really quick. I have a funny joke that, um, this, this friend of mine, um, her name is the green smoothie girl. She is out on this retreat with these monks and she said, Hey, did you guys know that monks tell jokes? And it says, when the monk had to vacuum his room, why couldn’t he clean in the corner? Because he had no attachments. And
yeah, it was like so funny. She was like, ma when monks try and tell jokes about that fight.
You’re talking about Robin, right? I know Robin, Robin. Yeah. She’s so funny. Flicker some shit over there.
Oh man.
Cause she’s supposed to be at this 12 day retreat fasting and meditating and she’s on Facebook posting stuff.
Okay. Last question,
Pedro. And I already know the answer to this, but would you ever experiment and try a fit to fat to fit journey of your own?
W what I try, what journey of my own,
a fit to fat to fit, do you think you could ever get as an experiment, try getting fat on purpose to experience and maybe you’ve been overweight? I don’t know if you’ve been overweight.
Yeah. So when I, when I was not like not terribly overweight, but like when I went through my CEO days and kind of like went for the money and forgot about all my training, I probably, I probably carried an extra 25 pounds. Um, and, um, yeah, that sucked. So, you know, and then coming back is not as easy when you’re in your thirties and forties. Right. And so, yeah. But, uh, if you’re asking me if I would do that again, hell no, because I know, I know what that does to you physiologically and what that does to your, your aging and all of it. So, I mean, you’re a trooper, we appreciate what you did for society, but don’t do it again.
No, no, I’m done. I’ve had people say do it when you’re 40 or 50. And then tell me if you can do it. And I’m like, no, once it’s enough, but, um, anyways, okay. Uh, dr. Petra and where can people
we’ll get ahold of you, your, your websites, all of them in your books, social media, my main digs is well.org. And then you could get all my esoteric stuff@theurbanmonk.com and well done.
the.org is such a great website. I mean, there’s a huge resource of, of knowledge on there, um, from anything you wanted to learn about. So anyways, I gotta make a plug for that. All right. Thank you so much for coming on. We appreciate this. This was a great interview. It was a great interview and
yeah, and I haven’t got a good joke. I’m going to go look up that pumpkin pie recipe valuable for everyone. All right, dr. Pedre. Thank you so much for coming on. We’ll talk to you soon. Thank you both.
[inaudible].
Thank you guys. Once again, for tuning into another great episode here on the fit, fit, fit experience podcast, we hope you enjoy today’s episode with dr. Pedram. Shojai um, we know we got a lot out of it. We hope you did too. Please let us know what you guys think in the comments. We love reading your comments. We want, we want to know what you guys feel and think about the guests that we have on, uh, give us suggestions, feedback, criticism, yell at us, you know, say thank you, whatever you want to do. We definitely are open to receiving any and all comments from you guys. Uh, please stay in touch with us. Um, reach out to us on social media, give us, you know, snap, uh, tweeters, uh, reach out to us on Facebook or Instagram. We will most likely get back to you as soon as we can. Um, all of my social media handles are at fit to fat to fit, definitely sign up for my newsletter on my website. [inaudible] dot com for some big announcements of some things coming up for the new year.
Yeah. And if you guys want to find me, you can find me on both Instagram and Facebook at the number to fit at home. Or my website is the number two fit@home.com. And on my website, you can also join my newsletter. And I usually try to send out one at least once a month, I’m sharing some free tips. Um, sometimes new recipes or workouts along with any events or new things that are coming up. And I also have something big planned for the new year head. So stay tuned.
All right. You guys, we’ll see you guys back here next week on it. Another great episode of the fit, fetch fit experience podcast.
See you guys
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